Blind Eye, page 11
‘Yes.’
Rob leant forward. ‘It’s hard for you, but try not to read too much into it—’
She looked at him. ‘I don’t think I could read too much into it, really, could I? I’m the number one suspect. The partner always is. And I’ve told you, Rose, how I wanted to sell the farm and get out of here and he wouldn’t, and how I was too angry with him to grieve.’
‘But you were in a state of shock!’ Rose protested. ‘You weren’t in any state to think clearly after such a dreadful experience – and I’m not about to tell the police anyway.’
‘No? When he asks you to repeat what I told you when I came here afterwards? Or if you managed to skirt around it, what about when they put you on oath in the witness box – the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, remember? And come to that, how do you know I didn’t do it? I had the motive, the means and the opportunity – that’s what they say they look for, isn’t it? For the record, I didn’t kill him. But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I?’
‘Oh, Sarah,’ Rose said in distress.
‘Look, I can go into the witness box to speak up for you,’ Rob said. ‘I saw you at the party. You were genuinely upset, and when he didn’t arrive you were ready to go back. Perhaps I shouldn’t have talked you out of it – I’ve been feeling bad about that ever since I heard what had happened, especially since you were worried about his mental state.’
‘And isn’t that exactly what I would have done, if I had killed him? I’d have had to be very cold-blooded not to be upset if I’d just butchered Niall, and telling you I was “worried about his mental state” could have been me preparing the ground for a verdict of suicide.’
Sarah waited for the reply that didn’t come, then said, ‘You see? I’m in serious trouble. Rose, I don’t see how I can go on taking advantage of your good nature. I’ll move out—’
‘No,’ Rose said firmly. ‘Yes, I’d like to think I’m good-natured, but I’m not a fool. The other thing I’d like to think I am is a good judge of character, and we spent a lot of time talking. You were open and honest and realistic about your problems and it would be completely out of character for you to think that committing a horribly gruesome crime would solve anything. You can’t go back to the farmhouse anyway – the chief inspector said they’ll be busy there for the next few days. And he said there may be problems with journalists – at least if they find out you’re here, I can answer the door and tell them to piss off.’
The way she said it, in her gentle ladylike voice, actually made Sarah smile. ‘Rose, you’re amazing. But I’m not popular here already and it’s not going to be good for you if the neighbours have harbouring a murderer to add the slate of grievances.’
‘I think you haven’t noticed how incredibly little I care what the stupid, poisonous petty criminals who are my neighbours think – oh yes, Rob, they are,’ she said fiercely as he made a murmur of protest. ‘You and I both know they drove Linden to suicide and I won’t be jerked around by them. Sarah, I insist that you stay, at least until things settle down a bit.’
Rob, looking uncomfortable, said weakly, ‘They’re really not all like that, you know. Most of them just don’t – well, sort of notice. But I agree, you should stay here, Sarah. Now look, it’s obvious you’re going to have an awful lot of calls to make but I honestly think you’d feel better if you got a bit of fresh air first. The rain’s gone off now and there’s a good walk along the cliffs beyond the harbour.’
Sarah had been struggling for control after Rose’s fighting speech. ‘You know, I think that might be a good idea,’ she said hoarsely.
‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘Rose – you?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve got a batch of mugs to take out of the kiln. You go ahead and I’ll have soup waiting for you when you get back.’
Sarah did feel better, feeling the wind in her face. Rob had been quite right. As they walked down to the harbour, she said, ‘Oh, the boat’s gone. There was a big one here yesterday when I walked along from the car park – foreign, I think.’
‘Yes, that could be right. There’s quite a lot of trade goes on here. Look, there’s one there now – Polish, from the registration.’ He pointed to it. ‘Our firm exports quite a bit to them and Jimmie’s does too. They’re very keen on organic.’
It was an unwelcome reminder about the distinctly nonorganic crops that had been coming out of Niall’s fields. ‘Mmm,’ she said, then, ‘It’s really quite windy now, isn’t it?’
And they walked on.
Myrna Muir had eaten all she wanted of the now-cold Pot Noodle. She got up from the table to drop it in the bin and went to switch on the kettle for a cup of Nes to drink with her chocolate bar. She stared across, eyes narrowed, at the house of the woman she hated for her lack of shame.
As she looked, the front door opened and two people came out, two people she recognised. One of them she knew well, Rob Gresham. She’d known him since he was a wee boy but she’d thought none the better of him for taking up with that doctor, and worse, that he’d gone on visiting the mother after. Still, he was who he was.
But the other one – oh, she knew her all right. She was the cow who’d caused all the fuss about Doddie, and what was she doing there, with him, just after that fancy policeman had left?
She had no idea what it was about, but something was going on – Doddie had been worried too. Until she made trouble for him, they’d had it all going the way they wanted, never better. Rose Moncrieff had a brass nerve, squatting there ignoring what all the locals felt, and the other one was just the same – two witches together. Even thinking about it made her angry – very angry. It was time they spelt it out for them, the way they’d done before.
Immediately he had left the morgue, DCI Strang had called DS Murray, gone back to headquarters to produce a statement and actioned a team to head up to Eastlaw Farm before he set off for Tarleton. After he’d talked to Sarah Lindsay, he’d been able to pass on contact details for Ritchie’s sister, who would have to be informed before the statement was released; he suspected Lindsay didn’t realise that she herself wasn’t the next of kin but it wasn’t his business to tell her. Then he drove across from the Caddon to the police station where Murray, he hoped, would have got on with setting up an incident room.
She had warned him that PC Thomson didn’t exactly have a reputation for being user-friendly, but when he arrived there, the woman, stout and distinctly stony-faced, greeted him with what he would have described as wary politeness and escorted him through to the office where DI Gunn and DS Murray were waiting for him.
‘DCI Strang,’ she announced as she ushered him in, then retreated, shutting the door behind her.
He saw Gunn and Murray exchanging glances as they stood up. ‘Seemed perfectly user-friendly to me,’ he said.
They both started laughing. ‘Told you it would work,’ Murray said to Gunn. ‘I said to her that you and the detective chief superintendent were just like that and that if she put a foot wrong she’d be up on a charge. This is DI Matt Gunn, boss.’
The two men shook hands and Gunn said, ‘I’m so very glad you’re here, sir. It’s a great relief.’
For a moment he wondered if she’d been putting the fear of the DCS into him too and perhaps overdone it a bit, then remembered that Gunn had talked about hoping to lure him down here before. He said lightly, ‘Well, we’ll see how it goes. How have you been getting on here?’
‘There’s a local firm come in to start setting up phone lines and a router,’ Murray said. ‘And PC Thomson has actually been surprisingly helpful getting tables and chairs. I’ll show you the room.’
He followed her along the corridor. These police stations, once busy hubs and now reduced to hollow shells, always depressed him; it was probably true that it saved money – and certainly the reorganisation had given him the job he loved – but he didn’t believe it had improved policing. Where local officers would have known exactly what was going on and who was doing it, these part-time office-hours stations no longer knew what was going on in the community – and in fact, now he thought of it, this was exactly what Murray had said was troubling Gunn.
The incident room was starting to take shape already, with men moving furniture and cables around; he nodded approval and then went back to the office, where Gunn had a tray of coffee on the desk in front of him.
‘PC Thomson brought it in without being asked,’ he said. ‘Hope you wouldn’t have preferred tea.’
‘Showing initiative, anyway. Yes, coffee’s very welcome after an early start today.’
‘It’s all going full speed ahead, then, is it, boss?’ Murray said.
‘Yes, indeed. I’d better brief you both. I’ve informed the partner, Sarah Lindsay – they weren’t married. She was almost rigidly calm – shock, perhaps, but she struck me as probably being quite tough. She looked very tired but there were none of the obvious signs of grief – swollen eyes, red nose …’
‘From what she said when I came down to talk to her after the Muir case, she’d gone off him. Blamed him for her broken nails, I think.’
‘You met her before all this happened. How did she strike you?’
Murray paused, thinking. ‘The image that came to me was of a volcano about to blow. I have to say I didn’t reckon to anything like this, but I did think there would be one hell of a row soon. And I suppose once you’re into a domestic, anything could happen.’
‘Mmm. Admittedly he had blunt force trauma to the back of the head, which could have been delivered in a temper, but he didn’t die of it and the rest was calculated. Ritchie was strangled first, then he was strung up with the noose round his neck hiding the original ligature. It wouldn’t be difficult to strangle someone who’s unconscious, or even incapacitated, though you’d need a fair degree of physical strength to manhandle the body and string it up afterwards.’
‘Lindsay’s quite tall and fit-looking,’ Murray was saying thoughtfully when Gunn chipped in.
‘She didn’t strike me as the kind to do that – not a typical woman’s crime anyway, is it? She was in shock when I spoke to her, of course, but she told me very straightforwardly what had happened.’
Strang saw Murray give him a sideways look and he knew exactly what she was thinking: that you would be very unwise to generalise about what a woman might or might not do. He said, ‘About the only thing we can say definitely is that whoever did it wasn’t very professional. You saw immediately that it didn’t stack up.’
‘Yes,’ Gunn said. ‘The killer might just have been assuming that the cheating over the organic produce was the admission of guilt that would make suicide a natural conclusion. I was thinking that way until I noticed that he hadn’t been standing on the cardboard box that had apparently been kicked away to allow the drop.’
‘An important bit of observation,’ Strang said. ‘That could easily have been missed.’
Gunn beamed, but Murray, who had opened her mouth as if she was about to speak, shut it again, as if she’d thought the better of what she was going to say. Strang raised his eyebrows, but she shook her head and said it was nothing.
Making a mental not to ask her later, he went on, ‘Well, there’s no point in theorising until we see what the evidence tells us. The SOCOs should be getting on with the work at Eastlaw Farm now – Matt, could I leave you to organise a rota for a constable on duty there to keep a log of visits, and supervise the incident room? Livvy, you can come with me. I want to start by interviewing Gresham.’
‘Sure, boss,’ Murray said, but Gunn, who had murmured, ‘Of course, boss,’ looked disappointed, as if he’d been denied an anticipated treat.
When they got back to the car, he said to Murray, ‘What were you going to say back there?’
She sighed. ‘Oh dear. I was all ready to say, “They were probably quite sure they’d get away with it – they’ve been getting away with everything else,” when I realised that wouldn’t reflect very well on the way Gunn was running his patch. I want a brownie point for biting my tongue in time, boss.’
Strang laughed. ‘Once upon a time you’d have come right out with it. You’re learning, Livvy. So tell me, what do you think of the way he’s running his patch?’
‘Hate to say it, but he’s not effective. Over-sensitive. Thomson was easy enough to quell, and from what she said when I told her she’d to be civil, she’d had enough of young, inexperienced officers who wrung their hands and didn’t do a lot. She’s waiting to see how you stack up, I have to warn you.’
Strang laughed, as he was meant to, but having to rely on an inadequate inspector wasn’t an encouraging start to the investigation. ‘Matt was a bit disappointed that you weren’t the one to be left to the prosaic duties, I thought.’
Murray gave him a mocking glance. ‘He was counting on learning from watching the great detective at work, you see. That’s why he was looking as if someone had stolen his scone.’
Strang pulled a face at her. ‘Not everything you’re doing now is an improvement. Once upon a time you’d have treated your boss with proper respect, Sergeant.’
‘Ah, but I wasn’t a sergeant then, was I?’ she said in triumph.
He said, ‘Watch it!’ but when he saw the grin that split her face, he couldn’t help laughing.
‘But where is she?’ Briony Gresham said, not for the first time.
Her father moved irritably in his seat. ‘There’s no point in asking me again, when you know I don’t know. Look, I’ve got work to do if you haven’t.’
She had come through to his office because she was just too restless to get on with the job of cancelling engagements; you could hardly go on as normal when one of your colleagues had killed himself. It didn’t reflect well on the business, for a start, and she was only grateful that the buyers had left before the story came out and they had the press around asking intrusive questions.
What was irritating her was that she couldn’t find out what had happened to Sarah.
She’d been Sarah’s best friend but she’d left message after message on her phone and got no reply; surely Sarah couldn’t be blaming them for what had happened? Knowing how upset Jimmie would be if Niall sold up, she’d admittedly been very discouraging about that idea, but all she’d actually said was that Sarah should wait and see if things might settle down.
The other thing bugging her was that she couldn’t remember any other occasion when she couldn’t find out whatever she wanted to know about something that was happening in Tarleton. Somehow Sarah had just disappeared – gone back to Edinburgh, perhaps? The policeman obviously knew, but even when she’d phoned him this morning, she’d only got that irritating, ‘Not at liberty to say,’ guff.
Her father had gone back to his computer and Briony, with a sigh and a shrug, went back to her own office and started on the phone calls.
‘Is that the councillor’s secretary? Please could you pass through a message that Mr Gresham won’t be able to keep the appointment this afternoon? Can you find a slot in the diary in a couple of days’ time?’
She made the arrangement and was ready to start again when her father put his head round the door.
‘I’ve just found out where Sarah is. One of the men mentioned it. She’s staying in the Caddon with Rose Moncrieff – she was seen coming out of her house with Rob.’
Briony stared at him. ‘Rob? He knew where she was, and he didn’t tell me? I talked to him last night and he didn’t say a word.’
‘Maybe he didn’t know last night,’ Gresham said. ‘But anyway, you know now so you can stop pestering me.’ He withdrew.
Briony was shaking. True enough, Rob might only have found out today. But what the hell was he doing in Rose Moncrieff’s house anyway? It was a year since Linden Moncrieff had died, the woman who with her disgraceful practices had killed poor Myrna Muir’s mother, and probably others besides. Surely Rob had moved on by now? If he hadn’t, he should have.
At least now she knew where to find Sarah, but there was no way she was going to that house. She’d just have to wait until she chose to respond to her messages – and if she didn’t, well, Briony had other friends. Some.
DS Murray was in high good humour as they drove out of Tarleton and down the coast to Gresham’s Farm. The blot on her record after the last case they’d been on together had worried her but now he’d taken her, not the higher-ranking officer – surely a sign of forgiveness.
The rain had stopped and a feeble sun was making an attempt to break through the low cloud. Now Strang was saying, ‘I’ve been to Gresham’s Farm before, in fact. He’d reported a stolen tractor so that came across my desk. I saw him and then went round the local farms to warn them and that was when I spoke to Sarah Lindsay and the Doddie Muir business started. Frankly, I wish now I hadn’t prompted it – went nowhere and she’d a very hard time because of it.’
‘But that’s what’s been going on,’ Murray said. ‘Things have been ignored because it causes too much trouble if it’s taken up. Then everyone just turns a blind eye to the trade in illegal cigarettes and booze and goodness knows what else. It seems it’s gone on for years.’
‘“Watch the wall, my darling,”’ Strang quoted wryly.
Startled, she said, ‘Sorry?’ She’d no idea what he was talking about.
‘Kipling,’ he said. ‘“A Smuggler’s Song”. Great poem – I learnt it at school. Running in the brandy has been pretty traditional in small coastal towns ever since Robert Burns was an Exciseman. “If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,/ Don’t go drawing back the blind or looking in the street,/ Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie./ Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.” The “Gentlemen” smugglers were anything but gentle in their methods of dealing with anyone who didn’t get the message.’
Murray was greatly struck by this. ‘It’s not just wee coastal places either. It operates in any criminal community.’
‘This particular community seems to have become more criminal than most. I’m quite concerned about this one, Livvy.’
