Noonday and Night

CHAPTER 8

The Hotel on Loch Linnhe

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But Scotland isn’t England,’ protested Basil Honfleur demonstrating yet again the English genius for understatement, ‘so I do wish you’d go up there, even now, and find out what’s happened to poor Knight.’

‘I can do nothing that the police cannot do much better, now that two bodies have been found.’

‘Oh, come, now, dash it! The police would never have found those two bodies if it hadn’t been for you.’

‘Laura, not I. But, even so, it was only a question of time. The police would have found them sooner or later.’

‘Anyway, this time we shall be quicker off the mark. Knight only disappeared four days ago. Surely the sooner we get on the trail the better?’

‘The same applies to the police and, unlike myself, they are on the trail already. The fact that now they know your drivers not only disappeared but have been murdered will add much more zest to their efforts than may have been their initial urge when they thought that they were chasing merely a couple of runaways. They really have something to go on this time. By the way, was Knight your regular driver on that tour?’

‘No. He offered to do a stint to help us out and that was the tour without a driver.’

‘I see.’

‘You mean you won’t go up there, then, and look into things for yourself and on our behalf?’

‘For myself, well, yes. Curiosity, apart from my dislike of murder, will impel me to continue my investigations.’

‘My Company will be glad to…’

‘I am not interested in rewards and I do not believe in fairies.’

‘But we’d like to express…’

‘Look, my dear Mr Honfleur, does not one thing strike you very forcibly?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘If you have not guessed my meaning it will be kinder if I do not expound it.’

Basil Honfleur got up from his chair and walked to the window of this office. The view was pleasant. The window did not overlook the busy bus station but gave a prospect of the municipal park. There were lawns, trees and flower-beds and among these meandered a tiny stream. Broad paths were thronged with holiday crowds, but their laughter and conversation scarcely penetrated to the room, which was high up in the building. Faintly, also, like the dying fall referred to by Shakespeare, came the far-off music played by the municipal orchestra, for the bandstand was opposite the window from which Honfleur surveyed the scene.

He remained where he was for a minute or two and then turned to Dame Beatrice.

‘I won’t pretend I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘You mean this dreadful business is something to do with our organisation, don’t you?’

‘I think that, somewhere among your members, you have what my secretary would call a bent operator.’

‘Yes,’ said Honfleur gloomily, ‘I know all the evidence suggests that, particularly the hijacking of the coach in Wales and the planting of it in Swansea. But it doesn’t follow, you know. Our chaps are by no means the only people who can handle a coach. Take that tank chap at Hulliwell, for example. If he could take that coach-load back to their hotel without any trouble, so could hundreds of others.’

‘That is true. Where is the passenger list for this tour conducted by Knight?’

‘As we live there, we picked up the coach in Canonbury,’ said Mrs Grant. ‘I travelled with my neighbour, Mrs Kingsbury, while our husbands went fishing. I did a coach tour with Ian last year. I liked it, but he was less keen. Anyway, we agreed that it wasn’t a bad idea to have separate holidays for a change, so he fixed up with Edward Kingsbury while I went off with Susan. We took a room with twin beds because we thought you got a better room that way, and we know each other quite well, so neither of us minded sharing and it’s more companionable, too.

‘We stayed the first night in Harrogate and went on to Edinburgh. We had thought of going out after dinner, but it rained. It was still raining when we left at nine on the following morning – Monday, that would have been – but the rain cleared away before lunch, so we had a really enjoyable run, although it was too misty to see much at first.

‘We crossed the Forth Bridge and had a rather poor coffee-stop, I thought. It was only so that people could use the loo, of course. I don’t think anybody bothered with coffee; it wasn’t that sort of place. But the lunch stop was delightful, right at the end of Loch Earn, and we had enough time to walk around a little, when the meal was over, and look at the view. The driver came with Susan and me and told us the names of the mountains, but, of course, I don’t remember what they were.’

The driver? Mr Knight?’

‘Yes. Such a helpful man and so knowledgeable. There wasn’t a question he couldn’t answer, although he said he had done the tour only once before.’

‘So you had no suspicions?’

‘Suspicions of what?’

‘That he might have had something on his mind, perhaps.’

‘Good heavens, no, except that I suppose the drivers must always have something on their minds. It must be a big responsibility to have thirty people depending on you for nine whole days and all that driving to do. He was always most jovial, though. When we got back on to the coach after the next stop, which was for tea after we’d been through Glen Coe, he said, “You think you’re going to Fort William, don’t you? Well, you’re not.” I remember I felt very disappointed. I wondered whether that meant we were not going to Skye, either, because, of course, they reserve the right to change the route, but, as it turned out, all was well. We stayed at a new hotel, most of it built bungalow-fashion with one three-storey wing, and, I must say, it was excellent. It was about five miles south of Fort William and —’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, who did not want to waste time in listening to a description of a hotel which she herself proposed to visit in the near future, ‘and it was from that hotel that Knight disappeared.’

‘He sat at dinner the first night with Susan and me and a man who had come on his own, and Knight was as cheerful and talkative as ever. After dinner Susan and I went for a stroll. The hotel was on the shores of Loch Linnhe and it was a lovely evening. There were mountains on the other side of the loch and the water was calm and lovely. If Ian had been there instead of Susan it would have been like our honeymoon. (We spent it in the Highlands.) When we got back, the woman who sat behind us in the coach was reading people’s palms and there was a big group round her, of course, and a lot of laughing and exclamations. The tour had certainly got into its stride and everybody seemed relaxed and happy, especially Mr Knight. I suppose it’s a relief to know a tour is going well.’

‘And on the following day you went to Skye.’

‘Yes, but the best part of the drive was from Fort William to Kyle of Lochalsh. That was glorious, especially after we turned westwards at Invergarry. Skye wasn’t nearly so impressive, but I don’t think we saw the best part of it, because we took the road straight up to Portree on the east side and didn’t get any real views of the Cuillins or anything like that.’

‘And after you got back from Skye?’

‘I think most people turned in fairly early. I wrote some postcards and then Susan and I went to bed. We talked about the views of Ben Nevis we had seen on the way back.’

‘Did you see any more of the driver after he had brought the party back from Skye?’

‘Oh, yes. Somebody bought him a drink at the bar and he was at dinner – not with us, of course, this time. He had to go the rounds. After dinner he was not in the lounge for coffee and I concluded he was checking the coach against the next day’s run.’

‘And you never saw him again?’

‘No. He wasn’t at breakfast, but nobody thought anything about that, because we concluded he’d had his early so as to get all our suitcases on board ready for the nine o’clock start, but when we came out from breakfast and Susan had been back to our room to make sure the suitcases had been collected from outside the bedroom door and that we’d left nothing behind, we went to the hotel reception to hand in our key and there was all the luggage still stacked in the vestibule and no sign of Knight or the coach. One of the porters was asking whether anyone had seen him, but, of course, nobody had.’

‘But the coach was still there? He had not gone off in it?’

‘Oh, no, it was where, I suppose, he had parked it overnight behind the hotel. Well, we hung about and hung about. Some sat in the lounge, others looked at the things in the hotel shop, then the newspapers came in, so that helped a bit. I spoke to the manager, but he couldn’t tell us a thing except that Mr Knight must have thumbed a lift into Fort William to buy something and hadn’t been able to get a lift back.’

‘Was Knight’s room searched?’

‘Oh, yes, when he didn’t turn up, and that was the queerest thing of all. One or two of our men went along with the chambermaid to find out whether he’d been taken ill, but the room was empty and his bed was untouched.’

‘What about his suitcase?’

‘His suitcase? I’ve no idea. Nobody mentioned that, and it didn’t occur to me to ask. Well, in the end, another driver turned up – I suppose the hotel manager telephoned for him. He came from Edinburgh. We were taken to Perth, which was our next overnight stop, but there was no coffee-break and a very late lunch that day, and everybody was wondering what had happened to Mr Knight. There were some nasty rumours because, of course, most people had read about the other driver.’

Dame Beatrice did not mention that the last word could now be put in the plural. All she said was:

‘And that was the end of the matter, so far as you were concerned?’

‘Well, yes. I mean, there was nothing we could do, was there? We got home all right, because they sent another driver up from County Coaches for us, but it wasn’t the same happy party. The driver was a very taciturn man and, anyway, losing Mr Knight like that quite spoilt the holiday, although, of course, it did give us something to talk about for the rest of the trip.’

‘Oh, yes? What sort of things were mentioned?’

‘Well, as I said, people remembered that, about a month before, another driver had disappeared and had been found murdered in Derbyshire. I knew nothing about that at the time, because Ian and I had been visiting our married daughter in Spain, where she and her husband had rented a flat for a month, and we didn’t get the English papers there, but there was a lot of talk after we got back, apart from all the gossip on the coach.’

‘I see.’ Dame Beatrice still did not reveal that another driver had been found murdered, this time in Wales, for that bit of news had not leaked to the press and so was not public property. ‘The two cases are not analogous, though.’

‘Not?’

‘No. In the Derbyshire affair the driver disappeared at mid-day while his passengers were inspecting a stately home.’

‘I don’t see that it makes any difference.’

‘And his coach had been moved a few yards from the spot on which he left it. Of course, it may have been moved merely to accommodate another vehicle. I wonder whether your coach had been moved during the night?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Perhaps the people at the hotel can tell me.’

‘Oh, are you going up there?’

‘As I am being retained by the Company to watch their interests, I think I should see the conditions for myself. By the way, Mrs Grant, did Driver Knight make any mention of the fact that he had returned recently from sick leave?’

‘Not so far as I know. He must have made a good recovery. I never saw a healthier-looking man.’

The hamlet – although it was scarcely large enough to merit even that description – was called Saighdearan. Apart from the hotel, it consisted of an ugly, raw-looking motel a couple of hundred yards further along the road to Fort William, a lorry-drivers café and half-a-dozen cottages put up by a speculative builder for holiday letting. There were also a couple of owner-occupied bungalows on a slope above the hotel and there was a large house further along the loch-side, but it had fallen into ruins and was unoccupied.

A busy road ran between the hotel and the steep-sided banks of the loch. There was a grey, stony shore, muddy and uninviting, but on the further side the mountains were reflected in the water and the reflections were calm, clear and beautiful.

Laura had booked in by telephone and as soon as they had tidied up after the drive from Carlisle, where they had spent the night, Dame Beatrice made no secret of her errand to the hotel manager, a massive, bearded man wearing a tweed jacket and a beautiful kilt in the tartan of MacDonald of Clanranald.

‘That?’ he said. ‘Yes, a very strange business, to be sure. So you are here on behalf of County Tours, whose driver he was. Well, there’s little I can tell you. The police have all the information I can give.’

‘I am wondering whether you have any theories which perhaps you have not imparted to the police.’

‘No, no, I am not one to indulge in speculation. From what I heard, this is not the first case of its kind.’

‘That is what makes it so serious.’

‘Aye, right enough. Well, I’ll recapitulate for your benefit, but there’s nothing I can tell you that you will not know already.’

He proceeded to give an account which tallied in all respects with that which she had had already from Mrs Grant, except that the missing man’s suitcase, neatly packed, was still in the hotel.

‘I suppose Knight did not have any visitors from outside while the party was here?’ she asked. ‘I note that your lounge bar and your dining-room are open to non-residents.’

‘He had no visitors. The coach arrived on the first evening at six, dinner was at seven and he sat at table with three of the passengers. On the following morning the coach left at nine to go over to Skye and he dined that night with some of the other passengers. I always take a look round the dining-room to make sure all is well and everybody is happy, so I am sure he was there. He appeared to be making himself very agreeable to the ladies, as was his custom.’

‘And that, I assume, is the last you saw of him. I understand he did not take coffee that evening.’

‘Aye, that’s true.’

‘You did not see him go to his room?’

‘Nobody saw him. He would likely have taken the covered way from the dining-room without going through the lounge.’

‘I suppose you did not hear a car come into your front parking-space that night? The space you keep for casual visitors?’

‘There would be cars coming and going up to the end of the licensing hours, of course, and, far into the night, there would be cars going by on the road.’

‘Oh, of course. How many exits are there to the hotel?’

‘There will be four, including the one from the hotel shop. There is another at the hotel entrance by the reception desk, another opposite the shop on the corridor which leads to the ground-floor bedrooms, and one more at the foot of the stairs up to the three-storey wing where Knight had his room. He could have slipped away easily enough without anybody being the wiser, so long as he bided his time and watched that nobody was about, but why should he want to slip away? He wasn’t owing me money.’

‘So there doesn’t seem to be a lead anywhere,’ said Laura, when they were discussing the affair in Dame Beatrice’s room after dinner that evening. ‘What’s the next move? Do we look for another dead body, do you suppose? I’m getting morbid about this business.’

‘The manager has consented to my questioning the hotel staff, although he assures me – and I have a feeling he is right – that they can tell me nothing which they have not already told the police.’

‘Is it worth while to bother them, then?’

‘I think, for my own satisfaction, it must be done.’

‘I could do a bit of rubber-necking round the village, if that would be of any help. You’d have to tell me what you want me to say, though.’

‘ “That shall be tomorrow, not tonight.” ’

‘ “I must bury sorrow out of sight,” ’ capped Laura, grinning. ‘Browning could be as banal as Shakespeare when he liked, couldn’t he?’

‘Heresy of the deepest dye!’

‘About Shakespeare? What price some of those ghastly rhyming couplets at the end of the scenes in Macbeth, to name but one play?’

‘Curtain lines on an uncurtained stage? I am not well-informed on the subject of the Elizabethan theatre.’

‘Be that as it may, I’ll say good-night, then, before I become tediously informative. What time breakfast?’

‘Half-past eight, I think.’

‘Right. I wonder whether there would be any joy in having a swim in the loch? It ain’t the plunging-in I mind; it’s the perishing getting-out.’

For what it might turn out to be worth, there was one scrap of information which, after breakfast on the following morning, Dame Beatrice gleaned from a previously untapped source. This was a boy of sixteen who had not been questioned by the police for the simple reason that he had not been in the hotel at the time of their visit.

It was Laura who discovered him and obtained an item of information while Dame Beatrice was interviewing the chamber-maids.

‘You’d better talk to him, I think,’ she said to her employer. ‘He says he was “away to Oban” when the police called, but he did encounter a stranger whom he describes as “a black man”. That, in these parts, could mean anybody darkish – a Spaniard or a Pakistani – let alone a Sudanese the colour of a black boot.’

‘What is the youth’s name?’

‘Wullie MacKay.’

‘And where shall I find him?’

‘In the yard behind the scullery. He’s gutting fish we’re to have for lunch. The hotel buys in bulk from the quayside and the eviscerations are one of Wullie’s jobs. He seems to be a man-of-all-work.’

Dame Beatrice opened the conversation with the lad by asking how the name of the hamlet ought to be pronounced. She gave her own phonetic rendering of Saighdearan.

‘Och, no!’ said Wullie, far too polite to show amusement. He pronounced it for her.

‘Ah! Sy-tshir-un! ’ echoed Dame Beatrice . ‘I am obliged to you. Would it have a meaning in English?’

‘Aye. Saighdearan will be meaning Soldiers.’

‘Indeed? It ties up with Fort William, I suppose?’

‘That place,’ said Wullie darkly, ‘will be having another name put upon it when we get our way.’

‘You are a Scottish Nationalist, are you? But surely your own name is William? Besides, what about William Wallace? He was also a great nationalist, although, I believe, by birth a Welshman.’

Wullie threw away the entrails of the fish he was cleaning and they were swooped upon by a squawking, hostile bird. He said, ‘I’ll no play with words. What would it be that you are wanting with myself?’

‘A description of the black man.’

‘Och, him!’ said Wullie, evincing no surprise. ‘He was a little, thin fellow, maybe like a tinker, but I think he was a foreign man. Besides, he had money. He was showing me an English five-pound note and saying it would be for myself if I would tell him which coach-party was staying here and what would be the name of the driver.’

‘And could you tell him that?’

‘Och, aye.’

‘And he gave you the five pounds?’

‘That, no.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I kenned the was up to no good, so I was telling him the wrong party and the wrong driver. He said that was no’ what he was after and he ganged away and took the five pounds with him.’

‘Did you ever see him again?’

‘I did not.’ He threw a fish-head to a passing cat and bent all his attention on his work.

‘Well, it is a pity that you should be done out of five pounds because of scruples which become you,’ said Dame Beatrice, producing an equivalent bank-note and laying it on the end of the wooden block on which he was so sedulously operating. ‘Would you care to comment on an idea which I entertain? I think your black man was an Italian.’

‘Keep your money, lady. I couldna say what his nationality might ha’ been,’ said Wullie, pointedly ignoring the gift. ‘He was no’ from these parts, anyway, and I didna trust him.’

Dame Beatrice left the five-pound note where it lay and went back to Laura.

‘I tried another long shot,’ she said, ‘but it did not even leave the bowstring. Our next approach must be to the local inhabitants, as you suggested.’

‘There can’t be many of those. I’ve talked to the manager and, except for the people who run the motel and the restaurant and that scruffy good-pull-up-for-carmen along the road, the only birds who are more or less resident, he tells me, are a man called Carstairs and the Whites.’

‘And these are?’

‘The people in those villa residences up on the slope behind us. Carstairs is an artist and a bird of passage. White is a chap who runs a boat-hire business in Fort William.’

‘Let us have speech with these local in-habitants, then.’

‘Do we put our cards on the table?’

‘If you think that would be the best approach. I shall leave Mr Carstairs and the Whites to you while I tackle the motel and the holiday cottages. The lorry drivers’ café can come later.’

‘If we get no joy from the other places, you mean. Right. How would it be if I represented myself as Knight’s sorrowing sister, all bemused and bothered by his mysterious disappearance? I’ll get as close a description of him as I can from the people here, and then I’ll put on a Niobe act, shall I?’

‘Niobe wept for her children, not for her brother Pelops.’

‘I bet Carstairs and the Whites won’t bother about that. Anyway, there can’t be anything much to do here except watch the comings and goings at the hotel. I don’t wonder Carstairs is migratory. Greatly as I love my native land, I don’t think I could stick it in a place like this all the year round. It must be miserably dull for Mrs White. Carstairs, I’m told, is a bachelor and more often away than not, so he’s all right, I suppose, and White has his business in Fort William. Wonder whether Mrs White will talk to me? I daresay she will be glad of a good gossip.’

‘You had all this from the manager here?’

‘Yes, and from some of the maids.’

‘I suppose you did not find out what was in the suitcase which Knight left in his room?’

‘Yes, I did ask, as a matter of fact. There were his pyjamas, a light dressing-gown, his washing materials and a good navy-blue suit which the manager says he put on in the evenings.’

‘No spare underwear?’

‘Oh, yes, of course. A clean shirt and a pair of briefs, but that is the sum total.’

‘So, wherever he went —’

‘Looks as though he meant to come back, doesn’t it? I think we’re looking for another body.’

‘There could be other explanations, but that seems the likeliest at present.’