Bitter End Part 30

What did this mean? Had she gone to dinner with Giles?

Had they stayed over in Inverness? And what the h.e.l.l were they doing now? 187. 'I also looked into the owners.h.i.+p of the house next door. The one Jamie Ford lived in,' Fleming was saying when Buchanan re-focused on him. 'I don't know if you're interested, but it's a rented property. He'd only been living there since last November. The girl at the agency tells me he had a six-month let.'

'Last November?' So, if he was Vanessa Gra.s.sick's lover he hadn't taken long to seduce her. Maybe it had been love at first sight. 'What significance does it have whether his house was rented or not?'

Fleming folded his arms on the table and leaned forward so that he could drop his voice. 'I've had someone asking questions around the village -a pal, a guy I can trust. I wanted information about Vanessa Gra.s.sick's neighbours, about the Gra.s.sicks themselves, any sc.r.a.ps of gossip that might be useful. When you don't have recourse to official sources you have to sc.r.a.pe around for crumbs.'

Buchanan told him he knew all about that side of the business.

'Yes, well, there are no secrets in that village, I can tell you. Everyone you speak to could tell you all about Pringle's first wife's mother, the Armstrongs' visit to a marriage guidance counsellor, Lawrence Gra.s.sick's average catch of sea trout over the past year and a half -you

name it, they know all the details. But, Jamie and Poppy Ford? Zilch.'

'But he has only lived there since last November,'

Buchanan protested.

'Listen, Tam. When I say "zilch" I mean nothing. They know when he arrived down to the day and the hour, they know how many cases they carried into the house with them, they know he drinks Guinness but never more than two, but ask any of them where he came from, what he did for a living before going on the dole, or anything at all about his wife, and you hit a brick wall.'

Buchanan looked at his watch and wondered if there might be a message from Fizz waiting for him on his 188. ansaphone. He said, 'Is that necessarily suspicious? D'you think Ford was some kind of crook?'

Fleming finished his pint and set down the empty gla.s.s with a click. Buchanan took the hint and got in two more beers and some packets of nuts.

'Well, what about it, Ian? What're your thoughts on Jamie Ford? Is there something fishy about him or not?'

'If I knew that, mate, I'd be head of the b.l.o.o.d.y CID.'

Fleming lit another cigarette and screwed his eyes up to look at Buchanan through the smoke. 'I don't know why, but my good old bulls.h.i.+t detector snapped into action when I heard what the locals were saying -or rather, not saying -about him. I thought, Ian my old chum, there's a smell of the Bar-L about this laddie.'

'Barlinnie?' Buchanan said, recognising the nickname of Glasgow's prison. 'You think he's been doing time?'

'It would fit into the puzzle, Tam.' Fleming leaned back in the chair and waved his cigarette in a confident circle.

'People who are secretive about their past have invariably got something to hide and that's the usual skeleton in the cupboard.'

Buchanan's brain flagged. The thought of yet another strand that would have to be teased out of this complicated knot weighed on him like a concrete overcoat. He wanted to go home, kick his shoes off and watch something mindless on TV. 'You've Been Framed', 'Family Fortunes', he didn't care. He needed to relax. He needed to forget the Gra.s.sick case. He needed to stop thinking about Fizz. 189.

Chapter Sixteen.

It was a profound relief to Buchanan to see Fizz come

storming down George Street as usual the following morning.

It meant not only that she had not been accosted by

her centurion since he last saw her, but that she had spent

the night in her own little eyrie in the Royal Mile and not

in some Highland hotel with Giles. Admittedly, it didn't

follow that Giles had not been in the flat with her, but that,

somehow, seemed less likely. Fizz's flat was. . . well, basic,

to say the least and was seriously lacking in the sort of

ambience necessary to a night of tender pa.s.sion. He got back behind his desk before Fizz spotted him watching for her and when she slammed into his office a few minutes later, ionising the atmosphere like ozone, he was immersed in a complicated contract.

'Well,' she said, flopping into the persecuted chair, 'what do you want first, the good news or the bad news?'

Buchanan already had the good news -at least, some of it. Apart from being unscathed and (hopefully) unadulterated, she had also forgotten to be angry with him, which meant that she hadn't spotted the plain clothes man watching her flat. This made him exuberant enough to say, 'Hit me with the bad news.'

'Okay. Giles saw a guy looking for Poppy's cat yesterday morning.'

Buchanan's heart gave a flutter of optimism. And?'

'And nothing. For some reason we'd both omitted to tell him that Poppy's cat was missing, presumed dead -in fact, 191. he didn't even know that Poppy ever had a cat. If we had mentioned it, he'd have known the guy would lead him to Poppy.' She put a disgusted hand on each cheek, dragging down the flesh so that her eyes looked like a St Bernard's.

'Giles was gutted. He was sizzling like something in a microwave for the rest of the day. So was I, to be honest. I mean, to think we were so close to ... oh, well, sod it.'

Buchanan couldn't believe their lousy luck. 'Can Giles remember anything about the guy?' he said, clutching at straws. 'His car? Anything Fleming might be able to use to track him down?'

'Nope. Not a d.a.m.n thing. Just that he was in his thirties and wore a Barbour jacket.' She removed an invisible speck of something from the sleeve of her sweater. 'Giles says he'll have to wind up his investigation today and get back to Manchester, but he plans to have a look around the village before he goes, just in case he spots the guy again.'

'He's packing in?' Buchanan said, absolutely unmoved by the news. 'Really? That must be a disappointment to you.'

'Yeah,' she said with an unconvincing sigh. 'I may weave wild flowers in my hair and go for a swim in the Forth.'

'What about the good news, then -or did you just put that bit in to make it more interesting?'

'The good news is that we managed to track down the friend Vanessa stayed with the evening before the explosion.'

Fizz opened her eyes at him, inviting his applause. 'A woman called Charlotte Mclntosh. And, guess what?

Vanessa arrived at her place as planned but then scarpered without saying she was going, probably right after they'd all gone to bed.'

'Left? Without anyone knowing about it?' Buchanan asked, getting it straight in his head. He couldn't begin to make sense of this piece of information and a single glance at Fizz's expectant face was enough to quell any hope that she would be much a.s.sistance. Quite manifestly, she was 192. hoping he was going to enlighten her. Speaking as much to himself as to Fizz, he muttered, 'Why on earth would she do that?'

'Search me, muchacho,' Fizz offered, swinging her feet up on to the desk. 'It's been doing my head in all night.

She must have realised something at the last minute, when it was too late to tell her friend she was leaving. Or maybe someone phoned her on her mobile. Maybe she saw something or heard something that... I don't know . . . something that aroused her suspicions. . .

something that jogged her memory . . .'

Buchanan didn't feel comfortable with that. 'No. I think she was spooked. She left there in a big hurry, otherwise she'd have left a note for her hosts -not necessarily a truthful one but at least an attempt to make some kind of an excuse. I reckon something must have made her realise that someone was out to kill her,' Buchanan suggested. 'Or she may have known that already but realised that she'd been followed to her friend's house and had to make a run for it at a moment's notice.'

'Charlotte Mclntosh thought she was probably afraid of something,' Fizz said, nodding in agreement. 'She may have known she was in danger from the minute she got there -or before -but hoped she'd be safe for the night.'

'So she made a bolt to Brora Lodge where she would have her husband's protection -only he wasn't there.'

'We don't know that,' Fizz objected.

"Not for sure but I'd be surprised if he was there,'

Buchanan said. 'Fleming says the police phoned him almost immediately to inform him of the accident, so he must have been at home. Vanessa expected him to be there but it begins to look like he must have changed his plans and she ran into Jamie Ford instead.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.' Fizz ran the fingers of both hands into her hair, destroying its morning neatness. 'Does that mean Jamie Ford had followed her to Inverness and back again?'