Hamish MacBeth 01 (1985) - Death of a Gossip

by M C Beaton

  “Come along,” said Heather. “No, don’t carry your rod like that, Alice. You’ll either spear someone or get it caught in a bush.”

  Jeremy waded off into the loch, and Alice watched him go until he was swallowed up in the mist. Lady Jane’s petulant voice sounded over the water, “Can’t you row a little harder?” Poor Charlie.

  Alice waded along the shallows after Heather. “Just here, I think,” said Heather. “Try casting here.”

  Wet and miserable, Alice jerked her rod back and caught the bush behind her. “No, like this,” said Heather patiently, after she had extricated Alice’s hook. She took Alice’s arm in a firm grasp and cast the fly so neatly that it landed on the water without a ripple. “Good,” murmured Heather. “Now again. And again.”

  Alice’s arm began to ache. She cursed and stumbled and slipped on the slippery boulders in the water beneath her feet. “I’ll try a little bit further on,” said Heather placidly. “You’re doing just grand. Remember to stop the rod at the twelve o’clock position. The loch’s quite shallow for a good bit, so if you move slowly out from the shore, you might get a bite and then you don’t have the risk of getting your hook caught in the bushes.”

  Why don’t I just say I’ll never learn how to fish and I don’t care, thought Alice wretchedly. Jeremy’s not interested in me. I don’t belong here. But somehow she found herself wading slowly out into the loch, casting as she went.

  Then the line went taut.

  Alice’s heart leapt into her mouth.

  It was probably a rock or a bit of weed. She began to reel in, feeling with growing excitement the tugs and shivers on the line. A trout leapt in the air at the end of the line and dived.

  “Help!” screamed Alice, red with excitement. Would Heather never come? What if she lost it? She could not bear to lose it. Seized with a fever almost as old as the hills around her, Alice reeled in her line.

  “That’s it,” said Heather quietly, appearing suddenly at Alice’s side. “Get your net ready.”.

  “Net. Yes, net,” said Alice, scrabbling wildly about and dropping her rod in the water. Heather bent down and seized the rod.

  “Get the net ready,” said Heather again. Alice wanted to snatch the rod back but was afraid of losing the fish. Forward it came, turning and glistening in the water. Alice scooped the net under it and lifted it up, watching the fish with a mixture of exultation and pity.

  “Quite a big one,” said Heather. “Three pounds, I should think. It’ll make a good breakfast.” She led the way to the shore after removing the hook from the trout’s mouth.

  “Can’t you kill it?” asked Alice, looking at the panting, struggling fish. “Oh yes,” said Heather, slowly picking up a rock. All her movements were slow and sure. “We’ll just put it out of its misery.”

  How abhorrent the idea of killing things seemed in London, thought Alice, and how natural it seemed in this savage landscape. Heather slid the trout into a plastic bag. “Put that in your fishing bag,” she said to Alice. “It’s about time for lunch. I think I hear the others returning.”

  Alice was the only one who had caught anything and received lavish praise from everyone but Lady Jane and Charlie Baxter. The child looked exhausted, and Heather was fussing over him, helping him into the front seat of the car and pouring him hot tea.

  “You’re a marvel, Alice,” said Jeremy. “Did you really catch that brute all by yourself?”

  “Yes, did you really?” asked Lady Jane.

  Alice hesitated only for a moment. Heather was a little bit away, hopefully out of earshot. “Yes,” said Alice loudly. “Yes, I did.”

  “I’d better keep close to you this afternoon,” grinned Jeremy. “Seems you have all the luck.”

  Alice’s pleasure was a little dimmed by, first, the lie she had told, which she was now sure Heather had overheard, and, second, by the fact that Jeremy and Daphne were to share a cozy lunch in his car while she herself was relegated to the back of the Cartwrights’ estate car.

  Lunch tasted rather nasty. Great slabs of pate, cold and heavy, and dry yellow cake and boiled eggs. But the fishing fever had Alice in its grip, and she could hardly wait to try her luck again. Somehow, Alice felt, if she managed to catch another fish all on her own then the lie would be forgiven by the gods above. For the first few moments after they climbed from the cars again, it looked as if the day’s fishing might have to be cancelled. A wind had risen and was driving great buffets of rain into their faces.

  “It said on the forecast this morning it might dry up later,” yelled John above the noise of the rising wind. “I say we ought to give it another half-hour.”

  Everyone agreed, since no one wanted to return home without a fish. If Alice could catch one, then anyone could, was the general opinion.

  “I’m all right now,” Charlie said, after Heather had towelled his curls dry. “It was that woman. Row here. Row there. And then she said…she said…never mind.”

  “Slide along behind the wheel, Charlie,” said Heather firmly. “I really think you ought to tell me what Lady Jane said to upset you.”

  But Charlie would only shake his drying curls and look stubborn.

  Heather was determined to have a word with her husband about Lady Jane as soon as possible. But the roar of an engine told her that John was already setting out with the major for the upper beats of the river.

  “Would you like me to run you back to the hotel?” she asked the boy.

  He shook his head. “As long as I can fish alone,” he said. “I’ll wait with the rest and see if the weather lifts.”

  Alice was oblivious to the slashing rain as she waded out into the loch again with Jeremy at her side, deaf to the sounds of altercation from the shore as Heather told Lady Jane firmly that she was to leave Charlie alone and drive to the upper beats to join the major, the Roths, and John.

  “Brrrr, it’s cold,” said Jeremy. “Where did you catch your trout?”

  “Just here,” said Alice. “I’ll show you.” She cast wildly and heard the fly plop in the water behind her, then clumsily whipped the line forward. “I’m tired,” she said defiantly, “and my arm aches. That’s why I can’t do it right.”

  “Look, it’s like this,” said Jeremy. “Keep your legs apart—” Alice blushed “—with the left foot slightly forward. Bring the rod smartly up towards your shoulder using the forearm and hold your upper arms close to your body. When you make the back flick, the line should stream out straight behind, and when you feel a tug at the top of the line, you’ll know the back cast is completed, and then bring it into the forward cast.”

  Alice’s line cracked like a lion tamer’s whip. “Are you sure you caught that fish yourself?” laughed Jeremy.

  “Of course I did,” said Alice with the steady, outraged gaze of the liar.

  “I’ll try further down,” said Jeremy, beginning to wade away. “I wonder if Daphne’s had any luck.”

  Damn Daphne, thought Alice savagely. All her elation had fled, leaving her alone in the middle of a howling wilderness of wind and rain.

  She simply had to get Jeremy back.

  Remembering everything she had been taught, she balanced herself on the slippery pebbles under the water and cast carefully and neatly towards Jeremy’s retreating back.

  “Caught ‘im,” thought Alice. Aloud, she called, “Sorry, Jeremy darling. I’m afraid I’ve hooked you.” Now, in the romances that Alice read, Jeremy should have said something like, “You caught me a long time ago,” and men walked slowly towards her and taken her in his powerful arms.

  What he did say in fact was, “Silly bitch. There’s the whole loch to fish from. Come here and help me get this hook out.”

  Blushing and stumbling, Alice edged miserably towards him. The hook was embedded in the back of his jacket. She twisted and pulled and finally it came free with a ripping sound.

  Jeremy twisted an anguished face over his shoulder. “Now look what you’ve done. Look, just keep well clear of me.” He wa
ded off into the driving rain.

  Tears of humiliation mixed with the rainwater on Alice’s face. She felt hurt and lost and alone. Her face ached with trying to maintain a posh accent. Jeremy would never have behaved like that wititi someone of his own class.

  She decided to turn about, give up, and go back and shelter in the car until this horrible day’s fishing was all over.

  Alice stumbled towards the shore. Suddenly the water turned gold. Sparkling gold with red light dancing in the peaty ripples. She turned and looked towards the west. Blue sky was spreading rapidly over the heavens. Mountains stood up, sharp and prehistoric with their twisted, deformed shapes. Heather blazed in great, glorious clumps, and the sun beat down on Alice’s sopping hat.

  “Alice! Alice!” Jeremy was churning towards her through the water, holding up a fairly small trout.

  “Marvellous girl.” He beamed. “Knew you would bring me luck.” He threw his arms around her, slapping her on the back of the head with his dead trout as he did so.

  Transported from hell to heaven, Alice smiled back. “Come along,” said Jeremy. “I’ve got a flask of brandy in the car. Let’s take a break and celebrate.”

  While Jeremy got his flask, Alice took off her hat and her wet coat and put them both on the bushes to dry. Jeremy sat down on a rock beside her and handed her the flask and she choked over an enormous gulp of brandy.

  The liqueur shot down to her stomach and up to her brain. She felt dizzy with happiness. They had had their first quarrel, she thought dreamily. How they would laugh about it after they were married!

  Elated with brandy and sunshine, they cheerfully agreed to return to the loch and try their luck again. And Alice did try. Very hard. If only she could catch a fish all by herself then she could be easy in her conscience.

  But at four in the afternoon, Heather appeared to call them to the cars. They were to return to the hotel for another fishing lecture.

  Even Alice felt stdkily that it was all too much like being back at school. Why waste a perfectly good afternoon sitting indoors in a stuffy hotel lounge?

  But none of them had quite realized how tired they were until John Cartwright began his lecture on fly tying. Despite the heat from the sun pouring in the long windows, a log fire was burning, its flames bleached pale by the sunlight. A bluebottle buzzed against the windows.

  While Heather’s rumble fingers demonstrated the art of fly tying, John discoursed on the merits of wet and dry flies. Names like Tup’s Indispensable, Little Claret, Wickman’s Fancy, Black Pennell and Cardinal floated like dust motes on the hot, somnolent air. “Sound like racehorses,” said Jeremy sleepily.

  Alice felt her eyes beginning to close. The major was asleep, twitching in his armchair like an old dog; the Roths were leaning together, joined by fatigue into a fireside picture of a happily married couple. Lady Jane had her eyes half closed, like a basking lizard, and Daphne Gore was painting her nails vermillion.

  Suddenly Alice jerked her eyes open. There was a feeling of fear in the room, fear mixed with malice.

  While John droned on, Heather had stopped her demonstration to flip through the post. She was sitting very still, holding an airmail letter in her plump hands. She raised her eyes and looked at Lady Jane. Lady Jane raised her heavy lids and smiled. It was not a nice smile.

  Heather’s face had gone putty-coloured. She put a hand on her husband’s sleeve and passed him the letter. He glanced at it and then began to read it closely, his lips folded into a grim line.

  “Class dismissed,” he said at last, putting down the letter and assuming a rather ghastly air of levity.

  “What was all that about?” murmured Jeremy to Alice. “And why do I feel it has something to do with Lady Jane?”

  “Care for a drink before dinner, Jeremy?” came Daphne’s cool voice.

  “Are you paying?” asked Jeremy, his face crinkling up in a smile.

  “What’s this? Men’s lib?” Daphne slid her arm into his and they left the lounge together. Alice stood stock still, biting her lip.

  “I told you you were wasting your time.” Lady Jane’s large bulk hove up on Alice’s port side.

  Fury like bile nearly choked Alice. “You are a horrible, unpleasant woman,” she grated.

  This seemed to increase Lady Jane’s good humour. “Now, now,” she purred. “Little girls in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And I do trust our stone-throwing days are over.”

  Alice gazed at her in terror. She knew. She would tell Jeremy. She would tell everybody.

  She turned and ran and did not stop running until she reached her room. She threw herself face down on the bed and cried and cried until she could cry no more. And then she became conscious of all that barbaric wilderness of Highland moor and mountain outside. Accidents happened. Anything could happen. Alice pictured Lady Jane’s heavy body plummeting down into a salmon pool, her fat face lifeless, turned upwards in the brown, peaty water. Abruptly, she fell asleep.

  When she awoke, she thought it was still early because of the daylight outside, forgetting about the long light of a northern Scottish summer.

  Then she saw it was ten o’clock. With a gasp, she hurtled from the bed and washed and changed. But when she went down to the dining room, it was to find that dinner was over and she had to put up with sandwiches served in the bar. Everyone seemed to have gone to bed. The barman informed her that the fat FEB had gone out walking and perhaps the other was with her -that Lady Whatsername. Alice asked curiously what a FEB was but the bartender said hurriedly he ‘shouldnae hae said that’ and polished glasses furiously.

  ♦

  Charlie Baxter threw leaves into the river Anstey from the humpbacked bridge and watched them being churned into the boiling water and then tossed up again on their turbulent road to the sea. His aunt, Mrs Pargeter, thought he was safely in bed, but he had put on his clothes and climbed out of the window. His mother had written to say she would be arriving at the end of the week. Charlie looked forward to her visit and dreaded it at the same time. He still could not quite believe he would never see his father again. Mother had won custody of him in a violent divorce case and talked endlessly about defying the law and keeping Charlie away from his father for life. Charlie felt miserably that it was somehow all his fault; that if he had been a better child then his parents might have stayed together. He turned from the bridge and headed towards the hotel.

  The sky and sea were pale grey, setting off the black twisted shapes of the mountains crouched behind the village.

  Charlie walked along the harbour, watching the men getting ready for their night’s fishing. He was debating asking one of them if he could go along and was just rejecting the idea as hopeless—for surely they would demand permission from his aunt—when a soft voice said behind him, “Isn’t it time you were in bed, young man?”

  Charlie glanced up. The tall figure of Constable Macbeth loomed up in the dusk. “I was just going home,” muttered Charlie.

  “Well, I’ll just take a bit of a walk with you. It’s a grand night.”

  “As a matter of fact, my aunt doesn’t know I’m out,” said Charlie.

  “Then we would not want to be upsetting Mrs Pargeter,” said Hamish equably. “But we’ll take a wee dauner along the front.”

  As Hamish Macbeth was turning away, a voice sounded from an open window of the hotel, “Throw the damn thing away. It’s like poison.” Mrs Cartwright, thought Charlie. Then came John’s Cartwright’s voice, “Oh, very well. But you’re worrying overmuch. I’ll throw this in the loch and then we can maybe get a night’s sleep.”

  A crumpled piece of blue paper sailed past Charlie’s head and landed on the oily stones of the beach. The tide was out.

  Charlie picked it up. It was a crumpled airmail. “You shouldn’t look at other people’s correspondence,” said Hamish Macbeth severely, “even though they may have chucked it away.”

  “I wasn’t going to read it. It’s got a lovely stamp. Austrian.”

 
; They passed the Roths, who were walking some distance apart. Marvin’s face was flushed and Amy’s mouth was turned down at the corners. “Hi!” said Marvin, forcing a smile.

  “It’s a grand night,” remarked the policeman. The American couple went on their way, and Charlie hurriedly thrust the airmail into his pocket.

  When they reached his aunts house, Charlie said shyly, “Do you mind leaving me here? I know how to get in without waking her.”

  Hamish Macbeth nodded, but waited at the garden gate until the boy disappeared around the side of the house.

  Then he made his way home to his own house where his dog, Towser, gave him a slavering welcome. Hamish absentmindedly stroked the animal’s rough coat. There was something about this particular fishing class that was making him uneasy.

  Day Three

  Thy tongue imagineth wckedness: and with lies thou cuttest like a sharp razor.

  —The Psalms

  Alice had reasoned herself into an optimistic frame of mind, although anxiety had first roused her at six in the morning. She had dressed and had taken herself out on a walk up the hill behind the hotel.

  A light, gauzy mist lay on everything, pearling the long grass and wild thyme, lying on the rippling silk of the loch, and drifting around the gnarled trunks of old twisted pines, last remnants of the Caledonian forest. Harebells shivered as Alice moved slowly through the grass, and a squirrel looked at her curiously before darting up a tree.

  Alice sat on a rock and talked severely to herself. The youthful peccadillo that had landed her briefly in the juvenile court was something buried in the mists of time. Why, her mother’s neighbours in Liverpool hardly remembered it! It was certainly something that Lady Jane could not know about. It had appeared in the local paper, circulation eight thousand, in a little paragraph at the bottom of page two. At the time, it had seemed as if the eyes and the ears of the world’s press had been on her when she had read that little paragraph. But now she was older and wiser and knew that she had been of no interest whatsoever to the media. That was the hell of being so hypersensitive. You began to think people meant all sorts of things because of their lightest remarks. Who was Lady Jane anyway? Just some silly, bitchy, discontented housewife. Jeremy had said she had been married to Lord John Winters, a choleric backbencher in Wilson’s government, who had died of a heart attack only two months after he had received his peerage for nameless services.