“Daddy.” Holly had given up her digging and edged her way back to the patio. She watched her father from a foot away, her brow creased with worry.
“Baa.” Tim reached out and gathered her to him, burying his face in her dark hair. “Can you say ‘baa,’ sweetheart?”
Holly pulled away. “Daddy, when’s Mummy coming home? I want Mummy.”
“We’ll manage just fine on our own.” Tim stood and
lifted her up. “I’m going to make you macaroni cheese.
How would you like that?”
Kincaid didn’t see how he could continue questioning Tim without upsetting Holly further. “Tim, ring me if you change your mind,” he said reluctantly, and went out the way he had come in.
Walking round to the front of the house, he stood for a moment, looking back at the darkened windows. He didn’t like leaving the child alone with Tim, but he had no authority to do otherwise. The little girl was obviously sensing her dad’s anger, and missing her mother. Tim Cavendish was a therapist, he told himself, a man who understood the fragility of children, but he feared Tim’s judgment was compromised by his emotions.
Could he contact Tim’s parents, ask them to come back? Tim would protest, he felt sure, but perhaps they’d have more leverage with him.
Had Tim really gone to Hampshire? Kincaid ran a finger over the rain-speckled boot of Tim’s dark blue Peu- geot. The south of England had been dry the entire weekend.
In the meantime, he had set in motion a house-to-house inquiry along the Inneses’ road, although the scattered nature of the properties made the results less than promising. He’d assigned an officer to enter all the data
collected into HOLMES, and a family liaison officer to trace Donald Brodie’s living relatives. As well as the team working at Innesfree, he had a team searching Brodie’s house and business, and another team had been delegated to canvas the railway station and nearby shops in Aviemore, in an effort to substantiate Hazel Cavendish’s early-morning movements.
And he had spoken to the press, who had followed him from the crime scene to Aviemore Police Station like vultures after a carcass. Although he knew rumors as to the victim’s identity were flying, he had asked the media to keep such speculations to themselves until any next of kin had been notified.
Only then had he felt ready to interview Hazel Cavendish. He summoned Munro, who appeared looking even more lugubrious than he had earlier in the day. Eey-ore the donkey, thought Ross, that’s who Munro reminded him of—although Munro’s nature was surprisingly optimistic considering his countenance.
“Two things, sir,” said Munro as they clattered down the stairs. “We found Alison Grant’s address here in Aviemore, traced her phone and electricity services. A constable went round, but there was no one at home.
He’ll try again in a bit.”
“Why don’t you go, Sergeant?” suggested Ross. “I’d rather trust your judgment on this one. What else?”
“John Innes’s gun, sir. It’s not licensed. His other two shotguns are, but not the little Purdy.”
Ross was not surprised. “Damn family guns,” he muttered. “Just because there’s no record of purchase, people can’t be bothered. Well, I’ll throw the book at him on this one.” They had reached the interview room. He stopped and automatically straightened his tie. “Now, let’s see how our wee birdie’s getting on.”
Hazel Cavendish stood up abruptly at their entrance, sloshing coffee over the table, then looked round wildly for something to mop it up.
“Sergeant, see if you can grab a kitchen roll,” said Ross. When Munro had gone, he studied the woman before him. Time and isolation had taken their toll, he noticed. The flesh seemed to have molded itself more tightly to the bones of her face, leaving the planes and hollows more pronounced. And he saw that her hands were trembling, although she clasped them together to hide it. The remains of her sandwich lay in the open plastic box, shredded to bits. Ross couldn’t tell that she had actually eaten any of it.
He shook his head disapprovingly. “Ye need to eat, lassie, keep up your strength.”
“What I need,” she countered, facing him across the table, “is to go home and see my daughter.”
“Weel, the sooner you answer our questions satisfacto-rily, the sooner ye can go—although you may be obliged to stay in Scotland for a few more days.” To his delight, it did not seem to have occurred to her that she could refuse to talk to him until she had a lawyer’s counsel, and as he had not actually charged her, he was not obliged to advise her of her rights.
Munro came back, his arrival silencing her protests for the moment. While Munro swabbed the table, Ross turned on the recorder, stated the date and time, and identified the participants.
“Can we get ye some more coffee, Mrs. Cavendish?”
he asked as he sat down. “Munro can fetch it from the machine—”
“No, please, I don’t want anything, except to go home.
I don’t understand why you’ve brought me here.”
“Ach, weel, why don’t we start at the beginning, then.
Tell me about your relationship with the deceased, Donald Brodie.”
She twisted her hands together in her lap but met his gaze directly. “We were close once, years ago, before I was married. But I hadn’t seen him in years.”
“Then how do you explain your row with him after Alison Grant came calling at the B&B last night?”
Her hands tightened, and he heard the small catch of breath in her throat. “You’re mistaken, Chief Inspector.
We didn’t argue.”
“Is that so?” He smiled at her. “Weel, I have it otherwise from a number of sources. How do you explain that, Mrs. Cavendish?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“You and Mr. Brodie went out together after dinner, and you were heard shouting. Now, I would call that a row, myself.”
“I—I was worried about the child. She had a child with her when she came to see him.”
“Alison Grant?”
Hazel nodded. “I was afraid he’d made promises to the woman—to Alison—that would hurt the child.”
“A very noble sentiment, Mrs. Cavendish. And it was that worry drove you to have sex in the woods with Mr.
Brodie?” Ross thought it worth the gamble that the DNA test on the semen sample found in the woods would give him a positive identification. He knew Hazel Cavendish had been there from the fiber match, and it seemed highly unlikely that she’d been meeting someone else.
Her eyes had widened. “Oh, God,” she whispered, covering her face with her hands.
“It will go easier for ye, lass, if you’ll just tell us the truth,” encouraged Ross at his most sympathetic.
“It wasn’t like that—what you said.” She dropped her
hands, gripping the table edge as if it might anchor her.
“He’d asked me to come. Donald. He wanted me to leave my husband. It wasn’t until I saw that woman and her child that it really hit me what damage we were contemplating. Not just my husband, my daughter, but this woman who cared about him, and her child, and then I saw that it would ripple outwards from there.
“We did argue. I was angry with him, but even angrier with myself. I told him it was never going to work out between us. What we did then . . . in the woods . . . I suppose it was a good-bye.”
“And this morning?”
“I couldn’t face seeing him again. I thought I’d just pack and leave, but there was no train. I decided I had to face up to things, so I came back. And that was when . . .
Gemma told me . . .” She lifted a hand to her mouth, pressing her fingers against quivering lips.
