Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [61]
“I remember …” The veil of confusion lifted from Alistair’s face. “A wine and cheese party. Dear God. I was there with Bill Menzies. How could Flora have possibly construed that I was taking anything more than a polite interest in her?”
Flora hid her face in her hands and began to cry.
“Flora had been disappointed in love before,” Rex went on, hating to humiliate the girl, but seeing no other way around it. “Donnie saw her grief when Brad, the American visitor at the hotel, went back home and never contacted her again.” He gave a final turn of the screw. “The Allerdice siblings are verra close. You said as much, Helen. ‘Flora is a martyr to her brother.’ And, in return, he would do anything for her …”
“Donnie!” Flora cried. “Oh, Donnie.” She broke down and sobbed openly in her brother’s arms.
Shona sat rigid, white as her daughter had been when Flora heard about Alistair’s sexual preferences. Hamish covered his face with his large hands and rocked back and forth on his chair.
“Deny it, Donnie,” Mrs. Allerdice wailed.
“I did kill her,” her son responded in calm counterpoint. “I did it. I leaned through the window and surprised her in the bath. She asked, ‘What are ye doing, Donnie? Were ye locked oot the hoose?’ I told her I didna mean her no harm and to keep quiet. I was getting rained on so I climbed in. She tried to cover herself up wi’ a face cloth. She was verra pale. I never kenned I had killed her until this morning.”
Shona Allerdice gave a low moan. Flora pressed her wet cheek to her brother’s.
“But Donnie,” Rex said. “You knew what you were going to do when you found the ladder in the stable and opened the window. You hid Moira’s and your mother’s phones in the coal shed and cut the house line.”
“I never.”
“You took Moira’s mobile from her bag in the hall on your way out to the stable last night. And you would have known where your mother kept hers.”
“I never!” the boy insisted. “I jist wanted to take a peep at her in the bath. I was standing beneath the window and I saw her looking out at the loch.”
Rex thought for a moment. “Then it must have been Beardsley who interfered with the phones when he discovered Alistair had been involved in the Kirsty MacClure case. I wonder, did Beardsley borrow your shoes, Hamish?” he asked. “That would explain why the coal dust was on your shoes and not his. They would have been easier to slip on than his lace-up boots.”
Hamish shrugged. “I have no idea how I came to have coal dust on my shoes. Donnie wouldna’ve borrowed them. His feet are bigger than mine.”
“It wasna me that took my ma’s phone, or the deed woman’s,” the boy repeated.
Rex felt the boy was telling the truth. He did not see why Donnie should confess to the murder and then deny touching the phones. The fact that Donnie might be capable of planning the crime down to the last detail had, in fact, stumped him at first.
“What did you do after you climbed in through the window?” he asked the boy.
“There was a face in the mirror,” the boy murmured. “It skeared me off.”
“What face?”
“The devil’s face, like a mask.”
“All right, lad,” Rex said, hoping to get him back on track. “You pushed Moira’s head under the water, got her through the window, and carried her body on your pony to the loch.”
Donnie said nothing. He just shook his head from side to side, eyes wide open. “She’s deed, she’s deed …”
“You’re aboot the only person that can approach that horse,” Rex told him. “That’s what made me think you might be involved. It was the easiest way to transport Moira to the loch. Rob Roy managed to handle the horse as well, but he was the first person to mention the thud in the night, which I doubt he would’ve done had he been responsible for pushing her body oot the window. Also, he had no reason to kill her.”
“But what about the intruder theory?” Estelle asked. “The bulky shadow on the stairs with a head like a Gorgon’s?”
“I believe that was you in your bathrobe and curlers.”
“Oh, you mean like those mirrors at fairs?” Cuthbert