Suddenly, she didn’t feel safe. She felt like these people might turn on her like an angry mob, because she’d crossed the line; they believed she’d done the dirty on Max Carter, and he had more clout in this town than she would ever have. These were his people, not hers.
She was relieved when the whole damned thing was over and the crowds began to disperse. She kept her head down and got back on to the gravel path and headed for the lychgate. She walked straight into DCI Hunter.
‘Hello, Mrs Carter,’ he said.
‘Hi, Hunter. Here looking for murderers?’
‘Something like that. You?’
‘Just getting my friend buried.’ Annie thought it was coming to something when you started bumping into a copper and felt pleased to see a friendly face. Once, she’d ruled these streets and everyone had respected her. Now, she knew she could fall down dead on the pavement and they’d just step over her body. Or piss on it.
Hunter gave a sigh. ‘It’s tough.’
‘It’s worse than that,’ said Annie sharply. ‘It’s bloody awful. Listen, did you check out the CCTV in the club?’
‘I did. The stairs aren’t covered by the cameras inside. Why would they be? If anyone misbehaves, it’ll be in the main body of the club, not up the stairs.’
‘The outside ones then?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing at all.’
‘The club closed at one in the morning. Someone must have called after that, to kill Dolly.’
‘Really? What if they arrived earlier, while the club was open? Blended with the crowds going in, snuck up the stairs, kept her there until everyone else had left, then did the deed?’
‘Do the staff say she was upstairs? Not down in the bar?’
‘They confirm that she was upstairs from ten o’clock onward. The bar manager Peter Jones knocked on the flat door just after one to say he was cashing up, and Dolly said OK. Next morning he found her dead.’
Annie was frowning at the ground. Then she looked up at Hunter’s face. ‘Thanks for that. It helps, you know. Hearing the details. Thinking that maybe we can solve this.’
‘Mrs Carter,’ he said flatly, ‘I can solve this. Not you.’
‘You really think so?’
‘Yes, Mrs Carter. Never doubt it. Can we talk about your Edinburgh trips?’
‘What?’
‘The trips to Edinburgh from the heliport?’ Hunter pulled out a notebook and thumbed through. ‘Yes, here we are. The taxi service from Edinburgh airport confirmed that on a few of your trips you were going to a house not far outside the city, and the house is owned by a company that trades through a series of tax havens.’
‘I just stayed there sometimes, that’s all.’ Annie kept her face blank.
‘And sometimes you flew direct to the Highlands. To a place called the Mouth of Hades, I believe.’
‘It’s just a place I like to stay at.’
‘I see.’ Hunter snapped the notebook closed. Then he looked around. ‘Is it my imagination, or are you getting some disapproving looks?’
Annie knew she was. People were staring at her with angry faces. Again she felt that spasm of insecurity; that sensation of no longer being safe on these streets, the streets where she used to stride around like a queen.
She nodded to indicate the woman who looked like Dolly, the man who seemed to share the same genetic profile. They were lingering beside the grave. ‘You seen those two? You know who they are?’
‘I do. That’s Sarah Foster, nee Farrell. And that’s her brother, Nigel.’
‘Dolly’s brother and sister?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I never knew she had close relatives. She never mentioned them.’
‘Have you spoken to them?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘Yes, briefly.’
‘And?’
He shook his head with a smile. ‘Police business, Mrs Carter,’ he said, and turned and walked away. Then he paused. His eyes swept over the milling crowds and then resettled on her face. ‘You don’t seem to be flavour of the month around here right now. So be careful.’
75
Annie watched him go, then turned back toward the graveside. Over to the left, she saw Max still there, in a tight huddle with Steve, Chris and Tony. Gary was gone. Ignoring them all, she went toward Sarah and Nigel. On the way there, a group of eight people, men and women, approached her, their faces grim, their eyes accusing. She was jostled, and she heard the words traitor bitch hissed at her. Someone spat at her feet, spattering her legs with phlegm. Shocked, she shoved and pushed her way through them and emerged shakily on the other side.
Gathering herself, she took a breath and then walked on to meet up with Dolly’s relatives. She held out a hand that wasn’t entirely steady and said: ‘Hello? I believe you’re Dolly’s brother and sister? I’m Annie Carter. I was a friend of hers.’
Up close, Sarah’s resemblance to Dolly was even more pronounced. She did have the same posture, the same sloping well-padded shoulders, the same tough stockiness of frame. But this woman had never hit the dye bottle like Dolly had, crisping her hair to the texture of straw; this woman’s was a soft mousy brown fashioned into an old-style set-and-shampoo which did nothing for her pallid features. Her eyes were light blue, reddened with tears. She wore an unflattering and overlong black coat with a silver spider brooch high up on the lapel. Her mouth was thin, her lips trembling. She looked at Annie’s hand and seemed to debate as to whether or not she was going to shake it. Then she made her mind up, and did. Her grip was limp, and damp.
‘Did she ever mention me?’ asked Annie.
The woman shook her head. Annie was staring at her, thinking it was weird, to see Dolly’s features on this woman’s pale, set face – and yet it was obvious this woman was no Dolly. She looked timid, introverted, and Dolly had never been either of those things. Annie found herself wanting to shake the woman, to say, Come on, Dolly, show yourself, I know you’re in there.
Stupid.
‘We never saw Dolly,’ said Sarah in a low lisping voice.
Annie watched her curiously, waiting for explanation. When it was obvious she wasn’t going to get any, she turned her attention to the man standing there. Dark brown eyes on this one, but again – Dolly’s features. That hot surge of exasperation was overwhelming now, the need to shake some life into them. The man looked no more animated than the woman. He had the look of someone permanently undernourished, with a thin mouth, sunken cheeks… and yet, there it was, in the stance, in the build, sometimes even in the expression of the face, fleeting, there one moment, gone the next; an echo of Dolly Farrell, her friend.
‘Dolly left home when she was thirteen. She never kept in touch,’ said Nigel. His mouth thinned into a prudish line. ‘We heard she became a prostitute.’
Maybe that had something to do with her own father fucking her in the first place, thought Annie, feeling an upsurge of anger at Nigel’s disapproving tone.
Perhaps these two dour little creatures didn’t know anything about what the father had done. And was now really the right time to bring it up? She didn’t think so.
‘She was the salt of the earth, Dolly,’ she said. ‘The best friend I ever had.’
‘Well, we wouldn’t know about that,’ said Nigel with a sniff of disapproval.
I don’t like you, thought Annie.
Ah, but that was unfair. She’d only just met these two; it was too soon to decide that they had no balls, no guts, no drive and no feeling; Dolly had had all that and more. Once again it crashed in on her: the realization, the terrible knowledge of what she had lost. She swallowed hard and said, ‘She never talked about her family. Is it… are there more brothers and sisters?’