by James Oswald
‘I can’t rightly remember a time Mistress Cecily didn’t live in that cottage. I was born here, grew up here. I’ve been farming this land all my life, and she’s always been there.’
McLean studied the farmer’s face. He had that weathered texture to his skin, his close-cropped hair flecked with grey, but he was probably only just past forty. Possibly younger. Farming could turn you old before your time.
‘But she’s always kept herself to herself, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Aye. Back when I was a lad, everyone said she was a witch an’ she’d curse us if we crossed her.’ Uist took a bite out of his biscuit, a mouthful of tea, then carried on speaking as he chewed and swallowed. ‘Sounds daft now I’m older, but I believed it back then. We all did.’
‘All?’
‘Aye. This is the home farm, but there’s a half dozen others that are part of the Bairnfather Estate. Then there’s the hall itself. That’s a hotel now, but it’s still got groundskeepers, maintenance men. Must be a hundred or more cottages and houses all told. Families growing up here. Everyone knew Mistress Cecily wasn’t to be disturbed. But as she got older, well, she asked every now and then. A bit of help in the garden, something needing fixed in the house. Then when the bridge collapsed a couple of months back, the only way in and out was over the old ford. Wouldn’t even trust a Land Rover to it, so I took stuff to her in the tractor.’
‘But only once a week.’
‘Aye, like I said. If she didn’t need something doing, she liked to be left alone.’
‘You say she’s always lived in that cottage. Since you can remember, anyway. Do you know if she has any family nearby?’
Uist cocked his head slightly, an expression on his face as if he thought McLean daft for asking. ‘Maybe no’ nearby. Least not all the time. But there’s Lord Bairnfather himself.’
‘I understand he lives in London. To be honest, I’m surprised he’s not come back here yet. We informed him over a fortnight ago.’
‘Well that’s Reggie down to a T now, isn’t it?’ Margaret Uist bustled over with a cloth, wiping the mess her husband had left on the tabletop from eating biscuits.
‘How do you mean?’ McLean asked.
‘Mistress Cecily never cared for the titles and the privilege and all. She hated the hall, though she loved her wee cottage. She never said much about it, mind, but I got the feeling the family had done her wrong. Many years ago.’
‘Did she not get on with her nephew then? Do you know how he felt about her?’
‘Can’t remember the last time I spoke to Lord Reginald,’ Tam Uist said, as if that explained everything. ‘Most of my business is with Charlie.’
‘Charlie?’ McLean felt acute embarrassment in asking. He should have been far better briefed before coming to this interview.
‘Charlie McPherson. He’s the estate manager. Lord Reggie’s right-hand man.’
‘We spoke to him on the day, sir,’ Harrison interrupted before McLean could say anything more. ‘Should have been a transcript of the interview in the file. Not that he could add much to what Mr Uist here told us.’
‘Of course.’ McLean finished his tea, carefully placing the mug back down once he was done. ‘Mr McPherson’s next on our list of people to speak to again. I’m afraid what we took for a tragic accident at the start is beginning to look like something a bit more serious.’
Margaret Uist let out a little gasp, her hand reaching for her throat. ‘Oh my word. You think somebody . . . did for her?’
Before McLean could answer, the farmer had crossed the room and taken his wife in his arms. A head and more shorter than him, she melted into his embrace.
‘I’m very sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings, Mrs Uist.’ McLean turned his attention to her husband. ‘Mr Uist, I would appreciate it if you kept this information to yourselves for now. We will find out what happened to Cecily Slater, I can assure you. But it’s easier for us to carry out our investigations if people aren’t speculating about what might have happened.’
11
‘Wow. This is a bit posh, isn’t it?’
DS Harrison leaned forward over the steering wheel, the better to peer out the windscreen at the approaching mansion. McLean sat in the passenger seat, happy to be driven for a change, even if it was only the short distance from the farm. Harrison liked driving the Alfa, he knew, and she did it well. None of the other junior officers dared even try, declining whenever he suggested it to them. It was probably for the best.
‘Ostentatious is the word you’re looking for, I’d say.’ He watched the building appear to grow in size as they came ever closer. No doubt whoever had designed the grounds surrounding Bairnfather Hall had intended it to work that way, the mature woodland on either side of the drive easing gently away to reveal more and more of a massive sandstone edifice. That it had all been the residence of just one family seemed rather obscene, and its current use as a hotel for the kind of people who didn’t blink at spending a five-figure sum on a bed for the night wasn’t much better.
A half-dozen needlessly expensive cars were parked on a vast gravel circle in front of the main entrance. McLean’s Alfa wasn’t cheap, but it might as well have been an old banger in comparison. He should probably have run it through a carwash, or maybe taken a bucket and rag to it himself whilst he’d been suspended, sitting at home and mostly twiddling his thumbs. Instead he’d neglected the poor thing, and its black paint was more road grime grey, reflected in the dazzling polish of the gleaming, and spectacularly ugly, Rolls-Royce SUV Harrison parked next to.
It would be easy to forget that Edinburgh city centre was less than a half-hour’s drive away. Set in gently undulating parkland, surrounded by distant woodlands and sheltered by the rising slopes of the Pentland Hills, the hall felt like it belonged in a different era, or perhaps another dimension. That, of course, was what the punters paid for, and only the occasional plane climbing into the air from Turnhouse and the omnipresent dull roar of the M8 spoiled the otherwise perfect calm.
They climbed a set of elegant stone steps to the front entrance and a hall almost as large as McLean’s entire house. A low mutter of voices escaped from a room off to the left, but before McLean could investigate, a young man in an immaculate tailcoat approached the two of them.
‘Good afternoon, sir, ma’am.’ He bowed, minimally. ‘Welcome to Bairnfather Hall. Might I be of assistance?’
McLean ignored him, allowing Harrison the honours. She dug her warrant card out and presented it to the doorman. ‘Detective Sergeant Harrison. This is Detective Chief Inspector McLean. I wonder if we might have a word with Mr McPherson?’
To his credit, the doorman didn’t miss a beat. Nor did he bother inspecting Harrison’s warrant card. With another of those minimalist bows, he turned. ‘If you would like to follow me.’ And without waiting to see if they would, he set off across the hall. McLean offered Harrison a raised eyebrow, which earned him a scowl. Promotion had boosted her confidence, and it had also made her less respectful of his rank.
‘You do know it’s only Detective Inspector now, not Chief,’ he said, quietly enough that their guide wouldn’t hear.
‘Aye, sir. But this place . . .’ Harrison shrugged. ‘Seems like it needs someone a bit more senior?’
He had to admit she had a point. They followed the doorman, trekking across vast acres of polished marble floor. The entrance hall, or grand hall or whatever the hell it was called, rose up to a glass cupola high overhead. It wasn’t that impressive by the standards of modern engineering, but given it had been built in an age when sophisticated construction involved placing stones on top of other stones, it was quite breathtaking. Something about knowing it had been built with sweat and muscle, rather than computers and heavy machinery, lent it a solidity McLean didn’t get from the enormous conference centres, shopping malls and business hotels that had been popping
up in the city in recent years. Bairnfather Hall had the benefit of a couple of centuries of not falling down, too. That helped.
‘If you could wait here a moment, I’ll just see if I can find Mr McPherson for you.’ The doorman had stopped by a door that was a good six feet taller than it needed to be, and surrounded by an architrave that must have taken months to carve. McLean checked his watch while they waited, Harrison doing something with her phone. He was surprised she could get a signal behind all this stone.
‘Charlie McPherson. How can I help you?’
A man not much older than the one who’d led them to this point had appeared at the door as if by magic. He was dressed a little less formally, his double-breasted suit and shiny, slicked back hair giving him the air of a fifties used car salesman rather than manager of such an exclusive hotel and vast estate. His proffered hand was aimed at McLean, even though Harrison stood a little closer.
‘Cecily Slater,’ McLean said as he shook that hand. McPherson’s grip was loose, warm and sweaty, but there was no mistaking the twitch as he heard the name. He looked from McLean to Harrison, then back again, his faux-helpful smile falling to an expression of resigned weariness. He pointed at another over-large door a fair distance away.
‘Why don’t we go to my office.’
Charlie McPherson’s office was the most opulent McLean had seen in many a year. He wasn’t sure what the room had been originally, back when Bairnfather Hall had been a private residence. It might have been Lord Bairnfather’s study, or possibly a ladies’ withdrawing room. Like the rest of the building, it was larger than anyone could possibly need, with a high ceiling decorated with ornate plasterwork. Two tall windows looked out on to the formal gardens to the rear of the house, and from there to the woods that climbed up the northern flank of the Pentland Hills. Between them, McPherson carried out his business from a massive antique desk, but he led McLean and Harrison to a long table incongruously blocking an Adam fireplace. Despite there being no fire in the grate, the room was comfortably warm.
‘Coffee?’ McPherson asked as he poured from a glass jug he’d removed from under a catering-style filter machine. McLean nodded, and soon enough the three of them were seated around one corner of the table.
‘Lady Cecily.’ McPherson gave his head the most minimal of shakes. ‘What a terrible business.’
‘Lady Cecily. Yes.’ McLean put his emphasis on the title. ‘I have to admit that we weren’t initially aware of her . . . lineage? I knew she was part of the family, but I thought maybe a distant cousin. Not Lord Bairnfather’s aunt.’
McPherson raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m surprised. Lady Cecily Slater, daughter of the ninth Lord Bairnfather.’ He pointed to a portrait hanging on the wall not far from the fireplace. ‘That’s him there. Sir Reginald Archibald Slater before he inherited the title.’
‘And yet she lived in the gamekeeper’s cottage?’ Harrison asked the question before McLean could voice it himself.
‘She’s . . . She was quite a character. Could have had a nice townhouse, even her own suite here in the hotel for that matter. Sir Reginald does. That’s the current Lord Bairnfather, named for his grandfather.’ McPherson shook his head a bit more effusively now. ‘But no, she insisted on that cottage. She used to say it was where she was born, and it was where she was going to die. That seems rather prophetic now.’
McLean took a sip of his coffee, pleasantly surprised at how good it was. ‘Did you see her much?’
McPherson tilted his head like a confused dog, eyes going out of focus as he read some calendar in his brain. ‘Lady Cecily? No. Can’t remember the last time she came to the hotel. She didn’t go anywhere. Hips were pretty much shot to pieces, and she didn’t trust doctors enough to let them give her new ones.’
‘So, you’re telling me she lived alone in that cottage, cut off from the world. Quite literally, given the state of the track and the bridge. Ninety years old and nobody did anything about it?’
‘I . . . That is . . .’ McPherson squirmed in his chair like he needed to be excused. ‘She’s . . . was . . . very forthright, you see. And her nephew, the current Lord Bairnfather, he always defers to her.’
McLean thought it odd, perhaps even verging on careless, but it matched what the farmer, Tam Uist had said. And he’d known old women like he imagined Cecily Slater to be. His grandmother had been one of them. Self-destructively independent.
‘Ms . . . Lady Cecily lay undetected for the best part of a week before the farmer found her. It seems strange to me that nobody noticed the fire. You don’t recall anyone mentioning the smell of burning? Somebody must have noticed something, surely?’
‘Believe me, Inspector. I’ve asked all the staff and nobody remembers anything. The gamekeeper’s cottage is a couple of miles away, in that direction.’ McPherson pointed at the fireplace. ‘First we knew anything was amiss was when your constable came round. I was told it was a tragic accident. Has that changed?’
McLean ignored the question. ‘Going back over the past few weeks. Can you remember a group of people coming here, maybe drinking at the bar? Not the usual crowd or guests at the hotel?’
McPherson gave McLean that confused dog look again, only this time his gaze remained clear. ‘We don’t have a usual crowd, Chief Inspector. This isn’t that kind of hotel. People don’t come out here for a drink on the way home from work. We cater for very high-end weddings, wealthy industrialists and celebrities who don’t want to be disturbed. The most you’ll find in our bar is a few of the hotel guests having a drink before going to bed. I told all of this to Constable Stringer. Did he not pass any of it on to you?’
‘He did,’ McLean lied. Well, not exactly lied. DC Stringer’s interview transcripts would have been logged and filed and were probably in a report somewhere on his desk. It wasn’t the same as being there when the questions were asked, seeing the face of the person doing the answering. McPherson was a little too ingratiating, and his slicked back hair and vintage suit were trying too hard, but he didn’t come across as someone being deliberately unhelpful or obstructive. He didn’t even seem to be anxious that a police presence might upset the guests at his hotel, which was perhaps a little suspicious. There was nothing more to be learned here though, of that McLean was sure.
‘I’m sorry if it feels like we’re going over old ground, Mr McPherson. Sometimes a key detail gets overlooked; an insignificant thing turns out to be important after all. Policing is all about the little things. Much like running a hotel, I’d think.’ He stood up, and beside him Harrison hurriedly finished scribbling her notes. McPherson accompanied them to the office door but stopped himself from escorting them to the exit. McLean was glad he didn’t offer a damp hand to shake again.
‘Thank you for your time.’ He made to turn away, then stopped. ‘Oh, one other thing. Lord Bairnfather is your boss, you said?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Have you spoken to him recently? About his aunt?’
McPherson’s head drooped low. ‘The same morning your constable came around. It was not a happy conversation.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Your constable— oh, Lord Bairnfather.’ McPherson checked his watch, which McLean thought was probably unnecessary. ‘Somewhere over the Pacific, I expect. He was in Tokyo when I called him, had some crucial meetings in America on his way home. He’ll come straight here as soon as he lands in the UK. He was most distraught.’
And yet he’s taken his time coming home, not let it interfere with his business.
‘Does he own all this?’ McLean raised both hands to indicate the hotel.
‘Well, the hall and estate are in trust, but in essence yes. One of his companies runs the hotel business.’
‘And the gamekeeper’s cottage? That’s part of the estate.’
‘Correct. Lady Cecily was also a beneficiary of the trust. Her right to live there was p
art of her inheritance.’
McLean said nothing more. He nodded his thanks, then turned and walked away across the great hall.
12
Apart from the damp and cold, it would have been a nice walk from Bairnfather Hall to the gamekeeper’s cottage, had the bridge not collapsed and the recent rain made the river too deep to ford. There was no sign of Tam Uist and his tractor either, so they took the car instead. Driving around to the forestry tracks and walking up through the woods took almost three quarters of an hour. Climbing the path through trees dripping with condensed fog left them both soaked, although Harrison’s coat appeared to be a lot more water repellent than McLean’s. He turned up his collar to try and stop the water going down the back of his neck, with little success. By the time he stepped into the clearing, McLean was ready to give the whole thing up as a bad job.
‘What do you suppose will happen to the place?’ Harrison asked as they approached the ruined cottage. Rain had washed away some of the soot and taken with it any smell of charred wood and burned carpet. The props holding up the ceiling inside had been joined now by some rusty old scaffolding around the most collapsed corner of the building, but it seemed a half-hearted effort at best.
‘I imagine they’ll most likely demolish it and build something new on the plot. Unless it’s a listed building, in which case they’ll probably try to get out of having to rebuild it.’
‘It’s not listed,’ Harrison said. ‘Lofty checked already. Part of the background search on Slater. Lady Cecily, I should say.’
‘I rather think she wanted to leave all that behind, don’t you? Why else live in a run-down old place like this?’ McLean walked slowly around the building, not quite sure what it was he was looking for but certain he would know it when he saw it. Only the crime scene tape remained to suggest anything more untoward than a house fire had happened.
