Chapter 32
Emma was about to leave for the day when PC Robertson wandered into the CID office.
“I’ve just taken a phone call from a Mrs Boyd in North Berwick,” he said, stopping beside her desk. “A neighbour of the Langfords.”
“Yes?” she said, giving him her full attention.
“Apparently she had a fella knock on her door asking if she’d seen anyone coming and going from the Langfords’ place on Tuesday morning.”
Emma rubbed at the back of her neck. “Did she get the name of this fella?”
“Yeah. A phone number too. She thought it was odd, so wanted to let us know.” He offered a Post-it note. “Jamie Sinclair. I was going to call and ask him what he was up to, but since you dealt with the Langfords . . .”
“Yeah. I’ll have a word with him.” She took the scrap of paper. “Thanks.”
“That’s the guy who found Mrs Langford, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. He thinks we missed something.”
PC Robertson nodded. “So he’s taken it upon himself to investigate?”
“Seems like it. I’ll tell him to back off.”
She waited until PC Robertson had left before lifting her phone to call Jamie. She hesitated. Since she was about to leave anyway, she could call in at Sea Haven and speak to him in person.
No. Why would she do that? A phone call would be fine. There was absolutely no reason to see him in person.
She had that detective novel Tam had given her to get stuck into.
For a moment she stared at the phone in her hand, then stood and pulled her jacket from the back of the chair.
Moira being away for so long was messing with her head.
That was what Emma told herself as she drove to North Berwick.
Not being able to go round to the house that still felt like home whenever she felt like it unsettled her on some subconscious level.
Of course she could follow Cal’s lead and continue to use Moira’s house as a second home – she had her key after all.
It wasn’t the same without Moira there, though.
By the time she pulled up in front of the house, it occurred to her that she really should have called him from the office. That would have kept things official. She also wouldn’t have worked herself into such an angry state.
What was he even doing, questioning the neighbours? Did he really think her so incompetent that he’d just go ahead and do her job for her? As though he didn’t disrupt her life enough by being at Moira’s place, he now had to interfere with her job too.
She held the doorbell down for too long, jabbing it as though it had offended her too.
When he didn’t answer she contemplated using her key. She could get herself a drink and wait for him to come home. Or she could just call him like a normal person.
Familiar laughter had her shifting to the side of the house. The hedge was so overgrown there was barely room to get around to the back, but she pushed a few branches aside and squeezed through.
The view from the back of Moira’s was probably Emma’s favourite in the world.
Depending on the weather and the tide, it could look very different.
This evening, as the sun set, the sky was painted with pastel pinks and subtle salmon.
Usually it would have ignited a sense of wonder that would make her stop and stare.
Not today.
Every muscle in her body tensed at the sight of Cal and Skye sitting around the patio table with Jamie, all with bottles of beer in front of them and beaming at some private joke shared at their private party.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what happened to her invite, but she worried that they wouldn’t understand the sarcasm and think she was genuinely annoyed at not being invited for drinks.
Which she wasn’t. The last thing she wanted was to hang out with Moira’s latest charity case after a long day at work.
“Hey!” Cal called cheerfully, finally spotting her. “Em’s here!” He patted the empty chair beside him.
She shook her head and her eyes landed on Skye. Traitor. She hadn’t bothered to get in touch with Emma since Moira left, but she was hanging out with Jamie. A little voice in her head whispered that she hadn’t been in touch with Skye either. She should’ve at least checked in with her.
“I’m not staying,” Emma said as Cal looked at her expectantly. “I only need to know what he’s playing at.” She planted her hands on her hips and finally looked at Jamie. The scar that cut through his top lip gave his smile a crooked twist – but she suspected confusion played a part too.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We’ve been getting complaints about you harassing the Langfords’ neighbours.”
“Oh.” His eyebrows twitched together. “I wasn’t harassing anyone.”
“But you’ve been asking questions?”
“Yeah.”
“Why? Do you think you can do my job better than me or something?”
“No.”
“I told you to stop. Why are you still sniffing around?”
He glanced nervously at Cal, then brought his gaze back to her as though he’d got a dose of courage. “I want to know what happened.”
“That’s not for you to figure out. If there’s something to investigate, we’ll do it. The police.”
“Except you’re not,” he said, his voice firmer now. “And I know it wasn’t an accident. I know I made that rail safe. That means that sometime between me leaving and her falling, someone tampered with it. I don’t need to wait for your forensic report to confirm that.”
Emma threw a hand out. “You need to stop! You’ll mess up the whole investigation. Do you need a formal warning or what?”
Silence fell and Emma felt suddenly exhausted.
“I think Jamie’s right that it wasn’t an accident,” Skye said quietly, then pressed her lips together when Emma glared at her. Why the heck was she taking his side?
“He found something out about the neighbour,” Cal said, cocking his head. “A reason for her to have wanted Mrs Langford gone.”
“She has a key,” Jamie added. “The neighbour who was there when we found Mrs Langford – Trisha. At the time she said she couldn’t find the key, but it’s hanging on a rack right inside her door, so she was lying about not being able to find it.”
“You’ve been in her house?” Emma asked.
He tucked in his chin, at least having the decency to look sheepish. “I was helping with her shopping and saw the key. That’s why I was talking to the neighbours. I thought maybe one of them might have seen her going in there early that morning.”
Talking to more of the neighbours was exactly what Emma had wanted to do before Sergeant Brodie had shot down that idea. “And did anyone see anything?” she asked defeatedly.
He shook his head.
“You need to stop,” she said as calmly as she could manage. “There’s procedure that needs to be followed.”
“Police procedure,” Cal said. “For the police to adhere to, not the rest of us.”
That was true, but it didn’t stop her scowling at him.
“I don’t want to discuss it anymore,” she said to Jamie. “This is your friendly warning to back off. Next time it’ll be an official warning.” She held his gaze until he gave a subtle nod of understanding.
She turned on her heel. “And if you really have nothing to occupy your time,” she said, eyeing the foliage she had to fight her way back through, “maybe you could do a bit of gardening around here.”
She took her anger out on the hedge, shoving it aside as she passed. In her car, she made a conscious effort to release the tension in her jaw and shoulders.
There were seven weeks to go before Moira got home and the Londoner went back to where he’d come from.
The time couldn’t go fast enough for her liking.