In her fantasy, she would have lived in this house and Marcus would have been her son. But theirs was only a bond of love, not duty, and the house—
She hated the thought of him selling it. She hadn’t money to give him herself; she’d been flush at one stage, but the cruel onset of her illness had brought an end to high earnings just when older women – Judi Dench, Maggie Smith – seemed to be more in demand than ever. She’d been more famous than either of them, once, but all she could hope was that she would die before the money for carers ran out.
Marcus must marry money – that was the only answer. Laddie had done it and had never let it cramp his style. With Marcus’s charm, it shouldn’t be difficult.
At least Jaki – ‘Jaki’, for heaven’s sake! – was history now. He must become more serious, and find some suitable young woman. If it wasn’t a love match, they could come to the sort of arrangement Flora and Laddie had; being ‘understanding’ would be the price she had to pay to keep Marcus – and Marcus could charm any woman he chose.
Then, as if a cold hand had touched her, she remembered the visit from the police. She wasn’t a fool: the police didn’t turn up after twenty years to question someone who’d had a teenage romance long before the girl had died. Marcus had said it was routine, unimportant – but why, then, had he been so defensive and edgy?
Why would it have mattered if he’d fathered her child? He couldn’t be forced to marry her and Laddie, who doted on Marcus, would have found the money to pay her off. There would be no need to kill her, and knowing Marcus she would stake her life on it that he hadn’t – or bet her dwindling bank account, a gamble she would be much less ready to take.
Sylvia could see that quite clearly, but would the police? The magicians on
Playfair’s Patch
, delivering justice within the hour every week, bore no resemblance to their real-life counterparts.
A sudden, savage twinge reminded her she must take her medication and once it had taken effect begin the ordeal of putting herself to bed. She swallowed the tablets and sat staring out a little longer.
She was feeling melancholy now. After this, what had she to look forward to? A quiet life was preferable perhaps to having allowances made for her by pitying colleagues – she, Sylvia Lascelles, who had been famed for her utter professionalism! But she would be alone with her rage against the dying of the light as twilight gathered.
‘The police came today.’ Jean Grant put down a plate with greyish chops, dried out from the oven, boiled potatoes and damp cabbage in front of her son.
Stuart went still. ‘What were they wanting?’
‘Just one of them. A woman. Asking questions about Ailsa all over again.’
‘Ailsa – opening up the case?’
‘Yes. Won’t bring her back, though, will it? And they’re going to ignore what I told them just like the last lot did.’
He began to eat. ‘So – doesn’t make any difference, then.’
‘They’ll be wanting to talk to you.’
‘They can if they like. Talking’s cheap.’
‘You’ll need to watch what you say.’ Jean’s eyes were fixed on her son but, chewing methodically, he wouldn’t look at her. ‘I told her Ailsa had problems with your father – they knew that already anyway.’
His temper was as fiery as his hair. ‘Problems? That’s what you call it? Between you, you made her life hell. Oh, you always say you and she were close, but the way you treated her, she’d have said nothing just out of spite. You couldn’t break her, even going on about her bringing another mouth to feed—’
The slap across his face took him completely by surprise, rattling his teeth in his head.
‘Wash your mouth out, Stuart Grant! That’s lies, all lies.’ She swept the plate off the table and it smashed on the floor. ‘Say one word of that to the police, and I sell the farm and give the money to charity. Not a day goes by – barely an hour – when I’m not thinking about her. I’d only her good at heart. She could have been decently married by now, and me with grandchildren to make up for a lazy, fushionless lump of a son.
‘If you want justice for your sister, you’ll not distract the police with a load of rubbish.’
Stuart was rubbing his cheek. He didn’t speak, as if afraid that speaking would produce another onslaught.
His mother continued, ‘You spoke to them before. You just tell them what you told them then, and wait for them to go away. After that we’ll carry on the best we can.’
Again he said nothing, and Jean’s voice sharpened. ‘Cat got your tongue? Did you hear what I said?’
He stood up, a big, clumsy man, a bit overweight. ‘I heard. I’m doing what you want, all right? Just don’t push me.’
‘Push you? My certes, if I could ever have pushed you to any effect, the farm wouldn’t be in the state it’s in now. You’re feeble, like your father before you.’
Stuart walked to the door. ‘And maybe it was you made us that way.’
He slammed it behind him as he left, leaving his mother to stare at it with just a hint of uncertainty in her expression.
8
When DI Fleming and DS MacNee reached Balnakenny, a man was dragging sacks of cattle feed out of one of the sheds – a tall, bulky man with bright red hair. Seeing the car, he stopped and came over to them.
His expression was sullen, his eyes hostile. ‘What are you wanting?’ he demanded.
They showed their warrant cards and Fleming introduced them.
‘Stuart Grant? Your mother perhaps mentioned I’d spoken to her yesterday about reviewing the investigation into your sister’s murder. We’d like a word with you too.’
‘If it doesn’t take long. I’ve a couple of new beasts to settle in.’
Fleming followed his glance to a pen in the byre beyond, where two dejected-looking Friesian crosses stood in a deep layer of straw and muck. She looked away hastily. It wasn’t a real case of cruelty so it wasn’t her business, but she hated seeing the poor creatures so badly cared for.
‘Perhaps we could go inside?’ she suggested.
‘Better out here.’ He stood his ground, looking uncomfortable.
MacNee cleared his throat, jerking his head in the direction of the house. The front door was open and Jean Grant was on the doorstep watching them, hands on hips.
It wasn’t actually raining, but it was cold and windy. Stuart obviously didn’t want his mother present at their interview, but Fleming had no intention of staying out here quietly freezing to death.
‘It would be more satisfactory inside,’ she said firmly. ‘Your mother will understand that our business is with you.’
Stuart snorted, with what might almost have been a sardonic smile. ‘You explain, then.’
He led them round to the back of the house, kicked off his Caterpillar boots without undoing the laces – just the way Bill did with his, Fleming thought, amused – then ushered them into the kitchen.
Unlike the archetypal farm kitchen, it was austere and clinically tidy. There was a meagre fireplace and no range, only a gas cooker and a run of outdated kitchen units topped by red Formica, chipped here and there, with a big wooden table, scrubbed white, in the centre of the room. A dresser stored piles of crockery, with no attempt at artistic arrangement.
There was one incongruous object: a small, highly polished table in one corner with the familiar photo of Ailsa Grant, framed and with a candle placed on either side. Almost like a shrine, Fleming thought.
‘You’d better sit down,’ Stuart said grudgingly, seating himself at the table.
The door from the hall opened and Jean Grant appeared, face flushed with temper. Glaring at the officers, she said to her son, ‘What are they in here for? The front room’s the place for visitors. Through here.’ She held open the door.
No one moved. Fleming said pleasantly, ‘Thank you, Mrs Grant, but we’re fine here. We’ll talk to your son and then you can have your kitchen back.’
Her mouth pleated in a straight, angry line, Jean marched over and pulled out a chair.
‘I’m sorry.’ Fleming’s voice was steelier this time. ‘We want to talk to your son alone.’
MacNee went over to the door and held it open, just as Jean had done.
The woman didn’t move. ‘But—’ she protested.
‘He’s a big boy now,’ MacNee said. ‘He’s not needing you to hold his hand.’
‘It’s not that,’ she snapped. ‘It’s—’
Fleming let the pause develop, then prompted, ‘It’s—?’
‘Oh, what’s the use?’ With a final, vengeful glare at Stuart, Jean stormed out, leaving MacNee to shut the door, with ironic delicacy, behind her. It was a good, thick door: she wouldn’t hear much from the other side.
Fleming sat down. ‘Now, Mr Grant – Stuart, if you don’t mind?’
He grunted. ‘Whatever you like. Makes no odds to me.’
He was unattractive, with pale skin weather-beaten and marked with freckles, and a down-turned mouth. His eyes were dark, fringed by pale lashes.
‘Before we get to the night your sister died,’ Fleming began, ‘I’m trying to form a picture of what happened before that. You know your mother claimed Marcus Lazansky was the father of Ailsa’s baby, and that he murdered her?’
Stuart’s face darkened. ‘Aye, I know.’
‘They had been romantically involved as teenagers?’
‘Aye. Though she’d been well warned about him.’
‘Why was that?’
‘My parents didn’t like it. Well, he was a different kind from us – and they were right enough, the way it turned out.’
‘Different?’ MacNee put in. ‘Posh, you mean?’
‘Aye. The way he spoke – could have been English, even, the way he spoke.’ He sounded virulent.
‘Was your sister older or younger than you?’ Fleming asked.
‘Older.’
‘How did you get on together? Were you good friends?’
‘Good enough.’
‘It sounds as if you didn’t like Marcus. Why is that?’
Stuart shrugged. ‘Didn’t dislike him.’
Was he being deliberately unhelpful, Fleming wondered. She thought he was tensing up, which interested her. As a younger brother, he could have useful light to shed on the relationship. She pressed him. ‘You didn’t dislike him? You sounded as if you did.’
He showed definite signs of unease and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to reply, then unexpectedly he burst out, ‘She cried a lot. After he dumped her.’
Fleming felt the stirrings of sympathy. ‘You were very fond of your sister, weren’t you?’
There was a pause. ‘Aye.’
MacNee leaned forward. ‘Were you upset when she went away to Glasgow? Must have been rough here, a young lad, no company but your parents.’
Stuart shrugged again, with what Fleming interpreted as apathetic resignation.
MacNee was going on, ‘Was she having a good time in Glasgow? Did you ever go to stay with her?’
‘No. She came back a few times, like Christmas and Easter, before – before she came back the last time.’
‘Did she talk to you about friends in Glasgow? Boyfriends?’
He shook his head. ‘Mentioned some girls that worked with her. No boyfriends. But—’
He stopped as if he was afraid of saying too much. ‘But—?’ Fleming prompted very gently.
‘I – I could tell there was someone, when she came back the time before she came home for good. She didn’t say anything, but she was happy, like she hadn’t been for a long time.’
Stuart was beginning to talk now, almost as if finding his voice after a long silence. ‘There was a phone call one day – she’d been hanging around the hall half the afternoon, and she was mad when I asked her why, but it was like she was expecting it.’
This was new. Fleming, almost afraid to interrupt him, said, ‘Did you hear any of it?’
‘No. It was only short, but she was giggling and laughing. My mother asked her who it was and she said it was one of her girlfriends. But I didn’t think so. I thought it was him.’
‘Him – Marcus?’
Stuart nodded.
‘Did she ever tell you he was the father?’
‘No. It was like she was scared – she said once that if she said anything it would be the end. But—’
This time Fleming didn’t prompt him. She was sitting opposite, in an attitude of close attention, her hazel eyes warm. It seemed to draw him on.
‘She thought something good was going to happen, though. That’s how I knew she hadn’t killed herself. She could take whatever they threw at her, because of that. It didn’t matter. She despised them.’
‘Them?’ Jean Grant had implied the relationship was close and affectionate. ‘Not just your father?’
‘He was the worst.’ Stuart was becoming visibly upset. ‘Called her every bad word you could think of. But she was raging as well, because Ailsa wouldn’t admit it was Marcus.’
‘Ailsa denied it?’
‘Oh aye. But then she’d said it would be the end if she did, so . . .’ He shrugged.
Fleming was pretty sure he knew nothing more. She glanced at MacNee. Time to move on, and for a change of pace.
‘The night it happened,’ MacNee said, ‘you were all here, in the farmhouse, right?’
‘Aye. We said.’ The surly expression had returned.