The reporter managed a strained smile. ‘Aye. I’m a regular bus service.’
Neither of us spoke as Strachan helped Grace upstairs, then came back down and collected Maggie’s coat from the utility room. There were darker patches of red where he had sponged the soup from it.
‘Thank you,’ Maggie said in a small voice. She looked down at the floor, where the shards of broken crockery lay amongst the spatters of soup. ‘I’m sorry about the mess. And I’m really glad your wife is all right.’
Strachan gave her a cold nod. I told him I’d call out the next day to check on Grace, and ushered Maggie outside. Night had fallen as we hurried to the Mini, leaning into the wind as the rain was driven against us in sheets. It was still warm inside the car, and I belatedly remembered her warning about the broken heater. But that was the least of my concerns as I slammed the car door and turned to her angrily.
‘So are you going to tell me what you thought you were doing back there?’
Maggie was struggling out of her coat and thrusting it on to the back seat. ‘Nothing! I told you, I just came out to-’
‘I know why you came, Maggie. Christ, Grace was attacked! She might have been killed, and you pull a trick like that? Just so you can get your name on the front page?’
Maggie was on the verge of tears as she rammed the car into gear and headed for the road. ‘OK, so I’m a cow! But I can’t just sit at my gran’s pretending nothing’s happening. Whatever’s going on here, a story like this could be a big deal for me! All I want is a few words from one of them.’
‘Is that all this is? Just a career opportunity?’
‘No, of course it isn’t! I was born here, I know these people!’ Her chin came up. ‘And I left you alone when you asked me to this morning, didn’t I? I could have followed you, but I didn’t. Give me that much credit, at least!’
Her small face was pinched and intense. I still didn’t like what she’d done, but her need to be believed seemed genuine. And she was right; she had kept her word that morning. The wind shook the Mini as I debated what to do. If I could trust her. What do your instincts say?
I just hoped I could trust them, as well.
‘This is in confidence, Maggie. Strictly off the record, OK? People’s lives are at stake.’
She nodded, quickly. ‘Aye, of course. And I know I shouldn’t have come out to see Grace…’
‘This isn’t just about Grace…’ I paused, uncertain even now. But it was going to come out soon anyway. Better to tell her now than have her keep snooping around. And perhaps getting herself-or someone else-hurt because of it.
‘Duncan, the young constable, was murdered last night.’
Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh, my God!’ She stared through the windscreen as it sank in. ‘I can’t believe it. I mean, he was…What the hell’s going on? This is Runa, for God’s sake, things like that don’t happen here!’
‘Apparently they do. Which is why you need to stop pulling stunts like this. Two people have been killed already. This afternoon it could easily have been three. Whoever’s doing this, doesn’t care who he hurts, Maggie.’
She nodded, chastened. ‘Does anyone else know? About Duncan, I mean?’
‘Not yet. Kinross knows something’s going on, and so do some of the others. Brody or Fraser will probably have to tell people before much longer. But until they do, I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.’
‘I won’t say anything. I promise.’
I believed her. For one thing, she couldn’t get word out to her newspaper, but for another Maggie looked stunned. She still seemed shell-shocked as the headlights picked out a shape on the side of the road ahead of us. It was blurred by the squeaking windscreen wipers, then resolved into a figure crouched in a reflective yellow raincape.
‘Looks like Bruce has had an accident,’ Maggie said.
As she slowed I could see it was Cameron, white face caught in the headlights as he worked over the chain of his mountain bike. There was mud smeared on the yellow fabric of his cape.
‘Don’t tell me he cycled out here in this?’ I said, realizing he must still be on his way back from Strachan’s house.
‘Aye. I passed him on the way out. Prides himself on being out in all weather. Bloody amadan.’
I didn’t have to understand Gaelic to know an insult when I heard one. Cameron shielded his eyes against the car’s lights as we pulled up, a spanner still clutched in his hand. Maggie wound down the window and leaned out, screwing her face up against the rain.
‘You want a lift yet, Bruce?’ she called.
The reflective cape thrashed around him in the wind, moulding to his skinny frame like a live thing and threatening to blow him off balance. No wonder he’d come off his bike, I thought. He looked frozen and soaked, but when he saw me in the car his expression hardened.
‘I can manage.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Maggie muttered. She closed the window and pulled away. ‘God, but that man seriously gets up my nose. Got all snotty the other day when I asked to do a story about him. Just human interest stuff because he’s a teacher and male nurse, but he acted like I was scum for suggesting it. I wouldn’t have minded, but he could hardly keep his eyes off my boobs. Randy bugger.’
Cameron’s feelings for Grace evidently didn’t stop him ogling other women, I thought. And then I realized something else, something that hit me so hard I felt winded.
He’d been using the spanner with his left hand.
I turned to look back through the rear window. But the darkness and rain had swallowed him up.
CHAPTER 20
‘CAMERON’S AN AWKWARD sod. But I don’t see him as a killer,’ Brody said, putting the kettle on the cooker and lighting the gas under it.
We were in his small kitchen, sitting at his spotlessly clean table while he made tea. I’d had Maggie drop me off at the hotel, but only stayed long enough to collect Fraser. The Range Rover had been parked outside, and I’d expected to find him in the bar. Instead he’d been in his room, and when I’d knocked I could hear him noisily blowing his nose before he came to the door. When he opened it his room was in darkness, and his face was blotched and red. But his manner was as gruff as ever as I said we needed to talk to Brody.
‘I’m not saying he is,’ I said, as the old DI shook out the match he’d used to light the gas. ‘But he was using the bike spanner with his left hand. We know that whoever killed Duncan was left-handed. And Grace was hit on her right cheek, which suggests the same thing about her attacker.’
Frasers’ sniffed dismissively. ‘How can you be sure Strachan’s wife wasn’t given a backhand?’
‘I can’t,’ I admitted. ‘For all I know it could be two different people who attacked them, come to that. But Duncan was hit hard enough to punch a hole in his skull, and send impact fractures halfway across it. You can’t get that sort of force behind a backhanded swing.’
Fraser’s mouth turned down so far the tips of his moustache touched either side of his chin. ‘Cameron’s a prick, I’ll grant you that. But I can’t see a runt like him getting the better of Duncan.’
‘Duncan was hit from behind. He didn’t get a chance to defend himself,’ I reminded him. ‘We already know that Cameron’s got a thing about Grace, and he also fits the blackmail theory. He’s the schoolteacher, so he’d hardly want it known if he was using a prostitute. If Janice Donaldson threatened to tell he might have killed her to keep it quiet.’
Brody dropped tea bags into a pot. ‘Perhaps. But assuming you’re right, how did he get from the school to the yacht in time to attack Grace?’
‘For all we know he could have left before her. He could have taken his mountain bike along the coastal path that Strachan told us about. Dangerous in this weather, but he might have chanced it if he was desperate.’
The kettle set up a mournful whistling as steam began to trail from the cap on its spout. Brody turned off the flame and poured the boiling water into the teapot. With his right hand, I noticed.