‘She could be on to something,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t get colds. I’ve only had Covid once. Nick doesn’t do it. He wants us to get a sauna fitted at the cabin. He reckons he’d give it a go then, knowing he can get out of the freezing water and back into a warm cocoon.’

  ‘I’d give that a go,’ Jo said. ‘Invite me up when you’ve got it installed.’

  ‘Won’t be for a while. We used all his Auntie Kath’s money buying the place.’

  ‘Was Nick’s auntie local?’

  ‘Ish. She lived near Kilmartin. Cairnbaan, just off the main road. She was a force of nature. Kathleen Lennon. Did you ever come across her?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘She died at the start of last year, the day after Hogmanay – she’d been with her son and his wife in Oban and had a whale of a time, got home and died the next day. Not a bad way to go.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘She was eighty-four. But yes, you should come to the cabin when this is over. Come for dinner, you and Ali, if you like.’ She smiled. ‘Ali and I can swim. You and Nick can paddle.’

  She finished her roll and waited till Jo was done with her salad, before saying gently, ‘You seemed uncomfortable before,’ she said. ‘When Morag was here and we were talking about sudden deaths.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jo said, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘I wish you’d tell me why,’ Anna said.

  Jo spent a few moments considering, then took a deep breath. ‘A year ago – just over – my brother Jamie was in a car accident,’ she said, eyes down. ‘His best friend was killed.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Anna said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was when it was stormy, in April, on the A83 between Lochgilphead and Tarbert – that bit where it winds through a kind of cutting. It’s called the Narrows.’

  Anna nodded, visualising the hair-raisingly narrow pass between rock cuttings and the way the road curved so that oncoming vehicles were often well over the white line.

  ‘Jamie was driving and he had a friend in the car. They met a car coming the other way. Jamie says it was going too fast. He swerved and his car went through the barrier and turned over. It ended up half in the water. Jamie’s friend Conor hit his head. His seatbelt failed – we don’t know how. Jamie got him out of the car and back up the rocks, but he collapsed. A brain bleed, they said. He died in hospital that night.’

  ‘That’s awful – for everyone.’

  ‘I know. Conor was only twenty.’ Jo hesitated, eyes down again, chewing her lip now. ‘The other car drove off. It left tyre marks where it swerved, but there was no collision, no impact. No real evidence it existed.’

  ‘Dashcam?’

  ‘No. Jamie only saw it for an instant – a small, dark car. It was horrible. Conor’s parents were devastated and blamed Jamie. And, erm… my colleagues questioned Jamie for hours. It was horrible, for him as well as me.’

  ‘So what happened in the end?’

  ‘Nothing. There was no evidence to charge Jamie. Some people blamed him, others didn’t. He moved to Glasgow a few months later. Meanwhile, everyone knows I’m his sister. People talk and it’s hard, you know? That journalist who was here earlier – he badgered me for a while. Tried to get me to answer questions. That’s why I did a runner into the tearoom earlier. Then, earlier this year, I heard a rumour that was going round. Conor and Jamie had argued the day of the crash. About a girl Jamie was meant to be seeing, only Conor liked her too. They were in Glasgow, and two other friends witnessed it. Jamie was meant to be giving Conor a lift back to Tarbert, but he threatened to leave him behind. Told him to get the bus. Only then he changed his mind.’ She gave a sad little shrug, eyes on her hands now. ‘It’s a motive, isn’t it?’

  ‘Did you ask your brother about it?’ Anna asked gently.

  Jo nodded and peered sheepishly up at Anna. ‘He denied it completely. Please don’t ask me whether I believe him. Sometime later,’ she went on quietly, ‘Ellen came to see me – at home.’

  Anna stared. She took a deep breath. ‘I see.’

  ‘She said I was complicit in a crime and she was going to have me disciplined. Sacked, if she could. She’d already drafted a letter to the chief constable.’

  ‘Oh, Jo…’

  ‘I dealt with her,’ Jo said. ‘I rolled out the big guns. Went to the area commander. He knew all about the accident. I’d been really upfront and he was great. He went to see Ellen, told her that her persecution of me could get her into serious trouble. He said she clammed up right there. Began that fawning thing, you know? She didn’t bother me after that. But… you can see how I’d be, about what’s happened to Ellen. There’s a word for it…’

  ‘Ambivalent?’

  ‘Yeah. That. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. Except… I’d done nothing wrong. Senior officers know.’ She shrugged. ‘If you’d prefer me off the case, I’ll understand.’

  ‘I don’t want you off the case, Jo.’ She smiled. ‘Strand myself here on my own? No thanks. In all seriousness, you’re going nowhere.’

  ‘Thanks, boss,’ Jo said and returned the smile. She sighed in relief. ‘It’s not very comfortable for a police officer to have a relative who might have done something… well, criminal.’

  ‘No,’ Anna said and fell silent for a minute, her thoughts away in Glasgow.

  She smiled. ‘Back to the case, eh?’

  ‘Please,’ Jo said with relief. She took out her notepad and pen.

  ‘Right,’ Anna said. ‘Let’s start with a recap of everything we know.’

  14

  ‘Ellen McIver was a lonely woman,’ Anna began, ‘with no friends and only a niece as a relative – one she never, or rarely, saw. She “policed” her neighbours, calling them out on any perceived misdemeanours, reporting them to the authorities, including social services in one instance, the police at other times. She was known to have a “black book” in which she recorded everything. Earlier this week, two days before she was killed, she waved the book about and boasted about “a big surprise” and indicated it was connected to one or more deaths. She was reading a true crime book from the library, so that shows an interest in such things. She may have had other books but if so, these have been removed. Her telephone notepad at home has had the top few pages torn away. We believe it had names and Glasgow phone numbers on it. We haven’t found the black book either, but we can search for it, now we know it exists.

  ‘Yesterday, Ellen left her cottage sometime before 3 p.m. and turned into Back Lane, where she encountered and argued with Leo Maxwell. Rosie Blake witnessed this and saw Ellen set off down the lane towards Slipway Cottage. It’s possible Ellen went into the outhouse there, though the only evidence of that is the owner’s claim that someone had been in and “moved things about”. He can’t point to anything being missing. Whether she visited Slipway Cottage or not, she must have made her way over the dunes towards the start of the little beach and come through the gate into the lane. From there she could have been planning to walk back to the village, emerging where our cordon is now. She could, I suppose, have been making her way to the Camerons’ farm. She didn’t get far, though. Someone ran her down using Glen’s tractor, turned the thing in the lane and ran her over again. Possibly multiple times. This was probably between 3.15 p.m. and 4 p.m. The driver of the tractor dumped it in a ditch and left the scene, possibly having taken items from Ellen’s pockets or her person. There were shattered glass fragments under her body, ones we haven’t identified yet. We’re not aware of any witnesses to what happened, but they may come forward in response to the appeal.

  ‘At 4.45 p.m. Bill Robertson found the body and raised the alarm at the Camerons’ farm.

  ‘The killer likely entered Ellen’s place after the murder, looking for something – we don’t know what. That person wiped the door handles and possibly removed pages from the telephone pad and moved – or removed – some library books. We need to check with the library which books she had on loan, by the way.

  ‘The tractor was the means of murder. Glen drove it, as did his father Wullie, though he is at death’s door and was incapacitated. The tractor was sometimes borrowed by a small number of people, all of whom have agreed to provide fingerprints. We now know Leo Maxwell can drive the tractor too – or that he’s at least had brief experience of doing so.

  ‘The way it was used, the place it was used, so rashly – that’s key to understanding what happened. Was it done out of desperation, fear or sheer rage?’

  Anna paused to breathe, considering what she might have missed.

  ‘Our prime suspect,’ she said, ‘has to be Leo Maxwell. From what we know, he had a temper. Ellen was killed rashly, even on a whim. We must find him and talk to him as a priority. Let’s think who else, though.

  ‘There’s Harriet Maxwell herself. Her alibi is as worthless as her son’s. Would she kill for her son? It seems hard to believe. Plus, could she drive a tractor?’

  ‘Leo could have shown her,’ Jo pointed out. ‘Leo might know where the spare key is if he worked at the farm.’

  ‘True,’ Anna said. ‘She might have her own motive, connected to these mystery deaths. She was in the tearoom on Tuesday when Ellen was shouting her mouth off. Then there’s Glen Cameron,’ Anna went on. ‘He claims he and Tess were at the hardware store. What if they weren’t? Tom MacGibbon might be lying that they were there, rather than that they were not. We need to check if Glen bought anything with a card – that would have recorded the time.’

  ‘The hardware place has CCTV, I’m sure of it,’ Jo said.

  ‘Excellent. Ask one of the officers to check that and for any transactions that were made. And remember, Tess was supposedly with him. Did anyone see her?’

  ‘Do you think Tess could have done this?’ Jo asked amazed.

  ‘She knows where the key is. I bet she’s driven the tractor at some point. Plus, she was in the tearoom when Ellen was shouting her mouth off. What if Tess is responsible for the deaths Ellen talked about.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I know,’ Anna said. ‘It seems wild, but let’s keep open minds for now.’

  ‘Okay. Who else?’

  ‘Rosie Blake was at home,’ Anna said. ‘There’s no suggestion she knows how to drive a tractor, she or her husband Olly, though Olly was out with their daughters for ice creams around three – corroborated by Morag. They both hated Ellen for reporting them to social services. Again, she might have been the one Ellen’s remarks were aimed at.

  ‘Next, Scott McKellar. Ellen had it in for him, big time. It was her encounter with Scott that triggered the rant in the tearoom. He knows how to drive the tractor. He had no alibi. Thinking about it, he should probably go to the top of the list, even ahead of Leo Maxwell. What about his girlfriend? She was in the tearoom too.’

  ‘She was working yesterday afternoon,’ Jo said. ‘She works from a salon, probably had appointments. We can check if you think we need to.’

  ‘Maybe she’s been using dirty needles to do her tattoos and killing her patients off with sepsis? Don’t worry,’ she assured Jo, ‘I’m not being serious. Who else?’

  ‘Morag suspected Ellen of poisoning her cat. Her alibi’s threadbare. Her husband knows how to drive the tractor and where the key is…’

  ‘And his alibi is non-existent too,’ Anna murmured.

  ‘Then there’s Dr MacCorkindale,’ Jo said. ‘He wasn’t in the tearoom on Tuesday lunchtime, but he was just outside. Maybe Ellen saw him coming and was shouting for his benefit.’ She saw Anna’s sceptical expression. ‘It’s an idea. Besides, Ellen tried to get him struck off. And a doctor is in a good position to kill off his patients. Remember Dr Shipman? He killed off hundreds of his elderly patients for years and no one suspected a thing.’

  They sat in silence for over a minute. Sounds from the cafe next door came through the wall.

  ‘I’m no closer,’ Anna admitted at last. ‘I just don’t know who did this.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Jo said.

  ‘Okay, priorities,’ Anna said, sitting up. ‘While we’re waiting to get hold of Leo Maxwell, I want us to do a thorough search of Ellen’s cottage. I want to find that black book, or some indication of what deaths she was talking about. The doctor told us Ellen asked him about other patients of his. That could give us an indication as to who she had in mind, if only he’d talk to us.’

  She chewed her lip, thinking.

  ‘Can you get on to Sam and ask when he’s seeing Virginia Moncrieff?’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘And chase the phone records too, will you? We have to know who else she was ringing. And where the hell is the niece?’

  ‘I’ll call Karen at Lochgilphead for an update on all this,’ Jo said. ‘We should go back and interview Carol Baillie properly too. She was Ellen’s nearest neighbour. They’d fallen out. It would be good to know why. Plus, she might be able to tell us something.’

  ‘Okay,’ Anna said. ‘I’ll head along to Ellen’s place now and start searching. Join me when you’ve made your calls.’

  Nick texted while she was driving. She parked up and read it:

  Police have just left. Call me when you can.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said when he answered.

  ‘They left two minutes ago,’ he said. He talked quietly and his voice was shaky. ‘I asked them to go and promised to let them know if I heard from Mum.’

  ‘Did they give you any clue what it’s about?’

  ‘They said it’s “in relation to an incident in London”.’

  ‘What sort of “incident”?’

  ‘They wouldn’t say. Actually, they said they didn’t have all the information.’ He groaned.

  ‘Do you know any of your mum’s friends?’ Anna asked. ‘What about that Christina, who she talked about last night, the one whose husband’s got cancer? And there’s a woman called Denise as well.’

  ‘I’ll look on Mum’s Facebook,’ he said. ‘See if I can find them. I can send a message or two. Meantime, I’ll give that solicitor a call.’

  ‘Good. Do that. Look, I have to go. Text me when anything happens.’

  Jangled, she let herself into Ellen’s cottage and occupied the next twenty minutes going through the drawers of the bureau in Ellen’s tiny living room, finding the odd official letter, but mainly old greetings cards and personal letters, handwritten and some of them dating back decades. Then she hunted down the sides of sofa cushions and anywhere else papers might be hidden.

  Next, she went through the kitchen drawers and found one that contained a lever-arch file of papers. She put the box on the counter and lifted out years’ worth of letters, all of them official. Some were from utility companies, but there were also letters from several council departments, apparently responding to complaints. There were a couple from the council’s social services department, dismissing a complaint about Oliver and Rosie Blake of Crow Cottage, Baldrishaig, and ‘Miss McIver’s concerns about the care of their daughters’.

  There were spidery handwritten notes on two of the letters: Received 11th May ’25, Unsatisfactory. And: Note to self: consider appeal.

  Ten minutes later, Jo arrived and knocked at the door. Anna let her in and took her into the kitchen.

  ‘How did you get on?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I spoke to Karen,’ Jo said. ‘She’s not getting anything back from the niece, but she has spoken to one of her colleagues. The colleague gave her the name of the friend Beth’s gone away with – to the Caribbean, she says. So now Karen’s going to try the friend. She’s chasing the phone records, stressing the urgency, but you know what these phone companies are like. Karen’s also going to check with the librarian in Tarbert about Ellen’s books. Oh, and Sam’s seeing Mrs Moncrieff at 4 p.m. Hopefully he’ll manage to work his magic. I spoke to the surgery in Tarbert too. Left a message for Dr MacCorkindale to call me back. “He’s a very busy man,” the receptionist said. I said, “I know how he feels.” Nothing on Leo Maxwell yet.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Anna said.

  Jo looked round at the papers. ‘Have you found anything?’

  ‘Lots, but nothing that indicates Ellen was on the trail of a killer,’ Anna said drily. ‘Certainly no black book.’

  ‘If it was so important to her, wouldn’t she have taken it with her?’ Jo said. ‘In which case…’

  ‘In which case her killer would have found it and taken it away, and probably destroyed it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t papers here – her primary sources. The killer got into the cottage but may not have found them. There might even be a backup, so to speak. Right, I’m going to search the bedroom and then the garden shed. Could you look in the bathroom? There’s a cupboard in the hallway, plus an attic room as well. You look there.’

  She went to the bedroom, searching every drawer and a musty-smelling wardrobe. Then she stripped the bed, lifting the mattress and getting on her knees to look under the bed too. Again, nothing.

  Next, she went out into the garden and searched the small shed. It was unlocked and contained only tools, a bucket or two and several bamboo canes.

  She came back into the house to find the door to the attic stairs ajar. She found Jo up there, leafing through the birding notebook.

  ‘Anything?’ Jo asked, not looking up.

  ‘No,’ Anna said.

  She stood beside Jo and considered the view out into the woods and, to the right, the section of lane. Trees masked the lane after a hundred metres or so, but there was room enough for Ellen to have seen someone making their way along it, in either direction. Anna lifted the binoculars to her eyes. They were powerful and brought the lane amazingly close. Had Ellen seen someone there? But who? And why would that have been significant? It was just a lane, a public way down to Slipway Cottage, another way to reach the shore…

  ‘Boss,’ Jo murmured. She was holding the birding notebook open to a page at the very back. ‘Look at this.’

  It looked to be a code, written in pencil in Ellen’s spidery hand. Reading it made her spine tingle.