Human Face

by Aline Templeton

  There was a lot at stake here, too, for him personally. He’d been kicking his heels for weeks now and he’d be expected to have something to show for it at the end – something apart from getting a nice kid rubbed out. God, this guilt shtick was painful.

  His mobile rang. He glanced at the ID, then answered it with little enthusiasm. If Vicky was just going to give him another earful he didn’t want to hear it.

  But his mood lifted as he heard what she had to say. Yes! At last! They’d got him.

  ‘She’ll testify to this?’ he said eagerly.

  But Vicky’s voice was flat. ‘That’s the problem. She won’t. Maybe the sherry I gave her combined with shock loosened her tongue, but she was pouring it all out when she just suddenly stopped and started back-tracking – she didn’t know what had made her say such a stupid thing, it wasn’t really like that, she’d put two and two together and made five. She got angry, actually. If you question her about it, she’s going to say she doesn’t know what you’re talking about, that I made it up. To be honest, I think she just suddenly realised she would be implicated and she was scared.’

  ‘Oh,’ Tennant said heavily. ‘No use, then.’

  ‘But I can testify to what she told me—’

  ‘You can testify that you heard her say she saw him do something that she now denies she saw, or even said. We can hardly charge Carnegie on that basis – it’s not proof. We can’t do anything without proof.’

  Vicky was incredulous. ‘You mean you’re just going to let him get away with it?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t,’ he said irritably. ‘We’ll question her again, naturally, but from what you said it won’t do any good. We can challenge him with it, try to break him and work for a confession. But I can tell you now we won’t get it. He’s not the breaking type.’

  ‘And what happens to Beatrice afterwards?’ Vicky demanded. ‘A tragic accident when she falls downstairs and breaks her neck? Her brakes fail and the car goes off the road into the sea?’

  God, the woman was impossible. ‘We will of course warn her and tell her to clear out.’

  ‘Terrific! And when you fail to pin it on him, you give her a permanent bodyguard, do you?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said through tightened lips. ‘This doesn’t help, Vicky.’

  ‘Oh, sorry I bothered you with it. I was naive enough to think this was useful information.’

  ‘Of course it is, Vicky. But—’

  He was talking to empty air. He sat back with a groan, drained his glass then in a fit of temper threw it at the wall. The splintering crash was in its small way satisfying.

  His hopes having been raised at first made the subsequent disappointment worse. Yes, what Vicky said had confirmed what they believed already but unless Beatrice could either be coaxed or coerced into testifying – and from the sound of it he didn’t believe she could – they were stuffed. He could still hope that the Fraud Squad would come up with what was needed to put Carnegie away but he couldn’t see his Eva, and the other girl too, getting the justice they deserved that way.

  The grey afternoon had given way to the encroaching gloom early tonight, but Beatrice didn’t get up to switch on the light, just sat rocking her doll and mourning for her dreams in the darkness of her room, hearing the evening sounds as night came on: voices from downstairs and doors closing, a drift of raucous music wafting from somewhere across the bay, a motorboat’s engine, the low keening of the wind.

  At last, Beatrice got up, staggering a little, stiff with sitting for so long; perhaps it had something to do with finishing the sherry as well. She was dry-eyed now but pale and shivery.

  She picked up the doll. ‘Nearly time for bed, Rosamond,’ she said. ‘Your mummy’s been very, very silly. We just need to think what we’re going to do now.’

  Silly she might be, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew the trouble she was in, the dangers surrounding her on every side – and she knew she needed to think about things in a very different way now.

  She’d made a fool of herself tonight and she didn’t for a moment trust Vicky not to run to the police and tell them what had been said. She couldn’t think why she’d said all that, except that she was in shock; now they’d come and question her again. She shrank from the thought, but as long as she just denied it, said that Vicky was making all this up and held firm to that, there would be nothing they could do. They couldn’t actually force her to say anything she didn’t want to, and if she stuck to it, didn’t let herself be drawn into discussion, she would be safe enough.

  The thought of facing Adam was worse. Could she really tell him it was all over, that she was walking out and would ruin the charity they had worked so hard to build together, while he looked at her with his navy-blue eyes and told her that it was all somehow a mistake, that even if he was married she still meant more to him than any wife ever could? Could she?

  Just then she heard a door open below and, alert as always to Adam’s movements, she recognised it as the one that led from his flat to the patio. Beatrice laid down the doll, levered herself out of the chair and went to the window to look down.

  She couldn’t see Adam, just the dog, streaking out into the misty darkness. A few minutes later she heard his voice calling, ‘Amber!’

  Usually the dog obeyed any command instantly but tonight it seemed reluctant and there was a sharp whistle, then Adam called, ‘Amber! Amber!’ with his voice rising in annoyance.

  A moment later the dog appeared, licking its lips and casting a glance backwards before it trotted in. She heard Adam saying, ‘What did you find out there, eh? Inside!’ then the door shut again.

  She was really very tired now. ‘Come on, Rosamond,’ she said. ‘Time we were both asleep. We’ll see how things are in the morning.’

  The wind dropped later that night, making way for the slithering fog, rolling down from the mountains in drifting waves of vapour. In the stifling stillness, any sound of movement was muffled, even the perpetual muttering of the waves by the shore. A little later, there came what might have been the startled cry of a seagull, but even that was muted and then the silence returned.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After a wakeful night, Vicky fell into a troubled sleep in the early hours of the morning, a sleep punctuated by horrifying dreams, so that at first the sound of screams and a barking dog seemed only part of them. When it broke into her consciousness it brought her out of bed with her feet on the floor before she was fully awake.

  As she shoved her feet in slippers and ran along the back corridor, a door slammed and the furious barking became more muted but the screams continued unabated. She heard Harry Drummond’s voice shouting, ‘Beatrice, for God’s sake! What’s happened?’ just as she reached the hall.

  Beatrice was hysterical, giving scream after piercing scream. She was cradling her arm and there was blood all over it and her hand and her clothes. Inside Adam’s flat the dog was barking in a sort of frenzy, hurling itself against the door so that it bent under each impact.

  Harry was on the way downstairs in his pyjamas, his hair ruffled from sleep. He reached Beatrice before Vicky did and without hesitation slapped her across the face. ‘You’re in hysterics! Stop this!’

  It worked. The screaming stopped, but she began a sort of high-pitched keening. Her arm, Vicky saw, was lacerated from wrist to elbow and with a cry of dismay she grabbed a hall chair; between them they got Beatrice onto it.

  Her face was ashen and she was swaying, as if she might pass out at any moment. With ruthless efficiency, Harry grabbed the back of her neck and pushed her head forward onto her knees. She struggled, but he held her firm. ‘Stay there for a moment. You’ll feel better.’

  ‘The pain!’ Beatrice moaned. ‘The pain!’

  Harry turned to Vicky. ‘Is there something you can do – first-aid kit, painkillers? Get them.’

  Vicky sped away, her own heart racing. The dog had stopped barking but it was whining now, with the occasional spine-chilling howl. She
heard Harry say, ‘Can you sit up now? That’s better. Now tell me what the hell is going on.’

  It took Vicky a couple of minutes to grab a clean towel along with the paracetamol and a glass of water but Beatrice was still struggling to frame the words.

  ‘I – I don’t know. I went in, no, I listened first. But, oh God! Adam—’ She choked. ‘It – it just sprang at me—’

  Vicky handed her the water as Harry said sharply, ‘Has something happened to Adam? Beatrice, what have you done?’

  She looked at him as if she didn’t understand what he had said. ‘The blood – everywhere! And it just attacked—’

  Harry looked at Vicky. ‘I can’t open the door with that brute in there. I’m going to go out and look in the window. Let’s just hope the patio door isn’t open.’ He went out through the front door.

  Vicky put an arm round Beatrice’s shoulders, offering her the painkillers and helping her to drink. ‘You’re safe now. We’ll get that washed and bandaged properly once you’re fit to walk,’ she said, gently wrapping the towel around the arm.

  It was only a moment later that Harry came back, his face grim. ‘Adam’s sitting there at his desk in a pool of blood – and I mean a pool. There’s blood everywhere. The dog’s guarding him. I’ll phone the police – they’ll need to shoot it to get in.’

  ‘What about—?’ Vicky gestured to Beatrice, who still seemed to be unaware of what was going on.

  ‘We should get her to a doctor. Dirty things, dog bites – infect the bloodstream just like that. Defending its master, I suppose. Given what you told me last night we have to assume she just lost it. Balance of her mind disturbed, all that.’

  That seemed to penetrate. Suddenly Beatrice sat up. ‘I didn’t do it! I wouldn’t—!’

  ‘Of course not,’ Harry said soothingly. ‘We’ll get everything sorted out. Now let’s get you more comfortable – there’s a sofa in the office, isn’t there? And meanwhile Vicky’s going to make you some hot sweet tea, for the shock. OK, Vicky?’

  Vicky nodded and turned to go. Harry had got Beatrice to her feet and was taking her across to the office. As she crossed the hall and went down the passage she heard him say, ‘Don’t worry. The police will be here soon and you can just tell them what happened. They’ll be very understanding – if they don’t realise what a bastard he was to you, I’ll tell them myself.’

  She heard Beatrice give a frightened little bleat. ‘I know, he was, he was. But I didn’t do it, Harry, I didn’t!’ and Harry’s voice saying, ‘It’ll be all right. You’ll be fine.’

  The phone rang while Kelso Strang was sitting at breakfast. It was quite hard to stay impassive at the startling news but Fiona Ross’s head had swivelled when she heard it ring and she was even now making her way over, with a pot of coffee ready in her hand by way of excuse.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant. Yes, go ahead. That’s fine,’ he said and forced himself to stay at the table long enough to refuse a refill of his cup and finish his toast before standing up. The news would break soon enough, but he hoped not to be there when it happened.

  He took the staircase up to his room two steps at a time. So Adam Carnegie, the man he believed to be a double murderer, was dead – brutally slaughtered, by the sound of it.

  His first case as Senior Investigating Officer, the lynchpin of the operation. It was a challenge, yes, but he wasn’t nervous – except, perhaps, in the way an actor feels before they go onstage.

  He’d always had a fastidious distaste for detectives who positively licked their lips at the thought of a murder investigation. Murder was an ugly business and in your task of finding the killer you had to trawl through the sordid depths of human experience in a way that often left you feeling dirty yourself, but that was the job. The victim deserved the justice of a successful prosecution.

  But this one …He was struggling not to feel that justice, in its most primitive form, had been done already.

  Sergeant Buchanan had given him the bare facts over the phone. The emergency call had come to him and now, with Strang’s authorisation, he would get across to Balnasheil Lodge with a couple of officers as backup, but it would take some time for them to arrive. There was a problem with Carnegie’s dog, apparently, and there was a vet being summoned as well – that would cause delay too. But he was right here on the spot and in Tennant’s boat the crossing would only take ten minutes – on a clear day.

  It wasn’t a clear day, though. It was anything but. Looking out of his window he could barely see the pier immediately below, let alone see across the bay. Set off in that and you could find yourself out in the Minch or driving on to the rocks.

  And anyway, did he want to involve Tennant in this? Buchanan had said that Adam Carnegie was dead and according to Harry Drummond, Beatrice Lacey had killed him so it might be as straightforward as that. On the other hand, it might not be and he wasn’t sure he wanted Tennant, with a different agenda and a different police status, complicating matters. Backup from Broadford would arrive soon enough.

  No, he’d have to take the car. It would be a long, slow drive in weather like this on a difficult and dangerous road; he quailed just a little at the thought, but there wasn’t any alternative. He paused long enough to tell Sergeant Buchanan his decision and to leave a message for DCS Borthwick, who wasn’t yet at her desk in Edinburgh, then walked out into the mist.

  It almost seemed to put up resistance to his passage, clinging to exposed skin as if slimy hands were pulling him back. He was shivering by the time he reached his car and climbed in thankfully, turning the heater up to full as he drove off.

  The news reached Balnasheil before Kelso Strang had left his bedroom. The wife of one of the constables at Broadford worked in the local shop and she was eager to tell Daniel Tennant when he came in for his newspaper and half a pint of milk.

  Without completing his purchases, he hurried along to the hotel, looking for Strang, reaching it just in time to see him driving away. He stopped dead, staring helplessly as the rear lights of the car disappeared into the fog. Then he swore.

  Was he being cut out of the investigation, then? Was it personal dislike – or had Strang already labelled him a suspect? Despite the cold damp air, Tennant’s face flared with anger. He had a right to consultation, surely, and he’d get his bosses to insist that Strang had no authority to keep another officer out of the loop. He needed to know what was happening.

  His boat was moored not a hundred yards from where he was standing – at least he assumed it was, not that he could see it yet. To go out in it on a day like this was the purest folly but it wasn’t far across the bay and the sea was flat; steer a straight enough course and he’d be first on the scene, without a doubt.

  Pausing only to fetch his oilskins from the cottage, he unhitched the boat and fired the outboard motor. The sound was almost shocking in the breathless stillness of the morning.

  Beatrice Lacey lay on the couch in the office, nursing her arm. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her wounds but Vicky had brought a bowl of water with disinfectant to clean them up and then bandaged her arm, but she’d said they’d certainly need to get her to the doctor for a tetanus shot.

  Certainly it was hot and throbbing now and even the painkillers that Vicky had given her earlier had done little to blunt the pain. She’d made an attempt at the tea she’d been brought but once Vicky went to get dressed, leaving her to rest, she abandoned it and it sat cooling now on the table beside her, with a thin skin of milk congealing on the top. But every time she lay back and shut her eyes, she started going through it all over again.

  Beatrice had dragged herself out of bed at the usual time. She was feeling wretched but if she decided this really was the day to walk out, there were requisitions to be signed off and every day’s delay in a shipment meant another day’s hunger for a starving child. She was crossing the hall to her office when she heard the dog whining, a strange, groaning whine that went on and on.

  She paused, waiting to hear A
dam speak to it, tell it to stop, but he didn’t. Perhaps the dog was in there on its own, complaining about being shut in, but that was strange – usually at this time Adam would be taking it for its morning walk.

  It was definitely odd. She walked over to the door of the flat and listened. It sounded as if the dog was running to and fro. She hesitated, then knocked at the door and called, ‘Adam!’ Then again, louder, ‘Adam!’

  There was no answer. Had something happened to him? Had he fallen, say, and banged his head on the fender, and the dog was calling for help? She tapped on the door again as she opened it.

  The attack was instantaneous. She barely had time to take in what was in front of her – Adam, sprawled across his desk, blood everywhere, splashed on the walls, on the carpet – before the dog was on her, barking furiously, slashing at the arm she had thrown up to protect herself, then closing its teeth and shaking it like a hare to be killed.

  Even now as she thought about it she could hear herself screaming, feel the tearing agony and blind panic. She had tried to shake it off, beating it frantically over the head with the bag she was carrying in her other hand as she retreated backwards.

  It seemed to be knocked off balance. Staggering a little as if its legs were uncertain, it had let go and somehow she managed to put the door between them before it returned to the attack. Even once the door was safely shut, the screaming had possessed her like some external force until Harry slapped her, and still she could feel it bubbling under the surface, waiting to burst out again.

  She mustn’t let that happen. She needed to rest, to stay calm, to get her strength back. The police would be here soon—

  The police. Harry had summoned them – Harry, who had said something about her …In her distress it had hardly registered at the time, but now she remembered – he’d been talking as if she’d done it, as if she’d somehow killed Adam and the dog had attacked her to protect him.