Dark of Night Page 4

  Six

  We followed the road past the Ramsay farm as it ran northwards. A few miles further on, a long, gentle curve bent it around to the east, and we kept going until we reached the entry to the private road that was the main access to the Kerr estate. The lane was lined with trees on either side at first, as it cut through the border of over thirty acres of private woodland. I saw towering, impressive old oaks, as well as birch, alder and ash trees as we drove past, and I found myself marvelling that one person could own all this natural treasure, enjoy it in complete privacy whenever they wished. It made me a little envious, I’ll admit. I bet that there were some giants in there that were easily over three centuries old. There would be a healthy ecosystem, too, plenty of animal and birdlife to observe. Many species that gamekeepers used to be able to shoot as they pleased were protected now.

  Caitlin snorted softly as I sighed heavily. “Feeling the urge to wander off and explore are you, Conall?”

  “I wish!” I responded regretfully. “Douglas Kerr is a lucky devil.” Ahead of us, the view was opening out onto open parkland, stretching out to distant fields and pastures on either side. And in front, the gables of the Manor House showed, peeping above a file of matured Scots pine trees. We passed a few, scattered cottages, each with its own, gravelled track leading to the lane, and then swept round a bend to the right, past orderly low hedges and neatly kept formal flower beds of the house’s front garden and into the forecourt of the Manor. Caitlin pulled us in on the left side of the cobbled area there.

  “Nice place,” she commented once we’d climbed out of the car and were both checking out the house. “Looks like it would do a good business as a little country hotel.”

  “It’s got that look.” I agreed. “I bet the tourists would love that crumbled tower at the west end - that’s got to be sixteenth century.”

  The house itself, built off the side of the ruin, was a late Victorian construction. I liked the yellow stock bricks they’d used, more pleasing to my eye than a red brick version of the same design would have been. No, that would have looked just awful! The house had been built in an L shape, three stories high, the top floor of the longer arm facing us studded with a row of pokey little windows. The old servants’ quarters, most likely. The lower floors had much bigger, lead paned windows, spaced further apart and fewer in number, and I guessed that there would probably be enormous bay windows at the back of the house - overlooking flower-bordered lawns with steps leading down from a broad terrace, or something of the kind. The second-rate, vast majority of the architects of the day seemed to have just gone along with what was ‘expected’, although, of course, the clients were ultimately to blame for that. Most people would pick whichever of the designs presented to them looked the most familiar and respectable rather than anything more original. I couldn’t make out much of the shorter arm of the L shape from where we were standing because it ran away from us, down the left side of the building.

  “You could have ten or twelve decent bedrooms, but it would cost a fortune to put in all those extra bathrooms,” I decided. Caitlin laughed. “You should see your face, Conall! And you couldn’t sound less enthusiastic. You don’t like it much, do you? How about you have the woods and I’ll have the house then?”

  “Fine by me,” I agreed readily, “Come on, let’s see if Mr Kerr is at home for visitors, shall we?”

  I was surprised by the appearance of the man who answered the door. All those musings about the Victorian era had prepared me for an immaculate butler or a footman, part of a household with a dozen liveried servants scurrying about. But no, that had been a different age, and our knock was instead answered by a stooped, elderly gentleman with a shock of pure white hair and the bluest eyes I had seen in quite some time. He blinked down at us through a pair of wire-framed reading glasses, looking like a benign Oxbridge professor. Lord! There was even a pipe stem sticking out of the pocket of his tatty old cardigan, and yes, I glanced down to check, there were the obligatory old brown slippers.

  “Can I help you?” he inquired in a soft, mellow voice. Belatedly, I pulled my warrant card out of my coat and flipped it open to show him.

  “I’m Inspector Conall Keane sir, with the Inverness police, and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Caitlin Murray. We were hoping to speak to Douglas Kerr?”

  “Oh! I am he. Please, do come in. Careful of that last step, it’s a bit wobbly.”

  We followed him across a marble entry and down a narrow, carpeted hallway. We passed two closed doors to our left and walked straight through into a large drawing room at the back of the house where the expected, tall bay window, stretched a good twelve feet across the outer wall. It had been built in three, framed sections, all filled with the same leaded panes as the front windows. Even on this overcast afternoon, the room looked quite bright, the full length, forest green velvet curtains hooked back at their cinched waists for the day by loops of thick gilded cord. A collection of thriving houseplants graced the deep windowsill, and there was a built-in wooden window seat below that, its thickly cushioned lid upholstered with more velvet, but damson coloured this time.

  I resisted the urge to go and stare out of the window and, at Kerr’s invitation, Caitlin and I perched ourselves at either end of a cream coloured settee, leaving a third, empty cushion between us. My curious gaze surveyed the rest of the room whilst our host stuck his head back out of the door.

  “Martha, dear,” I heard him call, “are you there?”

  The ceiling was high and white, with an elaborate plaster medallion around the hanging light fixture, and there were more elaborate, decorative flourishes all around the top edges of the walls. Below that detailing, the walls themselves were papered in a subdued, delicate floral print in pastel greens and greys and it shone, modestly, with a muted satin sheen.

  “Oh dear,” Kerr exclaimed unhappily from the doorway. “I don’t think she can hear me. Please excuse me for just one moment, Officers.” Caitlin was interestedly looking around too, well, gawping really, if I’m being accurate.

  “Look at the size of that desk! Is that mahogany?”

  “It looks like it. Antique too. It probably takes four people to move it.” It was huge, weightily solid. There was an antique, equally massive cabinet sitting a few feet along from it against the same wall. Two armchairs, the settee’s little brothers, angled in towards us across a varnished coffee table that Shay would have felt compelled to caress with his fingers. Beautiful craftsmanship. I could scent the faintest, nostalgic whiff of furniture polish in the air. Lastly, like an afterthought, an old television set sat on a modern, mass-produced wooden unit tucked away in a corner near the fireplace. Its plug lay forlornly exposed on the beige carpet, inches from a low wall socket. That single concession to the modern world apart, it was a lovely, tastefully appointed room.

  “I do apologise for keeping you waiting,” Douglas Kerr said as he returned to us. “Martha, my housekeeper, was listening to the radio, and the kitchen door was closed. She couldn’t hear me calling.” He sank into the armchair closest to where I was sitting. “The tea will be along in a few minutes.”

  “Very kind of you to think of it, Sir.” I couldn’t help it, that reflexive ‘Sir’. He reminded me so much of a professor that I’d been extremely fond of that the old habit had kicked in automatically. Kerr wasn’t that old though, now that I had time to examine him more carefully. The stoop and the glasses had fooled me a bit. Mid-sixties, I now guessed, shaving a decade off my first impression. He waved my expression of thanks off with a quiet huff and a wave of the hand.

  “What can I do for you today, Inspector?” he asked, smiling at me with polite interest.

  “It’s about your neighbour, Gareth Ramsay,” I told him, noting that his expression did not alter in the slightest. So, the news had not reached him yet, even if the village had been awash with talk of it for hours. “I regret to have to tell you that he’s been killed.”

  Kerr’s eyes widened and only his f
ingers, gripping tightly to the ends of the arms of the chair, slowed his backward slump against the padded support of the cushion. “Gareth? Dead? How? When?” He punctuated each question with a disbelieving little twist of his neck, as if he couldn’t quite manage to shake his head; could neither believe what I had just told him nor deny the honest regret in my tone and expression either.

  “We believe he was murdered. Yesterday evening, in the field down by the burn that separates this estate from his farm.”

  “Dear God!” he whispered. “Who would do such a terrible thing?”

  “That is what we intend to find out.” I kept my tone as soft as I could, saying those words, but his eyes jerked up to mine as if he’d heard something of a promised inevitability in my voice. I think that actually helped him recover himself, somehow, but I certainly didn’t want to start asking him questions yet, he clearly needed a few more minutes to get over the shock. “Which is why we’ve been talking to people who knew Mr Ramsay, collecting information. Everyone we’ve spoken to so far seemed to feel as shocked and astonished as you are Mr Kerr. It seems he was universally well-liked.”

  “Yes, yes, I would say so. A lovely man, very kind, very mild, absolutely devoted to his family… Oh! Poor Mary! She must be devastated. Awful, just awful!” Thankfully a woman with a tea tray came in just then; the housekeeper, Martha, I presumed. A potato-shaped, dumpy little woman with thinning grey hair clenched tightly into a bun, and a round, wrinkled face. She was dressed in a knee-length tweed skirt and a creamy blouse with a cameo brooch pinned to the front. Sensible, flat brown shiny leather shoes and dark tights. She looked to be a few years older than her employer. I jumped up, hastily, as she wobbled towards us and relieved her of the heavy tray, afraid she might hurt her back if she bent down herself to put it on the coffee table for us. She gave me an approving smile, and I could see her already filing me away in her head as ‘a nice boy, well brought up.’

  “Thank you, Martha.” Sir Douglas managed from his chair, and she turned to him and saw his shocked, pale face. “There’s some bad news, I’m afraid. Gareth Ramsay was killed last night.” He waved a vague hand, “These Officers are looking into the death.” Her hands flew up to her mouth, and I heard a quiet gasp leak out through her fingers, an inward sucking of breath.

  “That poor family!” she managed. “What they must be going through now.” The very first thought her mind had produced, before any hint of curiosity, any hankering after details. This woman, I thought, knew only too well how thoroughly the unexpected death of a loved one could devastate you. Douglas nodded.

  “Yes. That poor family,” he echoed her, “but they have each other. That’s something.”

  “Aye,” she agreed, hunched in on herself, shrunken. “That’s everything, really. You’d not want to face it alone. A body might lose their mind for a while…”

  I don’t think I flinched then... and of course, those wise, true words would send me straight back, to thoughts of a twelve-year-old Shay, stranded thousands of miles away from us, ‘facing it’ alone. For six whole weeks back then, we’d believed that he was dead too; that they’d all been killed, three generations wiped out at once. What else could we have thought? I blinked. How long had I been ensnared by old memories? Only a moment, surely, but all of them were staring at me very oddly. I swallowed, cleared my throat.

  “Shall I pour us some tea now, sir? I think we could all use a cup.” There were just the three of them, on the tray.

  “That would be lovely, Inspector. Just the thing.” He looked up at his housekeeper. “And your cakes look delicious, Martha, as always. Thank you.” and added in a lower, more confidential tone, “We’ll talk after I’ve spoken with these nice Officers shall we.”

  “Aye, aye of course,” she nodded. “I’ve things to be doing.” She took a deep, recovering breath, “ Can’t be standing around like a moonstruck loon all day. Folk have to get on.” She gave us a nod and a, “Good afternoon to you, Officers,” and seemed almost normal again as she walked out, closing the door gently behind her.

  I poured milk from the jug into two of the cups, and then the third one too, when Douglas nodded as I hesitated. I lifted the lid of the fat-bellied, pottery teapot and gave it a stir, bringing a little upon the spoon to check the colour. Dark enough. The sugar bowl had its own little silver tongs. Good grief! Loose tea, sugar lumps, cups and saucers, a cake stand, side plates; this was afternoon tea in a way I hadn’t experienced in a private house for some time. Not the ‘best china’, of course, but all from a matching tea set of decent quality.

  “Just one lump, thank you,” Douglas told me. I handed him his cup and saucer without clattering the teaspoon, like a seasoned practitioner of the art. “Please, do try a cake. Martha is a very good baker.” Caitlin and I obediently placed our drinks onto the spindly legged matching side tables beside us and put one of the dainty little confections each onto plates. I sampled my selection, unsure what it was. Oh! I hadn’t tasted a ground almond tart since Sunday visits to Granny O’Brien’s as a child. The morsel melted on my tongue and was absolutely delicious. I finished it hurriedly, between sips of tea, wanting to get back to business.

  “How many people do you have working on the estate, Mr Kerr?” I asked him. He frowned.

  “Well, there’s Martha, living in, and her niece comes to help in the kitchen. We have two part-time cleaners, here at the house as well. Most of the place is kept shut up these days, and we just keep a few rooms going for Jessica and me to use. We have two gardeners, full time, and bring in outside help when they need it. Then there’s the gamekeeper and his assistant and all the farm staff, naturally, but I’m not sure how many of those there are. I’ll have my factor provide a list of all the staff for you.” He hesitated. “I suppose you’ll want to speak to all of them?”

  “I think we can leave out the farm staff, for now, until we find out if any of them were seen in the park grounds yesterday. But I’d like to send a couple of my constables to take the other statements, to begin with. Tomorrow morning?”

  “Certainly. We can set your chaps up in one of the empty cottages, if that would be suitable? Then we can have my people go in to see them, at set times. It would be quicker than having to track everyone down individually as they moved around, or so I should think. I’m afraid the estate is quite sizeable, and there are parts you can’t get to in a car. Would that be suitable?” he asked doubtfully. Suitable? If only all civilians involved in our investigations were prepared to be so accommodating!

  “That sounds like an excellent plan,” I assured him, and he smiled, pleased. “I understand that your niece lives here? And has some friends camping on the grounds?”

  “Yes, that’s right, although Jessica doesn’t live here all the time. She’s studying for her master’s degree in History, in Edinburgh, so she comes and goes quite a bit.”

  “And her friends?”

  “Mmm. Most of them are at Edinburgh University too, friends of Jessica’s and friends of friends. Some of them are History students too and spend a lot of time poking through old papers in our library here during term breaks. Jessica found boxes of books and letters and things tucked away in the attics, and I had them all carried down for her to look through.” He sipped at his tea for a moment. “Another group of them have got a little permaculture project planted in an unused corner. Land that hasn’t had any artificial fertilisers anywhere near it for decades. They were so pleased and very grateful, when I said they might as well get some use out of it. Jessica has her room here at the house, of course, but the rest of them seem happy enough in their camper vans. They’re all up in the north-west corner of the estate.”

  “How many are staying there just now?”

  “Well, they all seem to come and go quite a bit, Inspector, so I really couldn’t say I’m afraid. But Jessica can show you the way up there, and you can talk to them yourself. We can pop into the library and see her when you’re done with me here.”

  “Thank you, th
at’s an excellent suggestion. More tea?” I poured for us all again and helped myself to a mini fruit bun. Caitlin set her notebook on her lap and took a second chocolate slice whilst she had the chance. It wasn’t hunger, not after the lunch we’d been served at The Ram, but Martha really was a cracking baker. “Do you have any house guests staying with you at the moment, Mr Kerr? Or any that have recently left?” I asked next once I had finished my morsel.

  “No, none. Two old school friends bunked in with Jessica for a weekend in February, but that was the last time anyone stayed over. She brings different members of her group over for dinner sometimes, just one at a time, so I can get to know them a bit. No linguists among them, more’s the pity, but I enjoy hearing about their studies, anyway. They’re a bright young set.” I put all my crockery back onto the tray, determined not to eat or drink any more.

  “We were told that you served on the same village committee as Gareth Ramsay?”

  “Yes, that’s right. We meet at the village hall, on the first and third Thursdays of the month. Last Thursday evening was the last time I saw him, in fact.” A shake of the head there, as if he’d just realised that it really had been the last time.

  “Did he seem normal to you? Did he mention anything bothering him?”

  “No, nothing. But I should mention, Inspector, that my damned solicitors made an error of omission that caused me some embarrassment early in January. I’d decided to go ahead with a Voluntary Registration of the estate in the Land Register, before I left it too late—I didn’t like the idea of Jessica having to go through all that ridiculous palaver, or any further expenses, when the property passes to her. She’s my heir, you see. Her parents are both gone, may they rest in peace, and I never got around to marrying anyone. Somehow couldn’t seem to find a girl I cared enough for to propose to.” Douglas had a way of conveying a shrug with only a slight move of his head. “My solicitor had asked me to call on him and, when I did, he showed me all these conflicting plans, some of them rather inaccurate, and bits of different old land purchases and sales, and he managed to convince me that five acres of the Ramsay farm bordering the estate actually belonged to me.”