‘And my outhouse?’

  ‘We’ll need to lock it and hold on to the key,’ Anna said. ‘Is there a spare?’

  ‘Erm… no, just that one. It’s not exactly convenient, you know?’

  ‘Murder never is,’ Anna said. ‘Our forensics colleagues are on their way from Glasgow. I’d like them to dust the outhouse for fingerprints. Just in case.’

  ‘Very well.’ He looked unhappy.

  She locked the door, then held out the key to Jo, who had an evidence bag ready to contain it.

  As they drove away, Anna caught sight of Clark in the rear-view mirror, chucking the contents of his bucket into a wheelie bin and shaking his head.

  11

  Their colleagues from Forensic Services were waiting for them in the village, a woman and two men in conversation with the officer currently staffing the cordon. Anna’s phone had buzzed a couple of times while she drove, and she was itching to check the messages, suspecting they’d be from Nick, but she forced herself to ignore them.

  ‘Hi, I’m DI Anna Vaughan,’ she said, approaching the little group.

  The woman was clearly in charge and stepped forward. ‘Doctor Frances White,’ she said. She introduced her two male colleagues, then Anna introduced Jo.

  ‘Thank you for setting off so early,’ Anna said. ‘I know it’s a long way to come.’

  ‘It’s no problem.’ Her tight smile told Anna otherwise. ‘We’d like to make a start,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. It’s down the lane here. We’ll go on ahead and you follow, okay?’

  Back in the car she sneaked a look at her phone. Nick had called again but not left a voicemail. There was a text message:

  Still no sign. Her iPad’s gone. Maybe some of her clothes too. This is weird, even for her.

  She thought about replying but had nothing useful to say.

  She drove through the maze of lanes, having to reverse into a passing place when they met Dr MacCorkindale’s blue Audi coming in the opposite direction. Anna put her window down as his car crept by. Dr MacCorkindale stopped and rolled his own window down.

  ‘How was Mr Cameron?’ Anna asked.

  The doctor rolled his eyes. ‘Surely you’re not expecting me to breach patient confidentiality.’

  ‘He’s a suspect in a suspicious death.’

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ MacCorkindale snapped. ‘Really, he isn’t.’ He paused and breathed as if to calm himself. Eyes straight ahead he said, ‘He’s terribly frail, as it happens. He’s been declining for the past two or three weeks. I don’t expect him to last much longer. I’ve just had quite a painful conversation with his son about end-of-life care.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me,’ Anna said.

  ‘And now I need to get back to my other patients,’ he said. He put his window up then waited patiently for Anna’s car, then the Forensics officers, to pass by.

  Another couple of turns and they were on the lane that sloped down to the shore.

  Anna parked and she and Jo got out. The Forensics officers’ car pulled in, and they got out too.

  ‘Did it rain overnight?’ Frances asked.

  ‘I don’t believe so,’ Anna said, turning to Jo.

  ‘No,’ Jo said. ‘Rain was forecast but they say it stayed dry. The temperature never went below ten degrees either, if that’s useful to know. It should be dry for the next few hours, but the wind’s up and it’s supposed to rain later in the afternoon.’

  White nodded, her eyes on the crime scene.

  ‘How long will you need?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve seen the body,’ was the cool answer. ‘I expect you’re eager to put your officers on more useful tasks than standing idle in country lanes. I take it there’s evidence on the tractor’s tyres too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said.

  ‘The farmer’s not going to be happy is he?’ She said this will dark satisfaction.

  Anna found the woman needlessly frosty and condescending. She was right about the need to free up the officers, though. In the absence of detectives in this part of the country, uniformed officers would be valuable for door-knocking, taking witness statements, checking alibis – and any other number of small but important jobs that might arise. They’d need to leave one on duty in the lane, watching the tractor until it could be taken away. Then there would be the grim task of somehow washing the road to clear it of blood and other detritus. Anna peered at the sky, hoping for heavy rain.

  ‘The victim’s house is at the other end of the village,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to take a look there as well.’

  White’s eyebrows rose a fraction.

  ‘Someone’s been in there,’ Anna explained. ‘Papers have been disturbed, possibly books moved or taken away. There’s no sign of a break-in, but people don’t lock their doors round here. I’m interested in prints on the front and back door handles and on some drawers. Plus, I’d like fingerprints taken in the outhouse of the house on the shore over there – someone’s been in there, according to the owner.’

  White narrowed her eyes but acquiesced. She conferred with her colleagues, then went through the cordon, barely acknowledging the local officer who’d moved the tape. Anna and Jo followed.

  One of the two men snapped on forensic gloves then bent and whipped the canvas back from the mess that was Ellen’s remains.

  ‘My God,’ White said. She looked along the lane towards the tractor. ‘It must have gone over her several times.’

  ‘We think so,’ Anna said.

  White strode on down the road towards the abandoned vehicle. The men hurried after her. Anna and Jo went too but took their time. The man with the gloves lifted the cover from the tractor’s back wheel. White examined it closely, then stepped closer to the cab and peered up and inside. Then she came away and waited for Anna to approach.

  ‘The tractor’s where we might find evidence of who did this,’ White said. ‘Hairs, fibres, prints.’

  ‘Good,’ Anna said. ‘We have a list of people who borrow the tractor from time to time. We’ve already requested prints from each of them for elimination purposes.’

  White nodded. ‘We’ll do a fingertip search of the verges and hedgerows on either side of where the body’s lying, in case anything got knocked to the side. I’d say we’ll need an hour and a half at least, more likely two,’ she said. ‘Those tyres are a mess. Of course, the whole vehicle will need to be collected and taken to the police yard at Polmadie. I suppose you’ve informed its owner?’

  ‘I have,’ Anna said.

  ‘Good. In that case, we’ll let you know when we’re ready.’

  The entrance to the lane leading up to Harriet Maxwell’s house was more or less opposite Ellen’s cottage. It climbed in zigzags between ferns and fir woods so dense that the day seemed to darken. At one of the bends sat a small wooden cottage, a pretty bungalow with a glass conservatory on the south-facing side. The garden was bright with roses and hydrangeas. A stout little woman in a peach-coloured fleece and white trousers was dead-heading roses.

  ‘That’s Carol Baillie,’ Jo said. Anna slowed to see. ‘The woman who went into Ellen’s with Morag yesterday morning,’ Jo said. ‘Want a quick word with her now?’

  Carol Baillie had heard the car and was looking over. She had a round, owlish face and wore small round spectacles. Her greying sandy hair was cut in an old-fashioned schoolgirl bob, chopped straight at the level of her chin. She recognised Jo in the passenger seat and waved.

  Anna stopped the car and they got out.

  Carol came diffidently over. ‘I thought it was you, Jo,’ she said, then peered nervily at Anna. ‘You’re here because of what’s happened, I take it.’

  ‘We are,’ Jo said. ‘This is my inspector, Anna Vaughan.’

  ‘Hello there,’ Anna said.

  ‘I’m Carol,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ She seemed to relax now they’d been introduced. ‘Were you coming to see me? Only you’re welcome to park in the driveway.’

  ‘Actually, we’re on our way up to Harriet’s,’ Jo said.

  ‘Oh, because of young Leo,’ Carol said knowingly. ‘You’d be welcome to come in for a cuppa when you’re done, if you like.’

  ‘We will come back and see you,’ Anna said, ‘but for now – you saw Ellen McIver yesterday morning, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ The owlish woman blinked rapidly. ‘Yes, I did. Morag and I went there to… Erm, have you spoken to Morag?’ she asked Jo.

  ‘Yes,’ Jo said.

  ‘Well, then, you know her niece was worried. She’d called Morag but Morag felt very awkward, what with everything that’s happened. She wanted me there too. I mean, Ellen and I haven’t been on the best of terms either, I’m afraid. We popped by under a pretext of seeing if she needed any shopping. Her car’s in the garage, you know. Well, she wasn’t very pleased to see us,’ Carol said darkly. ‘Or grateful. Rather rude, in fact.’

  ‘Did you see into the living room at all?’ Anna asked.

  ‘The living room? We were only there a minute or so.’ She frowned. ‘I seem to remember the door was standing open. No, I’m sorry. I can’t say I did. Why? What do you think was in there?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Anna said and smiled. ‘Did you happen to notice a pad on a table in the hallway? A cream pad?’

  She looked strained and anxious now. ‘I’m not sure. Oh dear. Are you going to tell me there was something significant written there? I don’t think I even looked. I-I was always on tenterhooks when I was near Ellen, I’m afraid. Especially lately. You see…’

  ‘We’ll come and talk to you properly later,’ Anna said.

  ‘Oh, yes, do! Do, please. Duncan would like that. We get so few visitors.’ She smiled and looked quite pitiful. ‘In fact, no one at all comes to see us now, not since Duncan became ill.’ She glanced sadly back towards the house.

  ‘We’ll see you later,’ Jo said.

  ‘Yes, all right. Bye bye.’ She managed a smile for Anna, then turned and hurried back up her driveway to her roses.

  ‘Duncan Baillie had a stroke just over a year ago,’ Jo explained as Anna drove up the hill. ‘They came here as a kind of early retirement, though she still works part-time. It’s a shame for them. I feel sorry for her. She does a couple of hours in the shop,’ Jo said. ‘Helps Morag with ordering stock. Plus, she’s got a part-time job delivering prescriptions too. A few of the older folk do it. It’s easy and it gets them out and about.’

  The road climbed further through the woods, turning three or four more times before coming to another house with a dark-blue Mini outside. This was another bungalow, but where the Baillies’ place resembled something from a fairy tale, this was like a house from an altogether spookier story. It was clad in wood the colour of dark chocolate and in very bad repair, with tiles missing from the roof and peeling paint on the windows. It backed on to the woods and had no front garden to speak of, just scrubby ground and rhododendrons.

  Beyond the house the road ended at a gate where a sign read Warning: Forestry Operations. Through the gate an overgrown track led between gigantic firs.

  ‘Harriet’s an artist,’ Jo told Anna. ‘She paints seascapes, fishing boats, that kind of thing. A gallery in Tarbert sells them. Some local cafes too.’

  ‘Is it just her and her son?’

  ‘It is now. There was a husband – an engineer, I think – but he ran off with another woman. Harriet came here after that happened – from London. People do that. Escape to places like this, as if it’ll make all their problems go away.’

  Anna said nothing but wondered if it was a small dig.

  ‘She’s a very nervous person,’ Jo said. ‘Probably thanks to the ex.’

  ‘But she knows you?’ Anna checked.

  ‘A bit.’

  They got out and Jo led the way across the scrubby yard. The wind had strengthened in the past hour. The great firs swayed and branches creaked. A wind chime on a hook by the porch sounded, off key.

  Jo rang the doorbell. It was the old-fashioned kind that ‘dringed’. They waited a minute, but no one came.

  ‘If the Mini’s here then so is she,’ Jo said. ‘No sign of the lad’s Vauxhall. I suppose they could both be out in that. The dog’s certainly not here.’

  She pressed the bell again.

  Drrriiiing

  This time a light came on inside the house and there was movement behind the tall, narrow pane of frosted glass beside the door.

  A security chain was put on, then a bolt shot and a latch turned. Then the door opened a couple of inches and a thin, frightened face looked out.

  ‘Hello, Harriet,’ Jo said. ‘It’s just me and my colleague.’

  ‘Oh… oh, yes.’ The gap closed, the chain came off, then the door was pulled wider. Harriet Maxwell stood on her threshold, hugging herself. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘We wanted a word,’ Jo said. ‘This is Detective Inspector Anna Vaughan, in charge of the investigation into what happened yesterday. Is it okay if we come in?’

  ‘Erm… yes, okay, though the place is a mess.’

  She stood aside, still holding the door, and Jo led the way into the dark, chilly hallway.

  ‘Is Leo at home?’ Jo asked now.

  ‘No,’ Harriet said. She closed the door and reapplied the bolt. ‘I don’t exactly know where he is.’ She made a nervous, fluttering gesture with her hands. ‘You’d better come through.’

  The house was so cold it felt almost damp, as if it wasn’t lived in at all. There was a faint musty smell on the air, the smell of a dog, and a hint of paint. Harriet Maxwell led them along a hallway and into a living room with low settees. It was oddly dark, given the big windows, but the panes did look out into trees.

  ‘No Charlie today?’ Jo asked, eyes on a dog’s cushion that lay by the window.

  ‘He’s with Leo,’ Harriet said. ‘He’s never far from Leo’s side. Please sit down. Would you like some tea or coffee? Or water?’

  ‘We’re fine, thanks, Ms Maxwell,’ Anna said.

  ‘Harriet’s fine.’ She gave a small, strained smile, then sat, perching on the edge of an old armchair, hugging herself. She was painfully thin, her cheekbones like razor edges, her skin sallow. How old was she? Fifty? Possibly. Anna wondered if she was unwell.

  ‘You’re an artist?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Barely a nod.

  Anna exchanged glances with Jo. Small talk wasn’t going to cut it.

  ‘You said you don’t know exactly where Leo is,’ Jo said. ‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  Harriet shook her head. Anna caught a widening of the eyes, a slight stiffening of her shoulders.

  ‘Are you okay, Harriet?’ Anna asked.

  ‘What?’ A sharp, frightened glance. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘You seem very tense. What are you worried about?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Her features crumpled and in a flash she was crying, a trembling hand to her mouth as if to contain the sobs.

  ‘Harriet—’ Jo began.

  ‘Ignore me. I’m not well. I’m so tired.’ She gasped out a bigger sob.

  Anna and Jo sat in uncomfortable silence while Harriet scraped at her tears with a tissue and got herself under control.

  Anna said, ‘Are you worried about your son?’

  Harriet seemed to cringe into herself.

  ‘Ellen McIver complained about him, didn’t she? About his driving?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet admitted in a small voice. ‘It wasn’t fair. Of course boys drive fast. She should have just come to me, but she went and reported him to PC Stewart. She said he’d been throwing litter out of the car as well – something I know he’d never do. Leo was mortified. I told him to apologise and he did, though he didn’t want to. Then—’ she paused, scowling at the memory ‘—she made up a horrible lie. She said he’d driven at her. That he’d done it deliberately, to frighten her. She wanted Sam to arrest him, but on no evidence. What she hadn’t counted on was that I had evidence he couldn’t have done it! At the time she claimed this happened, I was using the Corsa. The Mini was in the garage in Tarbert, and the mechanic could swear to that. Sam checked with him, I believe, then went to see the old witch—Oh!’ She caught herself and glanced guiltily from one to the other. But then, rather than correct herself, she went on, ‘I bought a dashboard camera online for Leo’s car. That was on Sam’s advice.’

  ‘Did you confront Ellen?’ Anna asked.

  ‘No. I avoided her. I saw her in the shop a couple of times but ignored her. Look,’ she said, eyes intense, ‘I know she’s dead, but she was a horrible, spiteful old woman. So,’ she said now, in a brighter tone, ‘now you know that was a pack of lies about Leo, I can’t see why you’d want to talk to him.’

  She straightened her back, as if ready for them to make their embarrassed excuses and go.

  ‘Where were you yesterday afternoon, Harriet?’ Anna asked.

  The woman blinked rapidly. ‘Here. I was here all afternoon.’

  ‘You didn’t go out?’

  ‘No. Not until later in the evening, after seven.’

  ‘And where was that to?’

  More nervous blinking. ‘I’d been invited to an event at a hotel down the coast. They were selling some of my work and asked me to attend. There were other artists. I don’t enjoy these things, but I went along.’

  ‘Where exactly was that?’

  Harriet stared, affronted. ‘Tayinloan,’ she said. ‘The Island View Hotel.’

  Jo wrote it down in her notebook. Harriet’s eyes locked on to it, wide and fearful.

  ‘And where was Leo yesterday?’

  Anna had asked it as if only mildly interested but sheer panic leapt into Harriet’s eyes. Her mouth opened and her jaw trembled.

  Anna raised her eyebrows, signalling she expected an answer.

  ‘Here with me,’ Harriet said in a small voice, then swallowed.

  ‘All afternoon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At 3 p.m.?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips.

  ‘That’s a problem, then,’ Anna said slowly. ‘You see, someone claims to have seen Leo having an argument with Ellen McIver at the top of Back Lane just before three.’