Evil for Evil by Aline Templeton Page B

‘I’m in the force.’
    ‘Detective Sergeant,’ MacNee put in helpfully.
    ‘Oh,’ Christie said flatly.
    Macdonald’s face fell. ‘Let’s go and sit down,’ he suggested. ‘There’s a table over by the window.’
    As they moved away, Fleming said coldly, ‘You really are a sod, Tam. That wasn’t kind.’
    MacNee conceded that. ‘No, but it was kinna fun. Should have told her at the start, shouldn’t he?’ He went on sententiously, ‘
The honest heart that’s free frae a’ / Intended fraud or guile, / However Fortune kick the ba’ / Has ay some cause to smile
.’ He did just that, favouring Fleming with a choice specimen.
    ‘A man who threw up on a journalist isn’t in a strong position to sneer at others,’ Fleming pointed out and saw with satisfaction the smug grin disappear.
     
    Kerr Brodie drove into the car park near Kirkcudbright harbour, looked round, and swore. His instructions had been clear enough. Where the hell was the man?
    It wasn’t a good day. As if things weren’t problematic enough already, this was seriously threatening to his plans. It was tempting to drive away and leave the stupid bugger to his fate – but a loose cannon careering round the deck could sink the ship.
    Ill-temperedly he parked, got out and went into a bar with a window he could watch from, but he’d finished his sandwich and almost finished his pint when a lorry drew up and a painfully skinnyyoung man climbed down from the cab with a bulging carrier bag in his hand, waving a thank you to the driver. As the lorry drove off, he looked round him with a sort of helpless misery.
    Brodie drained his glass and hurried out. ‘What kept you?’ he snarled. ‘Get in the car. Over there.’
    The youth’s face cleared. ‘Thanks, Sarge. I didn’t know what to do—’
    ‘Spare me.’ Brodie slammed the car door and took off almost before his passenger was inside. ‘Shut up, and take on board what I’m telling you, Crawford. It’s important. Get it wrong and you’re done.’
    Crawford’s pinched face registered alarm as he listened to Brodie, but he didn’t speak until Brodie finished. Then he only said, ‘Right, Sarge.’
    They drove on in silence. At last Crawford ventured, ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a smoke, Sarge?’
    Brodie gave him an exasperated look, then jerked his head towards the glovebox. ‘Tin in there.’
    The young man rolled a joint with shaking hands, took a long draw and sat back, his hunched shoulders relaxing as the tension drained from his slight frame.

I have to go on. Now I’ve started, I mustn’t stop. Or all the pain, all this dreadful remembering – pointless.
    There in the bedroom that was too quiet, I heard the morning sounds of movement. My mother’s voice, shrill, angry with my father. A familiar sound. Her footsteps, brisk, annoyed, clipping along the wooden floor of the landing. I hid under my covers, rigid with fear.
    The door opened. ‘Come on, you two – time to get up.’ The voice, as always, with that slight hint of barely controlled irritation.
    I sat up, rubbing my eyes as if I had been asleep.
    ‘Where’s your sister?’ she said. ‘Did she get up early?’
    I remember I said, ‘I was asleep.’ I remember I got dressed as usual but remember, too, shivering as if I was cold though it was a sunny morning.
    After that, things are blurred. I don’t know how long it was before the house was full of strangers and the questions started. I answered them all with tears and shakes of my head. After that I kept to my room, I think, but I can’t be sure of much in the hazy unreality of the days that followed.
    It’s like a series of snapshots: lying in bed, in that same room, unable to sleep for terror, unable to tell anyone why; hearing my mother screaming at my father, screaming and screaming – but that was nothing new; a kitten, I think – did someone bring a kitten to cheer me up, or is that just a dream that came from an unfulfilled longing?
    Then there