Unsuitable Day for a Murder

12

‘I think we’re out of luck,’ said Alec. Our sprinted exit from the Abbey Park kitchen the previous day had of course led to the scuffing of feet and clearing of throats, because Sunday is not a day for shopping and we could hardly beard her at home, where the fierce inspector would be ensconced in his carpet slippers, so here we were at ten o’clock on the following morning, Alec cupping his hands around his eyes and peering in through the window of Margaret-Ann for Hats, his breath fogging a growing ring on the glass, and both of us losing heart since the blind was drawn down on the door and the shop was in darkness. I squinted at a card propped up on a miniature gilt easel which set out the opening hours in copperplate script so decorative as to be almost illegible.

‘We are,’ I said. ‘She’s not open on a Monday. Not open until tomorrow afternoon.’ I put my hands on my hips and puffed out a sigh of annoyance. Just then the bell of the newsagent’s shop next door pealed as a man in a brown apron stuck his head out.

‘If ye’re after Maggie Smellie,’ he said, effortlessly sweeping away all the sophistication of the copperplate script, the smart bottle-green and tawny paintwork and the artful swathes of chiffon hiding the interior from view, ‘she does her stint at Hepburn’s on a Monday. Ye’ll catch her there.’

I was glad in a way, although a quiet word would have been easier managed in a quiet shop than in the bustle of a department store, but it was Monday morning after all and Monday-morning bustle tends more towards the butcher and greengrocer surely than towards purveyors of elegant hats. The truth was that I had been longing for an excuse to enter the House of Hepburn and see for myself the results of Old Bob’s great spiteful retort to Mary Aitken, see for myself what Fiona and Hilda Haddo, who had filled their home with spindly gilded furniture and had tassel combs for their cushions, might have made of three floors of glass cases and mannequins, see for myself what other wonders there might be in a place where one could perhaps find mauve mousquetaires.

I was not disappointed: where Aitkens’ was all dark oak and flannel sheets, Hepburns’ was like an enormous boudoir, like the inside of a jewellery box, and it made me half-want to twirl with delight like the clockwork ballerina. The floors were pale – they must take a lot of washing, I thought, before I caught myself and banished such dreary practicality – and as for the counters, there were not many to be had. The perfumery, where we found ourselves upon entering, was set up instead with numerous little tables dotted around, white or dove-grey wrought-iron affairs such as one would find on a hotel balcony on the Mediterranean, and there were bottles of scent and tins of powder arranged on these tables and the assistants, dressed in pale lilac and more of the dove grey, simply drifted around amongst the customers, like hostesses at a cocktail party.

I scanned the far edges of the room and saw fountains of silk scarves and the glitter of costume jewels but not a single hat stand anywhere, so I beckoned to a nearby drifting sales assistant and asked her for directions.

‘I’m not sure whether it’s ready-to-wear or bespoke millinery we’re after,’ I began.

‘We don’t make a difference, madam,’ said the girl. ‘Millinery is on the first floor because we here at House of Hepburn value every lady just the same and we give our every lady the same devoted attention whether she is shopping for a bridal gown or a handkerchief-case. It’s the House of Hepburn way, madam.’

And designed, I thought, to lure every woman of taste and fashion away from Aitkens’ for ever.

‘Right, well then,’ said Alec. ‘I’m certainly not going to penetrate the upper regions with you, Dandy. I’ll go and skulk about in the Gents’ Department and meet you afterwards.’

‘Oh no, sir, sorry, sir,’ said the assistant, who seemed well schooled, not to say indoctrinated. ‘We don’t have a Gents’ Department, I’m afraid. We have Toys and Gifts in the basement if you have any, um…’ – she gave him a swift once-over – ‘nephews or godchildren with birthdays coming.’

‘I’m allowed to wait in the cellars?’ said Alec. ‘Very well.’ His mouth was rather tight as he smiled. I have often noticed how gentlemen who sense no danger of their own sex being overindulged by the existence of the many exclusive spike bars, pavilions and clubhouses in the sporting world, supper and pudding clubs at our universities and billiards rooms, libraries, gun rooms, estate offices and smoking rooms in our very houses, for goodness’ sake, can suddenly get that lemon-sucking look if they ever encounter a ladies’ carriage on a train or, as here, a few square yards of scarves and bracelets undiluted by cufflinks for a change.

‘Or there’s the café, on second,’ the girl said. ‘Gentlemen are perfectly welcome to wait there.’ She gave a smile, blithely ignorant of the offence she had caused him, and turned, with a swish of her bias-cut lilac panels, and drifted away again.

‘Coffee it is then,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll see you up there when you’re done.’

I tore myself away from the perfumery and scarves and padded up the broad staircase (it was carpeted – carpeted!) to the first floor. Here, although there was no scent for sale, the enveloping fragrance went on and I saw one of the assistants puffing clouds of it out of a scent spray into the air. She was dressed in a very pale eau-de-nil as all the girls were, no more dove grey and lilac, and I was enchanted to see that the tape measures some of them wore around their necks were that colour too. How was that possible? Had they dyed them? Even the pins, the very pins, had bobbles on the ends like little pale green pearls. Altogether, I thought that if the gowns were anything like as soigné as the fittings I should really send Grant down here for a treat one day.

I squinted around again looking for hat stands. There was one curtained archway clearly leading into a bridal gown salon, for boughs of orange blossom were hung around the entrance, with a great cluster of gilded horseshoes and slippers as a centrepiece. Another arch promised a lingerie salon, and in the most provocative way: by means of a mannequin halfway through the entrance dressed in a satin nightgown and trailing a matching satin and lace wrap – I supposed one might call it a negligee if one could bring oneself to – along the floor behind her. I turned around to look in the other direction, towards the front of the store, and gave a happy sigh.

The gowns – there were no frocks here – were simply blissful. I supposed Hepburns’ had to sell some coat and skirt suits, some jerseys and warm coats, might even be able to provide one with fair isle and corduroy for bicycling, but on the shop floor, draped over the impossible mannequins – all six feet tall and with figures like pythons – the gowns were silk, lace, a little silk velvet here and there but only with lots of satin ribbon and only in sugared-almond colours, a great deal of chiffon, and some very daring cloth of gold, almost backless and, when one imagined it on a woman not six feet tall, pretty nearly frontless too.

‘We have it in tinsel as well as the pongee, madam,’ said a voice beside me as I stood staring.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Tinsel, madam. Cloth-of-silver. With madam’s olive complexion, a tinsel would be much more dashing.’

No one had ever called my complexion olive before, It had been dubbed sallow by my mother and been sallow ever since except that an artist friend had once referred – not kindly, in my opinion – to its green tones, and Grant has a quelling habit of holding up prospective frocks under my chin and then whisking them away again saying: ‘Beige’.

‘Dashing,’ I echoed, wondering if I had ever attempted to look dashing in my life.

‘Does madam have any emeralds?’ said the girl. I nodded ‘And emerald eye-paint?’ I shook my head, trying not to look too startled. ‘We carry it downstairs in the perfumery,’ she went on. ‘So long as madam isn’t against the notion of a good dark lipstick, tinsel, emeralds and matching eye-paint with a peacock-feather headdress would be most becoming.’

I could feel myself physically swaying towards the mannequin, entranced by the mental vision of this silver and peacock-green creature, this dashing stranger I could apparently so easily become, and then I shook myself and asked the girl to direct me to Millinery.

‘Just past tea-gowns on the left, madam,’ she said. ‘Then round the corner opposite our new cocktail range. You can’t miss it.’ Tea, cocktails and evening gowns: did none of Hepburns’ customers ever get up in the morning? Did they have breakfast and luncheon in bed in one of those satin negligees and only descend at half past three in florals?

‘And I’ll look out a model in silver for madam meantime,’ the girl said. ‘If we have one in a small enough size.’ I wish I could report that I rolled my eyes and tutted at the ‘small enough size’ for it was a ploy of no great subtlety and I was old enough not to be reeled in that way, but I must admit I felt a burst of pleasure and bestowed a flattered smile.

‘So… these are ready-to-wear?’ I said. Taking one home in a box tonight might prove irresistible.

‘No, madam,’ said the girl. ‘Not this particular style, but House of Hepburn likes to keep some trying-on models if we can. It’s more fun trying-on than just looking.’

I nodded as I walked away; this whole place was like a glorified playroom, I thought, dressing-up box and Wendy house combined; no wonder poor Aitkens’ had to do what it could with sensible tweeds. For a moment I pitied Mirren as a child, playing at shops in the Emporium instead of here, and then, remembering why I had come, I hurried my pace, ignoring the floral tea-gowns and the fringed and sequined cocktail range, and rounding the corner with earnest purpose back at the helm.

The Millinery Department took the whole escapade one stage further into the realms of fantasy: it was pink. The floor was carpeted in pink, the little chairs in front of the looking-glasses were cushioned in pink and unless I was greatly mistaken the bulbs around these looking-glasses cast a decidedly pinkish light too. I was reminded of a Fragonard – or do I mean a Boucher? – well, of tumbling cherubs on blush-coloured clouds, and I slightly began to lose patience with the Hepburn way. What woman wouldn’t look better by the light of pink electric bulbs? And what woman would not regret the hat she had bought by the light of these bulbs when she got it home and saw it in her own bedroom? Except that probably they sell the pink light bulbs somewhere too, I thought, beside the green eye-paint probably.

From a back room a tall and willowy woman in her middle years emerged, carrying a lavender and grey straw hat, ribbons trailing.

‘I do apologise, madam,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear you arriving. How can I help?’ She set the lavender and grey hat down upon the nearest pink velvet hat stand and smiled at me. She was the right sort of age and despite the searing refinement of her vowels I thought she was probably the right level of social standing to be a policeman’s wife but I could not imagine this wand-like creature with her silver shingle and her long tapering fingers going home and mashing turnips for the inspector’s tea. She gestured me to sit down on one of the little pink chairs set before a glass, with hand mirrors and hairbrushes laid out. It made me think of mermaids.

‘Mrs…’ I stopped myself. Hepburns’ pink powder-puff of a Millinery Department should not be tarnished by the uttering of such a name. The shock might blow a bulb. ‘Are you the milliner?’ I substituted. ‘Margaret-Ann for Hats?’

‘I am, madam,’ she said, bridling a little with pleasure to think that her fame had gone before her. ‘How can I help you?’

‘Mrs Hepburn recommended that I come to you,’ I said. ‘Mrs Hepburn Senior. Dulcie.’ The woman’s eyes clouded and she caught her lip in her teeth, nodding. ‘And so I’m glad I’ve caught you today,’ I said. ‘Here, I mean. At House of Hepburn. You are the milliner at Aitkens’ too, I believe?’

‘There’s a place in this world for spinach as well as ice-cream,’ she said, with an unexpectedly wicked grin. ‘There comes a time when we all have to get our hats from Aitkens’, madam, when our Hepburn days are gone. But you’re a long way from there yet. What can I show you this morning?’

‘Well, mourning,’ I said, spreading my hands. ‘Do you carry mourning hats?’

‘I do,’ said the milliner. ‘Lord knows, Aitkens’ does and I’m trying to see what I can put together for House of Hepburn this very morning.’ She gestured to the lavender and grey. ‘This had red ribbons and silk poppies on it half an hour ago. But if it’s black you’re looking for, madam, you’d better go up the road. Is it a close bereavement?’

‘Dugald,’ I said. ‘Something for his funeral.’

Mrs Smellie’s eyes dimmed and she shook her head.

‘You’ll be fine in the lilac then,’ she said. ‘Mrs Haddo and young Mrs Hepburn themselves won’t be in black. Pearl grey for the one and burgundy with ivory touches for the other.’

‘And Dulcie?’

‘Black, I’m sure, madam, but she’s used to their ways. This place is all Mrs Haddo and her daughter, you know.’ She looked around and sniffed. ‘It’ll give young Mrs Hepburn an interest. Help her get back on her feet, come the time, I daresay.’

‘Very sad,’ I said, agreeing. I could not quite see how I was going to propel this interview forward in a useful way. I took another nibble at the edge of it. ‘Very sad for you to be busy with pearl grey and burgundy when you were expecting a wedding.’

‘I wasn-’ She bit her lip again. ‘Indeed, madam.’

‘You weren’t?’ I said, correctly interpreting what she had just managed not to utter. To my surprise, the woman sank down onto another of the pink chairs and put her hand, which was shaking, to her temple, rubbing the skin there in circles. I could not possibly just dive in, I told myself. This woman was the horrid inspector’s wife. If she told him I had been here pestering her he would be after Hugh with leg irons before sundown. On the other hand, she knew something, was bursting with it while it gnawed away at her like a migraine.

‘My dear,’ I said to her, ‘tell me what’s wrong. Dulcie has, you know. Dulcie has told me everything.’ She looked up, ragged and weary.

‘She can’t have,’ she said. ‘Dulcie doesn’t know. Oh, she knows about Bob and Mary all right. She knew they were sweethearts years ago and she knows about when they took up again for that wee while. She told me that much and I’m guessing that’s what she told you too.’ Then she started rubbing her temples again, not looking at me as she went on. ‘Yes, Dulcie knew that Mary and Robert’s wee fling resulted in Abigail. That’s why she thinks Mirren and Dugald were cousins.’

‘Thinks?’ I said. ‘So you know different. You know about Jack and Hilda.’

Her hand froze and she looked up at me. ‘Jack?’

‘Aitken,’ I said. ‘I know too.’

‘What about Jack Aitken?’

‘He fathered Dugald,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that what you know? That Dugald and Mirren were siblings?’

Mrs Smellie was staring hard at me now, her face growing pale.

‘Dugald’s father was Jack Aitken?’ she said. ‘So they weren’t brother and sister after all?’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘They were. They were both Jack Aitken’s children.’ I frowned at her. ‘If you didn’t know about Jack and Hilda then why weren’t you looking forward to the wedding?’

‘I thought Dugald was Robin’s child,’ she said. ‘And so there would never have been a wedding. I would have had to stop it. Or I’d have got my husband to stop it anyway. Quietly, I mean. Not standing up in the kirk and objecting. My husband is a policeman, you see.’

‘How could it have been a police matter?’ I said. She only shook her head as if she could not begin to explain what kind of matter it might be. ‘I heard,’ I said, very carefully, ‘that the police knew something. Something that made them suspect the children were murdered. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it might be.’

‘It’s not “the police”,’ said Mrs Smellie. ‘It’s just my husband. I told him what I worked out, you see.’

‘Worked out,’ I repeated. My thoughts went skittering over all the ground I had trod in the last two weeks. What could she have worked out that I had missed?

‘I’ve got to tell someone,’ she said. ‘If you promise not to breathe a word to another soul. My husband won’t let me talk about it. He’s forbidden it even between the two of us. But if I don’t say something I’ll burst. My head is pounding with it. Can I trust you?’ I nodded, not daring to breathe.

‘I’m a good milliner,’ she said. I blinked. ‘I don’t just make hats and decorate them. I study my ladies, madam. I get to know their heads, their faces, the turn of their neck, the line of their jaw, the way their hair grows up from the nape or over the ears, how high the forehead, how much space they need in the crown for a heavy head of long hair, whether a close brim will lift their cheekbones or press them down into jowls, what way to curl a brim to follow the line of their brow instead of clashing with it.’ She was tracing imaginary shapes in the air as she spoke and I was mesmerised by her long white fingers fluttering. Then she stopped and let her hands fall into her lap. She looked at me. ‘Can you guess?’ I shook my head ‘I started my apprenticeship at fourteen and I’m forty-seven now. I’ve made bridal-party hats for great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, aunts, bride, bridesmaids and little flower girls, but I’ve never seen as close a match – the head, jaw, setting of the ears, hairline at the brow and the nape, the tilt of the neck, everything… as Dulcie and Mirren. Never.’

I stared at her for a moment in silence. And then I remembered something.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yesterday. Dulcie came out of the shadows and I thought for a minute I’d seen a ghost. Soft hair and that little face like a bird.’

‘All of that too,’ said Mrs Smellie. ‘I wondered why no one else ever saw it, but then no one ever saw them together, not with the feud.’

‘So…’ I said. ‘Well, it had to happen at least once, that someone took strongly after their real forebears instead of conveniently after their official family members.’

‘You’re not thinking straight, madam,’ said Mrs Smellie. ‘To speak in that easy way.’

I frowned. ‘You mean that because Mirren took after her grandmother everyone would guess about Mary and Bob?’ I was being particularly dense, failing to see what she had just shown me.

‘Think, madam,’ she said. ‘Think it through. How could Mirren Aitken look like Dulcie Hepburn? There’s only one way.’

All of a sudden I saw it.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Robin was her father.’ Mrs Smellie nodded. ‘But that means…’ I said. ‘That means Dugald and Mirren were no relation to one another at all! Dugald was the child of Jack and Hilda and Mirren was the child of Abby and Robin.’ A vague feeling of unease brushed past me as I said this, but I ignored it. ‘They could have married after all. They weren’t related and Mirren wasn’t even the child of two cousins!’

‘No, she wasn’t,’ said Margaret-Ann. ‘There’s no word for what Mirren was. And she was no relation to Dugald, it’s true. But would he have wanted to marry her if he’d known? Would anyone? Think about it, madam. You haven’t seen the whole picture yet even though it’s right there in front of you.’

I frowned at her and then it fell into my mind like a great cold boulder. All the strings uncoiled and straightened in my mind and on their ends bloomed the most disgusting little flourishes, like toadstools.

‘The thing they were all so scared would happen if Dugald married Mirren,’ I said. ‘What Jack and Hilda thought it would be. Brother and… What Abby and Robin thought it would be. Brother and sister. It had happened already. That’s how Mirren came to be.’

Margaret-Ann nodded again and at last a little of the dazed, pained look cleared from her eyes. I imagine that it set up home instead in mine. I put my hand over my mouth. ‘And that’s why your husband thought someone might kill her?’

‘Put her away like a pup that’s come out wrong,’ said Mrs Smellie and her turn of phrase made my stomach lurch.

‘And then even if Dugald was killed for revenge, both families might just keep quiet for ever?’ Mrs Smellie was still nodding

‘So the thing that Abigail told her mother was that she had an affair with Robin,’ I said. ‘And it almost killed Mary.’

‘Well, it would,’ said Mrs Smellie. ‘But tell me this, madam: do you think Miss Abigail knows who her father is?’

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Definitely not. She thought she was helping Mary when she told her about Robin yesterday.’

‘What a mess,’ said Margaret-Ann, almost groaning.

‘I hope getting it off your chest will bring you some comfort,’ I said. I noticed that despite the pink light bulb my face in the glass, and hers too, was rather grey. ‘And you know the inspector was right in a way. It is perhaps best that Mirren at least is beyond the suffering that the knowledge must have brought to her. Oh, the poor child! I could never imagine what would make someone turn to suicide but I can see how she might not be able to bear herself once she knew.’

‘The inspector?’ said Mrs Smellie. I blinked at her. ‘I never mentioned my husband’s rank, madam.’

‘I think you did, you know,’ I replied.

‘I know I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I never do. Because my sister is married to an inspector. She always gets it in somewhere and it always grates on me.’

‘Well then, I can’t account for it,’ I said. I stood and pushed the little pink chair tidily in under the looking-glass table. ‘A lucky guess? Or maybe Dulcie said so. Yes, that’s it. Dulcie told me.’ A faint ghost of that mischievous grin was back on Mrs Smellie’s face although her complexion was still waxy.

‘Mrs Gilver?’ she said. I froze. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘I was so angry with George when he told me what he had done to you. I didn’t scold him because he had a steak clapped to his face and he couldn’t answer me back, but for two pins I’d have socked him one on the other side and balanced it out for him.’ I let my breath go in a huge rush.

‘You were angry with your husband?’ I said. ‘Not mine? Not me?’

‘Certainly not you, Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘My gracious heavens, if we all had to take the blame for what our husbands do! And as for Mr Gilver – he was sticking up for you; he sounds a fine man if you don’t mind me saying. Besides,’ she dropped her voice, ‘policemen can get too used to tramping about in their size elevens telling everybody else what’s what and how come. Don’t you think so?’

‘I wouldn’t like to say, Mrs Smellie,’ I said.

‘Smiley,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘He’s the stubborn one, madam, not me.’

Alec was tucked up in a club armchair in what I perceived to be the gentlemen’s corner of Hepburns’ tearoom. Most of its area was covered with more of the little Continental-looking tables and chairs where pairs of ladies perched and nibbled at pastries, but in one corner, furthest away from the doorway into the hairdressing salon (from which unmistakable traces of Marcelling lotion were emanating to mingle with the aroma of good fresh coffee and warm buns), there was an oasis of armchairs, where daily newspapers were folded on the tables and where husbands and chauffeurs might wait in relative masculinity.

I waved to Alec and beckoned him to join me at a wrought-iron perch, rather an out-of-the-way one where I might speak freely.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘Mystery solved?’ I nodded. ‘Coffee? Cake?’

I shook my head. ‘You’ll wish you hadn’t had any either when I tell you.’ He raised one eyebrow and sat back with his arms folded to hear the tale. Now, I know Alec thinks I veer too much towards the dramatic for no reason, so I should really have tried to make sure he braced himself for what was coming. As it was, his face drained and he gulped and one of the waitresses – Hepburns’ staff were really quite stupendously attentive – came over to ask if he felt quite well and did he perhaps require a drink of water or a taxi. He accepted the offer of water with grateful thanks.

‘No wonder Mary went off like a rocket years ago when she returned home to find things so chummy with the young Hepburns and Aitkens,’ he said.

I shook my head; it was so awful that one almost had to laugh: almost.

‘But what she didn’t see and what Robert Hepburn didn’t see either was that they made the other family forbidden fruit with their stupid feud. Jack and Hilda got an extra frisson from trysting with one another, and in Aitkens’ too. Robin probably thought he was being very daring with Abigail.’

‘And what was Abby up to?’

‘Following her mother’s hints,’ I said. ‘Finding an obliging lover so that she could carry on the Aitken name, even if not the bloodline.’

‘Well, Abby doesn’t have any Aitken blood, does she?’ Alec said. ‘No wonder Mary wasn’t worried about her marrying her so-called cousin Jack.’ He blew out hard. ‘And so the secret of Mirren’s parentage was what Abby told Mary yesterday.’

‘And for all Mary knew, Mirren might have told Dugald and so Mary couldn’t rest until she found out if any of the surviving Hepburns knew about it and, if so, whether they could be trusted never to say.’

‘And do they?’

‘I think Robert does,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he recognised Dulcie’s likeness in Mirren and worked out what it means. Remember, he couldn’t bring himself to look at her picture and when he saw it in spite of trying not to he was horrified. He saw his wife there.’

‘How long do you think he’s known? How did he find out?’

‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Mary told Mirren that she was Dugald’s cousin some time ago, trying to put a stop to the marriage plans. Abby told Mirren that Robin was her father, to make Mirren believe that she was Dugald’s sister, to stop Mirren eloping. Of course, what that revealed to Mirren is… the thing I can’t seem to say.’

‘Her mother and father were brother and… Yes, I see what you mean, Dan. It doesn’t trip off the tongue’ ‘And that’s why Mirren ran away. She couldn’t face her mother once she knew.’

‘Poor child,’ said Alec.

‘Poor everyone,’ I agreed. ‘One can’t really blame Robert or Robin, if the women were really out to ensnare them. And one can’t blame the women. They each of them wanted a child. Mary gave it years and years with Ninian and Abby gave it five years with Jack.’

‘Dandy, don’t be so disgusting. You sound like a farmer. What about Jack and Hilda? Is it poor them too?’

‘If, during that time of tennis and card parties when Mary was away, when Abigail was trying to seduce Robin-’

‘Doesn’t sound like any tennis party I’ve ever been to,’ Alec said.

‘-if, as I say, Jack and Hilda got a whiff of what their spouses were up to, why shouldn’t they have thought that what was sauce for the goose and gander was sauce for the gander and goose?’

‘Neatly put,’ Alec said. ‘And then of course Hilda had been kept in the dark about the four sisters until she was up the aisle and it was too late. I must say, I blame whoever brought about that piece of diplomacy.’

‘Except, look around,’ I said, waving a hand towards the hair salon. ‘Hilda has been pretty lavishly indulged in her life, hasn’t she? And anyway she found a way around the worry of Robin’s poor sisters.’

‘I feel for Abby most,’ said Alec. ‘Poor, heavy-hearted Abby doing her mother’s bidding. I don’t say Jack doesn’t feel guilty, but he’s guilty like a little boy, half-sheepish and half-pleased with himself and hugging his naughty secret.’

‘But still I can’t help thinking that Abby should have been more careful about parties and chance meetings in such a small town,’ I said. ‘I mean to say, we ourselves thought it was the most eligible match imaginable, didn’t we? How could Dugald and Mirren have failed to meet? Either the Hepburns or the Aitkens should have cut their losses and left town. There are no innocents, Alec. Not a one.’

Alec thought for a moment and slapped his hand on his thigh.

‘Bella,’ he said. I cocked my head at him. ‘She’s innocent.’

‘And Fiona?’ I said.

‘Less so if you ask me,’ said Alec. ‘Fiona sold off her daughter to the highest bidder and was so keen not to see his social background too clearly that she entirely missed the problems in the line.’

‘Who’s being agricultural now?’

For a moment we sat in silence, thinking about the secrets, the betrayals, the desperate schemes, the stubbornness, all the misunderstandings. Jack and Hilda’s secret, Robin and Abby’s secret, Robert and Mary’s secret too. If only Mirren had never met Dugald all the secrets would have been kept for another twenty years and twenty more and both of them would have married and made lives and never suffered a day’s torment.

‘Talk about the sins of the fathers,’ I said at last. ‘And now back to Mary. If she’s well enough to see us today.’

‘Us?’ Alec said. ‘Do you think I’ll add anything to the encounter?’ And then seeing my expression he relented. ‘Oh, all right then, I’ll come too.’

An inquiry at the cottage hospital brought the news that Mrs Aitken had been moved home under the close supervision of Dr Hill, with two private nurses in attendance night and day, and so we took ourselves once more to Abbey Park, hoping not to see Abigail if I am honest, or Jack, and half-hoping we would not be given an audience with Mary either. In fact, Alec was probably right because only Bella of the entire household did not give me a shuddery feeling when I thought of her.

Fortunately, for the swift conclusion of the case if not for the comfort of the detectives, Dr Hill when summoned said that Mary had been asking for me and he was delighted that I had come. We were taken upstairs to the drawing-room floor and ushered into a large room facing the garden and for that reason flooded with fresh afternoon sunlight. It was not, I thought, Mary’s usual bedroom, unless it had been hastily stripped of most of its appurtenances to bring it to the peak of sparse cleanliness hospital nurses demand, for there was nothing in it besides a high narrow bed – not quite a hospital bed but along the same lines – a side-table for measuring out medicines and some hard chairs for visitors. There was a second table in the bay window, where several florists’ bouquets were arranged, too far away for the patient to derive any pleasure from them but probably still too close for the nurses’ hygienic ways.

Mary, on the high bed, appeared to be asleep. At the bedside, Bella sat with her hands clasped and her eyes fixed on her sister-in-law.

‘Have you come for the dog?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Pity. Abigail has taken a great liking to her. Poor Abigail, she tries to sit with Mary but she keeps weeping and then…’ She nodded to one of the nurses and rolled her eyes. Indeed, this nurse was a fearsome-looking creature, with a complicated cap which came right down over her shoulders like folded wings and a dazzling white uniform so severely starched that it cracked like sails in a high wind whenever she moved. Her face was ruddy and stern and her chin, perhaps from years of her drawing it in to show disapproval, was almost non-existent, her face disappearing into her neck which disappeared under her collar and continued without any suggestion of a swell at her bosom or a dip at her waist.

‘Are you family?’ she said.

‘Dr Hill was very pleased we’d come,’ I replied. I knew a thing or two about nurses after my war years and a doctor was the only thing one could brandish before them which would ever make them falter.

‘I might go and stretch my legs,’ Bella said. ‘Come and fetch me if she wakes and asks where I am.’ She stood with a bit of creaking and groaning, looked down into Mary’s face for a moment and then with a tear in her eye she turned and stumped off out of the room.

The nurse tutted when she was gone.

‘Mooning around like that is no good to us,’ she said, glaring at Alec and me. ‘We need cheerful distraction and jollying along, not weeping and wringing hands.’ Alec and I nodded and mumbled and all but curtseyed and the nurse, satisfied, left us with Mary while she went off to some mysterious task in a side-room where there seemed to be a sink with running water.

As soon as she was gone. Mary opened her eyes and lifted a hand.

‘Mrs Aitken, I’m surprised at you,’ I said, taking her hand and squeezing it. ‘You were playing possum!’ Mary rewarded me with a very faint smile and a suggestion of a laugh. Her face still had the slipped-down look on one side and the rings around her eyes were darker, if anything, the line between her brows deeper than yesterday, but then the move from hospital to home must have been draining for her and the forced cheeriness of the nurse along with Bella’s doleful looks could not be helping.

‘We’ve spoken to the Hepburns,’ I said. ‘They’re not going to tell anyone anything. You have no worries there. I don’t actually think that many of them, if any at all, know the thing that’s troubling you.’ She turned her head on the pillow and regarded me with a hunted look that made me want to take her in my arms and hug her. ‘We worked it out,’ I said and she closed her eyes and moaned. ‘The one person we think might know the whole story is Robert Hepburn himself.’ Another moan. ‘But he won’t speak up. How could he? He and his son would be as shamed in the eyes of the world as any shame he could hope to bring down upon you and your daughter.’ Mary Aitken gave a short, harsh sound that might have been a laugh and rolled her head from side to side upon the pillow. ‘Well, yes, probably not, the world being what it is,’ I conceded, ‘but there would still be enough opprobrium to make sure he never tells. So, there it is. You can put it out of your mind and direct all your efforts to getting better again.’

Mary shook her head with her eyes closed.

‘But Mrs Aitken, you must,’ I said. ‘For Abigail. She blames herself for Mirren dying and she blames herself for you being ill now and if you don’t get better she will be wretched. She doesn’t deserve that. No matter what-’ I bit off the prim censure and started again. ‘And you don’t either. You didn’t know, Mrs Aitken. You knew half the story and Abigail knew the other half.’ Actually, they each knew one third; the last third was Jack and Hilda’s secret. Alec and I were the only ones who knew everything, except for a few very small little puzzles, one or two embers still glowing amongst the ashes.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I said. Mary opened her eyes and looked at me, rather wary. ‘I know you didn’t read Mirren’s letter. Never mind how I know, I’m right, aren’t I? But you must have realised that a hand-delivered note meant she was hidden in the attics. What I still don’t really understand is why you didn’t just go and search for her? Why get me involved?’

Mary had a most peculiar look in her eye now. She put the fingers of her one good hand up to her lips and rolled her eyes in a show of terror.

‘You were frightened to go?’ Alec said. Mary nodded and then she mimed a gesture that neither one of us needed to translate into words to make clear. She pointed one finger, cocked her thumb, put her hand to her head and made a popping sound with her lips.

Alec and I stared at one another.

‘Did you know she had Jack’s gun?’ I said. I remembered the stock lists in the attic ante-room and what everyone had told me about Mary Aitken’s grasp on what was where, and I felt pretty sure that she would have known exactly where Jack Aitken’s old service revolver was kept and would have checked to see if it was missing. I felt a moment’s umbrage that she had been happy to send me off looking for a girl who had a revolver and was in a troubled state of mind, but there was no point in making a fuss about what might have been and so I said nothing.

‘You’d think if she was angry enough to shoot anyone, it would have been Hepburn,’ Alec said. ‘Old Mr Hepburn, I mean. She didn’t know him and she’d been brought up with you, by you, and loved you. I’d have thought she’d have gone after the old man.’

‘She did!’ I said. I sat up very straight and said it rather loudly, loud enough to attract the attention of the nurse in the room next door. She came stalking back and with one look at Mary’s pale and tear-stained face she bundled us unceremoniously out of the room, Dr Hill or no. Out on the landing, I grabbed Alec by the arm and hissed at him.

‘She did go after the grandfather, Alec,’ I said. ‘Oh, glory be! This is like finally getting rid of a raspberry seed that’s been stuck in one’s teeth for a month. She wrote to Mr Hepburn. She must have and that’s why he came to the store. On the Monday. To meet her.’

‘Old Mr Hepburn?’ said Alec. ‘Her grandfather?’

‘There’s no such person as old Mr Hepburn,’ I said. ‘This had been niggling at me like nothing on earth. “Mr Hepburn” is Robert. Robin is “young Mr Hepburn”. Dugald was “Master Hepburn”. That’s why the maid at Roseville sent us to the other house when we asked for Mr Hepburn. And I thought the Emporium girls were talking about Dugald when they mentioned young Mr Hepburn and accused them of changing their story when they denied it a moment later.’

‘So Robert came to Aitkens’ to see Mirren,’ said Alec.

‘Thinking he was coming to see the daughter of his daughter. And I’ll bet that’s when he recognised her. And that’s when he realised that she was also the daughter of his son. I’ll bet you something else too. I’ll bet you it was Robert who suddenly hustled Dugald off to Kelso. Once he had seen Mirren and realised what it meant. I wonder what he said to her while they were together. Rather, I wonder if what he said to her was what made her kill herself.’

‘You think she did kill herself then?’ Alec said.

‘Oh, she must have, poor little thing,’ I said. ‘And Dugald didn’t know about the planned elopement and he killed himself too. All alone, both of them. Dammit!’ I turned round and looked at the closed door of Mary’s sickroom. ‘I’m sure Dugald killed himself but I wish I had asked Mary while I had the chance if she knew anything about it. Remember I told you how agitated she was about the lift man coming.’ Alec nodded and then put his fingers to his lips and a hand behind his ear. I listened too and could hear water running in the little side-room. Very quietly, I opened the bedroom door again and crept back to Mary’s bedside. I could see the nurse’s back, as she filled a hot water bottle from a kettle and topped it up with cold water from the tap. I turned to Mary.

‘Mrs Aitken,’ I said in a low voice. ‘The day of Mirren’s funeral, did you know or even suspect that Dugald was in the store?’ She shook her head and looked so surprised at the question that I had no hesitation in believing her. ‘You didn’t guess what was wrong when the lift went wonky that way?’ Another shake of the head. I patted her hand and smiled, then glanced at the nurse again. Evidently she had made the bottle too hot or too cold and was emptying it out again to refill it. She had wrapped a cloth around its neck to catch the drips. What a fusspot, I thought, but however fussily she carried out the task, it was almost complete and I did not want to get caught by her. I bent and kissed Mary Aitken’s forehead, then stole out again and rejoined Alec on the landing.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘And I believe her.’

‘And so we leave them to what comfort they can bring one another,’ said Alec. I nodded slowly. ‘Bella seems to have come up trumps, doesn’t she?’ I nodded again and we descended the stairs in silence. ‘Come on then,’ he sighed when we got to the bottom and were standing in the hall. ‘Out with it, Dandy.’

‘Out with what?’

‘I know that faraway look. Something’s bothering you.’

‘But what could it be?’ I said. ‘Everything’s tied up. No loose ends at all. Unless it’s the gloves.’

‘Gloves?’ said Alec, rather blankly, racking his brain.

‘The one pair of gloves with the price ticket, slightly stained, in the shoebox.’

‘The price ticket slightly stained or the gloves?’ said Alec.

‘One glove,’ I said. ‘I only mentioned the price ticket because it made them unusual amongst all the stuff in the attic. Almost all. But stained price tickets… What am I remembering?’

‘Nothing much apparently,’ Alec said.

‘I wonder if they’re still there,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and see.’

‘What for?’ said Alec, like a whining child who does not want to go shopping.

‘I’ll tell you when we get there,’ I said. ‘I know! It annoys me too, but I can’t help it. This case isn’t over yet, Alec. I feel it in my bones.’