[Mirabelle Bevan 08] - Highland Fling

by Sara Sheridan

  He opened the wardrobe. At the bottom there were two leather suitcases and, above, neatly stacked piles of clothes ordered by colour – red mostly. A couple of dresses hung on the rail but several hangers and two shelves lay empty. Mirabelle thought that they must have contained Tash’s clothes, which Gillies would have cleared to bring up to the house while they were having lunch and seeing to their rooms. She ran her palm across the carefully folded woollens left behind – all good-quality, high-gauge cashmere. Nina had had a good eye.

  ‘That’s a bit gruesome, Belle. Sorting through her things.’

  Mirabelle stopped for a fraction of a second as her fingers found a small leather notebook between the cashmere folds. Alan had moved to the window, one hand on the curtain. He wouldn’t let her read it, she thought. And when the police found it, they’d whisk it away. So, in a split second, she hid the book in her hand and moved smoothly to the bed. On one side there were two cheap novels – an American romance, Broads Don’t Scare Easy by Hank Janson, and From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming. ‘These must belong to the girl,’ she said, bending down as if to read the covers as she slid the notebook under the bedside cabinet. She could come back and read it later before handing it to the police.

  ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ she asked.

  McGregor turned back into the room. ‘You’re going to love this,’ he said as he gestured her to follow him through to the kitchen and out the back door. There was a good-sized hut a little way off, half-covered in claret-coloured ivy. The walls were freshly painted in soft blue and a single window had been fitted with opaque glass etched with small stars.

  ‘Really?’ she laughed. Lots of places still had outdoor toilets, but she knew that – for American tourists from New York – the prospect must have been horrifying.

  ‘Don’t you dare postulate that the poor woman killed herself to avoid having to come out here in the middle of the night. It’s rather nice, I think. Sneaking out, under the stars. There’s a big enamel bath, if my memory serves me.’

  Mirabelle adopted a stern expression. ‘I’ve never known you to be flippant about a case, Alan McGregor.’

  ‘It’s not my case,’ he said.

  She opened the door. There were two oil lamps on either side of the bath and a geyser for the hot water. Around the sink there was a scatter of lipstick and a small mirror in a wire frame. The air smelled faintly of orange oil and bergamot.

  Back outside, Mirabelle sank on to a wrought-iron bench beside the kitchen door. A scatter of cigarette butts littered the ground. ‘She did sneak out under the stars, didn’t she? And not for a bath. Assuming Mrs Gillies was right about the time of death.’

  ‘I doubt Mrs Gillies has ever been wrong about anything.’

  ‘Well, then out she went, in the middle of the night. In her red woollen suit. Of course, there’s something wrong with that, for a start.’

  McGregor looked concerned. ‘She was American,’ he said, as if this explained everything.

  ‘She was Russian and she was a fashion buyer, Alan. She might not have been dressed for the country, but she should have been dressed for dinner. That was a day suit. It was business attire.’

  McGregor sighed as he sat down. He laid a hand on her leg. ‘I wish you’d let it drop, Belle. We’re here on holiday – a ramble through the view and some pints in the pub, which I, for one, plan to particularly enjoy. Bruce and I used to have to sit outside with a bottle of pop each – you know, with a straw.’

  ‘I’m not buying that you had an underprivileged childhood. Not here.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m privileged. In every way.’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘And yet, so unspoiled. I’m finding it interesting, squaring all this with you. You don’t seem to come from a place like this.’

  ‘I didn’t. This is my mother’s family home. We didn’t live this way in Edinburgh. We had a bungalow. Tiny by comparison and in the suburbs. There was football in the street and a three-mile walk into town.’

  ‘And your father?’ Mirabelle was aware she’d hate it if McGregor questioned her this way. But he didn’t seem to mind the intrusion.

  ‘Dad didn’t like it here. I suppose he was a townie, but he let Mum and me come for holidays.’

  ‘He let you come?’

  ‘He was fine with it. My guess is that he got to kick up his heels in Edinburgh while we were away. We weren’t rich people, Belle, but we had more than enough and, honestly, now I’m grateful – a house like Bruce’s is a huge responsibility. I was lucky to come here sometimes – and I always got on well with Bruce. Not every kid in my class at school learned to ride and shoot.’

  ‘Or stood on top of hills howling.’

  He laughed. ‘Come on,’ He got to his feet and pulled her after him. ‘Let’s go down to the village.’

  ‘For that pint?’

  ‘Well, a gin and IT for you.’

  They climbed over the stone wall and on to the road. It was remarkably empty. The countryside around Brighton always had an inhabited air, with its intermittent brick houses and cheerful, brightly painted front doors. The hedgerows brought everything down to scale. Here the landscape juddered like a modernist painting – dramatic angles and high contrast tones – and there was nobody about. To call the place murderous was a step too far, but the crags and vicious winds could certainly harm someone who wasn’t prepared. Mirabelle smoothed her skirt. ‘Do you think this is what it’ll be like after the bomb?’

  McGregor grinned. ‘The bomb?’

  ‘You know, if there’s an attack,’ she said. ‘It feels so empty up here – like we’re the last people in the world.’

  McGregor squeezed her hand. ‘We were briefed at the station. I didn’t want to tell you about it. The truth is, I’m not sure we’d want to survive. At least if we were up here, we could hide in a cave and light a fire. I don’t know what we’d eat but there’d be something. I’m sorry – I’ve brought you on holiday and it’s made you maudlin, what with the murder.’

  Mirabelle laughed. ‘I don’t usually have the time to dwell on it,’ she said. ‘Did it surprise you that Bruce cried?’

  McGregor shook his head. ‘About Nina? No. He’s not a hardened professional like me. Or a hardened amateur in your case. He isn’t used to it. And he knew her.’

  ‘Do you think he’d seen a corpse before?’

  ‘Maybe not a dead woman. He enlisted when the war broke out. He was in logistics, I think, but he saw a bit of action. We’ve never discussed it.’

  ‘And you were in Edinburgh?’

  ‘That’s right. I didn’t pass the medical.’ McGregor always bristled when the subject of the war came up. Mirabelle looked at him striding out. He seemed perfectly fit.

  They crossed an old bridge, one side of the stone pocked with a scramble of yellow lichen and lush green moss. Mirabelle peered over. Below, the water was clear enough to make out the riverbed and she had a sudden urge to take a drink. ‘It’s a pretty stream,’ she said.

  ‘That’s the burn,’ McGregor corrected her. When she turned, he was watching her. ‘And you’re the pretty one,’ he said. It seemed, when Mirabelle had time on her hands, she thought about Cold War disaster scenarios, but, given the same luxury, McGregor was developing a line in romance. ‘I think we should set a date for the wedding,’ he said.

  Mirabelle smiled, ‘You’ll have to wait. I don’t carry my appointment book with me on long country walks.’

  He put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her once more. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it later.’

  The pub was warm compared to the brisk, cold paper-cut of the January Highland air. Flames from the fire licked the stone grate. An old man with a ragged beard sat smoking a pipe at the bar. McGregor greeted him as Mirabelle took a seat and, eyeing the superintendent warily, the old man slowly knocked out his pipe, downed the last of his pint and left. As he closed the door a heavily pregnant woman appeared.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You’ll be the laird’s c
ousin.’

  ‘And you’ll be Mrs McCrossan.’

  ‘Davina,’ the woman shook his hand. ‘They’re saying there’s been an accident up at the big house. What with all the police cars.’

  ‘Who’s saying that?’

  ‘Susan MacLeod was half-hysterical. She came past on the way to her mother’s. She hardly made sense.’

  ‘And she said it was an accident?’

  ‘No,’ Davina McCrossan admitted. ‘She said it was a murder, but I wouldn’t like to repeat that without knowing it was true.’

  McGregor hesitated, then relented. ‘There’s a body. A dead one, I’m afraid. Another guest of the laird’s and poor Susan is right – it looks like murder.’

  Davina McCrossan crossed herself. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘That’s terrible. Was it one of those smart ladies who had been up and down to the mill?’

  ‘It was. What makes you think that?’

  ‘Only that they were strangers. Was it the mother or the daughter?’

  ‘The mother – or the godmother, in fact – but I expect it’s not something for a lady in your condition to go into. It’s a distressing business.’

  Davina crossed herself again. ‘God rest the poor woman,’ she said. ‘They’re already saying, of course.’

  ‘Saying what?’ McGregor asked.

  ‘Oh, the Green Lady. You know, the ghost up at the hall. She’s a tangled soul. It’s a tall tale but you know how people are.’

  A smile played around McGregor’s lips. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Tell me, did Miss Orlova ever come in here?’

  ‘Yes, the two of them did. They took out a bottle or two. Off-sales. They were far too smart to sit in.’

  ‘Well, Mrs McCrossan, I hope we are just scruffy enough.’ McGregor smiled.

  ‘Oh sir. I didn’t mean …’ She sounded distressed.

  ‘Not at all. I’m only teasing. We’ll have a whisky and a gin and IT, please.’

  Davina McCrossan poured the order and laid it on the bar. ‘I’m going to sit in the back,’ she said, supporting her back with the palm of her hand. ‘I’m overdue.’

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned anything …’ McGregor started but she stopped him.

  ‘Actually, I was saying only yesterday I could do with something to bring it on,’ she smiled. ‘My husband says if this business with the Russians and Americans wanting to kill everyone isn’t giving me enough of a scare, he doesn’t know what will. Not that I was wishing for something like this.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Just call if you need anything.’

  The fire crackled again. Mirabelle felt her stomach rumble. It must be the country air. The cold made you feel curiously alive, she realised, as McGregor brought over the drinks.

  ‘The Green Lady?’ she said.

  McGregor shook his head. ‘My great, great, great grandmother. Maybe even more greats … the original chatelaine of the manor. She died young and is said to have been beautiful. She kept away from the village, so this story started that she’d walled herself in or her husband locked her up, or some-such. You know how people are. A hundred years from now they’ll be calling Nina Orlova the Red Lady. Villages thrive on gossip.’ He took a pack of cards from his pocket. ‘This might not be the holiday we planned, but I promised you peace and quiet and a decent hand of rummy and, by God, I’m going to make good on that at least – murders and hauntings aside.’

  He was different here, she thought as he shuffled the cards. Brighton had contained him somehow. She wondered if she was different – it didn’t feel that way, but then she wasn’t coming home. Mirabelle never thought much about having a home, but if the McGregor she came to live with was a little more like this fellow, she thought she might like it.

  ‘You’d better watch out. I’m very good at rummy,’ she said as he dealt the cards.

  Chapter 4

  The death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic in the world

  From their vantage point in the pub, they watched as the sun sank fast, bleeding across the vista in a pool of rich oranges and reds like a bloodbath. Mirabelle tried not to think of it as an omen. Once it was dark, the locals flooded into the pub. Conversations struck up between those who had seen Nina Orlova at one time or another, passing in a car or walking into the village – the local gossip mill getting to work. ‘Was she Russian? Do I have that right?’ one man asked.

  ‘No. American. She spoke like those fellas during the war,’ another corrected him, and then they lowered their voices, glancing guiltily at McGregor and Mirabelle, as if they were somehow involved.

  When they left the pub it was half past five and had been dark for over an hour. The temperature had dropped dramatically and a piercing wind whistled along the main street of the village. The sky was cloudy, obscuring the light from the moon, which had only just risen. Mirabelle wondered how clear it had been the night before, when Nina Orlova had set out from the lodge in the middle of the night. Just as she and McGregor stepped out of the last pool of streetlight and into the dark, they heard a pounding sound. Ahead, high above, trees were silhouetted against the sky at the top of the hill. Mirabelle felt her skin prickle.

  ‘What’s that sound?’ She reached for McGregor’s hand.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. They froze as the pounding drew closer until out of the darkness two shadowy horses pulled to a halt just ahead of them, their hooves clicking on the tarmac as they stepped on to the road.

  ‘Hi,’ said a woman’s voice, out of breath. Mirabelle peered. Eleanor’s skin looked translucent in the wash of low moonlight. It struck Mirabelle she had forgotten the size of horses – from a stand at the Brighton racetrack, they looked like toys. Here, she could smell the sweat on their hide and they seemed huge and utterly unpredictable. Her heart was pounding. ‘You gave us a fright,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t see you.’

  ‘Sorry. We had to get out,’ Eleanor apologised. ‘It’s late to ride but they’ve got eyes in their heads.’ She patted her horse.

  Bruce was wearing jodhpurs and a tweed riding jacket. He smiled as he walked his horse forward and leaned down to offer Mirabelle a hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll ride home together, pigeon pair. Climb up.’

  McGregor helped her to mount and then climbed behind Eleanor and they set off up the hill, trotting at first and then speeding to a gallop across the open ground. It was exhilarating. It had been a long time since Mirabelle had felt a horse move beneath her and the slap of freezing air on her face – the adventure of not being able to quite see ahead. She could only just make out McGregor and Eleanor a few feet away thundering up the hill beside them. She heard Eleanor unleash a shrill laugh and wondered what McGregor had said or whether it was the thrill of riding at speed that had made her cry out. Ahead, Bruce moved as if he was part of the animal. She’d forgotten the strength you needed to ride – the sheer force of will as she clung on to Bruce and squeezed her thighs against the horse’s flanks. In conditions like this, any moment they could be thrown, but she trusted Bruce’s competence. He’d lived here all his life. He knew the landscape and the animal. At last, the house came into view, its warm yellow windows a beacon.

  They dismounted and Bruce took the reins. Then in her peripheral vision she saw a movement and swung round just as a man stepped forward from the portico. He was ungainly, as if his limbs did not fit in place.

  ‘Mr Robertson?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bruce squinted into the light. ‘Ah, Murdo Kenzie, isn’t it? What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s what I can do for you, sir.’

  Eleanor let out a sigh. She was right, Mirabelle thought, this was a cheesy start, whatever Mr Kenzie wanted. His accent, she noticed, sounded craggy compared to the soft brogue of Alan and his cousin.

  ‘I work for the Inverness Courier, sir. They sent me to cover the story of the woman’s murder. People are saying all sorts of things.’

  ‘Are they now?’

  Eleanor took the reins from her husba
nd and made to lead the animals back into the paddock while Kenzie continued. ‘Given that I know you …’

  ‘Know me?’

  ‘That I’m from here … I can help, I think. I can keep the heat off. We’re going to run the story on tomorrow’s front page, if you’d give me an exclusive …’

  Bruce advanced. ‘Someone has died in my house …’ ‘She was murdered, sir, and the public are curious. If you could just see your way …’ The man took a notebook and pencil from his pocket.

  Bruce looked as if – had he still been on his mount – he would have run the fellow down.

  McGregor stepped in. ‘Mr Robertson has nothing to say except that everyone is trying to deal with this tragedy and we’d appreciate you not imposing—’ he said.

  ‘Mr Robertson has more to say than that,’ Bruce cut in. ‘He says get off my land, you animal. Go on! Your father must be ashamed of you. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘But, sir,’ Kenzie pleaded, ‘every paper in the country will want the story … if you let me cover it …’

  ‘You can sell it, is that what you’re after? Christ almighty! Go on! Off with you!’

  ‘You think nobody is going to care about a dead American on our soil? Or was she Russian? This is a story of international significance, Mr Robertson. Given the political situation …’

  Bruce let out a roar. His eyes were lit now. Kenzie stuffed the notebook in his pocket and backed off the portico as Bruce advanced.

  McGregor moved quickly. He held back his cousin and the reporter disappeared down the driveway, into the darkness.

  Eleanor returned. ‘Is that Dougal Kenzie’s son?’ she asked. ‘The schoolteacher’s boy?’

  ‘It is,’ Bruce replied. ‘Bloody intrusion!’

  ‘I put the horses in the paddock but I can’t—’ Eleanor started.

  ‘I’ll see to the tack,’ Bruce told her. He patted McGregor on the back and went to see to the animals. The others stamped their feet on the doormat and gratefully bundled inside. Mirabelle caught a flash of herself – skin pink and eyes bright – in one of the hallway mirrors. Her cheeks felt like blocks of ice. Her ears ached.