Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Their cousin, Joel, however was still hell-bent on finding out who had killed his father. Although Ally could hardly criticise him for that, it was the way he went about it that got everyone’s backs up.
Apparently, as Ally found out when she went to buy some trout, he’d taken himself down to Fin’s Fish and given Forby a grilling. He’d also upset Forby’s brother, Fergus, which had incurred the wrath of Finlay McKinnon himself, who had threatened to call the police.
‘He seemed to think that one, or both, of my lads were hidin’ information and that they must’ve seen somethin’ when they were runnin’ round.
Let me tell you this: they were that knackered by the time they’d run round the loch that they hardly had the energy to keep goin’ and wouldn’t have noticed if there was an invading army comin’ up the moor!
Stupid bugger!’ Finlay was still furious.
‘We know Mom didn’t do it,’ Julie said confidently to Ally later, ‘and we are going to be visiting Mom because the policeman said that would be OK. And they’ve let Uncle Angus out already.’
This was news to Ally, although she wasn’t surprised, knowing how determined Hamish had been to see him out of custody. She thought it would be a good idea to call Hamish to get his reaction.
‘I just wondered if you’d managed to persuade them to release Angus on bail?’ Ally asked when Hamish answered. He was having a barn re-roofed and apologised for the hammering in the background.
‘I did, I did! Thank God!’ She could hear the relief in his voice.
‘Just a minute,’ he continued, ‘while I park my bottom on a crate here, so I can keep an eye on what these bloody roofers are doing. Do you know it’s taken me months to get the roofing company to do this, and now they’ve upped the price because they say everything’s gone up in the meantime?
And don’t I know it!’ He ranted on for a few minutes before he asked, ‘And how are you?’
‘I’m fine. I wondered how Angus was?’
‘Oh, Angus!’ Hamish sighed audibly. ‘Well, he’s adamant that he did not break into the cabinet, but he has admitted that Pat asked him to get her a gun.
He seems to think that Pat got Greg to break in, but he refuses point-blank to talk about anything else.
I do try to be understanding, Alison, but at times I feel like I’m knocking my head against a brick wall.
I really do! All he’s said is that he was concerned about the way Pat was being treated by her husband and that she should never have married him in the first place. ’
‘Did he tell you how Patti was supposedly treated?’ Ally asked.
‘No, he did not. He shakes his head whenever I ask him anything on the subject.’
‘Will he be charged for withholding evidence?’
‘Probably,’ Hamish replied. ‘I doubt he’ll spend time in prison, but he’s likely to get a bloody great fine – which, doubtless, I’ll end up having to pay.
He obviously turned a blind eye to what his niece was planning to do.
How could he have been so damn stupid to be persuaded to do something like that? ’
‘Well, we’re back to the business of blood being thicker than water,’ Ally remarked. ‘To change the subject – how are Magda and the babes?’
Ally could almost see Hamish smiling. ‘Magda’s well, and my wee boys are wonderful! They’re both getting bigger and bigger, they smile and giggle when they see me, and they’re sitting up and rolling over. I bet they’ll soon be on the move.’
‘You’ll need eyes in the back of your head when they do,’ Ally told him cheerfully.
After she’d ended the call, Ally thought about what Angus had said.
Had Patti been maltreated by Archie? He had been a big, strong man, and Wendy had mentioned something about him being difficult, even violent.
Scrawny, skinny Patti would not have stood much chance with self-defence, if necessary.
She was known to have been a good shot once; after all, it was Angus who’d taught her, and Angus was a superb marksman.
Even though the bullet had hit the caber and not her husband, the end result had been the same.
Would shooting with intent to kill warrant the same degree of punishment as actually shooting him directly?
‘That’s an interesting point of law,’ Ross said later when Ally had told him of her conversation with Hamish, ‘to which I do not have an answer. I suppose it could knock a few years off her sentence. You must ask Amir when next you see him.’
‘I’m looking forward to that,’ Ally said, ‘because I think he has a special gift for worming information out of people. He probes very gently, but he seems to get their trust or something, and they open up to him.’
‘Well, Patti Armstrong’s a tough cookie, so he’ll have his work cut out to get much joy out of her,’ Ross said rather disparagingly.
But Ross was to be proved wrong. Amir appeared at nine o’clock next morning, just as Wendy and the girls came down to breakfast. As usual, since Patti’s arrest, they only wanted coffee and toast.
‘I’ll have a quick word with them all to make sure they’re OK,’ Amir said to Ally, ‘and then I’d love a cup of tea.’
‘Of course you can have a cup of tea,’ Ally said, ‘but why not have a full breakfast? I have a mountain of bacon and eggs to use up because, unsurprisingly, our guests have lost their appetites.’
He hesitated for a moment. ‘Oh, I couldn’t put you to so much trouble,’ he said, and Ally wondered if he was eating properly at all at the moment. If he was sleeping at the temporary police quarters in Locharran, he’d be lucky to get anything other than a cup of tea.
‘I insist,’ Ally said firmly, noticing how tired and drawn he looked. ‘While you’re chatting to them next door, I’ll have it cooked.’
‘You are very kind,’ he said and gave her one of his lovely smiles.
Ally didn’t want him to feel self-conscious so she cooked for the three of them, knowing that Ross would most likely be having his usual bacon sandwich when he came in after taking the dogs for their early morning walk.
He came in just as she was laying the table for three people. ‘I saw the police car outside,’ he said.
‘I feel sorry for him,’ Ally said. ‘He’s on his own, miles away from his own daughters, and I don’t think he’s eating properly – probably rubbish food while he’s on the move. So I offered to cook him breakfast.’
‘And he might just give us some information?’ Ross suggested with a grin. ‘I’ll even cook some sausages in his honour!’
When Amir returned a while later and Ally indicated where he should sit, he said, ‘This looks wonderful. You really are spoiling me.’
‘You deserve it,’ Ally said, ‘because you must be so stressed with all this going on.’
‘The two daughters seem fairly positive,’ Amir said as he attacked his breakfast with gusto, ‘and I think it helped when I told them that they’d soon be able to visit their mother.’
‘They’re convinced she’s innocent,’ Ally remarked.
‘Hmm,’ he demurred.
No more was said on the subject until they’d all finished breakfast. When they were sitting back with mugs of tea, Amir said, ‘She’s going to plead not guilty.’
Ally couldn’t help herself. ‘Do you think she is guilty?’
Amir sighed as he sipped his tea. ‘It’s possible. Did you know that Angus Morrison has been released?’
Ally nodded. ‘Yes, the earl told me. But it’s not as if Angus gave her the gun, is it?’
‘Well, no, but he may have turned a blind eye to her getting one. Apparently, Patricia Armstrong convinced him that her husband was controlling and abusive, and that she couldn’t take it any longer.
This is what she told Angus Morrison. What she didn’t tell Angus Morrison, but has told me, is that she had been having an affair with Greg Watson for some time, and that it was he who planned all this.
She claims it was he who broke in, stole the gun and also pulled the trigger. ’
Ally and Ross exchanged glances as they let this information sink in.
‘So she’s saying that it was Greg Watson who killed her husband, via the caber?’ Ross asked.
‘That’s what she’s saying,’ Amir confirmed.
This was beginning to make sense to Ally, who had been surprised at Patti’s grief when Greg was killed. ‘So will Patti be released now?’ she asked.
Amir shook his head. ‘It’s all very well to put the blame on a dead man, who can’t defend himself. We need proof.’
‘How are you going to get that?’ Ross asked.
‘I don’t know. Mrs Armstrong swears she was visiting the toilet at the exact moment the shot was fired and that a “nice woman” was coming out just as she was going in and held the door open for her. She said they both jumped at the noise and the woman said, “What the hell was that?”’
‘Who was this woman?’ Ally asked. ‘Surely she could verify the story?’
‘Perhaps she could,’ Amir replied, ‘if we could only find her. I’ve put a notice out asking her to come forward, if she exists, which I’m beginning to doubt.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ Ally said, ‘I should tell you that Patti Armstrong was a great deal more distressed when Greg Watson was killed than she was when her own husband was, so it could well be that they were having an affair.’
‘It’s possible,’ Amir agreed, ‘but that still doesn’t mean that he did the shooting.
As I said before, it’s all very convenient to blame a dead man.
Now I have the unenviable task of talking to Wendy Watson and trying to find out if she had any knowledge of the fact that her husband was having an affair with Patricia. ’
‘They’ve probably just finished breakfast,’ Ally said, ‘so you want to catch her before she goes anywhere.’
‘Thank you,’ said Amir, ‘I will. On her own, so can you divert the two daughters somewhere?’
In fact, Julie and Janey had already returned to their room as Ally ushered Amir into the dining room, where Wendy was still lingering over a coffee, and shut the door firmly behind him.
‘I wonder how Wendy’s going to take this information,’ Ally said to Ross when she returned to the kitchen.