At Lion’s Bridge the owner winced as they were speaking, seeing a customer come in. Gorrie immediately guessed the reason.
“Cuckold?” he said.
“I wouldn’t, uh, put it that way,” said the owner, who also worked as bartender during the day. Gorrie asked a few more perfunctory questions, then went over to see the party in question.
“Hate the bloody bastard, always winkin’ at me. Not a person deserved dyin’ more’n him, I don’t mind sayin’.” Fraser Payton pulled up his whiskey, shooting it down his throat. “I had a mind once to wring his neck with my own hands, and still to God I wish I’d done it some nights. I might still, mind.”
“Hardly worth the effort now,” said Gorrie.
“Aye.” Payton pushed the glass along in the direction of the bar, catching the owner’s attention.
It was not hard to guess why Payton hadn’t assaulted Mackay while he was alive — he stood perhaps five-two, a good head and a half shorter than Mackay. He looked to weigh less than half the man.
Still, the short types often had nasty tempers; it occurred to Gorrie that someone with such a deep hate might have killed the wife to cover up the murder, then staged it as a suicide.
“The man was a bad one, Inspector. My Margie was a ripe fool. With her mother now. Run along home to Mom, she did.”
A string of synonyms for the lower reaches of the female anatomy spewed from Payton’s mouth. Gorrie looked at the man’s hands on the table — slender fingers, almost delicate. You could judge much by a man’s hands, but you couldn’t decide whether he was a murderer or not — too much variety.
“When did your wife leave?” Gorrie asked.
“Seven years this September. Right ’fore he left Inverness.”
“Seven years?”
“He was scared o’ me, I’ll tell you that,” said Payton.
The bartender approached to refill the drink. “Steady, lad,” he told Payton.
“Scared o’ you?” asked Gorrie.
“You’re dreamin’, lad,” said the owner.
“Aye, he was. I heard he’d come back — I’d seen him sulking around. And didn’t he see me three days ago, up in Rosmarkie? Aye, was him, as if he were someone more than a shit, meeting with the council member — hid when he saw me. He did.” Payton turned to the bartender and raised his finger. “Hid. Hid.”
“What council member would that be?” said Gorrie.
“Cameron,” said Payton triumphantly. “Ewie B. Cameron, on the land council, among others. A gentleman. Had the sewer in front of my house fixed two years ago. I don’t hold him any ill will, Inspector — a fair man and for the people, as were his ancestors.”
“Are you sure it was Cameron?” asked Gorrie.
“Oh, yes. And Mackay, the slog. Saw me come in and turned away. Scared o’ me. What he didna’ know, as far as I’m concerned, he could ha’e her. Would ha’e served her right. Could have been my old wife there in that bed, pulled the trigger.”
“Three nights ago,” said Gorrie, his tone light, “would have been the day before Mackay died.”
“The wife killed him,” said the bartender.
“Inquiry will decide that,” said Gorrie.
Payton reached toward the bottle in the bartender’s hand, tipping down the neck to refill his glass again.
“You’re sure it was Cameron?” asked Gorrie.
“It was him.”
Gorrie leaned back in his seat, considering the coincidence of the thing. For if his memory was correct, Ewie B. Cameron, latest in a clan of noble and semi-noble Scots, had been killed in a traffic accident the same night Mackay and his wife had died.
An odd coincidence, to be sure.
SIX
Frank Gorrie sat near the window in his old platform rocker and watched the lights of a car out on the street slide across the dark bedroom walls. It was chilly, quiet, his wife dead to the world under the heavy quilts, her breathing soft and regular.
Gorrie couldn’t sleep. He was wearing his flannel robe and wool socks and had put one of Nan’s hand-knitted throw blankets over his lap. The chair was comfortable, though it creaked when he went rocking back too far. The springs, Gorrie thought. They needed to be oiled. He’d given it a tick on his mental list of waiting house chores. The list was long, and there were many things on it that deserved priority. But oiling the springs wouldn’t take much time. Maybe he’d find a spare moment over the weekend. He ought to anyway. Easier than fixing that runny tap in the loo. He’d try to make a point of getting it done. Next weekend seemed a reasonable target. Meanwhile, Gorrie was trying not to rock too far back in his chair. It was late. The stillness exaggerated every sound. He did not want to disturb Nan. Five nights now since he’d been able to get a decent bit of rest. Or was it six?
He counted backward. Outside, the car moved unhurriedly along the street. He could hear its motor running, and the low shush of its tires as it drew to a halt by the traffic signal at the corner intersection. Then its lights froze on the wall above his bed. Gorrie noticed the diffuse red glow of the stop signal through the frosty window-pane. A law-abiding driver. Commendable. It was getting on two o’clock, stub end of the night. There were only 130 officers to police the sixty thousand civilians in the Inverness Command Area. Scant odds one of them would be around to cite some luckless sod for running a stop signal. Besides Gorrie himself, of course. And he surely wasn’t about to leave the plump, worn-in cushions of his favorite chair.
The signal turned green and the car rounded the corner. Its lights grazed the window, fluttered from wall to wall, then slid across the ceiling. Gorrie counted backward. Five nights, aye, sitting here awake and wide-eyed with a throw over his legs. Wasn’t until a full day after answering the call to Eriskay Road that he’d gotten himself into a twist about it. Gorrie did not know the reason for his delayed reaction. But his mind had been making up for it ever since.
He sat there thinking. Nan shifted under the pile of quilts. He couldn’t tell whether she had moved from her side onto her back, her back to her side, or from one side to the other. The room was very dark. In the winter she had a habit of pulling the quilts up over her head. Slept like a rock under all that fabric and filling. When the cat came pawing at the footboard for her morning meal, you could rely on Nan to be oblivious. Or pretend to be oblivious. It irritated him, obliging that cat’s whims. Sometimes Gorrie would thumb his chest grumpily and protest. Last into bed, first out, he’d say. How’s that for a rule? Where’s the equity? Who rates higher in this household, me or the bloody fur ball? Nan scarcely heeded him, except perhaps to give him a wry little smile.
Gorrie realized he’d almost leaned back too far, gotten the chair to where its rickety springs would squeak. He carefully eased it down. His rocker was different from the cat. The tiniest noise out of it was enough to disturb Nan through her blankets. She’d heard him rocking last night, and the night before. Leave it to Nan. She had peeked an eye out from the thick folds of her covers, asked Gorrie what was bothering him. Not that she didn’t already have an inkling. Or better. Edward and Claire Mackay’s deaths had given a fair boost in popularity to the local papers and telly news broadcasts. Certainly it was meatier dish than the traffic watch, daily stats, or a piece about drunk and disorderly teens setting a brush fire in some city park. And Claire’s former flatmate, Christine Gibbon, had been generous to reporters with every appalling detail of the sight she’d come upon at the bungalow. Nan had his number, all right. Leave it to her.