by Gwen Moffat
Miss Pink shook her head. ‘I doubt if he’d think twice about it. I reckon the killer didn’t mind the body being found; all he wanted was to spread the time of death over a few hours because he had no alibi for the actual time.’
There was a pause. ‘Read Lindsay’s statement,’ Merrick said, passing it across. ‘See if you can confirm it.’
It was short. ‘He doesn’t mention that they had a difference of opinion during dinner,’ she observed. ‘“We left the dining room about seven-thirty. . . .” In fact, he flung out during the pudding course and she hurried after him. I heard them go upstairs. I didn’t see them again but then I went up myself about eight-thirty. Does his wife corroborate his statement that they went straight to their room and stayed there until breakfast on Tuesday?’
‘I’m sure she will, ma’am.’
‘Yes.’ She was equally expressionless. ‘It will be interesting to learn why they argued so heatedly that evening. She’s a powerful woman.’
‘Could she carry a body on one of those pack frames?’
‘She’d have less difficulty with it than her husband would. I take it you found no unauthorised prints in the Rescue Post?’
He shook his head. Everyone had been fingerprinted for elimination, including herself. ‘There were Hamlyn’s and the two guides’ in the Rescue Post, and only Irwin’s and yours in Largo’s kitchen.’
She jerked to attention. ‘Where were Terry’s?’
‘Exactly. Largo was wiped after the murder, and there were glove smudges. Our chap knows what he’s doing. Or our woman. A woman would be more likely to think about washing pans to confuse the time of death. Why would Betty Lindsay want to kill the girl? Because of George Watkins?’
‘That’s most unlikely. By Monday evening everyone knew how he’d treated Terry; according to Betty, he maintained that the girl was pestering him. She had no reason for killing Terry.’
Merrick leaned back in his chair. ‘So if the Lindsays are out of it, who were that pair in the burn? Not the Hamlyns because he was in the bar when the dishes were being washed—the same with Ken Maynard. But the couple in the burn don’t have to be married. Madge Fraser admits to being over there, or near there at what we think is the relevant time—’
‘I didn’t tell you; a curious twist to her account of that incident is that, as I see it, she thought Maynard was the killer; she was hysterical with relief when she learned that the girl was alive at eleven—because she was drinking with Maynard from a quarter to eleven.’
Merrick looked for a statement and found it. ‘Maynard says he was with his wife in their room until some time after ten-thirty when he went down to the lounge, then outside . . . Why outside? Oh, there was no one behind the bar. “I went back to the cocktail lounge when I heard Hamlyn come downstairs and stayed there until after midnight. Miss Fraser came in at about a quarter to eleven.” If that’s corroborated by his wife—and we believe her—then he left the house for only a few minutes, and even then he was so close to the front door that he heard Hamlyn come down.’
‘What does Hamlyn say on that point?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Hamlyn.’ He paraphrased: ‘He was in the cocktail lounge till just before ten. He had no customers and he went up to his sitting room to listen to the news on the radio, then came down again about ten-thirty. He read his newspaper behind the bar until Maynard and Miss Fraser came in. He went to bed about twelve-fifteen.’ He looked up. ‘Mrs Hamlyn corroborates his times. She was in their sitting room after dinner. Madge Fraser was with her until about a quarter to ten when the girl went to her room to write a letter.’
‘I wonder what they talked about,’ Miss Pink mused. ‘She must have gone across to Largo about ten-twenty. And that seems to cover everyone in the house. What is Watkins’ alibi?’
‘I wondered when you were going to come to him. He was drinking at Sligachan. The barman says he was there shortly after seven and stayed until a quarter past ten. He wasn’t sober when he left but he appears to have got back to the glen in one piece—which is surprising, considering the shape his old van is in. He could have been in just the right mood to strangle the girl if he found her at his tent, but if he got back before eleven, as he must have done, would the other campers have heard nothing? They’ve been questioned and no one heard anything out of the way, although they did hear him come back. If he managed to strangle her silently on the camp site, he’s still got a hell of a job to get her body to the cliffs, and retrieve all her possessions from Largo. There are two things against it; one, he was too drunk not to leave some trace—and remember, the killer wiped his prints from Largo—and secondly: the times don’t fit. If he left Sligachan at ten-fifteen, who put the light out at Largo and who was the man in the burn?’
‘He could have been the man in the burn,’ Miss Pink protested. ‘It takes only twenty minutes or so to drive from Sligachan to Glen Shira, but he wouldn’t mumble quietly when he was drunk—not George Watkins, and where and when did he have time to pick up the woman he was mumbling with? I agree, it wasn’t Watkins—unless something’s been missed out.’
‘Of course, it’s not watertight,’ Merrick admitted. ‘He didn’t have to be drunk. Drunkenness has been simulated before now. And then there’s Irwin, with no alibi at all.’
‘I didn’t think he would have,’ Miss Pink said. ‘He was in a tent at Sligachan.’ She paused. ‘I assume it was coincidence that those two were near each other.’
‘They didn’t meet. Irwin had dinner with his client in the hotel, Watkins was in the public bar. Irwin went to his tent at nine and stayed there until he got up at eight for breakfast. That’s his statement, but our local people tell me he had time to get from Sligachan to here and back, without transport, and to dump the body, all during the hours of darkness.’
She thought about that and agreed that it was possible, using the track across the moor, but, she pointed out, there was no shadow of a motive. Like Willie MacNeill, Irwin would never have needed to kill Terry.
Merrick said heavily: ‘If we always had to show motive, ma’am, there’d be far fewer convictions.’
‘Be that as it may, I like a good sound motive, and so far I don’t think you’ve discovered one. You’ve gone through the people at Glen Shira House and most of those outside. You’re left with the crofters: Captain Hunt and old MacNeill.’ Her voice was a little strained. ‘I really can’t see the Hebridean crofter feeling so passionately about a girl he’d strangle her. I know Hunt is a liar but he’s no Dominici.’
‘Dominici? Who—? Ah yes. Captain Hunt as a Peeping Tom.’ Merrick looked sideways at his sergeant. ‘Well, there’s a thought. Did that ever occur to you?’
Ivory absorbed it slowly, with a frown.
‘And Malcolm MacNeill?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘I’ve yet to meet him.’ To her astonishment they both looked serious. There was a hint of impatience in her voice: ‘Can you see the crofters wiping off prints, washing billies. . . . Who—’ she asked acidly, ‘was the woman in the burn? Euphemia?’
Chapter Ten
Over lunch the guests were subdued, discussing, in a desultory fashion, whether it was worth going on the hill for what was left of the day. There was a feeling that Madge had been favoured in being allowed to move out of the house and to go on the ridge, and Miss Pink was in the position of an Aunt Sally at whom questions were fired in attempts to discover what was in Merrick’s mind.
She escaped after lunch and strolled down through the trees to the river bank where she paused, ostensibly watching a grey wagtail, but at the same time noting that there was still a uniformed man outside Largo’s open door.
The air was heavy and there were high cirrus clouds. In the corries the haze was dissolving so that the peaks crept closer in the hard light, and this sense of movement in a world that should be inanimate was disturbing.
She went left down the river bank and came to a stile over the wall which marked the boundary of the colonel’s land. On the other side a plank bridge cr
ossed a burn, and then came the track leading to the camp site. Ida Hunt was coming down the track from the front entrance of Glen Shira House.
‘You come the long way round.’ Miss Pink stated the obvious.
Ida bit her lip. ‘Not much longer.’ She added with a rush: ‘And ’tis much easier on the road if you’re wearing heels.’
Miss Pink’s glance passed over the other’s sensible sandals but she was old-maidish as she confided: ‘I’ve been having a look at the ground.’ In the face of the other’s blank look she went on: ‘I mean, if he went through the wood. But then that’s not the only way of approaching Largo; there’s the bridge—which you don’t have to use with the river so low—and one might come down the forestry road from the top of the glen. It comes almost as far as Largo. He could have used a car there if the gate at the other end isn’t locked.’
‘It isn’t. Are they thinking he came in from outside—a stranger?’
‘Well, not a stranger to her.’
They moved down the track.
‘Perhaps someone followed her from London?’ Ida ventured. ‘Why did they take all our fingerprints then? My man said—’ She trailed off, then continued in the same tone, ‘—they had to look as though they was doing something.’
‘And then they had to make sure that no local person had left his prints in Largo.’ Ida stared stiffly ahead. ‘By “local” I mean everyone who was staying here, of course,’ Miss Pink added politely.
Above Rahane’s ford they came to Sletta, the Hunts’ bungalow. It was new and symmetrical with grass on either side of a pebble path leading to the front door, and two beds of roses suffering from salt and drought.
‘Will you come away in?’ Ida didn’t sound enthusiastic but Miss Pink made up for that deficiency by the eagerness with which she approached the gate.
They went to the front door and Ida turned the handle. Nothing happened and she was embarrassed out of all proportion to the cause.
At the back door they found Captain Hunt sitting on a bench, smoking and contemplating a saw horse. A tiny apricot poodle erupted from behind his thigh boots and flew at its mistress with piercing squeals.
Miss Pink was taken indoors to a spotless sitting room with wall-to-wall carpeting and a view across the camp site to the mountains of Rum. She remarked on the numerous cars parked along the track and the captain told her they belonged to the Press.
‘Where are the reporters?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘They’s everywhere, ma’am, and times they collect in one place. . . . You’ll know what a pack of lambs is like all scampering round a field? That’s them.’ He jerked his head at the camp site. ‘Of course,’ he added sanctimoniously, ‘they’s only doing their job. There they go now, see: after Willie.’ A string of figures trailed across the dunes behind the tractor. ‘He is tipping the rubbish in a hole in the river bank,’ the captain explained, ‘since they will no’ let him tip at Scarf although the body is gone.’
‘When was it taken?’
‘About midday, ma’am.’
‘And how many police are left?’
‘There is two in Largo, and one guarding the door makes three. The photographers who took pictures in the geo is gone. There may be one or two poliss on the camp site although Colin and that Watkins has been spoken to.’
‘Is Colin Irwin on the camp site?’
‘He has put a wee tent on the dunes near Shedog. He will go back to Largo once the poliss is finished there.’
Ida came in with tea, preceded by the neurotic poodle.
‘The reporters must get under your feet,’ Miss Pink observed.
‘Ach no!’ the captain said comfortably. ‘Silly questions is what you might call an occupational hazard in Glen Shira. Are there people living on the ridge? Is the deer dangerous? How did we get our food before the road was built?’
‘Those will not be the questions asked of Watkins, Willie and Irwin.’
He regarded her without expression. ‘They can only answer the truth, ma’am—to reporters or poliss. Watkins was drunk, Colin was in his tent at Sligachan.’
‘And Willie?’
He was grimly amused as he glanced out of the window where neither reporters nor tractor were to be seen. ‘Willie has made his statement and if the newspapermen has got any sense, they’ll leave him be.’
Ida turned to her husband. ‘The lady says the one who killed the girl could have come down the forestry road in a car.’
He was silent for a moment, assimilating this and studying Miss Pink. ‘Ay? He could have. Would the poliss be thinking that, or just yourself, ma’am?’
She ignored the gist of the question. ‘When you consider all the approaches, that one must be taken into account.’
‘So it could have been a stranger,’ Ida told her husband.
A figure passed the window and the poodle indulged in a paroxysm of yapping. It was bundled inside a broom cupboard where it could be heard remotely, working itself into hysterics. Miss Pink followed her hostess to the kitchen as if she were about to take her leave.
An old man with fierce eyebrows, wearing breeches and a deerstalker, came in the back door. It was Malcolm MacNeill, Willie’s father.
Edging round the table, Miss Pink beamed at the company and repeated inanely: ‘So it could have been a stranger.’
Ida felt forced to explain to the newcomer. ‘The lady said that one who killed the girl could have come down the forestry road.’
‘Oh ay,’ said old MacNeill.
‘We’ve known that all along,’ the captain growled. ‘It doesna have to be one of us.’ He stared at his wife.
A shutter came down over Ida’s face. ‘It could be anyone,’ she agreed.
There was an unnatural silence, then the captain said, ‘We had no way of knowing what was going to happen. No one went across there, by daylight.’
‘Except Willie.’
‘No one to hurt, I mean.’
Miss Pink said silkily, ‘Is that what you were thinking yesterday morning when you told me she’d had no visitors and you forgot Willie?’
‘I remembered him afterwards. I told the poliss.’ None of them was disconcerted, least of all old MacNeill who was standing so that he could see through the doorway and the sitting-room window. He kept shooting glances towards the dunes.
‘If a visitor meant harm to her,’ Miss Pink mused, ‘he wouldn’t have gone in daylight.’
‘You don’t expect murder in Glen Shira,’ the captain told her.
Miss Pink raised her eyebrows. ‘You don’t think she was asking for trouble: the way she dressed?’
The captain said casually, ‘We’re used to that in the glen; in summer half the campers don’t wear clothes, or just half their clothes. Topless, they calls it.’
Old MacNeill said, ‘I’m no’ worried if they goes mother-naked; ’tis my gates I worries about, and breaking down my fences, but her wasna here long enough to do harm to anyone, poor soul. Willie,’ he said with relish, ‘is after beating that Watkins to a pulp.’
‘Go on!’ The captain was grimly pleased.
‘He has nearly killed him.’
‘Dear knows,’ Ida observed, ‘but he asked for it.’
‘And then he took and rolled the tractor over and over that man’s tent until now all the tent and whatever was inside is rolled into the sand and broken.’
‘Willie is always fighting over girls,’ the captain explained to Miss Pink. ‘What shape is the other one in?’ he asked of old MacNeill.
‘He canna stand up. I doubt they’ll be after taking him away to the hospital. I was wondering now would one of you come and help me with my cows?’
There was a flat silence.
‘What’s wrong with Willie?’ the captain asked, too casually.
‘Well, now.’ Old MacNeill was equally casual. ‘I was after thinking they’ll be taking him in for assault.’
The others exchanged looks. They seemed remarkably happy. Miss Pink shifted her feet amiably, knowi
ng they were dying for her to leave.
‘Young Colin can milk,’ the captain said. ‘Go down to his tent and take him back with you.’
‘A very satisfactory arrangement,’ Miss Pink observed. ‘He will be company for you, Mr MacNeill.’ She glanced across the sitting room. ‘But then, he can’t be company for Euphemia tonight, can he?’ She smiled at them. ‘Did none of you see or hear anything on Monday night?’
Old MacNeill said, ‘I was fast asleep.’
‘Our bedroom faces the sea,’ the captain told her. ‘We didna hear a thing.’
*
‘They’re frightened,’ Miss Pink maintained. ‘They’re locking their doors and not sleeping alone.’
She was standing with Merrick on the raised dunes which faced the sea. He had come down from Largo when he learned that Willie was thrashing George Watkins.
‘They’re all on edge,’ he told her. ‘That’s how I like it; they’ll talk better. This assault of Willie’s now: gives us justification for taking him in. It’s possible he’ll find the atmosphere of a police station—when a murder investigation’s in progress—a bit more intimidating than his own farmyard.’
‘I don’t think he did it.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Whether he did or didn’t, I’m hoping he’s going to remember a sight more about that night than what he’s told us.’
‘What the crofters are hoping is that you’ll hold him.’
He studied her keenly. ‘It needn’t mean they think the murderer’s still here, you know. Watkins is only going to hospital to be stitched up; he could come back. And Willie attacked Watkins. The fellow was just sitting outside his tent and Willie jumped off his tractor and went for him. The reporters saw it all. And when he’d thrashed the man soundly, he destroyed all his gear.’
‘That could have been in return for Watkins’ beating Terry; it doesn’t mean Willie thinks the man killed her. But the crofters are afraid; why, Ida Hunt won’t go through the wood in daylight! And they know everything that goes on, yet on Monday evening they saw and heard nothing. Even if they are ignorant, they must have speculated, but they’re as tight as clams. Except when I suggested a stranger might have come to the glen on Monday evening, using the forestry road to approach Largo.’
