I Saw Him Die

by Andrew Wilson

  But my sense of duty and obligation meant that I would not let Davison down. As I descended the servants’ stairs into the kitchen I resolved to complete what I had begun. The next task in hand was to work through Kinmuir’s journals to see what they contained. I was a quick reader but also the kind whose eyes started to close when I took up a book before bedtime.

  I began to make the coffee. Even though the kitchen was located in the bowels of the house, far away from the guests’ quarters, I tried to be as quiet as possible. I put some water on the range to boil, making sure that I used a saucepan and not the kettle, which had a whistle in its spout. As I waited I walked around the kitchen, examining the gleaming pots and pans, dishes and tins that Mrs. Baillie used each day. What would happen to her now? I suppose with her reputation as a wonderful cook she would secure another position very easily. But what about the rest of the servants? No doubt, the young girls would be pleased to leave a house that was now associated not only with death but with murder. I felt sorry for Rose, the poor maid who had discovered the body of Mrs. Kinmuir. That image of the old lady, her white collar turned red by blood, would stay with her forever. It would haunt her sleep and pollute her thoughts. The person who had done that—and who had killed Robin Kinmuir—would have to be brought to justice. And if I could help lead the murderer to the gallows, then all the better.

  I found a tray and laid it with a cloth, cups, saucers, and a small jug of milk. Just as I was pouring the hot water over the coffee in the pot, I felt a certain coldness on the back of my neck. I turned to see a figure lurking in the shadows by the door. The shock made my hand shake, and a spot of boiling water splashed onto the inside part of my arm. The pain forced me to drop the pan, which crashed onto the flagstone floor, the remaining water puddling at my feet. The figure stepped forwards; I was relieved to see it was only Simkins.

  “I was just trying to make some coffee,” I explained. I grabbed a tea towel, ran it under the cold water tap, and pressed the fabric to my skin.

  Simkins continued to watch me, looking at me as if he were a reptile gazing out from a cage at the zoo. There was a certain coldness, an indifference, to his stare that frightened me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to disturb anyone.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help, ma’am?” he asked. But he uttered the words as if he didn’t mean them. “Let me get a cloth for the spilt water.”

  As he walked across the kitchen, I noticed that his footsteps were quite unsteady, and as he passed me I caught the distinct peaty whiff of whisky. Perhaps the shock of learning of the death of his master and the murder of the old lady had been too much for him; the refuge of the bottle was one in which many found comfort, and although it had never been my choice in times of great distress, I could understand its allure for some.

  “Thank you, Simkins,” I said as he began to mop up the water. “Very clumsy of me. Fortunately, I didn’t spill the coffee in the pot, too. In fact, I do believe that there is quite enough, so I don’t need to make any more.”

  He mopped up the last of the water and steadied himself as he stood up. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the tray with its two cups. “Would you like me to carry this up for you… and your guest?”

  “No, I’m sure I can manage,” I said, feeling a blush spread across my cheeks. I was about to take the tray and leave when I thought it might be a good idea to take advantage of the situation and ask the butler a few questions. Not only were we alone, but Simkins’s tongue might be loosened by his recent ingestion of alcohol. “It’s terrible what’s happened here at the lodge,” I said. “I’m sure you have felt it more deeply than the rest of us.”

  “Yes, ma’am, it all came as a sh-shock,” he said, slurring his words.

  I noticed that his eyes were bloodshot. “Can I ask: Did you know any of the guests here—I mean, before they arrived at the lodge?”

  “Only Mrs. Buchanan. She has been a regular visitor over the years. A great friend of the late Mr. Kinmuir.”

  “And you’ve seen no correspondence from any of them in the past? Or telegrams?”

  “No, nothing like that,” he said.

  “What do you make of all this, everything that has gone on here?”

  “I’m not sure it’s my position to say, ma’am.”

  “I just wondered if you’d heard anything. Or sensed anything. After all, a butler of your standing and experience will have seen many things over the years.”

  “If I have learnt one thing from my time in this position, it’s that it’s best not to see things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Discretion. Silence. Blindness. These are the real qualifications for the job.”

  I felt my heartbeat quicken. “So you have seen something, then?”

  “I didn’t say that, ma’am.”

  I could see I wasn’t getting anywhere with this line of questioning. “What kind of man was your late master?”

  “Mr. Kinmuir? He was a real gentleman. Always did right by me. Never a cross word.”

  “Did you know anyone who would want to do him harm?”

  He hesitated and his eyes looked even more shifty than usual. “No, ma’am.”

  “If you are protecting someone—even someone that you care for—then I beg you to think again.”

  Simkins stared at me with his blank eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you are referring to,” he said.

  “Very well. Tell me, what will you do when you leave here? Will you try to get another position?”

  “I’m not doing this job again—no, not in a month of Sundays,” he said dismissively. “I’ve got better things to do.”

  I wondered whether he had been listening to Miss Passerini spout her revolutionary politics. Had he been corrupted by her?

  “What makes you say that? Don’t you need a job?”

  “Don’t worry about me, ma’am.” There was something smug about the way he said this. His face seemed to glow, whether from some secret knowledge of future good fortune or from the amount of alcohol he had consumed, I did not know.

  “Very well,” I said. “And I’m sorry once more about this mess.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need any help with that, ma’am?” he asked as I placed the coffeepot and the candlestick on the tray.

  “No, but thank you,” I said. I doubted whether he was in any fit state to walk up to the top of the house, never mind carry a heavily laden tray. Or was he just putting on an act for my benefit?

  I left Simkins leaning against the range, eyes closed and smiling to himself, and carefully carried the tray up the two flights of stairs to Davison’s room. He was already deep into one of Kinmuir’s journals, and it looked almost as though he were suffering physical pain from the experience. I thought once more about the lighthearted comment Davison had made about how he could have killed Kinmuir if someone had not already beaten him to it. Although he had meant it as a kind of joke, behind his observation lay a deadly truth which spoke of the loyalty that agents showed to the Secret Intelligence Service, the code of honor that bound them together, and the sense of betrayal they felt when one of their ranks stepped out of line.

  “Is it that bad?” I asked.

  “It is if you know, as I do, some of the characters and scenarios he’s writing about,” Davison replied as he poured the coffee. “Anyway, we’re not going to get very far if I carry on like this all night. I suppose we should get down to work.”

  I steeled myself to ask a question, but before I could speak, Davison said, “Of course, I know what you’re going to say.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. You want to ask me again about whether we would go so far as to get rid of someone who was on the point of betraying us.”

  “Well, yes, I was wondering about that,” I said.

  “It’s a good point and a fair one. I’m sure there have been cases where someone high up at the SIS has signed an order to make an agent vanish. But they would have
had to have done something pretty abominable, like be a double agent, working for the enemy.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. “But not someone whom you suspected of breaking the Official Secrets Act?”

  “No, that wouldn’t be enough. I’m sure that would be pursued by the slow feed of negative and damaging stories about the traitor to the press and then through the courts.”

  “So you don’t think someone here—one of our fellow guests, for example—could be one of your fellow secret agents who had been given the mission to bump off Kinmuir?”

  Davison looked taken aback. “No, I’m almost certain I would have picked up the signs.”

  “But would you? I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet, but look how easy it has been for me to work undercover, both in the past and here at the lodge.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “You know what I think about surface appearances and how dangerous it is to trust them, that’s all,” I said.

  “Do you have anyone in mind?”

  “What do you think of Simkins?”

  “The butler?”

  “I know it sounds strange, but he was behaving very oddly in the kitchen just now.”

  “In what way?”

  “As well as being drunk, he didn’t seem to care that he was going to be out of a job soon.”

  “Perhaps he’s got some savings put away?”

  “Maybe. Do you remember you told me that when you stole into his room to get those keys you saw that he had a Latin primer by his bed?” I said. “That might prove significant when it comes to working out the passer ‘sparrow’ business.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Davison said. “And what about the others?”

  I ran through the other guests at the lodge. “I don’t think the Frith-Strattons are quite as dim-witted as they seem. There’s something not right about them.”

  “You can’t seriously think that those two have what it takes to be undercover agents?” He laughed nervously. “I can see Peterson carrying it off, or even Miss Passerini, but not those two sisters. Anyway, all this is a distraction. It’s time to get reading.”

  “Very well,” I said, picking up one of the journals and a sheaf of paper. “But before I begin, I want to check something.”

  “What?”

  “I want to compare the letter I found in Mrs. Buchanan’s room with Kinmuir’s handwriting.”

  I opened my handbag and took out the letter. It was immediately obvious that the journals were written in a neater, more measured hand than the letter that I had taken from Mrs. Buchanan.

  “So it seems they were written by two different men,” said Davison.

  “Yes, it does,” I said. “Anyway, let’s get on with the task in hand. Is there anything I should look out for?”

  “Kinmuir is writing about a world I know,” said Davison, “and so it will be useful to have a view from the outside. In addition to a summary of the main points, write down anything that strikes you as odd or surprising and any passages where you think he might have given away too much information—information that might endanger the lives of other agents.” He looked at his watch. “And if he gives any hints about the events in Maastricht as related to us by Peterson, and also the allegations of the Frith-Stratton sisters regarding his business dealings. If we start now, we should be able to finish the blasted thing by the morning.”

  As I began to read the first journal, I learnt of Kinmuir’s childhood growing up in London and Edinburgh, and something of his ancestors, including his father, a rich landowner. He briefly covered his time at school, Fettes College, before detailing his time at Dartmouth Naval College, a place I knew quite well. There he met the man who was to define his professional career: Mansfield Smith-Cumming, four years his senior and later head of the Secret Intelligence Service. Cumming—known by his initial C, which he signed in green ink—seemed like quite an extraordinary if not downright odd individual.

  Kinmuir related how, in 1914, while driving his Rolls-Royce in France with his son, Cumming suffered a terrible car accident. Realizing that his son was dying and aware that the accident had left him with a badly injured leg, Cumming amputated his own limb with a pocketknife. Kinmuir also told how later, during the interview process for new recruits, Cumming would take hold of a knife and stab his leg; if aspiring agents—who did not know his new leg was made from wood—so much as flinched, the head of the SIS would tell them that they had not got what it took to be an agent.

  When Kinmuir lost his own son in 1915, Cumming did everything in his power to console him, and the two men became even closer. Kinmuir, then a businessman, related how he had been called to see Cumming at his office at the top of a building just off Trafalgar Square in London. The British people were worried, as indeed was the government itself, about the number of German spies in the country during the war, and Cumming was recruiting men to help in the effort to root them out. Kinmuir took to the work and led a number of successful operations in France, Rotterdam, and the Baltics. There was little mention, at least in the journal that I was reading, of any of the events of Maastricht apart from a veiled reference to “one particular foreign mission that did not go as planned.” The name of Peterson was entirely absent from the journal. Instead, there was talk of men such as Vernon Kell, Paul Dukes, Augustus Agar, while some were only known by their initials: J.B., W.S.M., and C.M. It was no surprise to learn that women were entirely absent from this notebook, apart from a few references to Kinmuir’s “dear, devoted wife,” whom he had met through Cumming’s own wife, Leslie Marian Valiant-Cumming, heiress of the Logie estate, in Moray.

  Kinmuir told with schoolboy relish of the preparation of invisible ink: I was surprised to learn that, if a man found himself without his normal supply, a chap could manufacture his own by the means of self-pleasuring. Who would have thought that semen could be put to such a use? The resulting saying “Every man his own stylo” became something of an in-joke among the agents.

  “What are you smiling at?” asked Davison.

  “A reference to invisible ink,” I said.

  “Oh, that,” he muttered, his face darkening. “Now, would you like a little more coffee?” he said, standing up and turning his back to me. “I can go and get some more.”

  “No, I’m afraid if I drink any more I will never catch any sleep,” I said. I reflected on all the times Davison had enjoyed teasing me; perhaps now I could get my own back. “I wonder, did you ever use that particular method?”

  “Certainly not,” he said, still refusing to face me. “I doubt it’s even true.”

  “I’m trying to work out the chemical composition and how it would work—on a purely technical level, you understand. I don’t suppose you would know?”

  There was no answer from Davison, who was clearly mortified by the conversation.

  “ ‘Every man his own stylo,’ ” I said, quoting from the journal. “Quite a good line, but I doubt any of that section would get past the editor’s pen.”

  “Quite right, the whole lot should be confined to the bonfire,” he said. “Disgusting. In fact, I wish I hadn’t asked you to help with the reading of the journals. It was foolish of me. I should never have exposed you to such base material.”

  “You should know me better than that,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m not in the least shocked or offended. In fact, I was just trying to pull your leg.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I’m not in the mood for it,” he said sourly. “In fact, I think it’s time we called it a night, don’t you?”

  “But don’t you want me to tell you what I’ve read? And what have you discovered?”

  “Sorry, but it’s late.”

  His words hit me like a punch to the stomach. I had been thoughtless and foolish to embarrass him in this way.

  “Davison, I didn’t mean to…”

  But I knew it was pointless to persist with the conversation. It was better to slip away, and so I said a quiet g
ood night. Back in my room, I stood at the window and watched the sun rise. The soft light caressed the surface of mist that rippled over the loch. Beneath lay hundreds of feet of dark, cold water—water that had never seen a chink of sunlight or touch of warmth. As I closed the curtains and got into bed, I sank into the darkness. Inside, I felt hollow and empty, and utterly, utterly miserable.

  TWENTY-SIX

  When I awoke from a brief sleep, my mood was no better. The shadow of my uncomfortable encounter with Davison continued to haunt me. But there was something else: a realization that I didn’t have a clue about what to do next. I felt like I was drowning, thrown into the dark sea loch without a lifeline or a helping hand. If I couldn’t talk to Davison about the case, then there was little point in me being here. The doubts I had had about working with him and the SIS resurfaced.

  I was stupid to think I could help. It was time for me to leave. I was worried that I had been away too long. I would wait until Inspector Hawkins gave me permission, of course, but as soon as he told me I was free to leave, I would make sure that I took a car back to Broadford, back to the hotel and the comforting presence of Rosalind, Carlo, and her sister. With them I could talk about the delights of Skye and the possibilities of sightseeing, enjoy nice cups of tea, hearty meals, and brisk walks by the sea, and finalize the details of my forthcoming wedding in Edinburgh.

  I did not belong in this world of espionage and intrigue. I had never really belonged in it. Davison and his boss, Hartford, had flattered me into thinking that I had something to contribute, but in reality I knew that they had manipulated me. In the past I had struck lucky: I had used what little skills I possessed to search out and expose evil. But this case was too much for me. I would have to acknowledge that I had failed. Perhaps Davison would be relieved. I hoped that we could remain friends—after all, we had gone through so much together—but I understood that, once I had made that break, there was little chance that I would ever bump into him again. I would use the knowledge that I had obtained, or at least some of it, in my books. That would be the silver lining that came with this very dark cloud.