‘How long were you married?’ Dunbar said. ‘If you can manage to give us a straight answer this time.’
‘Less than a year. It was a marriage of pure convenience. We had an open marriage, you could say.’
‘You’re telling us a woman who wasn’t even forty married an old geezer like you just for convenience?’
‘That’s it, my old son. Shona was only a few years off turning the big four-oh, and her daddy didn’t want her to enter that stage of her life without a man on her arm. So that man was me. Bought and paid for.’
‘Keep going,’ Harry said as Brian blew on the surface of his coffee.
Brian took a sip and winced. ‘Burnt my bloody lip there. For God’s sake. I mean, how hot can coffee be?’
They waited for Brian to have another sip. ‘I’m telling you this, never again. Especially with old Tommy boy there. He’s a machine.’ Another sip.
Harry was beginning to think Brian was stalling for time, but then the older man put the mug down and sat back in the chair.
‘Now, you two fine gentlemen might think it’s fun being married to a much younger woman. And it is. If it’s the right woman. And Shona wasn’t the right woman, not for me.’
‘Why marry her then?’
‘As I said, bought and paid for. It was Oliver’s idea. Don’t get me wrong, Shona and I got along just fine when we were in the company of her father, and we even had a few laughs when we were in the hotel bar, but that was it. I came here to talk business with Oliver, and he was giving it serious consideration. Hell, we even got as far as shaking on it one night. You know, a gentlemen’s agreement?’
‘But?’ Dunbar said when Brian paused.
‘But there was a caveat.’ Brian picked up the mug and blew on the coffee again, then tentatively sipped the brew until he felt it was acceptable, if not quite chug-able.
‘I knew the island well. My old man lived here when he was a lad, and I came here in my younger days. I saw the potential. All that land down by the shore. It would be tremendous to have nice houses there, with a private club and the marina near it. This is a terrific little place. The only fly in the ointment was Oliver Wolf. He owned the land. I wanted to build on it. But I didn’t have the rights or the finances. Oliver did. So I suggested a partnership. My business finance was all tied up in other projects. Oliver had me over a barrel. Of course, he could have brought somebody else in, but not everybody would have been interested. And nobody would have been interested in marrying his daughter.’
‘She was a widow,’ Dunbar said. ‘Why was he so interested in getting her married off again?’
‘It was all about appearances with Oliver. His two oldest sons are divorced, but that was alright. It was almost like Fenton and Zach were in a macho club. Clive was fine too; the young man about town, sleeping with anything that had a pulse. But Shona was the little girl. Heading into old age on her own. It was like a slur on the family character for her not to have a husband.’
‘No offence, but wasn’t there anybody else Oliver could have got to marry his daughter?’ Harry said.
‘Cheeky sod. I might be some old, fat bastard, but I do very well for myself. Besides, as I said, Shona knew this was a sham marriage. She was used to being kept by Daddy. So he decided that if she didn’t want to marry me, she would be cut loose and would have to make it on her own in the big, bad world. And he told me that if I didn’t marry her, then there would be fuck all available to me regarding building on the island. And to be honest, I was in dire financial straits. Mortgaged up to the hilt. I’d had my car repossessed. My business was going down the toilet. So I agreed. Started going out with Shona.’
‘It must have been hard for two people to go out just for convenience,’ Dunbar said. ‘I mean, I’ve heard of arranged marriages, but not in Scotland. By Scottish people, I mean.’
Brian drank more coffee. ‘I was at a loose end anyway. And she was attractive enough, if you liked that sort of stuff. But there was never any physical contact, in the bedroom. In fact, we had separate bedrooms. It was a marriage on the outside, but we saw other people, just purely for physical needs.’
Harry was about to say something when Brian put up a hand to silence him. ‘I know what you’re thinking: who could possibly be interested in somebody like me? But trust me, not all women are as shallow as Shona Wolf was.’
‘I was going to ask if her brothers knew about your marriage,’ Harry said.
‘Oh. Right. Well, not from me. I didn’t think so, mind, but after the way Fenton mouthed off the other night, now I’m not so sure.’
‘You know all of this could be looked on as a motive for murder,’ Dunbar said.
Brian blew on the coffee again, not wanting to risk another burn to the lip. ‘Why? I get nothing if she dies. That was a stipulation. Only things or money that we built up as a couple. Which we did, of course, but not much. I would keep the business interests that I started with Oliver, which wasn’t a whole lot. I’ll be lucky to come out of this with a pair of underpants to my name. Even the fucking car’s wrecked. That was my car. The Range Rover we drove around in back home in Edinburgh was leased in the Wolf company name.’
‘Who do you
