Old Sins, page 3
Ranald hadn’t been so blatantly rude when Kelso was there but, even so, she at least had noticed how uncomfortable he was with their endless bickering. She hadn’t known him very well, and his wife hardly at all, but he had an easy way with him that was very charming – quite good-looking too, even if the scar on his face had been a bit of a shock. Plastic surgery was brilliant nowadays, so presumably he either didn’t care or felt it made some sort of statement.
She wasn’t actually expecting him back for supper. She’d seen him returning after his visit to the store with a little camping stove and he’d come to the kitchen to tell her he might well take shelter in the bothy if darkness closed in.
‘So don’t cater for me, anyway. If I come back starving maybe I can raid the fridge for bread and cheese.’
‘I can do better than that,’ she had said, smiling. ‘There’s the microwave and there’s dozens of meals for one in the freezer, so you can even have a choice.’
‘You’re very kind. And you’re a brilliant cook – your customers are very lucky. Are you happy, being constantly tied to a hot stove?’
He looked as if he was genuinely interested. Hattie suddenly became aware that her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the cooker and her forehead was sweaty. She mopped it awkwardly with the back of her hand.
‘Oh well, it’s all right. I’ve always enjoyed cooking and it’s a good little business now. The tourist season’s pretty much over, of course, but the land clearing and tree-planting at the estate is year-round. They’ve a minimal labouring workforce and some longer-term volunteers but mostly it’s a mixture of kids who come for a week or a fortnight to volunteer – they’re OK with the stuff they can get in the store, but there’s older people who like to have something a bit more special. Usually at the end of the week once the M&S supplies they’ve brought with them have finished.’
Kelso had pulled a face. ‘Not very fair to local shops, but I suppose you can’t stop them. Those won’t be as good as your food, anyway.’
He’d smiled and gone off and she went back to the salmon wellington she was making – that was always in demand and of course it was cheap to do too. She got lots of compliments from her customers but when was the last time she’d been complimented on what she put on her own table? The most she ever got from Ranald now was a grunt that could be interpreted as satisfaction – unless he didn’t like it. He was ready enough to comment then.
She brushed the puff pastry with beaten egg and put it into the oven, then made herself a coffee with just a sliver of the lemon drizzle cake she’d made earlier and sat down with a sigh.
Could they go on like this? The thing was, Hattie couldn’t see an alternative. If she walked out on Ranald, she’d have to give up a lifestyle she enjoyed – her business, her lovely house, friends that she’d made. He’d probably insist on keeping the girls; he’d paid a lot for them, after all, and that would break Hattie’s heart.
No, there was a saying in her family, ‘Grit your teeth, tilt your chin and get on with it.’ She’d just have to grow a thicker skin. Anyway, when it came right down to it, she still loved him in a weird way. When she didn’t hate him.
Kelso Strang was making good progress and the weather so far had held up, though he could already see signs that it was starting to close in. He’d been keeping up a steady, swinging pace and now he began pressing on up through the zigzags of the gully, hoping before it did to reach the ridge between the two peaks – the spire of Meall Mheadonach and Caisteal Liath, the rounded summit that gives Suilven its ‘Sugar Loaf’ name.
He stopped as he emerged on to it, gasping in the keen fresh air that felt like swallowing icy water, breathless not only from the climb but also from the awe-inspiring view stretching out below him, almost as if he had soared like one of the golden eagles who hunted here. Below him the rivers and the lochs made a tapestry with colours that changed with the light as clouds veiled the sun. Looking south, he could see the rocky crest of Stac Pollaidh; Canisp to the north was barely distinguishable now as the squall came sweeping in.
The sky had an ominous purple tinge and the wind was strengthening all the time. He’d have to step on it to get to the top. He was protected to some degree as he went along the side of the drystone dyke but when he rounded the corner he staggered against its brutal force. He was bent double by the time he reached the cairn on the top of Caisteal Liath, and yes, it felt just as he remembered – as if you were straddling the world, freed from the bonds of earth.
He didn’t linger, though. By the minute the wind gusts were getting violent enough to blow him off that exposed summit; the views were being blotted out before his eyes and there was the promise of snow in the sleety rain, now falling fast. No chance of Meall Mheadonach now. He checked the Mountain Weather app on his phone and it was still forecasting a squall that would pass in an hour or so.
As Kelso started the descent, he was looking for shelter where he could sit it out even as he pushed on. He’d only need a cranny angled away from the wind; he had another couple of layers and a rain cover in his backpack as well as a hip flask and a bag of flapjacks Hattie had pressed on him yesterday. The weather might not be ideal, but the exhilaration of the climb had still left him on a high that would see him through till the weather changed.
‘He’s not going to make it back now,’ Ranald Sinclair said, looking out of the window. It was fully dark. ‘We may as well eat – no point in waiting any longer. The weather must have cost him at least a couple of hours.’
‘You don’t think you should phone his mobile and check he’s all right?’ Hattie suggested. ‘You never know, with weather like that.’
He gave her a look of contempt. ‘No, I don’t. He’s a big boy, he can look after himself. He said he’d go to the bothy if it got late.’
‘Yes, he said that to me as well.’ She sipped her gin and tonic, her second; he was on his third Scotch. Maybe it was Dutch courage that made her say, ‘I think he fancied the idea of getting away from us, to be honest.’
‘What the hell do you mean by that?’
‘You didn’t notice that he found the way we speak to each other embarrassing?’
Ranald went red. ‘For God’s sake, he’s been married himself! Everyone has little tiffs.’
‘“Little tiffs” is what we used to have. Now it’s getting downright nasty. Something’s wrong, Ranald. What is it?’
He glared at her, his eyes bulging. ‘I can’t believe you’re making a drama out of this. Nothing’s wrong, except that I have a wife who’s got so touchy that she bristles at every word I say.’
Hattie sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose I do. But I’m touchy because it makes me so unhappy. If Kelso’s not coming back, let’s take the chance to talk about it properly over supper—’
‘Talk about what?’ He had worked himself up into a rage now. ‘If you think I’m going to sit here all evening while you list all my failings as a husband, you can think again. Suddenly I’m not hungry any more. I’m going along to the pub.’
As he got to his feet the two dogs, stretched out asleep in front of the sitting-room stove, sat up, ears pricked, then, as he stormed out, lay down again. Hattie bent forward, her head in her hands.
That hadn’t been her best idea, had it?
As he got lower down the mountain, the snow stopped and the weather had cleared by the time he reached the turn-off to the Suileag bothy but he didn’t hesitate. Not wanting to set off on the long hike back in gathering darkness was all the excuse he needed.
It had been a good day. He’d hardly seen a soul since he set out – a group on the lower slopes, a couple he waved at across a valley. JB had been right, as she so often was: he felt the better for the break and there was something about the majesty of the mountains that put mundane concerns into perspective.
The bothy was primitive enough – bare walls, plank floor, a couple of rough tables and a sleeping platform, with a fireplace that was no more than a space left in the wall with a chimney above. There was no one else there, luckily, though there was food litter in one corner that someone had been too lazy to carry down with them. But on the other hand, some public-spirited soul had left dry wood stacked in a lean-to outside to make a fire.
Kelso got it going, unrolled his sleeping bag and spread it on the platform, then set up his little stove. Decanting two cans of baked beans with sausages into his metal mess tin and heating them up, he didn’t even feel wistful about the no doubt delicious meal he was missing at the Sinclairs’. After fresh air and exercise anything tasted wonderful and with the last of Hattie’s flapjacks and a chocolate bar he was well satisfied.
He always carried a book. There was still a little left in the hip flask so he sat down on the platform with that, to read by the light of the fire and a small camping lamp. It was no good, though; even Sebastian Faulks couldn’t stop his eyes from closing and although it was ridiculously early he gave up the struggle and crashed out.
It got cold as the night wore on and the fire went out. Kelso woke up, shivering, and looked at his watch; it was well after midnight, so he’d already had a few hours’ sleep. When he didn’t drop off again, he got up to fetch some more wood and coax the embers back into life.
It was icy cold when he opened the door, cold and very clear with all the stars out so that he could make his way round the side of the building by their pale, eerie light. Looking down there was only darkness, apart from the steel-grey glint of starlight reflected in a loch below.
He paused, just listening to the silence. It was at that moment he heard it, and in an instinctive, age-old reflex, the hairs rose on the back of his neck. It was faint and far off but unmistakable if once you have heard it – the howl of a wolf.
CHAPTER THREE
DC Livvy Murray was in a thoroughly bad mood coming off the night shift – late, of course, because by the time they’d managed to get a social worker out to pick up the kids it was way past eight o’clock in the morning. She couldn’t leave till then because, while the man who’d been beating their mother up was on his way to the nick with the lucky PC who could go off duty once he’d checked him in, she was meant to get a statement from the mother who was so drunk she couldn’t speak and certainly couldn’t be left alone with the children.
It was what was known as a ‘sticky hoose’ too, where the carpet was so filthy that it stuck to the soles of your shoes as you walked. The room stank, not just from the filthy nappies abandoned on the floor but from the messes made by the ratty little dog that bared its teeth and growled at her every time she moved.
The children, two and one, weren’t difficult, poor mites; they had sat, or slept, in front of the TV with dummies in their mouths and blank expressions. Murray suspected that this was all they ever did. The vests they were wearing were grey with dirt and their nappies were soiled; since their mother was sunk in a slack-jawed stupor she’d changed them herself. She’d had a hunt round for clean clothes but there didn’t seem to be any.
By the time blessed relief came, Murray was stinking herself. She’d have to go back to Fettes Avenue to clock out, but when she got home what she was wearing would go straight in the bin – every experienced DC wears cheap clothes – and she would stand under a hot shower with the strongest-scented soap she possessed until she couldn’t smell the place any more. Then bed – her eyes were sore and gritty with tiredness.
It was bad luck that as she was at last on her way off duty, Detective Inspector Rachel French appeared, coming from the other direction. DI French was looking like she always did – smart, together, assured. It was easy to look like that when you were tall and slim and had the sort of great hair that always looked as if you’d just come from the hairdresser. And she was a graduate who’d been fast-tracked to inspector in a couple of years. And she was competent and well-respected.
Of course she couldn’t help being everything Murray would have liked to be, and wasn’t. She told herself regularly that French hadn’t done it out of spite, just to make Murray feel inadequate, but it didn’t work. And of course it was sod’s law she would appear when Murray was at her worst – smelly and dishevelled and unhappy anyway with her newly-dyed black hair.
French stopped, making a sympathetic grimace. ‘Oh dear – tough night, was it?’
‘You could say.’
‘Getting off now, though? That’s good.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘I heard the result. Don’t let it stop you going for it again – you’re good, Livvy.’
‘Thanks, ma’am,’ she muttered. Having to sound grateful was the worst bit.
‘I know DCI Strang thinks very highly of you too. And it’ll be easier next time, trust me.’ French smiled and went on.
Murray knew it was childish to stick her tongue out at French’s retreating back, but the painful humiliation of having failed the sergeant’s exam was bad enough without knowing that French and Strang had been having pally chats about her behind her back. Strang had spoken to her, of course, and been encouraging while delicately suggesting a more dedicated approach next time might pay off; somehow that was easier to take than French’s attempts at confidence-boosting. She knew he was right.
And she was ambitious still. It was just she’d never had the habit of studying, and now she’d found a great social life here in Edinburgh – and a guy who was sort of almost a boyfriend – it was hard to turn down a night round the pub with mates in favour of a night on her own staring at a book that might have been deliberately written to bore the pants off you.
Murray gave a huge yawn. She wasn’t going to think about it now. She was going to think about buying a bacon and egg roll on her way home and hoping she wouldn’t fall asleep on her feet like a horse before she won through to her bed.
DI French, too, pulled a face DC Murray couldn’t see as she walked away. She had the depressing feeling that this had done more harm than good, but what the hell was she supposed to do?
Murray was one of her constables. If she hadn’t said anything about the sergeant’s exams, that would have been a black mark too, just something else for Livvy Murray to hold against her. The woman was the personification of the Scots motto ‘Wha daur meddle wi’ me?’ with additional spikes and a cherry on top, but if she couldn’t manage to win her over, it would be her failure – and she hated failing. She had too much baggage from her childhood with a father who took any failure on her part as a personal insult.
She was only a few weeks into the post and she was still uncertain, trying to feel her way. It had run fairly smoothly with the rest of the guys so far; much of the time was spent at her desk while they did the grunt work, but she felt it was good leadership to get to know them and Murray seemed to be the only one who’d resented her attempts.
Oh, she hadn’t been insubordinate or anything – the police force is a very hierarchical set-up – but at briefings she could sense a sort of flat resistance from Murray to what she was saying. It didn’t help with team building.
DCI Kelso Strang had been something of a mentor to her. With his responsibilities for the SRCS he was only peripherally involved in team politics and had previously been a source of good objective advice when she’d been very new and a bit shaky. She buzzed to ask if he’d time to see her.
In the broom cupboard he called his office, French edged herself on to the chair in the corner and said, ‘I was just wanting to pick your brains about a problem I’m having with one of my constables.’
He looked at her with a slight smile. ‘Let me guess. Livvy Murray.’
French looked surprised. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d even know who she was.’
‘Oh, I know Livvy, all right. And what’s more, I should tell you that JB is something of a fan.’
That was enough to give her a hollow feeling in her stomach. ‘JB is?’
‘I know! But she believes she has potential. It’s a long story – I won’t bore you with it. But I’ve worked with Livvy on three SRCS homicides now and apart from occasions when she’s gone off at a tangent and I could cheerfully have killed her, I’ve been impressed. She has original ideas, if you charge her with her a task she’ll go at it like a terrier shaking a rat to death, and she’s a learner too. I’ve great respect for how far she’s got with sheer determination – I don’t know the background details, but I think she’d a difficult start in life without the chance to learn about mental discipline.
‘She’s keen to get on, though, and failing her sergeant’s exams will be a big blow, even if I’m not convinced she took the work seriously enough. I’d happily bet on her next time round, but she’ll be really hurting meantime.’
‘Well, I can certainly make allowances for her,’ French said with a sigh. ‘The trouble is, I’m not sure she’s prepared to make allowances for me.’
Strang pulled a face. ‘Mmm. Her problem is that you look as if you’ve got everything absolutely sorted – yes, I know it doesn’t feel like that to you, but that’ll be how she sees it. It’s all about a fundamental lack of confidence.’
‘Right,’ she said slowly.
But when she’d seen Murray coming in from what had obviously been the night-shift from hell, she had tried. She’d got nowhere and that wasn’t a comfortable thought now she knew Detective Chief Superintendent Jane Borthwick might be taking a special interest in her protegée.
At first, she thought the knocking at the door was the pounding in her own head. Danni Maitland opened bleary eyes. Her mouth was gritty, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth, her lips were dry. The clock on her bedside table said nine-thirty – who the hell could be coming to the cottage at this hour?
The knocking started again. Whoever it was didn’t seem to be prepared to go away and come back later, so groaning and swearing she swung herself upright. The room swung round her too; she let it settle for a moment as her stomach heaved, then moved gingerly. She’d been feeling clammy and sweaty but now it was freezing cold. She grabbed up the jacket she’d tossed onto the floor when she came in the night before and struggled out into the living room, muttering, ‘All right, all right, I’m coming!’
