Death of a Prankster

∨ Death of a Prankster ∧

3

A joke’s a very serious thing.

—Charles Churchill

Hamish did not have to use his skis. The snow-ploughs had been out in force. He found himself hoping desperately, as he drove slowly along narrow roads banked by snow-drifts, that it really was another of old Mr Trent’s practical jokes.

He was met at the door of Arrat House by Enrico, who inclined his head in the best English butler manner and asked if the constable would like to view the body.

“Good Heffens, man, that’s what I’m here for,” said Hamish testily, and then felt himself begin to relax. It was surely all a joke.

He still thought it was a joke when he was led down to the games room. Mr Trent was neatly laid out on the billiard table, with tall candles burning on either side of his head. His hands holding a crucifix were folded on his breast.

Maria, Enrico’s wife, was kneeling on the floor, a rosary slipping between her fingers, mumbling prayers.

Hamish approached the body gingerly, quite prepared for Mr Trent to leap up cackling with laughter. But that face was so very dead. Hamish bent down and listened to Mr Trent’s chest. Then he rose slowly, his face a picture of outrage.

“He iss dead!”

“Yes,” said Enrico. “Of course he is dead. Brutal murder.”

“How was he killed?”

“He was stabbed with a knife…here.” Enrico pointed to the dead man’s chest. Hamish looked down at the pristine white of the shirt-front.

“Where was he murdered?”

“Upstairs. In the wardrobe in Miss Gold’s bedroom.”

“Good God, man. You moved the body!”

“It was only fitting.”

“And you changed his clothes?”

“Of course. His shirt was covered in blood.”

“You are an idiot,” exclaimed Hamish, horrified. “This is murder. You should have left everything untouched. Who is in this house? Miss Angela Trent made the telephone call.”

“There is Mr Jeffrey Trent and his wife; Miss Angela and Miss Betty; the adopted son, Charles; his lady friend, Titchy Gold; and Mrs Jeffrey’s son, Paul Sinclair; and his lady friend, Miss Clarke.”

Hamish walked to a phone extension in the corner of the room. He phoned police headquarters in Strathbane and reported the murder, telling an outraged Detective Chief Inspector Blair that the body had been moved and laid out in the games room by the servants.

Then he grimly asked to be taken first to see Mr Jeffrey Trent.

But the door opened and Jeffrey walked in. He gave a wincing look at the body.

Hamish introduced himself and then said severely, “Surely you, sir, could have stopped this? Nothing should have been touched.”

“They did it without asking me,” said Jeffrey plaintively. He held up a plastic bag. “I’ve got the knife here that was taken out of his chest.”

Hamish took it from him and studied it. The haft was of painted wood and belonged to one of those trick knives where the dummy blade slides up into the haft. But this one had had a thin sharp steel blade substituted. It was still smeared with blood.

“You’d better show me where he was killed,” said Hamish. “Who found the body?”

“Titchy Gold.”

Hamish turned to Enrico, “Get her and bring her along.”

Jeffrey led the way upstairs to Titchy’s bedroom. Hamish stood in the doorway and looked into the room. The bed was made up, the wardrobe door closed, and the air smelled of some sort of cleaner.

He turned in amazement to Enrico, who had returned quietly after summoning Titchy. “Don’t tell me, just don’t tell me, that you’ve cleaned this room.”

“Maria did it,” said Enrico. “There was blood on the carpet. She could not leave a mess like that.”

“You,” said Hamish, “are in bad trouble, and if the chief inspector does not charge you with interfering in a murder investigation, you can count yourself lucky.”

Enrico looked unmoved. “Here’s Titchy,” said Jeffrey.

Titchy Gold and Hamish Macbeth surveyed each other. Titchy threw him a tremulous smile, thinking he was quite nice-looking with those hazel eyes and that fiery red hair.

Hamish thought Titchy looked as if she had stepped down from one of the calendars usually hung in motor repair shops. She was wearing a brief tight scarlet leather skirt with a transparent white blouse, seamed stockings and very high-heeled red shoes. Her dyed blonde hair was piled on top of her head, apart from a few artistic wisps. Her face was beautifully made up with a small lascivious mouth painted pink and false eyelashes shading bright blue eyes.

“Miss Gold, before I take your official statement, just tell me briefly what happened.”

Titchy shuddered. “I found the body when I opened the wardrobe last night. It just fell out. He – Mr Trent – had played a joke on me before where a dummy with a knife in it fell out of that wardrobe. I was fed up. I was getting out of here somehow. So I just left the body lying where it was and went to bed. It was when I awoke in the morning that I thought there was something funny about it and…and…I took off the mask…and…”

She dabbed at her eyes. Hamish looked at her narrowly. He sensed that Titchy was excited about something rather than shocked or frightened.

“I’m going to lock this room,” said Hamish to Jeffrey, “in the hope that there’s something left for forensic to examine. While we wait for the team to arrive from Strathbane, I may as well take preliminary statements. Is there a room I can use?”

“The library,” offered Jeffrey. “It’s got a desk.”

“Very well. Lead the way.”

As they were going down the stairs, a thin elegant woman darted up to Jeffrey and seized him by the arm. “It’s Paul,” she cried, waving a letter. “He’s gone off with that girl. What are we…” Her voice trailed away as she saw Hamish.

“Your son Paul Sinclair and Miss Clarke have left,” said Hamish. “What does he say in that letter? You are Mrs Jeffrey Trent, I gather.”

Jan clutched the letter to her bosom.

“It’s private,” she gasped. “Private correspondence.”

Hamish held out his hand. “Nothing is private in a murder investigation, Mrs Trent. Hand it over.”

Jan looked wildly at her husband, who shrugged. Reluctantly she gave the letter to Hamish. It said:

Dear Mum,

We can’t stand the old man’s jokes any longer so we’re getting out. If I had stayed a day longer, I would have killed the silly old fool. I’ll call on you in London when I get back. Tell Enrico we’re sending the skis back from Inverness.

Love, Paul

Hamish put the letter in his pocket. “Now for the library,” he said. “First I’ve got to make a phone call. Mr Trent, give me a description of Mr Sinclair and Miss Clarke.”

“No,” wailed Jan.

“He’ll need to be brought back,” said Jeffrey quietly. “Don’t make things worse.” He turned to Hamish. “Paul is about six feet tall, fair hair, horn-rimmed glasses, twenty-five. I don’t know what he’s wearing, but probably something suitable for skiing. Melissa Clarke is about a couple of years younger, five feet six inches, pink hair, protest student-demo clothes.”

“Right!” Hamish picked up the phone and got through to the Inverness police and gave them a description of Paul and Melissa, saying that they might be found at the railway station waiting for a train south.

“Now,” said Hamish, sitting behind the desk which was placed at the window, “I’ll start with you, Mr Trent. Mrs Trent, I will see you later.” Jan looked as if she would have liked to protest, but Jeffrey pointedly held the door open for her.

“It’s a bad business,” sighed Jeffrey. “It can’t be any of us. Probably some maniac got in from outside.”

Hamish studied Jeffrey for a long moment. Jeffrey was a grey man – grey hair, grey suit, greyish complexion. He showed no signs of grief.

“First of all,” said Hamish, “why are you all gathered here at this time of year? I mean, it’s not Christmas or Easter or the summer holidays.”

“Andrew wrote to us all and said he was dying,” said Jeffrey in a dry precise voice. “We should have known it was a lie. But we all came. Of course he wasn’t even ill.”

“Did he upset anyone particularly during this visit?”

“He played his nasty jokes on all of us. I think perhaps that actress, Titchy Gold, was the worst affected.” He told Hamish in detail of the original body-in-the-wardrobe trick, of Titchy’s reaction to the headless knight. “Then she decided to flirt with him and the silly old goat fell for it. That was until, for some crazy reason, he decided to open up the seams in her best dresses. She went for him. He swore he didn’t do it and he didn’t find it funny, so perhaps he didn’t.”

“Do you know the terms of your brother’s will?”

“No, I do not. I know the name of the firm of solicitors in Inverness that he used – Bright, Norton and Jiggs.”

“Is it correct to assume that the bulk of his fortune would go to Charles, his adopted son? In Scotland, the man is always favoured in wills, even over real daughters.”

“No, he detested Charles. He may have left it all to the cats’ home as one last and great joke on the lot of us.”

“Until the body is examined by the pathologist, we do not know the time of death. But if the body fell out on Titchy before she went to bed, and that was around midnight, and he had last been seen in the drawing room at eleven o’clock, then it seems safe to assume he was killed between eleven and midnight. Where were you during that hour, Mr Trent?”

“I? You surely don’t think I would kill my own brother?”

Hamish waited patiently.

“Well, let me see. I had drinks with the others in the drawing room. People kept coming and going. I myself went out to the library for a bit. I think it was just after Andrew went up to bed that Jan and I decided to retire.”

“Was anyone missing from the drawing room for a long time?”

“Titchy and Charles. They went outside, I mean outside the house, for a private talk.”

“A full statement will be taken from you shortly. I’m just getting a few facts sorted out,” said Hamish. “Would you send in the servants?”

After a few minutes Enrico and Maria appeared. Maria’s eyes were red with weeping. “Name?” Hamish asked Enrico.

“Santos. Enrico Santos, and this is my wife, Maria.”

“How long have you worked for Mr Trent?”

“Fifteen years. Both of us.”

“How did you find your way up here to the north of Scotland?”

“We were working in a restaurant in London,” said Enrico in his careful and precise English. “It was owned by my father-in-law. We did not get on. Maria cannot have children and yet he blamed me. I saw an advertisement for a couple in The Lady magazine and we answered it. So we came to live with Mr Trent.”

“Do you both have British nationality now?”

“Of course.”

“How long had you been in this country before you came up here?”

“Two years,” said Enrico.

“Where are you from originally?”

“Barcelona. But,” added Enrico proudly, “we now own two villas in Alicante which we rent out to holiday-makers.”

“Mr Trent must have paid good wages.”

“He did.” Enrico looked vaguely bored by all this questioning. “Our food and lodgings were paid for. We do not smoke or drink. There is nothing to do up here. And so we invested our wages, made a profit, and bought property.”

Hamish looked from Enrico to the downcast Maria. “But if you own property, why continue to work as servants for a difficult boss? What of all his practical jokes?”

“We were used to them,” said Enrico with a shrug. “We wanted to leave but Mr Trent said he had not long to live and he would leave us a lot of money in his will.”

“Now to the murder,” said Hamish. “Where were you both last night between eleven and midnight?”

“Mostly in the kitchen. We went up to the drawing room about ten-thirty to make sure everyone had drinks and no one needed anything else and then we retired. I think by eleven-thirty we were in bed.”

“Can you confirm this?” Hamish asked Maria.

She gave him a wide-eyed, frightened stare and then looked pleadingly at her husband, who said, “She confirms it.”

“Tell me about when the body was found.”

Enrico said that there had been a lot of loud screaming and shouting. He and Maria had been setting the breakfast table. They had run upstairs. Everyone was clustered round the body. Angela Trent said the police should be called immediately and went to do so. It had been assumed at first that the old man had fallen on the dagger during one of his practical jokes. No one but Miss Angela appeared to think it was murder at first.

“Now the main question. Why on earth was the body taken down and laid out? Surely you must know that nothing should have been touched.”

Maria burst into a noisy flood of Spanish. Hamish caught the name Señora Trent.

“Which Trent was that?” he asked sharply.

“Mrs Jeffrey,” said Enrico. “She was most upset. She ran to look for her son and then came back and said it was horrible to leave Mr Trent lying there. My wife is very religious. She wanted to lay out the body. I called in one of the gamekeepers, Jim Gaskell – he lives over the stables – and together we took Mr Trent’s body downstairs.”

“Where is his shirt? The blood-stained one you took from the body?”

“Maria washed it. She did not know any better.”

“But you must have known better!”

“I was in shock,” said Enrico calmly.

“How busy you both were.” Hamish leaned back in his chair and surveyed them. “You have aided and abetted the murderer by moving the body and cleaning Miss Gold’s bedroom.”

“It was Mrs Jeffrey’s suggestion,” said Enrico. “She said there was no need to be slack about our duties and that the rooms needed cleaning as usual. With our master dead, we naturally took our orders from Mr Jeffrey and his wife.”

“Well, don’t touch anything else. Send Mrs Jeffrey in.”

Anorexic? wondered Hamish, looking at Jan. She was wearing a black dress, short-sleeved, showing arms like sticks. Her face was gaunt and her rather protuberant eyes showed no traces of weeping.

“This is a waste of time,” she began, sitting sideways on the very edge of a chair and crossing long thin legs. “Your superiors will soon be here and I see no reason to go through this ordeal twice.”

Hamish ignored that.

“Why did you tell the servants to remove Mr Trent’s body?”

“I did not tell them precisely to do that. I simply said that it was dreadful to leave Andrew lying there. I mean, it may not be murder. Have you considered that? He may have been hiding in that wardrobe to scare Titchy and stabbed himself by accident.”

“And the cleaning of the bedroom?”

“Again, I did not specifically tell them to clean that room. I merely said that they should get on with their duties. Servants must be kept up to the mark, you know,” remarked Jan.

“How many servants do you have, Mrs Trent?”

“I don’t have any, but these are Spaniards and inherently lazy.”

Hamish often wondered how the myth of the lazy Spaniard had arisen. In fact, he had been taught at school that the farther south you went, the lazier people got, and yet he had never seen any evidence to support that dubious fact.

In the Highlands and islands, it was another matter. He remembered when there had been another of those drives to bring work to the north and a factory had been opened on one of the Hebridean islands. It had not lasted very long. The workers had downed tools one day and walked out en masse, never to return. Their complaint was that a whistle had been blown to announce their tea-break and another whistle to signal time up. They did not like the sound of that whistle, they had said. The factory owner had damned them as lazy. Of course it could, on the other hand, be the quirky bloody-mindedness which was often the curse of the north.

“Tell me about your son, Paul,” he said suddenly.

Jan went quite rigid.

“What about Paul?”

“Why did he leave?”

Jan shifted uncomfortably. “You saw his letter. It was these terrible practical jokes. No one in their right mind could stand them for very long.”

“But you are still here.”

Jan assumed an air of frankness. “You must know we all came here because Andrew said he was dying. A lie, as it turned out. But he is worth millions and quite capable of leaving it to that young fool, Charles. Paul is honest and upright and hard-working. I felt sure Andrew would be impressed by him.”

“And was he?”

Jan laughed bitterly. “He was the same callous old fool he’s always been.”

“Tell me about Melissa Clarke.”

“Some weird creature who works with Paul at the atomic research station. I think she ought to be investigated. Her clothes look lefty. She has pink hair. Pink hair, I ask you. As far as I could gather, this was the first time he had asked her anywhere. I think she is a corrupting influence.”

“Your son being easily corrupted?”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant, Paul is naive and unworldly, thoroughly honest and straight. He thinks everyone else is the same.”

“Where were you between eleven and midnight last night?”

“I was in the drawing room.”

“Did you leave it at any time?”

“I went up at one point to…er…use the bathroom.”

“Before Mr Trent retired to bed or after?”

“I can’t remember.”

“That will do for now. Send in Miss Gold.”

Titchy Gold had changed into a low-cut black blouse and long dark skirt. She seemed nervously excited.

“Miss Gold,” said Hamish. “I will need to take you through this again. I want you to tell me all about your visit from the beginning.”

Titchy gave him a competent and brief summary of everything that had happened, right to the finding of the body.

“There is just one thing,” said Hamish, “you said you were talking outside to Charles Trent for a long time. What about?”

Titchy fluttered her eyelashes. “Come now, Constable, what do lovers usually talk about?”

“Yet you say he joined you in your bed later. Would that not have been a more comfortable place to discuss things?”

“Hardly, copper. We were otherwise occupied.”

“Is Titchy Gold your real name?”

“Yes. Quaint, isn’t it? Mummy and Daddy were Shakespearian actors.”

“I cannae call to mind a Titchy Gold, anywhere in Shakespeare.”

Titchy gave a musical laugh. “Silly. I mean they were bohemian, extravagant people. It was just like them to think up an odd name for me.”

“Where are they now?”

“Both dead.”

“Of what?”

“They died in the Paris air crash of ‘82.”

Titchy whipped out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.

I don’t like this woman one bit, thought Hamish suddenly.

“When is the will being read?” demanded Htchy suddenly.

“That I do not know. Strathbane police will no doubt call the solicitors in Inverness and ask them to send someone here. Why? Surely you do not hope to inherit?” asked Hamish, being deliberately stupid.

“No, but Charles will. He must. He’s the son.”

“Adopted. Besides, Mr Jeffrey says that Mr Andrew Trent may have planned his last joke by leaving the lot to a cats’ home.”

Something unlovely flashed in Titchy’s eyes and was gone. “Any more questions?”

“Not for now. Send in Miss Angela Trent.”

Despite her mannish appearance, Angela Trent was the first one of them, apart from Maria, that Hamish had met who seemed distressed.

“I will not keep you long,” he said gently. “Where were you last night between eleven and midnight?”

She looked at him in genuine bewilderment. “The drawing room. I suppose. Oh, I went down to the kitchen and asked Enrico to bring up some sandwiches because Dad said he wanted some – brown bread and smoked salmon. Then I was a bit upset. I went up to my room and sat down for a little. You see, there had been all those jokes and rows and then that little actress accused Dad of having cut up her dresses and she was so mad she looked as if she could have killed him.”

Hamish gave an exclamation. He ran to the door and shouted for Enrico and when the manservant arrived he told him to tell Miss Gold not to touch any of the clothes that had been damaged. Forensic would want to examine them.

He returned to Angela, who had heard the exchange and looked pale.

“It’s amazing what they can get fingerprints from these days,” said Hamish. “Now, Miss Trent. Who, in your opinion, would want to kill your father?”

She shook her head in a bewildered way and then her eyes hardened.

“That cheap actress.”

“Titchy Gold? Why?”

“Because she’s going to marry Charles. She thinks Charles will inherit. That low, common sort of person would do anything.”

“What were your relations with your father?”

“A trifle strained,” said Angela gruffly. “It was those jokes of his, you know. Sewed the bottoms of my pyjama legs together and punctured Betty’s hot-water bottle. He’d always played tricks on us, even when we were small.”

He asked her several more questions about where the other guests had been during the crucial time and then asked to see Betty.

Betty Trent looked small and crushed and mousy. Angela had found a dark blouse and skirt to wear, but Betty was wearing a pink wool twin set with a green tweed skirt. She said she had been in and out of the drawing room and could not remember exact times. She said she did not believe her father had been murdered. He had meant to play a trick and the heavy door of the wardrobe had slammed on him and driven the knife into him. She said she estimated that PC Macbeth was in his thirties and if a policeman was in his thirties and had not yet been promoted, it showed he was a village hick with no brains at all. Furthermore, she would not waste any more time with him, but would wait for his superiors.

“Chust a minute,” said Hamish. “Who do you think cut Miss Gold’s frocks?”

“Probably Dad,” said Betty crossly, “although I must admit it was a new departure in jokes.”

Hamish was about to take her through the finding of the body more out of sheer bloody-mindedness than anything else, for Betty’s remarks had riled him, when the noise of a helicopter filled the air.

The police from Strathbane had arrived.

♦

Detective Chief Inspector Blair was a heavy-set Glaswegian. Hamish had worked with him before. Blair knew Hamish had solved several cases in the past and had allowed Blair to take the credit. But every lime he saw Hamish again, he convinced himself it had all really been luck on Hamish’s part. This lanky gormless Highlander could surely not compete with the sharper brains of a Lowland Scot. Blair was flanked by his pet detectives, Jimmy Anderson and Harry MacNab.

“Came by the chopper,” said Blair and settled himself into an easy chair in the library with a grunt. “So the auld fart his bin knifed.”

“You knew him?” asked Hamish.

“Heard o’ him and his damp jokes. Forensic’s on the way. Right, laddie, let’s have whit you’ve got.”

Hamish took out his notebook and Blair guffawed with laughter. “Have ye never heard o’ a tape recorder? How did ye get here? On a bike wi’ square stone wheels?”

Hamish ignored him and began to read out the brief statements he had taken. Blair listened intently. When Hamish had finished, Blair slapped his knee and exclaimed, “Man, man, you’ve got your murderers!”

“Who?”

“Them Spaniards, o’ course. Always sticking knives into people. They destroyed the evidence, didn’t they? They hope to inherit. Anderson, get on to thae lawyers in Inverness and get one o’ them up here fast. I bet the pair of them get a chunk o’ the old man’s money in that will.”

Hamish groaned inwardly. Blair, he knew, had a deep mistrust of all foreigners. “Look, they’re both very correct servants,” said Hamish. “They’ve been in this country for a long time. They speak English better than you…”

“Just watch your lip, laddie.”

“I would also advise you to go easy on the racist remarks you usually make about foreigners,” said Hamish firmly. “Enrico could easily get you in trouble. He’s no fool.”

“You mean the Race Relations Board,” sneered Blair. “That lot o’ Commies don’t know their arse from their elbow. I’m no’ scared o’ them. Further-mair, whit’s a village bobby doing advising me? Bugger off, Sherlock, and leave me to wrap this up.”

Hamish walked stiffly from the room. If, just if, he solved this case, then he would go out of his way to expose Blair for the crass fool he was. But, said a voice in his head, that would mean promotion and leaving Lochdubh and your cosy life.

When Enrico was summoned again to the library, his sharp dark eyes ranged about the room. “Speaka da English?” asked Blair with heavy irony.

“I am looking for the tape recorder,” said Enrico. “This is, I take it, the official interview. So it should be recorded.”

“You listen tae me, you cheeky pillock,” roared Blair. “I’ll conduct this interview any way I like and any more complaints from you and I’ll have you deported.”

“You cannot,” pointed out Enrico. “I am a British citizen, as is my wife.”

Blair launched into a series of bullying haranguing questions punctuated with insults about greasy Spaniards. Enrico answered when he could and what he could and then got to his feet. “I hivnae finished,” roared Blair.

“I think I had better leave you to consider your manner and behaviour,” said Enrico. He took a tape recorder out of his pocket. “I have recorded this interview. Unless you conduct yourself in a polite manner, this tape will go to your superiors at Strathbane.”

Blair’s eyes bulged with fury. Jimmy Anderson stepped forward. “Run along,” he said to Enrico. “We’ll call you when we want you again.”

“Jeezus,” groaned Blair.

“Aye,” said Jimmy, “can you imagine what Superintendent Daviot would say when he heard that? He’d kick ye out so hard, you’d be skidding on your bum frae here to Glasgow.”

“Well, you know whit tae do,” growled Blair. “We’re going tae search all the rooms, right? Get that tape and wipe it out!”

♦

Hamish went up to Titchy’s bedroom. The forensic team had arrived. Men in white boiler suits were dusting for prints and cutting little bits off the pile of the carpet near the wardrobe. “Could the body have been killed somewhere else,” Hamish asked one, “and then put in the wardrobe?”

“Could be,” said the man. “It would take more than one person or a very strong man. You see, the fact that the body remained upright, propped against the closed door, either meant that he had been killed earlier somewhere else and rigor had set in, or that the narrow confines of the wardrobe kept the body supported until Miss Gold opened the door.”

“I don’t think there was time for rigor to set in,” said Hamish. “Maybe Titchy Gold actually saw a dummy before she went to bed and someone killed the old man during the night and substituted his body for the dummy. But she’d need to be a verra heavy sleeper.”

He turned away and almost bumped into Jimmy Anderson, who was grinning all over his narrow foxy face. “Blair says you’re to help in the search, starting wi’ the servants’ room.”

“Meaning he’s put his foot in it with Enrico?”

“Aye. He bashed on like the bigot he is and the wee Spaniard taped the lot and is threatening to send it to Daviot if Blair doesn’t toe the line.”

Hamish went downstairs and met Enrico in the hall and asked him to take him to the quarters he shared with his wife.

Enrico led him down to the basement. He and Maria shared two rooms beside the games room, a bedroom and a small living room. He stood in the doorway and watched Hamish. “If you are looking for that tape,” said Enrico, “I have it in my pocket.”

“And I’d keep it there,” said Hamish with a grin. Enrico waited while Hamish carefully went through drawers and cupboards. “I’m only the first,” said Hamish. “The forensic team will go through everything as well, including the kitchen. You’d better check your knives and see if any are missing.”

“I have already done so,” said Enrico. “A jointing knife is missing.”

“When did you discover that?” demanded Hamish.

“Earlier on. It was the first thing I looked for.”

“Why didn’t you tell me or Blair?”

“I found it after my interview with you and before my interview with Mr Blair. Had he treated me with more courtesy, I would have told him.”

Hamish shook his head. “You cannae go around questioning the niceties of police behaviour in the middle o’ a murder inquiry.”

“No?” Enrico patted the pocket of his dark jacket which held the tape. “When Mr Blair calms down, he will realize that anyone in this house could have taken the knife from the kitchen at any time. I did not have any birds to joint in the last couple of days, so it could have been missing at any time during that period.”

Hamish looked around the living room again. It was neat and clean but somehow characterless: three–piece suite, coffee table, bookshelves with some magazines and paperbacks, and two pot plants. Above the fireplace was a framed photograph of the Ramblas, the main street in Barcelona.

“You said your wife was very religious,” said Hamish slowly. “But there are no religious paintings here, no crucifix, no religious statues.”

“I said my wife was religious,” said Enrico. “I am not.”

Hamish looked thoughtfully at him. Enrico’s dark brown eyes looked blandly back.

“I’ll be talking to you later,” said Hamish.

He went up to the library and told the furious Blair about the knife and about the fact that there was no way of getting that tape. “I don’t think Enrico will send it off unless you start accusing him of deliberately tampering with the evidence – which you could have done,” said Hamish, “if you hadn’t put his back up. There’s one thing you could do, however.”

“And whit’s that?”

“Get Mrs Jeffrey Trent in here and accuse her of having paid the servants to lay out the body and clean the room.”

Blair goggled at Hamish.

“Aye,” said Hamish. “A guess. But a good one, I think. Enrico and Maria are not the sort to become sentimental about the death o’ their late master. They’re hard-headed. They already own property in Alicante and it’s my belief they’ll leave after the reading of the will, no matter who is the new master or mistress here. It was only hope of getting something in that will that kept them here. When the body was discovered, Mrs Jeffrey ran straight to her son’s room and found him gone. For some reason, she’s protecting him. The reason could be that she’s simply a rather neurotic and possessive mother.”

“Oh, well, I’ll give it a try,” said Blair sulkily.

“And make it official,” said Hamish. “Recorder and all.”

When Jan came into the library, Blair, Anderson and Hamish were there and there was an official tape recorder on the desk in front of Blair.

“How much did you pay Enrico to lay out the body and clean the room?” demanded Blair.

She went a muddy colour. “Who says I paid them?”

Hamish’s quiet Highland voice interrupted. “It will be easy to find out. Whatever it was, I doubt if you would have that amount of ready cash on you. So you would give him a cheque – a cheque which will show up at your bank.”

“I want a lawyer,” she said faintly.

“Mrs Jeffrey Trent,” intoned Blair, “I must warn you that you have a right to remain silent, but everything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.”

She suddenly collapsed and began to cry. Through gulps and sobs, she said she was overwrought. She had not been trying to protect Paul. She thought old Andrew had died because of a joke that had gone wrong. That was her story and she was sticking to it.

When she was finally allowed to leave, Blair said with satisfaction, “I’ve got that bloody Spaniard now. Taking money to pervert the course o’ justice.”

“And he hass still got you,” said Hamish. “He’s got that tape.”

Blair swore viciously.

Then the phone rang. It was the Inverness police. Paul Sinclair and Melissa Clarke had been picked up at Inverness station and were being brought back to Arrat House.

♦

Melissa had never been so happy. She was sitting on a red plastic seat in Inverness station beside Paul. The London train was almost due to arrive.

They had skied across country as far as Lairg, where they had taken the train to Inverness. After arranging for the skis to be sent back, they had gone for lunch and had joked and laughed and giggled like schoolchildren.

They would come back to the Highlands on their honeymoon, thought Melissa dreamily. Although Paul had not proposed marriage, she was sure he would, some time in the near future.

Her mind was filled with glorious images of snow-covered moorland and soaring mountains. She felt tired and happy and her face still tingled from the exercise and the cold, biting air.

Policemen came into the station, policemen of various ranks. Two guarded the entrance. Melissa watched them with that rather smug curiosity of the law-abiding watching the police looking for some malefactor.

Her wool ski cap was suddenly making her head feel itchy. She pulled it off and her pink hair shone under the station lights.

And then all the police veered in their direction.

An inspector stood before them. “Paul Sinclair and Melissa Clarke?” he asked.

Paul blinked up through his glasses. “Yes, that’s us. What’s up? Has anything happened to Mother?”

“You are to accompany us,” said the inspector stonily.

Bewildered, they rose to their feet. Two policemen relieved them of their rucksacks. They walked out of the station. A white police car was waiting in the forecourt. They got in the back. A thin policewoman got in beside them and two policemen in the front. The car sped off.

“What is this?” demanded Melissa. “What has happened?”

The man in the front passenger seat slewed round. “Mr Andrew Trent was found murdered this morning at Arrat House. We are taking you back there for questioning.”

Paul buried his face in his hands.

“But what has his death to do with us?” protested Melissa. “We left at dawn this morning.”

“Although the body was found this morning,” said the policeman, “it is estimated that Mr Trent was killed the night before.”

“How…how was he killed?”

“He was stabbed to death. Now, if you’ve any more questions, put them to Detective Chief Inspector Blair, who is in charge of the investigations at Arrat House.” He turned to the driver. “No use taking the Struie Pass in this weather, Jamie. You’d best go round by the coast.”

Paul remained huddled up, his face still in his hands. Melissa shivered with dread. What did she know of him? What did she know of any of them? The countryside which had seemed so glorious in the morning sunlight now looked alien and forbidding, bleak and white in the headlights of the police car.

Back to Arrat House. Back to where among those overheated rooms was a murderer. She reached out to put an arm around Paul and then shrank back. The man she had been dreaming about getting married to was now a stranger to her.