Cold War - Jerome Preisler [75]
“Dark clothes, large purse. Has money, though she tries to hide it,” added Sallie.
“How so?”
“Leather bag, very nice shoes. Drove a common Ford, blue little thing, type anyone would rent.”
“Did she use a credit card?” Gorrie asked.
“Cash. No trouble with the money like some Yanks,” said Sallie.
“Where was she staying?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Still around,” said the man who had spoken before. “Saw ’er at Grant’s using the telephone one day. Chemist’s the next.”
“Couldn’t’ve been her,” said Sallie. “She had a mobile phone—I saw it poking from the top of the bag.”
“I wouldn’t forget an arse like ’ers.” The man went back to his beer.
Paranoia tickled Gorrie’s senses as he left the pub. The coincidence of the killer seeking out his wife was just too great—and yet, if someone had come to town so skilled as to make four related murders seem completely unrelated, wasn’t it just possible that he would seek out the one person trying to tie them together and prove they were murders, not accidents?
He, not she. A woman couldn’t have committed these crimes, or wouldn’t.
Why not? Held down Cardha Duff while she injected her? Duff was a wee lass, and if sleeping, might have been easily overwhelmed. The small chest bruise at her ribs might have come from a knee or an arm.
Losh, as Nan would say. You’ll be seeing pipers in the mist next, and soldiers manning castles that haven’t existed in five hundred years.
A schoolteacher in March. Two schoolteachers in Inverness.
Maybe the Yanks all had mid-winter holiday.
Gorrie saw the blue Ford in his driveway and kept going, continuing down the block to Peterson’s house. He put the car in their driveway, then got out and walked back, feeling foolish. A small lorry approached from the opposite direction; he tensed as it slowed, then saw it was only the local gas service.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the driver, leaning out the window. “We’ve had some phone calls of gas smell in the neighborhood this afternoon and evening. Have you smelled anything?”
“No,” said Gorrie.
The man nodded solemnly. “Probably a disturbed person but we’re required to check it out. Missed my dinner over this.”
The man drove on. Gorrie crossed the street and stopped in the front yard next to his house, trying to see past the curtains into the sitting room. He could just make out Nan on the couch. Her visitor sat in the armchair at the corner, back to him.
Nan rose and went to the kitchen. The visitor got up as well, took a look after her, then went to the window. She had short, curly hair and a thin, attractive face.
Why would she look out the window?
Any of a million reasons, Gorrie thought.
Nan returned to the room with a fresh pot of tea. The visitor turned back, gesturing out at the window. They began laughing.
What a fool I’m being, Gorrie told himself. He went back to Peterson’s, got his car, and went around the block as if just coming in.
“Hello there,” he said, stomping his feet at the front door. “Good evening, miss.”
“Hello,” said the Yank, rising as Nan came and took his coat. The visitor held out her hand. “Stephanie Plower.”
“A pleasure,” he said, shaking her hand and looking into her face. She was of the right height to match the lass Sallie and the others had described; her hair was right as well. But she seemed heavier than their description, a bulky, loose-knit sweater camouflaging what he imagined was a fullish top.
A sweater that hid a bullet-proof vest?
He wasn’t merely paranoid but delusional, he thought to himself.
“You’re a schoolteacher?” said Gorrie, taking a cup from his wife.
“Oh yes. In the States. I was just telling your wife, we’re on vacation. Holiday, I think you would say.”
“You’ve seen Loch Ness, I expect.”
“Of course—but no monster, I’m sorry to say.” Miss Plower rattled off a full itinerary. She had been to the ruins of Fortrose Cathedral, Chanory Point, Fair Glen (though the cherry trees were dormant), and two dozen other local highlights.
A lot of time in Inverness, Gorrie thought. And a lot of visiting in the area where Cameron was found.