Read Online Evil for Evil by Aline Templeton - Free Book Online
Authors: Aline Templeton
Tags: Scotland
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turf as if to clamp himself on.
At last MacNee sat up, feeling a bit better – experiencing a certain pride, even. It prompted him to crawl across to look back over the edge, then he regretted it. Even from a safe position, the drop was stomach-churning.
Enough! He’d a job to do. MacNee got to his feet and found his phone. He hated to do this to the boss; he knew what was at stake for her with Cat, who’d always been demanding. But with Drummond going to file his story anytime now, he could hardly tell him the Senior Investigating Officer would be along when she got back from taking her daughter to the uni.
Fleming’s voice went absolutely flat as she agreed that yes, she would have to come. MacNee had just put his phone back in his pocket when he heard the shot.
He took off, sprinting towards the sound, sending a couple of deer leaping away in fright. He reached the top of the hill and paused, breathing hard.
Near the trees, a man with a rifle was standing over a fallen deer. Close by, two others were browsing in the undergrowth, apparently unmoved, until MacNee’s headlong arrival sent them, too, starting away.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he shouted.
The man turned, lowering the rifle. ‘I could say the same to you, Jimmy. This is private property.’
It was a familiar accent. And now MacNee looked, he recognised the man too. And he’d have been glad never to see him again.
‘Well now, Brodie,’ he drawled with evident distaste, ‘this is an unexpected pleasure. Poaching now, is it?’
Brodie looked more closely. ‘Oh God, MacNee! What did I do to deserve this?’
– I did not scream. Today my hand’s painful, yes, but already it feels freer since I wrote the words – I did not scream. I’ve never been able to tell anyone that I could have screamed.
When he left, I was shaking in terror. He had gone – I could call out now … But I was too afraid. My twin needed my help, but all I did was cry, burrowing my face in the pillow to stifle the dangerous sound.
Then I don’t remember anything, until I woke next morning, thinking it was a dream. Even now, I wonder if my memory is totally clear – but what I do know is that when I sat up in our bedroom, with the pink gingham curtains blowing in the breeze from the sea outside, my sister’s toy elephant, Nellie, loved into formlessness, was lying on the floor by her bed. But she wasn’t there.
Even then I didn’t scream.
CHAPTER FOUR
Andy Macdonald heard the shot too as he walked along the shore on the mainland opposite Lovatt Island, ostensibly having an aimless stroll. He glanced about but wasn’t sure of the direction. The sound wasn’t unusual around here anyway – someone out potting rabbits, probably.
It was years since he’d come down to Innellan, but here he was walking in the footsteps of his childhood self. Every picture told a story: the little cove where they’d managed to swamp the boat; the rock he’d jumped off for a dare and broken his arm; the beach where his ten-year-old self had made a first incompetent attempt at kissing a girl, and got roundly slapped … He smiled as the memories flooded back of those holidays in the family caravan with the gang of other kids who were all but feral by the time the summer was over.
The other guys were still asleep. There’d be sore heads later when they surfaced, but Andy’s head was clear enough. He’d spent the evening talking to Christie while they got on with the solid boozing;he’d had to take relentless ribbing afterwards but he didn’t care.
She intrigued him. His own job as a police officer had its dangers – last year’s tragedy had been a stark reminder of that – but hers, living with the immediate certainty that people were trying to kill you, demanded a whole different order of courage. And the working conditions: forty degrees heat, no proper accommodation and no proper showers –
no showers!
– for days on end. In a way that seemed
At last MacNee sat up, feeling a bit better – experiencing a certain pride, even. It prompted him to crawl across to look back over the edge, then he regretted it. Even from a safe position, the drop was stomach-churning.
Enough! He’d a job to do. MacNee got to his feet and found his phone. He hated to do this to the boss; he knew what was at stake for her with Cat, who’d always been demanding. But with Drummond going to file his story anytime now, he could hardly tell him the Senior Investigating Officer would be along when she got back from taking her daughter to the uni.
Fleming’s voice went absolutely flat as she agreed that yes, she would have to come. MacNee had just put his phone back in his pocket when he heard the shot.
He took off, sprinting towards the sound, sending a couple of deer leaping away in fright. He reached the top of the hill and paused, breathing hard.
Near the trees, a man with a rifle was standing over a fallen deer. Close by, two others were browsing in the undergrowth, apparently unmoved, until MacNee’s headlong arrival sent them, too, starting away.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he shouted.
The man turned, lowering the rifle. ‘I could say the same to you, Jimmy. This is private property.’
It was a familiar accent. And now MacNee looked, he recognised the man too. And he’d have been glad never to see him again.
‘Well now, Brodie,’ he drawled with evident distaste, ‘this is an unexpected pleasure. Poaching now, is it?’
Brodie looked more closely. ‘Oh God, MacNee! What did I do to deserve this?’
– I did not scream. Today my hand’s painful, yes, but already it feels freer since I wrote the words – I did not scream. I’ve never been able to tell anyone that I could have screamed.
When he left, I was shaking in terror. He had gone – I could call out now … But I was too afraid. My twin needed my help, but all I did was cry, burrowing my face in the pillow to stifle the dangerous sound.
Then I don’t remember anything, until I woke next morning, thinking it was a dream. Even now, I wonder if my memory is totally clear – but what I do know is that when I sat up in our bedroom, with the pink gingham curtains blowing in the breeze from the sea outside, my sister’s toy elephant, Nellie, loved into formlessness, was lying on the floor by her bed. But she wasn’t there.
Even then I didn’t scream.
CHAPTER FOUR
Andy Macdonald heard the shot too as he walked along the shore on the mainland opposite Lovatt Island, ostensibly having an aimless stroll. He glanced about but wasn’t sure of the direction. The sound wasn’t unusual around here anyway – someone out potting rabbits, probably.
It was years since he’d come down to Innellan, but here he was walking in the footsteps of his childhood self. Every picture told a story: the little cove where they’d managed to swamp the boat; the rock he’d jumped off for a dare and broken his arm; the beach where his ten-year-old self had made a first incompetent attempt at kissing a girl, and got roundly slapped … He smiled as the memories flooded back of those holidays in the family caravan with the gang of other kids who were all but feral by the time the summer was over.
The other guys were still asleep. There’d be sore heads later when they surfaced, but Andy’s head was clear enough. He’d spent the evening talking to Christie while they got on with the solid boozing;he’d had to take relentless ribbing afterwards but he didn’t care.
She intrigued him. His own job as a police officer had its dangers – last year’s tragedy had been a stark reminder of that – but hers, living with the immediate certainty that people were trying to kill you, demanded a whole different order of courage. And the working conditions: forty degrees heat, no proper accommodation and no proper showers –
no showers!
– for days on end. In a way that seemed
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