Hamish Macbeth 01; Death of a Gossip hm-1

by M C Beaton

  “Did…did you buy this car in Scotland?” she asked. “I mean, I thought you and Daphne came up by train.”

  “We did. My father had been using the car. He knew I was coming up this way and so he left it in Inverness for me to collect.”

  “You’ve known Daphne a long time?”

  “No. Heather wrote to me to ask me if I would join up with Daphne. She had written to Heather saying she did not like to travel alone.”

  He suddenly switched on the engine. Alice sat very quietly. Perhaps he might have kissed her if she hadn’t kept on and on about stupid Daphne.

  Daphne was probably back at the hotel changing into some couture number for dinner. Damn Daphne.

  “I never thought indecision was one of my failings,” said Jeremy, breaking the silence at last. “I don’t want to spoil things by going too fast too soon.”

  Alice was not quite sure if he meant he had wanted to kiss her and had changed his mind. She dared not ask him in case he should be embarrassed and say he was talking about fishing.

  But he suddenly took one hand off the wheel and gave her own a quick squeeze.

  Alice’s heart soared. A huge owl sailed across the winding road. Down below them nestled the village of Lochdubh.

  Busy little fishing boats chugged out to sea. The lights of the hotel dining room were reflected in the still waters of the loch. Down into the evening darkness of the valley they sped. Over the old humpbacked bridge which spanned the tumbling waterfalls of the river Anstey. Along the waterfront, past the low white cottages of the village. Out in the loch, a pair of seals rolled and tumbled like two elderly Edwardian gentlemen.

  Tears filled Alice’s eyes, and she furtively dabbed them away. The beauty of the evening was too much. The beauty of money emanating from the leather smells of the long, low, expensive car and the faint tangy scent of Jeremy’s aftershave seduced her senses. She wanted it all.

  She wanted to keep the evening forever. Scenic beauty, male beauty, money beauty.

  A picture of Lady Jane rose large in her mind’s eye, blotting out the evening.

  If she tries to spoil things for me, I’ll kill her, thought Alice passionately.

  And being very young and capable of violent mood swings, she then began to worry about what to wear for dinner.

  When she entered the dining room an hour later, the rest of the fishing party, except for Lady Jane, Charlie, and the major, was already seated.

  To her disappointment, the only available seat was at the other end of the table from Jeremy.

  Jeremy was sitting next to Daphne and laughing at something she was saying.

  Daphne was wearing a black chiffon cocktail gown slit to the waist so that it afforded the company tantalizing glimpses of two perfect breasts.

  Long antique earrings hung in the shadow of the silky bell of her naturally blonde hair. Her usually hard, high-cheek-boned face was softened by eye shadow and pink lipstick.

  Jeremy was wearing a well-cut charcoal grey suit, a striped shirt, and a tie with one of those small hard knots. He wore a heavy, pale gold wrist watch.

  Alice wished she had worn something different. All her clothes had looked cheap and squalid. At last she had settled for a pale pink cashmere sweater, a tailored shirt, and a row of Woolworth’s pearls. She had persuaded herself in the privacy of her bedroom that she looked like a regular member of the county. Now she felt like a London typist trying ineffectually to look like a member of the county. The dining room was very warm.

  Amy Roth was wearing a floating sort of chif-fony thing in cool blues and greens. It left most of her back bare. At one point, Marvin slid his hand down his wife’s back, and Amy wriggled her shoulders and giggled.

  Heather was wearing a long gown that looked as if it had been made out of chintz upholstery, but she managed to look like a lady nonetheless, thought Alice gloomily. John Cartwright was cheerful and relaxed, obviously glad that the rigours of the first day were over.

  The hotel had contributed several bottles of non-vintage Czechoslovakian champagne, their labels discreetly hidden by white napkins.

  The food was delicious – poached salmon with a good hollandaise sauce. Everyone began to relax and become slightly tipsy.

  Emboldened by the wine, Alice decided to forget about Jeremy and talk to the Roths. Marvin, it transpired, was a New Yorker born and bred, but Amy hailed from Augusta, Georgia. Marvin was her third husband, she told Alice, very much in the way a woman would describe an expensive gown that had been a good buy.

  Marvin was quiet and polite and very deferential to his wife, the way Alice imagined American men should be. She began to wonder if she had really heard him shouting earlier in the day, but the Roths did seem to be the only Americans in the hotel.

  The party grew noisier and jollier.

  And then Major Peter Frame came stumbling in. His eyes were staring, and his hands were trembling. He clutched on to a chair back and looked wildly around the group.

  “Where is that bitch?” he grated.

  “If you mean Lady Jane,” said Heather, “I really don’t know. What on earth is the matter?”

  “I’ll tell you,” said the major with frightening intensity. “I went back up to the Marag this evening, just above the falls. And I got one. A fifteen-pounder on the end of my line. It was a long battle, and I was resting my fish and having a smoke when she comes blundering along like an ox. “Can I get past?” she says. “Your line’s blocking the path.” “I’ve got a big ‘un on the end of that line,” I says. “Don’t be silly,” says she. “I can’t wait here all night. It’s probably a rock,” and before I could guess what she meant to do she whipped out her scissors and cut my line. She cut my line, the bloody bitch. The great, fat, stinking cow.

  “I’ll murder her. I’ll kill that horrible woman. Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  The major’s voice had risen to a scream. Shocked silence fell on the dining room.

  And into the middle of the silence sailed Lady Jane.

  She was wearing a pink chiffon evening gown with a great many bows and tucks and flounces; the type of evening gown favoured by the Queen Mother, Barbara Cartland, and Danny La Rue.

  “Well, we’re all very glum,” she said, amused eyes glancing around the stricken group. “Now, what can I do to brighten up the party?”

  ∨ Death of a Gossip ∧

  Day Two

  Then as the earth’s inner, narrow crooked lanes Do purge salt waters’fretful tears away

  —John Donne

  Alice fumbled with a sleepy hand to silence the buzzing of her travel alarm and stretched and yawned. Her room was bathed in a grey light. She had forgotten to close the curtains before going to bed. Fat, greasy raindrops trickled down the window.

  Somehow the horrible first dinner had miraculously turned out all right. Lady Jane had carried all before her. Before the major had had time to round on her, Lady Jane had apologized with such an overwhelming blast of sincerity and charm, with such subtle underlying appeals to his status as an officer and gentleman, that the major’s angry colour had subsided, and, after that, people had begun to enjoy themselves. It was Lady Jane who had suggested that they should all get together in the lounge after dinner and help each other tie their leaders. It was Lady Jane who had kept the party laughing with a flow of faintly malicious anecdotes.

  Alice remembered Jeremy’s well-manicured hands brushing against her own and the smell of his aftershave as he had bent his head close to hers to help her tie knots. He had seemed to lose interest in Daphne.

  There was to be another lecture that morning before they went out fishing for the day. Alice got out of bed and went to the window and looked out. She could not even see the harbour. A thick mist blanketed everything and the rain thudded steadily down. Perhaps she would be lucky and would be teamed up with Jeremy again. Alice closed her eyes, imagining them both eating their packed lunches in the leather-smelling warmth of Jeremy’s car with the steamed-up windows blocking out the rest of
the world.

  After a hasty shower, she took out her pink plastic rollers and tried to comb her hair into a more sophisticated style, but it fluffed out as usual.

  To her dismay, they were not all to be seated at the same table for breakfast, and she was ushered to a table where the major was already eating sausages. Jeremy was with Daphne and Lady Jane at the other end of the dining room.

  The major glanced at Alice and then rustled open a copy of The Times – last Friday’s – and began to study the social column.

  “Wet, isn’t it?” volunteered Alice brightly, but the major only grunted in reply.

  Probably doesn’t think I’m worth talking to, thought Alice gloomily.

  She rose and helped herself to cereal and rolls and juice, which were placed on a table in the centre of the room, and then shyly ordered the Fisherman’s Breakfast from a massive waitress who was built like a Highland cow.

  When the breakfast arrived, she poked at it tentatively with a fork. Bacon, eggs, and sausage, she recognized, but the rest seemed odd and strange.

  “What are these?” she asked the major. He did not reply so she repeated her question in a rather shrill voice.

  “Haggis and black pudding and a potato scone,” said the major. “Very good. Scotch stuff, you know. Introduced to the stuff when I was first in the Highlands on military training.”

  “Were you in the SAS?” asked Alice.

  “No.” The major smiled indulgently. “They hadn’t been formed in my day. We called ourselves something else.”

  “Oh, what was that?”

  “Mustn’t say. Hush-hush stuff, you know.”

  “Oh.” Alice was impressed.

  “Of course I was in the regular army for most of the big show.”

  “Which was…?”

  “World War Two. Can still remember leading my men up the Normandy beaches. Yanks had taken the easy bits and left us with the cliffs. ‘Don’t worry, chaps,’ I said. ‘We’ll take Jerry this time.’ They believed me, bless their hearts. Would have died for me. ‘Straordinary loyalty. Quite touching, ‘s matter of fact.”

  Alice wished her mum could see her now. “Quite one of the old school,” Mum would say.

  “Tell me more,” urged Alice, eyes glowing.

  “Well,” said the major happily. “There was a time…”

  His voice faded away as a bulky shadow fell across the table. Alice looked up. Lady Jane’s pale eyes surveyed the major with amusement. “Telling Miss Wilson all your tales of derring-do? All those pitched battles around the tea tent on Salisbury Plain?”

  Now what could there be in those remarks to make the major sweat? Alice looked from one to the other. Lady Jane nodded her head and gave a little smile before walking away.

  The major looked after her, mumbled something, and went off mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.

  Charlie Baxter, the Roths, and all the rest were already in the lounge. A cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth. The heavyset waitress lumbered in and threw a pile of old tea leaves, cabbage stalks, and old rolls on the fire, which subsided into a depressing, smoking mess.

  Heather examined all their leaders and tugged at the knots. Several gave way. “I wish you wouldn’t say you can tie these things when you obviously can’t,” said Lady Jane to the major.

  “You are supposed to tie them yourselves,” pointed out Heather.

  “Like a bloody schoolroom,” muttered Lady Jane. “Oh, here’s that wretched man again.”

  Constable Macbeth lounged in, water dripping from his black cape. He removed it and squatted down by the fire, raking aside the sodden lumps of congealed goo and putting on fresh coal and sticks. Then, to Alice’s amusement, he lay down on his stomach and began to blow furiously until the flames started leaping up the chimney.

  “This hotel has central heating, hasn’t it?” Amy Roth shivered. “Why doesn’t someone turn it on?”

  “Now I want you all to try to tie your leaders properly this time,” came Heather’s voice. Everyone groaned and began to wrestle with the thin, slippery nylon.

  Constable Macbeth had ambled over to an armchair by the window. Suddenly Alice saw him stiffen. It was almost as if he had pointed like a dog. He got to his feet, his tall, thin frame silhouetted against the greyness of the day.

  Overcome by curiosity, Alice rose quietly and walked to the window. Whatever, or whoever, Constable Macbeth was looking at was absorbing his whole attention.

  Alice looked out.

  A slim, blonde girl was getting out of a Land Rover. She had a yellow oilskin coat and shooting breeches and green Wellington boots. Her beautiful face was a calm, well-bred oval. She was struggling to lift a heavy wicker basket out of the Land Rover.

  The policeman turned around so quickly he nearly fell over Alice. He seized his cape and darted from the room and reappeared a moment later below the window. He said something to the girl, who laughed up at him. He leaned across her and wrested the basket from the Land Rover. The girl locked the car, and then they walked away, the constable carrying the basket.

  I wonder who she is, thought Alice. Rich-looking with that cold sort of damn-you stare. Not a hope there, Lady Jane would no doubt say.

  “This goddamn thing has a life of its own,” came Marvin Roth’s voice.

  “What we need,” said Lady Jane, “is some useful slave labour. Some sweated labour, wouldn’t you say, Mr Roth?”

  “Watch that mouth of yours, lady,” grated Marvin Roth.

  There was a shocked silence. Oh dear, thought Heather, I should never have tried to cope with them alone. That dreadful woman. She keeps saying things which sound innocuous to me but which seem terribly barbed to the person they’re directed against. She’s got that mottled red about the neck which usually means high blood pressure. I wish she would drop dead.

  “And now,” said Heather out loud, amazed to hear how shaky her own voice sounded, “I will pass round some pieces of string and teach you how to tie a figure of eight.”

  To Heather’s relief, her husband came into the room. “We’re running a bit late,” he said: “Better get them started. We’ll issue them with rods again, that is, the ones who want to rent stuff – I think only the major has brought his own – and then we’ll get them off to the Upper Alsh and Loch Alsh.”

  Alice pulled on her waders in her room and checked she had everything tucked away in the pockets of her green fowling coat – scissors, a needle (for poking out the eyes of flies – artificial ones, she had been glad to find out – and for undoing knots), and a penknife. She placed her fishing hat on her head and made her way back downstairs, hoping the other guests thought she was a seasoned fisherwoman.

  In the car park, John was passing out maps, explaining that Loch Alsh was some distance away. Water dripped from his hat on to his nose. Rain thudded down on the car park. “At least it will keep the flies away,” he said. “Now, let me see – Jeremy, you’ll take Daphne.” Alice had a sinking feeling in her stomach as John went on to say she was to come along with himself and Heather and young Charlie Baxter. Alice felt Lady Jane’s eyes on her face and angrily jerked her already sodden hat down on her forehead.

  The journey seemed endless. The mountains were blotted out by the mist. The windscreen wipers clicked monotonously back and forth. Alice looked at Charlie. He was hunched in the far corner. Alice did not know what one talked to children about. “Enjoying yourself?” she asked at last.

  The child’s hard, assessing gaze was fixed on her face. “No,” he said at last. “I hate that ugly fat woman. She’s cruel and mean and evil. Why doesn’t she die? Lots of people die in the Highlands. They get lost and starve and die of exposure. They fall off cliffs. Why can’t something happen to her?”

  “Now, now,” said Alice reprovingly. “Mustn’t talk like that.”

  There was a long silence, then, “You’re very silly, you know,” said the child in a conversational tone of voice.

  Alice coloured up. “Don’t be impertinent.
”

  “You were being impertinent,” said the maddening Charlie. “Anyway, you hate her just as much as I do.”

  “If you mean Lady Jane, she is very trying,” said Heather over one plump shoulder. “But her faults seem worse because we’re such a small group. You wouldn’t notice her much in a crowd.”

  “I would,” said Charlie, putting an effective end to that bit of conversation.

  Alice began to feel carsick. The big estate car swayed on the slick macadam surface of the road and cruised up and down over the many rises and bumps.

  At last the car veered sharply left and lurched even more over a dirt track where clumps of heather scraped the side of the car.

  When Alice was just about ready to scream that she was about to be sick, they lurched to a halt.

  She climbed out, feeling stiff and cold.

  A rain-pocked loch stretched out in front of her and vanished into the mist. All was still and silent except for the constant drumming of the rain. Heather and John began to unload the rods as the others drove up.

  “Now, who wants to row the boat?”

  “Me!” cried Charlie, showing rare animation.

  “Then you can be my ghillie,” said Lady Jane, a ghillie being a Highland servant. “Too many bushes around here. I’d be better in the middle of the loch.”

  “With a stone around your fat neck,” muttered Amy Roth. She caught Alice staring at her and blushed like a schoolgirl. “She’s such a lady,” thought Alice, amused. “I bet she feels like fainting any time she says ‘damn’.”

  Heather hesitated. Charlie was looking horrified at the idea of rowing Lady Jane. On the other hand, Charlie seemed to be the one member of the party that Lady Jane had so far not managed to intimidate. And he could be rescued after an hour.

  “Very well,” said Heather. “The Roths and the major can go with John further up the loch and fish the river. We should get good brown trout or small salmon so you will only need light rods.”

  “What about me?” asked Alice.

  “You come with me and I’ll start you off,” said Heather. “Jeremy, you go along to the left and Daphne to the right. Keep moving now. We’ll only fish for a little bit and then we’ll meet back here in two hours’ time.”