2007 - The Dead Pool Read Online Free Page B

surprising. If she’d been Morag Ramsay, she too would have lived in a fortress.
    She moved towards the front door and bent down to the letter box. It didn’t have much give and she flinched as the flap pinched her fingers.
    ‘Hello! Morag Ramsay! Hello! Please, my name is Kirstin Rutherford. I’m Jamie Munro’s daughter-in-law! Can we talk?’ She took a breath, wondering at her present-tense use of ‘daughter-in-law’.
    She bent to call one last time and then she heard it.
    The flip-flop sound of sandalled feet on a wooden floor. She stepped back again, suddenly nervous. There was a cacophony of clickings and clankings as multiple locks were released and then the door opened halfway. The woman was wearing sandals, brown leather ones, and a cool linen shirt with trousers, and, oddly for what looked to be a darkened house, wrap-around sports sunglasses. The eccentricity added a glamorous, almost retro touch, as she had her hair piled up high on top of her head. She might have walked out of a Hollywood fashion magazine from the forties or fifties. Kirstin tried not to stare. What had she expected? A stressed-out, rumpled mess? According to Donald’s account of what Morag had been through, the answer was a firm ‘yes’.
    ‘Morag Ramsay?’ The woman said nothing. Kirstin tried a smile and knew immediately it had failed; her nerves were getting the better of her. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I know it’s a bit early in the day. But I wanted to see if I could get hold of you. I…I’ve just come back. I’ve been out of the country for a while and…well, I’ve only recently heard about Jamie. I was…very, very fond of him. I didn’t even get to go to his funeral and…and I’ve been talking to his best friend, Donald. Donald Ferguson—I think you met him once or twice? In fact it was Donald who told me where your house was and about the terrible thing that happened at the river. And what happened to you, and how Jamie wanted to help, and well…’
    She was sounding ridiculous. Her breathless delivery was making no sense, even to herself. She stood back. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have come. It’s too much, I know. I really should g—’
    ‘Why did you?’
    Kirstin frowned. ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘Why did you come here?’
    The voice was low, the Edinburgh accent strong. Stronger than her own. The delivery was clipped and the blank gaze of the woman’s sunglasses was disconcerting. Kirstin took a step forward again and noticed the protective reflex before it was checked. Morag Ramsay’s inclination had been to push the door to, keeping it firmly in place between her and any intruder. Kirstin retreated, trying to appear relaxed.
    ‘I need to talk to someone about Jamie.’
    ‘I thought you said you’d talked to Donald Ferguson. And what about your husband? Why didn’t you hear about Jamie’s death until now? None of this makes sense.’
    The comment sounded like an accusation. Kirstin immediately felt tense again, as if she’d been caught out in a lie.
    ‘Well, actually, Ross and I are divorced but Jamie and I, we still kept in touch, until the past year or so. And that’s just it. I…I didn’t get the chance to see what might have been wrong with him, maybe to help him.’ She stopped abruptly, feeling the rush of suppressed grief. ‘I never even got to say goodbye.’
    Kirstin looked down at the ground, wishing that she too had employed the protection of sunglasses. She heard the door creak as Morag Ramsay pulled it wide and nodded an invitation to enter.
    Kirstin was amazed. She’d been here, what? Twenty minutes? And still the woman hadn’t removed her sunglasses. She could obviously negotiate her darkened kitchen wearing them, despite every window being obscured by blinds. And now, thankfully, here they were, sitting on her sun-flooded patio, rays bouncing off the deep cobalt-blue lenses. Throughout their entire conversation, Kirstin had noticed how, despite the glory of the view