Miss Pink Investigates Part One

by Gwen Moffat

  The other nodded. ‘A great many, but never for long distances on my own. We usually manage to find at least six men for the stretcher. But I have, on occasions, had to hoist a body about unaided: in difficult places and before the full team arrives at the site of the accident. They are very heavy indeed, you may take my word for that—and damnably awkward: floppy before rigor, stiff as a board afterwards.’

  ‘I can believe it. What an interesting life you lead. Do a power of good too. Bodies are the business of the police by rights. Without Mountain Rescue teams, there’d have to be a special department trained to deal with violent death in the mountains. The taxpayer’s saved thousands of pounds by voluntary rescue teams.’

  Hamlyn’s face was stiff with embarrassment. He gave a loud, barking cough. ‘We do what we can. How can I help you here?’

  ‘George Watkins,’ Merrick said dreamily. ‘Is he a professional guide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do his job well?’

  ‘I’d rather not answer that one.’

  The inspector didn’t comment on that. ‘Colin Irwin?’ he went on.

  ‘You want my professional opinion? He’s not a qualified guide. One of the long-haired brigade: a squatter in MacNeill’s cottage across the river—well, of course you know Largo! What am I thinking of? MacNeill would have allowed him to stay there to spite me, I dare say. They know how I feel about hooligans and hippies.’

  ‘Been making himself a nuisance to you, has he—Irwin? An alcoholic?’

  ‘I won’t have him in my bar.’

  ‘Ah. Drugs then, is it?’

  ‘They’re all on drugs.’

  ‘Tell me what he’s done to annoy you, colonel.’

  Hamlyn re-crossed his legs. ‘Nothing specific—no need for that. But you must understand that climbing is an extremely dangerous game, and guides must be highly qualified. They’re subjected to the most stringent tests and examinations by the Mountaineering Council before they’re granted their certificates and allowed to practise. We have two guides in the glen at this moment and whatever they are otherwise—one of them, that is—there’s no getting away from it: they are qualified guides. Irwin is nothing but a long-haired layabout: an ordinary climber out to make an easy buck. I heard that he’s actually been refused his certificates, and I wouldn’t mind betting that this was because of his manner. Clients are particular about the fellows they employ on the hill. They like to see discipline, and that’s something that Irwin is a stranger to: discipline.’

  ‘You have deduced that from conversation with him?’

  ‘I haven’t conversed with the man. You’ve only got to look at him.’ He grimaced with disgust. ‘He wears his hair in a kind of band.’ He looked at the others meaningly. ‘My wife calls it an Alice band.’ His face was suddenly expressionless. ‘I’ve seen him tie it back in a ribbon.’

  ‘And the dead girl: would you say she was a female counterpart of Irwin?’

  He gave the matter thought, then shook his head decisively. ‘No, not at all. She was neat and clean.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Outlandishly dressed, of course, but very charming, and so pleasantly old-fashioned. Wore a long skirt. These short skirts have led to a lot of crime in my opinion. I could be biased but it’s all part of the permissive attitudes nowadays. Fashion isn’t the least of it; there’s the media with public performances on television of the most private acts, and this, sir, is all exploitation of the masses by a few. . . .’ He came forward in his chair. ‘The collapse of every civilisation has been preceded by decadence, were you aware of that?’ He leaned back and surveyed Merrick and Ivory. ‘That’s why the police are powerless, why the crime rate is rising and you can do nothing to contain it—because decadence is starting at the top. This country is no democracy, sir; it’s run by men who are so anxious for power that they’ll do anything to please the voters. Britain is ruled by the masses, with a few hundred puppets at the top, and all decadent, every one of them.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Merrick said, his eyes glazed. ‘And what’s your remedy?’

  Suddenly Hamlyn slumped and sighed deeply. ‘I sympathise with you, indeed I do; it’s uphill work all the way, and no corporal punishment, no death penalty.’ He smiled at Miss Pink with charm. ‘And if I say the magistrates are too lenient, I shall lose this good lady’s favour.’

  ‘So you’re suggesting that the murder had some association with decadence?’ Merrick suggested.

  ‘It sounds silly, put that way, but it was preceded by the most outrageous behaviour which, I admit now, should have been reported to you at the time.’

  ‘Yes? Who was at fault there?’

  Hamlyn appeared confused. ‘Perhaps all of us. I believe we were all aware that the girl had been badly treated, yet we did nothing about it.’

  ‘You’re referring to last Saturday night?’

  ‘Of course.’ He looked at the inspector as if the man were mad. ‘Nothing like that has occurred in this glen before, not in our time at all events. A man who can hit a woman is capable of anything, sir! And to continue beating her after the first blow, after he’s seen the damage he’s already inflicted, that is sheer sadism!’

  ‘He beat her for some considerable time, did he?’ Merrick flicked back through his notebook as if looking for a reference. ‘We don’t seem to have a description of the injuries,’ he mused. Hamlyn waited attentively. ‘What were her injuries?’ Merrick asked, still leafing through the pages, then he looked up.

  Hamlyn said, ‘You were addressing me? I didn’t see her after the Saturday evening.’

  Merrick looked flustered. ‘I must get people’s movements straight. I think we’d better do some work on that now.’ He glanced at Ivory and smiled at Hamlyn who, recognising that this was dismissal, got up reluctantly and went out.

  Miss Pink and the inspector regarded each other.

  ‘How stupid is he?’ Merrick asked.

  She was thoughtful. ‘Stupidity is seldom consistent, is it? People will have blind spots in one direction, particularly where human relationships are concerned, and yet be perceptive and intelligent in other directions. Look at wives and husbands: devoted wives who are completely blind to husbands who are rogues, oafs, misers—you know the kind of thing—and yet quite good judges of character or at least, high-principled, where other people are concerned. It’s a kind of dual morality.’

  ‘Those are women blinded by passion and, as you say, not uncommon. I was talking about Hamlyn, ma’am.’

  ‘I’m sorry; I was side-tracked. . . . Hamlyn? Oh yes; stupid in one direction, you see: in his view of society, but then surely, it’s only a matter of degree? He’s way out on the right wing. A lot of old regular officers are that way inclined.’

  ‘Heaven preserve me from them.’ He sighed and looked at his watch. ‘We have to be up early. Let’s have a look at the last two on the list. Andrew Lindsay; now he’s the man who’s employing the execrable Watkins—and the only time Lindsay is happy is in Watkins’ company. Otherwise he’s morose, nervous, preoccupied. His wife is a dominating lady who is treated abominably by Watkins when they’re climbing. She’s a superior climber to her husband—does he resent that, I wonder? You suspect a relationship between the two men. How does the wife react to that?’

  ‘She appears unconcerned. It could be as Watkins suggested: that she’d like to mother both of them.’

  Even Ivory was startled at that. Merrick recovered himself and wondered what this triangle might have to do with the deceased. No one helped him. ‘And then there’s Kenneth Maynard,’ he went on. ‘“Porn?”’ he read from his notebook. He addressed Ivory, ‘Why pornography?’

  The sergeant coughed meaningly and one nostril twitched. ‘Woman’s magazine,’ he prompted.

  Merrick glanced at Miss Pink who mistook the nature of the cue. ‘I have no more facts than I gave you.’ She was apologetic.

  ‘Fifty-ish,’ Merrick said, out of his head, not from his notebook. ‘An enthusiastic climber, employs expert lady guide, not a
femme fatale—’ his audience was expressionless, ‘—his somewhat older wife is in ill-health and doesn’t climb. Frets, perhaps?’ He looked at the table. ‘A liking for young girls?’

  ‘Not Lavender,’ Miss Pink murmured.

  He looked at her reproachfully. ‘Maynard.’

  ‘Not apparent.’

  ‘Powerful?’

  ‘Only moderately.’

  ‘He climbs, so he carries heavy loads but not, as the colonel explained at length, dead weights. And he brought the girl to the glen.’

  ‘That meeting must have been coincidence. Moreover, there’d be no opportunity for dalliance in Lavender’s presence. And I’m sure he didn’t meet her again.’

  ‘Ma’am!’ He was pained and she looked guilty.

  ‘I’m sorry; I must be getting tired.’ She amended the statement. ‘He spoke to her in the cocktail lounge on Saturday evening but to my knowledge he didn’t meet her again.’

  ‘That’s better.’ He nodded as if a promising pupil had redeemed a mistake. ‘What time did Maynard go to bed that night—I mean, Monday night of course? You went up at eight-thirty.’ He looked at Ivory. ‘So—we want the movements of these five men from six on Monday evening until six on Tuesday morning.’ He saw the question in Miss Pink’s eyes. ‘The last independent witness to have seen her alive is yourself, ma’am: about six, you said, when she went inside Largo with young MacNeill. And it gets light about six in the morning. After that the killer had to be in his bed or somewhere else equally innocent. Sunrise is at seven. The body was put down Scarf Geo in the dark.’

  She nodded and looked diffident. ‘Were you implying that Maynard’s magazine was pornographic?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’ He tapped his notebook. ‘I had put a query against the term.’ Ivory was frowning fiercely. ‘But Mr Ivory wouldn’t query it.’

  ‘Permissive,’ the sergeant observed. ‘Only just keeps clear of the Obscene Publications Act.’

  ‘Really?’ Miss Pink was surprised.

  ‘Article on—er—’

  ‘Eunuchs,’ Merrick supplied equably.

  ‘With pictures.’ Ivory glowered. ‘Made a lot of trouble in the Highlands.’

  ‘I would have thought, with lambs, and bullocks—’

  ‘They’re different,’ Ivory said.

  She was silent for a moment while Merrick started to gather up his papers, then she said abstractedly: ‘Yes, it is a publication that does sail close to the wind and now I think I see a correlation—between his work and his climbing. I’d have thought that exploiting sex was the antithesis of climbing. But he’s an intelligent man, not your typical flesh-peddler—’ their eyes widened at her, ‘—he needs the hills. Poor fellow,’ she mused, ‘it must be very hard on him.’

  ‘Hard enough to kill, ma’am?’

  She looked at them as if she were surfacing from an anaesthetic. ‘To kill? Kill Terry Cooke? Why should he?’

  ‘Oh, come now!’ Merrick was impatient. They were all tired. ‘Here’s a man all mixed up with sex: makes his living out of it, married to a woman who’s probably mad with jealousy because he spends all day—and sometimes whole holidays—alone with an attractive girl thirty years younger than herself. . . . Are you going to tell me he hasn’t had an affair with Madge Fraser?’

  ‘No—but I do feel that the murderer was a passionate person and I don’t think Maynard has much feeling for women, not in that way.’

  ‘Lust,’ Ivory put in. ‘She was sunbathing nude.’ He glanced at the window but the curtains were drawn against the night. ‘All right in France perhaps but it’s not right here, is it? You saw her; anyone else could have seen her from the upper floor of this house—or anywhere else, come to that; could have seen it as an invitation. He went across after dark, she didn’t want him, she screamed.’

  ‘No one heard a scream.’

  ‘She tried to scream, mam.’

  She escaped from the writing room at last, but she was to have one more encounter before the night was over. As she started upstairs a door slammed loudly on the bedroom floor, and then another. She shook her head in disapproval, reflecting that good manners were going to the dogs even in Glen Shira House. She stopped at a book case outside her room and studied the spines of paperbacks.

  Suddenly the lavatory next door was flushed and Madge emerged looking shocked and angry. She was a peculiar colour as if she were pale under her tan. Although she saw Miss Pink, her expression didn’t change. She blundered along the corridor to her room and slammed that door. Forgetting all about books, Miss Pink entered her room, then paused and turned the key.

  Chapter Eight

  Overnight the weather changed. In the morning there were still no clouds but the light was harder and the air less fresh. Miss Pink went down for breakfast to find the place seething with hysteria. At the foot of the stairs Vera Hamlyn and Madge Fraser confronted each other, engaged in an altercation so intense that they seemed oblivious of the guests.

  ‘. . . in the circumstances I have no option,’ Madge was saying. ‘But I’m not leaving the glen; I’m going to camp by the waterfall until I’ve done the ridge.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ Miss Pink was trying to squeeze past the guide, who moved but didn’t look at her. Miss Pink went through the door of the cocktail lounge to encounter the fervid eyes of Lavender Maynard who was standing, incongruously at this hour, at the cleared bar. From the hall Vera’s voice was brittle: ‘I would have thought the least you could do was to leave the island.’

  Madge said, with equal coldness, ‘For one thing I doubt if the police would let me go, for another, you don’t really think I’m going to come down here and bother you in the evenings, do you? I’ll only be there a couple of days.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Vera exclaimed. ‘Don’t you realise what you’re doing? Please go.’

  The tone was desperate but there was no response. Someone walked away, to be followed, after a pause, by the other. Lavender stared with ghoulish triumph at Miss Pink who turned and went out. There was no one in the hall.

  At the far end of the dining room Maynard was talking urgently to Madge who stared out of the window with a stony face. Miss Pink sat at her table and heard heels on the parquet behind her. Lavender stalked past and sat down, her back like a ramrod. Maynard joined her and at that moment Ida Hunt came hurrying in with their coffee, saying good morning cheerfully all round.

  The Lindsays entered, wearing climbing clothes, and now all except Madge speculated in low voices on the extent to which their movements were going to be restricted. They appealed to Miss Pink who could tell them nothing on that score.

  Breakfast threatened to be disrupted by the arrival of several cars obviously containing reporters but Hamlyn—very much the colonel at this moment—came quickly through the hall to shepherd them back to the gravel sweep. Voices were raised and there were references to private property and Fascism, but the cars went away again.

  After breakfast Sergeant Ivory asked Miss Pink if she could spare a moment for the inspector. She found Merrick sitting in the writing room as if he’d been there all night. He stood up at her entrance.

  ‘Good morning, ma’am; I trust you had an undisturbed night? Would you be available in about two hours’ time? You weren’t proposing to go climbing?’ He was most courteous. She agreed to stay in the glen that morning.

  ‘Yes.’ He breathed a sigh of relief as if he had been dreading obstruction. ‘I’m going to see these five this morning: the men on the list, and get their movements. . . . The pathologist’s report isn’t going to help with the time of death because we don’t know when she last ate. Willie can’t help us; she didn’t mention supper when he was there early on. I understand you’re friendly with Euphemia Morrison, ma’am?’

  ‘With Euphemia!’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, she appears to be a stranger to the truth. That’s the problem. But she did tell us you were “a proper lady”, which implies respect. We can’t get anything out of her except obvious lies ot
herwise. Do you think you might do better? Her cottage faces Largo. She might have seen something after the light went out: might have seen it lit again perhaps, or a torch moving along the top of the cliffs—or anywhere else.’ He looked doubtful. ‘You might have some trouble. She threatened our people; claimed acquaintance with the sheriff.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think she meant that.’

  ‘She appears to be far from normal.’

  ‘Where do you suggest I talk to her?’

  ‘You’ll find her in her cottage. She’s handed in her notice for some reason. You’ll have all the privacy you need down there.’

  *

  Shedog was an old black house with stone walls and a roof of rushes, the thatch being protected from the wicked winds by ropes weighted with large stones. There was a squat chimney at either end and two sash windows with white trim. The door, also painted white, was ajar and propped open by a chunk of quartzite.

  Miss Pink’s knock sounded uncanny in the stillness. There was a stirring in the depths and Euphemia came through the wood-lined passage, her expression carefully composed to welcome her caller. Ostensibly Miss Pink was concerned that the other was not at the big house but Euphemia explained with dignity that her affairs were private and if the poliss wanted to see her they could come to Shedog.

  ‘And your conversation might be overheard up there,’ Miss Pink observed idly.

  Euphemia nodded, and ushered her into the living room where a magnificent range gleamed with blacklead and a kettle was suspended over the fire from a crane like a ship’s boom. Above the range was a high shelf with two fine Staffordshire dogs. A brass lamp hung from the ceiling. Euphemia thrust a piece of driftwood under the kettle and gestured to a chair.

  ‘Sit yourself down; we’ll have a cup of tea.’ Her eyes shifted. ‘You think only of your stomach! No one was saying anything about eating!’

  A large black cat with a Grecian nose and emerald eyes hurried in making anxious noises. Having made sure that no food was available, he jumped on Miss Pink’s lap, kneaded himself into a comfortable position with his arms over her shoulder and went to sleep. The tea was made in a tin pot and placed on the trivet.