Chapter 24 #2
Ally decided she might as well be truthful. ‘Actually, I’m quite friendly with Amir Kandahar, and he told me about trying to find some woman who saw you at the toilets, but no luck so far, I’m afraid.’
‘Please, Ally, if you do nothing else, could you try to find this woman?’
As she spoke, the policewoman’s voice boomed, ‘Time’s up!’
Back in the car, both Julie and Janey appeared more cheerful and relaxed, seemingly confident that their mother would soon be released.
Ally wasn’t nearly so confident. Perhaps the woman who held the toilet door open for Patti that day at the games would never be found; perhaps she wasn’t even a local but had just been visiting for the day.
In any case, Patti was bound to be charged with conspiracy to commit a murder at the very least. She’d suggest to Amir that perhaps he should get Patti’s photograph printed in the newspapers and put on the TV, to ask this woman to come forward.
Surely there must be some other way to prove Patti’s innocence – if she was innocent.
Since Greg was no longer around, her story could never be verified.
And doubtless Julie and Janey would want to visit Patti again if their mother remained in custody. Perhaps she would let Ross take them next time because, in addition to the recent killings and family revelations, this was taking its toll, and Ally was beginning to feel extremely stressed.
Ally was glad to get home and offload the girls, who went straight up to their bedroom. There was no sign of Wendy. And Ross was very pleased to see her and to inform her that Ebony was now much better.
‘How did the visit go?’ he asked Ally.
Ally gave him a blow-by-blow account of their visit to the detention centre. ‘Patti seemed convinced that she’d be released once we found this woman who supposedly held the door open for her, but I doubt that we’ll find her, and how else could she prove her innocence?’
‘If she’s innocent,’ Ross reminded her.
Ally thought for a moment. ‘You know what? She’s really done nothing to help herself, but somehow, I have a strange feeling that she is.’
Ally was glad of a quiet evening and an early night.
She felt much better in the morning but worried about any scenes at breakfast time.
However, Wendy came downstairs early and had gone, presumably down to the Craigmonie, before the girls emerged at half past nine.
Wendy only asked, ‘How did the visit go yesterday?’ and nodded when Ally said, ‘OK.’
Ross was going home for twenty-four hours to oversee guests’ comings and goings and to check on the cleaning company he employed to service the accommodation. As he kissed her goodbye, he said to Ally, ‘Be sure to call me if you have any problems whatsoever and I’ll be back like a shot!’
Even Morag was amenable this morning, although she complained, as usual, about the state of Julie and Janey’s bedroom.
‘They’ve never been taught to hang up their clothes,’ she moaned, ‘or to pick their wet towels up from the bathroom floor!’ She then, also as usual, tut-tutted a little and took an enormous gulp of tea.
She was particularly pleased that Patti was in prison because that was one less room to do.
‘How could she not be guilty,’ she asked Ally, ‘when she asked poor Angus to get her a gun?’
After she’d gone and Ally had tidied up downstairs, she took Flora for a walk to Loch Soular.
She saw no one, and there didn’t seem to be any police presence in the area either.
Fortunately, the media had never bothered to venture this far but appeared to be concentrating on the road between the malthouse, the castle and the village.
After she made a lunchtime sandwich, she rang Linda.
‘Ally, come down and have a glass of wine and tell me everything that’s going on,’ Linda said. ‘I’ve just made a carrot-and-ginger cake that needs to be tested!’
‘Put like that, how could I refuse?’ Ally asked.
She took Flora with her because Linda always gave her a home-made cheese biscuit, which the dog loved.
After Flora had devoured her biscuit and Ally had sat down, Linda produced a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and poured out two very generous measures. ‘You look like you need this,’ she said as she sliced the carrot-and-ginger cake.
‘Believe me, I do!’ Ally agreed as she clinked glasses with her friend.
‘Tell me all,’ Linda said, ‘although I did hear that the Armstrong wife had been arrested.’
Ally updated her and said how concerned she was about Wendy. ‘I mean the poor woman’s lost her brother and her husband, been told that her husband was having an affair with Patti, and is now probably going to be responsible for the two girls.’
‘Do you think then that this Patti did kill her husband?’ Linda asked.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Ally admitted, ‘but I feel pretty sure that she didn’t kill her brother-in-law.’
‘So there could be another killer on the loose then?’
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ Ally said. ‘The thing is that I can’t imagine who would want to kill poor old Greg, who wasn’t even a competitor! Not that I think any of the competitors had much to do with any of this.’
‘What about Angus Morrison?’ Linda asked, handing a plate with a large slice of cake on it to Ally.
‘If it wasn’t Patti, then I suppose it had to be Angus. Perhaps he offered to do it to save her life – I mean he’s nearing the end of his, and he has no children to worry about,’ Ally suggested. ‘Oh, wow, this cake is just delicious! How am I ever going to lose weight with you around?’
‘Ally, I think you have lost weight, probably due to all this. Have you weighed yourself recently?’
Ally shook her head. ‘I honestly haven’t had time.’
‘Well, you look slimmer, so get that cake down you and let me fill up your wine glass!’
Ally succumbed happily.
‘So you’ve no idea if she’s guilty or not?’ Linda asked as she topped up the glasses.
Ally sighed and shrugged. ‘Honestly, I haven’t a damn clue.
But Amir, the detective inspector, told me that Patti said her husband, Archie, had been very abusive and controlling.
She was afraid of him, and she planned to kill him.
She even asked Angus to make the gun cabinet look as if it had been broken into, and to leave the gun in some appointed place in the woods above the field. ’
‘So she presumably stole the gun herself and took a potshot at her husband?’
‘She claimed that was Greg, her brother-in-law, who fired the gun. What she hadn’t told her uncle, but did tell Amir, was that she’d been having an affair with Greg and they planned this whole thing together.
And, naturally, Amir is sceptical about all this because how can a dead man prove his innocence? ’
‘Oh my God! So how will she ever be able to prove this?’ Linda asked.
‘She told Amir that she was queueing up for the loo at the time of the shooting, and she was actually entering the cubicle at the exact moment that the shot was fired. The woman coming out held the door open for her and said something like, “What the hell was that?”’
Linda frowned. ‘Did she have a description of this woman then?’
Ally shook her head. ‘Just that she was “nice”. Amir’s put a notice up outside the police station in the hope of finding this woman, but no response as yet.’
‘Could you describe what this Patti looked like or what she was wearing?’ Linda asked, taking a large gulp of her wine.
‘Well, she’s blonde and very slim, very stylish and she’s usually a bit heavy on the make-up,’ Ally replied.
‘I think,’ Linda said slowly, ‘that this woman they’re looking for is me.’