Unsuitable Day for a Murder

10

Mary Aitken looked to me like a woman who had all her marbles organised in order of size and weight, cross-referenced for colour, and spinning in time as she juggled them one-handed and kept the other hand free.

‘Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘Did you find a pair of opera gloves that suited you?’

I bowed my head in acknowledgement.

‘Yes, Mrs Aitken, you saw through me yesterday.’

‘And you’ll not be here today to collect your fee?’ she said, stalking over to the chair opposite us and sitting down on its extreme edge. She sent a split-second, shrivelling glance towards Alec.

‘Mrs Gilver and I will not be sending you an account, Mrs Aitken,’ he said. ‘All things considered.’

‘And what is it you want?’ Mary said.

I took a breath to answer and then closed my mouth again. We no longer wanted anything very much, as far as I could see. Between the Lawson boy, Jack and Hilda’s secret, Mirren’s unfitness, if I were right about that, and Mary’s hatred of the Hepburns, we had perhaps explained everyone’s disapproval of the marriage and we had provided motives for two suicides. Was it only loose ends to be tied in now?

‘We know that Mirren was hiding in the attics,’ Alec said, grabbing hold of one loose end and pulling firmly. ‘And we know about the note she left for you.’ If he had been hoping to surprise her he was disappointed. She only nodded.

‘It occurred to me yesterday when I went into the store again,’ she said. ‘I unlocked my office door and that’s when I realised that Mirren couldn’t have put the letter on my desk. Miss Hutton, was it?’

‘We know about your hopes for Roger Lawson too,’ I said, sweeping past the question; we would not be responsible for getting Miss Hutton into trouble if we could help it. There was a slight visible twinge at my words.

‘You spoke to Lady Lawson?’ she said.

‘She is a good friend to you,’ I said. ‘An old friend, I believe, but you’ve tested that friendship to its limits now. Why did you do it?’

‘Do what?’ said Mary.

‘Ask Lady Lawson to say her son jilted Mirren,’ I supplied. ‘The attachment between Mirren and Dugald is common knowledge. What could you hope to gain?’ Mary’s face had pinched up into a little frown and a little pursing of her mouth.

‘I just wanted a better… story,’ she said. ‘All her life will be now is her youth and her death. I wanted it to be nicer.’ Her eyes narrowed now and her voice grew cold over the next words. ‘And I didn’t want those Hepburns to be part of our memories of her.’

‘Those Hepburns,’ said Alec, wonderingly. ‘Why do you hate them so?’

‘I don’t hate them,’ said Mary loudly. ‘I wouldn’t waste hate on them. They are beneath my notice.’

‘But why?’ I said. ‘They should be rivals at worst, surely. If not colleagues, in a way. Allies?’ I was imagining the sharing of rolls of tuppences when change ran out; the careful timing of seasonal sales so that both lots could have a good go at the bargain hunters, but Mary’s lip had curled and she actually shuddered at the suggestion.

‘Johnny-come-latelys,’ she said. ‘Encroaching. Leeches – sucking away all the goodwill we worked so hard to build up in this town. They only came here for spite, you know. Why would Robert Hepburn open a store in a town that already had one, if not for spite? To do us down and laugh at us when we fell.’

‘But no one does business that way,’ I said. ‘Surely Mr Hepburn wanted a store here because here was where he lived? Or because here was where he managed to get premises to suit his needs? Why would he be spiteful? Why would he care?’

‘He’s not a Dunfermline man,’ said Mary Aitken. ‘He had no need to come here. He…’ She shuffled her feet a little and then carried on. ‘He followed Ninian. Ninian and Robert Hepburn started together in Patrick Thompson’s over in Edinburgh. I was there too and that’s where I met my husband. Of course, Ninian was a tailor and Hepburn was never anything but a draper’s clerk.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘They were friends at one time?’

‘It was John Aitken who made the leap and opened Aitkens’ Emporium,’ said Mary, not quite answering me. Her eyes lit up as she said the words. Still, after all these years, she was thrilled, as proud as she must have been on its opening day. ‘And Robert Hepburn never forgave Ninian for going off into the world and making his fortune, leaving him behind. Oh, he was a spiteful, nasty, conniving piece of work. Not a scrap of honour or goodness about him anywhere. And it took him thirty years to scrimp and scrape and go coiling round every Jew he could and sell his wife’s lockets to the backstreet dealers for an extra shilling but he got his wish in the end. Came here and set up against us.’

‘But – bear with me while I try to work this out, Mrs Aitken,’ I said. ‘Hepburns’ has been open for nineteen years?’ She nodded. ‘Weren’t Mr John and Mr Ninian both already dead by that time?’ She nodded again. Alec and I looked at one another, puzzled. Mary Aitken showed no signs of having said anything peculiar.

‘Ninian wasn’t cold in his grave,’ she said. ‘John was years gone. And I was away from home on a trip.’ I tried to look as though I knew nothing of this trip. ‘Abigail and Jack were newly married and they didn’t need me there, grieving, making the house sad for them,’ she said. ‘I went off alone.’

‘Newly married?’ said Alec. That did not chime with what Abigail had told us. ‘Five years, wasn’t it?’ Mary Aitken gave him a frozen stare, then shook herself.

‘Was it? I’d have said less, but five years is a new marriage to an old woman like me.’ She sniffed and tossed her head, changing the subject. ‘Anyway, you wouldn’t believe those wheedling, encroaching Hepburns while I was gone. Sucking up to Abby and Jack, tennis parties and card parties and dropping in, as if they’d never heard of mourning.’

‘But you just said you went away so that Abby and Jack could stop mourning and be happy,’ I said.

‘They’d have been happy enough at home,’ said Mary, her voice rising.

‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘Your daughter just said as much to us, Mrs Aitken. That the family was very happy to live in its own company. She made it sound most pleasant and cosy.’

‘Once I’d got rid of those Hepburns,’ said Mary, ‘it was. We were fine.’

‘And…’ Alec was struggling to make sense of what she was saying. ‘Did you think Mr Hepburn was spying? Trying to find out trade secrets and help himself to Aitkens’ success?’

‘No,’ said Mary. ‘It wasn’t Robert at all. He wouldn’t have dared. It was the son and that wife of his and her mother. Taking Abby and Jack away from us, trying to get them into the Hepburn “set”.’ She spat the word. ‘The Haddo “set”. All jolly fun and what a lark, darling. Lady Lawson had nothing to do with them, you know.’

‘I see,’ I said, wondering if I did actually. She did not know about Jack and Hilda and yet she sounded quite unhinged when she spoke of the Hepburns.

‘I came back just in time to stop their heads being turned completely,’ said Mary. Oh no you didn’t, I thought, or not Jack’s anyway. ‘I sent them packing, I can tell you.’ I sighed; even ignoring Jack, she was mistaken if she thought she landed some kind of stunning blow. One only had to hear Fiona Haddo talking in her amused voice or look at Hepburns’ lavish window displays on the day of the Aitkens’ jubilee to see that Mary had provided nothing but entertainment for the Hepburns with her jealous fury. I imagined that the Hepburns enjoyed the tease and did not think about the Aitkens much besides. Poor Mary, she had never learned that indifference is the best revenge and I felt very glad for her sake that she did not know how Hilda Hepburn had ill-used poor Abby, how completely one of her family had had his silly head turned.

‘So no chance of a rapprochement through the third generation then?’ said Alec. ‘Ninian snubbed Robert, Robin and Hilda patronised Abby and Jack and no one wanted Mirren and Dugald to heal the rift after all those years?’ He was nodding to himself, almost talking to himself really until Mary brought him up short with her crispest voice and most flashing glare.

‘You are remarkably free with my family’s Christian names for someone who has never been introduced to me,’ she said. Alec flushed.

‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I used their names for ease of recognition only. What I mean is that Mr Ninian Aitken snubbed old Mr Hepburn, and then-’

‘Old Mr Hepburn?’ said Mary. Alec’s flush deepened; of course, old Mr Hepburn was her contemporary. Before he could take a third run at it with Seniors and Juniors at the ready, she swept on. ‘Besides, it wasn’t just about ancient feuds. I would not have let Mirren marry into that family if they had landed here from the other end of the country, strangers to us all.’ She smiled and it was not a pleasant smile.

‘Oh?’ I said, although I was sure I knew what unwelcome topic she was getting to.

‘They don’t know that I know,’ she said, her voice coated in a kind of delighted scorn, ‘but the fact is that Robert and Dulcie Hepburn had four daughters before Robert Junior came along.’ She paused, her eyes glittering. ‘And not one of them has ever seen the outside of a nursing home.’

I nodded, trying to look neutral. Abigail had told us that Mary herself was no stranger to a nursing home and there was something about the way she passed on the gossip with such relish that sickened me.

‘How unfortunate,’ I said. ‘Ill health in a family is a great strain on everyone.’

‘I don’t mean ill health,’ said Mary. ‘I was being quite literal, Mrs Gilver. They never brought the babies home. Never announced their births after the first one or two. Four of them! And they tried to stop the world from knowing.’

‘The world can certainly be very unkind,’ I said.

‘I found out in my lying-in hospital when I was confined with Abigail,’ Mary said. She was absolutely livid now, drops of spittle forming at the corners of her mouth. ‘One of the nurses told me. As if I would let my Mirren, my girl, have anything to do with a family like that. Once I knew. Once it was all out in the open and their secrets weren’t their secrets any more. I went to Humbie to the nursing home and saw those Hepburn sisters, you know. Three of them are still alive. You could see them yourself if you care to. And they thought they could hide it!’

‘Mrs Aitken, please,’ said Alec. He spoke mildly but seemed only to incense her more.

‘Oh! Oh!’ she said. ‘You’d rather not think about such things, I suppose. You find it “distasteful”, eh?’

‘I find it illuminating,’ I said. I had given up on my neutral expression and supposed that I was now looking at her as though she were a white toad someone had told me to pick up and cradle. ‘Tell me, Mrs Aitken, did you take Mirren to the nursing home to visit these unfortunate women? Did you go that far?’

‘I would have,’ said Mary. ‘I didn’t need to. I explained it to her.’ All of a sudden all the fire went out of her as though someone had turned down the gas in a lantern. She sat back, the last peep of flame snuffed out. ‘I explained. And she… she died. I did that. That was me.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Our sins will surely find us out. My sins…’

Alec, who has surprised me more times than I can list through the years of our friendship, delivered his greatest surprise then.

‘What about “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much”?’

Mary opened her eyes and gazed at him.

‘Don’t be so quick to blame yourself, Mrs Aitken,’ he said. ‘Your daughter Abigail has just told us that Mirren didn’t kill herself because of anything that came from you.’

‘Abigail said that? What did she mean?’

‘She wouldn’t say,’ said Alec, firmly. ‘It’s a family matter, I understand. Nothing to do with Mrs Gilver and me.’

‘Well, I must go and ask her,’ said Mary, rising up with some of her old vigour. ‘I can’t imagine what she means but I must ask her to tell me.’ She left us without another word, without even a goodbye or an order not to bother them again.

I was glad that she had not waited to see us off the premises; I do not think I could have peeled myself off my chair for a king’s ransom.

‘My goodness,’ said Alec, when the silence had had time to settle around us. ‘Between the three of them, that was the most uncomfortable series of conversations I hope I will ever have to endure. You weren’t very sympathetic, Dan. What got into you?’

‘It’s a particular dislike of mine,’ I said. ‘Grisly news sucked like bon-bons.’ I shuddered.

‘But have we solved the mystery?’ said Alec. ‘Tied in all the ends?’

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Hilda and Jack, obviously, knowing what they know. Abby, if my guess was right. Mary, without a shadow of a doubt. Even without the business rivalry – and my goodness, wasn’t she fierce? – her avoidance of the Hepburn “bad blood” accounts for her misgivings.’

‘Odd though, isn’t it?’ said Alec. ‘A woman who could marry her daughter off to a cousin and then suddenly grow so squeamish the next generation down.’

‘Oh, Alec, don’t!’ I said. ‘You sound like those horrid German scientists. What is it called, the thing they get so excited about?’

‘Eugenics,’ said Alec.

‘Well, it’s vile. As though we were dogs. Revolting.’

‘We don’t need to concern ourselves with it, thankfully,’ said Alec. ‘The point is that it could be two suicides after all. Two broken hearts. Star-crossed lovers indeed.’

‘But what about the inspector?’ I said. ‘And the gloves? And do we rely on the business rivalry to explain the Hepburn men’s opposition? We have no explanation for that otherwise.’

Alec only shook his head.

‘It’s not a new set of Meccano, Dan; it’s a boxful.’ Then seeing that I did not understand, he went on. ‘There are bits left over even once we’ve built the best model we can.’

Reluctantly, I nodded.

‘Come on then, darling girl,’ I said to Bunty. ‘I’m going to take you a nice walk up the High Street and find you a big juicy butcher’s bone.’

Bunty, despite the fact that I had used two of her favourite words in the same sentence, ignored me. She had her head cocked to one side, with her brow wrinkling.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ said Alec.

‘Ssh,’ I said. I cocked my head up too and, from what seemed like a great distance, I heard a voice bellowing. Alec and I raced out into the hall. It was upstairs somewhere. It was a woman’s voice and she was begging for help. We wheeled into the stairwell and took the steps three at a time with Bunty streaming up ahead of us. We paused on the first-floor landing but the sound was still above us, and so again up we surged to the second floor and out onto the gallery under the cupola where the voice boomed around the empty space above and all around.

‘Help! Help! Help me!’

Bunty, scared now she was so close to the noise, whined and pressed herself into the wall behind her, but Alec and I charged around the gallery to an open door on the other side and burst in.

Abigail Aitken was kneeling on the floor, still bellowing, holding her mother’s face to her bosom, shaking the woman like a rag doll. Mary’s hands lay limp at her sides and her legs were splayed out, her stiff black bombazine skirts twisted up and one seam split open. Abigail turned to face us, her mouth gaping open and an ugly raw sob coming out of it, her hair hanging down in tangled oily clumps around her shoulders and one cheek bright pink and shining.

‘Help me!’ she wailed.

I rushed over and knelt down beside them, taking Abigail’s hands and prising them gently away from Mary’s shoulders. Mary’s body slumped back into my grasp and with a great rush of relief I heard a low groan and saw an eyelid flickering. Very carefully I laid her down flat on the floor and then grabbed Abigail’s shawl from where it sat in a heap and bundled it into a pillow. I lifted Mary’s neck and set the bundle underneath her.

‘What happened?’ said Alec. Abigail did not answer but only stared down at Mary’s grey face. I stared too, horrified to see how it had slipped downwards at one side, her eye, cheek and mouth melting into a doughy and expressionless travesty.

‘Something dreadful,’ I said. ‘We’d better get a doctor. Or an ambulance if there is one. Tell Trusslove. He’ll know what to do.’ Alec nodded and left. I pulled down one of my cuffs and wiped Mary’s mouth. Abigail was rocking back and forward, whimpering. I looked around myself for the first time and saw bedroom furniture. I wondered if we could, between the two of us, lift Mary onto the bed and wished I’d sent Abigail to the telephone and kept Alec with me. I put my hands under her shoulders and lifted them. She was a small woman but I felt numb and she was all but unconscious, a dead weight in my arms. I laid her back down and wiped her mouth again.

‘Get a pillow and blanket from the bed,’ I said to Abigail. ‘And a handkerchief for her.’ Abigail shook her head.

‘It’s Mirren’s room,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to move her things.’

‘Get a blanket!’ I shouted at her. ‘Mirren is dead and your mother is alive. Help her.’ Abigail stumbled to her feet and dragged the coverlet off the bed, dropping it on top of Mary. I tucked it in around her, my heart sinking to feel the leaden slump of her body on the hard floor. Her breathing was growing laboured and once or twice there came a choking sound from her throat. I remembered a snippet of my training from the early months of volunteer work when it was thought that I might make a nurse one day, and steadying her with my knee I hauled her onto her side and bent one of her legs up in front of her. It was like moving a sack of grain, like setting sandbags in place.

‘Pillows!’ I said to Abigail and as she threw them down to me I used them to prop Mary, front and back, until she was balanced and I could take my knee away.

Again I wiped her mouth and then for a moment just watched her and listened. Abigail went over to a chest of drawers and opened the top one. She gazed into it and put her hand to her mouth, shaking her head, then she rummaged inside her own sleeve, drew out a handkerchief and came back to kneel beside her mother, holding it out to me. I stared at her and she bowed her head and began dabbing at her mother’s mouth herself. Her cheek was still glowing and was beginning to swell.

Mary’s breathing was worse than ever and so I set to and began unfastening the scores of tiny hooks and eyes holding shut her bodice down her back. By the time I had them undone and had loosened the stays she wore underneath them, there were two servant girls in the room and I could see Trusslove and Alec hovering outside.

‘I’ve rung for help, Mrs Gilver,’ Trusslove called in to me. ‘Oh, my poor mistress. Is she holding on?’

I took Mary’s wrist and found her pulse, slow and sluggish, but steady enough. I looked at my wristwatch, but truth be told I had never known what it was one was supposed to tell from a pulse and watch together and so I just sat there feeling the steady beat, trying to tell if it were slowing, weakening or growing perhaps just a little bit stronger.

‘She’s still with us, Mr Trusslove,’ I said. ‘How far away is the doctor?’

‘It’s the ambulance men I’ve sent for,’ he said.

‘Not the fever wagon,’ said Abby, turning terrified eyes on him. ‘She’s not going to that place.’

‘No, no, the St Andrew’s men,’ said Trusslove. ‘The volunteers, Miss Abby. They’ll take her to the cottage hospital.’

‘And where is it?’ I asked.

‘Not even a mile,’ said one of the servant girls.

‘And is someone downstairs at the front door to tell the men where to come?’ I said. ‘Alec?’ But he was already gone.

Abigail was shivering now, rocking back and forwards and hugging herself and it was then that Bunty came into the room. She whined at me, gave Mary a long hard stare and then shuffled up beside Abigail again. Abby put one arm round her neck.

‘She’s warm,’ she said to me in a voice reduced to a croak from her yelling.

I frowned and felt Mary’s head. It was clammy, if anything.

‘The dog,’ Abigail said.

I reached over and put my hand on one of hers, feeling the icy chill of deep shock.

‘Hug her,’ I said. ‘She’ll warm you up. And you, girl?’ I looked at one of the servants. ‘Get a blanket for Mrs Jack, please. And a cup of tea if there’s a kettle hot. Plenty of sugar.’

‘Very good, madam,’ said one of the girls and they scattered.

‘What happened?’ I said to Abigail once they had gone. She was hanging onto Bunty’s neck like a drowning woman and Bunty was shifting a little, paddling her front paws in mild protest at being squeezed so. I clicked my tongue to placate her.

‘If she dies, I will have-’

‘Never mind that,’ I said, thinking that never was there such a family for claiming to have killed their loved ones. ‘She slapped you, didn’t she? Because of what you told her?’

Abigail put one hand up to her cheek and stroked it.

‘And pulled my hair too,’ she said. ‘Pulled me round the room by my hair, just as she used to do last time. When she wasn’t herself, before.’

Mary groaned, a dreadful aching sound, and shifted her body, hauling her shoulder over so that she could look up at us from one half-open eye.

‘Ssh,’ I said to her. ‘Shush now, Mrs Aitken. Rest. Lie still.’ I took one of her hands and held it. I flashed a look at Abigail and mouthed shushing her too. If Mary Aitken were conscious, and it seemed she was, we must not say anything to cause her further suffering as she lay there.

‘Where’s Bella?’ I said. ‘Has someone been to her?’

‘Out,’ said Abigail. ‘She went to thank the staff for everything. The last week, you know, and the police questions. She said they should be rewarded for their conduct. A little something in their pay-packets. It’s pay-day today.’

‘And Jack?’ I said. In truth, I had no interest in his whereabouts, but talking had calmed Abigail down and so I thought I should encourage more.

‘Out too,’ said Trusslove, reappearing in the hallway. ‘He went off in one of the cars after he spoke to you. Ah, here’s some hot tea for you, Miss Abby. This’ll help you.’

As the servant girl aided Abigail up onto her feet and took her to sit on the dressing chair, sounds came to us of the front door far below, quick footsteps on the stairway and then two St Andrew’s ambulance men were in the room in their blessed smart dark uniforms, looking mercifully calm and competent as they eased me out of the way. They lifted Mary effortlessly onto a stretcher, one tucking a red blanket around her and one measuring her pulse against his fob watch, then the first deftly removing her shoes, chafing her feet and talking all the while to her in a bright, kindly voice.

‘Right then,’ said the other, putting his fob away. ‘Who laid her down then and loosened her dress?’

‘That was me,’ I said, hunching a little in case he were about to scold me.

‘Well, there’s a good sensible girl,’ he said. ‘Well done. Are you coming in the ambulance with us or following on?’ He was looking at me, but I turned to Abigail. Unbelievably she was sipping at her cup of tea, staring straight ahead.

‘Mrs Jack?’ I said. ‘Abby? Are you going with your mother or would you rather the chauffeur drove you?’

‘Both cars are out, madam,’ said Trusslove.

‘Not in the ambulance,’ said Abigail, shrinking into the back of her chair. ‘What if she dies?’

‘Alone?’ I said.

The St Andrew’s men had Mary out of the room and halfway down the first flight of stairs, not waiting on our decisions.

‘I couldn’t,’ said Abigail.

‘You go, Dan,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll bring Mrs Jack along.’

I had never been terribly keen on hospitals even before the war years when day after day I willed myself to drive over to that godforsaken officers’ convalescent home for another seven hours of severed limbs, oozing stitches and shot nerves, but I sent up prayers of thankfulness when the ambulance stilled its siren and drew up beside the large double doors of the emergency entrance at the Dunfermline Cottage Hospital, not least because the name was a misnomer if ever there were one; the hospital was as grand and imposing as every other of Dunfermline’s many public buildings and it was a great comfort to be arriving there. Running like an automaton in Mirren’s bedroom, I had without thinking done the right things and had perhaps helped a little, even if I could wish to have been less harsh to poor Abigail about the blanket and pillows, but crouched in the ambulance all competence deserted me and I turned fluttery and tearful, dreading that indeed Mary Aitken would die as we swung around the roads at top speed, for she had sunk into a deep torpor and the ambulance man who sat beside her was frowning hard and had stopped all his kindly banter.

At the hospital doors, we were met by a nurse in a blue dress with a clean white apron pinned on top and white cuffs holding her sleeves up above her elbows. She was impossibly young but looked very strong and certain, with that extra-clean look of nurses as though they washed their faces with Lysol and a stiff brush instead of soap and a flannel.

‘Stroke,’ said the man who had made the journey in the back with Mary and me.

‘Name?’ said the nurse. She was looking at Mary as we trotted along in step with the men carrying the stretcher, but I guessed that she was talking to me.

‘Mrs Aitken,’ I said.

‘From Aitkens’?’ said the nurse, peering with greater interest at Mary. Then she remembered herself. ‘Age?’ she snapped.

‘Seventy… four… ish,’ I said, hoping that I had remembered accurately.

‘First stroke?’

‘I think so.’

‘And were you with her when it happened?’

‘I wasn’t, Sister,’ I said, thinking that even if she were only a staff nurse she would not mind a sudden promotion and better that than the other way. ‘Her daughter was though. She’s following along behind. She should soon be here.’

‘Her daughter?’ The nurse stopped. ‘Who are you?’

‘A friend,’ I began, but the nurse stopped me.

‘Back to the waiting room with you,’ she said. ‘You can’t be in here out of visiting time.’ I knew there was no point in arguing; everything about her tone, her looks and her firmly folded elbows as she turned, physically barring my way, said that she would win her point. The stretcher had arrived at a curtained cubicle and the ambulance men set it down with groans of relief.

‘I shall send Mrs Aitken back here when she comes, shall I?’ I said.

‘We’ll take care of things from here,’ said the nurse, not even willing to discuss that small matter with me now. She marched smartly up to the bedside, twitched the curtains shut behind her and left me standing there.

I took a deep breath to steady myself, and felt goose pimples spring up on my arms at the smell, that unforgettable cocktail of chlorine bleach, disinfectant and strong soap which is almost as much part of a hospital as the starched white sheets and starched blue nurses.

Alec and Abigail arrived just as I had got back to the large double doors and been told by a porter in a cubby-hole there that this was the emergency entrance and I should come and go – although it was not visiting time, not nearly – by the front door like everyone else managed to do.

‘How is she?’ said Abigail. ‘Where have they taken her?’

I turned an inquiring face to the porter.

‘Admissions,’ he said, ‘but you can’t come in through here. You’ll need to go round to the front.’

‘She was asleep when they took her out of the ambulance,’ I told Abigail, ‘but they whisked her straight in, a very competent nurse-’

‘No doctor?’

‘And I’m sure a doctor will be with her now. Let’s go round and see if we can’t get you to her, Mrs Aitken, shall we?’ I threw A Look at the porter who affected not to notice and we left, working our way around the complicated set of alleys and in-shoots to the front of the building where we mounted the stairs and entered the foyer.

It was quite impossible, it seemed, to add a bedside companion to an admission which was already under way; the uniformed volunteer who manned a desk at the door, a nurse we waylaid and any number of passing porters agreed. So the three of us milled around, wishing for a seat and some tea, but when I asked the volunteer if a folding chair might be found for Abigail, I was treated to Another Look which suggested that my effort to the emergency door porter would have made no impression (not if the current effort was hospital standard) and which told me that there was no point even mentioning the tea.

‘What happened, Mrs Aitken?’ I said, as I rejoined Alec and her. She was leaning up against the wall with her eyes closed.

‘She collapsed,’ said Abigail, without opening her eyes. ‘We were quarrelling.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She struck you.’

Abigail opened her mouth wide as though to test the feeling in her cheek, and nodded.

‘You had told her?’ I asked. ‘The thing you said you had decided to tell her?’

As I watched, the lines of Abigail’s lashes started to glitter and a second later two tears had formed, detached and rolled down her cheeks. She felt up her sleeve for her handkerchief and then, remembering that she had given it away, she lifted a hand and roughly wiped the tears away with her fingers.

‘I thought it would help,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand why it upset her so.’

‘If you would tell us what it was, Mrs Aitken,’ said Alec in his lowest, most gentle voice; trying, I think, to sound like a lullaby. I nodded at him, encouraging the effort, for I was beginning to wonder why Mary would strike Abigail over such a thing.

‘Was it just the fact that you’d kept it quiet?’ I asked. ‘Or was it the secret itself that was so upsetting?’

Abigail shook her head so forcefully that the newest tears flew off to either side.

‘She wasn’t herself,’ she whispered. ‘Just like the last time. She wasn’t well. I should have known she couldn’t be expected to bear confidences.’

Alec and I were gazing helplessly at one another when the front door banged open and Bella Aitken came in at speed, one of the Aitken chauffeurs in his mauve and gold livery trotting behind her. She had made some effort with her appearance today, to visit the Emporium and hand out the staff’s favours, but she was still very dishevelled, coat buttoned crookedly and only one glove on, and her face was every bit as stricken as it had been during our interview in Trusslove’s pantry the day before. She saw us and bustled over, putting out her hands to clasp Abigail to her.

‘Is she dead?’ she said. ‘Please tell me she hasn’t died. Abigail? Trusslove rang me up at the store. They said she had been taken away in an ambulance. She isn’t dead, is she?’

‘She had a stroke, Mrs Aitken,’ I said. ‘She was alive but unconscious when I last saw her.’

‘You said asleep,’ said Abigail, struggling out of her mother-in-law’s embrace and turning fearful eyes to me.

‘Her breathing was very steady,’ I said. ‘And she’s in the best place, in very safe hands.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bella Aitken, looking around, ‘None of us has ever been in this place before. Did someone ring up Dr Hill? Wasn’t he there?’

‘We thought it best to summon an ambulance,’ Alec said. ‘Get her here as soon as possible, you know.’

‘A stroke,’ said Bella Aitken, letting go of Abigail and rubbing her hands over her own face. ‘A stroke? Mary? She has always had the best of health. Healthier than me – physically anyway.’

‘She does live a little on her nerves, Aunt Bella,’ Abigail said. ‘It wouldn’t be wrong to say she was “highly strung”.’

‘No, I won’t hear that of her,’ said Bella. ‘I’ve known your mother forty-nine years, Abigail, and she is as strong as an ox. Always has been. It’s Mirren dying that’s done this to her. It’s Mirren that’s brought Mary this low.’ There was a curious, triumphant note in her voice. ‘Losing that girl of ours has broken us all to bits. I’ll tell anyone the same and there’s no shame in it, if you ask me.’

‘Aunt Bella, please,’ said Abigail. ‘Please don’t blame Mirren. Mother and I were quarrelling. She was very upset and I did nothing to help calm her. If anything I made it worse. Don’t heap this on my poor child.’

So intent were they on jockeying for blame – and it struck me, and Alec too to judge from his expression, as a most peculiar way to be carrying on – that they did not notice the approach of a white-coated doctor who strode up to our little group with his stethoscope still attached to one ear and his spectacles pulled far down on his long nose so that he could look at us over the top of them.

‘Are you with Mrs Aitken?’ he said. Bella turned. ‘Ah, Mrs John!’

‘Dr Spencer!’ she said. ‘How is she? Please don’t tell me she’s gone.’

‘She’s resting,’ said Dr Spencer, with a slight frown (at the histrionics, I assumed; I suppose it is not the done thing to mention death so gratuitously to a doctor, who spends his days pitted against it). ‘We’ll ring Dr Hill to come in and see her now, but you did the right thing sending her to us without delay.’

‘Can I see her?’ said Abigail.

‘Certainly, Mrs Jack,’ said Dr Spencer. ‘If you would care to sit with her and hold her hand and talk gently.’

‘I need to apologise for something,’ said Abigail and the tears were beginning to flow again. ‘I must speak to her. In case it’s my only chance, you see.’

Dr Spencer frowned again. ‘She’s not to be upset though,’ he said. ‘And perhaps – after your recent… perhaps it would be better if Mrs John here were to step in. She will forgive me for saying it but she has lived longer than you and learned how to weather life’s storms.’ He gave Bella a tight smile.

‘It’s my mother,’ said Abigail. ‘I must go to her.’

‘A brief visit,’ said the doctor. ‘A quiet word.’ With some reluctance he tucked her arm under his and led her away.

‘Weather life’s storms!’ said Bella Aitken when they had gone. ‘I’m not so sure about that. It was ten years ago when my boys died. Three months apart, separate campaigns, separate battles, but three months apart. I couldn’t have faced a deathbed the next week, my own mother or no. Sickbed, I mean. Oh Lord, sickbed, let’s pray.’ Then with that utter lack of self-consciousness that had been behind the carpet slippers, the pinned curls and the mismatched stockings, she slid her back down the wall until she was resting on her haunches.

At least this indecorous display had the result that the volunteer summoned a porter who brought a chair and Bella sat down, unclasped the large black handbag which swung from one elbow and drew out a commodious flask, battered silver in a leather case. The porter looked back and scowled at the sound of the stopper popping out but did not come back to remonstrate with her. Bella took a long swig, wiped her lips and offered the flask to me.

I took it. It was whisky, but still I took it, helped myself to a good mouthful, and handed it to Alec. He took a goodly glug too and returned it to its owner. One final swig and Bella stowed the thing back in her bag again.

Then we all three turned at the sound of heels clopping briskly along one of the corridors which led off this foyer. A little nurse, even younger than the first and with her sleeves buttoned to the wrist – perhaps for this trip to front of house – came up and spoke diffidently.

‘Doctor sent me,’ she said. ‘Mrs Aitken is very distressed, trying to ask for someone, and Mrs Aitken wants Mrs Aitken,’ she stumbled a little now, ‘to come and calm her.’

‘Poor Mary,’ said Bella. She rose and followed the nurse.

‘Sit down, Dandy,’ said Alec and I was thankful to take the empty chair.

‘Poor Mary indeed,’ I said.

‘And what measure of guilt do you think you and I must bear for this?’

‘Oh, don’t you start!’ I said. ‘I won’t have this hysterical clamouring for responsibility.’

‘But we encouraged Abigail to tell Mirren’s secret to Mary. And we hinted to Mary that there was a secret to tell and sent her haring off to hear it.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Alec, you know I thought I was very clever and I worked out what the secret was?’ Alec nodded. ‘Well, can you believe that kind of news would have caused a collapse like Mary’s? And can you understand why the news would have caused her to strike Abigail? Strike her hard too. Her cheek is still flaming.’

‘It does seem a little odd,’ Alec said.

‘But we can hardly ask Abigail now, can we? I hope Mary can talk once she’s feeling better. We might have more luck with her.’

‘This case is changing you,’ Alec said, staring at me. ‘I thought as much this morning when you were talking to Jack. You sound as tough as buffalo hide.’

‘I don’t like all these secrets,’ I said. ‘Everyone playing games with everyone else, no one telling the whole plain truth. I have no patience with it. Do you realise, Alec, that silly little Lady Lawson is the only individual we have met in this case who wasn’t trying to hide something from us? And that was only after she was trying to hide and gave up because she was failing. If you ask me, despite all the talk of “our poor Mirren” and “our darling girl” half the time they’ve all forgotten what started the trouble. I should like to go around with a great big photograph of her pretty face and shove it at them when they start their games again.’

Alec had let me get all of this off my chest, bless him (perhaps he even delivered the opening insult to get me started), but now, hearing footsteps again, he shushed me, pressing downwards with a flattened hand. It was the little nurse again.

‘News?’ he asked her.

‘She’s trying to make herself understood,’ the nurse answered. ‘She’s not talking and she’s a bit woozy from some medicine she’s had, but she kept doing this.’ The nurse put her hand out as if to measure a short distance from the floor. ‘We thought she wanted to see a child – thought her mind had gone, because of course we know about poor Miss Aitken dying like that last week – and Mrs Aitken was saying who do you mean, Mother, and Sister said she might mean you, dear, if she’s wandered, she might be asking for her own little girl and not know you all grown up as you are. And that started young Mrs Aitken crying like anything and then the patient shook her head and went like this.’ The nurse put her hand down again but this time she moved it with a stroking motion. ‘And the other Mrs Aitken was saying, a dog, Mary? A cat? What do you mean? And the patient got all excited and nodding her head and then young Mrs Aitken said maybe she means Mrs Gilver – because of the dog – and the patient said yes, yes – nodding – and so Doctor has sent me to fetch you.’

‘Well, for heaven’s sake, after all that, let’s hurry,’ I said and set off.

The nurse sped up, overtook me and led us through a bewildering maze of corridors at top speed.

‘Where is Bunty, by the way?’ I asked Alec, as we followed her.

‘No idea,’ Alec said. ‘I left her in that bedroom. I expect the servants will take care of her.’

At last we stopped at one of the sets of enormous wood and glass doors which we had been rushing past and the nurse opened one side and ushered us through. ‘Quietly now,’ she said. ‘Last cubicle on the end there. On the left. Doctor’s in there.’

We moved as silently as we could along the broad corridor, past drawn curtains on either side. In here the bleach, disinfectant and soap were joined by the other hospital smell, the worst of all, illness and exhaustion and the unmistakable trace of death, nearby and waiting. At the end, I cleared my throat and drew the curtain open a little way.

Mary was lying propped up on a high, narrow bed looking almost as white as the snowy pillowcase behind her head. Her hair was undone into a plait and it lay along one shoulder. Her face, which had looked melted in Mirren’s bedroom, had set in some intangible kind of way, but it had set with that downwards drag to it and even now Abigail dabbed at her mouth with a swab of cotton. Bella, still swallowing, was just clasping her bag shut again. Dr Spencer stood at the end of the bed, writing on a piece of paper clipped to a stiff board. He turned, unsmiling, towards us.

‘She wanted to see you,’ he said. ‘Very agitated, but once she knew you were coming, she slipped off to sleep and I don’t want you to waken her.’

‘That’s fine,’ I said, and turned to Bella. ‘Why don’t you take Abigail home? Take her home to Jack, and Mr Osborne and I will sit with Mary.’

Alec raised his eyebrows but did not demur, and he and I settled ourselves into the Aitken women’s vacated chairs.

‘You could have a long wait on your hands,’ said the doctor over his spectacle tops. ‘Well, mind and call a nurse in when she does waken.’ He gave us an appraising look, appeared to decide that we would do as interim hand-holders and strode off in his rather grand and busy way.

‘I wish Bella had left her flask,’ I said after a while.

Alec gave a short laugh. ‘I could get you one of your own for your birthday,’ he said.

‘Heavens, no!’ I said. ‘There’s hearty, if you like. Still, good to see Bella more like herself.’ I glanced at Mary. ‘The Aitken family is going to need at least one stout pillar.’

Alec too looked at Mary and gently shushed me.

‘Do you think she can hear us?’ I said. We both watched her for a while in silence and I noted with a pang the sharp protrusion of her breastbone under the thin cotton gown, with what a jerk it seemed to rise as though each breath was being fought for. I had seen my mother breathe in just that way over the last night while we all sat around her, her breaths slowing and slowing, growing so far apart and so ragged that we took to holding ours until another of hers was got in and let out again, until the last breath that was not let out at all. We waited on and on and then eventually we still living had to exhale, and inhale again and carry on. I had still not heard that last breath leave my mother’s body by the time we all kissed her head and left her there and as I wandered numbly through the house to find my sister and tell her the news – for, of course, Mavis had not been up to sitting quietly by a deathbed but had stumbled off to weep noisily on her own somewhere – I was still listening.

‘I keep thinking about my parents,’ I said to Alec. ‘And Edward and Mavis. I don’t know why.’

Alec opened his eyes very wide. ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I even dreamt about my brother last night. I haven’t dreamt about him for years.’ He paused. ‘At least this was one of the dreams where he’s still alive in it.’

‘As opposed to what?’ I said.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Alec. ‘I expect it’s just the thought of Jack’s brothers bringing back thoughts of mine.’

‘I don’t know what it is with me,’ I answered. ‘Nothing about the Aitkens chimes with my early years.’

‘It’s probably just that they’re such a tight little band. Family business, marrying their own relations, all still living together. Do they even have friends?’

‘Lady Lawson and the Provost?’ I said, laughing a little. ‘And remember the days of gay abandon when Mary was away? Tennis parties and all sorts of debauchery until she came back and put her foot down.’

‘It makes me think of Whatsisname in the book coming home from the Indies and stopping the theatricals,’ Alec said. I thought for a moment.

‘Sir Thomas Bertram?’ I said. ‘Mansfield Park?’

‘That’s the one,’ said Alec. ‘My mother read it to me when I had measles and had to keep my eyes covered with a black scarf from the headaches.’

‘Poor you!’ I said. ‘Not Robinson Crusoe? Not Gulliver’s Travels?’

‘It was Mother’s only offer,’ Alec said, ‘and better than nothing.’

We had almost forgotten the figure on the bed between us; certainly, when she moved her head and made a little groan, we both started violently. I sat forward. Her eyes were shifting under her eyelids and she moved her head again, squeezed her eyes more tightly shut and then opened them. She blinked, staring straight ahead, and then her body jerked and she looked wildly from one side to the other until she saw me. The hand lying on top of the covers at the side nearest me did not move, could not move I imagine, but Mary twisted herself on the bed, paddling with her legs, then reached over and gripped me hard with her other hand, looking searchingly into my eyes.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ I said. ‘Mrs Aitken, dear, please lie back and try to be calm. I’m here to help you but please lie back on your pillows again.’

The effort had exhausted her and she did as she was bidden. I stood and straightened the pillow behind her, lifting her long grey pigtail out of the way again.

‘Shall I go for the nurse?’ Alec asked me.

Mary made a low moaning sound and shook her head. With her good hand, she touched her mouth and felt her face, then she lifted her other lifeless hand by the wrist and stared at it as she let it drop back down onto the sheet again. She made the moaning sound again and a tear rolled out of her eye. I dabbed it with a piece of cotton from the little enamel tray on the bedside table and then dabbed at her mouth. She gave me a look so piercingly piteous that I felt my eyes start to fill too.

‘Wait a bit, Alec,’ I said, and Mary nodded.

She opened her mouth and made a series of inarticulate sounds and then shook her head again.

‘Is it about Abigail?’ I asked. She nodded and pointed with hard jabbing motions towards the opening in the curtains.

‘You want us to go and get Abigail?’ Alec said. Mary shook her head furiously and made a kind of fierce growling sound.

‘Please!’ I said, taking hold of her arm and bringing it back down to rest at her side. ‘Gently does it, Mrs Aitken. Mr Osborne and I have all the time in the world for you. There’s no need to be anxious about anything at all. Now. Abigail? Yes. Mirren?’ A nod, but thankfully a milder one. ‘She told you something about Mirren, didn’t she?’ Another nod, but her mouth opened in a soundless sob. ‘Did she tell you why Mirren killed herself?’ Nod. ‘Do you want us to know?’ A furious shake, but she caught it and turned it gentle before we could remonstrate with her again. ‘Do you want us to do something?’ Yes, yes, yes. Three definite nods and a searching look into my eyes. She pointed again at the curtains.

‘Nurse?’ Alec said. Mary and I ignored him.

‘Go somewhere?’ I asked. ‘Right. The attics? No, all right. Don’t worry. Just let me guess again. Is it to find something? To speak to someone? Ah! Right, then. You want us to speak to someone.’ Mary held out her good hand for mine and when I gave it to her, she turned it up and traced a pattern on my palm. It was very ticklish but I managed not to squirm and when she did it for the second time, I recognised the three strokes as a letter H. ‘Hepburn?’ I said. ‘Which one?’ Mary shook her head and shrugged. ‘All of them then,’ I said, nodding along with her. ‘But what about, Mrs Aitken?’ Mary took a long time thinking before she responded and when she did, it was to make the shape one makes for shadow-puppet geese, fingers and thumb opening and snapping together again.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know. I’m to talk to them.’

Mary shook her head and frowned, putting her finger to her temple and tapping, shrugging the shoulder on that side.

‘Ah!’ I said. ‘What do they know?’

Yes, yes, yes, from Mary.

Then she hauled herself up as much as she could in the bed, digging her one good hand down under her and pushing away from the heap of pillows. When she was upright, she pinched her fingers together as though to sprinkle salt, put them to one side of her mouth and drew them across hard, dragging at her lips and glaring at me, willing the message into me with every ounce of energy remaining.

‘Understood,’ I said. ‘Rest now.’

But Mary was not quite done. She prodded herself in her chest and then drew her pinched fingers across her mouth again.

‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘I’ll make sure they know.’

As she dropped back, utterly spent, the curtain suddenly rattled open on its rings and a dapper little man entered the cubicle.

‘Mrs Aitken,’ he said. ‘What’s to do with you, my dear?’

This evidently was Dr Hill, the family physician, summoned to the bedside and responding in very smart time. Mary only flapped a tired hand at him and turned her head away.

‘Come now, Mrs Aitken,’ he said, bustling up to her bedside and taking hold of her good hand. ‘I’ll have none of that from you.’ He looked quickly between Alec and me and we made our goodbyes – a swift salute on the forehead from me and a wave from him – and hurried away.

‘Well, I’m glad all that meant something to you, Dan,’ Alec said.

‘Not all of it,’ I answered. ‘The thing Abby told her can’t have been what we thought. How could the Hepburns know about it?’

‘But you understand what she wants you to do?’

‘Yes. She’s willing to strike a bargain with the Hepburns. Whatever they know, whatever they did, Mary is asking for silence from them, offering silence from the Aitkens and ready at that to call it quits.’

‘More or less what the inspector insinuated to you then,’ Alec said. He was looking very troubled.

‘Yes, two dead children and best for everyone to leave it there.’

‘Can I make one request?’ Alec said. ‘Let’s not start tonight. I don’t think I’ve got the energy for any more dramatic scenes today. Let’s march in and demand the Hepburns’ silence tomorrow.’

‘Agreed,’ I said.

‘As to how we can command them to keep quiet, when we don’t know what the secret is…’

‘I have no earthly idea,’ I said. ‘But at least we go invested with some moral authority.’

‘We do?’

‘Yes, darling. We go to carry out the wishes of a – possibly – dying woman. That’s a lot better than: “Answer our questions or we’re telling on you”.’