Lamb to the Slaughter Read online

  If Dylan hadn’t locked it when he left, Johnny reckoned he might risk going up and taking her by surprise, to get her to listen and allow herself to be calmed and reassured. Why not? What, at this stage, did he have to lose?

  The door to the flat was painted white, with panes of clear glass in the upper half. Johnny peered through, but could see nothing beyond a cream-painted staircase. His hand was on the handle when an aggressive voice spoke behind him.

  ‘You needn’t try to get in. It’s locked.’

  Johnny spun round. Ossian Forbes-Graham, scowling, stood behind him like a dog guarding a bone which was out of its reach, determined to see to it that no rival would reach it either.

  Johnny surveyed him. ‘So you’ve tried it yourself, then?’

  Thrown on the defensive, Ossian stammered, ‘I – I knocked first. Then I thought perhaps she needed help—’

  ‘From you?’ The scorn in the word stung like a lash.

  His face crimson, Ossian cried, ‘Yes, from me! I understand her. We’re both artists. What would she have in common with a grease monkey?’

  ‘You wouldn’t begin to know.’ Johnny was angry now too. ‘Go back and play with your paintbox. Women prefer men to children, hadn’t you noticed?’

  Breathing fast, Ossian took an ineffectual swing at him. Johnny parried it without difficulty, catching his arm and twisting it up behind his back. ‘Stupid little sod,’ he snarled.

  ‘That’s enough! Break it up!’

  A man had just sauntered into the courtyard, a man wearing jeans and a black leather jacket. He was smaller than either of them, thin and wiry, but there was something about him that made Johnny feel it wiser to loose his hold. Forbes-Graham sprang away from him, rubbing his arm and still glaring.

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ Johnny demanded.

  The man had his hands in the pockets of his jeans, meeting Johnny’s belligerence with a cold stare. ‘MacNee.’

  Suddenly, Johnny recognised him. ‘I saw you in the pub on Saturday night. And you were in the shop, looking at the Harley. You’re a copper, aren’t you?’

  ‘If you’re a policeman,’ Ossian interrupted, ‘I want him charged with assault. You saw what he was doing.’

  MacNee gave him a sardonic look. ‘It’s the polis decides who’s charged, laddie, and anyway I’m off duty. What’s it all about?’

  Like the schoolboy he wasn’t far from being, Ossian looked down and muttered, ‘Nothing.’

  Johnny said smoothly, ‘A misunderstanding. We were both concerned about Ellie Burnett. She’s not answering the phone or the door and she’s been very upset about Colonel Carmichael’s death. Maybe you could gain entry, see she’s all right—’

  ‘And maybe I couldn’t. Like I said, I’m off duty, and maybe the lady’s not wanting to be squabbled over by the two of you. I’d advise you both to leave her alone before she makes a complaint about harassment – and I can promise you that would be taken a lot more seriously.’

  For just a moment the two men held their ground, then, shrugging, Johnny left. Ossian, after lingering for a moment to emphasise his rival’s retreat from the field of battle, went back to his studio, to watch from the window for any sign of Ellie appearing.

  MacNee continued with his interrupted programme. He’d timed this visit carefully. The officers on the case, he reckoned, would be tied up in a briefing at the moment, which gave him a window of opportunity of rather less than an hour. He wasn’t going to go knocking on doors and waving the warrant card he wasn’t, at the moment, entitled to use. That would be asking for a further suspension and he wasn’t daft. But there was nothing that said you couldn’t walk into a public place, like a shop, for instance, and have a wee chat with the owner.

  A delicious smell was wafting from the coffee shop, and MacNee could see someone at the back putting a tray in an oven. But it wasn’t open yet, and there was a light on in the shop next door, which had a window display of rather solid brown and cream pottery, as well as in the silversmith’s ­opposite, where a display of silver gleamed under blue-white spotlights.

  The pottery shop was nearer. As MacNee opened the door, a bell jangled and the woman reading a newspaper which was lying on the counter looked up. It was hard to say what age she was, though she was certainly well over fifty; she had shaggy grey hair cut in a heavy fringe, thick, gold-rimmed spectacles and a lumpish figure. There was no sign that she had been working that morning, but the beige jacket she was wearing over a rust-brown dress of indeterminate shape was daubed with smears of clay.

  ‘Morning!’ she greeted him. ‘You’re an early bird!’

  ‘Oh, I’m the wee boy for getting the worms.’ MacNee winked at her, then glanced around the shop. ‘Some nice stuff you’ve got here,’ he said insincerely, pointing to an earth-coloured bowl. She smiled complacently.

  The paper she was reading was folded to an inner page, to a short item headed, ‘Man found shot’. He jerked his thumb towards it. ‘Nasty business, that.’

  The woman shuddered. ‘Can’t bear to think about it. Poor man.’

  ‘Was he someone you knew?’

  ‘Och yes! I kent him fine – he was in and out of here all the time, him being the landlord. Always took an interest, and one of my best customers too. He’d a coffee set of mine and seemingly they’d an awful lot of breakages. He was for ever replacing them.’

  The mugs she indicated didn’t look to MacNee the sort of thing you’d expect to find gracing the drawing-room coffee table in a house like Fauldburn. Was there a stash of clumsy mugs in a cellar somewhere, a testament to the Colonel’s acts of patronage?

  ‘Sounds as if you liked him, then?’

  ‘Everyone liked the Colonel. It’s an awful shame.’

  ‘Someone didn’t,’ MacNee pointed out.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Then she stopped, her round blue eyes, magnified by her glasses, wide with suspicion. ‘Here, you’re not one of thae reporters, are you? I’m not wanting to be all over the front page.’

  ‘No, no,’ MacNee soothed her. ‘I’m a policeman – Tam MacNee. I’m off work at the moment, but I’ve an awful ­curious nature. Can’t help being interested, but it’s all unofficial. You can say what you like, and it’ll not go any further.’

  She smiled, reassured. ‘Nice to meet you, Tam. Alanna – Alanna Paterson. Well, don’t say I said this because Romy would go daft, but he should just have agreed to sell up and none of this would have happened.’

  ‘And you’d have been jake with that? You’ve a nice wee set-up here.’

  Alanna glanced round at the potter’s wheel, the airing shelves with drying pots, and the kiln which, to MacNee’s admittedly inexperienced eyes, looked state-of-the-art, then said, a little uncomfortably, ‘Oh, it was nothing but the best for the Colonel. But I’m not getting any younger and I’m needing to think about the future. ALCO was ready to be very generous with compensation, but of course Romy ­wouldn’t hear of it. I’m not sure about Ellie – keeps her cards very close to her chest, does our Ellie, but if you ask me the Colonel wouldn’t sell if she didn’t want him to.’

  MacNee cocked an eyebrow. ‘Close, were they?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t like to go spreading gossip,’ Alanna said hastily. ‘It was just that he seemed to dote on her. She has quite a way with her, has Ellie.’

  Sensing a certain dryness in her tone, MacNee curbed his enthusiasm as he agreed. ‘So do you reckon he was definitely going to refuse to sell?’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said, then stopped. ‘There’d be a few people wouldn’t take it lying down if he’d changed his mind,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Like—?’ MacNee prompted, but that was a step too far.

  She backtracked. ‘Och, I’m sure he didn’t. He wasn’t one to go telling lies and he’d said to us not to worry, we’d be staying on.’

  ‘So there’d be others keen to see the back of him, then.’

  ‘Oh, plenty of them!’ She was much more prepared to be fr
ank about this. ‘That Gloag, for a start – we all know he’s taking backhanders to get it through planning. And I never had much time for the Colonel’s nephew and that stuck-up wife of his. We’ll know the difference with Giles Farquharson as the landlord, I can tell you that. Even if the Centre’s still going, none of us’ll be here, with what he’ll put the rents up to.’

  ‘Where does he live?’ MacNee asked innocently.

  ‘He’s land agent for Ossian Forbes-Graham’s father, up at the back there, about five miles away, between New Luce and Carsriggan. They’ve a wee estate at Ravenshill, and they do motocross and shooting and stuff that he manages for them. But it’s just one of the lodges they live in, and that doesn’t suit Lady Muck. They were desperate for the Colonel to sell so when he died they’d come into the big house and all that money too.’

  That suggested a very satisfactory new angle. MacNee changed the subject. ‘I heard you’d problems with a dead sheep a wee while ago?’

  The round eyes widened and she put her hand to her chest, as if the very thought gave her palpitations. ‘Gave me nightmares, I’ll tell you that! It’s not nice, is it – poor beast, all bloody, just lying there,’ she gestured. ‘Well, you know how it is with sheep – I’ve been out walking on the hills and seen one lying dead sometimes, and I thought at first it had just daundered in and died, or been hit by a car, maybe, but when I looked – well, I about had a heart attack!’

  ‘Do you think it had been shot on the spot?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, no. Ellie was in all evening and she said she never heard a thing. It must have been shot somewhere else and dumped here. Romy said it was ALCO trying to scare us off, but ...’ She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. It was just kind of – weird. What my grandson would call random.’

  Then another thought struck her. ‘Here – you don’t think maybe whoever did it went on and killed the Colonel? They’d have to be mad, going round shooting like that—’

  ‘No, no,’ MacNee said hastily. If Marjory heard he’d started a rumour that there was a crazy loose with a shotgun, he’d find himself back in uniform when he returned to work. ‘More likely just some kid mucking about and dumping it so the farmer wouldn’t find out.’

  ‘I’d like to think that, right enough,’ she said dubiously.

  Out of the corner of his eye, MacNee caught movement – two people entering the courtyard. Tansy Kerr – with a smart new hairdo – and Will Wilson. Damn. Big Marge must have kept the briefing short. Luckily, they were heading for Ossian Forbes-Graham’s studio on the other side.

  ‘I’ll need to be going,’ he said.

  ‘Oh – you won’t say what I told you, now, will you?’

  He grinned. ‘If you won’t tell them –’ he jerked his head – ‘I was here.’

  ‘That’s a promise.’

  He slipped quietly out of the shop and, walking close to the wall, left the courtyard, congratulating himself that he hadn’t been spotted.

  ‘What’s MacNee up to?’ Will Wilson said to Tansy Kerr as he opened the door of Ossian Forbes-Graham’s studio.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Kerr said darkly. ‘There are some things it’s better not to know.’

  7

  Annie Brown sat in what she had always thought of as ‘her’ kitchen in Fauldburn House. It looked a bit old-fashioned to her way of thinking, with a china sink and a dresser and chests of drawers and tables instead of the proper fitments, like she had in her own semi. Where the old range would have been there was a great big dark blue Aga; the tiles round about it were bonny enough, with wee blue ships and windmills on them, but it was a shame they were a bit old-looking. From Holland, Mrs Carmichael said they were, but she’d have been better with new ones that were easy to keep clean. Still, it was comfortable to work in and a nice sunny room too, with big windows looking out to the garden.

  But it didn’t feel like Annie’s kitchen now. The police were wandering in and out, opening drawers as if they owned the place. She hadn’t been happy, the way they were going through the Colonel’s stuff, not just his papers but personal things too, and his clothes, even his underwear. Not that there was anything to be ashamed of; the Colonel was most particular and Annie looked after his laundry herself. They’d find no greying whites here!

  It didn’t seem right, though. They’d fetched her to let them into the house, then suggested she went home again, but she wasn’t having that. Leave them with the run of the place, not knowing what sort of mess they’d make – or what might mysteriously disappear? You couldn’t trust anyone these days.

  She’d suggested contacting Mr Giles for permission – she knew her place, and knew too what Mrs Giles would say if she overstepped the mark. But they’d waved a piece of paper at her and said it was the law, and she couldn’t argue with that.

  Anyway, she’d no time for the Farquharsons. Once this was over she’d put in her notice. She’d have no problem getting another job; there were plenty folk had tried to get her away from Fauldburn before now, but she’d never have left the Colonel. After Mrs Carmichael became really disabled, they’d got very close.

  He’d never said a word out of turn about his wife, and neither had she, but Mrs Carmichael hadn’t been what you could call easy-going – and right enough the poor soul had a lot of pain. But there were two kinds of invalid, the kind that wanted to make the best of it and be as little trouble as possible, and the other kind. Mrs Carmichael was the other kind. No one but Annie knew what the Colonel had had to put up with, or how he’d always managed somehow to be kind and cheerful. There didn’t seem to be gentlemen like that around nowadays.

  Tears welled up and Annie left the kitchen, heading for the garden door. If she was going to cry, she didn’t want to do it in front of the fat policeman who was rummaging in one of her kitchen drawers and looking at her with open curiosity.

  It was peaceful out here at least. The Colonel had loved his garden and there was always something in bloom. She walked slowly up the steps to the rose garden, dabbing at her eyes with a hankie, and sat down on the low wall surrounding it. She’d often seen him there of late, taking a breather from gardening in his old tweeds, enjoying the perfume of his late roses.

  There was a real hint of autumn in the air today. Some yellow leaves had drifted down into the flower beds and there were a good few swallows gathering on the telephone wire. They’d be going soon.

  Annie let herself have a little cry. There had been a lot of little cries since yesterday, partly for the Colonel and partly for the passing of the years which, she realised looking back, had been happy ones. How did you never notice you were happy until afterwards, when it was too late? And this wasn’t only going to mean change for her. Now the Colonel was dead, Mr Giles would be all ready to sign on the dotted line with ALCO and that would be the end of it.

  Absorbed in her unhappy thoughts, she didn’t hear the young man approaching, and it was only when he cleared his throat that she looked round. He wasn’t in uniform but he was obviously a policeman.

  Her eyes were blurred and she scrubbed at them with her hankie. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘This must be very hard for you.’ He held out a card in a plastic wallet. ‘DS Macdonald.’

  That must mean he was a detective. He was quite tall, solidly built, with dark hair cut so close to his head that it looked like fuzzy felt. Annie liked the look of him; he’d nice brown eyes and quite a thoughtful expression.

  She blew her nose hard and put her hankie away. ‘What are you wanting? If you’re needing tea, there’s plenty stuff in the kitchen. I could make some for you—’ She stood up.

  He smiled. ‘That’s a good offer – I’ll maybe take you up on it later. But that wasn’t what I wanted to ask you.’ She saw now that he had a couple of photographs, which he held out to her. ‘Do you recognise these? We found them in a drawer beside Colonel Carmichael’s bed.’

  Annie took them. They were of different sizes: one was in a large folder with the name of a phot
ographer in London on the outside, but the other was a black-and-white snapshot, yellowed with age and slightly curled at the edges.

  She looked at that one first, holding it flat between her thumbs. It had been taken in foreign parts, clearly, since there was what looked like a big rubber plant growing in the background and a shrub with foreign-looking flowers behind where the woman was standing.

  The woman was foreign too. Coloured, Annie thought carefully. That was what you were meant to say instead of black – or was it the other way round? It was hard to keep track, if you wanted to do the right thing. Anyway, the woman wasn’t black. This one was more light brown. It wasn’t a good photo but she was young and small and sweet-faced, as far as Annie could tell, and she was wearing a long straight skirt with a sort of draped blouse on top – silk, Annie thought, peering closer.

  DS Macdonald was waiting patiently. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know who that would be. I never saw it before.’

  ‘Not even in the drawer?’

  ‘I only looked after the Colonel’s washing. I’d never go looking among his personal things.’

  There was a reproach in her voice and Macdonald said hastily, ‘No, no, of course not. What about the other one?’

  She opened the folder. This one was quite different. It was a studio portrait and the man had been professionally posed, smiling confidently at the camera. He was wearing what she could see was an expensive suit, with a tie in discreet colours. He had smooth, coffee-coloured skin and deep brown eyes with just a slight tilt to them and thick, glossy dark hair, well shaped. Annie reckoned he was in his early twenties. She reckoned, too, from the set of his jaw, that this could be a very determined young man, despite the smile.

  ‘Any idea?’ Macdonald asked hopefully.

  She shook her head. ‘Well, I know the Colonel was out abroad when he was in the army. Maybe they’re friends of his. But that’s all I can think of. I’m sorry.’ She was sorry, too. He seemed a nice laddie and she hated to disappoint him.