A Shocking Affair

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Let us suppose, to take one possibility among many, that Sir Peter was indeed helped out of this vale of tears. If the guilty party, or any accomplice, was to be given access to the house, he or she might not only profit from the crime by removing valuables from it, but in addition it might open the possibility of some tampering with evidence. Yet we can’t exclude everybody. Nor can we expect you to tell us who you suspect. But we are capable of drawing our own conclusions.’

  ‘If there was a crime,’ I put in, ‘it seems quite likely that the motivation for it stems from Peter Hay’s business interests, in which case it may very well lie within the material held in his computer. If that were to crash, in the electronic sense, or to develop a virus, we could lose the evidence and a huge amount of other information besides, and we could never prove how it happened. So we need to know who we can and can’t admit to the house.’ I was pleased to note that I still sounded quite lucid.

  ‘Heavens, yes!’ Ralph said. ‘Good that you thought of that.’

  ‘I’ve had it in mind all along,’ I said. ‘Peter used his e-mail facility quite a lot. I’ll have to see if any messages are waiting for him, but I’ve been putting it off because that’s one medium by which a virus might get into the system.’

  Electronic mail was beyond Ralph’s experience and therefore did not exist. He had, however, accepted the existence of computers just as he accepted that their manipulation was beyond him. ‘We can hardly exclude the granddaughter from what is now, subject to Confirmation, her own house,’ he said, ‘and I would not put it past her to introduce her undesirable – er – inamorato into the house while everybody’s back is turned. I’ll get hold of an expert and have him visit the house over the weekend and copy everything in the computer onto – what do they call them? – floppies? Damn silly name!’

  ‘Almost as silly as inamorato,’ I said.

  ‘Early next week,’ Ian said drowsily, ‘I shall probably – if my superiors back me – want to see you both and get a list of everybody you know of who benefits, or thinks that he or she benefits, from Sir Peter’s death.’

  ‘You can’t expect that, surely,’ Ralph said sharply. ‘There could be the most appalling conflicts of interest. Just suppose – and I’m not saying for a moment that it’s the case – but just suppose that one of my clients happens to obtain a business advantage from the death.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Ian said. ‘And, come to think of it, it would be most improper of me to update you on the progress of my enquiries.’

  Ralph was ready for that one. ‘In which case, we might admit quite the wrong person to the wrong information or place, unwittingly allowing him or her to hamper your investigation. However, this discussion seems premature. You have no further progress to report while for all I know my clients are one and all beyond suspicion. We must consider and discuss. Meantime, I will take advice about protecting the information on the computer. Floppies, forsooth!’

  Ralph was still grumbling to himself about modern jargon, quite forgetting that he was a member of one of the world’s most jargon-prone professions, when we dropped him off in the Square. Deborah looped around several small residential streets to deposit her husband at a neat modern bungalow, so that he could relieve the sitter.

  As she left the street lights behind, she said, ‘Is Joanna looking after you all right?’

  Something in her voice suggested that she was not just concerned that I was being adequately fed. ‘She seems anxious to please,’ I said carefully.

  Deborah drove for half a mile in silence. ‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ she said at last. ‘I’d better tell you something about Joanna. I’ve known her since she was a child. She was illegitimate. This was back when it mattered more than it does today. Her mother couldn’t cope. Joanna was taken into care and I think, reading between the lines, wasn’t treated any too well. The point is, ever since then she’s been . . . odd. Sometimes she’ll flirt with the older men. I think she’s looking for a replacement for the father she never knew. She certainly set her cap at Dad once. God knows what she’d do if one of them took her up on it; my personal hunch is that she’d scream and run a mile, but I could be quite wrong.’

  ‘That’s very sad,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I wouldn’t have said anything except that she’s also inclined to fantasize. I thought I should warn you that, given the least trace of encouragement, she may invent stories and not care where she repeats them. It happened once before and then, of course, they did the rounds and got believed. This place is like a gossip factory, with scandalmongers on every corner.’

  ‘I’m glad that you told me.’

  I was set down in my turn at the front door of the ‘big house’. Ian’s two warnings, one about Calder hospitality and the other about the strength of his wife’s wine, had not been enough to save me from feeling my drink. Frankly, I was sure that I was glowing in the dark, a sensation which I had not felt for more years than I could remember.

  But the evening was not yet quite complete. I managed to recall what was missing. A cup of tea seemed superfluous – I was neither hungry nor thirsty. On the other hand, I knew only too well that an evening of indulgence was likely to be followed by a night rendered sleepless by indigestion. When Joanna followed me into the sitting room I asked her to bring me a large glass of milk. While I waited, I managed to ignore the ranks of bottles but I indulged myself to the tune of one of Peter’s cigars. After all, they would soon become so desiccated as to constitute a fire hazard. I could not see young Elizabeth appreciating their excellence and I hated the idea of them falling into the hands of her present boyfriend.

  Joanna returned with the milk. ‘Have the dogs been walked?’ I asked her.

  ‘Hamish came up and walked them,’ she said.

  There was no point asking whether Spin had been found. She would have been dancing on the doorstep with such news.

  I had been avoiding eye contact in case she should build that up in her imagination into a sexual advance but her voice had sounded choked. I looked and saw that her eyes were inflamed and her cheeks smudged with weeping. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked rashly. My first thought was that Hamish had done something to upset her, or that there was something wrong with one of the dogs.

  She put down the milk hurriedly, spilling a little. Tears came back easily to her eyes. ‘It’s been getting to me,’ she wailed. ‘I’m only now beginning to believe it. He’s really gone. I’ll never see him again. The dear man! Oh, the dear man!’ She covered her face, swaying dangerously, shaken by sobs.

  I got to my feet. ‘You’d better sit down,’ I said. I was careful to get behind a chair as if to hold it for her although some of those chairs would have needed a crane to shift them. Joanna was looking for comfort. If she wanted a father-figure then that was exactly what she would get; but the impersonation would not include cuddling an indiscreet, twenty-year-old sexpot. To my relief, she collapsed into the chair, took the handkerchief that I offered and bubbled into it.

  ‘I think perhaps you’d be the better for a drink,’ I suggested. ‘Would you like a whisky?’

  She was rocking backwards and forwards but I thought that I detected a nod. I poured her a good double anyway, sternly denying myself the relief of joining in the debauch.

  She took a long pull at the drink, almost emptying the glass, and covered her face again. I poured more whisky, this time watering it. After a few minutes she began to recover. She blew her nose loudly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a thick voice. ‘I’m ashamed of myself. But Sir Peter was very good to me.’ She hiccupped once and put her hand out for her whisky, swallowing half of it at a gulp and without blinking.

  I found myself lost for words. ‘It must have been a shock, losing a good employer,’ was all that I could manage.

  ‘Aye. But he was more than an employer,’ she said. She swallowed the rest of her drink. The tears were back in her eyes, although whether they were due to emotion or the whisky I was uncertain. ‘You
’re very kind, letting me run on like this. I think that you’re a very kind and considerate gentleman.’ She regarded me with the eyes of a devoted spaniel while toying meaningfully with her glass. I refilled it. I had decided that I would prefer her comatose rather than affectionate.

  I nearly said something trite about a shoulder to cry on but decided that she might take it literally. Instead I muttered about lending a sympathetic ear. Ears seemed somehow less suggestive.

  ‘He was sympathetic like you,’ she said. Her voice was already beginning to slur. That made two of us. She took a pull at her drink.

  ‘You’re not alone in the world, you know,’ I said. ‘You have friends. There are good people around here. I was very impressed with Hamish. And I know that he thinks a lot of you.’

  Her eyes had lost their focus but they seemed to brighten for a moment. Then the light faded. ‘Well, I don’t think a lot of him. He’s nice enough. But I could never kiss a man with all that beard.’ She giggled suddenly. ‘It would be like pushing my face into a straw bale.’

  Off the top of my head, I could think of no other unmarried older men to put forward as a distraction. ‘You’ll find somebody,’ I said. ‘Everybody has somebody waiting to come into their life. Or already there.’

  ‘Not like Sir Peter. He was very good to me,’ she said again. She made a gesture which knocked over what was left of her drink. The whisky seemed to have found its way to her head very quickly. ‘But I was good to him too. After her ladyship died . . .’

  The implication was clear. If I had had a grain of sense I would have left it there. But my tongue, like hers, was loosened by drink. ‘Oh, come now,’ I said. ‘He was an old man.’

  She drew herself up, as well as she could in the deep chair. Evidently I had insulted her feminine powers. ‘He was old but he was still alive,’ she said. She paused and I could almost see the wheels turning. She was wondering how far she dared go. ‘He was past the real thing,’ she said at last. ‘His years with the old biddy had seen to that. But he still had his needs. He liked to do what he called ninety-six.’

  She closed her eyes as though picturing the act. Her head went back. One moment later she gave vent to a ladylike snore.

  I would not have touched her for the world. I would probably have to make my own breakfast in the morning, but that would be a small price to pay. I left her where she was, made my way unsteadily upstairs, drank a lot of water, dosed myself with my indigestion mixture and went to bed.

  As I lay waiting for sleep which was not far away, I wondered how much, if any, of what she had said I was to believe. Not much, I decided.

  An anomaly suddenly struck me for the first time. I was aware of the practice that the French call sixty-nine and I knew that it was so called because of the shape of the two numerals. But ninety-six? I tried to visualize it. But no, it was physically impossible.

  All the same . . . there was no smoke without fire. I caught myself up. I was beginning to think like the rumour-mongers. And yet . . . Peter had left Joanna a legacy quite out of proportion to her length of service. But, I decided as sleep began to take over, if she had brightened his last few years she deserved it. Elizabeth would never miss it.

  I woke suddenly in the middle of the night with another and more likely explanation for the legacy clear in my mind. Perhaps Peter had been her father. But would she invent a sexual liaison between herself and her own father, always assuming that she knew who her father was? On consideration, I thought that she might if she equated love with sex.

  There had been a time when such ruminations would have kept me awake, but those days were far behind me. I subsided again into sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  Saturday dawned grey, in tune with my feelings. My head was one dull ache, I had a cough and I could sense that my bowels were bent on trouble. If I had been at home I would have risked Isobel’s attentions and stayed in bed.

  But there were things to be done and home itself was calling. I dragged myself up, showered, managed to shave without cutting myself and got dressed. I had been gathering my dirty laundry in a bag for taking home but somebody had abstracted it all and replaced it, neatly laundered, in my luggage, so at least I was fresher on the outside than within.

  Joanna was not still snoring in the sitting room, I was relieved to see. There were sounds from the kitchen but I was not yet ready to face her or breakfast. I went outside, puffing gently, and gave the two Labradors their morning amble. I took them into the wood in the hope of bumping into Hamish but there was no sign of him. The clouds were dry but the trees still managed to drip moisture. Breathing deeply of the cool fresh air and feeling rather better, I returned to the house.

  The dining table was laid for my breakfast and Joanna appeared as I sat down and helped myself to cereal. Her face was puffy but otherwise she looked much as usual and almost as desirable. ‘Just toast and coffee,’ I said.

  She nodded sympathetically but carefully. ‘And will you be here for lunch?’

  ‘I have to meet somebody in Edinburgh,’ I told her. ‘I’ll leave here elevenish and have lunch with him. And I’ll be back here on Monday morning, fairly late, or I’ll phone. Oh, and Mr Enterkin is sending somebody to attend to the computer.’

  ‘That’ll be Mr Paterson from the TV shop,’ she said confidently. ‘He’s a whiz with computers. They say that he’s doing very well for himself with inventions and things. And I think he’s quite good-looking.’

  ‘Well, apart from him and Miss Hay, and staff of course, nobody is to be admitted to the house until I come back. Nobody at all – unless possibly a plumber or electrician if you have an emergency. In which case somebody stands over them until they’ve finished. You understand?’

  She nodded again. ‘I’ll tell Mary.’ She shuffled her feet. ‘And, please, forget what I said last night. I said too much. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. It was the whisky talking.’

  ‘It’s forgotten,’ I told her. My handkerchief, I noticed, had been washed and ironed and left beside my napkin.

  ‘I shouldn’t have let you give me so much to drink,’ she said. Shuddering, I hoped that she was not going to broadcast that sentiment. The implications would be too awful to contemplate.

  I settled in the study, meaning to print out certain documents for reading more carefully at home over the weekend, but while the computer was still loading the word processor program I heard a car and then the doorbell. Joanna announced Jake Paterson.

  Paterson was a man of around fifty, with greying red hair and a prominent nose. Ralph had outlined the problem but without understanding it, so that Paterson’s grasp of what was wanted was patchy. I explained it again. ‘No problem,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ll transfer everything onto floppy discs as a backup, sweep the machine for viruses and leave it loaded with any e-mail that’s waiting. You realize that it will take a lot of floppies?’

  ‘I accept that. It’ll be cheap compared to the sort of sums involved if it crashes. I dare say somebody will be glad to get the discs when we’ve finished with them.’

  ‘Can I take the computer away with me? I’ll see that any material remains confidential.’

  ‘I’m going home for the weekend,’ I said. ‘Could I get it back on Monday?’

  I expected him to jib at working over the weekend, but shopkeepers expect to work on Saturdays. ‘Certainly. I’ll bring it back on Monday morning.’ He paused and looked serious. ‘I was sorry to read that Sir Peter had popped his clogs. He was one of my favourite people. He was also my landlord. Can I take it that my tenancy of the shop remains? Or can I buy the freehold?’

  ‘Either,’ I said. ‘He seems to have hated to part with property during his lifetime, but for his granddaughter’s sake he wanted things simplified after his death. The main body of the estate is to remain intact. Outlying farms and various other properties are to be sold, but not until it suits the present tenants, and they get first refusal at valuation. You come within that category.’

&
nbsp; ‘Thoughtful to the last. And the disposal will be your job?’

  ‘One of them.’

  ‘Sir Peter always was the most considerate of men,’ he said. ‘I hope that his granddaughter becomes as much of an asset to the district. When will the funeral be?’

  ‘That I can’t tell you yet.’

  ‘There’s not a kirk big enough to hold the crowd that’ll want to come.’

  He gathered up the computer and such discs as Peter had filled. There would be no point reduplicating material. I saw him off the premises. He drove off in a very sporty and expensive turbo-charged fastback. Business had to be good.

  As I re-entered the house, the phone was ringing. I took the call in the study. A deep baritone asked to whom it was speaking and I explained my existence.

  ‘I see,’ said the voice. ‘This is Adrian Hastings of Swinburn and Hastings, Surveyors, Edinburgh. I saw Sir Peter’s death in the papers and was very sorry. We did a lot of work for Sir Peter over the years. To whom should I write a letter of condolence?’

  ‘To his granddaughter, Miss Elizabeth Hay, at this address.’

  ‘Thank you.’ There was a pause – while he made a note, I supposed. ‘I had a phone call from Sir Peter a week ago, to ask whether we would be available to do some more work for him. He was going to write to us, giving more details, but the letter never arrived. I was in the office this morning, clearing my desk, and it occurred to me to follow it up. Do you happen to know what the work would have been?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘I may come across an explanation as I go through his papers. What kind of surveyors are you?’

  ‘General practice.’

  Valuations would be needed in connection with the Confirmation and also before the properties outwith the main estate could be offered to tenants. ‘Would you be available to undertake some valuations?’

  The voice perked up. ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Can you pay me a call next week?’

  ‘Of course. Let me look at my diary. How about Tuesday morning?’