Aviemore to make a formal statement, and when he’d returned he’d found both Louise and his car gone. “I left her the keys,” he explained, “in case she needed to move it. I had not parked this morning with the intent to stay.”
“We’ll have to hope courtesy is its own reward,” Gemma told him, patting his arm. “What about John and Martin?”
“Still at the Aviemore Police Station. I think they were waiting for the return of John’s car.”
“Come on, then. I have to drive back past Benvulin. I’ll drop you.” She had explained the situation briefly on the way; then, after leaving Pascal at Benvulin’s gate, she called Ross again and this time left a detailed message.
Perhaps Kincaid would try to reach him, she thought as she made the turning at the Pole Inn. She’d pulled over for a moment in the pub’s car park and tried to ring Kincaid back, but she’d lost her mobile phone signal, and she didn’t want to take the time to use the call box.
The snow grew heavier as she crawled along the track that led into the Braes, her sense of urgency mounting.
By the time she reached Chapeltown, she could see only a few feet in front of the car, but she kept going along the farm track that led up towards Carnmore. If she got stuck, she would worry about it later.
But her luck held, and when she could make out the more solidly white shapes of the distillery buildings, she stopped the car. She slipped out, careful to make no sound. A few feet on, when she recognized both Heather’s Audi and Pascal’s BMW, she hesitated. As Kincaid had said, Louise had shown herself to be capable of anything, killing, or attempting to kill, both with fore-thought and without.
She went back to the car and, quietly popping the boot, took out the tire tool. It was the best she could do.
The snow cloaked her and muffled her footfalls as she neared the distillery. She could see that the door of the old warehouse stood open, so she approached it obliquely, then stood just at its edge, listening with increasing dismay as Louise matter-of-factly related murdering Donald.
Hesitating, torn between the desire to let Louise talk and the fear that she might act, Gemma almost left it too late.
Hearing an odd note of excitement in Louise’s voice, Gemma charged in, tire tool raised, shouting, “Put it down!
Put the spade down!” just as Louise swung hard at Hazel’s head.
Hazel ducked, her reflexes saving her all but a clip across the top of the scalp, and then Gemma was on Louise with a fury she hadn’t known she possessed, screaming at her as she pushed her to the ground, pinning her across the chest with the tire tool.
Louise went still as Gemma sat astride her, panting.
“Two against one,” Louise said. “That’s not fair. But then life’s always bloody unfair, isn’t it?”
Chapter Twenty-One
—douglas young
Gemma had managed to bind Louise’s hands with a frayed bit of rope Hazel had found in the barn when they saw a pulse of blue light through the snow. The Northern Constabulary had arrived.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Gemma said a half hour later, as she and the chief inspector watched Louise being shepherded into the marked car. Ross and Munro had driven behind it at a furious pace all the way from Aviemore, he’d told her, afraid the snow might shut down the road altogether.
“I’ve been in this job long enough to know the truth when I hear it, lass, though I’ll not easily forgive ye for stealing a march on me with Callum MacGillivray. I was on my way to hospital when I got your message.”
“He might not have told
“Oh, aye, there is that. I suppose there is a place for the feminine touch. But that one . . .” Shaking his head, he watched the car holding Louise pull away. Gemma had related to him Louise’s revelations, as well as describing her murderous attack on Hazel. Hazel, still bleeding freely from a scalp wound, was being ministered to by a very competent Sergeant Munro. “With that one,” Ross continued, “it’s a fine thing ye had your wits about ye.”
“I only hope you’ll find some physical evidence to back up what she told us.”
“Don’t ye worry, lass. We’ll find it, now that we know what we’re looking for,” Ross had assured her.
The snowstorm had ended almost as quickly as it had begun, and by Thursday, the day of Donald’s funeral, even the slush had vanished. The May sun shone out of a clear, blue sky, and the birds sang blithely as Donald Brodie was laid to rest in the Grantown churchyard. Standing between Hazel and Heather, Gemma found that she was glad she had known him, however briefly. A complicated man, neither saint nor sinner, but a man whose passion for life, for the whisky he made, and for one woman made him well worth mourning.
As for the bones in the warehouse at Carnmore, Ross had authorized a forensics team to remove them from the site. A DNA sample had been taken from Donald’s body;
if the remains were found to match, Rab Brodie would be buried beside his great-great-grandson.
On Friday morning, Hazel took Gemma to the railway station in Aviemore. The little wooden building looked more than ever like a gingerbread house, and the still-snowcapped peaks of the distant mountains were as crisply white against the blue of the sky as those in Toby’s drawing. It was a beautiful country, thought Gemma, the sort of country that got into your blood and stayed.
They sat together on the platform bench, waiting for the London train in companionable silence, until Hazel said, “I’ve been thinking about John. He suspected, didn’t he, that it was Louise? He knew she took the gun out occasionally, and he knew she’d been behaving oddly. No wonder he seemed terrified.”
“What will he do now, do you know?” asked Gemma.
“He told me he meant to sell the farmhouse. Legally, Louise owns a half interest in the property, and he told me he couldn’t bear to share anything with her, even if only on a piece of paper.”
“But he’s worked so hard. It was what he’d always wanted.”
“I know. I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
Gemma glanced at her friend, recognizing an earnest-ness in her tone of voice. “You have an idea.”
Hazel smiled. “It would depend on Heather’s agree-ment, of course. But you’ve seen Benvulin House. It’s a drain on the business as it is, and there’s no one wants to live in a place that size—why not turn it into an elegant small hotel? There are other distilleries that have done the same thing successfully.”
“And you’re thinking the hotel would need a manager?”
“Something like that. There might even be a place for Martin.”
Gemma patted her arm. “It’s a kind thought. Some good should come of this.” She still couldn’t think of Louise Innes without a shudder. “But what about you, Hazel? What are you going to do? That’s the real question.” She knew that Hazel had at last talked to Tim but not what had passed between them.
“I don’t know,” Hazel said slowly. “For now, I’ll stay on a few more days, as much as I miss Holly. I’ve
