‘So, you’re positing that if Kaczka killed her he was carrying out an order, that Carnegie perhaps has paid him to do it?’
‘Or has a hold over him. Illegal immigrant being exploited, I suspect. He’s living in a hovel. I think the Border Authority might need to know.’
‘Leave that with me. You have enough on your plate. So – next step?’
‘Carnegie was away today. I’m going to pull him in for questioning tomorrow though frankly it’s just a gesture – can’t see a chance of breaking him with what we have. But I’m going to see Kaczka without Tennant – he scared him into total silence last time and I want to see if I can draw a bit more out of him. So we need to hold off the BA heavies until after that.’
‘Noted,’ she dryly, and he realised he’d just given an order to a DCS. Not the smartest idea, but there was nothing he could do about it now. After all, she’d told him he was in charge so she couldn’t complain if he behaved as if he was.
Anyway, she didn’t seem to be about to call him on it. She was going on, ‘Are you suggesting the Al Capone strategy – get Carnegie on illegal immigration and see what crawls out of the woodwork? The Met would be pleased. But you need to think beyond that, Kelso—’
He jumped in before she could tell him what he was meant to think. ‘Oh yes, I certainly have, ma’am. My problem is that I can’t see what more I can do here unless something dramatic emerges from the interviews tomorrow, and I’m not betting the farm on that. I can try chatting up Beatrice again but I think she’s told me all she’s prepared to. So I suppose …’
‘Yes. Sometimes you just hit the buffers and there’s nothing more you can do.’
Did he imagine it, or did she sound just faintly relieved at that thought? If this did blow up into a double murder investigation, her decision to appoint someone with his lack of experience and personal baggage would be a gift to the police-bashing media.
But she left it at that, only adding, ‘If you do have to wind it up tomorrow, it would do you good to take a break before you come back. Go and yomp up a hill, or something.’
He looked out of the window. That inexorable Highland rain had been falling almost all day and now it was dark it seemed to be gathering itself into a more solid form; the street lamps each had their nimbus of cloud and the other side of the bay had disappeared.
‘Not really the weather for it,’ he said. ‘Thanks, ma’am. I’ll give you an update tomorrow.’
And shortly, in all probability, he’d be back in his own house – the shell of the place it had once been, the rooms that were furnished but empty even so, lacking what had made it a home.
Kelso’s throat constricted and the black despair that he had ruthlessly banished threatened to return. But giving way to it would be a form of self-indulgence that he had to force himself to resist; going back would be hard enough without letting himself go through agony in anticipation.
Get on with his work, that was the answer. He took out the notes he had made after today’s interviews. It was proving his salvation and he’d plenty to do now.
He found himself going over his conversation with JB. Had he sounded cocksure, overconfident in his assertion about Adam Carnegie? He would hate to think he’d based it simply on ‘gut feeling’ – what would be mockingly called ‘feminine intuition’ in a woman. It could be useful, admittedly, but only when it had a sound rational base.
Strang leafed through his papers until he found the notes about the interview with Carnegie. Had he demonstrated behaviours that according to the classic Hare’s test were the marks of the psychopath?
He could recall quite a few of them from his psychology lectures: glibness and superficial charm was one, shallowness and lack of empathy another. Carnegie certainly had those. And yes, he had a grandiose sense of self-worth as evidenced by his attitude to the string of girlfriends, only there to serve his sexual appetite and to Marek Kaczka, who seemed to be treated like a slave.
He wasn’t wrong. Carnegie was a casebook study. There was a sort of hideous fascination about this man: there was simply no limit to what he might do, unchecked.
Strang shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was his job to stop him and right at the moment he couldn’t see how that could be achieved.
‘Not up to her usual standard,’ Harry Drummond said discontentedly, pushing his food around the plate. ‘She’s just made a white sauce and chopped up that slimy packet ham in it. And the so-called pâté was a tin of tuna mushed up. What happened to the jugged hare?’
‘Could do with another day.’ Adam’s tone was curt.
‘This won’t do, Adam. You’ll need to have a word with her.’
‘For God’s sake, Harry, have another glass of wine and shut up,’ he snapped. He was clearly in a bad mood, for some reason; he’d been cheerful enough when he got back.
‘What were you doing in Glasgow today, anyway?’ Harry asked.
Adam shrugged. ‘Couple of things to do.’
‘What kind of things? Did you see MacNab?’
When he mentioned their lawyer, Harry caught a fleeting look on Adam’s face that told him he was lying when he said, ‘No. I was just dodging the police until I knew what they wanted. I was planning to pump Beatrice but she’s in her flat and when I knocked she didn’t answer. Of course, she wasn’t well yesterday – she’s probably sleeping.’
He sounded as if he was trying to reassure himself – that probably explained his bad mood. Harry didn’t comment, though, only saying blandly, ‘Actually, I’d a word with one of them myself.’
Adam stiffened. ‘Oh? What about?’
‘Just routine stuff. Nothing much I could tell them, really, was there?’
‘I suppose not. We just need to hold our nerve. How much longer before you’re confident about the books? You’re taking a long time.’
‘Shouldn’t have dumped them in a mess, then, should you? You’re not talking charity commission audits – these guys smell your sweat and won’t leave till they’ve found out why you’re sweating. So we have to be rock solid – give me another twenty-four hours and I’ll be sure. Have you destroyed everything that needs destroying?’
‘You think I’m stupid? Of course I have.’ Adam’s tone was glacial.
‘Good. Oh, by the way, who was Veruschka?’
‘Veruschka?’
‘Yeah, the other girl they’re asking about. What did you do to her, Adam?’ Harry’s blue eyes were hard and cold.
‘Nothing!’ Adam protested. ‘Absolutely nothing! She was just a girl who went off without telling anyone she was leaving and someone’s dredged up some local gossip, that’s all.’
‘Just like Eva did?’ Harry’s voice was mocking.
Adam was on a short fuse anyway. He jumped to his feet. ‘That does it! I’ve had as much as I’m prepared to take from you. You were in on this too, Harry, and if I go down don’t think I won’t take you with me. Indeed, if you’re thinking of shoving me into the pit with the lions I’ll do just that.’
‘Oh, don’t tempt me,’ Harry muttered as Adam slammed the door behind him. One of the lions in question seemed to have swallowed the little titbit he’d offered it this morning already; perhaps it was time to work out what else could be offered without implicating himself.
He pushed aside his plate and topped up his glass. He was confident that he was almost there with filtering the accounts but the problem was Adam and his women. He’d never heard anything about this Veruschka until this morning; to lose one mistress might be considered a misfortune, but …
Beatrice would know about her. Beatrice knew about far too much – a lot more than Harry did, certainly. It was Adam’s job to keep her sweet and if they’d fallen out she could be dangerous – very dangerous, indeed. He didn’t want to have to neutralise that particular threat too; they were in enough trouble already.
Harry brooded for a moment. He needed to find out what was going on. Maybe the cook – what was her name again? Vicky, that was it. She might kn
ow.
He got up and walked through to the kitchen. Vicky seemed startled when he came in; she was holding a tub of ice cream and a scoop and there were two pudding plates laid out on the table.
She flushed. ‘Sorry, were you waiting for this? I’ll bring it through in a moment.’ She didn’t sound apologetic, though; pissed off, more like, and glacial enough to keep the ice cream she was holding rock solid.
‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘We’ve both had enough.’
‘Right. I’ll put this back in the freezer, then.’ She opened the door to the back premises and as the rotting smell wafted through Harry pulled a face.
‘Is that Adam’s hare? I like it gamey but I think that’s going a bit far.’
She came back in and shut the door. ‘I’ll cook it tomorrow. Was there something you wanted?’
‘No, no, not really. I was just wondering if Beatrice was all right. Adam said she was in her flat.’
‘How kind of you to ask!’ She didn’t try to hide the sarcasm. ‘She’s a bit upset. Very upset, indeed.’
‘So what’s her problem?’
Vicky gave him another icy look. ‘She’s just discovered that Adam’s married. He never told her.’
‘Married?’ Harry stared at her. ‘First I’ve heard of it.’
‘His wife phoned this afternoon wanting to speak to him. If there isn’t anything else, I’ll just go and clear next door—’
He interrupted her. ‘What do you know about someone called Veruschka?’
She stopped. ‘What do you know about her?’
‘Absolutely nothing. Heard her name for the first time this morning.’
‘Oh. Well, I don’t know anything either. Sorry.’
She picked up a tray and walked out, leaving Harry standing there, his eyes narrowed in thought. Married? Adam? What else was there that Adam hadn’t told him? He was going to phone MacNab tonight, find out what Adam had been doing there that he hadn’t wanted Harry to know about.
Adam was a clever man, dangerously clever and totally amoral; was he playing some double game, setting up Harry to take the fall? If that was what he was up to, he wouldn’t succeed. Harry had never been overburdened with scruples himself and if ruthlessness was required he would do whatever needed to be done.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Livvy Murray huddled inside her oilskin jacket as she hurried down the hill to the pub. It was raining in earnest now; sheets of rain were sweeping in across the sea, the hills were blotted out and the blurred pinpoints of street lamps spaced along the Balnasheil main street were the only light in the deepening murk.
She put on her flashlight. When it was as dark as this it was easy to find yourself walking off the road into the ditch that bordered it, now streaming with water. As she reached the shore she could hear the muttering and grumbling of the incoming tide and dodged as a bolder wave broke right across the side of the road.
Even so it splashed her and she swore. Oh, she should be used to it by now; this was nothing out of the ordinary. There wasn’t much wind so they wouldn’t be putting the sandbags out across the thresholds of the houses yet.
The door to the Black Cuillin wasn’t open but the lights were on and she could see Murdo John was behind the counter polishing glasses. She went in through the hotel entrance; the door to the bar on that side wasn’t locked and she walked in.
He looked up and scowled. ‘We’re closed. The bar doesn’t open till six.’
Ignoring his hostility, Murray said, ‘That’s just fine. Gives me – what – quarter of an hour for a wee chat before we’re interrupted? Brilliant.’
She took up her position on a bar stool. Murdo John turned his back on her and went on polishing glasses.
‘If you’re trying to do an impression of a man who isn’t there, I have to tell you it’s not working,’ she said. ‘I’m needing answers to a few questions.’
‘Do I have to give you them?’ he said over his shoulder.
‘You will if you’re smart.’
‘Maybe I’m not wanting to be smart. I’ve said all I’m going to say.’ He took down an almost-empty bottle of whisky from the optic and picked up a replacement.
‘You didn’t say much about Veruschka.’
There was a momentary pause, then he very deliberately went on fitting the replacement into the stand. ‘Nothing more to say.’
‘Even if she was murdered, like Eva’s been?’
The bottle slipped out of his hand. Only his lightning reaction stopped it falling on the stone floor and shattering. Whisky slopped over his hand and, swearing, he set it down and bent over the sink to wash it. The drying towel still in his hand, he turned to face her.
‘Is that the truth?’
‘Oh yes.’ Murray crossed her fingers below the counter, though it didn’t really count as a lie if you believed it was true.
‘That’s what the inspector’s saying?’
‘Yes.’ Well, what she was sure he was thinking, anyway, which was much the same.
He was looking totally gobsmacked. ‘Morag said that something had happened, but I didn’t believe her,’ he said as if he was talking to himself. ‘We none of us believed her. We thought she’d just – gone. Found something, someone, that was a better bet.’
Murray picked up instantly on the note of bitterness. ‘Your girlfriend?’
He reddened. ‘She was living with Carnegie.’
‘That’s not an answer, but I’ve got the message. So – she was pretty hot, then? That’s the way he likes them, isn’t it? Was she on the make?’
He gave her a look of loathing. ‘She wasn’t like that. She wasn’t mercenary, just someone who was escaping from a life where there was no future for her in the only way she could.’
She was tempted to say, ‘Illegally?’ but said instead, ‘So what was she like, then?’
‘She was straight – bright, honest, direct. Bonny, yes, right enough, but she’d a sort of warmth, a sort of innocence that none of the others ever had. And she was so – so alive. I’d never met anyone who just flared with so much energy, it lit up the room. Veruschka—’
He stopped and she thought he was going to clam up. Then he suddenly began talking again as if compelled, as if talking about her was a temptation he couldn’t resist. Startled, Murray realised he was a man still in love who just wanted to speak the name of the beloved, a name he probably hadn’t spoken for years.
‘Veruschka was desperate to get away from Carnegie. I don’t know, perhaps she’d been in love with him at one time but she wasn’t by then – hated him, really. She wouldn’t tell me the things he did but I think he was abusive. And then, we fell in love – at least I believed we had. But she was so lovely – and why would someone like her want someone like me?’
Because you have a British passport, Murray thought cynically, but she knew better than to say it.
‘I didn’t deserve her. How could I expect her to settle for what little I could give her?’ The bitterness was back in Murdo John’s voice. ‘It was only natural she’d just decided there was a world out there with a lot more to offer. A London address, Morag said they’d sent her luggage to. It hurt – God, how it hurt, her just vanishing without a word to me. But I never thought – even when Eva—’ It was as if he’d only now realised what Murray had said. ‘Do you mean that he – that Carnegie actually killed them?’
Murray couldn’t risk that. ‘What do you think?’ she said instead.
He didn’t answer. He took refuge in remoteness once more, turning away to wipe the whisky bottle, and set it in place. ‘That’s all I know. I don’t have anything more I could tell you. I’ve said too much already.’ He looked at the clock above the bar then went to unlock the door.
‘Great. If it’s opening time, I’ll have a pint,’ she said. But as he went back behind the bar she couldn’t resist saying, ‘So where does all that leave your wife?’
‘My wife makes her own decisions. I hope she doesn’t live to regret them,’ was al
l he said, then, ‘Evening, Donald. The usual?’ as one of the regulars walked in.
Daniel Tennant was sitting by the window staring blankly out, his hands wrapped around a glass of whisky, his mood as black as the fog-thickened darkness outside.
He had only been doing his job, but that was a lame excuse. He’d known the sort of man Carnegie was, yet he had put Eva, so vulnerable, so naive, in harm’s way – had lured her into it, indeed, playing on her particular insecurities to persuade her. He’d cut a few corners in his time, without compunction and without remorse, but – how could he have done that to her, to his Eva, with her shining, hopeful face? There was a special circle of hell reserved for those who betrayed the innocent.
He couldn’t get her out of his head. Feeling guilt was a new and very unpleasant experience.
He owed it to her to make Carnegie pay, but the man seemed impregnable. His alibi was rock solid; he’d even checked for himself that Carnegie was on that flight in case Strang had managed to miss something. He had no faith at all in his superior officer’s ability to get the evidence they would need: when he’d tried to go in hard on Kaczka, he’d been called off as if he was an overenthusiastic and ill-trained dog.
And Kaczka was the key to it, he was certain: he’d been alone with Eva at the Lodge when the others had left and even Strang had agreed that he could have been paid or coerced into doing Carnegie’s dirty work for him.
They ought to be giving the man a going-over, breaking him down. His hands clenched involuntarily around the glass, as if it was Kaczka’s throat. Strang was feeble, that was his problem, and because they were outside English jurisdiction his own hands were tied, at least officially. Strang had ‘principles’. His lip curled in a sneer. There were no rules in a knife fight and if you were a crime-fighting officer, ‘principles’ were an indulgence you couldn’t afford.
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