Simon Beckett - Written in Bone

‘Go on, Kevin.’

‘Sometimes out at the mountain…At the old cottage out at the croft.’

Brody looked surprised. ‘You mean where the body was found?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t know anything about that. Honest! We haven’t been there for ages! Not since summer!’

‘Does anyone else go out there?’

‘Not so far as I know…That’s why we use it. It’s private.’

Not any more. I thought about the empty cans and remains of campfires we’d found. Nothing to do with the murdered prostitute after all, only the detritus of sneaked encounters between a handicapped girl and a scarred and frustrated boy.

Fraser’s contempt was plainly written on his face, but at least he’d the sense to keep quiet. Whatever Brody was thinking was impossible to tell. He kept his expression professionally neutral.

‘Is that where Mary goes when she wanders off? To meet you?’

Kevin stared down at his hands. ‘Sometimes.’

Brody thought for a moment. ‘Was she at your house when we called round to see your dad?’

Until then I’d thought nothing of how Kevin had peered out through a gap in the front door, holding it closed so we couldn’t see inside. He bowed his head, his silence confirmation enough.

‘And how about tonight? Did you meet her then, as well?’

‘No! I…I don’t know where she went! I went home after I told Maggie! Honest!’

He seemed on the verge of tears again. Brody considered him for a few seconds, then gave a short nod.

‘You’d better get on home.’

‘Now, just wait a second…’ Fraser objected.

But Brody had anticipated him. ‘It’s all right. Kevin’s not going to say anything about what he’s told us. Are you, Kevin?’

The youth shook his head, earnestly. ‘I won’t. I promise.’ He hurried to the door, then stopped. ‘My dad wouldn’t have hurt Maggie. Or the other woman. I don’t want to get him into trouble.’

Brody didn’t respond. But then there wasn’t much he could say. There was a brief glimpse of lashing rain as Kevin went out, then the door swung shut and he was gone.

Brody went over to the table and pulled back a chair to sit down. He looked drained. ‘Christ, what a night.’

‘You think we can trust the lad to keep quiet?’ Fraser asked doubtfully.

The former detective passed his hand across his face. ‘I can’t see him running home to confess this to his father, can you?’

Fraser seemed about to concede the point, but then he suddenly looked aghast. ‘Christ, what about the girl? Kinross knows she was a witness! No wonder he was so keen to stay while we questioned her!’

His words sent a chill through me. But Brody didn’t seem concerned.

‘Mary’s not in any danger. Even assuming Kinross is the killer-and we still don’t know that he is-he’s going to be satisfied that she didn’t see anything that could incriminate him. He knows she’s no threat.’

Fraser looked relieved. ‘So what now? Arrest him? Be a pleasure to slap cuffs on that bastard!’

Brody was silent. ‘Not yet,’ he said at last. ‘All we have against Kinross is the fact he knew Janice Donaldson. That’s not enough to arrest him. We’d only be tipping our hand, and giving him time to prepare his story before Wallace’s team get here.’

‘Oh, come on!’ Fraser exclaimed. ‘You heard what his own son said! And that bastard probably killed Duncan as well! We can’t just sit on our arses!’

‘I didn’t say we should!’ Brody rapped back, suddenly heated. He made an effort to calm himself. ‘Look, I’ve worked murder investigations before. You jump in half-cocked, you risk letting the killer walk. Is that what you want?’

‘We’ve got to do something,’ Fraser persisted.

‘And we will.’ Brody looked across at the tarpaulin-covered shape, thinking. ‘David, do you still believe Maggie’s body was thrown off the cliff?’

‘I’m sure of it,’ I said. ‘Hard to see how she could have got all those injuries otherwise.’

He looked at his watch. ‘It’ll be light in a couple of hours. As soon as it is, I say we take a look up there. See if there’s any sign of what happened. In the meantime, I suggest you two go back to the hotel and try to get some sleep. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.’

‘What about you?’ I asked.

‘I don’t sleep much. I’ll stay here and keep Maggie company.’ He gave a smile, but his eyes looked haunted. ‘I couldn’t stop her from getting killed. Seems the least I can do for her now.’

‘Shouldn’t one of us stay with you?’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ Brody said, grimly. He picked up a crowbar from the workbench and hefted it, testing its weight. ‘I’ll be fine.’

DAWN ROSE ALMOST as an afterthought next morning. There was no daybreak as such. Just an imperceptible lightening that crept up on you unawares, until you realized that night had been replaced by a murky twilight, and that it was officially morning.

I’d not gone straight to bed from the boatyard. Instead, I’d had Fraser take me to Maggie’s grandmother’s. Ellen had said earlier that she’d gone to the old woman’s because she’d had a fall. I doubted I’d be able to do much for her, but I felt I ought to see her anyway.

I owed Maggie that much.

Rose Cassidy lived in a small, semi-detached stone cottage rather than a prefabricated bungalow like most of the neighbouring houses. It was ramshackle, with net curtains and an antiquated look that hinted at an elderly tenant. There was the flicker of candles in a downstairs window, and also one upstairs. Candles for the dead.

The house had been full of women, gathered to keep vigil with Maggie’s grandmother. Walking in, I’d been struck by the smell of old age, that particular fustiness that seems equal parts mothballs and boiled milk. Maggie’s grandmother was as frail as a baby bird, a scribble of blue veins visible under the parchment-thin skin. She already knew that her granddaughter was dead. The body still had to be formally identified, but it would have been wrong to offer that as false hope.

Surprisingly, Fraser had elected to come in with me to find out what the old woman knew of the hours leading up to Maggie’s death. Her granddaughter had seemed excited earlier, she’d told him, in a quavering voice. But she hadn’t explained why. After cooking them both an evening meal-like most of the other houses, the oven used bottled gas-Maggie had left the house to go to the meeting in the hotel bar.

‘It was after half past nine when she got back,’ Rose Cassidy recalled, gesturing with a shaking hand to a clock with oversized numerals on the mantelpiece. Her reddened eyes were opaque with cataracts. ‘She seemed different. As if there was something on her mind.’

That fitted what we already knew. This would have been after she’d been told the dead woman’s name by Kevin Kinross, and then visited my room at the hotel.

But there had also been something else troubling Maggie besides whether or not to betray Kinross’s son’s confidence. Whatever it had been, she hadn’t revealed it to her grandmother. The old woman had heard her leaving later, at around half past eleven, and called to ask where she was going. Maggie had shouted upstairs that she was taking the car, that she was meeting someone to do with work, and that she wouldn’t be long.

She never came back.

By two o’clock her grandmother had known that something was wrong. She’d fallen from bed as she was banging on the wall to rouse her neighbour. It was another indication of Cameron’s standing on the island that Ellen had been sent for rather than the island’s nurse. Not that there was much anyone could do for her anyway. She hadn’t been badly hurt by the fall, but like many other old people I’d seen, her body was slowly winding down, trapping her in a life that was no longer wanted. And now she’d outlived her own granddaughter.