‘Have they ever bothered you?’ Harry asked.
‘Well, no, they haven’t. But there’s always somebody trying to sell religion or something. I mean, not that often on the island, but there’re always people coming here from the mainland. I don’t trust any of them.’
‘How well do you know the Wolf family?’
‘I moved here about ten years ago when I retired. My dad used to come here when he was a boy. I fell in love with the place, and the only fly in the ointment is that carnival. As long as they don’t bother me, I’ll be fine. But the Wolf family do a lot of good here. The only two who live here are Oliver and his son, Clive. Did. Since they’re both dead. God knows it wouldn’t surprise me if they pulled the hotel down and built houses on that land,’ Mortimer said.
‘You ever see Clive Wolf going about the town?’
‘Sure. You know the house he lived in with his father is here on the north island, but he was always out and about on the south island. Especially on a Saturday night, when he would go into some of the bars in town.’
‘Did he ever get into trouble?’ Dunbar asked.
‘He was always mouthing off. Shouting and swearing, getting drunk, then driving home. Nobody really liked him. Up until his father died, he took care of the rental homes here on the island. He was a bad landlord, by all accounts. To be honest, I’m not surprised that somebody lamped him one. I mean, I never had any trouble with him, but I saw it for myself in the pub.’
‘Did he bother anybody in particular?’
‘I saw him and that big Irish oaf getting into it one night.’
‘Irish?’ Dunbar said.
‘Aye. Big Joe Murphy. He owns the fairground and he’s a big lad, but Wolf got in his face. I don’t even know what they were arguing about, but Wolf was drunk and he ended up clarting a table over. The polis took him home that night, I think.’
‘Was this recently?’ Harry asked.
‘Naw, it was before his father died. Before last Christmas. Murphy likes a drink, but he’s never any bother. He can certainly hold his liquor better than Clive Wolf ever could.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ Dunbar said. ‘If you remember anything else, call the station and they’ll get in touch with us.’
‘Will do. Can I go now?’
‘Yes. But we’d like you to go to the station and make a formal statement about what you saw today.’
The man walked away with his dog.
‘We’ll need to have a chat with this Irish guy, see what that was all about,’ Dunbar said.
‘It sounds like Clive Wolf wasn’t liked around here.’
‘Aye. Maybe he had a lot more enemies than we thought.’
Thirteen
He always hated the fairground. Or carnival. Whatever it was called. To him, it was nothing but a bunch of noises and flashing lights. The smell was the worst. It was fine if you were coming here for a night’s fun, but when you had to smell it all the time, then it became sickening.
He stepped out from behind two rides and saw the man wandering about. He was supposed to have been in the car, but somehow it was only the woman. Well, he’d have to fix that, wouldn’t he? But not before the others. Those wankers were going to get it. This was going to be one weekend they would all remember.
He didn’t want to rush things, though. This had to be done carefully. But this was a window of opportunity that he wasn’t going to miss. All of them in one place at the same time. It was the golden ticket.
He stood watching the fat bastard walking about. The man was on his phone. No doubt asking somebody to come and pick him up. If he was over here, then it was a safe bet he didn’t know yet that his wife was dead. Maybe he was actually calling her, but he would be lucky if he got through to her, not because she was dead but because mobile phone service on this part of the island was patchy at best. Shite at worst.
‘What the fuck are you doing standing around here?’ he heard a voice say behind him.
It was the old Irish guy, Joe Murphy. Big stature, big mouth. He thought at first the man was talking to him and was about to say something back, but then realised he was talking to the young man standing near him, smoking.
‘I’m just waiting to start my shift,’ the man said.
‘Get a foocking move on, then.’ Murphy made it sound like ‘forking move on’ with his thick accent.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Fooking lazy wee bastard.’
The big Irishman walked away and the carny walked away in the opposite direction. Then the Irishman stopped to talk to somebody.
It was Brian Gibbons, the scrounger related to the Wolf family.
He looked Gibbons. Maybe he would deal with this piece of shit after he’d dealt with the others. Just for fun. Why not? It would be just as easy to kill him on the sly and lay him to rest in the sea. In for a penny and all that.
Meantime, he would wander around. Then, tonight, he would go on the hunt.
Fourteen
Alex and Evans were in the incident room when Dunbar and Harry got there. It looked like it probably doubled as Santa’s grotto at Christmas.
‘We’ve been going through all the information we’ve got,’ Evans said. ‘DI Barclay did some digging.’
‘As did Ronnie Vallance,’ Alex said. ‘Since some of them live in Edinburgh.’
‘Right,’ Harry said. ‘Well, Shona Gibbons was murdered.’ He went on to explain what they’d discovered.
‘Somebody’s targeting the Wolf family then,’ Alex said.
Harry looked at the whiteboard that she had set up before they got there. ‘Let’s have a look
