time, the two of you availed yourselves of his cottage.”
“But— You can’t think you’re going to pin this on us?
Just because we stopped by his cottage?” Martin leaned forward, a quick flush of anger suffusing his face. “We had nothing to do with—”
“Mr. Gilmore.” Ross turned on him like a terrier after a rat. “It seems you neglected to tell us that you had been recently charged with the sale of illegal substances, ec-stasy, I believe it was. Did ye think we wouldna find it out?”
“But it wasn’t relevant,” protested Martin. “That had nothing to do with Donald’s murder—”
“That’s for me to decide,” snapped Ross. “And what I see is that a man has been poisoned with opiates, and that you had access to drugs.”
“If by opiates, you mean morphine or heroin, I’ve never even seen the stuff. I wouldn’t know where to get that sort of thing even if I wanted to—and it’s a far cry from selling a few X-tabs to friends for a rave.”
“So that’s why you’re hanging about,” said Louise, giving Martin a look that could have curdled milk. “I should have known—”
“You say this man was given opiates?” Pascal interrupted, rising from his seat. “What sort of opiates?”
“I’ve not seen a copy of the hospital’s lab results,”
Ross said. “Why?”
“I take a pain medication, by prescription. It’s hydro-
morphone, a morphine derivative. I came round this morning because I had discovered my tablets were missing.”
“If you mean Dilaudid,” Munro said from his corner,
“that’s stronger than morphine. My wife was given it after a surgery a few years ago. The stuff made her sicker than a dog.”
“Mr. Benoit, when did you last see these tablets of yours?” asked Ross.
Pascal thought for a moment. “Not for several days. I do not take them regularly, you see, but only when the pain is most severe. Last night, after I had moved to Benvulin, my back was very bad, but when I looked in my case, the tablets were not there.”
“But you’re sure you had them here, in this house?”
“Yes,” Pascal answered firmly. “I remember I took one on Friday, after Donald had taken me fishing on the Thursday.”
“Do you know how many tablets were in this bottle?”
“The prescription is for thirty—there were perhaps fifteen remaining. I cannot be exactly certain, you understand.”
Ross looked round the room. “Weel, this puts a slightly different complexion on things. Anyone in this house could have put those tablets in Callum MacGillivray’s whisky, but”—his gaze swung back to John—“it was you and young Martin here who were seen entering Mr.
MacGillivray’s cottage.”
“I just wanted Martin to see the place.” John sounded desperate to convince him. “I knew Callum wouldn’t mind.”
“Chief Inspector, you still haven’t told us anything about Callum,” said Louise, her face set with determination. She seemed to have decided to ignore Martin for the time being. “I don’t know if you mean to be deliberately cruel, but Callum is our friend as well as our neighbor.”
“I apologize, Mrs. Innes.” Ross gave her his most gracious smile. “I didna mean to keep you in suspense. The doctors seem to think Mr. MacGillivray is out of the woods, but it will be a few hours before they’ll let us question him.”
Gemma was relieved but not surprised, as she’d suspected that if Callum had died Ross would have told them straightaway. She also felt sure Ross had neglected to mention that he would have a guard posted outside Callum’s room, just in case someone decided to finish what they had started before Callum could talk.
“Thank God,” breathed Louise, and Gemma saw John give her an odd look. Did John not think his wife should show such concern over their neighbor? Was there something going on here that she had completely missed?
Just as she was wondering if she and Kincaid could talk Ross into letting them see Callum, or if she could get Louise alone again, her phone vibrated. Excusing herself, she turned away and looked at the caller ID. To her surprise, it was a local number. She slipped from the room and answered the call.
“Gemma? It’s Heather Urquhart here. Is Hazel with you? I’ve come across something I think she should see.”
Heather sounded hesitant and puzzled, quite unlike her usual confident self. “In fact, I’d like you both to come over straightaway, if you could manage it.”
His mum was dead, his house belonged to someone else, and now Ian was gone, too. There was nothing left for him here.
He sat on the ground, inside the yew arbor that ran like a tunnel along one side of Nathan’s cottage. A gate at either end gave the space an enclosed, cavelike feel, and Kit had often come here to think after he and Nathan had become friends.
That morning he’d awakened early, aware of the strange bed, the unfamiliar creakings of the house as it settled around him. A fierce wave of homesickness had gripped him—he’d had no idea how accustomed he’d become to the house in Notting Hill, to the sound of Duncan singing hopelessly outdated tunes in his morning shower, to Gemma murmuring to the animals as she moved about the kitchen, to Toby’s little feet thumping up and down the stairs. Automatically, he reached for Tess, and patted an empty space on the coverlet.
How could he have left Tess behind? It was the first time he’d been separated from the little dog since he’d found her, and he felt as if he’d lost a limb.
Knowing he couldn’t sleep any longer, he’d dressed and slipped out of the house, trying not to wake Nathan.
He took the path that led from the bottom of Nathan’s garden down to the Cam. From the morning mist that lay in the dips and hollows along the river, tendrils floated out like ghostly fingers. Reflections of the old trees swam insubstantially in the still surface of the water, and the air smelled of damp earth, and faintly of decay.
Kit walked along the river path until he could see into the back garden of his old house. The cottage’s Suffolk-pink plaster glowed rosily in the morning light, but the grass in the garden was uncut, the patio empty. Perhaps the new family had not yet moved in, he thought, but then he’d heard a door slam, and seen a flash of movement at the uncurtained kitchen window.
For an instant, behind the streaky glass, he thought he
saw his mum’s profile and the swing of her pale hair.
Then he had turned and run, blindly, back to Nathan’s, hiding himself away beneath the yews, trying to get the surge of his emotions under control.
The gate creaked, and Nathan’s stocky silhouette filled the arbor’s entrance.
“I thought I might find you here,” Nathan said, coming to sit down beside him. That was one of the things Kit liked about Nathan; he never minded getting dirty. “Duncan rang a few minutes ago. He said he let your school know you’d be absent for a couple of days.” Nathan rubbed a yew needle between his fingers, then added,
“He also told me about Ian.”
They sat in silence for a bit. That was another thing Kit liked about Nathan; he could sit with you in silence, without telling you what you should think about something.
“I’d been saving all term for that trip to Toronto,” Kit said, when he thought he could trust his voice.
“Rotten luck. Or maybe I should say rotten timing, as far as Ian’s concerned.” Nathan smiled. “You know, Kit, just because people are grown up doesn’t mean they always think through the consequences of things. I’m sure he didn’t realize how much you were counting on that visit.”
“He wants rid of me,” Kit said thickly. “He said he was starting over, with a new life, a new family. I’m sure that’s why he wanted me to have the DNA test.”
