Private Sins

by Gwen Moffat

  PRIVATE SINS

  Gwen Moffat

  © Gwen Moffat 2014

  Gwen Moffat has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published 1999 by Constable & Company Ltd.

  This edition published by Endeavour Media Ltd in 2018.

  Table of Contents

  1

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  3

  4

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  Extract from An Accidental Shroud by Marjorie Eccles

  1

  ‘KEEP OUT!’ the notice screamed. ‘Cyanide capsules in place! Cyanide guns set inside. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!’

  ‘That can’t be legal.’ Miss Pink was deeply shocked.

  ‘Charlie doesn’t care whether it’s legal or not. It’s his land.’

  Sophie Hamilton turned her horse and moved away. Miss Pink pushed after her. ‘D’you mean he can put poison down — and for heaven’s sake, what is a cyanide gun? Sophie, you don’t approve?’

  They stopped at another small, decrepit structure, evidently masking a mine shaft: a roof of timber and corrugated iron held up by one baulk supporting a massive beam.

  ‘Of course I don’t approve.’ Sophie was huffy. ‘But Charlie could be thinking in terms of insurance and kids coming out from town to explore the mines. These old buildings are death traps: rotting floors, shafts not properly plugged, roofs — look at that roof: held up by one post just, waiting to collapse. On the other hand, Charlie’s a great joker.’

  ‘Cyanide’s a joke?’

  ‘My dear, anything that causes discomfort is a joke to my brother-in-law.’ Sophie caught the other’s expression. ‘There won’t be any cyanide,’ she added quickly. ‘Only the notices. It’s a bluff. I never did like this place,’ she went on. ‘Ghost towns are fun but old mines can be horrors.’

  ‘Something died here. I can smell it.’ Miss Pink was disgruntled.

  ‘A calf, maybe, or a fawn. Bitten by a rattler. Let’s get back to the top. I shouldn’t have brought you down here.’

  They pushed back to the ridge where the air was sweet, scented with sage. Little fair-weather clouds seemed to be stationary in the shining sky and the sun’s heat was tempered by a breeze. In the south the mountains were plastered white after a late snowfall. ‘This is what I came for,’ Miss Pink announced. ‘A good horse and a fine day in the Rockies. Blissful.’

  ‘That’s great.’ The tone lacked conviction. ‘I’m so glad. We’re lucky with the weather.’ Sophie was abstracted. They had reined in facing downhill and a mile or two below was a building too large to be called a ranch house: dazzling white and roofed in red; not one roof, but many at different angles.

  ‘Is that Glenaffric?’ Miss Pink asked. She was being sociable, aware that there was only one house of this size in the vicinity, perhaps in the county.

  ‘Yes, that’s Charlie’s place,’ Sophie said with finality. ‘And Edna’s,’ she added as an afterthought.

  It occurred to Miss Pink that she might shorten her visit. Sophie’s invitation had been open-ended but she knew a troubled mind when she was in close proximity to one. There had been tension last night, and this afternoon, absorbing those references to Charlie Gunn, the brother-in-law, she guessed she had walked in on a family problem. Her presence could be an embarrassment. All the same, her antennae were bristling; whatever had happened to turn an elegant and friendly lady into a strained and — it had to be said — a dirty person was intriguing to say the least.

  They had met when Sophie was exploring Cornwall on her own, something that set her apart immediately: an elderly but well-heeled American tourist in an Armani suit touring in May to avoid the crowds — and in a BMW at that. They’d struck up a conversation over a ploughman’s lunch, Sophie had visited Miss Pink’s sprawling cliff-top house and they’d kept in touch since, each fascinated by the other’s lifestyle. Each had kept something back. Miss Pink had confessed to writing Gothic romances but had mentioned only that she had been on the fringe of one or two murder investigations. Sophie hadn’t probed, perhaps expecting that details would emerge later, perhaps thinking that such details would demand a quid pro quo. And Sophie was keeping back a lot, although her confidences would be concerned with her family, not murder. The bits of her background she did reveal were enthralling. She lived in the Montana Rockies, in a small town surrounded by mountains. She owned a dude ranch — dudes were city folk whose idea of bliss was a vacation spent on horseback. Her niece ran the business, so Sophie had all the fun without the grind. When, after that chance meeting in a Mousehole pub, the prospect of riding those ranges was dangled before her, Miss Pink had succumbed, seduced by the memory of big skies and the promise of an Arab mare. They had made excited plans by telephone, had even speculated that they might go elsewhere after Montana: take a horse trailer and ride in Idaho and Oregon, even Canada. It would be a long summer of delights.

  The reality had been less inviting. True, Sophie had been waiting at the little local airport but recognition, at least on Miss Pink’s part, was not immediate. She was looking for the chic tourist in designer clothes but the woman who approached — square and solid in old Levis and a flannel shirt — wasn’t the Sophie of the BMW and Armani suits. The jeans were sweat-stained, the boots crusted with dung — and she smelled. The eyes, under the peak of a tacky ball cap, were sunken and she looked exhausted. She did explain that she’d been riding, had been held up and had come straight from the ranch to the airport without taking time to change. Miss Pink collected herself, accepted the explanation with equanimity and emerged from the terminal into the velvet night — a moon behind the clouds — to be overwhelmed by the air and the warmth, and the glorious sense of space beyond the airport’s lights.

  In Sophie’s apartment there was no opportunity for questions and no energy. Jet lag struck, and single malt conspired with the lure of a bed after hours shoehorned into a cramped seat to render Miss Pink virtually comatose.

  She woke to a brilliant day. Sophie lived on the sixth floor of an apartment block on Ballard’s main street. It was an old hotel and its big sash windows looked out over the roofs and shade trees of this small Western town to alpine ranges. Between the big peaks and the valley there were foothills: long sweeps resembling downland close at hand while, more distantly, higher hills were densely timbered.

  Miss Pink had risen so late that she wasn’t surprised to find a note from Sophie saying she’d gone out for some sandwich fixings and to make herself at home. The table in the kitchen was laid and coffee was hot in the machine. Miss Pink felt guilty, lying in bed till eleven. When Sophie came home both were apologetic, excited and eager to be out. The tension of the previous night was forgotten — until, from the Bobcat Hills above the old copper mines, they looked down on Charlie Gunn’s great house, a place unmistakably built to flaunt its owner’s wealth and to dominate the valley.

  It was Charlie’s father who had made the first of the family’s fortunes. His father had been a Highland crofter and had emigrated to raise a family in a sod-house on the eastern prairies, but when his eldest son was old enough he had gone to the Yukon and struck gold. He returned to sink his money in sheep, progressing to cattle and horses. He was a good businessman and he forged ahead, buying land and eventually building the house which he was to name after the glen where his people had lived for generations in a two-roomed blackhouse belonging to the laird. The term ‘cocking a snook’ was coined for
Charlie’s father.

  Miss Pink guessed that what she knew of Sophie’s extended family was public knowledge. Both she and her sister had been teachers, but where Sophie had remained single and ended her career as a lecturer in English at the state university, Edna (the pretty one, said Sophie) had married Charlie Gunn, the wealthiest rancher in the neighbourhood.

  It was reasonable to suppose that Charlie didn’t have his father’s devotion to ranching. The cattle and the sheep had been sold and now he concentrated on breeding horses. His land around Ballard had been sold for development, making another fortune for him, but it appeared that no money trickled down to his children. Val, the daughter, was running the pack-trips with Sophie’s horses so she must be working hard, at least in the season, and there was something about Clyde, Charlie’s son, working as a ranch hand. Sophie chattered about her own ranch but she was reticent about the establishment at Glenaffric and Miss Pink knew nothing of relationships between family members. She had an idea that Clyde was single and she knew that Val had been married twice, and there was a daughter, who would be Sophie’s great-niece, but she was away. It wasn’t clear where the girl was nor what she was doing, only that she wasn’t around. Miss Pink looked forward to learning more, possibly tomorrow when they were to dine at Glenaffric.

  They came to the trail-head and stopped. Miss Pink slid down and staggered, her knees locked. She clung to her mare’s neck and swung her legs gingerly, watching Sophie unhook the tailgate of the trailer, unable to assist.

  ‘Right,’ Sophie said. ‘Let’s have Barb in first.’

  Miss Pink picked up the reins and stumbled forward like a drunk.

  ‘What are you working on now?’ Sophie asked politely, easing her Cherokee on to the road.

  ‘I told you: a newspaper column slanted towards senior citizens. I’m hoping it will lead to another travel book.’

  ‘I meant fiction. You must be doing a romance.’

  ‘Not at the moment.’ Miss Pink was testy. ‘Publishers are down-sizing. I might turn to crime.’

  Sophie giggled and then they were both laughing: two solid old women reeking of sweat and horses. This was more like the Sophie she knew. Miss Pink relaxed happily and settled to enjoy the view. On their left were willow thickets, cottonwoods and a river, on their right Ballard’s newest development climbed the slope: raw and opulent houses pointing to steady incomes.

  Once a staging post on the cattle trail to the copper mines at Butte, Ballard’s fortunes were now reviving with the influx of yuppie commuters from Irving, Montana’s Silicon Valley. Each of these new properties stood on several acres of land; as they drove there were glimpses of sleek horses and late-model Jeeps but close to the road a house trailer sat in what appeared to be a junk yard.

  The trouble with mobile homes is that they look so shabby as they deteriorate and this was no exception. The general picture wasn’t helped by the wrecks of several cars, the skeleton of something — perhaps another trailer — gutted by fire and a yard fenced with branches of trees. It contained two bony horses. A large, florid fellow, his beer gut overhanging slim hips, was at the door of the trailer. He raised a hand and grinned as the Cherokee passed. Sophie nodded to him.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ Miss Pink asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. He’s Val’s ex, Paul Skinner.’

  ‘Oh, Jen’s father? It is Jen, isn’t it?’

  ‘God no! Jen’s father is Sam Jardine. Sam was Val’s first husband. She should have stayed with him. I never understood why she married this slob.’ Sophie’s voice dropped. ‘Obvious why he married her, of course.’

  ‘Her — expectations?’ Miss Pink murmured.

  ‘That’s how Skinner saw it. Actually, he was a handsome guy when he was younger, before he put on weight.’ Sophie drove slowly, her thoughts elsewhere. ‘He thought Val owned the ranch and the stock, but I rent the ranch from Charlie and the stock’s mine. And then Charlie could live for years yet; he’s only seventy. Skinner wasn’t going to wait once he got the picture. Besides, Val soon saw what kind of guy he was. He’s got a roving eye and no way would Val tolerate that kind of thing.’ Sophie bit her lip. As if Miss Pink had protested she added angrily, ‘Well, there was the drink too; what kind of woman is going to spend days living rough in the back country, working her guts out and all to earn money to keep a man in drink while he —’ She checked, breathing heavily.

  Miss Pink said delicately, ‘But the first husband was different?’

  ‘Sam’s all right.’ It was bitten off. ‘The trouble there was Charlie… All the same, if Sam and Val had stayed together maybe none of this would have — but there, we’re a different generation. Val says they were both immature, her and Sam Jardine; too immature to settle down, she means, although Sam’s settled well enough since, though he hasn’t married again. He’s got a spread down towards Irving: pedigree Angus. It was Val who didn’t want to settle; she’s a loner, only happy around horses. Of course, she has to have an interest.’

  There’s her daughter, Miss Pink thought, but didn’t say it. Sophie was thawing gradually; she’d learn the rest in time.

  *

  The ranch had been quiet when they’d started out, now there were horses in a corral, others tied outside a barn. Shrill neighs from the trailer were answered by a chorus of whinnies, and a figure in a ragged straw hat appeared in the doorway of the barn. Miss Pink was introduced to Val Jardine, who must have abandoned her second husband’s name along with the man. She was a gaunt woman in her fifties and now, after shepherding dudes on a day trip, the strain showed and she looked older. But there were good bones under the taut skin and her eyes were large: patrician eyes shadowed by the hat brim; she’d be a handsome woman if her face filled out a little. Whatever her age, she looked fit despite the fatigue, and she was good with animals. As Sophie had said, horses came first. After being introduced, Val wasted no time on small talk but turned to a hitched palomino, pasting ointment on a nasty sore. ‘The kid riding this one must have tightened the cinch when I wasn’t looking,’ she growled. ‘Rubbed him raw.’

  ‘He’ll be fine with a few days’ rest,’ Sophie said comfortably. ‘You can’t have eyes in the back of your head. I need to speak with you about that pair I mean to buy from Charlie. Are you happy for me to pick them out?’

  ‘Of course I am. You can do as well as me there.’ Val went to work with a hoof pick. Miss Pink watched idly. The woman lowered the leg and moved to the rear end, mumbling to the pony who shifted his weight and seemed to present his hoof before she touched it. Miss Pink turned to help Sophie unload the trailer.

  When they’d unsaddled, Sophie settled her guest on the porch, supplied her with beer, told her where the fridge was, and left to help Val turn out the horses. Miss Pink watched them ride away bareback and reflected that her own offer of assistance had been declined less out of regard for her fatigue than to keep her out of the way. There was an air of tension about Val that recalled Sophie’s preoccupation of last night. Well, if what was needed was a family discussion the waiting time couldn’t be spent in a more congenial spot.

  It was six o’clock and shadows were already forming in the hollows of the hills. Ballard was hidden away to the north and a belt of tall spruce excluded any sound from that direction. Swallows were hunting flies above the corrals and a red-tailed hawk was calling. Eastwards were shapely little hills like flattened cones, the gulches filled with dark conifers. In places where there must be water, aspens caught the sun and flared like emeralds. Beyond the little hills was the line of the Thunder river, invisible in the bottom of its canyon but its presence indicated by a broken escarpment on the far side. Pale crags were seamed by shadowy gullies, minuscule firs silhouetted against the sky. Further south, beyond a great expanse of forest, broken here and there by cliffs, the snow peaks held a glint of gold.

  Miss Pink’s glass was empty, and so was the bottle. She got up to find the fridge.

  Val’s house, little more than a cabin, was the
original Gunn home, the first place Charlie’s father had put up when he returned from the Yukon and before he built Glenaffric. Basically it wouldn’t have changed much, except for the installation of electricity. Val didn’t set much store by comfort; there was no table in the kitchen, no dresser, only shelves on the log walls stacked with coarse china and cans of food. There was a sink, an electric cooker that looked as if it were fifty years old and — surprisingly — a new refrigerator and a washing machine in matching shades of green. Everything was functional, even the calendar came from a feed store. The plank floor was bare and the chairs were plain kitchen chairs except for one in wicker with a cushion on which a black-and-white cat was curled, asleep. The only indulgences were photographs of horses tacked to the walls. Animals filled a void for Val. So what was the story behind the missing daughter? Miss Pink couldn’t resist a glance into the other rooms: a dim living-room, a couple of bedrooms so similar that from the thresholds it wasn’t apparent which was Val’s, a bathroom… She heard voices and dived for the kitchen to snatch a bottle of beer and emerge as they approached the porch.

  Sophie was fussy with apologies for taking so long. Val stared at the visitor as if bewildered to find her still there. For herself, Miss Pink appeared somnolent, allowing the fatigue to show but fully alert.

  The older women climbed into the Cherokee. Miss Pink, settling herself, was aware of Val’s urgent whisper at the driver’s window: ‘… will be careful, won’t you? Don’t take any risks.’ She was so intense that, feeling Miss Pink’s cool stare, the anguished eyes moved — and returned to Sophie without a flicker.

  *

  ‘You’re very perceptive.’ Sophie lifted chicken breasts carefully and placed them on kitchen paper. ‘Do you have enough lettuce for the salad?’

  ‘Heaps.’ Miss Pink added vinegar to the oil. ‘Perceptive? That comes with the territory surely. I only said I wish we could find fridges and washing machines in pleasing colours. I haven’t seen them in England.’