by Simon Brett
Two separate clicks—what the hell could that mean? He was about to dismiss it as a vagary of the Scottish telephone system when a thought struck him. There were two extensions of the same telephone at Coates Gardens, one in the Laird’s flat and one in the hall. Perhaps what he had taken to be a crossed line at the beginning of the call had been someone answering the downstairs telephone. And the first click was that person putting their receiver down. In other words, someone could have heard all of the conversation.
Only one woman likely to be in Coates Gardens had a middle-aged voice.
The journey to Edinburgh developed another complication when he tried to order a taxi. The only firm for miles was in Tighnabruiach and there was a funeral there the following morning which was going to appropriate every car; they could not get one to the Clachenmore Hotel until half past two in the afternoon.
There was nothing to be done about it. It just meant another morning’s fishing and another of Mrs Parker’s gargantuan lunches. There were worse fates.
The next morning was very, very wet. Rain fell as if God had upturned a bottomless bucket. Frances decided that she would not venture out; she curled up on the sofa in the Lounge with Watership Down.
‘What do you think about fishing?’ Charles asked, hoping Mr Parker’s reply would excuse him from going out.
‘Yes, not bad weather for it.’
Damn. Charles started to pull on his anorak. ‘Actually,’ Mr Parker continued, ‘Tam was asking if I thought you’d like to go after some salmon.’
That sounded a lot more attractive than pulling worms out of damp clods in the hope of another five-inch trout. ‘Really? Is he about?’
‘Was earlier. There was a phone call for him. I’ll see.’
Tam was found and was more than willing to conduct a guided tour of the salmon pools (no doubt in anticipation of a substantial tip). His only reservation, which Mr Parker interpreted to Charles, was that he did not approve of women being involved in fishing, and did Mrs Paris want to come? Charles set his mind at rest on that point, and then took stock of his guide.
The gamekeeper was a man of indeterminate age and impenetrable accent. His face was sucked inwards and shrivelled like perished rubber. He wore a flat cap and a once-brown overcoat with large pockets on the outside (and no doubt even larger ones on the inside).
Tam’s mouth opened and uttered strange Scottish sounds which might have been asking if Charles was ready to go straight away.
‘Yes,’ he hazarded. ‘Will I need a rod?’
Tam laughed derisively. Legal fishing methods were obviously a myth created for the tourists.
They set off, following the burn up the hill. Conversation was limited. Tam would occasionally comment on things they passed (a dead sheep, for example) and all Charles’ acting skill would be required to choose the right ‘Yes’, ‘Really?’, ‘Too true’, ‘Did they indeed?’ or omnipurpose grunt. He did not have the confidence to initiate subjects himself, reacting was safer. Mr Pilch’s words came back to him. ‘They’re a proud lot, the locals. Oh yes, you have to be careful what you say. And they have this great loyalty to their masters. In many ways, it’s still an almost feudal society. Very poor though, I’m afraid. Not a lot of jobs available round here. It’ll change of course when the oil comes—if it comes, which heaven forbid. You know there are plans to put up platforms just outside Loch Fyne? I hope they don’t ruin the West Coast. Eh?’
None of that offered very promising conversational topics. What’s it like being proud? Or living in a feudal society? Are you really very poor? What is your feeling about the proposed development of natural oil resources off the West Coast of Scotland? Somehow none of these seemed quite the right question to ask Tam, and fortunately the gamekeeper did not appear to find the silence irksome.
At last he indicated that they had reached their destination. It was the linked series of pools where Charles had been the day before. Again the trees overhead changed the note of the running stream and the heavy dripping of rain was muffled.
‘Do the salmon really get up this far?’
Tam managed to communicate that they certainly did. He had got a twenty-pounder out a good half mile farther up into the hills.
‘Whereabouts do they go? Do we just look for them swimming about in the pools?’
Apparently not. In these conditions they lay still just under the bank. The skill was to spot them and whip them out of the water quickly. Tam would demonstrate.
They edged slowly down the slippery rocks to the waters edge. As they drew closer, the noise of the water increased. Swollen by rain, the cataracts pounded down on the rocks below. It was easy to see how the deep cleft had been worn down into the rock over the years.
Silently and efficiently, Tam lay down on the rocks at the waterside and peered into the bubbling green depths.
‘Anything?’ Charles hissed and was reprimanded by a finger on Tam’s lips. The gamekeeper slid crabwise along the rocks, still looking down. Then he froze for a moment and got up.
‘Big one,’ he whispered. Either Charles was getting used to the accent or it was clearer close to.
‘Where?’
‘Directly under that rock. Have a look. But be quiet and don’t move suddenly.’
Charles eased himself down to a kneeling position and, with his hands gripping the slimy edge of the pool, moved his head slowly out over the water.
At that moment his left hand slipped. It saved his life. As his body lurched sideways, he saw the flash of the brass head of Tam’s Priest as it came down. The blow aimed to the skull landed with agonising force on Charles’ shoulder.
The shock of the attack stunned him even more than its violence. For a moment he lay there, the rocks hard under his back, his hair soaked with spray from the pounding water just below. Then he saw Tam advancing towards him with the Priest again upraised.
The gamekeeper must have thought he had knocked his victim out; he was unprepared for the kick in the stomach that Charles managed from his prone position. Tam staggered back clutching himself, reeled for a moment at the water’s edge, then fell safely on to the rocks.
Charles had one aim, which was to get the hell out of the place. Winding his assailant had given him the opportunity. He scrambled manically over the slimy rocks, grabbing at tussocks and branches to heave himself up the gradient. His right arm screeched with pain like a gear lever in a broken gearbox. But he was getting away.
He turned for a moment. Tam was standing now, but Charles had the start. Then he saw something whip out and uncoil from the gamekeeper’s hand. As the treble hooks bit into his leg and he felt the inexorable pull down towards the boiling cauldron below, Charles knew it was the ripper.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
O’er all there hung a shadow and a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!
THE HAUNTED HOUSE
IN THE TRAIN from Glasgow to Edinburgh Charles said a little prayer of thanks, and reflected how frustrating it must be for God only to be in demand in times of danger, like a brilliant tap-dancer waiting for tap-dancing to come back into fashion. Still, God had saved his life and Charles Paris was suitably grateful.
There was no other explanation than divine intervention. The pain from his shoulder and the long furrows gouged in his left leg made the scene hard to forget. He could see the bank slipping past him as he was dragged painfully down to the water. He could feel the kick in the stomach with which Tam had immobilised him, and see the Priest again raised for a blow that was not going to miss.
And then, as Charles closed his eyes and vainly attempted to put his mental affairs in order, the threat vanished. Almost literally. The blow seemed a long time coming, so he crept one eye open. And Tam had disappeared.
The gamekeeper’s foot must have slipped on the rocks and, caught off balance, he had fallen into the water. The force of the stream had swept
him over the ledge of one pool and into the next, where he floated round like a giant face-cloth with a bubble of air caught in it.
Charles had tried to disengage the ripper from his leg, but the pain was too great, so he used a long stick to guide the body to the water’s edge. Then, using both arms (though the right one felt as if it was being severed from his torso with a blow lamp), he had heaved the sodden mass on to the bank.
To his amazement, he found that Tam was still alive, unconscious, but with a strong heartbeat and pulse. Rediscovering a scrap of knowledge that had lain dormant since some aunt had given him a Boy Scout diary in his teens, Charles turned the body over and, after working the shoulders for a few minutes, was rewarded by a flow of water from the injured man’s mouth. He then reckoned it was safe to leave Tam there; there was no danger of either death or escape. The body was propped up against a mossy bank and Charles started his painful course back to the hotel.
Mr Parker took control with instant efficiency. Suddenly Clachenmore did not seem so isolated. A doctor was summoned and a party of local forestry workers who were in the bar went off to fetch Tam.
The doctor did not comment on the story of two men slipping on the bank, Tam falling into the water and Charles getting tangled in the hooks and banging his shoulder on a rock; he just got on with the job. Removing the barbs of the hooks was the worst bit, but he was used to it. He explained that a pair of pliers was an essential part of a doctor’s equipment in that area, though most of the hooks he came across tended to be lodged in the cheeks of people walking behind over-enthusiastic fly-fishermen. Treble hooks, he admitted, were trickier, but the principle was the same—push the hook through until its barb stood clear of the flesh, snip it off with the pliers, and then work the remains of the hook out. While this excruciating operation was conducted, Charles made a rash vow that he would give up fishing; he had never thought what it felt like for the fish before.
In spite of the pain they caused, the scrapes on his leg were not deep. The highest one needed a couple of stitches, but the others were just cleaned and dressed. The shoulder presented even less problem. There was nothing broken, just severe bruising. The doctor strapped it into a sort of sling and went to tend the still-unconscious Tam, who had just been brought back.
Charles was patched up in time for lunch. Frances sat opposite him, looking anxious, but respecting his promise to explain everything in detail when it was over. There was an atmosphere of shock in the dining-room. Even Mr Pilch was subdued and did not get far pontificating to his children on Stone Age relics in Argyll.
At two thirty the taxi had arrived and, against doctor’s orders and Frances’ advice, Charles had started the journey to Edinburgh. Which was why he was sitting in the train, thanking God and asking God if He could see fit to spare a little more protection for the confrontation to come.
Stella Galpin-Lord had recommended Clachenmore. She knew Tam. By the attempt on Charles’ life, she had nailed her colours to the mast, but it was a mast that only Charles Paris could see, and she thought Charles Paris was dead. His best weapon was going to be surprise.
She did look surprised to see him when he found her at the Masonic Hall. She had just given her nightly pep-talk to the cast of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (which now only had three more revisualised performances to run; then in the third week of the Festival Mary, Queen of Sots took over). After Clachenmore Charles found it strange to think in terms of dates again. He reminded himself that it was now Thursday 29th August.
‘Stella. I’d like to talk.’
‘Certainly. I must say, this is a surprise. I thought we’d seen the last of you when you went to Clachenmore.’
‘Yes,’ he said grimly.
‘Didn’t you like it there?’
‘There were . . . things I didn’t like.’
They went to the pub near the Hall where they had last met. She had another of her vodka and Camparis; he had a large Bell’s. The pain from his patched-up wounds made concentration difficult, but he did not intend to talk for long. Stella raised her glass. ‘Well, this is an unexpected pleasure.’
‘I want to talk about Willy Mariello.’
The brusque statement took her completely off her guard. She blushed under her make-up, and lowered the glass as if she were afraid she might drop it. ‘Willy Mariello?’ she echoed stupidly. ‘But he’s dead.’
‘Yes. As you well know, he’s dead.’ She mouthed at him, unable to form words. ‘And, Stella, I think his death may have something to do with what he was doing in the few days before he died.’
‘It was an accident,’ she croaked. ‘It couldn’t have been anything to do with—’
‘Couldn’t it? Let’s just suppose for a moment it could. I have become very interested in what Willy was doing over those few days. So far all I can find out is that he did a bit of rehearsing, a bit of decorating in his house . . . and he slept with a woman other than his wife.’
The blush spread to the stringy parts of her neck the make-up had missed. ‘So . . . what are you saying?’
‘That you were that woman.’
‘What if I was? Who do you think you are—the bloody Edinburgh Watch Committee? If two people are attracted to each other and want to sleep together, what bloody business is it of yours?’
‘None at all. So when did this little affair start?’
‘We met in a pub on the Saturday night. It was obvious he was attracted to me.’ Charles wondered. He had a more likely vision of Willy, furious at Anna’s rejection of him, on the lookout for anything, so long as it was female. ‘And I went back to his house that night.’
‘I see.’
Stella saw some meaning that Charles had not intended in his remark. ‘I suppose you’re going to say something about our age difference.’
‘No, I’m not.’ His own recent behaviour would make such comment hypocritical. Anyway, it was irrelevant. ‘And the affair continued for a few more nights?’
‘Yes.’
‘Until the Tuesday morning when he told you to get lost.’ Her eyes flashed under their lash-stretched lids. ‘He did not! It was my idea. I thought it unsuitable that it should continue. I believe in love on impulse; I don’t think one should be tied.’
A suitable philosophy if no one’s ever tried to tie you and you have to make all the running, Charles thought. But he did not say it. ‘I see. Well, thank you for telling me that. I’m sure it’s something the police don’t know.’
She gaped and her real age showed. ‘What do you mean? Surely the police think Willy’s death was an accident . . .? Or, if it wasn’t, that that boy Martin—’
‘If it wasn’t, I feel we should tell them everything we know about the few days before he died.’
‘I don’t think it’s relevant.’
‘You don’t. I do. Perhaps there are other things we ought to know about the period. I mean, what was Willy doing?’
‘Willy—he was, as you said, rehearsing and decorating. The place was full of plaster dust and paint and all kinds of rubbish. Look, Mr Paris, I’d like to know why the hell you’re asking me all these questions.’
‘Because, Miss Galpin-Lord, I believe that, after a quarrel with Willy Mariello, in which he probably made disparaging remarks about your looks and general appeal, you arranged for him to be killed.’
Her face crumbled until it looked of pensionable age. ‘What? Murder?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what proof do you have of this?’
‘The proof comes from the fact that when you realised I was on to you you arranged to have me murdered too. Only unfortunately Tam the gamekeeper failed in his attempt, which is why you see me here now.’
‘Tam?’ Her voice was very weak.
‘From Clachenmore. Now, come on, you set me up to go there because you knew Tam was to hand if necessary. Don’t pretend you don’t know him.’
‘I know who you mean, but I don’t know him well.’
‘Well enough to know how poor he is
and what he’d be prepared to do for money.’
‘But how am I supposed to have arranged this?’
‘Simple. You rang him at the hotel. I know he had a call this morning.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I hardly know the man.’ Now she was almost shouting.
‘You’ve known him ever since he started working at Clachenmore.’
‘I’ve only seen him there a couple of times.’
‘Then maybe you knew him before. In his previous job. It was somewhere in the same area.’
‘I didn’t know him then. Not at all. I’ve never even been to Glenloan House.’
‘Where?’
‘Glenloan House.’
There was only one other person Charles had ever heard use that name, someone who once owned a house in Meadow Lane.
He moved quickly and efficiently, as if the actions he had to make were long premeditated and rehearsed.
A street lamp outside the house in Meadow Lane showed it to be dark and empty. Fortunately, there was nobody about to see him enter. He moved towards the front door, thinking to break one of the glass panels and reach round to the catch, when a sudden memory stopped him. The window catch Jean Mariello had complained about had been forgotten in the rush of her leaving, and the sash slid up easily.
Inside he was glad of the light from the street lamp, which gave a pale glow to the white room.
Relevant memories came back. Again he saw Willy sitting opposite him in the Truth Game, long brown hair greyed with plaster dust. He remembered Stella’s repetition of the fact that he had been decorating; Jean Mariello’s words about her husband— ‘He’d suddenly get sick of his surroundings and want to change it all’— ‘Saw himself as the great landowner in his ancestral home in front of his blazing fire. The man of property.’
It was on the left. When he looked along the wall, he could see the light catch on the slight prominence of plaster where the fireplace had been filled in. There was a central heating radiator fixed to the wall across it.
