She hoped it didn’t. Murders always got a lot of publicity and Roderick would hate to see his son splashed all over the newspapers associated with something so sordid. Mary gave a little sigh as she glanced across at her oblivious husband. She loved Roddy dearly; he was a model husband, devoted and caring if perhaps a little unnecessarily protective. Soldiers, she had noted, were often like that about their womenfolk, perhaps as a result of their experiences out there in the very wicked world.
Unfortunately, they – or perhaps just he? – tended to extend that protective love into deciding what was best for their children, with the deeply disappointing results you might expect. Rory, the eldest, had dropped out of university and was now touring somewhere in the States with a band. Finella had made a promising start, training as a lawyer with a boyfriend who was another law graduate, but he had taken a job with Tesco and they weren’t married despite having a child. Roddy hadn’t dared use the word ‘bastard’ to Mary, but she knew he thought it.
Kelso had been his last hope; having seen him so well set on the path to glory, Roddy had been utterly crushed by his rejection of all that his father stood for, as he saw it. His subsequent behaviour had been inexcusable and for the first time in her life Mary had failed to pull him into line. It saddened her deeply to see the man she loved in such an ugly light.
She had set about him after what he’d said at the funeral; he had looked abashed and she was reasonably certain that he wouldn’t speak like that again. But she had a nasty feeling that what carried more weight was telling him that if he hoped that one day Kelso really might change his mind, this was the worst possible way to go about it; he hadn’t given up. All she could do was go on trying to keep the peace between them, but the big problem was that in terms of determination – the Sunday name for sheer pig-headedness – they were far too much alike.
Yes, it was probably just as well to say nothing about the little paragraph in the paper. It was most likely nothing to do with Kelso anyway. She decided to call Finella after breakfast, though. She and Kelso had always been thick as thieves; if he’d spoken to anyone, it would be her.
But he hadn’t. Mary didn’t mention how worried she was about his emotional state and Finella didn’t either. They didn’t need to.
PC Murray had been disappointed again when she was allocated to scouring the grounds. Surely she was too useful to the investigation to be wasted on the lowliest, and most loathed, task of all, fingertip-searching, hands and knees in the wet grass. After all, she’d done a great job on Drummond’s statement – Strang had said that himself – and they’d never have known about the hare if it hadn’t been for her.
She’d protested to the Broadford sergeant who was in charge but got short shrift. ‘Oh, all la-di-dah, now that we’re hobnobbing with the high heid yins, are we? Get in that boat, Livvy, and do as you’re told.’
Muttering, she stomped across to the boat and had to endure ten minutes of jeering from her colleagues – and that wasn’t her only reason for being glad the journey wasn’t longer. She was a rotten sailor and she didn’t like this nasty, undulating motion one bit.
Still, she was in luck at the other side; the sergeant in charge over there was a mate and assigned her to checking the outbuildings, despite protests from the others about her getting the jammy jobs.
‘Grub away, peasants!’ Murray called cheerfully as she walked across to begin in the barn that also acted as a garage.
In fact, it wasn’t as easy as she had thought. There was a lot of stuff piled around the walls and since there was no guidance on what they were looking for, she had to move everything and check behind it, and even climb on a ladder to go round the ledges under the roof. After an hour all she had unearthed was a prize collection of cobwebs, many of them festooned over her uniform and hair, and some particularly nasty creepy-crawlies. She’d given a small shriek when a sudden movement in one of the corners drew her attention to a thick, scaly tail that mercifully disappeared into a hole in the wall.
Maybe the outbuildings weren’t such a doss after all. As a city lass, she hadn’t really thought of the lower orders of livestock to whom they might be home and she came out of the barn when she had finished the search hot and filthy. She hated to think what she might find in the wood store.
Then she noticed the dog run. Surely rats wouldn’t hang around where Amber, the killer of hares, lived. With a cheery word to the sergeant, she went there next.
It still smelt of dog – a friendly smell, she thought, even if the animal itself had been far from that. The dog’s bed against the back wall had a smart furry cover and there was a heavy water bowl, still full, beside it. The food bowl was sitting on a shelf beside a standpipe with a tap and it had been washed since the last time it was used – presumably that was one of Marek’s responsibilities. He’d kept the place immaculate, a lot cleaner than he kept his own house; Adam Carnegie probably expected nothing less for his treasured pet. There was a leash hanging by the door and a travelling rug lying on the floor, covering a pile of something. Probably just dog stuff, she told herself, but her heart was beating a little faster as she went to lift it up.
Files. About a dozen thick files. She picked up the top one and opened it. There was a letter first, with some technical stuff about money that she didn’t fully understand and a bank reference for deposits. It was addressed to someone she didn’t know, but the signature at the bottom was familiar – Harry Drummond.
And when she riffled through the rest of that file there were more letters, all signed by Drummond, as well as bank statements, names and addresses, and accounts. Exactly what Tennant had been looking for, presumably.
And what Eva Havel had died for, too. With a shudder, Murray closed the file, picked up the rest and went out to tell the sergeant what she had found.
Beatrice Lacey still hadn’t left her room. Sheer exhaustion had driven her to bed eventually but she had been afraid to take a sleeping pill and with her various aches and injuries she had dozed only fitfully. This morning she was leaden-eyed and agonisingly stiff but at least the throbbing in her arm had stopped.
She was hungry; she made herself tea and toast in the tiny kitchenette area, the two slices of toast thickly spread with honey for energy. The comforting sweetness made her feel a little better and when she looked out of the window she could see that the garden was swarming like an ant heap with policemen.
She was still afraid of what Harry might do but surely nothing could happen to her with all these officers around, ready to be summoned by a scream? He simply couldn’t risk attacking her now and she had to leave her room sometime. There was nothing to do here, except stare at Rosamond’s empty crib and cry.
In fact, she wanted to leave more than her room. She wanted to get away from this godforsaken place immediately, find a truly comfortable hotel where she could recover and hide away from Harry. There were some very nice hotels in Portree, if the police would let her go. She was ready to insist; unless they actually arrested her, she was pretty sure they couldn’t stop her.
It needn’t, Beatrice thought suddenly, even be a hotel here in Skye. She could go back to Surrey, to that nice country house hotel near her old home. Harry wouldn’t know where she was and she could look up the friends she’d ignored for so long, get back to the little bridge parties and theatre trips she’d always enjoyed. Then she looked down at her spreading girth; they would hardly recognise her, the way she’d put on weight here where there were no little treats except the ones that came in multicoloured foil wrappers.
Perhaps it might be better to go to a spa for a bit first, if she could afford it. She’d lost her lovely house, of course, but she’d get her trustee on to trying to recover what he could from the charity that would surely be closed down, and if she instructed the bank to stop the standing order today, that would cover the hotel bill. It gave her a real pang to think of the children looking to Human Face for help and not finding it, but she could donate to Save the Children instead.
But when she opened it there were two policemen standing there. ‘Miss Lacey?’ one said. ‘We have a warrant to search this room.’
‘Ah,’ DI Strang said when PC Murray appeared in triumph and laid the bundle on his desk. ‘So this is what DC Tennant has been hoping to find? Where was it?’
‘In the dog’s kennel. I reckon Carnegie thought no investigator would look there and if they showed any interest it would see them off. It certainly scared me stupid. So – can we arrest Drummond?’
Strang flicked through a couple of the files. ‘Not on this – we can’t, anyway. Not before the forensic accountants have assembled a case, unless Tennant can push it along. I’ll tell him to come round.’
‘But—’ Murray stopped as he lifted the phone and held up a hand while he made the call.
Tennant was loudly pleased; she could hear him right across the desk. She wasn’t happy. She couldn’t stand the man, with his sneery voice and the way he had of treating them as if they were teuchters who hadn’t heard about using a knife and fork. And whatever Strang might say, he was still a suspect in her book.
Strang caught the look on her face as he put down the phone. ‘Yes, Murray? Was there something you wanted to say?’
She’d said it all about Tennant before and it wasn’t going to be any different now. ‘Oh, nothing.’
His lips twitched. ‘Well, you could have fooled me. Anyway, you’ll be pleased to hear that the analysis of the hare has come through and it was definitely doped.’
Brilliant! But all she said was, ‘I was sure it had to be. The dog would never have let him be attacked otherwise. What with?’
He looked down at the paper. ‘Zolpidem. In common use as a sleeping pill, marketed under several proprietary names.’
‘They’re searching the house now.’ She couldn’t help showing her excitement. ‘If they find it on someone, that could be it, all wrapped up.’
‘Hang on. That phrase, “in common use”, remember? More than one person may be having trouble sleeping. And there’s the question of who could have known the hare was hanging there too.’
That was certainly true. That was something else she needed to learn – not to jump to conclusions. She’d said she was keen to learn, but she hadn’t quite realised the education process would make her feel like quite such an effing idiot.
Tennant knocked on the door then came in without waiting for an answer. He nodded to Strang, ignored Murray, then snatched up the file on top of the pile without waiting for permission and flipped it open. As he flicked through the pages a broad smile spread over his face.
‘Be my guest,’ Strang said dryly.
‘Oh – oh sorry, I suppose that was rude. But this’ – he patted the papers in his hand – ‘this is all our Christmases come at once.’
‘I haven’t looked through them yet and I’m not sure I understand what I’m looking at, really,’ Strang said. ‘I imagine it’s the background to the money laundering?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Tennant sat down and started checking another file. ‘And the names mentioned are gold dust – I recognise some as people we’ve had our sights on for a long time but there are new ones there too. The idea was that they donated to the charity, the money was sent out to an office in Zambia and then rerouted to the designated Swiss bank accounts. Hardly an original idea, really, but we’ve had difficulty pinpointing either Drummond or Carnegie as their contacts; their digital trails are very confused.’
‘Double passports?’ Strang said.
Tennant looked up. ‘Oh, you were onto that one, were you?’
‘Sometimes we manage to stumble on something, even up here in the wilds.’ Strang’s acid tone earned a grin from Murray. ‘The records said that Carnegie was in Paris at the time of Eva’s death, when he couldn’t possibly have been.’
‘Well you see, that’s my point,’ Tennant said, leaning forward. ‘If you’d told me that was a problem, I could have put you onto it right away. That’s why you need me on the inside.’
The vulgar saying about people who were better there than outside came to Murray’s mind but she decided not to push her luck. If she drew attention to herself, Strang might send her away.
‘I’d like to help you get on with arresting Drummond,’ Tennant went on. ‘You’ve got his motive right here. Carnegie was trying to drop him in it.’
‘His motive – really? I would have thought this would put him in the clear. If Carnegie had all this incriminating stuff, surely Drummond would have been mad to kill him and trigger an investigation.’
‘Ah, but he didn’t know, did he? He thought he’d purged the files. He was perfectly calm to start with, just banging on about the charity being Adam’s business and he was only the official accountant. Beatrice was in on it too, according to him, and of course he did his best to blame her at the start. Something must have alerted him to the possibility that Adam had a little insurance policy tucked away somewhere. So – can I be absolved, and rejoin the team? Unless, of course, there’s some other definite line of enquiry you’re following?’
His question hung in the air for a fraction of a second too long. Then Strang stood up. ‘Thanks, Daniel. That’s been helpful and I’ll get this stuff sent to Edinburgh when the operation support chopper comes in later today. I’ll be speaking to my super so if your bosses want to contact her I’m sure they’ll get this sorted out.’ He reached forward to take the file that Tennant was still holding.
The detective clutched at it. ‘Don’t do this, Kelso! I’ve worked so long for this—’
‘Sorry.’ Strang held out his hand.
‘Oh, for God’s sake! Have it, then. Muddle along, nurse your stupid suspicions about a colleague and make a complete fool of yourself, why don’t you?’
He handed over the file and walked out, slamming the door hard behind him.
Murray didn’t speak, waiting for Strang to comment.
He didn’t. Instead he said, ‘Right. I’ll have to put that in hand too. I’ll need to speak to the fraud department in Edinburgh.’ He was looking harassed. ‘I’ve got a job for you, though, Murray. They’ve found me a Polish interpreter; she’s in the waiting room. I want you to go across with her to speak to Kaczka. Get her to establish where he came from and why. But remember it’s just a statement you’re taking – don’t start grilling him. What I’m interested in is if he had a wife, a family, and if he did where they are now.’
Murray’s head came up sharply. ‘A daughter, say – who might have come over here illegally?’
‘Well, it’s a thought.’
‘Understood, sir. I’ll pick her up now and get going. Sooner the better, really – it’s getting worse out there. I was only a couple of minutes away from throwing up on the way back.’
‘Better hope they gun it, then,’ said Strang unfeelingly. ‘Good luck.’
Strang looked after her as she closed the door, hoping he’d done the right thing. Buchanan was occupied with the logistics of getting personnel to and from Balnasheil Lodge – the road was still blocked and the council were in no hurry to clear it – and the local officers were an unknown quantity. Murray at least wasn’t lacking in intelligence and she’d done a good job with Drummond’s statement.
He’d done his debrief with JB this morning but he’d have to fill her in on the discovery of the files. It was progress of a sort, he supposed, but he couldn’t really see that it got them any further forward with their own case. Tennant was right; the evidence on Drummond could be read in two different ways – and the same went for Tennant himself. It would be interesting to see what Murray came back with. They knew so little about the mysterious Veruschka that they might never be able to establish who she was, but he could construct a scenario in which she was Kaczka’s daughter who h
ad disappeared and he had somehow tracked her to this place and come to work more or less as a serf to try to find out what had happened to her. He had seen Carnegie take Eva away; had he then known what had happened to his daughter and taken revenge?
Strang sighed. It was far-fetched and even if it happened to be true he still couldn’t see how he could prove it, unless the answer lay in the forensic reports – there were eight waiting for him on his terminal and he’d better read them before he phoned JB again.
He hadn’t been hopeful and he was right: none, unfortunately, took them any further forward. There were unidentified fingerprints at the crime scene, naturally, and now they’d need to take prints from all of the suspects for comparison.
Would that tell them anything? Probably not. He was reaching out his hand to make his phone call to JB when it rang.
‘Just thought you’d want to know at once, sir,’ the voice of the sergeant leading the search team said. ‘We’ve found sleeping pills in Beatrice Lacey’s flat – Stilnoct, active ingredient zolpidem. That’s what we were looking for, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Strang. ‘Oh yes.’
The wind was blowing quite strongly now and under a lowering sky the tops of the waves had broken peaks and were splashing ashore with little vicious slaps. As PC Murray and Marta, the interpreter, stood waiting at the pier for a boat, a great silver curtain of rain swept in from the sea with a hissing sound, obliterating the farther side. The raindrops were painful as nettle stings when they hit their faces.
Huddling inside her jacket, Murray complained to the sergeant in charge, ‘For goodness’ sake! Why is it taking so long? This is awful.’
‘Patience, lassie,’ the man said stolidly. ‘We’re one boat short today. Macdonald hasn’t turned up – shut the door in my face when I went to speak to him. We’re going to have fun getting everybody back across when they decide to call it a day.’
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