by John Burke
The room had some pseudo-Georgian panelling which suited its generous dimensions. Things which had been added did not suit at all: a print of a stag that Landseer would have been quick to disown, and a blown-up still from a costume drama with Vikings dashing up a beach towards a line of men in kilts.
‘Not in the best of taste,’ Nick agreed. ‘And rather rich in anachronisms.’
She came back to bed and lay in his arms.
She yawned, contented. ‘We can phone that hotel you mentioned, and be on our way.’
An hour later there were noises of people moving about downstairs, and the hiss of wheels on gravel as a delivery van came up the drive and went round the side of the house. Reluctantly they got up and dressed.
Breakfast was served in buffet fashion, from a long mahogany sideboard. There was a babble of argument from tables under the lights of a massive chandelier which Nick was sure he had seen in one of Chet Brunner’s more extravagant costume dramas. With its garishly coloured drops it had not clashed with the equally brash costumes in the film; but here it looked well out of place.
A voice rose from the far side of the room, taking up a theme that had been almost done to death at dinner the previous evening. ‘If it hadn’t been cut short by that young woman, whoever she was, I swear I’d have been there in no time at all. Cracked it before we’d even left the room. The heavy hints on the housekeeper’s recipe from that magazine —’
‘It was the bad grammar and handwriting in that phoney letter. I told you, didn’t I . . .?’
Nick and Lesley helped themselves from the array of chafing dishes, lifting lids to expose bacon, kidneys, tomatoes, and black pudding, quite different from the Scandinavian layout they had grown accustomed to. After filling their plates they looked round for an unoccupied table. The moment they found one, they were joined by the middle-aged couple they had seen fussing over their notes that previous evening.
‘Of course you only arrived last night, didn’t you?’ The woman was plump and friendly, eager to make them feel at home but not pushy. ‘We’ve been here from the beginning. A bit disappointing, here and there. My husband — oh, I’m Felicity and this is Edwin — he saw several flaws in the reasoning of the first game. He’s a writer of detective stories himself. Edwin Godolphin, you know.’
They didn’t know, but Lesley said: ‘How interesting.’
‘You know, of course, that Dorothy Sayers wrote one of her novels about the countryside not far from here?’
Nick nodded and finished a mouthful. ‘Yes. Five Red Herrings, wasn’t it?’
‘They don’t write stories like that any more.’
‘They’d have difficulty. The whole plot depended on the trains running to time. When did that last happen?’
‘Quite apart from the fact that most of that particular line was torn up long ago,’ said Edwin, ‘by order of the blessed Beeching.’
‘Who is now,’ contributed Lesley, ‘busy stoking the fireboxes of Hell.’
Chet Brunner made his entrance. Nick would not have been surprised if some minion had been placed by the door to sound a fanfare. As it was, Brunner roared a ‘Good morning, one and all,’ and spread his arms as if to embrace the whole gathering. His hip jarred against the sideboard and set two dishes vibrating against each other as he helped himself to fruit juice and drew attention to his helping of corn flakes and prunes by booming, ‘Got to keep the system moving, eh?’ He turned his attention to Nick and Lesley. ‘Newlyweds up so early?’
‘Coming from you, that’s rich.’ The arch squeal came from Georgina Campbell, impatient to attract his attention. She was sprawled at a table for two, her hair artistically tousled and drooping a few blonde strands into the very open neck of her cerise pyjama suit, all suggesting she was still too drowsy to grope for its buttons. Nick did not need his wife’s analytical expertise to assess the girl as the sort of blonde whose artless giggle and look of shy inability to deal with the hostile world around her would inevitably draw men eager to simplify things for her. In the end the men were probably more naïve than she, and incapable of realizing just how finely her sweet gaucheness was calculated. Even so, it was a calculation that might not always provide a rewarding total.
Brunner stooped to kiss her noisily, but scraped the spare chair away along the floor to insert it between Lesley and Nick.
‘Sorry the wife’s not here to say hello. Off on a jaunt to Glasgow, but she’ll be back soon. Don’t think you met her, did you, Nick?’
‘I met Martine, but —’
‘Oh, that’s an old episode. Written out of the script, you might say.’
Trying to keep tabs on Chet Brunner’s ex-wives and discarded mistresses was like trying to recite the exact chronological order of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands. Nick ventured: ‘Things didn’t work out that time?’
Brunner’s fleshy face darkened. ‘No, they didn’t.’ He forced a loud laugh. ‘Don’t think you’ll be having any problems, though — you’ll see to that, eh, Lady Torrance?’ He put his hand on Lesley’s arm. She slid it away on the pretext of reaching for the water jug.
Nick said: ‘You’ve got a phone directory, Chet?’
‘A whole set of them in the library. Want to check that the ancestral establishment hasn’t burnt down in your absence?’
‘Actually we’re having a lot of work done on the place while we’re away. Converting a few rooms and bringing some ancient heating systems up to date.’
‘I’m with you there, old lad. Can’t burn disrespectful peasants over a slow fire any longer, right?’
‘We were going to stay at a hotel back in Ayrshire last night, but that one was burnt down. I’d like to book ahead for a few nights before we see what they’ve done to Black Knowe.’
Brunner protested. ‘Make yourself at home here for as long as you like. We’ve got a lot to talk about.’ His smile at Lesley was one that Nick recognized from the past — radiating a friendly appeal, flattering, oozing calculated sincerity. ‘You could spare him for an hour or two?’
‘I do think we ought to move on.’
‘Now, don’t let him bully you. There’s no hotel where you’ll be able to relax as easily as you can here. And if I take up too much time twisting his arm into helping me out with a couple of new deals, then perhaps I can persuade you to have a share. You could help me plan a more authentic Murdermind session. Great to have a real sleuth laying down the law.’
Nick saw the distaste behind Lesley’s polite smile. He got up. ‘Chet, I really do need to make a few calls. I can probably do them from the car, but —’
‘Like hell. If you insist on making them, you’ll do it in comfort. I could get my trainee runner to put the call in and then bring the phone to you, if you like. All part of our room service.’
‘I’m not quite too decrepit to handle a phone call myself, Chet.’
‘Obviously not. Pretty obviously not, eh, Lady Torrance . . . Lesley?’ Brunner looked round and snapped his fingers. ‘Jamie, show Sir Nicholas to the library. And point him towards the phone and the directories.’
Jamie was too obviously a village boy who did his best to keep the chafing dishes topped up, mop up any spillages, and run errands for guests who might all be famous TV stars — and if they weren’t, that wouldn’t affect the inflated tales he told to his awe-struck pals in the village.
Nick had not wanted to admit in front of Brunner that he had forgotten the name of the Galloway hotel he had in mind. It took him several minutes rooting through the business directory of the region before he tracked it down.
Only to find that it was fully booked for the next two nights. A major golf tournament was reaching a crucial point.
*
Sharon heaved herself dismally out of bed and reached for her bra and pants. Wally watched her as if the mere sight of them might tempt him into insisting that she take them off again. But the sight hadn’t worked under the bedside lamp, and it wasn’t showing signs of being any better in daylight.
> He groped for words. ‘Look, I’m sure that if we —’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, let’s have breakfast and drive into the village or something. You suppose there’s some wild swinging life there? Maybe there’s a shop where they sell do-it-yourself books — like sex manuals.’
‘It’s Sunday.’
‘Oh, Christ. A Scottish Sunday. D’you suppose we’re allowed out without going to church or chapel or whatever? Let’s risk it. Let’s be daring and go for a walk. The scenery out there’s got to be a whole lot more interesting than it is in here.’
They worked their way through Weetabix and then bacon and egg without exchanging a word except for Walter’s faint moan over the fact that the yoke of his fried egg had broken and run over the plate instead of waiting for him to lever it into position over the fried bread. When they went out to the Honda and set off, Walter was silent again, driving grimly out of the yard and turning at random up a narrowing road into the woods. On one corner he had to swerve and bump on to the verge as a timber lorry came thundering out of a clearing.
‘That’s the most dramatic thing that’s happened so far.’ It was the first time Sharon had spoken since they set off.
‘At any rate somebody’s working. So much for the Scottish Sabbath.’
A mile further on, he had to stop while a tractor dragged felled logs across the road, stirring up a cloud of dust and fragments of bark. Larch and pine grew increasingly thick and dark along either side of the road, pressing in more and more closely. The break in the regiment of trees, when it came, was a shock. In the distance the sky was charcoal grey, sullen and threatening. But here, light streamed down from a blue sky, hazy yet dazzling on the curved end of a loch. Bright green grass on the fringes of the water became a shadowy green under a cluster of oak trees.
Walter stopped the car. When he opened the door, there was utter stillness outside. Not the faintest whisper of a breeze. Just a piny tang in the air.
‘This is super. Let’s get out for a few minutes.’ He hurried round to open the passenger door, and watched Sharon’s legs as she eased herself out.
They walked down to the water’s edge. There was a damp warmth in the air, and the hills beyond the loch were swimming in faint smears of mauve and deep purple, shading gradually into that distant, ominous darkness.
‘I didn’t bring my suntan lotion out with me,’ Sharon grumbled, heading back into the shade.
He came behind her, watching the swing of her bottom and the glint of sunlight on her calves.
‘Sharon,’ he said urgently. ‘Sharon — stay right there.’
‘What for?’
He pulled her round and dragged at her blouse, and she gasped at the speed with which he tackled her skirt. When he had dropped his own clothes on the grass as fast as he could manage, she stared down at him. ‘Ooh, Wally, that’s more like it.’
He advanced on her, and his hands wandered over her. They had done this several times since yesterday, without result. Now the greedy clutches of his fingers were the accompaniment to what he had promised and she had been waiting for. He kissed her, and their mouths opened. She tottered back a step, and as he forced himself closer she stumbled and fell over backwards on to the grass, half her body shadowed by the edge of the trees, one breast pale and cool and one glowing pink until he came down upon her and obscured them both.
Then she screamed. Not the way he had wanted her to scream. He reared up to look past her head, wondering if some hikers had come out of the forest. She wailed, and dragged herself free of him.
Then Walter screamed as well, loud enough to set a couple of crows flapping up from the depths of a larch.
What had come out into the open were not ramblers but midges from the rim of the loch, attacking, swirling and attacking again in their blood lust. Wally’s briefly resurgent manhood shrank in pain and terror as he struggled into the protection of his trousers.
*
‘Well,’ said Chet Brunner, ‘that settles it, doesn’t it? Fate has decreed that you stay here and organize a few spectacular puzzles for us.’
He had led them into the studio and went on at length about the banks of equipment which Alec Chisholm had already summed up more succinctly. Brunner was fawningly seeking Nick’s approval, promising to phone up a few musical friends who could get here at short notice and let Nick try his hand at a recording, just for the hell of it.
He winked at Lesley. ‘Just to get him back in the fold, you know.’
And what kind of musicians would come running into this remote place so swiftly at Brunner’s command? They’d hardly be rewarding types to work with, thought Nick. He remembered those young hopefuls or fading not-so-hopefuls who had come crawling to Brunner with their demo tapes and pathetic promises. One thing Chet Brunner was good at, though: sussing out any glimmer of a good idea in their amateurish material, dismissing them with a patronizing wave, and later adapting the one useful bit for his own ends.
There was a sudden ear-splitting howl above the roof, dragged out into a fading whine. Lesley had instinctively ducked, and somewhere along the corridor somebody dropped a tray.
‘Bloody things,’ Brunner snarled.
‘Low-flying aircraft?’
‘Always at it. Frightens every bloody animal and old lady for miles around. And no warning. Had to call off shooting on a film I was hoping to set up. Every time we were ready for a take, two of the damned things would come scorching overhead.’
‘A film?’
‘Scotland’s been all the rage in the States, you know. I was doing some trial shots for a big feature. Was going to call it The Wolf of Badenoch. Of course those ignorant bastards out west were lukewarm. How could they pronounce ‘Badenoch’? How would it play in Peoria?’
‘Mm. I can see you’d have to change the title.’
‘Might as well call it The Wolf of Loch Ness and turn it into a monster movie.’
There was a tap at the door. Alec Chisholm came in, waiting for Brunner’s sentence to finish before delivering his message.
‘There’s been a call in the office. From the police.’
‘Ah, the splendid Kyle and Carrick Constabulary. Wanting us to do another charity weekend for their funds? Or has somebody forgotten to renew my road fund tax for me?’
‘Just to let you know,’ said Alec levelly, ‘that Waterman is out. They thought you ought to be warned.’
‘Waterman?’
‘Ronnie Waterman. The one you got put away on that true crime programme of yours in Birmingham. Five years ago, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh, him. I wouldn’t have thought he was due out yet.’
‘He wasn’t. They’d shifted him into a resettlement prison where he could wait for some sort of board interview.’
‘Resettlement board,’ said Lesley. ‘If they assess him favourably, they can pass a prisoner for supervised work in the community. If he behaves himself for four or five months, he can be passed for unsupervised work. Provided there’s no breach of licence conditions.’
‘Summing-up by an expert,’ said Brunner. ‘Fascinating.’
‘But it seems he did breach the conditions,’ said Alec, ‘and scarpered. Couldn’t wait to work out his time.’
‘So now what?’
‘The police can’t offer you full-time surveillance —’
‘Too busy nicking kids trying their first joint round the back of the bicycle shed. If they still have bicycle sheds nowadays.’
‘But,’ Alec went on, ‘they’ll be keeping an eye out for him.’
‘Very public-spirited of ’em.’
‘And they think you ought to do the same, after what he said when he got sent down.’
Lesley looked at Brunner. ‘One of your games went wrong?’
‘Not a game. A documentary about a crime syndicate in Brum. Very violent crowd. Time they got their comeuppance. A first-rate exposé.’ Brunner smiled approval of his own brilliance. ‘Fixed him. He’d been asking for it.’
‘Y
ou make it sound almost personal.’
‘It got that way in the end. After he thought he could walk off with my wife.’ Brunner’s face developed that dark, unhealthy flush again. ‘That’s what happened to Martine,’ he said to Nick.
‘When he was sentenced and taken away,’ Alec explained very quietly, ‘he yelled at Chet in court. Said he’d get him.’
‘So he did.’ Brunner seemed to be relishing the drama, as if it were a scene he had carefully shaped and placed in a crime series episode. ‘I seem to remember the exact words were, ‘I’ll get you, you bastard.’ Right?’
Lesley said: ‘They all say something like that. Well, a lot of them do.’
‘Thank you, Lady Torrance. More expert stuff.’
‘Maybe,’ said Alec even more quietly, ‘some of them mean it.’
Chapter Six
Opening the cupboard door produced a squeak and a rattle of glasses which echoed right through the cottage. Martine came hurrying in from the bathroom. Ronnie set the bottle down with a guilty thud on the tiny coffee table.
‘It’s empty,’ he said.
‘Not surprising, the way you’ve been at it. Now we’ll have to go out. See what the village has to offer.’
‘On a Sunday? Probably everything’s shut.’
‘We won’t know if we don’t go and check.’ Martine went into the bedroom and began tidying her hair, pushing strands of its real colouring under the dyed ones. It was a declaration that she had every intention of going out right away.
Ronnie checked for the tenth time since they had arrived that the case in the bottom of the wardrobe was securely locked and the three-symbol code had not been jolted out of sequence. He fidgeted while Martine continued brushing her hair; and after a moment opened the case, unwrapped the handgun from the shirt which concealed it, wrapped it up again, closed the case and set the lock again.
They both wore sunglasses as they got into the Escort — a bit of a comedown after the great days of Ronnie’s cherished Jag.
A few cars were parked outside the squat brick church at the west end of the street. In England, the village inn and the church usually stood side by side. Here, The Carrick Arms was at the far end of the village from the granite church. Between them, terraces of single-storey cottages on both sides of the road were broken in two places by two-storey buildings. One of them, a craft and souvenir shop, was closed but had a notice in the window saying OPEN SUNDAY 2 p.m. TO 5 p.m. Twenty yards down on the far side was a general store and post office with two metal advertisements on the pavement for ice cream and the lottery. The post office counter was closed, but three young women, each with a small child in tow, were edging between the cramped shelves of wrapped bread, tins of baked beans and spaghetti, and a cold cabinet.
