Harriet said nothing but even in the greenish gloom of the dingy living room, Anna could see she’d paled. Her jaw trembled and she put up a hand as if to steady it.

  ‘Harriet?’ she prompted.

  ‘Whoever it is, they’re lying,’ she said. ‘Leo was here.’

  ‘But that’s not true, is it?’ Anna said.

  The woman was panicking now. ‘But, I… Oh…’ Her eyes were on an old-fashioned carriage clock on the mantelpiece over the electric fire.

  ‘Harriet, has Leo ever driven a tractor?’

  ‘What?’ She mugged an expression of shocked bafflement. ‘No! No, he’s never driven one. Never, ever.’

  ‘Harriet, we believe Ellen McIver was murdered. Please don’t lie to us.’

  ‘Murdered? But—’ She caught herself, eyes on the clock again.

  ‘But what, Harriet?’

  ‘I thought… I thought it was an accident. I’d heard… Leo’s a good boy!’ She got up and paced about the room like a trapped animal, eyes returning to the clock. ‘I think you should go. Please, just leave now.’

  Anna considered the clock. ‘You’re expecting him back any minute, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘No! No, I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Sit down, please, Harriet,’ Anna said firmly.

  ‘No. I want you to go now. Leo wouldn’t harm a fly. I’m⁠—’

  She stopped, face frozen in horror. She’d heard something and Anna heard it now too. A car approaching. There was nothing else up here but this house.

  ‘Oh God,’ Harriet whimpered.

  Anna signalled to Jo, who was up and out of the room and into the hallway in a flash.

  ‘No!’ Harriet cried, chasing after her.

  Anna got to the hallway as Jo pulled the door wide. Harriet yelped with relief when she saw who’d arrived.

  Morag Robertson, complete with Alsatian jumper, was frozen staring at them, halfway out of the driver’s seat of a Ford estate.

  ‘Oh, Morag,’ Harriet cried. Anna detected an implied, Thank God!

  ‘A welcoming committee,’ Morag called back, recovering herself and climbing out of the car. She smiled, but uncertainly. ‘The order arrived,’ she said, ‘and I’d promised to take Carol and Duncan’s stuff round. I thought I’d bring you your parcels while I was out this way.’

  ‘That was so kind of you,’ Harriet managed.

  ‘It’s no problem at all!’

  Morag busied to the boot of the car and lifted it, then took out three cardboard parcels. Anna recognised the Amazon logo. Harriet came forward to take them from her.

  Eyes on Anna, Morag said, ‘There’s a reporter here. Asking questions in the shop, wanting information. He was bothering one of your colleagues when I left.’

  ‘I see,’ Anna said. ‘Do you know where he’s from?’

  ‘A press agency, he said, whatever that means. I didn’t tell him anything,’ Morag said, and smiled.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Morag transferred her smile to Harriet. She nodded. Something passed between the two women. Based on nothing she could define, Anna read it as a promise of solidarity, a promise of secrets kept.

  ‘Right, I’m off,’ the landlady said brightly and returned to her car.

  Harriet turned to Anna, the parcels clutched to her chest. ‘You’ll be going too, then,’ she said in a thin, brittle voice.

  ‘In one minute,’ Anna said. ‘First, we’d like Leo’s mobile number and also his car registration, please.’

  Harriet looked horrified.

  ‘And, Harriet, if you talk to Leo, tell him to come home immediately then phone this number.’ She held out a card. ‘If it goes to answerphone, leave a message. Now, please give that information to Jo.’

  12

  The journalist was at the cordon, a pad in hand, in intense conversation with the uniformed officer guarding it. The officer looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Do you recognise him?’ Anna asked Jo when she’d parked.

  ‘Not sure,’ Jo said, eyeing the man with the notepad. There was something odd in her tone. ‘Why don’t you talk to him? I’ll get us a couple of coffees. Latte, is it?’

  ‘Please,’ Anna said. ‘Then I think we should try to talk to Scott McKellar. He borrowed the tractor from time to time, and we know he had a run-in with Ellen.’

  They got out. Jo scooted into the shop while Anna headed for the cordon.

  ‘Good morning,’ Anna called.

  The officer looked relieved she’d arrived and stepped away.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Anna Vaughan.’ She put out a hand.

  ‘Marcus Jones, freelance investigative journalist,’ the man said. He tilted his head and examined her face with narrowed, curious eyes. He was thirty-something, with pristinely gelled hair, and looked very pleased with himself.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked.

  ‘You can tell me exactly what’s happened here,’ he said, transferring his glance to the cordon.

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ Anna said. She folded her arms. ‘Someone has sadly been killed, and we are treating their death as suspicious.’

  He nodded, his little eyes fixed hard on her face. ‘And that someone was Ellen McIver?’

  ‘We can’t confirm the victim’s identity,’ she said blandly. ‘Not at this stage.’

  He smirked knowingly, as if it was the answer he’d anticipated. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ He lifted his pad and wrote on it. ‘And she was run over by a tractor belonging to one Glen Cameron?’

  He waited, pen poised, eyebrows up, the smirk still in place.

  ‘Any information we can share will come out in the usual way through the usual channels.’

  ‘I’ll find out somewhere else,’ he said with a careless shrug.

  ‘And risk printing incorrect information? Risk upsetting family and friends?’

  ‘Oh, I think there’s already been plenty of upset, don’t you?’ he challenged. ‘And more to come, I expect.’

  She frowned and nearly pressed him, but stopped herself in time. She’d met his type plenty of times before. He wanted to goad her into a verbal battle of wits, in the hope of shaking a tiny extra detail from her.

  Suddenly he asked, ‘Was that DC Jo McLean you were with just now?’

  Anna stared at him, then decided that was one detail she could confirm.

  ‘It was,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘No particular reason,’ Jones said.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Jones.’ And with that Anna returned to her car to wait for Jo and the coffee.

  ‘What did he want to know?’ Jo asked as Anna drove past the cordon and out of the village.

  ‘He was after confirmation it was Ellen, and that she was run over by a tractor. He’s clearly got the details from someone. Obviously, I didn’t tell him a thing. Why would a freelance reporter be writing about this local crime? I got the impression—’ she began, then caught herself, struggling to put it into words. ‘I think he knows something about what’s been going on round here. He was definitely baiting me. He asked about you.’

  ‘Did he?’ Jo asked stiffly.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t know him?’

  ‘I’ve never met him before,’ Jo said.

  Anna left it, for now.

  Torinturk was even smaller than Baldrishaig, a huddle of houses strung out along the single-track road. Scott McKellar’s place was away from the road, up a steep track that climbed into the woods, a wooden bungalow with a camper van parked outside bearing the words Corryvreckan Adventures, along with a cartoon image of an orange inflatable boat, a RIB, circling a whirlpool and exhilarated – or terrified – passengers with their arms in the air.

  McKellar was working in a garage-cum-workshop next to the bungalow. Jo went ahead of Anna.

  ‘Hiya, Scott,’ she said.

  ‘All right, Jo.’ He stood upright from a work bench. He was a handsome, tanned young man with blond hair and a scraggly blond beard, with the look of a surfer. His brilliant blue eyes added to the effect. ‘On official business?’

  ‘We are,’ Jo said. She introduced Anna.

  He came out of the shed and stood hugging himself, the way Harriet Maxwell had earlier.

  A young woman appeared, barefoot, in the back doorway of the bungalow and stood watching them.

  ‘What is it, Scott?’ she called out. She wore tiny denim shorts and a strappy top. Her arms and legs were covered in tattoos.

  ‘Police business,’ he called back. He said to Anna and Jo, ‘That’s Vonnie, my girlfriend. You wanna talk to her as well?’

  ‘Not just now,’ Anna said.

  ‘They just want me,’ he shouted over to the house.

  The young woman scowled and retreated inside.

  ‘Did you want to come in, or are you okay to talk out here?’

  Anna looked about. It was just them and the trees. ‘Out here is fine,’ she said.

  ‘Well, go on then,’ McKellar said, blunt but not unpleasantly so. ‘What d’you wanna know?’

  ‘Where you were yesterday between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.?’ Anna asked.

  ‘That when she was killed, is it?’

  ‘We believe so,’ Jo said.

  ‘I was here,’ he said.

  ‘All afternoon, was that?’ Jo asked.

  ‘No. I was at the hardware place one-ish, then I came back here. I was here till four-thirty, then I went and picked up Vonnie from her work.’

  ‘So you were here alone from just after one until four-thirty?’ Anna checked.

  He took a moment to think about it. ‘Yeah. That’s right. So…’ He grinned, revealing beautifully white teeth. ‘You gonnae arrest me?’

  ‘You use Glen Cameron’s tractor from time to time, don’t you, Scott?’ Anna asked, ignoring the playful challenge.

  The grin faded. ‘From time to time,’ he said.

  ‘When did you last use it?’

  His eyes flickered away into the woods as he worked it out. ‘Three weeks ago. I needed to bring the RIB out of the water for a repair. Normally my mate helps me tow it out, but he was away. I took Glen’s tractor.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘Seriously, you don’t suspect me, do you?’

  ‘How did you get on with Ellen McIver?’ Anna asked now.

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said and shrugged. ‘I’m not gonnae lie about it. Why would I? She screamed her head off at me in public earlier this week. Everyone knows about it.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘Cafe in Baldrishaig,’ he said. ‘Me and Vonnie went in for a bite. In she came, yelling her head off. She had it in for me. Ever since she tried to get me done for fly-tipping.’

  ‘What day this week?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Tuesday, I think. Yeah, Tuesday.’

  ‘And what was it about this time?’

  ‘Stuff flying off the back of my truck. She reckoned she was driving behind me and stuff came loose because I hadn’t tied it down. Only it was total bullshit. The truck isn’t mine. I only had it a couple of weeks while I was doing the kitchen—’ he nodded to the house ‘—but there was no telling her. “It must have been someone else you were behind,” I said. Vonnie wanted to go but I made her stay. No use giving in to bullies like that. It wasn’t me who did this, okay? And I don’t know who did. Your colleague rang me from Lochgilphead,’ he said to Jo. ‘I said I’d go in later on and give my prints. Why would I agree to that if I had something to hide? And anyway, don’t you think I’d have got myself a nice, neat alibi ready for you?’ He grinned again.

  ‘Thank you for your time, Mr McKellar,’ Anna said.

  ‘Doesn’t strike me as a killer,’ Anna said as she drove back down the hill.

  ‘He’s a nice guy,’ Jo said. ‘I was at school with his brother. I don’t think he’s a killer, either. Vonnie’s hard as nails, though. But it sounds like she was at work, so…’

  ‘She’s a tattooist, isn’t she?’

  ‘That’s right. She works out of a beauty parlour in town. She’s pretty good.’

  Jo’s phone began to ring as Anna turned the car back in the direction of Baldrishaig. ‘Forensics,’ she said, then answered on speaker. ‘DC McLean speaking.’

  ‘Just to say, that’s us done at the crime scene,’ a cheery man said. ‘I had to come up to the village for a signal. Where are you?’

  ‘On our way,’ Jo said, eyes on Anna, who nodded. ‘We’ll see you down there in ten minutes or so.’

  Wind buffeted the car as they drove between the fields. The changed weather had altered the landscape too. The loch was pewter grey and angry. Out west, the sky was low, and Islay and Jura had vanished in the mist. The ferry had just left Kennacraig and was cutting down the middle of the loch, making for the sea once more. Anna didn’t envy the passengers their two-hour crossing. She and Nick had made the journey to Tiree from Oban one time. It had been fine going out but the return journey had been unnervingly rough. Several people had been sick, and the passenger lounge had been full of the sound of adults groaning and children crying.

  At the crime scene, Frances White and her team were all packed up.

  ‘It’s slim pickings,’ Frances told Anna, sounding grimly pleased. ‘The body hasn’t yielded much. There’s some dirt under her fingernails, what looks like white paint. Her pockets are empty and there’s no bag. Might be worth checking in litter bins if there are any round here. Also on the beach, if anything was thrown into the sea. There are tiny fragments of glass under the body. Hard to make out what they’re from but we’ve bagged what we can for testing.’

  ‘We noticed the glass,’ Anna said. ‘We wondered if they were from reading glasses or a magnifying glass or similar.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ White said dismissively. ‘Spectacles are made from plastic these days. I imagine a magnifying glass would be too, unless it was a kind of antique. As I say, we’ll have a closer look in the lab. If the glass is from a container, then there may be traces of the contents. We took her fingerprints for our records, by the way. The tractor’s where there’s some hope. The cab’s chock full of prints. Well, mainly partials. Looks like whoever last used the wheel was wearing gloves, though. We’ve recorded what we can. I’ll call Glasgow for a low loader to come and collect the tractor. As for the body, fine to move from our perspective. We’ve taken photographs.’

  Anna said in an aside to Jo, ‘Can you organise that now? It’ll be the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow. I imagine we’ll need to use a private ambulance.’

  Jo nodded. ‘That’s what we’ve done in the past. Karen’s got numbers back at base. I’ll ring her now.’

  ‘Good. I’ll take Dr White and her colleagues along to Ellen McIver’s place now.’

  Frances White and her team were only in Ellen’s cottage ten minutes before they emerged and began to take off their paper suits.

  Anna got out of the car to talk to her.

  ‘There are no prints at all on the front door handle, nor on any doors in the house,’ White said, and pulled off her hairnet. ‘That’s suspicious in itself. I’d say someone’s been in there. We dusted the telephone pad on the table. No prints on the top page, but if other sheets were ripped off above it, then that will be why. There are prints on the cardboard on the back. We’ve photographed it. I suppose you’ve considered the possibility the top sheets were removed to hide not just what was written there but indents from handwriting that passed through multiple sheets? We could test it under UV light, see if anything shows.’

  ‘That would be helpful,’ Anna said.

  ‘Okay. We’ll take it with us,’ White said. ‘Right, where’s this outhouse?’

  Jo was standing outside the village hall, talking on the phone when Anna returned from Slipway Cottage.

  Anna parked and went over just as Jo finished her call.

  ‘Dr White and her colleagues are done and are heading back to Glasgow,’ Anna told her. ‘Much relief all round, let me tell you. Who were you on to?’

  ‘A private ambulance company in Oban,’ Jo told her. ‘They’re sending an ambulance and two undertakers, but they’ll be a couple of hours. They’ll take the body to Glasgow.’

  She checked the time. It was just after 1 p.m.

  ‘Any word on Leo Maxwell?’

  ‘I’ve been trying him. I put a call out on his registration too. Nothing so far.’

  ‘Morag Robertson next, in that case,’ Anna said.

  ‘I saw her heading back to the pub just now,’ Jo said. ‘I’ll go and find her and bring her to the meeting room.’

  13

  ‘So, you don’t know who killed her yet?’ Morag enquired.

  They were in the meeting room. Through the wall they could hear the sounds of the coffee machine as Rosie Blake, now on duty, made drinks for them.

  ‘Not yet,’ Anna said. ‘Who do you think killed her, Morag?’

  ‘Oh! I’ve no idea about that. Not a clue. Sorry. I’m sure there’d be plenty of folk round here would offer you a theory or two, but I can’t.’

  ‘So what are other people saying?’

  Morag frowned. ‘There’s talk about Old Wullie, but that can’t be right. The poor man’s dying. Carol was a nurse. She’s been saying for a while that he’s at death’s door. It’s very sad.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘No one else. Not that I’ve heard.’ She shifted infinitesimally in her seat. The smile was still there but had gone a little hard.

  ‘What about Leo Maxwell?’

  ‘Oh, nonsense! He’s a young lad. Sure, he’s a bit of a tearaway. Well…’ She wrinkled her nose a bit. ‘Our Ivy has a bit of a thing for him. Bill’s not very fond of him, to put it mildly. Still, he wouldn’t harm anyone. Certainly wouldn’t kill someone just because she’d laid into him once or twice.’

  ‘And of course, he’d need to know how to drive a tractor, wouldn’t he?’ Anna said mildly.

  ‘He would!’ Something passed across Morag’s face. ‘Honestly, Leo would never do a thing like that.’