Free Snare by Gwen Moffat Page A

removed the dustbin lid to reveal a garment which she lifted gingerly. It was a child’s jersey, clean but ragged and unravelled. In the bottom of the black plastic liner were a number of tins, burned and flattened. Knox regarded her with amusement.
    â€˜She did turn up at the school,’ he reminded her. ‘In a taxi, and she telephoned the headmistress this morning. The man’s unbalanced, but he’s not a murderer.’
    â€˜Are you being indiscreet, Mr Knox?’
    â€˜This is the back of beyond, ma’am, and there aren’t any witnesses to our conversation. We don’t – in fact we can’t – do things by the book in Sgoradale.’
    â€˜So why are you confiding in me?’
    â€˜I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, just reassuring you a bit maybe. The reason Campbell came to me was because he wants this’ – he gestured at the cottage – ‘publicised. He doesn’t know where his wife is; well, if he guesses she’s gone to her mother’s he’s too intimidated by the family to follow her. What he wants is this incident to get in the papers and on television, so she’ll know about it, be sorry she left, and come back.’
    â€˜That would be totally irrational,’ Miss Pink murmured, ‘and he’s not. It’s more like a cry for help: showing Debbie what she’s forced him to do: retaliating, like a man threatening suicide because he’s been rejected. What motive did he attribute to the arsonists?’
    â€˜First he tried to convince me that someone had meant for him to die in the fire, and when I said that wasn’t possible because if the fire started in the lounge, as he said, then the arsonists knew he wasn’t in the house. So he said that he knew too much, that they were after his valuables. I got interested then. He’s always snooping; he talks about “watchers” and no wonder: he’s always watching people himself! I suggested he might have seen something he shouldn’t, and he knew what I meant all right.’
    â€˜This has nothing to do with blackmail.’ Miss Pink was firm. ‘He hasn’t got the confidence for it. He’s pretending he holds files; he could have compiled some, but you may be sure they have no more relation to reality than the rest of his fantasy.’
    Knox regarded the splintered door thoughtfully. ‘People could think he was keeping tabs on them.’
    â€˜It’s a harmless game.’ Miss Pink was vehement. ‘A secret life that started probably when he was adolescent and never grew out of.’
    â€˜His wife didn’t think it was a game.’
    â€˜I don’t like to see families broken up: children without a father and so on.’
    Colour rose under the fair skin. He had a nervous mannerism of sucking in his cheeks. He was doing it now. ‘Well, I’ve done all I mean to do here,’ he said. ‘I told him I’d have a look round, but I’ll point out there wasn’t much I could do without him here to let me in and see inside that lounge.’ He shook his head, ‘I’m a bit confused. I know he’s mad, but is he sane enough to know I’m humouring him? Is he stringing me along? What would he do if I told him to forget the arsonist story and find some other way of getting his wife back?’
    â€˜Go along with the fantasy for the time being,’ Miss Pink advised, ‘If he pushes too hard, if he tries to embarrass you, you could make a casual mention of bringing in the CID. Of course, there shouldn’t be any witnesses.’
    * * *
    She drove to Feartag to deliver the items she’d bought in Inverness. Beatrice had good news; she had convinced the Millars that the best thing they could do for Alec was to send him away for a month. The waiting list for state institutions was long, but she had found a place for him in a private holiday home. When Miss Pink