‘Do you need to keep these handcuffs on me?’ I asked.
Without replying, she went to the other end of the room to make another call. I sat there, hands behind me, trying to hear what she was saying. I heard my name. Sensed the frustration in her voice. The fog in my head was beginning to clear, allowing me to focus. I knew that I needed to have my arguments in order before I started talking to Susan. At the same time, I thought about Holly. How long would it be before news got out about me being arrested? I wanted to be able to explain everything to her before someone else– like Zack– got to her.
When Susan returned she was scowling, muttering something to herself and shaking her head. She took off her damp jacket and hung it on the back of a chair in front of the fire, then pulled up a third chair and sat opposite me.
‘The weather still stopping anyone else from getting here?’
She just looked at me.
‘So you’re just going to leave Morag’s body out there, in the snow?’
‘What do you care?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t do this. I told you, it was Zack. That’s not my gun.’
She sat back, arms folded. ‘Go on, then, tell me what happened.’
‘Will you please take these cuffs off me first? I’m in pain.’
‘Diddums.’
‘Please, Susan. I didn’t do this. Why would I kill Morag? I have absolutely no motive.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe your girlfriend put you up to it. There’s always been bad blood between her and Holly as I understand it. Bad blood between the Grants and the Hamiltons.’
‘You think she got me to murder Lewis, too? Her own brother?’
‘I’m not sure about that yet. You told me there was a plot to kill Jasmine to protect their inheritance. Perhaps you were involved in that, too, but it went wrong and Lewis was the one who ended up dead. You killed Jasmine and hid her body because she was a witness, and maybe Morag was a witness, too.’
‘Shouldn’t you be interviewing me under caution?’
‘We’re just having a chat, Patrick. For now.’
‘It doesn’t feel like a very friendly chat with these handcuffs on. Come on, please, take them off. You haven’t actually arrested me. Is this even legal?’
‘You fired a gun at me.’
‘I thought you were Zack, coming back to kill me.’
She didn’t reply.
‘I’m cooperating,’ I said. ‘I didn’t shoot Morag and I didn’t do anything to Lewis. I tried to save him.’
More silent treatment. And the tactic worked, because I was possessed by the need to talk, to plead my innocence.
‘I told you. Zack shot Morag then threw the gun to me. He knew I wouldn’t know how to use it, that I wouldn’t be able to hit him unless it was at point-blank range. He was trying toset me up. He had something to do with Samir’s death. I think Morag saw them together here, last January. I started asking her questions about it, and she was terrified. That’s when she called him.’
‘So Morag and Zack were working together?’
‘No. I don’t know.’ I took a breath and tried to get it clear in my head. ‘I spoke to that podcaster, Emma Fox, earlier. She told me she received an anonymous message from someone saying they had seen Samir. After that, I started to wonder what the connection between Applecross and the West Midlands could be.’
‘The Grants.’
‘Exactly. When I asked Zack earlier he reacted with what I can only describe as a kind of weird hostility, and then when I told Morag that I’d spoken to Zack she was clearly scared. When we went up to the bothy, I’m certain I heard her make a call, which must have been to Zack. You’ll be able to check her phone records, won’t you?’
‘She might have called him because she felt threatened by you.’
‘What, and then I grabbed the rifle from him?’
