Snare (25 page)

The room's proportions had been spoiled by a partition that boxed off one corner. A flimsy door was open to show a bathroom, some towels, a tablet of soap and a toothbrush.

‘Utilitarian,' Miss Pink murmured. ‘Not a joyful place. Who pays the rent?'

‘The keyholder was an F. MacMasters but there's no such person. The rent was paid by my daughter and Flora MacKenzie, in advance, which is how I come to have the key. I got it from my daughter and I was waiting for Flora to come back and claim it.'

‘What would you have done then?' Miss Pink asked, opening a wardrobe.

‘I hadn't thought. I was looking forward to it actually. Maybe your friend's saved me from a murder charge.'

‘I see your point.' Miss Pink was shifting clothes along a rail: a mini-skirt and long jacket in thin red leather, a jumpsuit in black lace, a kind of mock trench-coat in a dark silky fabric. There was a similar fur to the one which Flora had been wearing when she was picked up at Buffy MacLean's: long-haired, but this was white. On the floor of the wardrobe were shoes with very high heels or huge platform soles, ‘It's sad rather than depressing,' Miss Pink said. ‘One wonders why they had to do it.'

Mrs Fleming answered promptly. ‘Flora needed the money; she was an heiress, but Coline kept her on a very short rein. But basically, she did this for kicks. She wasn't into drugs or drink; she took care of her body.' A spasm contorted the woman's face. ‘There are condoms in the bedside table. Can you believe that? A sixteen-year-old tart frightened of Aids. Not many have been used. According to Charlotte, my daughter, Flora quickly got bored with this –' she gestured at the room – ‘and said there were easier and safer ways to make money. They're supposed to have used this place only a few times. And now you're wondering why my daughter did it. Well, it was partly because Flora is ... was the stronger character, but mostly because she's evil: seductive in every sense of the word. She made mincemeat of my husband. And shall I tell you why she had to seduce him? Of course he wasn't interested in her, he's a workaholic anyway, but he was a challenge to her and she broke him down. But she got more than she bargained for. She'd be used to married men keeping quiet, but Neil had to tell me: no way was he going to let Charlotte see her again. He said he'd never met anyone so corrupt – and he's a criminal lawyer. And he didn't know about this place.'

Mrs Fleming lit a cigarette with a gold lighter, pacing the room like a dog, stiff with hatred. She went on, it was through my husband that I was able to get the truth out of Charlotte. The girls had spent hours away from the house and it was essential to me that I found out what they'd been doing. When I told Charlotte that her friend had been in bed with her father, she told me everything. They used to pick up men in bars. In good hotels they wore long coats over those ridiculous clothes. Those in the wardrobe are Flora's; Charlotte's were thrown in a skip.'

‘How can I find out where Flora was on Saturday and Sunday of last weekend?'

‘Why do you want to know?'

‘You knew Flora was dead. Don't you know of the other events in Sgoradale?'

Mrs Fleming was still, the only movement the smoke from her cigarette. ‘There have been two other deaths: the policeman's son and the MacKays' handyman. They had something to do with Flora? Why should I be surprised? She was capable of anything.'

‘Those two nights,' Miss Pink pressed.

‘Let's go home. Charlotte should be back from school. She's very subdued; I've put the fear of death into her – and that's a remark in bad taste if ever there was one.'

Charlotte Fleming was a pretty and very frightened girl. Under her mother's eye she agreed to tell Miss Pink what she could remember of Flora's movements, but even the first question was unwelcome. When asked where Flora had been the previous Saturday evening, her mouth opened and closed and her eyes were anguished.

‘You can't do her any harm now,' Miss Pink said. ‘Promises are annulled by death.'

‘She never asked me to promise.' The girl picked at the piping on the sofa. ‘She spent the night at the flat.'

‘Did you see her there?'

‘No.'

‘So how do you know that's where she was?'

‘Because she told me.'

‘When did she go to the flat?'

‘Saturday afternoon. About three o'clock.'

‘And when did you see her again?'

‘Breakfast time – about eight o'clock.'

‘She came down for breakfast at eight on Sunday? And when did she go away again?'

‘Monday evening.'

‘
Monday?
Where was she on Sunday?'

‘With me.'

‘Are you quite –'

Mrs Fleming interrupted sharply. ‘You want to find out where Flora was on Sunday? Or where she wasn't?'

‘I need to know if she could have been in Sgoradale between Sunday breakfast time and Tuesday morning.'

‘How much time did she spend with you on Sunday?' Mrs Fleming asked her daughter. ‘There's no need to say what you were doing-just where, and was she with you?'

Charlotte looked at her shoe. ‘We were at the flat or ... or together until Sunday evening. Then Daddy took us to the Rendezvous.'

‘They came straight home from the restaurant.' Mrs Fleming held Miss Pink's eye. ‘That is, the girls split up. Flora returned to this house, Charlotte went to visit a friend.' Miss Pink said nothing. ‘Go and help Jeannie with the tea,' Mrs Fleming told the girl. She turned back as the footsteps receded. ‘Flora was with my husband until late that evening,' she said bitterly. ‘And Charlotte had gone to that ghastly place to meet – oh, let's forget why she ever went there, can we? Anyway, she came home some time after midnight and looked in on Flora, who was in her own bed – for a change. So she couldn't have been in Sgoradale. Charlotte can fill you in on the rest.'

‘It's possible that, in telling me this, you won't have to talk to the police.'

‘And you'll keep it to yourself – the details, I mean; you'll consider my family, not to speak of my husband's career?'

‘I'm also considering Coline and Ranald.'

‘God! Those poor things. How was Coline to know?'

‘And I want to clear Beatrice Swan.'

‘How can you? She shot the girl.'

‘If Flora can be shown to be responsible for the two murders, Beatrice is in the position of a householder defending herself against a killer who almost certainly intended to kill her. She'll have everyone's sympathy.'

‘She must have a good deal of that now.'

‘There's an element of public opinion that disapproves of people defending themselves with firearms.'

Charlotte and the housekeeper came in with afternoon tea. When the woman had left, Miss Pink returned to her questions, obstructed by a mother determined that her daughter should not say in as many words that she'd been dabbling in prostitution. Despite this, and the emotional state of mother and daughter, it seemed that Flora couldn't have left Edinburgh between Sunday breakfast time and Monday evening, when the girls met Buffy MacLean in the bar of the North British Hotel and Flora asked him for a lift to Slaggan. ‘Lady MacKay called on Monday and told her she'd got to go home,' Charlotte explained.

‘And you had to go back to school,' her mother said meaningly. ‘And I was due back from the Seychelles. So when was the boy killed? Sunday night, I take it.'

Miss Pink looked at Charlotte's blank face and shook her head. The mother was more concerned with her hatred for the dead girl than the state of mind of the living one. She sipped her tea and wondered how Flora had engineered Hamish's death.

There was still an hour of daylight remaining when she left the Fleming house and the weather was fine. This was Friday and if she were to wait until Geddes returned to Stirling on Sunday night, she was faced with the daunting prospect of a weekend of idleness. On the other hand, the Trossachs were only fifty miles away and she should have no difficulty in locating Geddes. The atlas showed only two youth hostels in the area.

She struck lucky at the first attempt: a mini­bus from Earl's Hill School was obvious among the vehicles outside the hostel. This was a Victorian country house, brilliantly lit and packed with youngsters. She felt a surge of confidence; the journey had been uneventful and, in order to give her quarry time to get supper out of the way, she had stopped in Callendar for a meal. Fresh and alert, she emerged from the Renault, smoothed her skirt and advanced on the youth hostel.

A girl with spiky hair took her to Geddes, who was supervising washing-up: a gangling man in his late thirties with a large nose, thinning hair and worried eyes. He regarded Miss Pink with an astonishment that was quickly suppressed, but not before she had seen the alarm in his eyes. She retreated to the empty hall and he followed. ‘What is it?' he asked and then, carefully, ‘What can I do for you? Have we met?'

‘My name is Pink.' She gave him an old card, one with JP after her name. He turned pale. ‘Shall we sit in my car?' she suggested. ‘It's a pleasant evening.'

‘Do you mind telling me what this is about?' he asked stiffly as the doors closed on the outside world.

‘Does the name Flora MacKenzie mean anything to you?'

‘I ... don't think so. I've taught a lot of children.'

‘Or Hamish Knox?'

She was turned towards him and he must have been aware of her scrutiny, but he made no attempt to speak. The silence stretched agonisingly. At length she broke it. ‘You weren't the only victim.'

He looked at her then, but in the refracted light neither could read the other's expression. ‘I wasn't?' he breathed and, in the same dull tone, ‘I haven't the remotest idea what you're talking about.'

‘The girl was called Flora MacKenzie.'

‘What girl?'

‘You were photographed as you were trying to get into your car.'

After another silence he gave a small sigh. ‘So that card was a hoax. Clever though; you look just like a JP'

‘I was a JP'

‘What happened? Were you de-frocked when they found out you were blackmailing poor sods who'd been up in front of you on the bench?'

‘How much blackmail have you paid to date?'

‘Who's talking about me being blackmailed?'

‘You're terrified of it. I'm legitimate and I'm here to try to find the explanation for two murders. They were associated with your experience in Sgoradale, and both victims were killed because they knew too much. If they'd shared their information, they wouldn't have been killed. Were those children blackmailing you?'

He didn't respond immediately, but stared into the night. After a time he sighed again and said, ‘No. Yes. Only in the first place, but I was terrified they'd come back. My life's been a torment for weeks. I haven't got the courage to kill myself, but I did consider ... I thought about killing them. No, they're not blackmailing me; I've got nothing they can take.'

‘You have a nice house.'

‘You know about that? I suppose you know everything about me. Those two didn't want money; they took over a hundred pounds off me, but that was just for laughs. The object of the exercise was straight viciousness. They'd beaten an adult, a teacher. Authority, right? It was a put-up job; I worked that out eventually. That boy didn't come on us by accident when he was out shooting rabbits; he was waiting for her to bring me to a place that they probably used over and over again with any other poor sucker she could entice into the woods – and who'd believe my story? I was trapped. God, I was glad when he got himself murdered, and I know exactly how he felt – the guy who did it. There but for the grace of God
...'

‘It seems that Flora killed him, and you postulate a motive. His nerve cracked and she had to silence him.'

He shook his head. ‘She got someone to do it for her then. A child of twelve hasn't the strength to kill a boy of sixteen. She's only a little thing.'

‘How did you allow yourself to be seduced by a twelve-year-old, however charming?'

‘She said she was seventeen, she looked seventeen –'

‘She looked twelve,' Miss Pink said firmly. ‘Jesus!' He slumped in his seat. ‘You've got no proof, not even of this conversation. It's not taking place; no one knows.'

‘Exactly. So tell me how they managed to relieve you of your possessions.'

‘I said – he had a gun. Didn't they use a gun on the other victims?'

‘They had different methods, but a gun was used on one person – not to kill him, but as a threat.'

‘I saw through it eventually,' he repeated savagely. ‘I've had nothing else to think about for weeks. She's a better actor than him. She really did appear to be frightened of him. He can't be her brother – different names, I suppose he's her half-brother – it's immaterial. And then, he saying he'd fetch his father and she saying he'd keep quiet if I gave him money. So I gave him everything I had and he was laughing. He was standing on my clothes and when he told me to run and lifted the gun, I ran. But I swear to you she told me she was seventeen.'

‘She was sixteen.'

‘But you said –
he
said she was
twelve!
His kid sister, he said: twelve years old.'

‘So that was the game: pick a victim, entice him into the woods, big brother turns up – after rabbits with a shotgun – and tells the victim his sister is twelve years old. Child molestation; it's a variation on the badger game.>'

Miss Pink was home again, back in the sitting room at Feartag. A new carpet had been laid and the pane of glass replaced in the french window, ‘It's good to be here,' she said, looking round the room.

‘It's good to have you back,' Beatrice responded. ‘When do you propose to tell Pagan about this terrible double life of Flora's?'