Human Face

by Aline Templeton

Perhaps Kelso Strang would make something of it, but it didn’t tell her anything new. Drummond had sounded off, but when it came right down to it he’d been surprisingly precise, with no gaps left where you could slip in a chib to slice it open. It was creepy, really, as if all the noisy bluster was to cover up a cold, quiet reptile core. His bright blue eyes, she had noticed, were completely dead and she had little doubt that if slitting Carnegie’s throat that night had been in his interests he’d have done it, then sat down next morning to enjoy his breakfast.

  Her money had been on Murdo John, having glimpsed the passion he’d felt for his lost love. Passion was a classic when it came to motives for murder – but then so was greed. And self-protection. And revenge.

  Whatever. She sighed. There was definitely no way she was going to get a dramatic confession out of Drummond and her opportunity to get to work on Murdo John had gone for tonight, at any rate. And there were the other suspects too – Tennant, Marek, Vicky. Even, she supposed, Beatrice and the feeble Quentin, though she just couldn’t see him ever having the guts to do it.

  There was something about Tennant that gave her an uneasy feeling, a tickle of nerves like a spider crawling across her back. If he worked undercover for the Met, he probably wasn’t too bothered by scruples and he’d certainly been pretty distraught about Eva. Marek – well, it looked as if Carnegie had been exploiting him something rotten, but he’d been there for years, so why now?

  Vicky – her thoughts lingered on Vicky for a moment. She liked her instinctively but that wasn’t anything to go on. Vicky had been very upset about what had happened to Eva and even if that was hardly reason enough to take a knife to someone, there might be more to her relationship with Carnegie than met the eye. She and Murdo John had clearly fallen out over her decision to live in at Balnasheil Lodge; had she perhaps found that Carnegie’s ideas of her duties were not what she had in mind? Had she snatched up one of his knives in self-defence?

  But no, of course she hadn’t. That knife hadn’t been the one that killed her. Livvy was just wasting good drinking time, going round in circles.

  She got up and went to the window. It was dark now and she could hear the wind getting up – a whiny, sighing wind that made the draughty building creak and whisper. There was foul weather forecast and she knew by now what that meant. She’d better get the buckets put under the leaks she knew about, though new ones kept appearing.

  The light was still on in the office where Kelso Strang was working. He was certainly conscientious and he might be there till midnight. It must be a lonely kind of job with this new system of drafting in the experts when needed, but she knew better by now than to go and knock on the door to suggest he take a break to join her down the pub.

  Maybe it was personal – and she knew she’d irritated him by screwing up a couple of times – but he didn’t really seem the sociable sort. She pulled on her parka and set off in the chilly dark for the Black Cuillin.

  He was there again. She had heard his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs and then stopping outside the door. She held her breath.

  Beatrice hadn’t dared to move from her chair since she’d locked the door after Vicky had brought her supper tray. She had dozed off a couple of times and then wakened with a jerk that made her stiffening muscles scream. She longed for her bed and the little white pill that would give her oblivion, but she dared not take it. She had to be awake, awake and ready to scream if Harry broke in to attack her.

  The tap that came on the door was gentle, almost apologetic. ‘Beatrice, are you there? Can you hear me?’ Harry’s voice said.

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Beatrice, I’m sorry I spoke to you roughly before.’ His voice was gentle, cajoling. ‘I can quite understand that with all that’s gone on you’re nervous and I’m so upset myself that I wasn’t thinking straight. If you have the ridiculous idea that I might be going to harm you, I can tell you there’s a policeman on duty outside and Vicky downstairs so one good scream would bring them rushing to your side. We need to talk – would you think about letting me in?’

  It’s like the Big Bad Wolf, Beatrice thought with a kind of nervous hysteria. No, no, by the hair on my chinny chin chin – she had to clamp her mouth tight shut on the words.

  ‘No? Perhaps you can’t hear me or you’ve gone to bed?’

  He hadn’t huffed and puffed this time. She still wasn’t going to respond.

  ‘But anyway, I’m just going to assume you’re listening. Beatrice, Adam swore to me that he had destroyed everything he should have, the documents that could blow apart Human Face and everything we’ve worked for. But I’ve spoken to our lawyer and he said Adam had told him there was what he called “an insurance policy” and now I’m afraid there’s something he’s hidden away. They’re going to search the whole house tomorrow and if they find anything like that it will be serious for us. And I don’t just mean me, I mean both of us because no one will believe you if you say you didn’t know. It’s not just a smack on the wrist and a little fine, it’s jail we’re talking about here.’

  Prison! Beatrice gave a little gasp of dismay and heard Harry’s triumphant laugh on the other side of the door.

  ‘Aha! You heard that, did you? So come on – do you know anything about that?’

  She licked her dry lips. ‘There were papers – a whole lot of papers—’

  ‘Yes? Yes?’

  ‘I saw him taking them outside.’

  ‘Outside? Do you know what papers they were?’

  ‘The – the ones from the filing cabinet, I think. The ones Eva was looking at.’

  There was a silence, then Harry said, quite softly, ‘Oh dear God. Outside. And you don’t know where?’

  She shook her head as if he could see her. ‘No. Maybe – maybe he was just going to burn them.’

  ‘Maybe. And maybe he wasn’t. That treacherous bastard!’ His voice was loud and harsh again. ‘You have no idea, no idea at all, what this could land us in. And I can’t even go out to search myself with a plod right outside the door. Better hope you’re right that he burnt them. Goodnight.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Sleep well – I certainly won’t.’

  There was nothing to stop her going to bed now but Beatrice was shaking so much she thought she might collapse on the way. She wasn’t worrying about Harry now, she was worrying about her own foolish wickedness and the full majesty of the law.

  The Black Cuillin was busy tonight. There was a party of the hardiest sort of hillwalker at the big corner table toasting their ascent of the Inaccessible Pinnacle before the weather closed in, and the regulars had turned out in force too. There would be good craic tonight; it wasn’t often there was quality stuff like discussing murder available. There were also two strangers sitting among them but at opposite sides of the pub, ignoring each other.

  It didn’t take Livvy Murray ten seconds to identify them as press. Even wearing jeans and trainers they had the smell of the city about them, and the notebook one had open on the table in front of him was a dead giveaway.

  That one glanced round as she came in and she saw him ask the man beside him, a mate of hers, who she was. As he opened his mouth to speak she gave him one of her high-octane, super-turbo-charged death stares and he got the message in time to shrug his shoulders with a blank, ‘No, sorry.’

  Murdo John wasn’t behind the bar, so Livvy wouldn’t have had a chance to talk to him anyway. Fiona Ross was serving instead, full of bad grace, with one of the waitresses from the dining room helping, but since she wasn’t sure about prices she wasn’t as useful as she might have been.

  When Livvy reached the bar, Fiona was talking to one of the regulars as she pulled a pint. ‘Oh, said he wasn’t available tonight, just like that. No excuse, just that he wouldn’t do it. And of course I can’t sack him, because as you can see we haven’t really got an alternative.’

  She gave a contemptuous glance at the little waitress who was looking around her in a bewildered way. ‘What’s the matter, dear? W
hisky Mac? Whisky and top up with ginger wine.’ Then she gave a shriek of ‘No!’ as the girl went to a bottle of single malt. ‘Blended, dear, blended – over there.’

  ‘It’s really too bad,’ she finished as she put the money in the till and turned to Livvy. ‘Yes? Oh, it’s you, Livvy.’

  ‘Yes, it’s me. Glass of house red, please.’

  Fiona lowered her voice, leaning across the bar confidentially. ‘Do tell me, just between ourselves, how’s it going? Oh, and have this one on the house. You deserve it – you’re all working so hard.’

  ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ Livvy said. ‘I’d need more than the price of a glass of house red to risk getting busted for selling information. Anyway, I’m off duty. Oh, and I’m wanting a bag of crisps too. Cheese and onion.’

  Fiona pursed her lips and turned away to fetch them. A man who had been sitting along near the farther end of the bar got up and Livvy moved to take the stool, realising as she did so that the woman sitting by herself in the corner was Vicky Macdonald. She was looking pale and strained and she didn’t turn her head when Livvy sat down until she spoke.

  ‘Hello! I didn’t expect to see you here. Just come across to get out the house?’

  ‘Oh, hi.’ Vicky gave her a wan smile. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Can’t be easy, all this.’

  ‘No. No, it really isn’t.’ She had what looked like whisky in front of her; she took a sip then said vehemently, ‘Even here, everyone’s avoiding me, even people I thought were my friends.’

  Glancing around and seeing eyes averted as she did so, Livvy made a sympathetic grimace. ‘They’re not that keen on the polis either, you know.’

  ‘Mmm. I suppose it was daft to have come, but—’

  ‘Getting stir-crazy?’

  ‘A bit. But I was hoping to see Murdo John too. He’s not in tonight, though.’

  Livvy hesitated. ‘I sort of heard things weren’t too good with the two of you.’

  ‘Sort of heard?’ Vicky gave a short laugh. ‘You mean, you weren’t given chapter and verse about every word we said to each other? They must be slipping.’

  She emptied her glass and held it up to Fiona Ross, who, after a pointed pause, brought another whisky and set it down with a disapproving sniff.

  How many had she had before? Livvy wondered. ‘Are you trying to patch it up?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just – well, contrary to the gossip we didn’t actually have a proper showdown. We hardly talked about it at all, really. I said I was going to stay at the Lodge, he said if I did I needn’t come back and that was about it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have insisted but – well, you know. It’s the money and I didn’t want to lose my job. Murdo John didn’t like that either – made him feel humiliated, I suppose.’

  ‘So what are you hoping for?’

  ‘After all this is over, you mean? I guess it will be, eventually. But for now I’d just like to come home, get away from that awful place – it’s really getting to me now. I was hoping to talk to him, just chat – you know, nothing heavy. There are things we need to talk about, openly and honestly. We both know that.’

  ‘He’s probably at home,’ Livvy suggested, but Vicky shrank visibly.

  ‘I – I don’t have the courage to go round, as if I was demanding he take me back. He could just slam the door in my face.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Livvy said earnestly. ‘But I think—’

  ‘That glass looks empty,’ Daniel Tennant’s voice spoke at her shoulder.

  Resisting the temptation to turn and grab him by the throat, Livvy said icily, ‘I’m all right, thanks.’

  ‘No, no, I insist. Fiona! Another of these and a vodka tonic for me.’

  With the usual perversity of fate, the bar stool on Livvy’s other side became vacant and Daniel slid onto it.

  ‘I was actually talking to Vicky,’ Livvy said, but before she had reached the end of the sentence Vicky had drained her glass and stood up.

  ‘Time I was on my way back. It’s getting a bit blowy out there,’ she said, picked up the keys for the Lodge boat from the bar counter and left.

  ‘Well, thanks a whole bunch,’ Livvy said in a furious undertone. ‘I was having a useful conversation about her and Murdo John when you butted in.’

  He was unmoved. ‘So which of them did it, then?’

  ‘Probably you.’

  Fiona set the drinks down in front of them and for a moment Livvy thought of ignoring it, but then she never had been one to cut her nose off to spite her face. He hadn’t bought her a drink for the pleasure of her company and if he wanted something, it was only fair he should pay for it. She ignored it when he said, ‘Cheers,’ but she took a sip.

  Daniel laughed. ‘Oh, come on, Livvy. You know I didn’t do it. For God’s sake, I’m a copper. There’s no way I’d do something like that. We’re on the same side.’

  ‘Not the way I see it, right at this moment.’

  ‘You know I didn’t do it. For God’s sake, would I try to stage a suicide as pathetically as that? Puh-leese!’

  He had a point there, and for a moment she hesitated. Then it struck her. ‘Well, you might,’ she said. ‘You might, just so you could say that to prove it wasn’t you.’

  She saw the lines of temper appear between his brows. ‘Oh, shut up. You’ve got a real talent for being irritating, do you know that?’

  ‘I prefer to think of it as genius. Anyway, what do you want?’

  He made an effort to smile. ‘OK, cards on the table. I’ve got my career to think about and I’m being frozen out here. Kelso won’t tell me what’s going on and there’s a huge operation at stake. I need to be in on it. Are you making any progress?’

  Livvy said slowly, ‘Exactly why are you asking me that, Daniel?’

  He put down the glass he was drinking from with a thump that had Fiona turning to glare at him. ‘Because, you stupid cow,’ he said venomously, ‘maybe if I’m allowed to help Police Scotland get its act together I can get back in to find some evidence before they mess that up.’

  It was a solid excuse. Oh, he was good – you had to give him that. Maybe it was even a reason, but she didn’t trust him. She said, ‘And what about your Eva, down there providing food for the fishes? Maybe you felt she deserved revenge,’ and saw his look of fury as she walked out. She even left the wine unfinished on the bar. There was a first for everything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  As Livvy Murray pulled up the hood of her parka and headed off home, her mind was on the conversations she had just had. Tennant was a toerag; she couldn’t think of anything she’d like more than to see him banged up for killing Carnegie – but had he really cared that much about Eva? Could she see him going for a knife? It wasn’t impossible but he seemed more the type to shrug his shoulders and say, ‘Collateral damage,’ like they did in war movies. Murder didn’t look good on your CV.

  She felt sorry for Vicky, though. She wasn’t to know Veruschka had been the love of Murdo John’s life and that she was a poor substitute. Marrying on the rebound was classic disaster, so maybe he’d even been glad to get out of it.

  It was understandable, too, that Vicky didn’t want the humiliation of turning up on the doorstep to be blanked. It was sad, though. They should at least end it right, look at what had gone wrong.

  That was their cottage, just there. The curtains were drawn but there was a light on in the downstairs window and she walked slower, then stopped. Maybe she could help, just as a friend not a police officer; if she could explain to Murdo John the way Vicky felt, he might agree to what she wanted.

  Maybe, on the other hand, she should remember that Murdo John was a suspect – not only that, but he was the suspect she’d worked out had pretty much the best motive. Bring them together again? Yeah, smart thinking.

  But why not? He wouldn’t harm her. It wasn’t like the usual sort of case; if Murdo John had killed Carnegie it was because he believed he deserved to die – an
d in a way Livvy sort of thought that yes, he probably did.

  She wasn’t going to interview him or anything, after all, just tell him what Vicky had said. Just passing on the message – that couldn’t do any harm. She knocked on the door.

  Murdo John’s face was set in hard lines when he opened the door. ‘Yes?’ But when he saw who it was his shoulders sagged and he said, with infinite weariness, ‘Oh, it’s you. What is it this time?’

  She gave him a placatory smile. ‘Look, I’m sorry to trouble you so late. It’s not official – it’s just a message—’

  He stood aside, holding the door open. ‘You’d better come in. They’ll be saying you’re here to arrest me.’

  ‘No, no, it’s nothing like that,’ Livvy protested, but she stepped inside.

  ‘So what is it?’

  She’d hoped to work up to it a bit more, but Murdo John wasn’t really into small talk. ‘I was speaking to Vicky in the Black Cuillin just now.’ She thought he stiffened, but he didn’t say anything and she went on, ‘She’s really wanting to come home, to talk to you.’

  ‘What’s stopping her?’ His face looked as if it had been carved out of granite.

  Ditching any idea of tact, Livvy said, ‘Most likely she thought you’d look like that. You might as well punch her in the face.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Well, no, of course I don’t really. But it’s not fair – you’ve never told her about Veruschka, have you? She’s probably blaming herself because the marriage failed when all the time there was fat chance it’d work, was there?’

  ‘Did she say that?’ His tone was uncompromising.

  Oh God, she was making a right mess of this. She could even be making things worse. ‘No, no, she never,’ she said hastily. ‘What she said was’ – she paused, trying to recollect the exact words – ‘she said she’d realised there were things you needed to talk about honestly and openly and that you knew that too.’

  Clearly that had made him think and it was a moment before he spoke. ‘Yes, I do.’