Evil for Evil Page 38

  He stood up shakily and went to the phone. ‘Josie? It’s my dad. He’s had a heart attack. He’s dead.’ He listened for a moment to her exclamations, then said, ‘No need for 999. There’s dozens of the buggers down in the village. I’ll away down and get someone there.’

  The incident room had been set up in the disused church, as the only building both large enough and empty. Despite the space heaters that had been brought in, the grey stone walls bloomed with a sheen of damp and it had a dank, fusty smell. The old pews had been taken out and sold as smart hall furniture long ago, and with the harsh temporary lighting concentrated around the desks and tables that had been brought in, the gothic arches of the roof were hidden in gloom and the people moving about cast flickering shadows on the walls. Old churches accumulate their own particular atmosphere but once the prayers and praise have stopped the emptiness creates an ambience of its own.

  Even with the rumour of sandwiches available, Campbell hesitated on the threshold, reluctant to step inside. Macdonald gave him a shove in the back.

  ‘Hieland sensitivity’s one thing, keeping me from my tea’s another. If there’s a ghoulie or a ghostie makes a move on you, I promise to arrest him.’ Then, as Campbell gave a reluctant grin and stepped inside, he added in a sepulchral voice, ‘Just stay out of the shadows, that’s all.’

  Fleming was making a phone call. ‘Louise? You left a message to call you.’ She listened, then said, ‘I agree it’s reaching a bit, but at least it’s a new approach. We’ll kick it about a bit. Thanks.’

  Macdonald stepped forward as she finished her call. ‘Boss? Wanted a word about Calum Findlay. No answer, but the car’s outside the house. We looked in the downstairs windows but couldn’t see anything apart from the mother who’s – well, you know, not all there, crying and carrying on. He could be upstairs, avoiding us. There’s no sign of him around, we checked he’s not at the pub and apparently he doesn’t have friends in the village he’s likely to be with. I think he’s got important stuff to tell us – do we force an entry?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Fleming was saying, when MacNee interrupted.

  ‘Crying and carrying on, did you say? Well, boys, it’s your duty to rescue the poor old soul, isn’t it?’

  Macdonald grinned. ‘Right enough,’ he said. ‘Angels of mercy, us. Come on, Ewan. Ewan!’

  Campbell was at the far end of the chapel where there was an urn and a food tray; he was holding a pork pie in one hand and a bag of crisps in the other. At Macdonald’s summons, he put down the crisps reluctantly and crammed the pork pie into his mouth. ‘Coming,’ he said indistinctly.

  Before they could leave, Steve Donaldson appeared, in a condition of obvious distress. All heads turned, and a silence fell as he said, ‘I’m … I’m needing someone up at my dad’s house. He’s dead.’

  There was a freeze-frame moment, then Fleming was at his side. ‘Sit down, Mr Donaldson. You’re clearly shocked. What’s happened?’ She clicked her fingers and a uniform brought a chair forward.

  Donaldson sat down heavily. ‘Heart attack. He was just lying there, in the hall. The doctor warned him last week about forgetting to take his pills.’

  There was a collective sigh of relief. Fleming said gently, ‘Take your time, but we’ll get someone up there with you to sort things out when you’re ready. Do you want a cup of tea?’

  Donaldson shook his head. ‘My wife’s up there with … with him. I better get back.’ He got up again and at a nod from Fleming a female constable came forward and took his arm.

  ‘Must have been a terrible shock,’ she was saying as she led him out.

  Fleming sank down on to the chair he had vacated. ‘Phew! I thought we’d another one on our hands for a minute there.

  ‘Right, you two. Go and see if you can collar Findlay. If he’s in the house, arrest him for obstruction – I’m not amused by people who think they’re playing hide and seek.’

  As Macdonald and Campbell left, she looked up at MacNee, and put a hand to her head. ‘There was something I was going to discuss, but that’s put it right out of my mind. What on earth was it?’

  ‘Why don’t you grab another of your “power naps”?’ he suggested. ‘You’re not muckle use if you can’t think straight.’

  Fleming grimaced, then yawned. ‘You could be right. Ten minutes, and I’ll be fine.’

  She staggered slightly as she stood up and MacNee watched, shaking his head, as she found a quiet corner and shut her eyes.

  Cal Findlay stood by the front door, listening intently. Could someone still be lurking out there, reckoning he would make a move? He should wait, say, ten minutes, until he could be sure that any watcher would surely have had to move or make some small sound.

  Ten minutes seemed interminable. He began to worry more about how soon they might come back, and he risked it after seven, slipping out of the house, pressing himself against the wall, holding his breath.

  No sudden movement. Nothing – except the hit of the frosty air. As he breathed again, a cloud of condensation formed and there were ice sparkles on the drive under his feet. The trouble was, he had to go along the lighted main street to reach his objective. Going over the back would involve hills, fences, boggy ground – and time. The clock was running.

  They might be on the lookout for him. On the other hand, apart from the officer who’d interviewed him, no one would know what he looked like, and as he reached the street he saw a man he knew walking along. That would be good cover, so he speeded up to catch him and fell into step.

  ‘Off to the pub?’ he said.

  ‘Aye. Plenty to talk about tonight, eh? Have you heard the skeleton’s Drew Lovatt? And they’re saying Matt’s to be arrested for it tonight – that’s why there’s so many polis around. You wouldn’t think a man could do that to his own father.’

  ‘No,’ Findlay agreed hollowly. ‘No.’ He stiffened as they reached the old church, light spilling out from its leaded panes; a generator van rumbling away in the gateway to the graveyard. The car he’d seen in the afternoon was parked just outside. If they came out now …

  The door remained shut, and when he glanced casually over his shoulder he saw only Steve Donaldson coming along, looking as if he was in a hurry. There was, though, he saw as he approached the pub, a police car in the car park with a uniformed officer inside.

  He didn’t seem much interested, as they walked past. On the threshold, Findlay stopped and slapped his hip pocket. ‘Damn! Left my wallet behind.’

  The man beside him grinned. ‘Fine excuse, eh? Och well, I’ll stand you a pint. You can do the honours tomorrow.’

  It wasn’t easy to look suitably grateful. ‘Thanks for the offer,’ he managed, ‘but I’m owing Georgia. She was short of change last time and she put it on the slate. I’d better go back in case it turns out to be a long night.’ How long it would be, his companion couldn’t begin to imagine.

  The man shrugged and went in to the pub. Findlay waited a moment, then turned left instead of right. Glancing back towards the church, he saw two men come out, one tall dark man, the other with hair that glinted red under the street lamps. He knew the dark one, and he knew where they were going. He hadn’t left a moment too early.

  There was the track up to the chalets now. He was starting to feel sick, and his knees felt shaky. He braced them as he crossed the road and started to walk up, his hands clenched into fists so that the nails bit into his palms. There was no room for weakness now. He knew what he had to do. There was no other way.

  Eddie, dozing in his car, heard the sound of the bolts on the gate and came awake immediately, with a groan. He was frozen stiff; he couldn’t leave the engine on for more than a few risky minutes at a time and it was deathly cold.

  That was the second gate. He sank down in his seat once more, but now it was dark he risked peeping above the dashboard. There was the sound of approaching footsteps, and then someone appeared, silhouetted by the glow from the street lamps below. He was tall, slim, fit-looking and he
walked as if the steep gradient was level ground.

  He looked all the things Eddie wasn’t. A dry sob escaped him, and he bowed his head. He’d known there must be somebody. What other explanation could there be? It was what he’d wanted to do – find out the truth. He’d wanted that, and now he’d got it. They always said you should be careful what you wish for.

  Crushed with misery, Eddie tried to think. He’d always told himself he didn’t care what she did, as long as she came back to him afterwards. After all, her past had never worried him, as long as he was in her present.

  Right from the start, though, this time had been different. She had covered her traces so that he couldn’t find her. She’d stopped speaking to him on the phone. And now he’d seen the man, he couldn’t think why she would want to come back to him – fat, balding, aging Eddie.

  He could go up to the chalet right now, confront them, discover the worst. But then the slim chance that Elena would return once this had played itself out, return for the money, the luxury he could give her, would be totally gone.

  He could go up and just look, though, try if he could see what was happening – but being caught as a peeping Tom would finish everything.

  No, Eddie simply didn’t have the courage. He’d wait here a little longer until he was sure the man was staying, then he’d drive back to the hotel. At least it would be warm there, even if he did feel as if the temperature outside wasn’t the worst of it.

  It was a beautiful, beautiful night. Elena Tindall stood by the picture window of the chalet, looking down over the charming little bay, its curve marked by the string of street lamps. The sea was inky, mysterious, with a silvery surface sheen and above glittered the diamond points of stars and the pale, thin crescent of the new moon. The sky was a deep, soft blue-black; she’d had a silk velvet evening dress once exactly that colour.

  And there was the island, no more than a dark shape, but when she looked at it she could see its details in her mind’s eye as if it were clear as day. When she arrived, she’d hardly been able to look at it. Now – ah, now!

  She had been right all along. She had known what she needed to do to quieten the demons that had raged inside her. She held up the glass she was holding and challenged them now. Nope! Not a sound. The voices that had tormented her, day and troubled night, for almost thirty years were silent now. As she brought the glass to her lips, her chunky silver bangle slipped back and she noticed the healing scar across her wrist. She wouldn’t need to resort to the little silver knife in future. She was – invincible, that was the word.

  Elena sipped at the vintage Cristal, frowning a little at the contrast between the cheap glass and the delicate golden sophistication of the champagne. It tasted good, though – or perhaps that had something to do with her own exultant mood.

  The bottle had come from Eddie’s cellar, for her private celebration afterwards. It was perhaps a little premature to open it, when there was still one more little thing to do, but she wanted to sip it slowly over the evening, savour it. And anyway, what she still had to do would be a sort of treat in the middle, before she came back and finished the bottle.

  She’d been a good girl, doing the bread-and-butter stuff first. What was left to do would be like eating not just the cake, but the big, delicious cherry sitting right on the top. Elena gave a little giggle as she thought of it.

  It was amazing what you could see from this vantage point. For instance, she had seen Matt Lovatt being escorted back from his fire-wrecked house and into the pub, and then the badged car, clearly there to protect him, station itself in the car park. It was disappointing: she’d had it all worked out for tonight before that, and it would be annoying to have to wait. She’d been looking forward to the champagne.

  But then, from her invaluable window, Elena had seen what the watcher in the car park could not: a shadowy figure coming out from the back of the pub, keeping to the cover of bracken and gorse along the edge of the shore path and heading for the farmhouse. She knew who that was, and it was once he had disappeared inside that she opened the champagne.

  Everything was ready now. She tipped her glass in salute to the capacious handbag sitting ready by the door. Her limited luggage was in the car already, and once she stepped into it and drove off Natalie Thomson would vanish without a trace – the invisible woman. The only person who had her real name was an adenoidal assistant in a car-hire firm in Salford.

  And Eddie would be there, waiting impatiently for her return. She felt a surge of warmth towards him, the only man who had ever cared about making her happy. It would be good to get back to that easy, luxurious life now, with the demon voices silent.

  Light flickering behind the drawn curtains of one of the rooms on this side of the farmhouse caught her eye. He must have lit a fire. Risky, in case his bodyguard spotted it and fetched him back, but it was so cold tonight he’d probably reckoned he’d be dead of hypothermia by morning if he didn’t, which was a bit of a joke. Anyway, she was glad it wouldn’t all happen in darkness. She wanted to be able to see his face as she confronted him, at last, at long last, with his crime. Then it would be debt paid, the ledger squared.

  There were still lots of people moving about. Police officers, locals going along for the gossip fest at the pub. And now, even an ambulance; not in a hurry, though, just proceeding along the main street.

  That would be for Hugh Donaldson. Elena laughed aloud, raised her glass to it. ‘May you rot in hell, you perverted bastard!’

  At the sound of footsteps on the drive outside, her face changed. The police, again? Her heart beating faster, she shoved the champagne bottle down beside her chair. She didn’t want questions about what she was celebrating, or why she was sitting alone drinking ridiculously expensive champagne.

  When the knock on the door came, she waited a moment before opening it with a suitably surprised expression arranged on her face. It crumpled into anger when she saw Cal Findlay standing there.

  ‘For God’s sake, Cal, what’s the matter now?’

  ‘Can I come in?’ He edged his way past her, and she had to shut the door with him on the inside, which was definitely her second preference.

  ‘Look, we have to talk.’ He went over to the window and flung himself into the chair opposite the one with the glass beside it. ‘This has got to stop.’

  Elena went back to her place. ‘What has, Cal? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘What you’re doing. You’ve got to leave. Tonight. Before you do anything more.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t done anything – except the fire, and you know you helped me. You splashed the petrol around while I … did other things.’

  ‘You blackmailed me,’ he said fiercely. ‘And anyway, what did you want with that metal bin? That’s haunted me.’

  She gave him a dancing look. ‘You do worry about the oddest things! It was just a silly thought I had – didn’t mean anything. And you agreed with me that Matt shouldn’t have it all his own way. It would punish him – and you know he ought to be punished …’

  Cal’s head went down. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘He’d lose a lot of money putting things right. That was justice, like paying a fine in court. There wasn’t meant to be real danger to anyone. They’d have smoke detectors – I knew they’d wake up.’

  ‘Thank God for that, at least.’

  ‘That’s all I wanted – to punish him a bit. And of course I had nothing to do with what happened yesterday – I told you that.’

  Cal looked up, meeting her gaze squarely. ‘And I didn’t believe you. For God’s sake, I’ve seen your idea of justice before.’

  Elena’s eyes were cold blue steel. ‘I couldn’t have done it alone. You owed me, and you helped me. You paid your debt. You’re free and clear.

  ‘Tomorrow, I’ll be gone. You won’t ever hear from me again. It’s over. You don’t know anything. Say that three times every day, keep your mouth shut and the waters will close over all this.
’

  ‘Why not now?’ Cal’s hands went together in an unconscious position of entreaty. ‘Why not go now? I know why – because there’s something else you’re going to do before you go, and I can’t let you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you think you mean.’ Elena’s tone was haughty. How dare he? She was invincible.

  He was sweating now. ‘The thing is, you’re my sister, and I owe you, too. But you’re mad, and I can’t let the killing go on. For the last time, will you walk out to the car now, and drive away?’

  ‘Half-sister.’ Her lip curled. ‘And for the last time no, I won’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cal said. ‘God knows how sorry I am.’

  And from under his coat he brought out the knife, the knife with the razor edge his father had taught him how to produce when they were gutting fish together.

  Fleming woke with a start. She hadn’t really managed any more than the lightest of dozes, the sort where you were entirely aware of everything going on round about you, and where your subconscious was busy with the problems your conscious mind had set them.

  The TV programme. DC Hepburn had suggested that they should look for any new arrivals after that had been transmitted, try to trace whether they could make some connection on the basis of what they’d been able to establish about the situation in Innellan.

  Fleming stretched, yawned. God, she felt rubbish! Her back was agony as she straightened her neck. Could it be that the only reason she did this job was that she’d become addicted to pain?

  MacNee was sitting at a nearby desk, frowning over some papers. Trying not to say ‘Oof!’ – so elderly! – she stood up.

  ‘I’ve remembered what I was thinking about before, Tam. Louise suggested that the TV programme about Lovatt, with his injured soldiers, might have called in all this. I happen to know that the only person around who arrived after that and who’s still here now is Natalie Thomson, up in one of the chalets. When Andy and Ewan get back, I’ll get them to go up and have a chat with her, find out why she wanted to come, see if she has any connection with the area.