Chapter 31
Susan escorted me into the visitors’ centre and instructed me to take a seat on one of the wooden chairs. There was an electric heater plugged in, glowing orange, and the room was stiflingly hot. Not something I was going to complain about.
‘Do you need to keep these handcuffs on me?’ I asked.
Without replying, she went to the other end of the room to make another call.
I sat there, hands behind me, trying to hear what she was saying.
I heard my name. Sensed the frustration in her voice.
The fog in my head was beginning to clear, allowing me to focus.
I knew that I needed to have my arguments in order before I started talking to Susan.
At the same time, I thought about Holly.
How long would it be before news got out about me being arrested?
I wanted to be able to explain everything to her before someone else – like Zack – got to her.
When Susan returned she was scowling, muttering something to herself and shaking her head. She took off her damp jacket and hung it on the back of a chair in front of the fire, then pulled up a third chair and sat opposite me.
‘The weather still stopping anyone else from getting here?’
She just looked at me.
‘So you’re just going to leave Morag’s body out there, in the snow?’
‘What do you care?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t do this. I told you, it was Zack. That’s not my gun.’
She sat back, arms folded. ‘Go on, then, tell me what happened.’
‘Will you please take these cuffs off me first? I’m in pain.’
‘Diddums.’
‘Please, Susan. I didn’t do this. Why would I kill Morag? I have absolutely no motive.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe your girlfriend put you up to it. There’s always been bad blood between her and Holly as I understand it. Bad blood between the Grants and the Hamiltons.’
‘You think she got me to murder Lewis, too? Her own brother?’
‘I’m not sure about that yet. You told me there was a plot to kill Jasmine to protect their inheritance.
Perhaps you were involved in that, too, but it went wrong and Lewis was the one who ended up dead.
You killed Jasmine and hid her body because she was a witness, and maybe Morag was a witness, too. ’
‘Shouldn’t you be interviewing me under caution?’
‘We’re just having a chat, Patrick. For now.’
‘It doesn’t feel like a very friendly chat with these handcuffs on. Come on, please, take them off. You haven’t actually arrested me. Is this even legal?’
‘You fired a gun at me.’
‘I thought you were Zack, coming back to kill me.’
She didn’t reply.
‘I’m cooperating,’ I said. ‘I didn’t shoot Morag and I didn’t do anything to Lewis. I tried to save him.’
More silent treatment. And the tactic worked, because I was possessed by the need to talk, to plead my innocence.
‘I told you. Zack shot Morag then threw the gun to me. He knew I wouldn’t know how to use it, that I wouldn’t be able to hit him unless it was at point-blank range.
He was trying to set me up. He had something to do with Samir’s death.
I think Morag saw them together here, last January.
I started asking her questions about it, and she was terrified. That’s when she called him.’
‘So Morag and Zack were working together?’
‘No. I don’t know.’ I took a breath and tried to get it clear in my head.
‘I spoke to that podcaster, Emma Fox, earlier. She told me she received an anonymous message from someone saying they had seen Samir. After that, I started to wonder what the connection between Applecross and the West Midlands could be.’
‘The Grants.’
‘Exactly. When I asked Zack earlier he reacted with what I can only describe as a kind of weird hostility, and then when I told Morag that I’d spoken to Zack she was clearly scared.
When we went up to the bothy, I’m certain I heard her make a call, which must have been to Zack.
You’ll be able to check her phone records, won’t you? ’
‘She might have called him because she felt threatened by you.’
‘What, and then I grabbed the rifle from him?’
‘How do I know he ever had the gun? You could have brought it with you.’
‘Check the gun registrations. It will belong to Zack, or maybe Charles.’
‘And you could easily have stolen it.’
My confidence in justice was beginning to ebb away. I could see how all this could be argued in court. Everything that might be used in my defence could also be used against me. Zack had clearly planned this cleverly.
‘Susan, please.’
‘It’s Constable Williams to you.’
‘Constable. If you find the link between Samir and Zack, surely that will start to explain everything. There’s a chain here. A sequence of events.’
‘Why would Zack want to murder Samir?’
‘I don’t know. But they’ve got this face recognition app that they’ve created.
Charles used it to find Jasmine. They’re planning to unveil it soon and they believe it’s going to make Gravitas a huge amount of money.
’ An idea that had been hiding at the back of my mind since my conversation with Zack and Charles in the pub came to the fore. ‘What if Samir created this app?’
‘What, and that’s why they killed him? So they wouldn’t have to pay him?’ Her voice dripped with scepticism.
‘I don’t know. But you shouldn’t be talking to me. You should be interviewing Zack. He just murdered Morag.’
‘And what about Lewis? You think Zack killed him, too?’
‘Probably.’
She got up from her chair and said, ‘Wait here.’ She went to the other end of the room again to make a call. When she returned she said, ‘Okay. On your feet.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To Plockton. We have a custody cell there, and more community support officers. They’re going to keep an eye on you while I secure the crime scene and look into what you’ve told me.’
Plockton was more than an hour away, along the coast road.
‘Is it safe to drive?’
‘Safe enough. Just.’
‘Am I under arrest?’
She came a step closer. ‘Patrick Tolhurst, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Morag Hamilton. You do not have to say anything …’ I zoned out for a second while she read me my rights, still unable to believe this was happening. That Susan wouldn’t believe me.
‘Is this just for Morag?’ I asked, after she had told me to hand over my phone. ‘Or do you think I killed Lewis, too?’
‘You were at the scene of two deaths today. Either you’re the unluckiest man who ever came to Applecross, or you’re guilty of causing both.’
She led me from the room, down the short corridor and out to her car, opening the back door and telling me to get in.
‘Susan … Constable Williams, please, you’re making a mistake. I didn’t do this.’
She made no sign she could hear me. But I knew what was going to happen if she locked me up.
‘You should be arresting Zack. Jasmine is still out there and you’re leaving her to die. You’re letting a murderer get away with everything.’
Still no response.
I raised my voice, close to panic now. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing. Let me speak to your superior, explain it to—’
‘Shut up!’
She grabbed my arm, pinching the skin, and pushed me into the car, then marched around to the driver’s side, slamming the door as she threw herself into her seat. I tried to breathe, to stay calm.
Susan started the engine and we set off down the hill. The snow was a little lighter than it had been at the bothy, spots of white in the darkness.
‘I promise you I didn’t do this,’ I said as we went up the next hill, past the village hall and the little shop that doubled as a post office.
In the distance I could see what would have been the Elizabeth Grant Arts Centre, not far from the caves.
Soon, we were hugging the coast again, windscreen wipers squeaking, the sea invisible in the blackness.
‘Be quiet,’ Susan said. ‘Save it for the interview room. Remember you’re under caution.’
She was driving at about thirty miles an hour, seemingly confident on this road she’d taken many times, despite the conditions. Not only was it still snowing, but here, so close to the edge of the peninsula, thick fog had begun to creep in from the sea, rendering the landscape white and opaque.
‘Are you sure it’s safe to drive?’ I asked after a few minutes when it felt like we were driving through clouds.
‘Didn’t I tell you to shut up?’
‘Can you at least slow down?’
She caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. Held it. ‘You city dwellers, you’re all the same. Drive two minutes, hit a traffic light, crawling along at—’
‘Susan!’
She had been so busy taunting me in the mirror that she hadn’t seen it.
Something appearing out of the fog, a grey shadow.
The shape of a ghost. Reacting late, Susan stamped on the brake and the car skidded on the icy asphalt, spinning off the road on to the rough ground that sloped gently down towards the sea.
It all happened in a second, but I remember thinking I was going to die, that the car would plunge into the water.
Instead, it crashed into a metal signpost warning of the dangers of swimming, and stopped, jerking me forward.
I sat there for a moment, breathing hard. Had we hit the person who had been on the road? Were they hurt? In the front seat, Susan was silent, slumped forward.
The handcuffs made it difficult, but I unfastened the seatbelt that had saved me, opened the car door and staggered out, landing on my knees on hard rock. Managing to get to my feet, and having to twist around to do it, I opened the driver’s door.
I said Susan’s name and she groaned. Fog crept into the car, smothering her like it was trying to drag her to the underworld.
I spoke her name again then looked for blood on her head and face.
There was none. She was dazed, that was all.
Momentarily out of it. I stepped back and took in the state of the car.
It looked fine. Just a dent in the front.
The handcuff keys were hanging from her front pocket.
This is your chance, said a voice in my head.
I didn’t move. Was I really contemplating this?
With every passing minute I was becoming more convinced that my innocence could not save me.
I needed to find proof. Perhaps, right now, I couldn’t prove that I hadn’t shot Morag but, if I could find Jasmine, she could tell the police what had happened in the caves.
What if Zack had been at both deaths, too?
Could he have come back here when we thought he was stalking deer with Charles? Again, Jasmine would know.
I had a much better chance of finding her if I was free than I did being guarded by some community support officers while Susan stumbled around on her own.
And if anyone asked, I could say I’d gone to seek help for Susan and the person who’d appeared out of the fog. Or I’d hit my head in the crash and staggered away, dazed and unsure where I was.
Turning around again, I backed up towards the car and, awkwardly, took hold of the keys. It was easier than I expected, especially in the cold, to twist my wrist and slip the key into the lock. Moments later, the cuffs sprung open. I was free.
Before I could change my mind, I grabbed my phone back from Susan, walked around the car and hurried up the slope towards the road, leaving her behind. Then, above the pounding of my heart, I heard it. Movement nearby. Had she woken up already and left the car in pursuit of me?
It wasn’t Susan.
It hadn’t been a person on the road. There, before me, standing in the road, turning its head from left to right and back, imperious, statuesque, stood a white stag. I stared at it, and it looked back at me, unblinking.
Then it turned and walked away, slipping invisibly into the fog.