The Wrong Kind of Clouds

by Amanda Fleet

  ‘Kate Hampton? What about Kate Hampton?’

  ‘Let me cook you dinner and I’ll tell you. As I said, it’s largely conjecture, which is why I’m reluctant to tell Edinburgh. The last thing Kate Hampton needs is another scandal, especially when it’s built on the word of a ned.’

  LB laughed, his curiosity piqued. ‘Okay, I bite. Maybe. Can you cook?’

  ‘Yes. I cook very well, thank you very much. Anything you don’t eat?’

  ‘Badly cooked food.’

  She laughed again, but he hadn’t actually been joking.

  She gave him directions and rang off.

  LB placed his phone squarely on the table and sighed. ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’

  He reread his notes. A copy of The Scotsman lay on the table and he glanced at the headline. Patrick Forrester was connected to Kate Hampton, allegedly, and now her husband had left her and Patrick had disappeared. His eyes narrowed and he sucked his teeth, details of old cases and possible links crystallising in his brain. He added to his notes, his writing neat and succinct. Did he really want to get suckered into this? It wasn’t his case; wasn’t any of his business.

  ‘Merde,’ he muttered, checking the clock and calculating how long he had to shower and change.

  Boredom would be the death of him.

  Thursday Evening

  ‘It’s not a formal dinner.’ Summer’s gaze skipped over his jacket and tie, the expensive white shirt and the polished-conker leather shoes as she opened the door.

  ‘I’m not dressed formally.’

  She raised her eyebrows. She was wearing jeans, a loose-fitting kaftan-top and no make-up. Her feet sported hiking socks. As he’d presumed, dinner really wasn’t a date. Did she think he’d assumed it was? This was casual for him.

  ‘Come in.’ She stood back to let him pass her. ‘Let me take your jacket.’

  He crossed the threshold and stood in the hallway next to a plastic tray of muddy walking boots while she hung his jacket up, his eyes drifting over the framed photograph that filled the wall opposite. The picture had been printed as a single sheet and took up the full width of the hallway.

  ‘Wow.’

  She followed his gaze. ‘Thanks. It’s not really the right space to hang it in and it was a vain folly to get it printed in the first place, but I like it.’

  ‘How much does it weigh?’

  ‘Oh, God, lots. The fixings for it are industrial! That’s not the first thing people usually ask!’

  ‘Is that the one you won an award for?’

  ‘One of them. I used some of the prize money to get that printed and hung. I’m surprised you know about that.’

  ‘My partner told me.’

  He saw her glance flash to his hands.

  ‘Work partner.’

  She nodded and ushered him through to the lounge. His gaze swept over the room. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled one wall entirely and most of another. What space wasn’t taken up with shelving sported high-quality framed photos.

  ‘I take it you read a lot?’

  ‘Yeah. You could say that. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Just something soft please—I’m driving.’

  ‘Okay. And what should I call you? DS Stewart? LB?’

  Her mouth scrunched up as she tried out both names. LB smiled.

  ‘LB is fine. My partner calls me Ben. Either will do.’

  ‘Ben? Presumably the B of LB?’

  ‘Almost. And would you prefer Summer or Ms Morris?’

  ‘Christ. Ms Morris makes me sound like I’m seventy, living with my twelve cats and wearing a hairnet! Summer.’

  He nodded, laughing. Summer disappeared to make drinks. Left alone, LB took in the room. The bottom shelves of all the bookcases held photo albums, with more laid sideways over the tops. The rest of the cases were filled with paperbacks apart from one shelf that held leather-bound notebooks. He wondered how anyone could read this many books in a hundred years, never mind at her age. A small, flat-screen TV huddled in the corner, the angle of the screen confirming that it wasn’t regularly watched. The wooden table at the side of him was made from a slice through a tree-trunk, irregularly shaped but with a high polish on its surface. Three more books were on it, bookmarked at various levels of completion, together with two coasters, also made of wood and looking as if they were slivers from branches of the same tree as the table. On the more conventional, modern table in the window were more papers and clutter. The mantel above the open fire contained a few carvings and a painting hung on the wall above. LB walked over to look at the signature—P. Morris 1981. Mother? Father?

  He turned as Summer reappeared.

  ‘Relative?’ He indicated the picture.

  ‘Mum did it. Dad made the table.’

  ‘Artistic family.’

  She shrugged. ‘Elderflower cordial okay?’

  ‘Perfect. Thank you.’

  He took the glass from her and moved back to the sofa, unsure how to play things. He didn’t have any close female friends and was used to gathering evidence and taking statements in very different surroundings than over a home-cooked dinner. Summer made the decision for him.

  ‘Dinner will be another half-hour or so. Perhaps I could tell you about what I’ve found out—well, what I think I’ve found out—about Patrick?’

  He nodded. She retrieved a bundle of papers from the table in the window and settled back in a chair at the side of the sofa. LB waited while she shuffled through the sheets, watching her fidget and wondering why she was so anxious. She put half the stack on the floor for a moment, a mind-map on the top. LB read over it quickly while Summer found the sheet she was looking for, snatching his gaze away as she scooped the bundle up again.

  ‘Okay. Shall I tell you my theory first, and then explain how I got to it?’

  LB would have preferred evidence first, leading to a theory but he shrugged and nodded.

  ‘Would you mind if I jotted notes while you talk?’

  Summer shook her head and he picked up his attaché case and retrieved his notebook from it. ‘Fire away.’

  Summer looked at the sheets in her lap, composing her thoughts. LB uncapped his fountain pen, a fresh page in front of him.

  ‘Okay. Much of this is based on conjecture and something a complete ned told me,’ she started.

  LB hid his smile, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘I think that Patrick and Kate Hampton were having an affair. Which is why her husband has walked out.’

  She started to draw breath to continue, but LB jumped in.

  ‘Whoa! Patrick was having an affair with Kate Hampton, minister for health? Based on what evidence, other than that her husband has left her?’

  ‘That’s where the ned comes in. Guy at the Malawi–Scotland Alliance, the MSA. He was at a party and said Kate Hampton and Patrick arrived together and that they were obviously together at the party. Also said that Kate smoked dope.’

  LB felt his eyes pop and forced himself to look more neutral. ‘And his evidence would be…?’

  ‘None. No one took pictures as far as I know and from his description of the party, everyone would have been too stoned or too drunk or both to be able to accurately verify any of it. Hence me telling you and not Edinburgh.’

  ‘And what do you expect me to do with all this information?’

  ‘I don’t know but you asked me to keep you informed so I am.’

  LB jotted notes, shaking his head slightly.

  ‘And I think that Patrick might have been blackmailing Kate to get money, to pay off a loan shark.’

  LB’s gaze crawled back up, his head still lowered. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. And before you ask, no, I’ve no evidence for that either. Patrick arrived at work one day about a month ago, beaten up, although he claims he fell down the stairs in his flat. His flat’s on the ground floor but maybe he was at someone else’s flat. But anyway, the messages on the phone…’

  LB’s head snapped up. ‘What messages? Who
se phone?’

  His words seemed to rock her backwards and her reply came back hesitantly.

  ‘Patrick’s. I recorded the messages on his answerphone. Anyway, one of them sounded like it was from a loan shark.’

  ‘Wait! You did what?’

  ‘Made a copy of the messages on his answerphone. I haven’t deleted them, they’re still there. I thought I’d told you this.’

  ‘No.’ LB breathed slowly to settle his frustration. ‘Why would Patrick get involved with a loan shark?’ he asked when he’d managed to compose himself.

  Summer’s mouth was sulky and he had to force himself not to snap at her.

  ‘Don’t know for sure, but he was always short of money and always full of grand schemes that’d make him rich. I know he needed money earlier this year. My guess is that he overstretched himself on one of these grand schemes and it didn’t work out, so he went to a shark.’

  ‘Why not go to a bank?’

  ‘The banks wouldn’t lend to Patrick. His credit rating is shit.’

  LB stared at her, still trying to follow the thread from Kate Hampton. Summer opened her mouth as if to continue but LB held up his hand.

  ‘Okay, stop. I want to start right at the beginning and have you outline what you know, how you know it and when you found it out. Let’s start again at Tuesday, after you got the call. What happened next?’

  Summer sighed, gathered all her papers together again and sorted them into a different order. Taking a deep breath, she started again, working her way chronologically through her week. She reached Ed’s assertion that he’d met Kate at a party.

  ‘So I thought, that’s where I know the voice from and therefore Patrick and Kate must have been having an affair.’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t tell me what your theories are. Just tell me what you did and what you found out. I just want the evidence.’ LB’s voice was clipped.

  Summer pursed her lips. ‘Why? Why don’t you want my reasoning?’

  ‘As Sherlock Holmes said, “It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. It biases the judgement.” I want to see if I come to the same conclusions as you, based on the same facts.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you reach the same conclusions?’

  ‘Because your reasoning could be biased. As could your evidence.’

  Summer raised her brows, her mouth set. LB rubbed his jaw, his stubble rasping against his palm. He was too used to interrogating witnesses. He had to stay patient; remember that she wasn’t a detective, even if she had been trying to find out why her friend was missing. He needed to stop treating her like an inept junior.

  He held his hands up in peace. ‘Sorry. I’m not explaining myself well. Some of your evidence is based on the words of a ned, as you so delightfully called him. The rest all comes from you. It will all have inherent bias.’

  She folded her arms challengingly, waiting for him to explain.

  ‘All witness statements have inherent bias. Mine, yours, everyone’s. Some witnesses are racist, some don’t like women, some are religious, some aren’t… What people are like, how they’ve been brought up… it flavours what they remember, how they describe things. How your ned describes that party will be very different from how I would describe that party.’

  She nodded, her posture relaxing slightly, a smile tickling the edges of her mouth. LB ploughed on.

  ‘You made a complaint against Patrick Forrester for stealing from you, less than three months ago. It makes your information biased.’

  Summer blinked, looking as if she’d been slapped.

  ‘I asked you here for dinner so I could tell you what I know. So you could help Patrick. Not so you could sit there and cast things up like that!’

  ‘You asked me here because I’m a cop. I’m just telling you how cops work. We have to take each piece of evidence and assess its value, its credibility. And frankly, you stretch my patience and you look wrong. All. Wrong,’ LB fired back.

  Her eyes were glacial but he went on, needing to clear the atmosphere.

  ‘You report this guy for theft, yet it’s you he calls when he’s in trouble. I have to wonder why. Why are you involved at all? You go to his flat, you photograph everything, you take things away. Why? If he winds up dead in a ditch, we have your word and your word alone as to what his flat looked like when he went missing. What was there… what has gone? How do I know that you didn’t rearrange things before you photographed them? How do I know whether you found those bits and pieces in the yard at the back or somewhere else? Or made it all up? Is he even missing? Why has no one else reported him missing? You say you listened to the messages when you were there. Why? Why even go? Why not leave the police to do their job?’

  ‘The police aren’t doing anything! I asked you for help and you treat me like I’m the one who’s behind all this!’ Furious tears brightened her eyes. ‘I went to his flat to see if anything was being done to find him. There was nothing. No tape, no cops. Nothing! Why would I rearrange things? Why would I make this up? Believe me, I have never wanted to be involved with the police.’

  LB sighed. Arty parents? A name like Summer? He could almost smell the dope-filled house and feel the antipathy towards authority. No, she wouldn’t want to get involved with the police.

  ‘Summer, I’m just telling you what I see. Most people would not have acted the way you have. You contaminated a crime scene! You’re asking me to help you because you say you’re worried about this guy, yet your history with him is difficult, angry, complicated. Then you tell me that you think he’s having an affair with a high-powered woman. Maybe you’re jealous about that. Maybe there’s more anger in there.’

  He looked carefully at her, trying to make his expression soft. Her mouth was a hard line, her shoulders tight.

  ‘I think you should leave.’

  LB drew a deep breath, his eyes measuring her. ‘I’ll leave if you insist, but if you’re genuinely worried about this guy disappearing, if something really has happened to him, if your assumptions are in any way valid, you need me to help you.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ Summer got up abruptly and stalked past him. ‘I need to check something in the kitchen.’

  LB closed his eyes, sighing heavily. He genuinely hadn’t intended to upset her, but once he’d got started, it had all come tumbling out. He stretched his back, wishing he hadn’t come, his eyes scanning the books and the pictures jostling for space on the walls. Presumably she’d tidied up before he arrived but the sheer number of items in the room along with their complete lack of order made him feel agitated. His gaze fell on the mind-map again and he tilted his head to look at it. She’d only talked about half of what was on the page. He read over the other half. Child trafficking? Was Patrick involved with that? He frowned. Would that link in with his job? He tore his gaze away as Summer returned.

  ‘Would you still like me to leave?’

  She hesitated, and then forced the words out. ‘No. You’re right. I do look wrong, as you put it. And I do need your help.’

  LB nodded. ‘Child trafficking? Did you want to tell me about that? Continue your narrative?’

  ‘Just the evidence?’ She spoke as if the words tasted bitter.

  ‘Mmm. Give me the analysis and supposition afterwards. But be prepared for me to challenge every assumption you make or conclusion you draw. I don’t mean to offend you by doing that. I’m meaning to be objective; to drill down to facts and strip away as much bias as I can, to see what’s really there. If even half of what you’re thinking is true, then I’ll need to talk to Edinburgh about it and I want my facts straight for that. You’re casting aspersions about a very important politician with elections looming next week.’

  ‘I know. It’s why I wanted to talk to you before saying anything to them. I just wasn’t prepared for your reaction.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I ranted.’

  She fixed him with an unwavering stare. ‘Dinner’s ready. Come through to the table?’

  He stood and followed her
. She waved him to a seat in a richly painted dining room. One entire wall was taken up with books and the others were decorated with more photographs. The walls were painted blood-red and red velvet curtains embroidered with gold filigree covered the window. He’d not been expecting it and stared. The darkness of the paint and furnishings should have made the room oppressive, but the minimalism of the single table and four chairs as the only furniture present made it seem cosy instead. He sat down. The table was decorated simply with placemats, side plates, cutlery and no tablecloth, allowing the polished wooden table to glow in the low light. A single peony floated in a small glass bowl.

  Summer returned with a tray bearing two bowls, a pottery butter dish and a basket of bread. LB smiled, leaning back to allow her to put the bowl in front of him. She positioned the bread and butter between them and slid into the seat opposite, smiling back, although LB could almost feel her reservation.

  ‘Did you want me to carry on where I left off?’

  ‘Actually, no. I don’t have my notes and anyway, it would be rude to write while we’re eating. Why don’t you go right back? To when you and Patrick met. Tell me more about him.’ LB lifted his spoon.

  Summer paused, selecting a piece of bread and buttering it slowly. ‘I worked with him on an article. For the MSA. They needed a photographer. Patrick knew of my work and rang me up.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Last autumn. October.’

  LB’s mind flickered. A lot had happened between them in a very few months. He said nothing.

  ‘So, we went out to Malawi together and he got the information for his piece and I took the pictures.’

  ‘What was the piece on?’

  ‘Some of the projects that are linked with members of the MSA. There’s a project with health worker exchanges, which is where I imagine he ended up in contact with Kate Hampton.’

  ‘No. Just the facts. In order. I’ll find out what you imagine later.’

  Summer looked away and pinched her nose. ‘Okay. There was the health worker project, one on farming, one on tailoring and of course there was Samala.’

  ‘Which is what?’