DCS Borthwick was delighted with the news; he could sense a note of considerable relief in her voice as well. He filled her in on the developments and went on, ‘The thing is, you’d be unlikely to notice it in real life unless they were standing side by side. The colouring’s very different. Vicky’s fair-haired with blue eyes and Veruschka was much more middle-European – olive skin, brown hair, brown eyes. But studying the photo I suddenly realised that the shape of the face and the set of the eyes was identical – they had to be sisters, or closely related, anyway. And then of course Macdonald crumbled. He claimed he hadn’t known about the relationship, though recently he’d wondered – there was a look his wife had given him that sparked a memory, I think. He may even have been attracted to her subconsciously in the first place because of the resemblance. Then she phoned him last night and told him she’d killed Carnegie, and why. He said he was very shocked, then decided he would confess to it himself.’
‘Gallant, if misguided, I suppose,’ Borthwick said dryly.
‘Not according to him. He was mortified. I don’t think he’s quite up to speed with modern feminist thinking – it offended his male pride that a woman had done the job he ought to have done. He wasn’t so much protecting her as trying to steal the credit.’
‘I have to say that’s a new one for me. So – arrest is imminent, can I take it?’
‘Not in this weather. Can you hear the thunder? It’s a serious storm and the boats have been stood down until it abates – not any time soon from the looks of it. But she won’t be going anywhere either and I should get across tomorrow.’
‘There’s a press conference at eleven so it would be handy to have it tied up before that,’ Borthwick was saying when there was a violent clap of thunder, a blinding flash, and Strang was plunged into darkness.
‘Hello? Hello? Are you still there?’ she said.
‘Yes, amazingly enough. But the electrics have gone and I can’t see a thing.’
‘Hardly surprising. It may well be a while before you get the power back – the Western Isles are sometimes out for days at a time.’
‘Oh, great, ma’am. Thanks for that.’
‘Don’t mention it. I like to do my little bit,’ Borthwick said with all the cheerfulness of one sitting in a well-heated, brightly lit office in a city. ‘Anyway, I’d better let you get on with sorting it out. Keep me in the picture.’
Strang rang off, looking helplessly about him. There was almost no light coming in the small window and the room was in darkness. He had the light on his mobile, but it was pitiful. He’d had a proper torch – it would be in the pocket of the jacket he’d hung on a peg to let the rain drain off, but he now had little sense of where the peg was. He stood up and was training the mobile light round the corners of his desk to get some sense of direction when he saw a sliver of light appear under the door. When it opened a constable came in carrying a paraffin lamp that lit the room with a soft amber glow.
‘You have no idea how pleased I am to see you, Constable,’ he told her. ‘This is preparedness of the very highest order.’
She beamed. ‘You get used to it round here, sir. There were a few of these in a cupboard and when the storm came in we got them out ready.’ She set it down on the desk then went to the door, switching on the torch she had ready in her other hand.
‘Thank you very much. Oh, by the way, could you send PC Murray to me? I left a message that I wanted to see her but maybe it didn’t get through.’
‘She wasn’t in the incident room, sir. Maybe she’s at the police house. I’ll check and if she’s there I’ll send her in to you.’
Strang thanked her again and then sat looking at the blank, dead face of his computer with some dismay. That was the problem with modern technology; it was so efficient that you relied on it to the point that when something went wrong, you were hamstrung. If terrorists concentrated on taking out power stations instead of attacking shopping malls and pop concerts, the West would be on its knees in days.
Beatrice had been crying so much that her cheeks were red raw with the salt of tears. She had been interrogated – that was the only word for it – by two policemen about her perfectly ordinary sleeping pills, the ones her doctor always prescribed for her because she didn’t sleep well. She had got so flustered she couldn’t remember whether there had been another pack as well as the one she was using at the moment, and they had actually accused her of lying. That wasn’t the way you expected policemen to behave; she’d actually thought they were going to arrest her, and when she asked if they were, they just laughed and one said, ‘Well, not at the moment,’ and the other said, ‘But you never know.’ It was just plain bullying.
Then they had gone away, but she was really, really scared now. Harry had told them before that she’d killed Adam, when it had been him all the time, and now there was something about her pills that had made it all worse, even if she didn’t know what it was.
That was the trouble; she had no idea what was happening out there, and she didn’t like the storm either. Up here it seemed terribly close and sometimes you thought the roof itself would come in. It had been right overhead at one point and she’d just cowered in a corner, but then it had moved a bit further away. From her window she could see lightning flickering all round the cloudy bulk of the Black Cuillin ridge.
Then it was back again, right over her head. Bang! Flash! Beatrice screamed as the light went out.
Power cuts happened, and there was a major one most winters. They’d been cut off for three days once which had been difficult, but then they’d all gone to sit together in the big sitting room with the fire blazing for warmth and it had been quite cosy and companionable. She hadn’t been stuck up here all by herself in the darkness.
She knew where her torch was and she was able to grope her way to the drawer where she kept it. She switched it on and felt a little better. She could make her way downstairs and find Vicky to see if she would light the sitting-room fire. They’d have to keep warm and the house would cool down rapidly now the heating had gone off – and even if Harry appeared too it would be better than sitting up here alone. Shining the torch in front of her, she made her way cautiously down the stairs. ‘Vicky! Vicky!’ she called as she reached the bottom and went along the corridor leading to the kitchen.
Just as she reached it, the door to Vicky’s room opened behind her and she burst out, carrying a small suitcase. She didn’t look herself – positively wild, Beatrice thought with alarm.
‘Vicky! You’re not going somewhere in this weather?’
She didn’t answer. She shoved Beatrice aside so roughly that she stumbled against the wall, lost her balance and sat down, hard. The torch swung as she fell and she could see Vicky going out of the back door, slamming it hard behind her.
Tears of pain came into Beatrice’s eyes. She’d hurt her injured arm and now it felt as if she’d twisted her back. She was in so much pain she wasn’t sure she could get up by herself; she’d just have to stay here, getting chilled to the bone, and probably die of hypothermia.
Just then the kitchen door opened. She grabbed her torch again and saw, to her surprise and relief, a policewoman come out. She recognised her: she was PC Murray, the one who’d been asking questions about Eva. She was flinching away from the beam of light and she looked a bit odd and unfocused. She wasn’t quite steady on her feet either; could she have been drinking? Beatrice wondered. She hadn’t been much impressed with her anyway, but she’d do.
‘Constable, I need you to help me to my feet,’ she said. ‘Vicky Macdonald has just assaulted me – pushed me right over.’
‘Was that her going out of the door just now? Sorry, I’m going to need your torch.’
To Beatrice’s astonishment and fury, the torch was snatched out of her hand and she was left there on the floor in the darkness as the back door slammed again. She was too angry for tears; surely there was something she could do about this appalling behaviour?
Then she remembered.
She had her mobile phone in her pocket, and that nice inspector had actually programmed in his number in case she wanted to talk to him. If it worked, she could complain to him right now, and he could send someone to help her at the same time. There was an anxious moment as she wondered whether the mast had been struck as well as the power station, but no – there was the number ringing now.
‘Inspector Strang? I have a serious complaint to make against one of your officers, PC Murray.’
Livvy Murray had opened her eyes on darkness and for a moment she thought she’d only dreamt that she’d opened them. But her head was throbbing and then she realised what must have happened – Vicky Macdonald had knocked her out and now she was lying on the cold tiled floor of the kitchen. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but by now Vicky was probably well away in the little motorboat that belonged to the Lodge.
The window was a lighter square, intermittently bright with lightning flashes, but it was deeply dark in the room. She tried to work out where she was; she had been sitting at the table and she’d stood up to make the formal arrest, so she must be somewhere near it. She swept her arm round in an arc and sure enough, it knocked against the sturdy table leg.
That felt like a small triumph, and Livvy grabbed it so that she could pull herself up. Mistake! The darkness swung around her; she swayed, and vomited. Concussion, then – but she couldn’t give in to it. She had a job to do. Clinging to the table leg, she shuffled forward so she could rest her swimming head against it and gradually she felt steadier.
She risked levering herself up and thought she would be sick again, but once she had steadied herself on the table for a minute or two she felt strong enough to take a step in what she guessed was the direction of the door. She was disorientated, though, and she still wasn’t quite steady on her feet; once she let go of the table she’d have no point of reference and she wasn’t even sure whereabouts the door was on the side wall. But unless she was going to just stand here like a stookie, she’d have to try.
She lurched off very cautiously, her hands spread out protectively in front of her. She didn’t think she could bear it if she bashed into something; her head was throbbing like the bass beat in Adele’s ‘Rumour Has It’. But she hadn’t been sick again and she was making progress – though whether in the right direction or not remained to be seen.
Then suddenly she saw light, faint but definite. It bobbed and flickered, but it outlined the door frame. Livvy hadn’t been too far off, and as she made towards it she heard someone saying, ‘Vicky! You’re not going somewhere in this weather?’ As she fumbled for the handle – Not this side, no, the other side, try higher up – she heard a thump and a cry, then the slamming of the back door.
At last her groping hand struck the handle and she wrenched the door open. Beatrice Lacey was outside in the corridor, sitting on the floor. She said something, but Livvy barely registered what it was. She asked if Vicky had gone out, grabbed the torch Beatrice was holding, with a brief apology, then dashed outside.
It felt as if someone had punched her in the face. Her head jerked back with the force of the driving wind and she gave a cry of agony, but she struggled on, following the slope leading down to the jetty. It was much lighter outside than in the house and with the lightning flickering in a dark and angry sky she could see where she was going; looking ahead she could make out, in odd, freeze-frame glimpses, Vicky bending over the small motorboat, rocking at its moorings. Beyond that there was only the glistening black of the boiling sea and the white caps on the waves that were breaking across the jetty. Salt spray stung her face as she hurried towards it.
There were no comforting lights on the other side of the bay. The whole area must have been hit and once the boat was launched it would be all but impossible to steer a straight course across.
‘Vicky!’ she yelled. ‘Vicky, stop, for God’s sake!’
Perhaps she hadn’t heard her, with all the noise that was going on. It was only as Livvy approached, still shouting, that Vicky, now standing in the rocking boat, turned her head.
‘I thought you were dead. Go away! You’re not going to stop me.’
Livvy reached her, grabbed her arm. ‘It’s suicide, going out into a sea like that. And you’re under arrest, so it’s my duty to stop you.’
Unbalanced, she was too groggy to hold on and Vicky roughly pulled her arm free, saying nothing as she bent forward to put in the key and start the engine.
Maybe Livvy should just let her go. No one would blame her: she’d been wounded; she was really hurting. But if Vicky got herself drowned it would be a death in police custody and she had got to give it her best shot.
She climbed into the boat herself. ‘I’m not going to let you go out there. See sense, Vicky – get back out and we’ll talk.’
‘We did that. There wasn’t any point.’
‘Look, you said yourself you didn’t want Carnegie to claim another victim. That’s what you’re risking if I get out and leave you free to go.’
Vicky’s reply was to swing at her, giving Livvy a violent push that made the boat rock still more, but it didn’t topple her out. Instead she fell over, landing across the side, and was able to steady herself.
‘It’s not that easy, Vicky. I’m not going to get out until you get out too.’
In the light of another dramatic flash, Livvy saw her face, white and set and cold. ‘With you or without you, it doesn’t matter to me.’ Vicky turned the ignition and the little boat roared out, out into the maelstrom of the bay.
DI Strang was having difficulty keeping his temper, and it showed. ‘Look, I don’t care what you say about health and safety. There’s an officer out there who seems to have been injured and she is pursuing a murderer. She’s entitled to support.’
‘If it all went wrong it’d be me carrying the can, not you, sir. It’s my duty not to put lives at risk. If something happened to you, I’d be the one got the blame and then I’d lose my job.’
Strang didn’t trust himself to reply. He slammed down the phone and leant back. There was little that angered him more than a jobsworth; civilians had died because police officers had been told that the risk assessment didn’t permit a rescue when it was the pride of the service that they put their lives on the line to protect the public.
On the other hand, putting your life on the line for any other reason was a different matter. He’d managed to establish from that ridiculous woman that PC Murray had looked odd, lurching as if she could be drunk. That sounded as if she was carrying an injury, probably because she’d worked things out too and misguidedly confronted Vicky Macdonald.
According to Beatrice, Vicky had been carrying a suitcase. If she was attempting to escape on a night like this when a small boat in a Force 8 was the only way out, she was desperate, if not actually deranged. For Livvy, injured already, to pursue her wasn’t heroic, it was plain idiotic. Once he got her safely back, there would be a day of reckoning. If he got her safely back. He couldn’t abandon her to the consequences of her folly, but with the best will in the world there was nothing he could do if he couldn’t get across the bay.
Tennant! He had a boat. The thought came to him like one of the lightning flashes outside and he was on his feet, running out of the building two minutes later.
It was still barely five o’clock. The massing clouds – purple, dirty grey, sullen red – were underlit by the last faint hint of daylight, and with the flickering light of the storm he was better able to see the road in front of him than he had been the previous night. He took the slope at speed and only three minutes later he was banging on the door of Tennant’s cottage.
Daniel Tennant didn’t look welcoming. He listened, unmoved, to Strang’s breathless demand. Then he laughed. ‘Go out in that? Got a death wish, or something? Even if you do, I don’t.’
‘I need to get across. I think Livvy’s in real danger.’
‘Oh? What a shame. Not as much danger as I’d be in, taking a boat out in that.’
‘Will you lend it to me, then?’ Strang said desperately.
‘Oh, sorry, mate,’ he drawled. ‘Not mine, you know. It’s only rented. I could phone the owner and ask his permission, but I doubt if he’d give it.’
This was pointless. Swearing, he turned away, defeated.
The storm was moving further away now. As if it were reluctant to leave, there was still the occasional bolt of lightning but it wasn’t directly overhead, as it had been. He turned to look across to Balnasheil Lodge, but the power cut had obviously affected them too; he couldn’t even make out the shape of the house in the darkness.
He was looking out to sea when a particularly bright flash highlighted something in the water – a small boat, bucking and corkscrewing in the waves. Who would be mad enough to take it out in these conditions?
As if he didn’t know. He stared, aghast; there were two figures on board. And it wasn’t heading straight across to the harbour here; with the street power cut there was probably no way of knowing out there where it would be. The waves were breaking right over it; how much water could a boat like that ship before capsizing? But what could he do – just watch them drown?
Murdo John’s cottage was just behind him, his boat moored right there in front. He spun round and hammered on the door.
Livvy was sick before the boat had even left the moorings. The terrible thing was that it left her so weak she couldn’t even try to pull Vicky away from the controls so that she could turn the boat back.
‘For God’s sake, Vicky,’ she screamed. ‘You’re going to kill us both!’
Vicky didn’t answer. She was wrestling with the wheel as the force of the waves battered the little boat, directing it one way and the other. They didn’t seem to be making any progress at all, just going up and down in ever more sickening circles.
‘Turn back,’ Livvy wailed. ‘We’re not getting anywhere!’
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