Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 09 - Now May You Weep

Chapter Nineteen

I have trod the upward and the downward slope; I have endured and done in days before; I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope; And I have lived and loved, and closed the door.

—robert louis stevenson,

“I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope”

Carnmore, November

Livvy stood in the distillery office, her father’s letter dangling from her nerveless fingers. She had been found out, her undoing a mere slip of the tongue by the banker, sharing a midday dram with her father. The banker, assuming her father privy to her affairs, had casually mentioned her withdrawal of funds from her account, and now she would have to deal with the consequences.

She’d felt a nagging sense of foreboding for some weeks, but she’d put it down to the time of year. It was more than the upcoming anniversary of Charles’s death; she hated the dark, the closing in of the days, the interminable nights with nothing but her few books and a bit of sewing to keep her thoughts occupied. Not even to herself had she

been willing to admit how much she dreaded the curtailing of Rab’s visits, which would inevitably follow on bad weather.

The shooting season had brought Rab frequently to Carnmore’s door, as he was on friendly terms with the duke of Gordon and was often invited for a day’s sport at the duke’s lodge in Tomintoul. Their tea and conversation at her kitchen table had quickly become her cornerstone, the events round which revolved the rest of her existence.

It was no more than Highland hospitality, she told herself, ignoring the whispering of her neighbors, as she did Will’s increasingly obvious dislike of Rab. She prided herself on her status as Rab’s friend, and she’d listened to his tales of Benvulin’s troubles with increasing distress.

Other distilleries were suffering, she knew; some had already closed their doors, and as the weeks went by she became more and more worried that Benvulin would share that fate. If the same thing were to happen to Carnmore, she and Will could at least fall back on her father—

Rab had nothing. She’d wished desperately for some way to help him, but it was not until her autumn visit to her father in Grantown that she’d conceived a plan.

Both she and Rab had attended a recital at the home of a Grantown dignitary. Aware of Rab’s absence during the dinner buffet that had followed the musical performance, she’d slipped away from the dining room to search for him. When she’d found him at last, he’d been sitting alone in the small conservatory, his head in his hands.

He looked up at the sound of her entrance. “Livvy! You shouldn’t be here. People will talk.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, going to him as he stood.

“Rab, what is it?”

He’d touched her cheek. “You’re too kind, Olivia, do

you know that? I’ve no intention of spoiling your evening with my troubles. Go back to the buffet, before someone notices your absence.”

“Not until you tell me what’s troubling you.”

“Blackmail, is it?” he said, giving her a crooked smile.

“Well, I suppose I might as well tell you, as everyone will know before long. I don’t think I can keep Benvulin going any longer, Livvy. I’ve had a hint of a buyer for some of the stock, from a grocer in Aberdeen who’s selling his own blend—”

“But, Rab, that’s good news—”

“It would be, except that it will take several months to complete the arrangement—if it materializes at all—and in the meantime, I can’t pay the men’s wages. Not that it’s likely another distillery can take them on, but they can at least try to find some sort of work that will feed their families. I can’t see that I have any choice but to close the doors.”

“Rab, what about your family?”

“Margaret has gone back to her uncle’s in London—

leaving the sinking ship, I fear—although I don’t know how long he will keep his patience with her spending habits. I’ve kept the children here, but it looks as though I’ll have to let the governess go soon, as well.”

“And your sister?”

“Helen will stand by me until the bloody end, I think.

She loves Benvulin almost as much as I do. And she has nowhere else to go.”

“Rab . . .” Gazing at him, Livvy realized the seed of an idea had been germinating for weeks. “Is there any way you can hold out a bit longer?”

“I could sell some of the pictures, and the silver, I suppose, but if I do, there may be nothing else to keep us.”

“Do you trust me?”

He looked at her in surprise. “Of course. You’ve been a good friend these last few months, Livvy. If things were different . . .”

It was the first time either of them had spoken of what lay between them. She swallowed and glanced away.

Wishful thinking would get them nowhere, and she couldn’t let it distract her from what she could do.

She had money, left to her by her mother. It was hers to do with as she wished, but she knew Rab would never agree to take it if she told him what she meant to do.

“Rab, promise me you won’t take any action yet. Wait just a bit longer, even if it means selling a punch bowl or two.”

He smiled at that but quickly sobered, taking her shoulders in his hands. “Do you mean to work miracles, Livvy? I fear that’s not possible.”

“Wait and see,” she had told him, and slipped back to the party.

It had taken some maneuvering on her part to remove the money from the bank without Will’s or her father’s knowledge, but on the evening of the harvest-home given by one of the Laird of Grant’s tenants, she had pulled Rab aside and presented him with the banker’s draft.

He had looked up from the paper he held, his usually ruddy complexion gone pale with shock. “Livvy, you can’t be serious. I can’t take this.”

“You can,” she said earnestly. “It’s not for you, Rab, it’s for Benvulin. Consider it a loan. You can pay it back as soon as things improve.”

“I—”

“Don’t ye argue with me, Rab, my mind’s made up. It’s my money, and I want to help you. It will be our secret.”

And so it had remained, until now. Her father’s outrage had leapt from the page in the quick, bold strokes

of his handwriting. She had betrayed his trust, he said; she had compromised her family, and he meant to take steps to learn exactly what she had done with the funds.

Livvy’s cheeks burned with humiliation. She very much feared that her father would have no trouble coaxing further indiscretions from the banker . . . and that meant she’d have to find some way to warn Rab before he faced the onslaught of her father’s wrath.

Gemma could think of no innocent reason why Tim Cavendish would have been in Aviemore over the weekend. Nor had she been able to offer much comfort to a stricken Hazel, who had at first insisted on flying back to London with Kincaid.

“There’s nothing you can do in London until we know more,” Gemma had told her. “At least here you can help Heather. I’ll come straight back from the airport, and Duncan will phone us as soon as he’s seen Tim.”

Hazel had seemed too shocked to offer much protest.

“Tim can’t have shot Donald,” she had whispered as they were leaving. “There must be some other explanation.

There must be.”

Now, as they passed the turnoff for Culloden Battle-field, Gemma said to Kincaid, “Do you suppose Ross is wrong about the gun, then?”

He looked up from the map he’d been studying and absently ran a hand through his hair. “Of course, it’s possible. But in that case, there’s no logical explanation I can see for John Innes’s gun ending up in the river. And how would Tim have laid hands on a gun? He’s not exactly the sporting type.”

“I’d never have imagined Tim Cavendish spying on Hazel, or lying about what he’d done, or refusing even to

speak to her. What’s one more improbable thing to add to the list?”

“But if Tim shot Donald, who poisoned Callum MacGillivray?” argued Kincaid. “We know Tim was in London yesterday. Are we looking at two different per-petrators, two unrelated crimes?”

Frowning, Gemma slowed for the exit onto the A, the route to the Highlands and Islands Airport east of Inverness. “I suppose it’s possible,” she said, echoing Kincaid’s earlier comment. “Could someone have been taking advantage of the suspicion Donald’s murder cast on John?”

“To lay another murder at his door?”

“Or . . .” Gemma drummed her fingers on the wheel.

“Could Callum have attempted suicide? His effort to win over Alison Grant by shopping Donald failed miserably.

He must have been distraught . . .”

“And invisible, if he walked into the Inneses’ and took Pascal’s tablets without anyone noticing.”

“True,” admitted Gemma. “Bugger. That puts us back to square one.” But as she slowed for the airport exit, an idea struck her. She glanced at the map still open on Kincaid’s lap. “What we need is to talk to Callum. I wonder . . . Did I see the hospital, not too far off the Aviemore road?”

Kincaid looked down. “Raighmore Hospital, yes. Just off the A. We must have passed within half a mile of it.

You’re not thinking of trying to see Callum, are you?

Ross would never agree.”

“Who says I have to ask him?”

“Gemma, you can’t just waltz in and demand to interview Callum MacGillivray. Ross will have a coronary.”

Gemma pulled up in the passenger drop-off lane.

Leaning over, she kissed Kincaid on the cheek. “Then he should take better care of himself.”

*

It was easier than she’d expected. And she didn’t exactly lie; she merely told less than the truth. Flashing her identification at the constable guarding Callum’s door, she’d said, “Inspector James, Metropolitan Police, here to see Mr. MacGillivray.” The constable’s eyes had widened and he’d ushered her respectfully in. Gemma felt thankful for the benefits of rank and hoped she’d still have hers if Ross found out what she’d done and reported her to her guv’nor. Now she just had to pray that Ross himself didn’t show up within the next few minutes.

Callum MacGillivray lay in the hospital bed, his long, fair hair spread out on the pillow, his eyes closed, his face waxen. For a moment Gemma was reminded of a Viking warrior laid to rest on a bier, then Callum opened his eyes and blinked fuzzily at her.

“Callum?” Gemma pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and sat down. “Do you remember me? It’s Gemma James. I came by to see you yesterday.”

“The copper,” he whispered hoarsely. “Sorry.” He touched a finger to his throat. “They tell me my throat hurts because they put a tube down it, but I don’t really remember it.” An IV drip ran into his arm, and he looked oddly defenseless in his hospital gown.

Gemma grimaced. “That’s probably just as well. How are you feeling now?”

“Still a bit groggy,” he said more strongly.

“Can you remember anything at all about what happened to you?”

“Yeah. I meant to finish a bottle of Islay malt—my own private wake for Donald. But after that, nothing, really. They say it was Alison and Chrissy who found me.” There was a note of wonder in his voice. “Otherwise, I might have died.”

“How did Alison know you were ill?”

“She told the doctors I phoned them, but I dinna remember that, either.”

“Callum, do you know that someone put a drug into your whisky, a form of morphine?”

He met her eyes and nodded, but didn’t speak.

“Have you any idea who would have done such a thing to you?”

He picked at the hem of his sheet. His hands, Gemma saw, were large and callused. “I canna think.

Do the police believe it was the same person who murdered Donald?”

“They’re not sure. But they do know that John and Martin Innes stopped in your cottage yesterday, while you were out.”

“John Innes?” Callum stared at her as if she’d lost her wits. “They canna think John tried to poison me?”

“He doesn’t seem to have a very good explanation for what he was doing in your cottage, or for what he was doing at the time Donald was shot on Sunday morning.”

“Och, it was the fish,” said Callum, shaking his head.

“The man’s a wee fool, not to have said.”

It was Gemma’s turn to look astonished. “Fish? What fish?”

“The salmon.” Callum looked away but added reluctantly, “John and I, we’ve been doing a wee bit of illegal fishing. At night, mostly.”

“You mean you’ve been poaching?”

“That’s not a word I care to use. Shouldn’t a man have the right to catch a fish in his own river, or shoot a deer on the moor?” He gave a little shrug. “But aye, I suppose you could say we were poaching. John needed the cash to keep the B&B afloat, until he could recoup the cost of the refurbishment. And I—I wanted to fix my place up a bit.

I thought Alison . . .” His hands grew still. “It was a pipe dream, I see that now. I dinna know what possessed me.”

“Callum, are you telling me that John was fishing on Sunday morning?”

“No, it was the Saturday night, late. He’d come across to me, and we’d taken a half-dozen good-size salmon from the Spey. On the Sunday morning, he would have been selling them to a customer, one of the hotels. It was Donald who set up the clients for us, although he didna take a cut. He had the connections, you see.”

“I do see,” Gemma said slowly. “John didn’t want to admit where he was because he was doing something illegal, and he didn’t want to compromise you, or Donald.”

“Or the buyer,” Callum added. “But I suspect there was more to it than that—he didna want Louise to find out.”

“And yesterday, when he came into your cottage?”

“He left me my share of the money from Sunday’s sale. He made the sales, and I kept the books. Because he couldn’t.”

“Not without Louise finding out. I wonder how he explained the extra cash.” Gemma frowned, remembering the way Louise had watched her husband. “Louise thought he was having an affair. I’m not surprised, with him sneaking about in the middle of the night.”

She mulled over what he had told her for a moment, and an inkling of the truth began to dawn. “Callum, if John was at a hotel selling the fish on Sunday morning, where were you?”

He was silent for so long that she began to wonder if he had drifted off, but then he said quietly, “I was out along the river with the dog, the same as most mornings.”

Gemma leaned towards him, touching his hand. She hardly dared to breathe. “You saw something, didn’t you?

Someone? But not John.”

“Not John.” Callum met her gaze, and she saw the sudden brightness of tears. “I didna think anything of it, at first. She sometimes goes out potting for rabbits; they’re a bloody nuisance in the garden. And then, when I heard about Donald, I didna want to believe it—I couldna think she would do such a thing. We were friends.”

“She? But, Callum, why would Alison—”

“Och, no, it wasna Alison.” He shook his head. “It was Louise.”

From the Diary of Helen Brodie, November

Dr. Grant of Grantown, Olivia Urquhart’s father, came to call just after luncheon today. Rab was away, gone to Tomintoul for a day’s shooting, so I entertained the doctor myself.

The man made no pretence of civility, refusing my offer of refreshment, but told me a preposterous tale, accusing my brother of extorting money from his daughter. Her inheritance from her mother, he said, withdrawn from the bank, and paid to my brother by draft.

Of course, I told Dr. Grant I would not listen to such nonsense, and I sent him away with a promise that Rab would call upon him as soon as he returned. Afterwards, I paced in the drawing room for an hour, recounting all the things I might have said to defend my brother’s honor. But then, my suspicions overcame my sense of injury, and I went to the distillery office and began to look over the books.

Where did Rab get the money to pay the men’s wages and the outstanding accounts? The records show only a paltry income these last months, much less than is needed to pay the distillery’s expenses.

The financial situation is much worse than I had feared—I should never have trusted Rab to tell me the truth.

I dare not think that my brother would have accepted money from Olivia Urquhart, and yet I can see no other explanation for our sudden solvency. To what lengths would he go to stave off disaster?

And, I must ask myself, now that I have seen the ruin almost upon us, would I not have been tempted to do the same myself?

Benvulin, November

The snow began yesterday at teatime. It came across the river in a white, billowing curtain, and in no time we could see no farther than a few feet from the door. I can only assume that Rab has stayed overnight with his acquaintances in Tomintoul. If the men were caught out on the moors, they will have had a difficult time of it.

Benvulin, November

It snowed without stopping for twenty-four hours.

If we had such weather here, in the valley of the Spey, I shudder to think of the conditions in the hills.

I have entertained the children as best I could, but they are old enough to miss their father’s presence, and to worry.

Yesterday, the thaw had progressed enough that I thought it safe to send one of the grooms out on horseback, but he returned some hours later, sodden and exhausted. Drifts still block the road to Tomintoul. I can only assume that Rab is enjoying the extended hospitality of friends.

Benvulin, November

A spell of clear, bright weather has rendered the roads passable, although the moors are still buried in snow. Still no word has come from Rab. The groom I sent to Tomintoul found no evidence of his arrival. Surely, Rab had reached Tomintoul before the storm broke, unless an accident befell him on the way. I begin to fear the worst.

Benvulin, December

Having been told that a shopkeeper reported seeing Rab pass through Tomintoul, I began to wonder if he had ridden to Carnmore to see Livvy Urquhart. Yesterday, I myself drove to Carnmore in the gig, which I was forced to abandon in Chapeltown. The track leading to the distillery was mired in mud and slush, barely passable on foot. I do think the Braes of Glenlivet are the most godforsaken place I have ever encountered.

Livvy Urquhart professed not to have seen Rab, although she appeared much distressed by the news of his disappearance. When I confronted her with her father’s tale of the monies given to my brother, she told me her father had been mistaken, that she had withdrawn her inheritance in order to make much-needed improvements to Carnmore. Her son, Will, who was present throughout the conversation, said nothing at all.

In the end, I had no choice but to take my leave and return to Benvulin. As I traveled, I could only imagine that my brother, set out upon an ill-advised visit to the Braes, had wandered from the road in the storm, and that the spring thaws will reveal his poor remains, now buried beneath the snow.

Until that time, is it cruel, or kind, to keep hope alive in the children?

Kincaid took the train from Gatwick Airport to Victoria Station. He stopped at one of the gourmet coffee stalls in the Victoria concourse, then walked the few blocks to the Yard. The blue skies he had left behind the previous morning had disappeared, leaving the city air feeling dull and sulfurous.

They had put Tim Cavendish in one of the better interview rooms. Hazel’s husband looked as if he hadn’t slept, or bathed, since Kincaid had seen him on Sunday evening. The growth of dark stubble on his face made Kincaid think of him as he’d known him when Gemma had first moved into the Cavendishes’ garage flat.

“Hullo, Tim,” he said, removing two coffees from the small carrier bag. Tim had always been particular about his coffee. “I thought you could use a decent cup.”

Nodding, Tim accepted the container. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, after the way I spoke to you the other night.

You’ve always been a good friend to me, Duncan; you didn’t deserve that. I thought that if I just carried on denying everything, it would go away. But it didn’t.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened, now?” Kincaid asked, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table.

“I know you drove to Scotland, to Aviemore.”

“I haven’t much future as a criminal, obviously. It was bloody stupid leaving that receipt in the car. But then, I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I hadn’t been thinking very clearly for a long time.” Tim turned the pasteboard coffee cup in his hands but didn’t lift it.

“Maybe you should start at the beginning,” Kincaid suggested.

“The beginning?” Tim’s abrupt laugh held no humor.

“Can you believe that I was bored with my life? Every day, I saw the same self-absorbed patients, every evening I went home to the same comfortable routine, and I saw my dreams of doing big things, memorable things, vanishing year by year.

“I never said anything, but I was a bit less patient, a bit more quick to crush Hazel’s enthusiasms. It all seemed petty to me—a new rose for the garden, a new recipe for dinner, what book Holly liked best that day. I even had the temerity once to accuse Hazel of not living in the real world. She looked at me with such astonishment, such disappointment.

“And then, even when I saw her with him, it didn’t occur to me that I’d brought it upon myself.”

“You saw Hazel with Donald? In London?”

“It was quite by chance—but then most life-changing events happen purely by chance, don’t they? I was walking down the Liverpool road at lunchtime one day when I saw Hazel go into a café. When I glanced in the window, she was sitting down at a table with him, and the expression on her face . . . I realized I hadn’t seen that look in years . . . if ever.” Tim shook his head, as if it still amazed him. “My world turned upside down. From that day forward it was all I could think about. I followed her.

I watched her. I dug her mail from the rubbish bin.”

“Did you find anything?” Kincaid asked when Tim didn’t continue.

“No. It wasn’t until she told me she wanted to go to Scotland that I realized who he must be. Donald Brodie, her first love, the man she almost married. It wasn’t until the day she left that I found the confirmation—she’d been careless enough to leave an old photo, and his business card, under her blotter.”

“That’s when you decided to go after her?”

Tim turned the coffee cup in his hands again, then at last lifted it to his mouth, wincing as if the liquid pained him. “I had to see for myself. That’s all I could think as I drove. It was late on Friday evening by the time I found the B&B. I slept for a few hours in a lay-by, then I found a place to hide the car and walked to the house through the woods. It was daylight by then. I saw them together, in the meadow . . . after that I don’t remember much.”

“This was Saturday?”

Tim nodded. “I know I watched the house all that day, and as it began to get dark, I saw the gun cabinet through the open scullery door.” Tim met Kincaid’s gaze, his eyes red-rimmed. “I don’t know what possessed me. I could see them moving about, and when the kitchen was empty, I walked into the house. The gun cabinet was unlocked, and I took the first one to hand.”

Kincaid felt cold in the pit of his stomach. He found that no amount of forewarning had really prepared him for this. Dear God, how could he charge his friend with murder?

“I went back to my hiding place,” Tim went on, “and I watched her come out with him after dinner. I heard them arguing, and later . . .” He swallowed. “I thought I would shoot him. I thought perhaps I would shoot them both.

“But when they came out of the wood, I found I was paralyzed. I’d never shot a gun. I didn’t know how to do it, or how far it would shoot. I think it was then that I began to realize the absurdity of it—that I was actually contemplating harming another human being. Then he—

Donald—went into the house, and I had missed my chance.

“Hazel stood there in the moonlight, looking after him . . . and then suddenly she dropped her face into her hands and began to sob as if her heart would break.” Tim

fell silent, and it took all Kincaid’s patience not to prompt him.

“I almost went to her,” Tim said at last. “But then how would I have explained myself? What she had done was human, and forgivable. What I had done . . . what I had contemplated doing . . . was truly terrible . . . inexcusable by any standard I had ever held. Can you understand that?”

Kincaid nodded. Hardly daring to hope, he said quietly, “Tim, what did you do then?”

Tim had sunk back in his chair, as if he had come to the end of the part of the story that mattered to him. “She went inside. I stood there with this thing in my hands, this gun, trying to figure out what to do with it. It didn’t seem right to just set it down on the ground and walk away.

After a bit, I tried the scullery door. It was locked, so there was no way I could put the gun back.

“Then I noticed the garden shed. I went inside, and put the gun on the potting bench. Even then I remember seeing the irony in it. Life and death.”

“And then?”

“I walked to my car and drove back to London. I stopped and slept in a lay-by for a few hours near dawn; I’m not sure where. That day was a blur. I didn’t want to go home on Sunday—I didn’t see how I was going to face Hazel the next day. There’s no going back from something like that.

“And then, when I heard Donald Brodie had been shot, I wondered if I’d done something I couldn’t remember, if I had completely lost my reason. I went over and over things, trying to find a gap. I’ve never been so terrified. You can see why I didn’t want to talk to anyone else; it all sounds utterly mad.”

“Tim, are you telling me that you didn’t shoot Donald Brodie?”

“I’m only guilty of intent, and that, in my book, is bad enough.”

“Not in the eyes of the law.” Kincaid’s mind raced. If Tim had left the gun in the garden shed, what had happened to it? Louise was the gardener, but if she’d found it, why hadn’t she said so? Unless . . . Shock fizzed in Kincaid’s veins. Unless it was Louise Innes who had shot Donald.

Gemma drove south on the A, pushing the posted speed limit. She’d left a message for Chief Inspector Ross, asking him to meet her at Benvulin. It was time for a conference, even though it meant confessing to trespassing on Ross’s turf as far as Callum MacGillivray was concerned.

Callum had told her he’d seen Louise from a distance on Sunday morning, walking across the river meadow with a shotgun. He hadn’t thought she’d seen him, but he had begun to wonder when she’d come calling on Sunday afternoon.

Gemma remembered Louise making an excuse to go out, shortly after the police had finished their interviews that day. And then yesterday, when Louise had been out gathering boughs, had she slipped into Callum’s cottage with Pascal’s tablets? It was Louise who did the rooms in the B&B, Louise who would naturally have seen the bottle of painkillers, Louise who could have pocketed it so easily.

Drops of rain began to spatter against the windscreen, and Gemma slowed, swearing. Rain after a dry spell always made driving conditions particularly hazardous, and she couldn’t afford an accident. Moving over into the center lane, she resumed her musing.

Louise, then, had had the means and the opportunity, but why would she have shot Donald Brodie? And where

did Tim Cavendish come into it? Reaching for her phone, she speed dialed Kincaid, but the call went directly to voice mail. He was probably still in the air, she thought, glancing at the dashboard clock, but he should be landing soon. She hung up without leaving a message; she would talk to Ross first.

But if Louise had used the shotgun, why had residue not shown up in the swab results? It took more than scrubbing with soap and water to remove nitrate traces.

An image came back to her—Louise arranging the boughs she had cut, her hands scratched and dirty, a nail broken. She’d guessed Louise normally wore gloves when she gardened, but what if Louise had been wearing her gloves when she fired the gun, and they had protected her hands? She could have found some way to dispose of the gloves, but then she wouldn’t have wanted to call attention to their absence by getting a new pair.

Was there any physical evidence to support Callum’s statement? Callum could be easily discredited in court, given his demonstrated grudge against Donald over Alison Grant. Without motive or forensics evidence, the case would be difficult to prove. Nor did it help to go into an interrogation blind, without some idea of the reason behind the crime.

If anyone might understand Louise’s motives, Gemma realized as she exited the motorway, it was Hazel.

The rain stopped, then started again, drumming against the windscreen in volleys. As Gemma turned into Benvulin’s drive, she saw a figure sprint from the house to the distillery office. The woman was recognizable even at a distance, in the rain, by the fall of long, dark hair.

Gemma parked the car, grabbed her anorak from the backseat, and held it over her head as she ran for the office herself. The temperature had plunged in the half hour

since she’d left Inverness, and a biting wind plucked at her clothes.

She found Heather already at her desk, the phone to her ear. When Heather looked up at her entrance and covered the mouthpiece, Gemma said softly, “Hazel? Is she still in the house?”

Heather shook her head, frowning. “No. She left a few minutes ago.”

“Left?” Gemma repeated blankly. What could have possessed Hazel to leave without news of Tim?

“She borrowed my car. She said she wanted to go to Carnmore. I think it was—” Heather’s attention shifted back to the phone. “Yes, I’m still holding,” she said into the mouthpiece, then covered it again as she looked back up at Gemma. “I’m sorry, Gemma. I’ve got to take this call. It’s the chairman of the board.”

Gemma was debating whether to wait for her to finish her call or to go on to the Inneses’, when Heather added, “Oh, by the way, Louise rang a few minutes ago.

She was looking for Hazel as well.”