Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Ally had always admired Amir’s powers of persuasion, and never more so than when Hamish rang up just as she got back into the kitchen. To say that he sounded agitated would be an understatement.
‘I just wanted to warn you, Ally,’ he said, ‘that Pat Armstrong is about to be arrested. Apparently, she did ask Angus to get her a gun, but he refused. He’s admitted this to Kandahar.’
Ally had to sit down, the shock of what she’d just heard slowly sinking in.
Surely it couldn’t be true that Patti Armstrong had shot her husband?
Then her thoughts turned to her two poor girls; to have your mother guilty of killing your father and then, doubtless, having your mother incarcerated for years and years!
It didn’t bear thinking about. Could there be any mitigating circumstances?
This could hardly be described as a crime of passion when it had so obviously been pre-planned.
Amir was likely to arrive at any minute. She needed Ross badly, and just as she picked up her phone to call him, in he walked.
Taking one look at her stricken face, Ross asked, ‘Whatever’s the matter, Ally?’
Ally told him about the earl’s call.
Ross put his arms round her. ‘Oh my God!’ Then, after a moment, he added, ‘Those poor girls!’
‘I should think Amir will appear at any moment,’ Ally said. ‘I suppose I should check that Patti’s still in the sitting room.’
As she stood up, Ross raised his arm to hold her back. ‘I’ll go,’ he said.
A minute later, he was back. ‘Yes, she’s in there, painting her nails, with the two girls, watching TV. She’s obviously unaware of Angus’s confession.’
Ally made coffee, and they both sat and waited, but it was almost an hour later before Amir, accompanied by one female and one male constable, walked in through the front door.
‘We’ve come to arrest Mrs Patricia Armstrong,’ he said formally to Ally in the hallway before they entered the sitting room.
Ally nodded. ‘Yes, the earl rang me a short time ago.’ She stood, rooted to the spot in the hallway, aware that Ross was standing right behind her and that Wendy had appeared from upstairs.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked Ally.
‘Patti is being arrested because Angus has admitted that she’d asked him to get her a gun,’ Ally replied.
Wendy put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh no! How could Patti have done that? What about the poor girls?’
Ally thought it was interesting that everyone’s concerns seemed to centre on the girls rather than whether Patti could be innocent or not.
There was a commotion then as Patti, handcuffed, was led out to the police car, her daughters trying to hang on to her and weeping.
Wendy, in the meantime, had sprung into action and was trying to restrain them both.
Janey, in particular, was hysterical. ‘You can’t take our mommy away – she hasn’t done anything!
’ she shouted at the police. Julie stood back as if frozen, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.
Somehow or other the media had found out about this, and there was a host of reporters and cameramen at the gate.
Patti put up no resistance, but she called out as she got into the back of the car with the police officer, ‘I’m not guilty, my darlings; I did not kill your daddy!’
The reporters were all shouting questions: ‘Did you kill your husband, Mrs Armstrong?’
‘And your brother-in-law as well?’
‘Why did you kill two men?’
The cameras were whirring.
The other officer sat in the front passenger seat, and Amir drove away with a brief wave, leaving Patti’s two distraught daughters embracing each other and sobbing uncontrollably.
Wendy put her arms round them both and said gently, ‘Come inside,’ before shepherding them back into the sitting room and away from the probing eyes of the press.
Most of the media had followed the police car, but a couple of reporters remained at the gate.
As Ally was trying to work out what on earth to do or to say, Ross said cheerfully, ‘The refreshment team are on duty here. Hot drinks, cold drinks, alcoholic drinks, some dog therapy perhaps?’
Julie dried her eyes, her arm still around her sobbing sister, and asked, ‘Could we have some tea, please – and a dog or two?’ She gave a teary smile.
Ross saluted. ‘Your wish is my command, and I shall have a word with the Labradors!’ With that, he turned around and opened the kitchen door, and both dogs came bounding out, tails wagging and heading straight for the girls.
‘Tea is on the way,’ Ally said, trying to sound equally cheerful.
‘This has to be a complete nightmare for these teenagers,’ Ross commented as he filled the kettle.
‘It’s so difficult to know what on earth to say to them,’ Ally said. ‘Let’s face it, they’re in a foreign country and their mother has just been arrested for shooting their father! Can you honestly think of anything worse?’
‘Not much,’ Ross agreed. ‘I wonder if we should ask the girls in here for dinner tonight? I’m happy to cook a roast or something.’
‘Do you think they’ll want to eat?’ Ally asked as she set up a tray to transport the tea things.
Ross shrugged. ‘No idea. They may have recovered a little by the afternoon and, let’s face it, they’re growing girls and need their food.’ He sighed. ‘What a bloody mess!’
‘I just can’t believe that Angus could ever have agreed to get the gun for her, far less to break into the cabinet to divert the blame away from himself,’ Ally said. ‘So why has he been arrested?’
‘Well, he hasn’t admitted to it, has he? He’s denied it, I believe.’ Ross picked up the tray. ‘I’ll carry this through because it’s heavy.’
As he made his way across the hall, Ally wondered, as always, what she’d do without this kind, decent man in her life. She followed him as he laid the tray down on the coffee table in front of Wendy. The girls were sitting either side of their aunt, each fondling a dog and drying their eyes.
‘Thank you so much,’ Wendy said.
‘And thank goodness that Auntie Wendy is here!’ Julie exclaimed, leaning closer to her aunt.
‘If there’s anything we can do, you only have to ask,’ Ally said.
‘Joel must be wondering where I am,’ Wendy said. ‘Should I ask him to come up here?’
‘Of course,’ Ally replied, hoping Joel wouldn’t make things worse, as he was inclined to do.
When they were back in the kitchen, Ross asked, ‘Would it be a good idea if I suggested I accompany them on a walk, with the dogs, across the moor to Loch Soular for instance. The sun’s shining, and the dogs would be happy.’
‘Great idea,’ Ally said, ‘and then, hopefully, Wendy will join Joel at the Craigmonie.’
Ross wandered back into the sitting room where his suggestion was greeted with some muted enthusiasm, and the girls went to find their coats and boots. Ally opted to stay behind and, if necessary, fend off any reporters.
‘I don’t really want to go up there again,’ Wendy admitted, ‘so it’s probably better if I join Joel down at the hotel as usual.
I feel so responsible for my two nieces now, but I’m torn in every direction.
’ She hesitated for a moment, then lowered her voice to little more than a whisper.
‘Do you suppose Patti could have killed my Greg as well?’
‘I don’t see how she could because she was watching TV most of the afternoon, and we had to persuade her to walk up to the loch with us to see the fun run,’ Ally replied.
Wendy nodded as she got out her phone. ‘Joel’s just not gonna believe this!’
Ally had several reporters ringing the doorbell before Ross and the two girls got back.
‘I can tell you nothing,’ she repeated time and time again. ‘You’ll have to ask the police.’
One of them was particularly persistent and kept asking, ‘Who’s looking after her two daughters?’ Ally could see that this question was going to be asked on a regular basis from now on so thought she’d better have an answer ready.
A few minutes later, Wendy was tapping on the door again. ‘Joel and I thought we might take the girls out for lunch,’ she said. ‘They might not feel like eating much, but they need to get away from here for a couple of hours.’
‘Where did you plan to go?’ Ally asked.
‘We can’t go to the village because the media are still all stationed halfway down the road, so we thought we might take them to The Bothy. And we don’t plan to visit Desdemona this time!’
After they’d gone, Ally said to Ross, ‘Looks like you won’t need to do that roast tonight after all.’
Ross nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking; maybe Patti did kill Archie, but who on earth killed Greg Watson?’
Ally shrugged. ‘I hate to say it, but I wonder if it could be Angus? And could he really be capable of supplying Patti with a gun, knowing what she intended to do with it? And if that’s the case, would he be equally capable of clobbering someone over the head?’
Locharran came into its own that afternoon. There was a succession of gifts from kind villagers – flowers, sweets, newly baked scones, some teen magazines – all brought up and laid on the doorstep, some with messages saying “Thinking of you girls” or similar.
The family returned from The Bothy looking marginally more cheerful than when they’d left, and Ally decided it was probably best to leave them alone for now.
Joel had departed, but Wendy was still around somewhere.
Once she knew where they’d taken Patti, Ally decided she’d accompany the girls to visit their mother.
She only hoped it would be somewhere nearer than Glasgow: Fort William or Inverness, say.
In the meantime, Ross had taken both dogs for a short walk, and Ally thought she should take the board off the wall again because she’d had Greg at one o’clock at one time, and it was unlikely to have been him who’d killed Archie.
Was it Patti?
Patti had always been a suspect, positioned at the top, and she must now place Angus up there for sure too.
Patti was still at twelve, and Angus at eleven now.
But what about Tom? Was he in on this too?
Ally didn’t know what to make of him but moved him from ten o’clock to one o’clock.
And it was possible that Greg might have killed his brother-in-law.
He couldn’t be excluded, even posthumously.
But then who’d killed Greg? She moved Greg down to two o’clock.
She knew she should make a new ‘clock’ for Greg’s murder, but, at that moment, she couldn’t think of any possible suspects.
Perhaps it made more sense that it was one of the runners who’d come across Greg as they’d raced along.
But what possible motive could any of them have?
All Ally could think of was that perhaps one of them had witnessed Greg shooting at Archie.
And what did the note she’d found near Greg’s body mean? Was the note for Greg or from him?
Ally sighed and placed the painting back on the wall.
Amir arrived, alone, in the evening, looking exhausted.
‘We’ve charged Mrs Armstrong and taken her to Inverness for the moment,’ he told Ally and Ross, ‘but she’ll most likely be moved down to Glasgow prior to the trial.’ He paused. ‘Whenever that is. How are the daughters coping?’
‘Well, they’re devastated obviously,’ Ally replied, ‘but at least they have their aunt and their cousin here, who took them out to lunch today.’
‘Ah yes, the cousin!’ Amir rolled his eyes. ‘Enough said. Now, we can provide a counsellor, you know, in cases like this, someone who can help them through what must be a hellish time.’
‘That might be helpful,’ Ally agreed. ‘I’ll ask Wendy because she’s been very supportive. In the meantime, I thought I might offer to take the girls to see their mother, although I expect Wendy and Joel will want to do that. I trust she’s allowed visitors?’
Amir nodded. ‘In this case, of course. It looks like I’m going to be stationed here for some time the way things are going. I’ve got to find out if Watson’s death is in any way connected to Armstrong’s.’
‘Has Patti now admitted to killing her husband?’ Ally asked.
‘No. She keeps protesting her innocence, but I think she’ll open up some more. I shall find out,’ Amir said confidently.
Ally believed him. He obviously had a way of extracting information with what seemed like gentle probing.
‘I just wanted to put you in the picture, and thought I’d also have a chat with the two young ladies and their aunt, to offer them counselling if necessary. As the father of two girls, my heart really bleeds for them.’
‘They’re all in the sitting room I think,’ Ally said, leading the way through and leaving him to it.
This whole episode had taken its toll on her too, and she was feeling absolutely exhausted, drained and emotional.
Was it too early to go to bed at eight o’clock?
She knew Ross would be watching a big football match later in the evening.
Yes, early supper, then bed.
Morag had, of course, a lot to say in the morning. ‘So his missus has been arrested for tryin’ to kill her old man! She wouldnae the first! And now maybe they’ll stop pesterin’ our boys. But I canna believe that Angus would have given her a leg-up, so to speak! You know what I mean?’
‘He hasn’t admitted to it,’ Ally reminded her. ‘All he admitted to is that Patti Armstrong asked him to get her a gun, which is why she has been arrested.’
‘Aye, well, she is his niece,’ Morag said, ‘so maybe she fed him some sob story or somethin’. Poor Angus!’
As she was speaking, the three remaining guests came down together to breakfast, looking exhausted. Julie and Janey couldn’t even face their usual scrambled eggs.
‘Just cereal and coffee, please,’ Julie said.
‘We’ve been offered counselling,’ Wendy said, ‘but we’ve turned it down.’
‘Because we know that Mom did not do this,’ Julie said firmly, ‘and we’re waiting for her to be released.’
‘So we don’t need any counselling,’ Janey added.
Ally hoped they were right, but it was becoming harder and harder to see how Patti could not be involved.