Trapped and tackled, p.17
The Party House, page 17
So she might still be there when the police let him go. Although that all depended on Caroline.
They’d come for him shortly after the telephone call.
The room he was now in spoke of its intentions. It made him long for the wee back room at the village hall. If he’d felt intimidated there, he felt it a lot more strongly now. He’d been given tea, if you could call it that, in a paper cup. He felt a desire for the thick brown hot liquid suitably sweetened by Maggie, who knew how he liked it, served in a big white mug from the hall’s kitchen cupboard.
He would also have welcomed her ‘Here you go, Greg’ as she’d plonked it down in front of him.
Back home, he’d been a local caught up in Blackrig’s latest horror. Here, he was a man suspected of raping and murdering a seventeen-year-old girl.
The recording switched on, the declarations and introductions given, DI Snyder and DS Reid now observed him with notably blank expressions.
I have become someone else, he thought, even in their eyes. He knew he could remain silent, but had decided to answer their questions. Perhaps that way he might discover what evidence they had against him.
It was Snyder who took the lead. ‘Mr Taylor. We would like you to tell us again about the night of Saturday 22 July 2017.’
Greg, feeling the tightening of his throat, made an attempt to swallow before answering.
‘I’ve told you all that already.’
‘We’d like you to tell us again.’
He nodded as though understanding why this should be required, then reminded himself not to embellish. Just simple facts, even though they weren’t true.
‘I was manning the bar in the village hall with my girlfriend, Caroline Campbell.’
Snyder raised his hand to stop him there. ‘You and Caroline Campbell were living together at the time?’
‘No,’ Greg said. ‘She was living with her brother, Finn, in the village. I was living at Beanach.’
He didn’t add, We were already arguing about that. She wanted me down in the village with her. I didn’t want her up at Beanach with me.
‘You saw Ailsa that night?’
‘Yes. I saw her come up to the bar a couple of times.’
Snyder’s expression didn’t change. ‘What did she have to drink?’
Greg knew exactly what she liked to drink, but if he revealed that, what would that say about the remote relationship he’d been promoting?
‘The bar in the hall only stocks bottled beer, the usual spirits, gin, vodka, whisky, plus some soft drinks. I don’t know what she chose.’
‘You didn’t serve her?’
‘No.’
That was the truth. He’d avoided Ailsa all night, catching the eye of everyone but her.
‘So, your girlfriend Caroline served her?’
‘She must have done.’ Even as the words left his mouth, he knew what horror they might bring.
‘Is that the only time you saw Ailsa?’
In truth, he couldn’t remember what he’d said when the police had arrived after Ailsa’s disappearance. So whatever he said now was unlikely to be the same. He decided to just go for it and hope for the best.
‘It was hectic that night. A real Blackrig get-together. Loud, with plenty music and dancing. When it’s like that it goes past in a blur, just constantly taking orders.’ He paused, hoping he’d set the scene, while remembering these two were from Glasgow where no doubt they had a lot more experience of such nights than he did.
They were waiting silently for him to continue.
‘I might have seen Ailsa leave. At least, she was over by the open fire exit at the back because a few of the local lads were shouting at her.’
‘Who was shouting?’ DS Reid said. ‘And what were they shouting?’
‘Offering to walk her home. That kind of thing.’
‘Who was doing that?’ Snyder said.
‘I couldn’t see them, just heard them.’
‘So how did you know they were local?’
‘Their accents. The visitors were mostly English, plus a few campers.’
‘Was Josh Huntly among the group asking to take her home?’
He had been. In fact, he’d been the most persistent voice he’d heard, but Ailsa had swatted him away the way she’d done to all the others. None of this he said.
‘So no outsiders pestering her? No one making a nuisance of themselves?’
‘Ailsa didn’t entertain arses,’ he said, remembering how easily she got her way. He knew, of course, he shouldn’t have said that, because it gave the impression he knew her far better than he’d admitted up to now. The trouble was the truth forced its way out sometimes.
‘Ailsa didn’t entertain arses,’ DS Reid repeated. ‘You knew her well enough to be aware of that.’ It wasn’t a question, but he answered as though it was.
‘It was what people said about her.’
‘Did she consider you an arse, Mr Taylor?’
‘I don’t think so. I hope not.’
They were steering him somewhere, because he suddenly felt like a deer being driven across the moor towards the place where it would inevitably be met with a bullet in the heart or the brain.
‘How well did you know Ailsa Cummings?’
That same question repeated. He repeated his answer. ‘Not well. She was in a different age group from me. With different friends.’
‘So you weren’t a thing?’ Snyder said.
He tried to look affronted by such a suggestion. ‘As I said, I was in a relationship with Caroline Campbell at the time.’ He almost blurted out about the baby, but stopped himself in time.
The silence that followed seemed unusually long. Like that moment on the hill when they waited for the hunter, known as ‘the rifle’, to begin pressing the trigger.
He almost heard a bang as the bullet he’d been waiting for met its target. Him.
‘Then, Mr Taylor, can you explain to us why your semen was found on the inside of the knickers Ailsa Cummings was wearing the night she died?’
Greg
Greg remained outwardly silent while his head filled with the sounds and images of that night. Ailsa at the bar, trying to catch his attention. Caroline’s eyes on him all the time.
His despair when he saw Ailsa finally leave. That last look she’d thrown him, both teasing and certain that he would come after her.
He’d heard Josh and his mates giving her a hard time as she’d exited. Offering to walk her home, when what they were really asking for was sex somewhere in the woods.
He knew she’d already tasted some of the gang. Josh, certainly, and more than once. A couple of the others. Finn watched in silence from afar. She’d danced with Finn on occasion, she’d told him, but nothing more than that. He was too quiet for her and – she’d screwed up her face – much too nice.
‘Mr Taylor,’ Snyder’s voice broke through the fabric of his thoughts.
‘I’m sorry?’
Snyder repeated the earlier question that had caused his world to shatter. He was now waiting for an answer.
He decided there was no point denying it. ‘I had sex with Ailsa the night she went missing,’ he said quietly.
‘You told us you hardly knew the girl. She was too young for you. Yet you had sex with her. Or did you not, in fact, rape Ailsa Cummings?’
‘No,’ he found himself shouting. ‘I did not rape her. It was consensual.’
‘Unfortunately, Ailsa’s no longer alive and therefore can’t confirm that,’ DS Reid said pointedly.
‘We were in a relationship. Of sorts,’ he said.
‘Of sorts?’ DS Reid said. ‘What does that mean exactly?’
He thought back to that moment in the woods when he’d found her drawing the carvings. How they’d chatted about her going to art college in the autumn. How she’d engineered more meetings. Or he had. How eventually one of them had led to sex. Something he’d welcomed.
‘We met by chance one day in the fairy glen, where the carving trail is,’ he said quietly. ‘She was drawing the figures. We chatted. We met occasionally there and later at my place. She was living at Forrigan, which isn’t far away from Beanach.’
She had never knocked. Just walked in. The first time he’d been shocked, angry with her. What if Caroline had been there, he’d told her. So what, she’d said, before kissing him.
Life for Ailsa had to hold danger or it wasn’t worth living.
‘How long had this relationship of sorts been going on?’ Snyder said.
‘A couple of months.’
It had lasted exactly eighty-one days, from the moment they’d met in the woods until the night of the ceilidh when he’d ended it.
‘Did anyone else know about this clandestine relationship?’ DS Reid said.
He suspected Josh Huntly did, and was mightily annoyed by it, since he thought he’d been in there first, but he wasn’t about to shop Josh.
‘Well?’ Snyder said.
He shook his head.
‘Not your girlfriend, Caroline?’ DS Reid asked.
Then he told the big lie. ‘Not that I was aware of.’
He knew his answers weren’t convincing anyone, least of all himself.
‘How did she die?’ he said, thinking they had never yet spoken of her death.
‘We were hoping you would tell us that, Mr Taylor.’
‘I had sex with her that night. I didn’t kill her.’ But a small voice said, If you hadn’t sent her away, Ailsa would likely still be alive.
Snyder came back in. ‘Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened after Ailsa left the ceilidh.’
Greg nodded. ‘When I didn’t turn up in the woods, she came to Beanach looking for me. I told her that it had to end. She persisted. We made love. I was adamant it was for the last time. I told her that I loved Caroline and that she was expecting our child. She was very angry at that. She left. I never saw her again.’
‘Why did Ms Campbell give a statement at the time of Ailsa’s disappearance that she was with you that night after the ceilidh?’
‘She was. She drove up after she’d been home to check on her brother Finn.’
‘Was she aware that Ailsa had been there?’
‘I told her that Ailsa had turned up and that I’d sent her away.’
‘Does she know you had sex with Ailsa that night?’
That was something Caroline didn’t know and, if she found out, would likely change everything.
Joanne
She’d lost track of her last period, so intent had she been on her plan to escape. Richard rarely went away on business, and usually when he did, she was persuaded to go with him. After all, as a writer, he said, she could work anywhere.
When he’d announced his solo trip, she’d remained silent and biddable. Perhaps that was why he’d seemed comfortable about leaving her behind. Either that or he’d found some other female to take with him.
She’d hoped he had because that might free her. In fact, she’d prayed for it, even though she had no deity to pray to.
Reading the NHS website, she had just learned that, using no contraception, typically eighty-five in one hundred women would get pregnant in a year. With condoms you could expect fifteen pregnancies; the combined pill, nine.
They didn’t give a percentage for the muddled method of forgetting to take a pill, which was the one she’d been using.
She took herself into the bathroom, having made up her mind that should the test prove positive, she would immediately book an online appointment for a termination. But where? Stay in Scotland or go back to London?
That was a decision too far, one she might not have to make at all.
Testing for the virus had become so much a part of life that the thought of another test shouldn’t have freaked her. After all, at the height of the pandemic, for many people a positive test meant real sickness, often leading to a horrible death.
A pregnancy test was something else entirely, she told herself. Although, a small voice reminded her, a death might result from it too. Either of the foetus or her, should Richard find out.
It was over in seconds, much like the nose and throat swabs. The wait to find out the truth, however, seemed interminably long. She had just read the result when she heard Caroline’s voice call her name.
Looking wildly around, wondering where she might dispose of the evidence, she eventually stuffed it in the small cabinet holding Greg’s shaving gear.
This time she couldn’t hide out the back because Caroline would no doubt come looking for her.
‘I’m here!’ she shouted as she headed for the kitchen, where Caroline already stood, her face a picture of despair.
‘You’ve heard?’ she said.
‘We were having dinner at the hotel when it happened.’ Joanne paused. ‘Also, Greg called me first thing this morning.’
‘He did?’ Caroline looked put out by that. ‘What did he say?’
‘That he didn’t do it.’
‘Of course he didn’t.’ Caroline threw her a disparaging look. ‘I told you what that bitch was like. She was determined to get Greg, no matter how often he told her no. Plenty others didn’t refuse. Josh Huntly for a start. Why didn’t they pick him up?’
Joanne didn’t know what to say, so she filled the awkward silence that followed Caroline’s trashing of Josh by offering her tea.
‘Please,’ Caroline said, settling herself at the table. ‘We need to talk.’
That ominous declaration filled Joanne with horror. What could Caroline possibly want to talk to her about?
‘Can you use my china and teapot?’ Caroline said. ‘And the Earl Grey, of course.’
Joanne nodded absent-mindedly as she reached into the cupboard for the cups and saucers, only to recall they wouldn’t be there, because they’d been broken the day before.
She turned, an apology on her lips, but before she could say anything, Caroline, with a quick examination of her face, said, ‘You look really pale. Come and sit down. I’ll make the tea.’
Deciding she really did need to sit down, Joanne sank on to a chair. ‘I’m sorry. Your cups got knocked over and broken. I was going to try and replace them,’ she managed.
There was a moment when it looked like Caroline might comment on that, before she said, ‘Never mind. I have others I can bring up.’
All went silent as Caroline set about putting a tray together like the last time. Joanne could almost hear her brain working. As for herself, it wasn’t her brain but her stomach that was churning over. The tea might well be the final straw.
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. When she opened them again, Caroline was sitting opposite, observing her.
‘I was with Greg the night Ailsa disappeared,’ she said. ‘I’m his alibi. I told him I have his back . . .’
Joanne tried to focus. Was there an inaudible ‘unless’ at the end of that sentence? She chose to pretend not.
‘So they should let him out soon?’
Caroline sat back in the chair. ‘I need to go up there, be interviewed and give my statement first.’ She paused. ‘Meanwhile, you need to leave here.’
Joanne’s nauseated brain didn’t catch on at first. All she could think about was whether she needed to head for the sink or the bathroom. The sink won.
The retching was loud and violent, the little amount of tea she’d managed to swallow mixed with bile and an earlier coffee. When it was over, she turned on the cold tap and splashed her face with water. Then carefully patted it dry with the tea towel, putting off the moment when she would need to turn and face Caroline.
Eventually she did. ‘I had crab claws last night at the hotel. Shellfish sometimes upsets my stomach. Plus I didn’t get much sleep after what happened.’
Caroline looked almost sympathetic.
‘Look, this isn’t your fight. You should go.’
Her tone was even, but Joanne knew she meant it. When she didn’t respond, Caroline continued, ‘Greg belongs here. You don’t. You two had fun in London. Why not? We’d all been deprived during lockdown. He’s a good lay, but he didn’t expect you to turn up in Blackrig. That much was obvious. Which makes me wonder why you did. For more sex or for some other reason?’
Everything she was saying was true. Every word of it. Caroline was perceptive. Perhaps more than even Greg realized.
‘I’m here because Greg invited me. As far as he’s concerned, what happened between you two is over.’
Caroline nodded as though considering this.
‘So he doesn’t need me any more. Is that what you’re saying?’
Joanne shivered as she interpreted both the look and that pronouncement. Was Caroline insinuating that if she didn’t leave Blackrig, then she would no longer supply Greg’s alibi for that night?
‘Greg’s your friend,’ she said swiftly. ‘Has been from your schooldays together. You told me that yourself. Of course he needs you. Now more than ever.’
Did Caroline look mollified by her announcement? Joanne wasn’t sure.
Caroline rose. ‘I need to get back to the shop.’
‘You’ll go to Inverness and give a statement, won’t you?’
‘And what about you, Maya Villan? When will you be leaving Blackrig?’
Stunned by the use of her pen name, Joanne was speechless.
‘Oh yes. I know who you are. One of those women at the Party House came into the shop and kindly told us all about you. Is that why you’re here, to get the lowdown on all of us and our troubles for your blog?’
‘I think you’d better leave,’ Joanne managed, her voice trembling.
‘I think you should be the one to leave. And the sooner the better. For Greg’s sake.’
Greg
Returned to his cell, Greg had set about revisiting everything he’d said in the interview, already wishing he’d answered differently or, even better, retained his right to remain silent. He’d stupidly thought if he appeared helpful and cooperative, things would be okay.
It had all fallen apart, of course, when they’d revealed they had the evidence to prove he’d had sex with Ailsa the night she’d disappeared.
