by Blake Banner
I drummed my fingers softly on the table. “It was hard to miss, Mrs. Gordon, that you and he did not draw together when you discovered your son was dead. It was Sally who was consoling him.”
“That would be no great surprise to anybody.”
“Is it possible that theirs is more than just a passing affair?”
“I’ve no doubt she believes it is.”
“And if she is right, could that be why he has become more blatant?”
She gazed at me with hostile eyes. “What has this to do with my son’s murder?”
I nodded several times. It was a good question, and I wasn’t sure what the answer was. “So, he asked you to leave the room. What happened next?”
“I dressed and went downstairs. My son and the major were in the drawing room, but I couldn’t face seeing people so I went out onto the terrace. Bee came out after me and sat with me. The woman is insufferable. She is forever trying to be kind to me, in spite of my low class! I could….” She stopped herself and took a deep breath. “She knew that Sally was there. She had arrived with the groceries for the kitchen. Charles has a taste for working class wenches. No doubt the whole fucking house was gossiping and giggling about Sally making her ‘delivery’!”
Dehan asked, “What happened next?”
“We talked for a while. I asked her how she could still love him after the way he had treated her for all these years. She gave me some crap about how she loved him because of the way he was. I told her she must be a fuckin’ masochist, and she said maybe she was, but she didn’t care. She was happy just to be near him.”
She gave an ugly smile and snorted. Dehan narrowed her eyes. “What’s funny?”
Pam pointed at the drawing room door. Her accent seemed to be getting stronger the madder she got. “That bastard humiliated and broke me, and because of that I’ve tolerated all the shit that he’s thrown at me for nearly forty years. I watched him break my son’s spirit, I watched him parade one tart after another through our bedroom, I let him rape me more times than I can remember. I watched him—the one girl my son fell in love with, they even got engaged, and that bastard seduced her, bought her, just so he could humiliate his own son. And I sat by and watched it happen, year after year, because he had broken me, too.” She shook her head. “But Sally Cameron? She’s an even bigger bastard than he is. And she’s thirty years younger than him, and she knows he needs her more than she needs him. And she will not tolerate the likes of Lady Bee and all the other tarts parading around the house…”
I said, “You think he is planning to divorce you and marry Sally?”
She looked sourly at her hands. “Of course he is. And then he’ll get a taste of his own bloody medicine, because she will take him for everything he’s got, and then dump him for a younger man.”
Dehan shifter uncomfortably in her dress and kicked off her red satin shoes. “So, you talked to Bee, then what?”
She shrugged. “She made me angry. She couldn’t see that we were both as screwed as each other. They were going to kick us both out. It made me so mad that all she could do was defend him…” She studied Dehan’s face a moment. “Then you came out onto the terrace. I’m sorry about what I said.” She smiled ruefully. “You’re probably the first woman in years he’s met and hasn’t screwed.”
Dehan shook her head. “So where did you go from there?”
“I went to one of the spare rooms. Frankly, I just wanted a good cry and a sleep. As I came out into the hall…” She glanced at me. “You and the major and my son were just going into the study.”
“How long did you stay in the guest room?”
“Until…” She rubbed her face with her hands and took a deep breath. “Until about half past six. Then I showered, changed and came down.”
“Did you see anybody?”
She shook her head. “No, the study door was closed.”
“Who was in the drawing room?”
She shrugged. “Exactly as you saw it. You came in just after me.”
“You didn’t witness the row with Dr. Cameron?”
“No. He had just left when I came down. Charles was talking about it. He thought it was funny. So did Sally.”
“We are almost done, Mrs. Gordon…”
“Please stop calling me that. I’m no his wife anymore. I’ve got to stop pretending to be somebody I’m not. I’m Pamela May, no Pamela Gordon. The only thing that tied me to that bastard was the son we had together. Now he’s gone and I am free.” She raised her eyes to mine. “I’m Pamela, or Pam.”
I nodded. “Pam. Did Robert Armstrong have any quarrel with your son that you know of?”
She looked surprised. “Bobby?” She shrugged. “Bobby’s always been a miserable bastard. Nobody likes him, except that stuck up tart he’s with, Elizabeth, Lizzie. He has always hated my…” She sighed. “He has always hated Charles Sr., because he says he cheated him out of his inheritance. Which is patently absurd. All he did was persuade his father not to give away their estate to complete strangers on the strength of some dubious connection based on clan history.”
I shrugged. “Still, the resentment was there.”
“Against Charles Sr., never against my son, as far as I am aware.” She looked suddenly drawn. “Detectives, the fact is that nobody on Earth could have had any conceivable motive to kill Charles. You knew him. That was him through and though. He was a kind, sweet, gentle soul. If anybody deserved to die it was his father, and God knows enough people had motive for that, me the first among them. It is a cruel, twisted irony that it was his son who got murdered.”
There was a tap at the door and Brown stepped in. “Detectives, Dr. Cameron is here.”
I looked at Dehan, we stared at each other a moment in a kind of silent telepathy, then I sighed and sat forward. “Thank you, Brown, will you send him in, please?”
He stepped out and a moment later opened the door again to admit Dr. Ian Cameron and his black bag. His face said he was both very confused and very annoyed. He took three strides, saying, “Would somebody mind telling me…” Then he stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Pam. After a moment, the anger drained from his face. “Pam? What in the name of God…?”
I watched him approach the table, grab a chair and drag it over beside Pamela. He held her hand, touched her face and examined her eyes, all in a matter of a few seconds. “What happened to you, lass?” He scowled at me and Dehan. “What the hell is going on?”
Pam drew breath but I put my hand on her arm. “Mrs. Gordon has had a very powerful, traumatic shock. You may consider she needs a sedative to be able to sleep. After that, we will tell you exactly what has happened, and in fact you may be able to help us sort it out. It’s a bit of a mess.”
He studied us a moment, then turned back to Pamela. “Pam?”
She nodded. “Please, Ian, just give me something to knock me out for few hours. I’m shattered.”
He opened his bag and took a small plastic bottle of tablets. Then he looked at me. “I should accompany her…”
Dehan rose and went to the door. She called Brown and the major. Meanwhile, I shook my head at Cameron. “Just this once, Doc, we’ll let the major and the butler do it.”
“What the hell is going on here?”
“We’re about to tell you.”
The major appeared at the door. Pam took the tablets from Cameron’s fingers. He said, “Take two, no more.” She rose and crossed the room to the major. They departed with Cameron staring after them as Dehan closed the door. Dehan sat. Cameron looked from me to her and back again. He was worried. He repeated, “What the hell is going on? Somebody had better start explaining or else…”
I sat forward and interrupted him. “You had a row with Charles Gordon Sr. this evening. What was that about?”
“Mind your own fuckin’ business is what it was about!”
“Was it his fucking business you were mad about?”
He stood. I don’t know if he was going to leave or hit me.
I looked up into his face and said, “Charles Gordon has been murdered, Doctor.”
The blood drained from his face. “What? No, I…” He turned and pointed to the door. Then realization set in. “You mean…”
Dehan nodded. “The son. Charles Gordon Jr. Now, Doc, suppose we start again? What was the row about?”
FOURTEEN
He sat slowly at the table, staring at Dehan, then at me.
“Young Charles…? Murdered? He can’t be… It’s absurd! I should see the body! Thus is insane! Why, he may not even be dead! Have you all lost your minds?”
I said, “Nobody has lost their mind, Doctor, and believe me, he is not alive. We’ll take you to see him in a while, so you can write a death certificate. But before that, we need to ask you some questions.”
His face flushed with anger. I got the feeling that was something that happened often and easily.
“Who the bloody hell d’you think y’are? You cannot interrogate me! I’m a Scotsman in my own fuckin’ country! You can’t come in here demanding to ask me fuckin’ questions! You bloody Americans think you can…”
I cut him short. “Take it easy, Doc, nobody is marching in anywhere or demanding anything. It looks like we might be cut off for the next couple of days or three. Gordon Sr. asked us to look into his son’s murder. Nobody can force you to answer questions, to us or to your own cops for that matter. But he’s been murdered, there is no question about that, and it makes sense to start investigating before the trail goes cold.” I shrugged and spread my hands. “I can’t see that it makes much difference what nationality we are. The fact is we are experienced homicide detectives.” I shrugged. “But if you want to refuse to talk to us because we’re Americans, that’s fine, we can notify the cops when they get here that you were unwilling to cooperate.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Don’t be absurd. It’s just a shock. I’m still reeling. How did it happen?”
We both stared at him for a long moment, waiting. Finally, Dehan said, “This is the third time we’re having to ask you this, Doctor. We’re not here for a chat and a gossip. We’re here on Mr. Gordon’s invitation to investigate a homicide, until such time as the Scottish PD can be notified. Now, for the third time, what did you argue about?”
He sank back in his chair. “As though you don’t already know! OK! We’ll play along wuth the wee farce! Sally was—is—having an affair wuth that old bastard. Until recently they were at least discreet, an’ I thought it would blow over. The man is notorious fer the number of women he has had affairs wuth. He seduces them, plays around with them for a week or two, then sends them packing. But that didn’t happen with Sal. It went on, and on. And it just seemed to get more serious every week. Till suddenly we were being invited fer dinner at the fuckin’ castle.”
He shifted in his chair, looking around at the walls like they were making him mad. He pointed toward the drawing room again and his face flushed red. “So that he… So that he could gloat and humiliate his wife and me! Together! I ask you, what kind of sick bastard does that, eh?”
He half stood and sat, shifted. He couldn’t keep still in his chair. “But there’s more. There’s more. You don’t know thus. Sal’s shop, that belongs to him. Mah practice, mah surgery, is above the post office, an’ that belong to him an’all. I’m thirty-seven years old. My whole practice is on his wee island. Now, what do yous think is going to happen to me if he decides he’s had enough of Pamela fuckin’ May because she’s too old and fuckin’ wrinkly? If he decides he wants my wife instead of his own? I’ll tell yous what’ll fuckin’ happen. Either he’ll kick me out an’ force me into unemployment on the fuckin mainland, or he’ll keep me here so’s him and his new fuckin’ trophy bride can laugh at me and humiliate me.” He stared at me for a long moment. His breathing was heavy and fast and his face was flushed. He shifted in his seat again and said savagely, “So that’s what the fuckin’ row was about!”
I scratched my chin. The wind was still moaning outside, but I was aware the thunder had grown more distant.
“What time was that?”
He shook his head. “Sal came up one thirty or two. You were there. You saw.”
Dehan said, “And you?”
“I wasn’t going to come. Then I thought, I can’t see my patients in thus state of mind. I had to get it off my chest an’ have it out with the bastard. So I come up and he were out there, in the hall, just standin’ there, leering at me with his stupid face.”
Dehan hid a smile behind a frown and said, “What time? It’s important.”
He sighed, rubbed his face, then ran his fingers through his hair. “Six, six thirty maybe.”
I sat forward with my elbows on the table. “Think carefully, Doctor, where was he coming from, or going?”
He frowned at me like I was crazy. “How should I know? He was just standing there, lookin’ kind o’ creepy. I let’im have it an’ I left.”
I raised an eyebrow. “There were no doors open to suggest where he had been or where he might be going?”
He thought about it, frowned, then shook his head. “No. Well, the cupboard, under the stairs, that was open an’ the light was on. But other than that, no.”
“So the study door was closed?”
He nodded. “Aye, I just told you it was. Why?”
I stared at Dehan a moment. She stared back, then turned to Cameron with a frown. “How was your relationship with Charles Jr.?”
He shrugged, then shook his head. “You’re no going ta pin his murder on me. There was no ‘relationship’ to speak of. We nodded to each other in the street. I never treated him as a patient. The few times we exchanged words he struck me as nice enough. To be honest I thought he was a stuck-up English prick, but he hid it under a veneer of polite deference. But then I don’t like the English very much.” He paused, with an aggressive challenge in his eyes. “Come to think of it, he was no English, he was American, but I don’t like Americans very much either.”
Dehan sighed. “I’m sure there will be a lot of weeping in the streets of England and the U.S.A. when that bombshell gets out on Twitter, Doctor Cameron, but personally I don’t give a rat’s ass because I think the stuck-up prick is not the dead man you’re about to see in the study, but you. But here’s the thing I’m curious about, Doc, how did you get hold of the gun?”
He squinted at her like she was insane. “What?”
Dehan laughed and I smiled and sat back. She spread her hands. “Come on! How stupid do you think we are? More to the point, how smart do you need to be to work it out?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“How did it happen? He showed Sally his revolver one day and she told you about it? She told you he kept it in a drawer in his bedroom?”
“You’re insane.”
“Then, when the affair got out of hand and you saw your marriage, your livelihood and your future going down the can, you decided the old man had to go. After all, if Charles Jr. inherited, he was easy to handle, even if he was a stuck-up English prick. At least he wasn’t screwing half the women on the island, including your wife, right? He wasn’t a threat.”
“Fer the last time, I don’ know what you’re talking about! Yous said it was Charles Jr. who was killed, not Charles Sr.! So what are you on about?”
She nodded. “Sure. You came into the hall. You saw Gordon Sr. outside the study in the hall and you assumed that was where he was going. So you let him have it, then went down to the kitchen. The staff were upstairs preparing the dining room for dinner. You slipped through, up the service stairs and into his bedroom where you found the revolver. Then you went down and out again. Through the window you saw the man you thought was Gordon Sr. sitting at his desk and you shot him. But you made a mistake. It was his son.”
He gaped at us. “You must be absolutely fuckin’ stupid, even by American standards. That is the biggest load of bollocks I have ever had the misfortune to listen to. It is laughable.”
I agreed,
and I was pretty sure Dehan did too, but it was interesting to see which way he jumped when he was accused.
I sat forward. “It is not so laughable, Doctor. Leave aside the details for now, you have a powerful motive to want Gordon Sr. dead, and father and son are similar enough to be mistaken through a leaded window or in poor light. You were here, outside the study at about the time of death and you were in an altered, enraged state of mind. Add to that the fact that the storm kept knocking out the lights, I’d put you right at the top of my list of suspects, and however stupid you think Americans may be, I’m pretty sure your Scottish police will think the same way.”
He flopped back in his chair and covered his face with his hands. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ!”
I stood. “I want you to have a look at the body.”
“Why? Is this some kind of fuckin’ trap again?”
I shook my head. “No. You’re a doctor. You’re the only damn doctor we have, so you need to make out the death certificate.”
“So am I a bloody suspect or no’?”
“Of course you are, along with just about everybody else in this house.”
“Uxcept yous.”
“Yeah, except us. Let’s go.”
We made our way through the silent, watching faces in the drawing room and into the hallway. He stood staring, incredulous, at the broken door as I undid the padlock, and we stepped inside the room.
I watched his face carefully as he took in the scene, the wound to the head, the fallen arm, the weapon on the floor. He turned suddenly and looked at the windows, seeing they were locked.
“Thus,” he said, “thus is the same…”
I nodded.
He shook his head. “How could I—how could anybody? That was suicide…”
I shook my head. “No, Doctor, it’s not. Because when they examine the gun, even though they will find his prints on it, they will find no gunshot residue on his hand or his sleeve, just as in the first case.” I pointed at Charles Gordon Jr.’s head. “The entry wound shows no sign of singeing from a contact shot. The trajectory of the bullet, even from a cursory examination, is clearly at a forty-five degree angle and must have been fired from over by the fireplace. All of these facts are identical to the old man’s case. So, even if you accept, which I do not, that the original case was a freak occurrence, the odds against it happening twice, in the same family, in the same house in the same room, are so astronomical as to be impossible. All of which adds up to one thing. This was a murder, staged to look the same as his grandfather’s, and that means whoever did this knows how the old man was killed.”