Human Face

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Human Face Page 25

by Aline Templeton


  Strang smiled at him, gesturing to the cargo. ‘Fertiliser?’

  The man nodded. He didn’t smile back.

  ‘Could I have a word, sir?’

  To his surprise, Kaczka said, ‘Yes. Good,’ as he climbed down to stand beside him.

  ‘There’s something you want to tell me?’

  ‘You ask before. I not can say.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘Girl. Eva.’

  ‘Yes?’ Strang found he was holding his breath.

  ‘That day – he take her. In jeep. He come back – no girl.’

  ‘Where did he take her?’

  Kaczka pointed down the drive, then sketched a curve up onto the hill that rose behind the house.

  ‘What’s up there?’ Strang asked sharply.

  The man dropped his head. ‘Cliff,’ he said.

  He commandeered the jeep. Had Eva known what was coming, as it lurched over the rising moorland, just as it was doing now? Had she tried to get out, had he restrained her or even knocked her out beforehand – or had she thought no more than that her lover was taking her out for a drive?

  Strang had thought all along that she was dead, and dead at Adam Carnegie’s hands, but thinking and knowing were two different things. This was the perfect disposal method for a body – tipped into the sea where the currents could take it and even if it came ashore there would be nothing to connect it to this place. There were hundreds of unidentified bodies washed up all over the world – no, thousands, probably.

  The moor was thinning out now, its vegetation burnt off by the salt spray, with clumps of short rough grass taking its place around the outcrops of grey rock. It was springy under his feet as he left the car and climbed the last few yards to the top.

  The cliff edge was abrupt, a shocking sheer drop of a couple of hundred feet, and to the left it ran for about two hundred yards to where a tail of rocks formed one side of a shallow bay. To the right, it rose steadily and it looked as if the cliff might continue round the corner, out of sight. It was, he supposed, possible that Carnegie might have driven on over there, but the logical assumption would be that nearer was more likely.

  Strang walked along, a discreet ten yards from the edge, scanning the ground for any signs. The jeep’s wheels had bitten in today after all the rain, though perhaps if it had been dry and hard when Carnegie came up on his murderous errand there would be nothing to mark the place. But you had to think that at this time of year on Skye conditions like that would be rare.

  And there it was: a set of wheel tracks coming up from the moor not far from where he’d parked himself, with a turning circle where the jeep must have headed back down. He went along to where they stopped and, taking that as his mark, walked in a straight line up to the edge. The land on either side rose but here there was a small, flatter dip almost like a platform. He stood there, looking down.

  Here the sea was deeper, grey-green, with waves that were just tipped with white. The wind was stronger in this exposed position too, though it was still little more than a light breeze. There were a few herring gulls drifting by below, the young birds still in their mottled plumage, but the colonies on the cliffs were empty and silent now.

  She must have been so terrified. Had she stood here, knowing what was coming, or had she been taken unawares – or even been mercifully unconscious when Carnegie threw her over? Strang could only hope so, though mercy was probably a concept foreign to the man’s nature.

  Then with a creeping horror he remembered the dog that was always at the man’s heels, the dog trained to be slave to its master’s ugly will. Had he given her a choice of deaths? And if so, which had she chosen? It made him sick to think of it. Was it possible it had sickened even Carnegie at the last, sickened him to the point where he could no longer live with the monster he had become?

  So was this where it would all end – in an assumption? No body, no grave?

  There was something mesmeric about looking down over a naked drop like this. There seemed to be a sort of magnetic pull, drawing you down, down into the abyss and onto the savage teeth of a protruding ridge of jagged rocks below. With a little shudder, he took a step back.

  Just then something caught his eye, something right down there at the foot, between the cliff and that curving line of rocks, something caught there – clothes, fabric of some kind.

  Strang stared at it for a moment, then broke into a run back to the jeep.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Harry Drummond had proved elusive. With permission now to examine the files that had probably cost Eva her life, DC Tennant had gone in search of him. The communal sitting room was now DCS Borthwick’s incident room and when he found out which was Harry’s bedroom, he wasn’t there either.

  He was standing in the hall, wondering where to look next when a door at the back of the hall opened and Drummond came out. He was scowling but when he saw Tennant the frown vanished immediately. He even managed a small social smile as he reached him.

  ‘Well, how are things going? Any sign of Beatrice yet?’

  ‘Yes, I understand she’s been found. But we’re being told that the likelihood is that Mr Carnegie took his own life. Can you think of any reason why he might have done that?’

  Harry seemed appropriately shocked. ‘Adam – killed himself? Poor fellow!’ He shook his head, then said, ‘But—’ and stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ Tennant prompted him.

  ‘I hesitate to say this, but you may remember that yesterday when we spoke I mentioned that there were one or two aspects to his running of the charity that made me a little uneasy. It was nothing I could quite put my finger on, of course – if there had been, naturally I wouldn’t have let it go on—’

  ‘Naturally,’ Tennant said with heavy sarcasm.

  Drummond ignored that. ‘I wonder if it’s possible he was mixed up in something, got himself in too deep, perhaps. If, say, he felt that the authorities were onto him—’

  ‘Oh, we were. Are, in fact.’

  He didn’t blink. ‘Really? You must be very much on the ball, considering that he managed to cover it up from me. What are the charges?’

  ‘We prefer to review the evidence before we charge anyone. So – access?’

  ‘Certainly. Let me take you through to the little office. There’s a filing cabinet there with paperwork – I’ll give you the key. And then of course Beatrice will have the passwords for the charity admin files, through on the main office computer.’ He seemed entirely unmoved by the request.

  He’d had plenty of notice and presumably the files were squeaky clean now, Tennant reflected with some chagrin as he followed him across the hall.

  ‘Did you see Mr Carnegie last night?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes, we had supper together.’

  ‘And what sort of mood was he in?’

  Drummond stopped, considering. ‘Now I think of it, he was a bit on edge. Yes, very definitely on edge, in fact. He had gone to Glasgow for some reason, so perhaps something had happened there that upset him. I remember the meal wasn’t up to the cook’s usual standards and he was complaining about that – certainly out of temper. And yes, I suppose he could have been worried. If he’d just confided in me, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened.’ He shook his head again, giving a small, sad smile.

  Tennant had a strong stomach but this was testing it. The man had been doing his best to smear his associate and the hypocrisy was nauseating. With malice aforethought, he said, ‘We’ll be checking on your documents too – bank statements, credit card accounts, tax returns, travel records and so on.’

  The smile vanished. ‘Accounts? Travel records? What do you mean? I can understand that you need to look into Adam’s affairs to see if there could be some motive for his suicide but I fail to see what mine could have to do with it!’

  ‘Ah, that inquiry is only tangential to my own inquiry. I’m cooperating with Police Scotland, but I’m from the Met, investigating fraud. We’ve been trailing you both for months.


  He took enormous pleasure from seeing Drummond’s jaw drop and his face turn a sickly shade of grey.

  As a police motorboat took him back across the bay, DI Strang was mentally ticking off his next steps. He’d alerted the coastguard immediately; they’d need to get a boat round there before the next storm blew in and dislodged whatever it was that he had seen at the foot of the cliff. And they would need a command centre on the mainland; they’d got a couple of police boats on site at the moment and it only took ten minutes to cross, but they’d be taking a lot of equipment now.

  He wasn’t sure if JB would be back in her office yet, but as he got out of the boat he was dialling the number. She wasn’t, but he left a message to ask her to call him back.

  The police office was the obvious place to establish an incident room. It had been downgraded to little more than an information centre and soon even that would be closed down, but whatever they needed could be brought there. He set off along the shore road towards it, and when he saw PC Murray ahead of him climbing the hill he called to her.

  She stopped obediently. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Is the police office open just now? I want to have a look at it. We need a base on this side.’

  Murray looked appalled. ‘But it’s minging, sir! There’s rooms no one’s been in for months and there’s buckets everywhere if it rains. They won’t spend any money on it because it’s being closed soon.’

  ‘But you’re living there, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m used to it. If it’s tipping it down I can sleep on the sofa downstairs – and at least I get a bathroom to myself. In fact, if the leaks are bad enough I can shower without leaving my bed.’

  He smiled. ‘It’ll only be short term. We’ll manage.’

  ‘I’ll let you in.’ She fell into step beside him. ‘I’ve a report to make on Quentin Lacey anyway.’

  ‘His statement? Oh yes, write it up, file it and I’ll see it later.’

  She wasn’t going to be brushed aside. ‘There’s some points you might like to hear about,’ she persisted.

  He glanced at her. She had a cat-that-got-the-cream expression on her face; he’d enough on his mind without pursuing the irrelevance that was Quentin Lacey, but it was probably easier just to listen than to try to stop her.

  ‘All right. Give me the broad outline.’

  ‘He’s a real creep, that man. I asked him if he knew his sister had been planning to marry Carnegie, and he just laughed at her. “Nice sort of brother, you are,” I said to him.’

  He winced at the lack of professionalism. She noticed, and said defensively. ‘Oh, I know it was just a statement about his movements you wanted but I decided to use my initiative and push him a bit.’

  ‘Did you?’ he said, without enthusiasm.

  ‘Well, I could see he was getting sweaty and twitchy so I asked him why he should be so nervous. He said it was just a private matter so I said nothing was private in a murder inquiry—’

  Strang stopped. ‘You said what?’

  She coloured a little, but went on defiantly, ‘Well, I knew it wasn’t really, but I got him to tell me what it was all about, didn’t I? He’d got his partner to phone and tell Beatrice that she was Adam’s wife. Nice, like I said, eh?’ She looked at him in triumph.

  He said coldly, ‘I had told you that present evidence suggests suicide. You deliberately lied to a witness. We don’t do that.’

  She didn’t back down. ‘It got him to tell me what I wanted to know.’

  ‘I authorised you to take a statement, not conduct an interview. There is a difference.’ Strang started walking on up the hill, with Murray trailing behind. ‘And shall I explain to you why we don’t use lies to pressure witnesses? Some police officers do it but personally I don’t like feeling grubby and I don’t think it’s necessary. Apart from anything else, let’s say this turned out to be murder after all. We charge him and he tells his brief that he was tricked into a damaging admission by an officer who told him a lie – we’re in trouble. The case could even fall. In any case, I expect decent standards from anyone under my command – no lying, no bullying. Is that clear?’

  She didn’t respond. When they reached the police office she unlocked the door in silence, her face still set in mutinous lines.

  Strang looked around him. Her ethics might be seriously flawed but her judgement about the police office was spot on. The front desk where Murray worked was in good repair with a waiting area and a computer, but the rooms behind in what had been the small police station were thick with dust. The wastepaper baskets hadn’t been emptied and the floor around was littered with old forms and files that no one had bothered to remove.

  There were two decent-sized offices that he could press into service, but cleaners would have to be drafted in before anyone could use them. Apart from that there were what could only be called cubbyholes, mainly in use for storage, as well as the traditional lock-up where a drunk could sleep it off if necessary. Poorly ventilated, it still seemed to have retained a sort of foetid smell. It might serve its turn as a temporary morgue, if that was needed.

  As they stood together in the larger of the offices he said, ‘You were right about the state of the place anyway. Minging it is. Can I put you in charge tomorrow to see the cleaners get started? We’ll be bringing in what we need for a major incident.’

  Murray looked up sharply. ‘You mean it is murder? Because—’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing’s changed there. But Kaczka gave me information about seeing Carnegie take Eva Havel up towards a cliff in his jeep and he didn’t bring her back. There’s some debris that we will have to investigate in the sea below the cliff. The coastguard are dealing with it now.’

  ‘He pushed her off?’ She was aghast.

  ‘I guess. Pushed her, threw her – who knows? She may even have been dead or unconscious at the time – let’s hope she was. Anyway, I’ve a lot to do. I’ll leave it to you to arrange the cleaners.’

  As Strang walked back down the hill, he scanned the sky anxiously. It was still looking calm enough – fairly settled, he would have said, if by now he hadn’t realised that you never said that around here. But the coastguards would only have – what? A couple of hours, maybe, before it got dark.

  Would they even be able to reach the spot today, let alone get a diver down? A sudden storm could sweep every scrap of evidence away.

  When the door shut behind him, Livvy erupted. She kicked the wastepaper baskets across the room and when even that didn’t satisfy her she began kicking at the wainscot. She was furious with herself, even more furious than with him. She’d left herself open to his lecture on police ethics, demonstrating what a pathetic lowlife he thought she was.

  Ethics were all very well but the villains weren’t bound by ethics, were they, and if you let them put one over on you without doing whatever you could to stop them, you were a mug. She’d got from Lacey what she’d set out to get, so Strang could get stuffed.

  Oh, she took his point about not falling foul of the laws of evidence – which were all rigged to favour the criminal anyway – and that was just a matter of training, if she could get it. This whole thing was a manufactured fuss, frankly. So why was she feeling uncomfortable?

  She remembered the delicious feeling of having power over that sad old bastard. She’d enjoyed seeing that he was afraid of her, enjoyed seeing him squirm. And what did that say about her as a person?

  There had been a sergeant at the station in Glasgow who’d got off on scaring kids. She’d loathed him, and cheered when he got in trouble for it. Grubby, Strang had said, and he was right.

  Oh, sod it! She looked round the room; all that her explosion had achieved was to create more mess and now she’d stopped kicking the furniture she’d just have to pick it up.

  She did that, then went through to the main desk to arrange for the cleaners and to write up a suitably careful report on Lacey, leaving out any mention of the way the information had been obtained.

&
nbsp; But her thoughts kept returning to the poor girl who’d ended her days at the bottom of the cliff. She’d believed Eva was dead, sure, but that wasn’t the same as knowing how it had happened.

  And she didn’t for a moment believe that remorse had driven Carnegie to kill himself. More likely he’d done some dirty deal and reckoned the guys who were coming after him had even less appealing ways of getting their revenge. Good riddance!

  The ward round started at six o’clock in the morning. Beatrice Lacey, waking out of a drug-induced sleep, was completely disorientated at first. She was in an unfamiliar room, there was a nurse taking her temperature and when she looked around there was a splint immobilising one arm where a needle was feeding in something from a drip bag on a stand beside the bed she was lying in. Her other arm was bandaged and a bit sore.

  The nurse was smiling as she filled in the chart at the foot of the bed. ‘That’s good!’ she said cheerfully. ‘The doctor will be pleased with you. Feeling better this morning?’

  She ached all over but she definitely was feeling better. She’d been so confused, so frightened the night before but this morning her head was clear.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ she said cautiously. ‘My mouth’s very dry.’

  ‘That’ll be the painkillers. They’ll be round with the tea trolley in a minute. Want me to help you sit up?’

  With movement, the aches became sharply painful, but propped against the pillows and sipping a cup of tea, Beatrice began the struggle to separate reality from nightmare.

  Adam was dead. That was reality. Her throat constricted but the tears didn’t come. He’d betrayed her; she knew that too. He had led her on to think of marriage when he had a wife already. And the dog – that was real too. The horror of the blood, the attack, her own screaming, her savaged arm – all too real. She still didn’t know how she had escaped, except that the dog had seemed shaky on its feet.

 

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