Authors: Aline Templeton
‘What did the letter say?’ Fleming was anxious to divert her from the tidal wave of guilt that had clearly overpowered her.
Skye took a deep breath. ‘It said, “What I gave to Julia wasn’t fatal. I didn’t kill her. I want to know who did.”’
It was all Fleming could do not to gasp. It was MacNee who said, ‘Did you know?’
‘No, of course not! It was rubbish. She wasn’t
killed
, she’d just taken too much stuff—’
‘Did Will believe it?’ Fleming cut in.
‘No.’ Then she paused. ‘I don’t think so. He said he didn’t, but with what happened …’ Her voice tailed away.
‘So, you arranged to meet Connell?’
‘Yes. There was the Homecoming Party, you see. Kendra sent Will the invitation and he’d been thinking maybe of trying to get a job back here. So we could do that and see Connell at the same time, sort out what he was talking about, get the others to talk to him too, if need be. He was always besotted about Julia and we needed to
reassure him – no one would hurt her, she was a lovely girl.
‘We came over a bit beforehand. Will had a couple of people in Glasgow he was going to talk to about a job. Then Connell wanted us to meet him down here. We … we didn’t know why at the time, why not Glasgow? But he’d been planning it all along. We just didn’t realise—’
She broke off to bite at her thumbnail, tearing a sliver of skin away until it bled. The other nails, too, were ragged and bitten down to the quick.
The tension in the room was palpable. MacNee was leaning forward as if that would let him catch her words more quickly, Thomson was rigid in his chair and Fleming felt her own pulse quicken.
Thomson spoke first. ‘Stop! Don’t say anything else until I’ve talked to you, Skye.’
She dismissed him with a gesture, like someone swatting away an irritating fly.
‘We met in a pub in Castle Douglas – nine o’clock. Not very convenient – we’d have a long drive back to Glasgow – but it was an edgy situation, you know?
‘We didn’t like to argue. Connell was always …’ She paused. ‘It’s hard to explain, sort of dangerous. I think that’s why Julia liked him, the excitement of it, the buzz, but I don’t think any of the rest of us did – oh, except Jen. I think she seriously fancied him, but with Connell it was always Julia.
‘He was looking really haggard, and his eyes – he’d these very dark eyes and now they looked …’ she considered the next word, ‘haunted – haunted by Julia’s memory, I suppose.
‘He got in the drinks and then he started talking about the Cyrenaics, asking about what the others were doing. It felt uncomfortable, like he was making small talk to put off discussing it, but he was watching us all the time. It was giving me the creeps. At last Will asked him
what he’d meant about Julia’s death? Connell stared right at him. He looked – oh, I don’t know, sort of lit up from inside with anger or something. He started talking about Ecstasy in Julia’s system that night.
‘Well, everyone knew he didn’t deal in E – too unpredictable, he always said. You’d have to be crazy to give it to Julia on top of what she was taking already – but quite honestly, that wouldn’t have stopped Julia taking it herself. She was – well, just away, really.
‘He said he’d only just discovered that the inquest had found it was the combination that killed her, and then he accused Will of giving it to her.’
‘Had he?’ Fleming asked, her voice as gentle as she could make it.
‘No,’ Skye said, then hesitated. ‘Well, he said he hadn’t but – Will wasn’t always – straightforward.’ Her mouth twisted in pain, at some memory, perhaps. But she went on, ‘I could see he was sweating, wiping his forehead and his mouth. I didn’t think anything of it, just that he was under a lot of pressure, that he was upset.
‘Oh, maybe he had done it – he did have drugs, sometimes. And Julia was always – sort of
hungry,
if you know what I mean.’
Fleming nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘Then Connell just said flatly, “You’re lying.” He wanted us all to go to The Albatross so he could talk to Logie and Kendra, see what they’d say when he challenged Will. “They were there – they’ll know what you did.” He kept saying that whenever we tried to say it wouldn’t help.
‘Will and I looked at each other. I was really uncomfortable, I didn’t want to go – I was scared of Connell, really, but Will just said we should go with him, that they might know where she really got it from. He was looking a bit strange but I just thought it was because Connell was getting to him.
‘So we went out to his car – he insisted that we could talk on the way and he’d bring us back. I got in the front beside Connell, Will was in the back.
‘It was a terrible night – rain, wind, storm. We drove down through Dalbeattie, then on to the road towards Ballinbreck. There was lightning and the river was running high – I could hear it even above the engine of the car.
‘Connell had said we were going to talk but then he didn’t say anything and Will didn’t either. I didn’t think anything about that – we hadn’t got anywhere arguing with him before.
‘We were a few miles from Ballinbreck when suddenly Connell stopped. He leant across me and opened the door and told me to get out. I thought he’d gone mad.
‘I said, “What do you mean, Connell? It’s pouring with rain, we’re in the middle of nowhere.” He said he meant that I should get out of the car – he started pushing me. I screamed, “Will!” but he didn’t answer and Connell just laughed.
‘I was desperate, clinging on to the door, but when I looked round I could see Will was fast asleep. I kept screaming and screaming but he didn’t react and then I saw that Connell had something in his hand, a sort of stick thing with a knob at the end—’
‘A cosh?’ MacNee suggested.
Skye shrugged. ‘Probably. He threatened to hit me with it and then he gave me such a hard push that I fell out – landed on the side of my face against a stone. He chucked my bag out after me and then he slammed the door and drove on.
‘I was distraught. He must have spiked Will’s drink and I could see what he was going to do but I was helpless. I didn’t even have my mobile – it was back in the car at the pub.
‘I walked and walked, for hours, it felt like, hoping for a house or a car I could flag down – though what could they do, anyway? But
it was such a terrible night – only two cars passed and I don’t think they even noticed me.
‘Then I saw the tracks. There were broken branches and tyre marks, and I just knew – Connell had driven it into the water. He really had committed suicide this time and taken Will with him. I peered through the hedge but there was no sign of the car, just black water, running fast and high.
‘I think I went into shock. I just walked on, and then I saw the lights of a house and – well, the rest you know.’
Skye slumped and her solicitor, who was looking shocked himself, stepped in. ‘Miss Falconer has been cooperative beyond your wildest dreams, Inspector. I think she’s had enough – more than enough.’
Fleming ignored him. ‘Tell me about Mrs Margrave, Skye.’
‘Oh, she was a lovely lady – so kind. I couldn’t tell her, I couldn’t thank her, even. I just – just couldn’t speak. I felt like I was paralysed. Shock, I suppose. I stayed the night and then left in the morning.’
‘But you didn’t contact us, once you’d recovered?’
‘What would be the point? He was dead and I didn’t care about anything else, just wanted to cower away like a sick animal – and Jen was a true friend …’ She gave a sad little smile. ‘Not sure she is now, though.’
‘When did you realise that Will wasn’t dead after all?’
‘Oh, I’ll never forget it – that moment! Jen just came in and mentioned she’d seen Will and it was – I don’t know, like the sun had come out or a brass band had started playing. I hadn’t told her what had happened and she’d been good about not quizzing me, so I just acted casual. I don’t know what she thought. I just felt dazed. The drug must have been wearing off, I suppose, and my screaming woke him – and it was Connell went into the river, not Will. I was so happy.
‘But then I wondered – why hadn’t he been looking for me? He
hadn’t asked Jen about me and he knew she’d be more likely to know than anyone else.
‘You see—’ Skye faltered, and tears gathered in her eyes again. ‘I was never sure of him. Perhaps he was tired of me, glad of the excuse to get rid of me. I had to work so hard, so hard to keep him. And I’m not sure I did, really.
‘There was the party – I thought I’d go looking my best and surprise him. Then—’ Her hands went up to cover her face.
After a moment Fleming said softly, ‘Then …?’
Skye gave a great sigh. ‘Connell’s letter,’ she said. ‘I’d had the letter in my bag. I’d forgotten all about it until I was looking for a top to wear to the party and I suddenly realised it wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere in the room, either.
‘I realised I must have dropped it when I took my stuff out of my bag at Mrs Musgrave’s house to let it dry by the heater. Julia’s mother was going to find a letter that said someone had killed Julia.’
Thomson looked aghast. ‘Skye, stop there,’ he said, though without much conviction.
Fleming said quickly, ‘So what did you do?’
‘I had to phone Will. He was stunned to hear my voice, said he’d thought Connell had killed me earlier. And then I had to tell him what had happened with the letter.’
‘How did he react?’ Fleming asked.
‘Shocked, I think. Then he just said there was nothing we could do.’
‘That was all?’
‘Yes. That’s all I know.’ Skye sagged in her chair as if she no longer had the strength to sit upright.
Even so, Fleming went on, ‘And do you think Will might have killed her even so, wanted to stop someone investigating Julia’s death?’
She gave a little sob. ‘Oh please, no! Surely he couldn’t … She was such a kind lady. I could have died of cold – and I didn’t even thank
her. What she thought—’ She was starting to slur her words from sheer exhaustion.
You could only feel pity. Fleming said gently, ‘I think she was very sorry for you. She called you her little mermaid.’
Skye’s eyes, too big for her pinched face, filled again. ‘The little mermaid! Oh God, yes. Every day with Will, it was as if I were walking on knives too, just like she was with her prince, afraid he would leave me. And now he’s gone!’
As she broke down completely, Fleming got up. ‘I will put in hand Miss Falconer’s release on bail and I’ll make an immediate report to the fiscal. Interview terminated, 15.25 p.m.’
‘I’m still feeling dazed, to be honest,’ DI Fleming said, when she had briefed her team on Skye Falconer’s confession.
‘The best bit was her brief’s face,’ MacNee said. ‘Thought he was going to have a coronary a couple of times.’
‘So are we accepting this – that Will Stewart killed Kane in selfdefence?’ Macdonald asked.
‘Having killed Julia, maybe even accidentally, then went on to strangle her mother to stop questions being asked?’ Hepburn was enthusiastic. ‘That would all fit.’
‘Didn’t kill himself, though,’ Campbell pointed out.
‘Exactly,’ Fleming said. ‘I don’t buy it, Louise. Apart from anything else, Stewart’s not a stupid man and he was a copper – he knew perfectly well about standards of proof. A letter like that from a convicted drug dealer isn’t evidence. He’d have to have been mad to take the risk of committing murder instead of simply stating that Kane was delusional. No, I’m afraid nothing’s that simple. OK, we know now why Kane came back but we’re no nearer to understanding why he only recently found out about the
inquest verdict. Did someone contact him? And if so, why.’
‘And why now?’ said Campbell.
‘That’s a bit weird,’ MacNee agreed. ‘Suddenly someone just takes a wee notion to stir up trouble? Nothing on the telly and they got bored?’
‘I could understand that, with all this referendum stuff,’ Hepburn said with feeling. ‘But there must have been a trigger, surely.’
‘The Homecoming party?’ Macdonald suggested. ‘Whoever wrote it knew that the Cyrenaics would be coming back together again.’
‘Philippa Lindsay would definitely know,’ Hepburn said. ‘And Randall, possibly. And of course Kendra and Logie would hear from Will that he was coming. Jen Wilson – maybe, maybe not. But why would you want to cause trouble just because they were going to be together again?’
‘There’s folks just like trouble,’ MacNee said darkly.
‘Hey, wait a minute!’ Hepburn was off again. ‘Will was killed in the end, right? Maybe someone planned to kill him all along – like Philippa, say, being mad jealous because he’d gone off with someone else, or Kendra, even – and one of them wrote the letter hoping that if Connell thought Will had killed Julia that he’d do it for them?’
Macdonald was impressed. ‘And then, I suppose, things just went wrong and the rest could have followed from that. So we need to ask who might want Stewart dead, and why?’
Fleming had listened, saying nothing. Now she said, ‘I think starting another hare running about motivation is counterproductive. Let’s focus on what we can establish from Skye’s evidence. We know that Stewart helped Kane to disappear. We know that he had Kane’s address. Who else had it? Who knew where he was and knew he wasn’t dead?’
‘Not Jen Wilson, anyway,’ Macdonald said confidently. ‘She passed out with shock when we told her.’
‘Didn’t,’ Campbell said.
Macdonald bristled. ‘What do you mean? I only just caught her before she hit the floor.’
‘Passed out when you told her he was dead. Again.’
‘Oh.’ Macdonald thought about it. ‘I suppose that’s right.’
Fleming said sharply, ‘Suggesting she’d thought he was alive? If you believed someone was dead anyway, I can’t see that being told he’d been alive before but was dead now would make you faint. That’s quite significant.
‘Tam, did—’ She broke off as the phone on her desk rang and she took the call, scribbling down a note as she listened, finishing, ‘Thanks, Mike.’ She put it down.
‘They’ve found Will Stewart’s hired car. It’s in the Balcary Bay car park – good spot for starting a walk along the Solway coastline, but of course it’s still quiet at this time of year. Pure luck they found it, Mike says – a sharp-eyed constable on his day off. He’s arranging a fingertip search so we may have some joy with forensics at last.’
There were murmurs of satisfaction and MacNee said, ‘So – what now?’
Fleming thought for a moment. ‘Mike’s calling in the SOCOs so for the moment there’s nothing we could do at the site except get in the way. Tam, I was going to ask you how you and Louise got on with Jen Wilson?’
MacNee smote his head. ‘I meant to tell you – with all this it slipped my mind. I’d a brainwave about teachers’ free periods – only they’ve got some fancy name for them nowadays. When we checked at the school the heidie told us she’s got one last thing on a Friday, so maybe her alibi’s not just so great after all. But we never got to speak to her before you phoned.’
Fleming raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t mention that to anyone, did she?’
Macdonald and Campbell shook their heads.
‘Right. I’ll get down there, then – Tam, I’ll need you. Bring a tape recorder. The rest of you – just clock off. Tomorrow may be a busy day if we get reports on Stewart’s car.’
She sensed a certain reluctance as they got to their feet and shuffled out. Hepburn hung back.
‘Randall,’ she said. ‘There isn’t any news of him, is there?’
‘Not that’s reached me.’
‘What do we think about him now, with all that Skye said? He certainly had a motive to kill Julia but Will clearly didn’t think he had, so why would Randall want to kill him? And how would he know that Mrs Margrave had found the letter?’
‘I take your point. The letter certainly seems to have been the triggering incident and it’s hard to see how he would have been involved in that. The most damning thing was him suddenly disappearing – if he would just make contact and answer a few questions, my guess is that we could rule him out.’
Hepburn nodded. ‘Right. Never seemed the type to me, to be honest. Thanks, boss.’
DC Campbell clocked off with the others but then went back to the CID room via the canteen to collect a couple of KitKats. He was in no hurry to get home: his mother-in-law was coming the next day and his wife had been bellyaching on about the lawn needing mowing.
The room was quiet and he settled down at a terminal in perfect contentment. He was at his happiest just ferreting through files, trying to spot what others might have missed, and Eleanor Margrave’s murder had produced extensive reports, offering hours of pleasurable trawling ahead.
It was six o’clock when, going through the records, he suddenly stopped. He checked what it said, frowning, and then recollected
an interview they’d done. He accessed it and read it, nodding with satisfaction.
That could be worth following up. He flagged it up so the boss would see it in the morning, then with some reluctance logged out and went home to face the domestic storm.
For once, Fleming chucked the keys to MacNee when they reached the car park. Knowing her dislike of being driven, he looked surprised.
‘I just want to think really hard about this next interview,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a feeling it’s crucial and I don’t want to be distracted while I work out the line I want to take.’
‘Good,’ MacNee said. ‘Maybe that’ll stop you giving a running commentary on when I should change gear.’
She pulled a face at him and settled back in her seat.
She ought to be feeling elated that they had the evidence now to close the Connell Kane enquiry but she hadn’t time for that. Yes, it was satisfying, but it shed very little light on what had happened afterwards – and she hated being in the dark.
Once the news of Skye’s release got out, someone would be afraid, scrabbling for safety in the shadows like some frightened animal; she could almost sense the small panicky movements, the shifting patterns.
Frightened creatures were dangerous. It scared her when she saw no obvious way forward – with reason, since there were previous cases where she had failed to prevent a tragedy. She needed to think clearly, and she needed to think fast.
She’d had a feeling all along that Jen Wilson wasn’t the bystander she appeared to be, and now she hadn’t that solid alibi for Eleanor Margrave’s murder it was getting stronger.
This was all about connections – who knew what, and when? The letter, as quoted by Skye, indicated that Kane had only recently found
out that there had been Ecstasy as well as cocaine in Julia’s system. That had been published in the report from the inquest two years ago but Kane would have been ‘dead’ before that; perhaps he hadn’t known then about the report. Skye and Will Stewart self-evidently hadn’t told him.
Jen Wilson could have known Kane was alive despite her claims that she hadn’t – and even known where he was. But then, why wait until now to tell him that the drugs he’d given her weren’t what killed Julia? And what was the point? Why would she have wanted to rake it all up again?
Fleming thought back to their earlier interview with her. She had checked back on it before she left and once more was struck forcibly by how defensive she had been, how determined to distance herself from it all. Some of her answers just hadn’t been credible; indeed there had been only one that had shone out as truth – that she had, at least at one stage, believed Kane was dead.
Suppose she’d discovered he was alive, what had she thought the result of contacting him would be? What would it achieve?
‘Tam,’ she said, so suddenly that he jumped, ‘if you got, say, a letter, telling you that the woman you loved had died because someone gave her a large dose of E on top of the stuff she was taking, what would you do?’
MacNee’s reply was prompt. ‘Same as he did. Come back to kill the bastard. Mind you, it’s kind of hard to imagine Bunty OD’ing on cocaine and Ecstasy. Cupcakes, now …’
Fleming smiled. ‘Her and the rest of the Women’s Guild. Anyway, I agree – that’s what the sender would guess Kane would be likely to do. And say you were Jen Wilson, why would you want that?’
‘If she’d some kind of grudge against Will Stewart, maybe? If they all knew Kane didn’t deal in E, if he was the obvious source …?’
‘Mmm. Not convinced. Too many “ifs” there.’ Fleming was
frowning. ‘Tam, she passed out when she was told Kane really was dead – and after Skye had been arrested for his murder, she was venomous about her, remember. She cared a lot.’
‘So she’s daft about him, jealous of Julia – answer, get rid of the competition. Fair enough – but she’s hardly going to draw a wee map with arrows on for him saying look what happened, is she?’
Fleming said suddenly, ‘Did you read that report of the interview the lads did with Charles Lindsay? He said that Philippa had set up the whole Homecoming thing because she was in love with Will Stewart and it was the way she hoped to get him back. Could that apply to Jen as well, do you reckon?’
‘So she uses it to lure him home, then the whole thing kicks off and Kane’s dead for real? All her fault?’
‘She’s been insisting all along that it’s nothing to do with her. Maybe she even needs to believe that. And the more I think about it the more I like it. Skye knew Kane’s address; what would be more likely than that she’d tell her best friend after all the fuss had died down?
‘The connections are falling into place. She’s right in there, Tam.’
Somehow, she’d known that all along; now she needed to play her hunch. Fleming could feel the excitement building.
As she let herself into her flat, Louise Hepburn was feeling bored and restless, at a loose end. This was always a danger point: the desire for a cigarette kicked in and there was a newsagent’s two minutes away – but having come so far that really would be a crass thing to do.
Instead, she went to scrabble in the kitchen drawer where she kept the nicotine patches and slapped one on to blunt the craving, while she made a cup of coffee and went through to her little sitting room to drink it. The ghost of past cigarettes still hung on the air, which didn’t help.
It had been such an interesting day with the new developments in the case and she’d been hoping they’d all go off together and discuss it, but Ewan had gone back to the CID room and Andy had seemed pleased to get away early and driven off. Probably had a date, or something.
Louise didn’t. The nice guy she’d gone out with a couple of times hadn’t been in touch since she’d had to cancel their cinema plan to go to the Homecoming party. He’d probably found someone else to take who didn’t have a ridiculously demanding job.
She was definitely feeling flat. Apart from anything else she’d been looking forward to interviewing Jen Wilson and now Fleming was going to do it herself.
The idea about Will Stewart having killed Julia – she knew she’d only been flying a kite and Ewan and Big Marge between them had sent it fluttering down in flames And when you really thought about it, Jen hadn’t been properly scrutinised, lurking there on the fringes with her perfect alibi.
She thought back to the night of the party. Jen had been on the fringes then too, she realised, watching but uninvolved. Had she always been like that, the one nobody noticed? If she cared enough about Connell to faint when told he was dead, she’d have been bitterly jealous of his adored Julia. There was nothing simpler than to give a druggie an overdose – and, it suddenly struck her, if PC Will was a bit free with drugs, it would be simple enough to get a tab or two of E from him and reckon that no one would ever know Julia hadn’t taken it herself.
No one except Will. They’d been at a loss to understand why he should have been killed, but you could have the answer right there.
What Louise needed now was a Gitane to help her think it through. In desperation, she found some nicotine chewing gum and didn’t sit
down again, pacing restlessly to and fro as she masticated it. The taste really was pretty revolting.
She knew there were still gaping holes in her theory and she wished she had Andy here to bounce it off; joining the gaps was his speciality. She wasn’t going to phone him, though. She could just imagine him rolling his eyes at his date and saying, ‘This stupid woman from work,’ after he’d brushed her off.
No, it would have to wait till the morning. There was nothing else she could do except see if for once there was something on the box that wasn’t either football or politicians slagging each other off.
Or maybe there was. Fleming had said that if they could just get Randall Lindsay to come forward and explain, they might be able to score him off the list. She hadn’t wiped her messages and if she checked back, she should find the ones he had sent.