The Woman on the Cliff Page 18

  Piers peered at his watch. Looked at Elspeth. “It’s not even midnight,” he said.

  For the next hour, Moira did her level best to charm Piers and enrage Elspeth. The four of us danced together but anyone watching would have concluded that Moira and Piers were the couple. Elspeth could only look on in silent rage as Moira bumped hips with Piers, danced around him seductively and even tried to grab him for a slow dance, saying to Elspeth, “You won’t be jealous, will you?” Enough was enough. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away before Piers could respond.

  “What do you think you’re playing at, Moira?” I hissed, in the relative privacy of the toilets.

  “I’m just having a bit of fun.” Moira applied some scarlet lipstick and stood back to appraise herself in the mirror. She looked stunning.

  “Well, your idea of fun is ruining Elspeth’s evening — probably her whole weekend — with Piers.”

  “I can’t help it if Piers is attracted to me.”

  “You’re leading him on.”

  Moira looked from her reflection in the mirror to mine. Maybe it was the glass that made her gaze so chilly. “Then I’m doing Elspeth a favour. If Piers is so fickle that a little bit of flirting can lead him astray, then he’s not going to be loyal to her for long, is he? Not that anyone would want to be with sourpuss Elspeth for long.”

  “That’s unfair! And it’s not as if you’re the teeniest bit interested in Piers. You have Andrew. Or had you forgotten?”

  “Look, Ros. Like I told you before, from the moment she set eyes on me, Elspeth Blair decided she hated me. Because I had Andrew and she didn’t. Because I’m cleverer than she is. Because she thinks my liking for you might undermine her control over you. She’s a jealous, twisted bitch. You can’t see it because she marked you out as a friend she could manipulate and use at a time when you were vulnerable, and you’ve mistaken that for true friendship. But don’t think you’ll be spared her spite if you upset her.”

  “Stop it! Stop slagging her off! And you’re wrong. I know Elspeth isn’t perfect but—”

  “She’s your friend. I know.” Moira’s sigh was pitying rather than sarcastic. To my shame, I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. I hated confrontation.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go if it means so much to you.”

  We left the students’ union without saying goodbye to Elspeth and Piers. We queued for chips on Market Street and ate them on the way back to North Street, warming our cold fingers on the greasy paper pokes. We didn’t talk much. I kept going over in my head what Moira had said about Elspeth. One thing in particular gave me pause for thought. Once again, Moira had said she liked me, and that Elspeth resented it. It felt slightly uncomfortable to be caught between two such strong characters as Moira and Elspeth. For a moment I wondered if with friends like these, I wouldn’t be better off with enemies.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I consider calling Innes, or texting him to arrange a meeting, but both options seem inadequate. Finally, I decide to speak with him in person. I track him down on the clifftop near his cottage, the afternoon after my reunion with Lucy. He cuts a lonely figure in his black jacket, collar upturned, silhouetted against the pewter tones of the stormy North Sea. Bronn is off his lead, head stuck down a rabbit hole, but he senses my presence and gives a muffled bark of welcome.

  Alerted, Innes swings around to face me. His cheeks, stung by exposure to the salt wind, have a ruddy glow and his hair lifts in grey-white swirls, mimicking the foaming waves. His eyes gleam blue-black. A reflection of his recent thoughts, or displeasure at seeing me?

  Bronn is at me now, weaving around my legs, licking my hands. Innes calls him to heel and the dog lurches back to his master and sits, watchful, by his side. But he’s restless, doing that thing that dogs do when they’ve been told to keep still and can’t quite manage it. He goes to rise, sits again, lowers and raises his head, looks from Innes to me, perhaps sensing the tension between us.

  I risk stepping closer. When I am near enough to be heard over the pounding sea, I say, “I’m ready to hear your side of the story.”

  We walk back along the cliff path towards Innes’s cottage, Bronn bounding ahead of us, joyous as a puppy. The sea booms around us but that’s not the reason we walk in silence. There should be no distractions when Innes tells his story.

  Once inside, Innes puts the kettle on and only when he’s poured us both a mug of tea does he ask, “So, what made you change your mind?”

  “Elspeth isn’t entirely to be trusted. I can be a bit too . . . accommodating where she’s concerned, because of our long-standing friendship.” I want to tell him how much I want her story to be false, as I sense it must be, but I don’t. Innes raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. The awkwardness between us seems to grow. Bronn lopes over to Innes and licks his hand.

  “What exactly did she tell you?”

  “That you were accused of planting evidence on a suspect in an investigation you were involved with in Glasgow. That the suspect died in mysterious circumstances. You can see the similarities with the case we’re investigating.”

  I await his response, conscious that what Elspeth has given me is the bare bones of a story. I really hope that when Innes fleshes it out, the details will exonerate him of all blame.

  To my astonishment, he seems initially bemused. Then he smiles. “That’s such a load of crap. It doesn’t even make any sense. If I’d behaved in the way she suggests, I’d have been arrested and tried, not allowed to retire and walk off into the sunset on a full pension.”

  I feel myself flush. I was too quick to judge Innes, but at the same time, he is little more than a stranger to me. I’ve known Elspeth far longer. I think of Lucy’s comments about Elspeth, and of what Moira said to me all that time ago. Did it ever occur to you that she might have been feeling just as lonely and desperate as you?

  “I don’t blame you for trusting your friend over me,” Innes says, reading my thoughts. “You barely know me. Thankfully, the truth about the case Elspeth is referring to is much more prosaic. It was a drugs-related investigation. We were looking at a man called Rod Wisdom. Wisdom was a personal trainer at the gym in his local leisure centre. We suspected he was dealing to the kids who frequented the centre but we had nothing on him. Not until his locker was searched by his supervisor following a colleague’s accusation that he’d stolen her purse. There was no purse, but the search did uncover a stash of cocaine.”

  “You were accused of planting the cocaine? But how? How would you get access to Wisdom’s locker?”

  Innes sighs. “This is where it gets slightly ridiculous. One of the pool attendants, a woman called Kristina, accused me of bribing her to plant the coke in Wisdom’s locker.”

  “Why on earth would she do that?”

  “Because Wisdom was her boyfriend, and the amount of coke he had stashed in his locker would have led to a hefty sentence.”

  “Wasn’t it rather obvious that she was lying to protect him?”

  “You’d think,” Innes says with another sigh. “But she claimed that she wasn’t seeing him anymore. No one believed the story but I had to distance myself from the case. I went on extended leave. Note, I was not suspended. My colleagues were able to prove without too much trouble that Kristina’s allegation was completely false.”

  “What about Elspeth saying that your suspect died in mysterious circumstances?”

  “Well, if driving into a brick wall at eighty miles an hour can be described as mysterious, your friend is correct.”

  “Suicide.”

  “That was the verdict. There were plenty of witnesses. An unusual method, but not overly mysterious. Not in my book, at any rate.”

  There’s a silence while I absorb what Innes has told me. I can see now that Elspeth has been very selective in what she chose to tell me. Just as she was when she told me the story about Doug’s ex-girlfriend.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, meeting Innes’s eye, “for not having more faith in you.”
>
  “It’s perfectly understandable. I’m impressed that your friend was able to ferret out this story and embellish it so damningly. Is she a journalist, used to raking through the minutiae of people’s lives and putting her own spin on the details?” He’s too polite to say ‘digging up the dirt.’

  “No, she’s an accountant. So, you really did retire?”

  “Yes. I really did retire. I decided that after thirty years, I wanted to do something different with my life.”

  We sit facing each other across the kitchen table. It seems vast, this small distance between us. I wonder if Innes feels it too.

  “You’ve known Elspeth a long time, have you?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm . . .” Here it comes, I think. Like everyone else, Innes is going to cast doubt on Elspeth’s behaviour — and my loyalty to her. But he doesn’t.

  “Look, Ros. I hope my explanation clears this business up. I really enjoy your company and — I hope I’m not reading things wrongly here —I think you enjoy mine too.”

  My voice is a whisper. “You’re not wrong.” Innes nods, lets out a sigh that sounds like relief. He doesn’t rise and come and take me in his arms, and I sit, frozen to my chair, but the atmosphere between us has undergone a shift. I hope it will continue. There’s potential here for something good between us, something lasting. But not yet. First there is the matter of Moira’s death to solve.

  “Where have you been staying?” he asks.

  “At Lucy’s last night. A guest house the night before.”

  “Come back here,” Innes urges. “I’ll drive you into town. We can collect your things, then I’d like to take you out for a meal. How about the Old Course?”

  I laugh. “Not the Old Course, please.” Innes laughs too when I explain my reason for turning down his generous offer. Bronn, picking up on our amusement, gives a bark of approval.

  As I wait for Innes to change, I call Lucy and tell her the news. “You were right about Elspeth.” I decide to tell her how Elspeth tried to interfere in my relationship with Doug as well.

  “Why am I not surprised?” is her only comment.

  Bronn senses that we’re about to go out without him. I’m sorry we have to leave him behind, so I suggest to Innes that we go to a dog-friendly pub instead of a fancy restaurant. Man and dog look grateful.

  Innes chooses a pub that looks as though it will offer a better choice of food than the one close to his cottage, and a better atmosphere than the one near the hospital. Over our meal, I tell him about my evening with Lucy and Alec.

  “Lucy is confident that she remembers the man’s face well enough to describe it?” Innes’s expression is sceptical.

  “She said his face is ‘etched on her memory,’ because he was with Moira the last time she ever saw her alive. Only problem is, the image she has of him is years out of date.”

  “Hmm.” Innes gives his habitual laconic response, which I now know means he is thinking.

  I have an idea. “If Lucy can describe what the man looked like, maybe I could sketch him — or you could get one of those police artists to do it, and then age the likeness to give an idea of what he might look like now.”

  Innes smiles. “Now you’re thinking like a detective.”

  Is this what drives people like Innes to become detectives? This feeling of elation when you sense you are getting closer to solving a mystery?

  “That’s a lot of ‘ifs,’” he says, dampening my excitement.

  Later, back at Innes’s cottage, there’s an awkwardness between us again, a sense that while we are where we were before Elspeth’s interference, we haven’t moved on. I say goodnight and turn towards the stairs.

  “Ros.” Innes says my name so softly it’s almost a whisper. “It’s good to have you back.”

  “It’s good to be back.”

  * * *

  The following day I contact Lucy about doing the sketch, and she invites me round for lunch, which she rustles up from the previous day’s leftovers. After eating, we set to work. Her visual recall is impressive, but it still takes some time and a lot of erasing and redrawing before a likeness begins to emerge that satisfies her.

  I hold the image of the man at arm’s length, frowning. He is gingery-fair, with longish hair, a beard and large, black-rimmed glasses. Lucy thinks his eyes were blue, which his colouring would suggest. The image isn’t entirely generic though. In her description, Lucy had emphasised the shape of his mouth.

  “He does have distinctive lips,” I say. “The top one is much fuller than the bottom and the bottom one is tight, and turns down at the corners. It gives him a sort of cruel, snarling look, don’t you think?”

  “Hmm,” Lucy says, sounding like Innes. “I hope that’ll help narrow it down. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise about his age. He could have been in his or thirties or forties. With all that hair and the beard, it’s difficult to say.”

  “I’ll give this to Innes. Let’s hope something comes of it.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The same night that Moira returned, unexpectedly, from Edinburgh, and we encountered Elspeth and Piers at the students’ union disco, an incident occurred that put all of Moira and Elspeth’s previous clashes in the shade.

  It was gone one in the morning. I was lying awake, worrying about what the repercussions of the evening would be, when I heard the door slam loudly downstairs. Guessing that it must be Elspeth and Piers, I lay, listening for the sound of voices. Hearing nothing, I began to grow anxious. Should I go downstairs? The memory of Moira and Andrew copulating on the sofa cautioned me to stay put.

  I tossed and turned for a while longer, until tiredness and the alcohol I’d drunk earlier caught up with me, and I fell into a deep sleep. Sometime later, I was roused by the sound of a commotion coming from Moira’s bedroom. Not screams exactly, but shrill cries of fear and panic.

  I was out in the hallway in seconds. The door to Moira’s room stood wide open. Elspeth was standing over Moira’s bed, her back to me. Even in the semi-darkness, I could tell that something was wrong. Moira was cowering beneath her duvet.

  “Elspeth!”

  Elspeth swung around. In her right hand was a pair of large kitchen scissors. “Elspeth, what’s going on?”

  “That bitch spent the whole evening flirting with my boyfriend, that’s what.” I looked around for the missing Piers. “He’s not here.” Elspeth’s voice shook with anger. It was too late for Piers to have gone back to Edinburgh.

  “Where is he?”

  “He can sleep on the beach and get hypothermia for all I care. Serve him right for ogling that cow all evening.” She pointed the scissors menacingly at Moira, who was now looking a lot less terrified. Maybe she thought two to one was better odds.

  Elspeth mimicked Piers’s voice. “Hasn’t your friend got beautiful hair? Like silk. So shiny . . .” As she spoke, she raised the scissors and cut the air menacingly. The snip-snipping sound set my nerves on edge.

  Suddenly, I’d had enough. “For fuck’s sake, Elspeth! Stop waving those bloody scissors around and give them to me before someone gets hurt. What were you planning to do? Murder Moira in her bed? Do you have any idea how crazy you look?”

  Emboldened by my presence, Moira had now thrown her duvet aside. I hoped she’d have the sense to keep her mouth shut and not risk antagonising Elspeth any further. I held my hand out for the scissors and was slightly surprised when she surrendered them to me so readily.

  “You’re crazy, Elspeth Blair,” Moira cried, as soon as the scissors were safely in my hand. “You need to see a bloody psychiatrist.”

  “I should have stabbed you while I had the chance,” Elspeth retaliated.

  I felt something snap. “Stop it! The pair of you! Elspeth, go to your room.”

  When Elspeth had skulked from the room, I turned to Moira. “She wouldn’t have—”

  Moira interrupted me. “You don’t know that for sure, Ros, but you’ll always defend her, won’t you?
She doesn’t deserve a friend like you. I don’t know what it would take to convince you that that woman is poison.” With that, she lay down and pulled the duvet over her head.

  “Lock your door,” I said, and left her room.

  It was cold. I was shaking, but mostly with nerves. Moira was right about one thing. Elspeth’s behaviour had been crazy.

  I stood outside Elspeth’s bedroom door. From within came the sound of muffled sobbing. I knocked quietly, and it stopped.

  “Go away,” she called out.

  “Elspeth, we need to talk. Can I come in?” At first, I thought she wasn’t going to answer, but after a moment or two she came to the door.

  “It’s freezing in here.” Elspeth gave a shrug, walked over to the heater and fed it twenty pence.

  “Elspeth . . .”

  “I know,” she said, turning her white, tear-stained face towards me. “I went too far.”

  “Yes. You did.”

  Anger, and something I interpreted as fear, shone in her eyes. “If you hadn’t come in . . .” I waited, needing to hear her say it. “I . . . I don’t know what I might have done. I . . . was going to cut off her hair, but when I saw her lying there . . . I thought how easy it would be to . . . to . . .”

  “Say it,” I said.

  “Hurt her.” She buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Ros, what’s wrong with me?”

  There was no simple answer to that. We sat in silence for several moments. My legs were burnt in red stripes from the electric bar heater, but otherwise I still felt chilled to the bone.

  Eventually, Elspeth said, “I wanted to hurt her, kill her. That’s bad, isn’t it?”

  Surprised at her honesty, my eyes widened. “Yes.”

  “I don’t even understand why I hate her so much. She just seems to bring out the worst in me. Is she right? Am I crazy?”

  “I’m not a shrink, Elspeth. You need to talk to someone about all of this.”

  “I know. I . . . I will. I scared myself tonight.”