by Tom Clancy
“Hate the bloody bastard, always winkin’ at me. Not a person deserved dyin’ more’n him, I don’t mind sayin’.” Fraser Payton pulled up his whiskey, shooting it down his throat. “I had a mind once to wring his neck with my own hands, and still to God I wish I’d done it some nights. I might still, mind.”
“Hardly worth the effort now,” said Gorrie.
“Aye.” Payton pushed the glass along in the direction of the bar, catching the owner’s attention.
It was not hard to guess why Payton hadn’t assaulted Mackay while he was alive—he stood perhaps five-two, a good head and a half shorter than Mackay. He looked to weigh less than half the man.
Still, the short types often had nasty tempers; it occurred to Gorrie that someone with such a deep hate might have killed the wife to cover up the murder, then staged it as a suicide.
“The man was a bad one, Inspector. My Margie was a ripe fool. With her mother now. Run along home to Mom, she did.”
A string of synonyms for the lower reaches of the female anatomy spewed from Payton’s mouth. Gorrie looked at the man’s hands on the table—slender fingers, almost delicate. You could judge much by a man’s hands, but you couldn’t decide whether he was a murderer or not—too much variety.
“When did your wife leave?” Gorrie asked.
“Seven years this September. Right ’fore he left Inverness.”
“Seven years?”
“He was scared o’ me, I’ll tell you that,” said Payton.
The bartender approached to refill the drink. “Steady, lad,” he told Payton.
“Scared o’ you?” asked Gorrie.
“You’re dreamin’, lad,” said the owner.
“Aye, he was. I heard he’d come back—I’d seen him sulking around. And didn’t he see me three days ago, up in Rosmarkie? Aye, was him, as if he were someone more than a shit, meeting with the council member—hid when he saw me. He did.” Payton turned to the bartender and raised his finger. “Hid. Hid.”
“What council member would that be?” said Gorrie.
“Cameron,” said Payton triumphantly. “Ewie B. Cameron, on the land council, among others. A gentleman. Had the sewer in front of my house fixed two years ago. I don’t hold him any ill will, Inspector—a fair man and for the people, as were his ancestors.”
“Are you sure it was Cameron?” asked Gorrie.
“Oh, yes. And Mackay, the slog. Saw me come in and turned away. Scared o’ me. What he didna’ know, as far as I’m concerned, he could ha’e her. Would ha’e served her right. Could have been my old wife there in that bed, pulled the trigger.”
“Three nights ago,” said Gorrie, his tone light, “would have been the day before Mackay died.”
“The wife killed him,” said the bartender.
“Inquiry will decide that,” said Gorrie.
Payton reached toward the bottle in the bartender’s hand, tipping down the neck to refill his glass again.
“You’re sure it was Cameron?” asked Gorrie.
“It was him.”
Gorrie leaned back in his seat, considering the coincidence of the thing. For if his memory was correct, Ewie B. Cameron, latest in a clan of noble and semi-noble Scots, had been killed in a traffic accident the same night Mackay and his wife had died.
An odd coincidence, to be sure.
SIX
INVERNESS, SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS
MARCH 6, 2002
FRANK GORRIE SAT NEAR THE WINDOW IN HIS OLD platform rocker and watched the lights of a car out on the street slide across the dark bedroom walls. It was chilly, quiet, his wife dead to the world under the heavy quilts, her breathing soft and regular.
Gorrie couldn’t sleep. He was wearing his flannel robe and wool socks and had put one of Nan’s hand-knitted throw blankets over his lap. The chair was comfortable, though it creaked when he went rocking back too far. The springs, Gorrie thought. They needed to be oiled. He’d given it a tick on his mental list of waiting house chores. The list was long, and there were many things on it that deserved priority. But oiling the springs wouldn’t take much time. Maybe he’d find a spare moment over the weekend. He ought to anyway. Easier than fixing that runny tap in the loo. He’d try to make a point of getting it done. Next weekend seemed a reasonable target. Meanwhile, Gorrie was trying not to rock too far back in his chair. It was late. The stillness exaggerated every sound. He did not want to disturb Nan. Five nights now since he’d been able to get a decent bit of rest. Or was it six?
He counted backward. Outside, the car moved unhurriedly along the street. He could hear its motor running, and the low shush of its tires as it drew to a halt by the traffic signal at the corner intersection. Then its lights froze on the wall above his bed. Gorrie noticed the diffuse red glow of the stop signal through the frosty window-pane. A law-abiding driver. Commendable. It was getting on two o’clock, stub end of the night. There were only 130 officers to police the sixty thousand civilians in the Inverness Command Area. Scant odds one of them would be around to cite some luckless sod for running a stop signal. Besides Gorrie himself, of course. And he surely wasn’t about to leave the plump, worn-in cushions of his favorite chair.
The signal turned green and the car rounded the corner. Its lights grazed the window, fluttered from wall to wall, then slid across the ceiling. Gorrie counted backward. Five nights, aye, sitting here awake and wide-eyed with a throw over his legs. Wasn’t until a full day after answering the call to Eriskay Road that he’d gotten himself into a twist about it. Gorrie did not know the reason for his delayed reaction. But his mind had been making up for it ever since.
He sat there thinking. Nan shifted under the pile of quilts. He couldn’t tell whether she had moved from her side onto her back, her back to her side, or from one side to the other. The room was very dark. In the winter she had a habit of pulling the quilts up over her head. Slept like a rock under all that fabric and filling. When the cat came pawing at the footboard for her morning meal, you could rely on Nan to be oblivious. Or pretend to be oblivious. It irritated him, obliging that cat’s whims. Sometimes Gorrie would thumb his chest grumpily and protest. Last into bed, first out, he’d say. How’s that for a rule? Where’s the equity? Who rates higher in this household, me or the bloody fur ball? Nan scarcely heeded him, except perhaps to give him a wry little smile.
Gorrie realized he’d almost leaned back too far, gotten the chair to where its rickety springs would squeak. He carefully eased it down. His rocker was different from the cat. The tiniest noise out of it was enough to disturb Nan through her blankets. She’d heard him rocking last night, and the night before. Leave it to Nan. She had peeked an eye out from the thick folds of her covers, asked Gorrie what was bothering him. Not that she didn’t already have an inkling. Or better. Edward and Claire Mackay’s deaths had given a fair boost in popularity to the local papers and telly news broadcasts. Certainly it was meatier dish than the traffic watch, daily stats, or a piece about drunk and disorderly teens setting a brush fire in some city park. And Claire’s former flatmate, Christine Gibbon, had been generous to reporters with every appalling detail of the sight she’d come upon at the bungalow. Nan had his number, all right. Leave it to her.
Gorrie stared at the quilts gathered up in a mound over his wife’s sleeping body. She was a big woman. Even twenty-five years ago, when he had dropped down on his knee to propose to her, it couldn’t have been said that she had a waifish figure. But he hadn’t wanted to marry a nudie-magazine centerfold. Nan knew her best attributes and put herself together in a way that accented them. And when she got that certain randy look her eyes . . . in spite of his occasional grumbling, Gorrie had no cause to be envious of any man with regard to his conjugal pleasures. Give him his choice of rides, he’d always pick a luxury-model sedan over a Fiat. Not that he didn’t appreciate the latter’s strong appeal.
Another car approached his house, rolled past. Its headlights swept the walls. Shadows scattered from them like black butterflies, then
regrouped. Gorrie thought about the deceased Claire Mackay, and how she had looked in the abattoir that was once her bedroom. Claire Mackay lying in that dash of a baby-doll nightie, her leg half wrapped around her husband’s corpse, one hand spread on his naked chest, the other around the gun she’d used to kill him before ending her own life as well. Gorrie could attest that she had been a woman with eye-catching physical attributes. A shape like hers took maintenance. Probably she’d stuck to a regular exercise routine. No doubt she had watched her calories. There had been enough of her exposed for Gorrie to know she’d had no leftover padding from her recent maternity.
He wished it were possible to wash away his recollection of the gruesome sight she’d made of herself above the neck.
Gorrie frowned. Made of herself . . .
Claire Mackay. Five nights now he’d been thinking about her final act, and the way she had apparently committed it. A bullet in the mouth, its trajectory blasting through the palate into her brain. That method had the surest results in gun suicides involving a head wound. Took some effort, though. It would have required Claire to turn the firing hand toward herself at an awkward angle, most likely gripping its wrist with her opposite hand to steady the barrel. It would also have meant she would be able to see the barrel as she thrust it into her mouth. Well, unless she’d closed her eyes the entire time. They’d been open when he found her, but their lids could have raised postmortem. At any rate, a shot to the temple was more common. Only one hand was needed to grip the gun. It was easier, and usually cleaner. Less blood and tissue splatter. Usually. But it had a downside too. A nervous jitter would cause the bullet to glance off the scalp, inflict nonfatal damage, and leave the person crippled or a dribbling vegetable.
Gorrie supposed the messiness of the scene was another of the things that had niggled at him these past nights. In his experience, women tended to avoid ruining their faces when they did away with themselves. They swallowed pills or poison, slit their wrists in the bath, went to sleep breathing automobile exhaust. If they used a pistol, the fatal shot was most often pointed at their chests. You couldn’t state it hard and fast, naturally. But neat was the preference. A fit specimen like Claire Mackay, who cared about her looks . . . Gorrie wouldn’t have thought she was one who’d leave herself to be found mutilated. And then there was her racy wear. It wasn’t what she’d have put on before polishing the nails, setting the hair in rollers, and going off to dreamland. A woman didn’t slip into a provocative nightie like that, make an irresistible package of herself, unless she was in what you’d call a romantic mood. Yet Claire’s passion for Ed had gone into a sudden tailspin, hit some jagged divide in the moments before it would have brought them to an act of love.
Gorrie shifted in his chair, his frown deepening. What had her husband done to turn things bad?
Gorrie stared at his sleeping wife in the silence. Shadows crowded him. There hadn’t been a passing car for a while, and the corner traffic signal flashed meaninglessly at an empty street. He had wondered at the absence of a suicide note. In the bungalow, he’d noticed that the wee’un had been fine attended. His room was small but tidy, his pajamas and linens freshly washed, the closet shelves stocked with nappies, cotton bobs, and the like. There were toys and stuffed animals in his crib, bright-colored mobiles hanging above it. Fine attended. Yet in the time between Claire’s putting a shot in her husband’s head and turning the gun on herself, she’d seemingly given no thought to what the consequences would be for the child. Not even to snatching up a piece of paper and scribbling the name of a family member, godparent, friend, some preferred or appointed guardian who would see to his welfare. Instead, she had abandoned her responsibility, left the state to decide what was to become of him.
Gorrie had seen a lot in his twenty-five years on the job. More than he wanted. He knew better than to make assumptions. Still, this affair seemed curious. And there were some further peculiarities he wanted to straighten out in his head when the forensic reports arrived from the lab. That wouldn’t be for another couple of weeks, he’d been told . . . but Gorrie knew how to put on the hustle.
He meshed the fingers of his hands, stretched his arms above his head, heard vertebrae popping along his neck and spine. The illuminated clock on his nightstand told him it was almost 3 A.M. Och, well. Gorrie had hoped he might get tired enough to catch a nod before the kitty sprang from her basket alongside the bed. But it wouldn’t be long now till the troublesome bugger started a rumpus. He would sit cozily another few minutes, then go into the kitchen, open a can of Felix, put the teapot on the burner. . . .
“Frank? You in that creakin’ monstrosity again? Woke me from a fast asleep.”
Gorrie looked at the bed. Nan had flipped the blankets from her head and propped herself up slightly on her elbows. He couldn’t see her features in the dark, but knew she was scowling at him just the same. He was certain he hadn’t made a sound with the chair.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was about to get up and prepare a small bit ’a breakfast. . . .”
She leaned toward the bedside clock. “Breakfast? Are you real? It’s not yet three in the morn.”
“Couldn’t sleep much,” he said.
“Losh! Frank, this can na’ go on. Sittin’ up night after night, all the night, then takin’ yourself off to work. I thought you said you’d try’n get some rest. . . .”
“I tried.”
“You’re no youngster, d’you ken?”
“Sure enough.”
“Then what of it? What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” he said. It was mostly a truthful answer.
“Frank, if it’s that business on Eriskay got you gutted, we should bring it out in the open. . . .”
“Steady on,” Gorrie interrupted. He got up from his rocker, ignoring the loud complaint of its springs, and went over to crouch at Nan’s side of the bed. “Look, Nan. Suppose I give staying under the blankets a better effort after I come home tonight. Ought to be a breeze with some wifely inspiration,” he said, then abruptly bent forward, cupped her chin in his hand, and planted a long, full kiss on her lips.
She sighed. Up this close, Gorrie had no problem whatsoever making out her features. They were crinkled with surprise, exasperation, and affection.
“What was that show of tenderness about?” She gave him a soft nudge on the chest. “Lookin’ to keep me quiet, are you?”
“Maybe I am, sweets,” he said, still crouching over her. “And maybe it just struck me that it’s good to be among the lucky ones.”
The tall firs lining the path to the estate house watched Gorrie come up the drive with the resolute solidity of guards protecting the approach to a castle, pikes and swords at the ready. The tires of the inspector’s Ford Mondeo plowed through the thick bed of stones as he circled the drive to the large house, the path designed to give the visitor a clear impression not so much of the house but the owner’s good taste in having it built. The structure dated from the eighteenth century, a time of relative peace if not absolute prosperity for the Cameron who had first occupied it. Had DI Gorrie cared to inquire, he would have been quickly supplied a thick pamphlet with small type documenting the exploits of the Highland Camerons. The booklet was available at several places in the nearby town; several copies were on the shelves of the local library as well as in all the churches and schools, though in the latter case the edition omitted a few of the more questionable stories from the past.
The place’s ancient history was of no interest to Gorrie; to be truthful, he wasn’t entirely sure that its more recent history was of interest either. The report on Ewie B. Cameron’s death was rather clear and precise: hit by a medium-to-large-sized truck in the early morning hours. Death almost instantaneous from a selection of internal and external wounds. The fog and winding, narrow road would have made it difficult to see the victim, who habitually took the walk as part of his daily exercise. The investigation was open as no one had come forward to claim responsibility; it was possible
that the driver hadn’t seen what he had hit, and thought the noise an animal such as a dog, or even one of the deer that wandered the nearby woods.
Not likely, thought Gorrie, but the driver’s solicitor would undoubtedly make the claim if it came to that. A good number of juries might agree, if things were handled just right. Not even the frown of the magistrate would sway them if the accused looked downtrodden and had wife and kiddies in tow.
The stone steps to the front door had slight indentations, scuffed down by three centuries’ worth of soles. Ewie had lived here alone, without even live-in help. A cook came to do his meals, and two maids to keep the place tidy; a gardening service trimmed the grass and attended to the hedges. But at nights the place was empty except for Mr. Cameron; there was no Mrs. Ewie Cameron.
There was, however, a sister, Miss Ellie Cameron, who had come up from Edinburgh to attend to matters after her brother’s demise. And it was she who came to the door as Gorrie approached.
“Inspector Gorrie?”
“Yes.”
“Please.” She turned at the door and headed down a long hallway at the right. Gorrie pulled the door closed behind him, then followed. Ms. Cameron’s heels clicked on the stones, her pace steady. In some homes the entrance hallways were festooned with historical mementos, some pertaining to the family, many not. But these corridors were bare. No thick Oriental carpet covered the floors, and the walls were plaster, not paneled. Somehow that made him feel more at ease, and even respectful.
Family history notwithstanding, Ewie Cameron had not cut a large swath in life, even according to the obituary Gorrie had read. He was a relatively modest and quiet man, keen on doing his duty and otherwise remaining private. He observed the unwritten code of conduct applying to all well-born Highlanders, and most certainly descendants of such noble men as Sir Ewen, seventeenth clan chieftain, Major Allan Cameron, founder of the bold 79th Highlanders, and Air Captain “Hick” Cameron, double ace and hero of the Battle of Britain. He contributed to the proper charities, was unfailingly sober when in public, and golfed twice a week, weather permitting.