‘I’ll jist see youse out,’ said the constable.
He soon returned and it became clear that the Lawson family could expect no such favours. That is, Lady Lawson was handled with kid gloves and forelocks were tugged almost out at their roots around her; likewise the two younger sons, although I thought I could detect a more practical, a more instrumental, source for the swiftness with which they were ground through the mill and released from its workings. The police sergeant and constable concerned, I rather thought, spotted early on – or perhaps knew of old (Dunfermline is a smallish town) – that these two wilting, blinking objects did not have the brains to be sensible witnesses to a crime which did not involve them. When it came to the eldest son, though, the constable was a model of thoroughness, chewing surprisingly long and hard to see if there were any useful meat on the boy’s spindly bones.
This was puzzling; young Mr Lawson had been in full view of scores of onlookers throughout the crucial time and he, no less than his brothers, had clearly been dragged along to the jubilee by his mother. Why anyone would think he was a named cast member with a speaking part in this tragedy was beyond me. And the mystery only deepened when I began to see the looks which flew around like shuttlecocks, batted from Mary Aitken to Lady Lawson, to the boy and back again.
When Roger Lawson, with stern glares and injunctions not to go on any journeys from home, was finally let go, the sergeant turned to the managerial staff: Mr Muir standing to attention with just his mouth trembling as he told all he knew; Miss Hutton weeping silently, the tears splashing onto her corsage; and Mrs Lumsden clasping her by her bony shoulders and shushing like a nursemaid, returning glare for glare until the sergeant relented and let all three of them leave.
Now we came to it; it was the family, of course, who interested me, the prospect of the family being questioned and having to give answers which had held me here all the long hours since I had stood watching Abigail Aitken cradling the gun in her lap, looking at her daughter, dry-eyed, expressionless, her chest rising and falling only a little and very slowly, as though she were enjoying a light sleep instead of waiting for her life to tumble down around her.
I shall never forget the moment when the heavy tramp of boots on the stairs stopped and the policeman joined us on the landing, for it is not often that one sees courage laid out with so little pomp, as though it were an everyday matter to be a hero. He was in his twenties, large and gangling, with a very new haircut and the aftermath of a very inexpert morning shave. He strode into the light, looked at me and then down at Mirren. He frowned and I saw his hand go for his truncheon but I nodded towards the corner where Abigail Aitken sat, where I was still training the light of the bulb, my arm aching from being held high above me. He turned, his boots squeaking against the lino, and she raised the gun again and pointed it towards him.
‘Now, now, Mrs Aitken,’ he said. ‘Nane o’ that. You dinnae want to be at that game.’ And without hesitating he walked towards her, the same heavy, measured tread that I had heard ascending, squatted down, shook a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and took the gun from her hand. Behind his back, with marvellous dexterity, he wrapped the thing and laid it aside then, like a considerate beau helping his sweetheart to her feet at a picnic, he took her hands in his and rose gently until both were standing.
‘I’m sorry aboot this noo, Mrs Aitken,’ he said, and then he wrapped just one of his large hands around both of her small ones, unclasped a pair of handcuffs from his belt and, turning her away, fastened them behind her.
That was the end of tranquillity though. More feet were pounding up the stairs and I could hear the lift wheezing too and soon it seemed that the landing was full of constables and of shouting and more than one of them retched at the sight of Mirren and had to rush away and one of them grabbed me roughly around the upper arms and frog-marched me to the top of the stairway, until another stopped him and said he should wait and then the inspector came and the rushing, shouting men turned quiet and shuffled, looked for jobs to do and failed to find them, so only idled like cattle herded against a gate. And through it all Mirren lay with her eyes half-open and her neck bent so uncomfortably up against the skirting that one longed to move it and set a pillow under her head, but the inspector did not even touch her, only squatted and peered, and shouted at the herd of jostling constables to get out of the way, go downstairs and try not to step in any dust or handle the banisters on the way. Eventually he turned and looked over the four of us remaining.
‘Take Mrs Aitken downstairs, McCann,’ he said to the first young constable.
‘Abigail,’ I began, but the inspector interrupted me.
‘Don’t talk to the prisoner unless you want to say it again in the court,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Inspector, you should know, I think, that this young man of yours was quite splendid. Just terrific.’
‘Naw, Mrs,’ said the constable. ‘No’ really. Only jist Mrs Aitken wis ma Sunday school teacher and I ken her. She’d nivver harm a fly.’
‘If you’ve finished your wee chat, then,’ said the inspector and Abigail was led away. The inspector turned to look at the bloodstain on the wall and spoke over his shoulder to the constable who still had me in his grip.
‘Escort Mrs Gilver to somewhere nearby and find her a seat. And for goodness’ sake, boy, stop manhandling her. Don’t you ever read the papers?’ He looked at me again, unsmiling, and not I thought only because of Mirren lying there. He did not approve of my sort, I could tell.
‘Is this why you’re here?’ he said. ‘If I find out you knew this was coming and didn’t say . . .’
‘I knew nothing until two hours ago.’
‘And what did you hear then?’
‘That Mirren Aitken had gone missing. My first advice – the first words out of my mouth – were that the family should ring the police. Ask them and they’ll tell you so.’
‘Aye, well, you’re all right then,’ said the inspector and turned away.
‘What a bloody nerve!’ said Alec, staring at me unbelieving. I had withstood the inspector and then the hours of hell without a tremor, but Alec’s sympathetic outrage undid me and my eyes filled with tears. ‘Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, eh?’ I nodded and tried to resist sinking into self-pity; there was too much to tell.
We were sitting in the coffee room of the Royal Hotel, finally having the rendezvous we had planned. I gathered that Alec had spent quite some time battering against the doors of Aitkens’ like a trapped bee, demanding to be let in and then pleading to be told what was happening by the witnesses as they began to emerge.
‘And I can tell you this, Dandy,’ he said, ‘if I’d thought half of it were true I’d have launched myself through one of those bloody plate-glass windows like a human cannon ball and come to get you. Good luck to the police trying to get a straight story out of those damned ghouls.’
‘You’re swearing a lot, Alec dear,’ I said, with a glance behind me where a hatch was open to the bar. I could just see the broad back of a barmaid, hovering nearby, discreetly listening. ‘I’m sure all those damns and bloodies would be fine in the taproom but I think we might get chucked out if you keep it up through here.’
‘You’re right,’ Alec said, ‘but I’ve had a very frustrating afternoon, Dan. Only cursing or strong drink will dissipate it and strong drink gets in the way of detecting.’
‘Speaking of which,’ I said. I scraped my chair closer to his and lowered my voice. The broad-backed barmaid gave up and moved away. ‘What did you find out from the Hepburns?’
‘But you’re not finished yet,’ Alec said. ‘Tell me how the family stood up to being questioned.’ I sighed. Alec is the dearest man I have ever met in a life well-filled with men, but he could turn two flies crawling up a wall into a competition and no matter how mundane his discoveries might be and how dramatic mine, he was determined that his report would be the finale.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Bella Aitken was qui
te simply stunned. Bewildered. Utterly unable to take in what had happened. Utterly without the first idea of why it could have happened. She kept saying it: but why, but why.’
‘Nothing unusual there, surely,’ Alec said.
‘But that’s the thing, darling,’ I answered. ‘No one except me and the police knows about Abigail. Jack asked where his wife was, of course, while we were all being held in the offices together, but only once and pretty late in the day – he wasn’t about to fling himself through windows – and all the sergeant told him was that she was being taken care of. I honestly think he, Mary and Bella believed that she’d collapsed and a doctor had her.’
‘Still?’ said Alec. ‘They’ll have to let on sometime that she’s been clapped in irons and taken away.’
‘Hardly clapped in irons,’ I said, remembering. ‘Gently taken under the wing of one of her old Sunday school pupils. I wouldn’t have thought an arrest could be a kindly thing until I saw that one.’
‘Well, he’d handed her over by the time they got downstairs then,’ Alec said. ‘She was marched out like Joan of Arc on her way to the stake.’
‘How would you know how she was marched?’ I asked, reasonably enough.
‘In dramatic retellings,’ said Alec with great dignity. ‘I was that maid once, you know. In a school play. Anyway, she was marched out and bundled into the Black Maria with absolutely no kindliness whatsoever.’
‘Huh,’ I said. ‘I thought a Black Maria was for plague victims. Or am I getting mixed up with Typhoid Mary?’
‘You’re wasting time on idle chat when we should be concentrating,’ said Alec, and even though what he called idle chat was bringing me back to life after the suffocating effects of my horrible afternoon, I gathered my wits again and resumed reporting.
‘So we must ask ourselves why Bella Aitken can’t make herself believe that Mirren committed suicide.’
‘You’re sure she would have assumed it was suicide?’
‘Completely. It’s what I thought when I saw Mirren – I even rootled around for the gun. It was the obvious thing to think. Mirren was unhappy, she went missing and she killed herself. That’s what everyone who wasn’t up there must be thinking.’
‘So Aunt Bella shouldn’t really be so puzzled,’ said Alec, with a nod. ‘Yes, I see. And how did the Queen Bee take the news?’ I felt some remorse that the way I had spoken of Mary Aitken had caused Alec to make his mind up about her so completely.
‘She was very shocked, very surprised – horrified – and she—’
‘Hang on,’ said Alec. ‘Horrified how? Wringing her hands and saying ‘Oh, how horrifying,’ or something that can’t be faked, like going pale?’
It was a fair question, even a good question, but so blunt to one who had been there with them that I am sure I frowned at him even while I was answering.
‘Oh, she was pale enough,’ I said. ‘And trembling and her hands were cold. No doubt it was real shock; I’d take an oath on it.’
‘Only, of course, I was thinking perhaps this was what you could scupper today.’ Frankly, I had been thinking the same. ‘This was why Mary Aitken wanted you to turn up tomorrow. So that she could point at you as evidence that she knew nothing and was trying to find the girl.’
‘Mary Aitken knew her granddaughter was going to be killed and yet still invited all those people to come along and be there when it happened? It’s not very likely.’
‘And finally, Jack,’ Alec said, ignoring my quibbles. ‘The father.’
I drew a deep sigh and tried not to sob as I let it go.
‘It’s as though a part of him has died too,’ I said. ‘When the inspector told him, he just . . . I was going to say crumpled, but that’s not right. He turned to stone. Or clay, almost set, just able to move, but only just. It was one of the saddest things . . .’
‘And quite a change from how he’d been before, from what you were saying on the telephone,’ Alec said, tapping a little tune against his teeth and frowning at me.
‘When he hears it was his wife I really do fear for him,’ I said. ‘When he hears she did it with his gun, I can’t imagine what he’ll do. Thank goodness the gun will be held as evidence, that’s all. With any luck he only had the one or I wouldn’t put a shilling on him making it through the night.’
‘Service revolver, was it?’ said Alec.
‘I think so,’ I said.
‘That’s most likely,’ Alec said. ‘If you smelled cordite yards and yards off after one shot it must have been pretty old and dirty. A service revolver from the back of a sock drawer sounds about the size of it.’
‘Poor Jack,’ I said.
‘So you’re pretty sure he didn’t know what was coming?’
‘Positive,’ I said.
‘Only I was thinking about your description of Abigail saying she “couldn’t” and everyone else trying to persuade her that she had to. You thought she meant going out in public, but maybe . . .’
‘What? They’re all in it together? Impossible. Although, on the subject of alliances, I did get the distinct impression there was something going on between Mary and Lady Lawson.’
‘What do you mean? What kind of something?’
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Or perhaps they’re just very good friends and were succouring one another with affectionate glances.’
‘Have you been reading Richardson again?’ Alec said.
‘One thing is troubling me about the idea that Abigail acted off her own bat.’ I folded up my little napkin and tucked it under the edge of my plate. I had not touched the sandwiches and I knew I was not going to. ‘I don’t see how she would have had time to get there. She didn’t go in the lift, and if she had raced up the stairs in time to shoot Mirren after the last time I saw her on the ground floor, she’d still have been panting when Bella and I got there. I’m sure of it.’
‘Well, how long are we talking about?’ said Alec. He took his fourth sandwich, folded it in two and put it in his mouth.
‘I’m trying to think,’ I said. ‘Jack left first. To go and tell the staff to close the front door— Oh!’
‘My God, Dandy,’ said Alec, through a mouthful of sandwich. ‘Jack left? You might have said that before now. When did he come back again?’
‘Not until after the gunshot,’ I said, ‘because his first words were to ask what the noise had been. But hush, Alec, something just struck me.’
‘But that means it might have been him. If the problem with Abigail was lack of time.’
‘Be quiet, you just distracted me when I’d almost remembered something.’
‘Are you quite sure that he left before she did?’ I gave up chasing the thought that had brushed against me and drifted off again.
‘Absolutely certain,’ I said. ‘It was Jack leaving that made Abigail feel woozy – she had been holding on to him, you see. And when he went she said to her mother that she wanted to sit down or something and her mother told her to stay put. And that’s when Bella went away to get her a glass of water.’
‘Bella left too?’ Alec was looking at me as though I were an idiot of some interesting kind.
‘Yes, but Alec, it’s not the way it sounded. There wasn’t time. Jack went and then Bella went and we waited for the merest minute and then Mary got impatient and started things off and the Provost only spoke for a moment – that was long enough – and then he pulled the cord.’
‘And how long after that was the shot?’ said Alec. I had already told him every scrap of this, but he is not above treating me like a witness when he feels like it and so I told him again.
‘Instantaneous,’ I said. ‘Almost. The tiniest delay. I did tell you, darling; I thought pulling the cord had caused the bang.’
‘Maybe it did,’ said Alec. ‘No, listen. Maybe something was rigged. Maybe that’s why Mary Aitken did what she did that was so odd.’ I shook my head, not following. ‘She started the proceedings when two, possibly three, of the principals weren’t there. She deliberately
went ahead when her sister-in-law and her son-in-law were nowhere to be seen and would be left having to account for themselves.’
‘But she tried to keep her daughter on the scene,’ I said, nodding. Then I tutted at him. ‘How could it be anything like that? How could pulling a gold cord three floors below make a gun go off?’
‘It could send a signal to an accomplice,’ Alec said. We pondered this in silence for a moment or two. Then Alec puffed his cheeks out and patted his pockets in the manner I knew so well. I coughed and pointed to a discreet sign requesting gentlemen to retire to the lounge bar to enjoy their pipes. I laughed at his face and tossed him over a cigarette.
‘Filthy habit,’ Alec said, lighting it. ‘Have you remembered your elusive titbit yet?’
‘I haven’t,’ I said. ‘But it’s interesting that you assume it’s a titbit and not a clue of great magnitude. Why don’t you fill me in on your visit to the Capulets?’
‘Montagues,’ said Alec. ‘Yes, I’m sure, before you shout me down again.’ He stuck his tongue out at me. ‘Because I always thought “Juliet Capulet” was proof that Shakespeare had a tin ear for poetry.’ He took a deep puff of his cigarette then frowned at it and stubbed it out. ‘There were two Hepburns in the directory, but I hit the mark first time.’
‘You got to speak to the boy himself?’
‘No,’ said Alec. ‘I mean, I hit his father. Also – briefly – his mother.’
‘And?’
‘Very interesting,’ Alec said, slowly and annoyingly. I waited. ‘The father was absolutely dead-set against the marriage.’
‘I don’t blame him,’ I said. ‘No one likes to push in where he’s not wanted and the Aitkens cannot stand the Hepburns. I wouldn’t have thought rivalry could be so fierce. I mean, companies are always amalgamating, aren’t they? Especially these days.’
‘I don’t think it had anything to do with the business as far as Robert Hepburn is concerned,’ Alec said. ‘It was more heartfelt than that. He looked – what’s that word – thoroughly scunnered when I made him talk about it.’
Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder Page 5
