Old Sins, page 6
‘I’m going to report it,’ he was saying. ‘You can’t do that. It’s against the law.’
‘You’ll only make a fool of yourself.’ Sean Reynolds’ voice was terse. ‘Of course there isn’t. One day, sure – but when it happens it’s all going to be above board.’
Angus was stubborn. ‘I know what I saw. And your kind thinks they’re above the law. At least when it’s legal we’ll get compensation. I’ll be sending you the bill – the poor beast had to be put down.’
‘If you think I’d fork out for someone’s dog being out of control, you’ve got another think coming, fast.’ Seeing Kelso, Sean turned. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. What can I get you?’
Kelso gave his order. He wanted to ask Angus some more about what had happened – could this be the explanation for the haunting cry he’d heard? – but he hesitated. Hattie was waiting for him by herself at the table and it could be his chance to be a listening ear, if she wanted one. However, just as he brought the drinks across Ranald appeared from the farther end and joined them.
‘Sorry, I’ve been neglecting you,’ he said. ‘It was a useful bit of business, though. Well, what do you think of our local? It’s not quite what you would expect for a sleepy wee place like this, eh?’
‘No,’ Kelso agreed. ‘There’s obviously quite a lot going on, one way and another.’ He said it deliberately looking pointedly at Ranald, hoping he might show some sign of consciousness and then consider backing off the fragrant Mrs Reynolds, but it went unnoticed. Not a very sensitive person, Ranald Sinclair.
‘Well, you know what small towns are like,’ he said. ‘Always something happening.’
No, Kelso didn’t know what small towns were like. He’d had a peripatetic childhood, never in one place for long, and then he’d lived in a city. The only time he came across small towns was in the course of his work when the SRCS had been summoned and the place was in crisis. It was an education for him to see how many tensions could be seething under the surface in a small town that was just going about ordinary life.
He went on with his people-watching as he chatted to his hosts and saw Danni being led out of the door on to the terrace by Lumberjack Shirt.
‘You didn’t mean that, did you?’ Joe Dundas said, a hint of desperation in his tone.
Danni looked at him coolly. ‘Mean what? You said you wanted me to come out and you’d give me a fag. I didn’t come so you could start interrogating me.’
‘I’m not interrogating you! I just asked a simple question. I want to know what you meant, all right?’
‘Ciggie first. Where is it? Come on!’
‘OK, I don’t have any. I only keep them for you, and I didn’t finish in time to get to the shop before it shut.’
‘Well, buy some over the bar, then,’ she said impatiently.
‘Kasper doesn’t keep them, except in the shop.’
She turned. ‘Not much point in being out here, then, is there? And I’m getting cold.’
He put his hand on her arm to detain her, then lifted it as she said, outraged, ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Sorry. Look, wait for a minute. You said I was a roughneck and Linton laughed.’
‘It was a joke, all right? Now, can I go back in?’
‘No. I just got the feeling you’d been sneering at me behind my back. If that’s how it is, I’m not interested.’
She gave him a long, indifferent look. ‘Fine by me.’
Joe stared back at her, his face a mask of misery. ‘Do you really mean that?’
‘Stop asking me if I really mean that. I don’t know what I mean. I just want to have a good time and the way the two of you are going on is getting me in trouble.’
‘Tell him to back off, then. You know he’s mucking you about – he’s nothing but a slimeball. He’s only interested because you’ve got a bit of money.’
Danni bridled. ‘Oh really? I’m so unattractive that no one could fancy me for myself? And where does that leave you?’
‘I’m not like that! I-I think you’re brilliant. I’ve been trying to tell you that ever since I met you. I’m serious, Danni, and I thought you fancied me, a bit. It’s driving me daft, the way you let him keep coming between us all the time.’
Her arms were folded. ‘Maybe it never crossed your mind that you may be serious but I’m not? Do you really think I would settle for getting stuck in a dump like this? I’m getting bored already and there’s a great big world out there.’
‘You’re not planning to leave, are you?’ he said, alarm in his voice.
Danni shrugged. ‘When it suits me.’
His head went down. Then he looked up, gazing into her face as he moved towards her. ‘I’m going to make you care,’ he said.
Alarmed by his intensity she eyed him warily, unsure what he was going to do. He was a big man, tall and strong, but when he pulled her into his arms it was clear he was only going to kiss her and she had no alternative but to let him. Then he released her looking, great sumph, as if he thought that might have changed her mind.
She swung her arm back and slapped his face as hard as she could. She had a heavy dress ring on one finger that left a bloody mark across his left cheek.
‘Oh, you really have blown it now!’ she said. ‘I’m never going to speak to you again and if you come near me, I’ll tell the police.’
She went back into the pub and slammed the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
At the slamming of the door, heads turned in the pub. Danni, her face stormy, marched across to the coat hooks in the corner, snatched her parka and went out of the other door. There was a stir of discreet amusement that became a small but hurtful ripple of laughter when the door opened again and Joe Dundas, with a red face and a cut on his left cheekbone, came in to fetch his own coat, not looking to left or to right.
Hattie, a kindly soul, was dismayed. ‘Oh dear! Poor boy! She really is a nasty bit of work. And I notice Ben Linton’s vanished. Quite honestly, he’d be better to keep away from her altogether.’
‘If she’d just vanish I’d be happier,’ Ranald said. ‘Though of course it wouldn’t solve the problem of me getting hold of the property and not Sean.’
He looked as if he was going to start the old story up again. Kelso had been hoping he might get an excuse to ask Angus Mackenzie a bit more about his quarrel with Reynolds, but it didn’t look as if he was going to get the opportunity. Rather than gritting his teeth and preparing to listen, he looked at his watch.
‘I hate to break up the party but I’m going to have to make an early start in the morning. If you wouldn’t mind … ?’
Ranald rose. ‘Me too. All right, Hattie?’
They all got up and he was walking past the bar when Angus Mackenzie reached out to grab his arm. He was showing more sign of his evening’s entertainment, but he was still perfectly coherent and stable on his feet.
‘Hope I’m not taking advantage,’ he said, ‘but could I have a word with you?’
Hattie stopped. ‘Angus, Kelso’s got to be up early tomorrow. I’m just going to drag him away.’
‘Oh well,’ Angus said, polite but crestfallen.
‘No, no,’ Kelso said hastily. ‘It’s fine. You go on Hattie – won’t be long.’
Hattie drew him aside to whisper, ‘Bit lit up tonight, I think. Are you sure?’
‘Don’t worry. See you shortly, I hope.’
‘We won’t lock the door.’
Kelso turned back to Angus. ‘There’s a table free over there. Why don’t we sit down and have a chat?’
High on the adrenaline from her outburst, Danni Maitland set off briskly up the track to the cottage. It powered her for the first bit but after that it was steeper; she was seriously unfit and progress got slower and slower.
It was very, very dark, the sort of dark where it felt like someone had put a blanket over your head and you wanted to put up your hand to push it away. Up till now the weather had always cleared at night and with moonlight and starlight you could at least see where you were going, but the heavy cloud cover tonight meant that she could barely see the ground under her feet as light from the pub dwindled. A tussock of grass brought her to her knees, swearing.
And she’d forgotten to bring a torch, FFS. How dumb could she be? That meant either she’d have to stumble on a bit more slowly, staring at her feet, unless she wanted to go back down to the pub to borrow one – embarrassing in itself, after the exit she’d made – and then have to start the climb all over again. She stumbled on.
It had been a rotten evening, anyway. Of course Danni wasn’t interested in Joe – like she would be! – but she’d been using him to try to keep Ben interested. She fancied Ben – he was well fit and quite classy with it, but she’d no idea where she was with him. She’d once or twice been kind of worried he maybe saw her like she saw Joe – the way he’d said, earlier tonight, that he expected she’d move on soon, like he was cool with that. Not like Joe, gawping at her like a codfish when she said she would leave.
He’d a good job on the estate, Ben – management, not a labourer, like Joe – and for a wee while she’d even reckoned she could get used to the place and the weather, because he was quite sexy, but even if he did fancy her, Danni wasn’t sure that would make up for everything else. Like not being able to pop out to the shops on a Saturday.
She was sweaty and breathless now, reaching the steepest part of the path, the part where it skirted the edge of the cliff where Flora had fallen. It always creeped her out, this bit; she’d even dreamt last night she was falling off it herself, and she shuddered now, looking back over her shoulder, though of course she knew there couldn’t be anyone there.
But could she be sure? How would she know if there was someone just coming up silently behind her in the darkness, stalking her step by step, like someone could have stalked Flora? Joe, maybe, angry at what she’d done to him … ? Giving a little gasp of fright she forced herself into a staggering run to reach the cottage.
She never locked the door – nothing inside worth stealing – but once over the doorstep she locked it now and leant against the wall panting for breath, nerves twanging like strings being plucked. Then she bent to peer out of one of the low windows. She couldn’t see any movement, but then it was pitch-dark. Deathly quiet too. A seagull squawked suddenly and she almost jumped out of her skin.
It was really getting to her now. No way could she go on like this. Face it – Ben Linton wasn’t a good bet, so the sooner she got out the better. She could go and tell the lawyer on Monday to get things moving, and then all she had to do was decide between Ranald and Sean.
And that would take, like, a nanosecond. She couldn’t care less what they did with the place; choosing the top bid was a no-brainer, and she could spend tomorrow on the Internet, looking up places to see in Australia.
When Angus Mackenzie joined him at the table the conversation didn’t take quite the turn Kelso had expected. Having heard him say to Reynolds that something was ‘against the law’, he’d assumed he would be hearing a complaint in the hope that it would be passed on, backed by pressure from ‘ever such a high-powered police officer’, as Hattie had termed him. That was what people usually did, in these circumstances.
He was wrong, though. The man who was sitting opposite him with tears in his eyes and his hands trembling, wasn’t talking about his sheep. His faded blue eyes were bloodshot and he was admittedly far from sober but nor, Kelso judged, was this just the maudlin stage of drunkenness. Something was distressing him and he took out a handkerchief to blow his nose.
‘I’m sorry – excuse me. It’s hard for me to talk about it but it could be this is my only chance. You probably know about what happened to Flora Maitland?’
It took Kelso a moment to remember who she was. Hattie had indeed mentioned her but only in passing, and he probably couldn’t have come up with the name if challenged. ‘She had an accident, is that right? A fall from a cliff path?’
‘Accident? Oh, that’s what they said. They said she was drunk, staggered off the path close to the house. They said she was tottery because she was old and drunk with it – well, not in those words,’ he admitted, seeing Kelso’s look of astonishment. ‘But that was what they meant. I told them they were wrong. I told them I knew Flora better than anyone—’ His voice broke and he bowed his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘She was your good friend,’ Kelso said gently. ‘It must have been very upsetting.’
His head snapped up and he glared at Kelso. ‘Not just upsetting – wickedly wrong!’ he said fiercely. ‘Flora was up and down these hills day after day with her flock, no bother. She was fit and she could certainly walk me into the ground. And drunk? I tell you, she’d the hardest head of anyone I know – man or woman. Whatever she drank, she never showed it. I’m a lightweight, compared to her.’ He paused. ‘I know you think I’m a bit on the go tonight, and you’re right. I quite often am on a Saturday night, since Flora went. But it doesn’t mean that what I say isn’t the truth.
‘And that night, she was still on her first drink. I was there beside her, in a group talking to some of the kids from the estate project. We were arguing about their bloody wolves and she was laughing and then suddenly she wasn’t. She went white; it looked as if she’d seen something that scared the life out of her, but when I turned to look, I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She said she didn’t feel well and just finished her glass and went. That was the last I saw of her.’
‘And you told the police officers this?’
The laugh Angus gave him was bitter. ‘Oh yes, I told them. I told a couple of different ones, more than once, and they patted me on the head and sent me away. I told her brother what I thought, thinking the family might have had more clout, but nothing’s happened. The niece,’ – he shrugged – ‘I don’t see her doing anything.’
‘Right,’ Kelso said slowly. ‘What you’re saying is that you believe someone killed Flora, is that right? So of course I have to ask you why you think anyone might have wanted to harm her.’ Immediately, he sensed Angus’s withdrawal; for the first time he was looking shifty.
‘Why? Um, well, I couldn’t say, of course. She’d – she’d had an interesting life, I think. Not that I would know, really.’
Which meant he did know something. Kelso could press him, of course, but there wasn’t any point until he’d some idea of what this was all about. He said merely, ‘So what are you expecting me to do about it?’
‘I don’t know you, so I’m not expecting anything. But Hattie said you’re very senior and I felt there was just a chance you might ask some questions, get them to open the case to look at it again.’
So Kelso had been wrong about what Angus Mackenzie was going to talk about, but he’d been right that it was the usual motive. He shaped his response carefully. ‘It doesn’t work like that, but give me your contact anyway. What I can say is I’ll try to see the report and if there was something I could legitimately ask about, I will. I’m afraid that’s all I can promise.’
‘Thank you.’ Angus got to his feet. ‘Thank you, on Flora’s behalf. She’s entitled to justice. I’m sorry to have kept you.’
‘Wait a moment,’ Kelso said. ‘Tell me about the argument you were having with Sean Reynolds. Something about sheep-worrying?’
He sat down again. ‘Sheep-worrying? Oh, it’s not just the sheep that’s worried. It’s the rest of us. The man’s obsessed with this rewilding stuff. He’s got the ear of the environment lobby and the government’s in their pocket. Oh, it’ll happen eventually, bears and lynx too, no doubt. But the bastard’s jumped the gun – I know he’s got wolves up there. I saw one attacking one of my gimmers with my own eyes – and don’t tell me I don’t know the difference between a dog and a wolf! It held its ground, too, even threatening me – I’d a crook in my hand, luckily, and when I slashed at it and my own dog started barking it ran off.
‘There’s been rumours among the farming community for a while about mauled carcasses. Oh, everyone goes on about how we’d get compensation once the wolves came back, as if it was just a question of money. But I spend night after night slogging through the lambing season and it isn’t so I have ewes permanently terrified with wolves prowling around and then getting torn apart.’
‘I can see that,’ Kelso said. ‘I’m asking you because I heard a wolf howling myself late one night. I’d have to point out, though, that it’s possible that someone quite legally keeps one that’s enclosed – and I suppose it might just have escaped that time you saw it.’
Angus listened with an ironic smile. ‘Aye, that’ll be right. Believe it, if you like. But if you ask me, it won’t be just the one. There’ll be a pair around somewhere, making lots of wee wolf babies. If Sean wants to get them established, he’ll be doing what that lot with the beavers did – release pairs into the wild while it’s still illegal. And then you get all the daft city folk that like cute furry animals saying you can’t be cruel and get rid of them now they’re there. For some reason, woolly animals don’t matter the same way. I guess it’s happening, whether we want it or not.’
‘Have you reported it to the police?’
‘The police?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, you mean the ones that drift in to Lochinver a couple of times a week? If they won’t do anything when they’re told someone’s been murdered, they’re not really likely to do much about a savaged sheep.
‘Anyway, thanks for hearing me out. Sorry I kept you from your bed.’ He touched a finger to his forehead and walked out.
He probably hadn’t been all that drunk, Kelso reflected. Emotional, certainly, and he definitely wasn’t going to pass any breathalyser test, but his mind was perfectly clear.
He was thinking about it as he walked along to the Sinclairs’ house. If there really were wolves roaming free it was a serious issue. Oh, he knew the theory all right – timid, retiring species, scared of people – but even so, it was a ludicrously dangerous, and arrogant, thing to do without taking any account of the risks. Angus Mackenzie was right, though; there wasn’t really anything for the police to take action on – even if an ever-so-high-powered officer mentioned he’d heard howling.
