No Place Like Home

I was the one who was fired at, in the wood. It was my vegetable patch that was weedkilled.’
‘Bram, the Taylors were having issues with local youths before you even bought the plot.’
‘But this is a level up from that, surely? I know you don’t think it’s possible that all this could be connected to Owen Napier’s murder, but – could you at least consider it?’
‘We’re keeping an open mind, of course, but really, Bram, I think you’re tilting at windmills.’
‘Yes,’ said Bram patiently, turning off the heat under the pans as the water began to bubble. ‘I know that’s what you think.’
But does he really? The little niggle of doubt wormed its way to the surface again. Was Scott too eager to dismiss the possibility of an Owen connection?
‘What leads did the police have on Owen’s murder?’
‘It was long before my time on the force, but I know they didn’t have much. A couple reported seeing him walking along the High Street in Grantown on the Friday night before he failed to turn up for work on the Saturday. He’d been drinking in his local, The Foresters pub. His drinking cronies said he seemed just as normal. Had a couple of pints and then left. He had a bedsit on Seafield Avenue, so this sighting of him on the High Street makes sense if that was him on his way back home from the pub.’
‘So the thinking is that he was ambushed as he walked home?’
‘It’s one possibility, yes.’
‘And then what? He was beaten up, tied up–’
‘The length of time his body had been in that river, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of forensic evidence of any use, although the pathologist did note that there seemed to be pre-mortem bruising to his body and face. So yes, probably he was beaten up, bundled into a vehicle. Taken to the river and dumped in there. Classic drugs gang stuff.’
‘Did anyone ever look into the…’ He checked again than there was no one within earshot, but lowered his voice anyway. ‘The Kirsty angle? Maybe some guy carried a torch for Kirsty and wanted Owen out of the picture?’
‘Bit of a drastic way to edge out a love rival.’ An exhalation. ‘All his friends were interviewed, and Kirsty, of course, but nothing came from that line of inquiry, other than the drugs stuff. He had a nice little scam going in which he filled out fake prescriptions, pocketed the drugs and sold them on. His pals came clean after his murder, otherwise no one would have been any the wiser. His employers at the pharmacy hadn’t rumbled him.’
‘God. How did Kirsty get mixed up with someone like that in the first place?’
‘She said she didn’t know about it. Owen was very plausible. Seemed like a fine upstanding young man, played five-a-side football at the weekend, did a bit of boxing at David’s club, which is how he and Kirsty got to know each other.’
‘So, before the drugs stuff came out, David probably thought he was ideal boyfriend material?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far, Bram. I don’t imagine the paragon exists who qualifies as ideal partner material for David’s princess. When I went out with her – we were just babies, remember, thirteen and fourteen, we’re talking holding hands and sharing a banana milkshake in the ice cream parlour – I was subjected to the full interrogation, down to the marks I’d got in my last exams. You’ve no doubt been there.’
‘Been there, done that, got the frilly apron.’
Scott laughed. ‘You’re a braver man than I am. Look, I’ll keep it in mind, all right, that there’s a slim – slim – possibility of a link with Owen, but I really wouldn’t worry about it. I doubt we’ll be fishing you out of the River Spey any time soon.’
Bram leant back against the worktop. ‘Is that meant to be reassuring?’
‘Ha, sorry! Cop’s black humour.’
‘Yeah, funny.’
After ending the call, Bram poured the hot water into buckets and lugged it upstairs. Thank God the borehole people were coming on Thursday to do a geological survey. If all went to plan, they could have a new water supply up and running, according to the guy Bram had spoken to, within two weeks.
After a late lunch, all four of them rather subdued, Bram took his laptop up to the bedroom and sat in the armchair by the window to properly read through the stuff on Owen he’d gathered together. Scott had said it had happened before his time, which was obviously true. The dates on these contemporaneous articles were September, October and November 1996. Scott was the same age as Fraser and Bram – thirty-nine. Just a year older than Kirsty. And 1996 was twenty-three years ago. Thirty-nine minus twenty-three was sixteen.
That meant…
Kirsty had been born on 17 November 1980. In September 1996, when Owen had gone missing, she hadn’t yet turned sixteen. And Owen had been twenty-three.
Kirsty was in the home office, staring at a spreadsheet. She swivelled the chair round to face him as he came into the room. ‘How are you holding up?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m fine. How about you?’
‘Fighting a losing battle with a deadline.’
He perched on the kick stool by her shelving unit. ‘Okay, I’ll leave you be, but first – can I ask you something?’ God. This was awkward. ‘About Owen?’
‘Oh, Bram, no. Forget Owen. What happened to him has nothing to do with any of this.’
‘But how can you know that?’ he asked gently.
‘Like Scott said – Owen’s death was drugs related.’
‘That’s just a best guess, no more. Kirsty – I hadn’t realised how young you were. When you went out with Owen. You were only fifteen when he was killed.’
She sighed. ‘What can I say? I was a bit of a wild child back then.’
‘But he was twenty-three. If you were sleeping together…’ There was no easy way to say this. ‘That was statutory rape. Were you? Sleeping together?’
Another sigh. ‘Yes.’
‘And did David know you were in a relationship