Death of a Gentle Lady

∨ Death of a Gentle Lady ∧

6

“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied, “and the different branches of Arithmetic – Ambition, Distraction, Unification and Derision.”

—Lewis Carroll

Hamish received a phone call from Jimmy early next morning, asking him to bring Anna to the castle.

“Daviot was worried when she didn’t turn up at her hotel in Strathbane last night, but then she phoned and said she was staying with you. Our boss hopes you’re not carrying any detente further than it should go.”

“I’ve been sleeping in the cell,” grumbled Hamish. “I’ve got to get her to the Tommel Castle Hotel this morning, somehow, and then I’ll bring her over.”

He heard a loud scream from the bedroom and a shout of “Get off!”

“What are you up to?” asked Jimmy.

“Nothing. She’s probably found the cat in her bed.”

This turned out to be the case. Anna had awakened with the feel of a warm body stretched out next to her own.

When she was up and dressed and in her uniform, Hamish told her, “I’ve taken the liberty of booking a room at the Tommel Castle Hotel. There are three people there who might interest you – Harold Jury, an author; Patrick Fitzpatrick, an Irishman; and a Mrs. Fanshawe, who borrowed one of the bikes. I’ve yet to speak to her.”

Anna agreed. Hamish’s pets had made the novelty of a stay in a highland police station quickly wear off.

♦

“There might be some press still here,” said Hamish as he walked into the hotel with Anna, carrying her two large suitcases, “but you’ll need to face them sooner or later. While you get settled in, I’ll see if I can find this Mrs. Fanshawe.”

Mrs. Fanshawe was having breakfast. She was a small, round, middle-aged woman with rosy cheeks and grey hair. She certainly could not have been the woman at the phone box.

In answer to his questions, she said she had borrowed a mountain bike. “I wanted to get some of the weight off,” she said with a jolly laugh. “One trip out was enough for me so I said to myself, Sadie, the Good Lord obviously meant you to be fat.”

She had not seen any mysterious woman. Anna walked into the dining room; at the sight of her uniform, several reporters and cameramen sprang to their feet, and soon she was surrounded. Hamish was about to interfere until he saw she was handling all questions coolly and efficiently.

When she finally said “That’s enough!” and joined Hamish, he said, “You’ve only had toast for breakfast. Would you like something here?”

“No, I would like to get started.”

They met Priscilla as they were leaving the hotel. Priscilla had seen Anna only very briefly. “Were you in the restaurant last night?” she asked Hamish when the introductions were over.

“Yes, we were going through the case.”

Priscilla smiled. Anna, with her Putin-like features, was hardly the beauty she had imagined the night before.

“Inspector Krokovsky is staying here,” said Hamish.

“Then we will do everything we can to make your stay pleasant,” said Priscilla.

When they were both in the Land Rover, before driving off, Hamish phoned his friend Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife. “Angela, I’m going to be out most of the day. Do you think you could look after Sonsie and Lugs?”

“Hamish, you’ll need to find someone to regularly take care of your pets. You’re always asking me.”

“Just this once,” pleaded Hamish.

“You always say that. Oh, all right, but I’ve got to rehearse my part.”

“What part?”

“I rather got bullied into playing Lady Macbeth.”

“When did this happen?”

“That author held a meeting in the village hall last night. I rather got coerced into it.”

“Mrs. Wellington thought she was up for the part.”

“She changed her mind.”

“Who’s playing Macbeth?”

“Geordie Sinclair, the gamekeeper.”

Anna was drumming her fingers impatiently on the dashboard. “Got to go,” said Hamish quickly.

“Are our investigations always to be delayed while you search for a sitter for your animals?” demanded Anna.

“Och, no,” said Hamish. “All settled now.”

“Is Lady Macbeth anything to do with you?”

“It’s Shakespeare. Amateur production.”

Anna settled back in the passenger seat with a sigh. In Moscow, she would have considered it well beneath her dignity to be escorted by a mere constable. She hoped the file she had read on Hamish Macbeth had not been mistaken. There was no time or place in a murder enquiry for eccentrics. And yet she had to admit to herself that there was something likeable about the man with his flaming red hair, gangly figure, and gentle hazel eyes.

“Is this a real castle?” she asked as Hamish drove up the drive.

“It’s what we call a folly.”

“Does it have a name?”

“I think when it was first built, it was called Braikie Castle, but for years now it’s only been known as The Folly. You can see why. It’s ower-small for a castle, like a stone box with towers stuck on.”

Hamish’s heart sank when he walked into the hall and saw the burly figure of Detective Chief Inspector Blair. The man must have a cast-iron liver, he thought. He introduced Anna.

“Well, Anna,” said Blair with a leer. “What’s a pretty lady like you doing up in peasantville?”

“My name is Inspector Krokovsky,” said Annie coldly, “but you may address me as ma’am.”

Blair scowled. “You, Macbeth, get back to your sheep. There are enough of us here.”

Anna’s voice was like ice. “Constable Macbeth is driving me. He will stay.”

Blair’s temper flared up. “May I remind you I am the senior officer here?”

Daviot loomed in the background. “A word with you, Mr. Blair, if you please.”

Jimmy came to join them. He said to Anna, “The family are gathered in the drawing room. Would you like to meet them?”

“I would like to see where Irena’s body was found first of all. Constable Macbeth can show me.”

“Is the cellar locked?” asked Hamish.

“No,” said Jimmy.

Hamish led the way. He switched on the light at the top of the stairs, and they both walked down.

“Irena’s body was found in the trunk here,” said Hamish, pointing.

“And she died from a blow to the head?”

“I think it was one sharp blow. I think it was delivered by someone she knew, someone she was not afraid of.”

“That would mean a member of this family.”

“Perhaps. Unless it was someone from the time she was working in London. The castle door, as I remember, often stood open.” Hamish struck his head. “I’m an idiot.”

“Why?”

“On the day of the wedding, Mrs. Gentle was catering for the reception. There were the usual fiddly bits on trays and a bar. Knowing what I do of the late Mrs. Gentle, she would not intend to pass the food round herself or serve the drinks. She must have employed a catering company.

No, wait a minute. If, as I believe, she was being blackmailed into holding the reception, she would want it done as cheaply as possible. I’d better get into Braikie and interview Bessie Hunter, one of the women who was cleaning up afterwards. She might know.”

“I will come with you.”

“I’d better report to Detective Chief Inspector Blair.”

“I think we will leave him for the moment. Why is this the first time I have met him?”

“He’s just out of hospital.”

“What was up with him?”

“Alcohol poisoning.”

“We have that trouble with officers in Moscow. Let us go.”

♦

Bessie Hunter was at home. To their questions, she said that she thought the catering had been done by two women, Fiona King and Alison Queen. She said they joked about themselves as being the royal caterers.

“They do the meals at the Glen Lodge Hotel outside Braikie,” said Bessie. “But they do a bit of freelance stuff, nothing big, church socials, things like that.”

♦

As they drove north out of Braikie towards the Glen Lodge Hotel, the road curved until it was running along beside the sea. Although the sky was blue, the heaving water had turned black. “Storm coming,” said Hamish. “Did you notice when we were in the cellar that the pounding of the waves seemed very close, almost as if they were thudding right against the walls?”

“I didn’t notice. Why?”

“Bits of the cliffs have been falling away all along the coast. I was thinking the family won’t get much for the place if they try to sell it.”

“How do you know a storm is coming?”

“Experience. When the sky is blue but the sea turns black, it usually means there’s a big blow on the way.”

“Do you find this Blair creature difficult to work with?”

“Oh, dear. It could be that he doesn’t like me. I am after all only a policeman, and I have only myself to blame when I am kept out of the main investigation.”

“He struck me as being stupid.”

“I really can’t comment about a senior officer. Here’s the hotel.”

He drove up a short drive bordered by rhododendrons and parked in front of what had once been a large private home. “I remember this used to belong to an English family,” said Hamish, “but the winters drove them back down south.”

“Are the winters so very bad? The air still feels quite mild.”

“Nothing like the winters in Moscow. We’re near the Gulf Stream. But the wind blows a lot, and from now on we barely see daylight. It starts to get dark around two in the afternoon.”

They walked into the hotel. Hamish asked at the reception desk for Miss Queen and Miss King. They were told to wait in the lounge.

Two women in their late forties entered and introduced themselves. Fiona King was stocky with grey hair and an incipient moustache. Alison Queen was a fake blonde with a simpering manner. Both were English. They said they had always wanted to see the Highlands and had answered an advertisement for a cook. “We always travel as a pair,” said Alison. “The hotel said they would allow us to do some freelance work off-season.”

Hamish asked if they had seen anyone apart from Mrs. Gentle when they arrived to do the catering on the morning of the reception.

“No, only Mrs. Gentle,” said Alison. “She seemed very flustered and told us we would not be wanted to serve out the canapes and drinks at the reception. She had originally said that she meant to use some of the wine from her cellar, but then she told me there was nothing down there worth bringing up.”

Fiona chimed in. Her voice had a slight lisp. “I told her I was by way of being an expert on wine and if she would give me the key, I’d go down there and take a look for her. She fairly screamed at me, didn’t she, Alison pet? She said she’d ordered drinks from the wine merchant in Braikie, and when the stuff arrived it was the cheapest of cheap. Of course, Henry’s isn’t really a wine merchant, just an off-licence, and there was also whisky with names I’d never heard of, cheap gin and vodka along with the usual mixes. So we decided that she wasn’t going to waste any good wine on the guests.”

“Did you see her Russian maid?” asked Anna.

“The one that was to get married? No. We assumed she was upstairs getting ready,” said Alison.

Hamish asked, “Was there a limousine waiting to take them to the wedding?”

“That was your wedding, wasn’t it, you poor soul,” said Alison. “No, when we left she was fretting, saying they would be late, but there was only her own car outside and not even a bit of ribbon on it, if she had meant to use that.”

Anna asked, “At any time you were there, did she go upstairs to find out what was keeping Irena?”

“Come to think of it,” said Fiona, “that’s a bit odd. She was pacing up and down, muttering she was going to be late. Alison said, didn’t you, ducks, that she could run upstairs to the girl’s room and find out how she was getting on, but Mrs. Gentle said, “If you’ve finished, just go.” Thank goodness we got a cheque from her there and then because we might not have got paid, considering she got shoved over the cliff.”

“And if she hadn’t have been shoved over the cliff, I might have thought she killed the girl,” said Alison.

“Why did you not come forward and give the police this information?” asked Anna.

“Because we got two other jobs and put it out of our minds,” said Alison. “I mean, when we read in the papers that Mrs. Gentle had been murdered, well, we assumed that whoever killed her, killed the maid.”

“I am afraid I will have to ask you to accompany us to headquarters,” said Hamish. “We will need to take statements from both of you.”

“Ooh! This is exciting. I’ll just tell the boss where we are going.”

When they came back, they said they would follow in their own car and do some shopping in Strathbane.

“I hope it’s still low tide,” said Hamish as he drove off with the cooks following, “otherwise the shore road will be flooded.”

Great buffets of wind shook the Land Rover. Water was only just beginning to reach the shore road as they drove along beside a mountainous sea.

♦

Blair had been sent back to headquarters by Daviot, who was angry over Blair’s insulting Anna. He saw them arriving and rushed down to waylay them. Anna gave him a concise report about what they had learned from the two women.

“I’ll take over here,” said Blair. “The inspector and I will take statements from these ladies. Get off wi’ you.”

“I haff to drive the inspector here back to her hotel,” said Hamish.

“I’ll do that. Move, laddie. That’s an order.”

Blair had conducted a bullying interview and the statements had been taken. He was just leaving the police station with Anna when Daviot met them. To Blair’s fury, Anna described succinctly the latest discovery and credited Hamish with finding it all out.

“And where is Macbeth?” asked Daviot.

“This man sent him away,” said Anna coldly.

“I’ll have a word with you later,” said Daviot. “Where are you off to?”

“Just taking this lady back to her hotel.”

♦

Blair tried to converse with Anna on the road to Lochdubh, but she maintained a mutinous silence. To his surprise, though, when she reached the hotel she suddenly smiled at him.

“I think this bit of success demands a Russian celebration,” she said.

“And what’s that?”

“Vodka, of course.”

Anna strode into the bar and ordered a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. “Now,” she said, filling up the glasses, “we drink Russian style.”

She tossed down the contents of her glass in one gulp. Blair cheerfully followed suit. They drank toast after toast, one bottle and then another. “And the third one ish on me,” cried Blair. He stumbled across to the bar and then was violently sick, projectile vomit which shot right across the bar and splashed on the mirror. There were a few people in the bar. They began to leave hurriedly as Blair turned round, vomited violently again, and fell on the carpet.

Priscilla came hurrying in as Anna was calmly phoning for an ambulance. “It’ll take too long to get here,” said Priscilla. But Blair was in luck. The ambulance had been in Lochdubh, delivering an elderly patient back home, when the driver received the call.

When Blair had been carried off, Priscilla said angrily, “The man should not have been drinking at all. He was just out of hospital after a bout of alcohol poisoning.”

“Then now he has another,” said Anna. “I must go and see Constable Macbeth.”

“Then you had better change your jacket,” said Priscilla. “Your sleeve is soaking wet.”

“So it is. Thank you.” Anna walked off.

“She did that deliberately,” said Priscilla to the white-faced barman. “She got him to drink and tipped most of hers down her sleeve. She could have killed him. I’d better warn Hamish. She’s a dangerous woman. I’d better get the maids in here to clear this mess up. The smell is making me sick!”

♦

Hamish was in the hen run, nailing up a board on the henhouse, when Anna arrived wearing civilian clothes.

“Your birds look quite mature,” she said. “You do not like to kill them?”

“I keep them for the eggs,” said Hamish. “I hear you nearly killed Blair.”

“Ah, the blonde lady who looks so sadly through restaurant windows when you are dining with another woman. She phoned you.”

“Yes, what were you thinking?”

“I was merely making an effort to be friendly. How can you think with this wind?”

“I get used to it,” said Hamish. “I suppose people living next to the motorway get used to the sound of traffic. Must be something like that.”

“I am going back to police headquarters to find out their conclusions. The mystery must now be, if Mrs. Gentle killed Irena, who then killed Mrs. Gentle?”

“Could someone have followed her from Russia?”

“No one had any reason to. She was only a prostitute.”

“What about her protector?”

“An important and influential businessman such as he would not trouble himself over such a creature.”

For the first time, Hamish felt sorry for Irena.

♦

After Anna had left, Hamish was next visited by Matthew Campbell, the local reporter for the Highland Times, followed by Elspeth. Matthew was in a truculent mood. “You’ve been giving stories to Elspeth here when I’m your local man. I’ve been chasing all over the county trying to catch up with you.”

“Sit down, both of you, and I’ll tell you the latest, but you’ve got to promise to go straight to police headquarters and get it confirmed.” He told them about the caterers’ evidence and ended by saying, “Call them before you go to Strathbane. Don’t tell headquarters I said anything. Off you go. I’m tired. All I want to do is eat and go to bed.”

They stood to go, but in the doorway Elspeth turned back. Her hair was frizzy again. She had given up straightening it. Her odd silver eyes, Gypsy eyes, looked at Hamish. “Go up and see Angus, the seer.”

“That auld fraud?”

“He hears a lot of gossip.”

“Maybe in the morning, Elspeth. If I try to go up that hill to his cottage tonight, I’ll get blown back down.”

Hamish chopped and fried deer liver for Lugs and cooked a trout for Sonsie and then found he was too tired to cook for himself. He had some cold chicken in the fridge. He ate it with two chopped tomatoes before having a shower and going to bed. The wind roared over the house, shrieking and yelling like a demon. He wondered just before he fell asleep why Elspeth had told him to visit Angus. But he had benefited before from Elspeth’s odd psychic experiences. Angus would want a present. Angus always expected a present. “Silly auld moocher,” murmured Hamish and fell asleep.

♦

He awoke early the next morning, anxious to get out of the house before Anna should reappear. Her treatment of Blair had made him uneasy. She could easily have killed the man.

But as he turned round after locking the door, he found her standing behind him.

“Maybe you’d like to go back into Braikie,” he said. “I’m off to visit the seer. Probably a waste of time.”

“What is a seer?”

“It’s a man called Angus Macdonald. He claims to see the future.”

“And you believe him?”

“No, but he picks up an awfy lot o’ gossip.”

“I will come with you. I am interested.”

Hamish sighed. “It’s a bit o’ a walk.”

“Then we will walk. It’s a fine morning.”

The wind had abruptly died, and although the waters of the loch were still angry and choppy with yellow sunlight gilding the edges of the black waves, the sky above was blue. A gentle breeze wafted the early-morning breakfast smells to his hungry nose. He had been so anxious to escape Anna that he had not breakfasted.

He led the way up through the back of the village. “Why Sutherland?” asked Anna. “It is as far north as you can go on the British mainland.”

“It was the south land of the Vikings,” said Hamish. “That’s Angus’s cottage up there.”

The cottage was perched on the top of a hill with a path winding up to it through the heather.

Angus, looking more than ever like one of the minor prophets with his long grey beard, opened the door as they arrived. “I’ve been expecting ye,” he said. “Come ben.”

“What is ben?” asked Anna.

“Croft houses had a but and ben. The but was where the animals lived, and the ben was where the family lived,” said Hamish.

He and Anna pulled up chairs to the peat fire. Angus sat in his rocking chair, folded his gnarled hands across his chest, and surveyed them. “Have you something for me?” he asked.

Hamish reluctantly handed over a large packet of homemade shortbread which he had bought at a church sale.

“Ah, petticoat tails. My favourite,” said Angus. “I’ll just be putting this in the kitchen.”

“Petticoat tails!” asked Anna.

“The name’s supposed to date from Mary Queen of Scots’ time,” said Hamish. “It’s a corruption of the auld French petit gatelles, meaning ‘little cakes.’”

Angus came back. He swung the blackened kettle on its chain over the fire. “We’ll have tea in a minute. So you are the Russian lady who tried to kill Mr. Blair?”

“I was only having a drink with him,” said Anna stiffly. “If he cannot hold his liquor, it is not my fault.”

“You are ruthless and hard,” said Angus. “You would not have got the position in the Russian police were you not as hard as stone. Be careful, laddie, and do not get in this lady’s way.”

“Angus, when you’ve stopped insulting the inspector here, have you heard anything that might lead us to discover who killed Irena?”

“That would be your late fiancée who turned out to be a hooker. Dr. Brodie has had to lecture the whole village on the subject of AIDS and tell them that you cannae be getting it from teacups and the like. O’ course, now that you know she wass killed by her boss, you wonder who killed her.”

“How did you get that information?” asked Hamish angrily. “We only knew ourselves yesterday, and as it happens we’re still not quite sure that she actually killed Irena.”

“I see things. The kettle’s boiling. I’ll get the cups.”

“Angus, we don’t want tea. We want information.”

Angus closed his eyes. Anna glared at him and half made to rise. Then Angus crooned, “You haff to look in Mrs. Gentle’s past. There iss something in there the whole of her family don’t want you to know.”

He opened his eyes again. “That’s it,” he said briskly.

“That’s it?” echoed Hamish. “I could ha’ guessed that one myself. Come on, Anna.”

Angus’s pale grey eyes fastened on Anna. “He will be the bachelor until the end of his days.”

“This old fool knows more than he is telling,” said Anna wrathfully, and they left the cottage. “Let’s get him into an interview room and get it out of him.”

“We don’t use the rubber truncheons up here,” said Hamish. “Angus was aye a good guesser.”

As they walked back down the hill, Hamish looked fondly down at the village, his village, lying placidly in the sunlight, and wished with all his heart he could get rid of Anna. Her foreignness, her very ruthlessness, was upsetting him.