[Mirabelle Bevan 08] - Highland Fling

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘They’re holding Gregory for questioning, but they haven’t charged him,’ he reported. ‘They said if I come in about an hour, they’ll know more, but Susan’s body has complicated matters. Once her time of death is established, they will have to deal with a second set of alibis. I’m going down to the station.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Tash said.

  ‘No.’ Niko put his foot down.

  ‘You can’t stop me, Uncle Niko.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’ll take her,’ McGregor cut in. ‘We’ll be fine.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Niko said. ‘Use the hired car. It’s round the back. I had Gregory bring it up yesterday.’ He picked up a fresh glass and poured a whisky from the decanter. ‘The key is in the ignition.’

  McGregor kissed Mirabelle on the cheek and disappeared with Tash. Niko watched them go. ‘I’m going to make a call, if that’s all right?’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s time to start business in New York and I have to speak to people.’

  ‘Have the study, old man,’ Bruce offered. ‘Please.’

  ‘Goddam awful day,’ Niko said. ‘May I?’ He lifted the decanter of whisky from the trolley.

  ‘Take it,’ Bruce directed.

  Outside, Mirabelle watched the car emerge from behind the house, turn in a wide sweep, and disappear down the drive, running the gauntlet of the photographers.

  ‘Tash is under a huge amount of pressure,’ she said.

  The Robertsons sat shell-shocked on the sofa. ‘Gosh.’ Bruce sighed.

  Eleanor cocked her head to one side. ‘You handled that well, Mirabelle,’ she said. ‘My bet is, Alan’s not the only one with secrets.’

  Mirabelle leaned against the cushions. ‘I told you, I signed the Official Secrets Act,’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ Eleanor replied. ‘What are we going to do? We can’t just sit here eyeing the cocktail shaker.’

  ‘Why don’t you visit the McCrossans?’ Bruce suggested. ‘That’s what you’d planned.’

  Eleanor looked at Mirabelle. ‘Would you like to come?’ Mirabelle shook her head.

  ‘I’ll go with you, darling,’ Bruce offered. ‘We can go round the back. Avoid the press. We might as well do something positive.’

  With the Robertsons dispatched, Mirabelle sat alone. She stared at the cornicing that skirted the ceiling. The difference between a drawing room and a sitting room seemed obvious to her. Did that make her a hopeless snob? She got up and walked through to the orangery where she sat disconsolately on the wicker sofa and stared blankly out of the window. From far off, another gun blasted, the sound carrying up the hill through the clear, clean air. It had been an awful morning. She shivered as if Nina’s cold fingers had run down her spine. As if Susan was whispering to her. It felt as if the house was hiding a secret.

  Chapter 9

  Make perseverance your bosom friend

  When Gillies disturbed her, offering lunch, Mirabelle declined. Guiltily she slipped into Niko’s room and retrieved Nina’s diary. Then she fetched a saddle. She needed to clear her head. The house felt oppressive. She told the policeman she wouldn’t be long and he instructed her to keep away from the crime scene. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right, miss?’ he checked. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she insisted. It had been a while since she’d ridden but she’d be safer on a horse.

  The air was chill and the horse’s breath clouded ahead as she mounted and set off across country. From a distance, she watched the pressmen at the gate huddled around a brazier. They were playing cards on an upturned bucket.

  She steered the horse north along the glen and headed upstream to a clearing, where the water bubbled from beneath the granite, flowering into a graceful waterfall and disappearing below ground again before emerging as the burn near the village. She wondered if Alan had thought there were fairies here too when he was a boy. Dismounting, she let the horse drink. It was surprising how quickly the world disappeared here – all signs of civilisation obscured by the majestic landscape. Resting on a rock, she took the diary from her pocket and scrambled for a hairpin to pick the lock. It took only seconds to peel back the strip of leather that acted as a bar.

  Nina’s writing was tiny and she had used several different pens, in shades of blue ink. Between the text she had drawn sketches. One of a New York brownstone with brimming window boxes, another of a pair of shoes with elegant stiletto heels, and one of Gregory leaning over a handsome-looking car, with the hood up, as he tinkered with the engine. At the back there were two tiny scraps of blood-red silk, pinned to the notebook’s endpaper.

  Starting at the end, Mirabelle began to read. The last entry was a list of items Nina had ordered at the cashmere mill. ‘12 × Ivory 4-ply cashmere cardigan with Peter Pan collar’ and ‘24 × Caramel 2-ply cable-knit cashmere scarf’. Beside each description was a calculation of how much Nina bought the piece for and the price she’d sell it at in New York, followed by the mark-up – in most cases over 500 per cent. She had been meticulous. The page before the list contained a note of Gwendolyn Dougal’s telephone number and address. The women had evidently hit it off. ‘Send note’, Nina had scribbled. Then a cryptic ‘Tweed collective. Red?’ standing apart from the rest of the text. Perhaps, Mirabelle thought, Nina had intended to buy tweed as well as cashmere while she was in the Highlands. One thing seemed sure – there was no indication that she felt her life was in danger. The book was mundane – a list of journalists who wrote for fashion magazines followed a list of vintage wine with marks out of ten and random reminders to buy Christmas lights and stockings. The murder, it seemed, had come out of the blue. ‘Who were you meeting in the orangery in the middle of the night?’ Mirabelle asked in a whisper.

  Taken up with this window on to Nina’s world, she jumped when a sheepdog burst through the undergrowth on the other side of the burn and barked in her direction. Her horse startled and she put her hand on its neck to calm it, slipping the notebook back in her pocket. ‘Shush, boy,’ she said soothingly to the dog, which wagged its tail. A moment later a slim woman with a short bob of flaming hair appeared. She was wearing an ochre plaid skirt and a thick red sweater that was far too big for her. ‘Pearce!’ she said. ‘Hush.’

  ‘Hello,’ Mirabelle offered her hand across the water. ‘I’m Mirabelle Bevan.’

  ‘The laird’s cousin?’ the woman checked.

  ‘Yes.’ They shook. ‘Jennifer Fraser,’ she introduced herself. ‘I was sorry to hear about the trouble.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mirabelle. ‘I never met Miss Orlova …’

  ‘And Susan MacLeod now too,’ Jennifer added.

  ‘Were you acquainted with either of them?’

  ‘I knew Susan from the village and I’d met Miss Orlova. She came to the distillery. I work there. Mrs Robertson got me the job. They were looking for an apprentice distiller. They said it should be a man, but she made them take me anyway. Most of the lads have left the village.’

  ‘Eleanor’s marvellous, isn’t she?’

  Jennifer grinned. ‘A lass has to know what she wants and Mrs Robertson wants to make gin. She’s been at Angus, the master distiller, but he says there’s no art in it. Mrs Robertson reckons there might not be art, but there could be money. So I’ve set up a still for her. To try it.’

  ‘Eleanor has an eye for business.’ Mirabelle smiled. ‘Tell me, what are they saying about the deaths in the village?’

  The woman hesitated. ‘You can tell me,’ Mirabelle assured her.

  ‘Well … first it was the curse of the Green Lady, but the last couple of hours since word came down about Susan, it’s a sex maniac on the loose. At least the dog can protect me from the latter. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be flippant. People are superstitious – it’s always either the kelpies or the church down there – and women are in trouble either way.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s either of those things.’

  ‘They say Mrs MacLeod, Susan’s mother, fainted when they told her.’ Jennifer crossed herself. ‘It’s such terrib
le news.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  From above, the face of Murdo Kenzie appeared at the head of the brae. ‘Miss Bevan,’ he said delightedly.

  ‘Did you follow me?’

  Kenzie looked shamefaced. ‘A little,’ he said. ‘I saw you mounting up and I borrowed a bicycle. Hello Jenny.’ Pearce let out a low growl but Kenzie ignored the warning and continued to edge down the bank towards the women, moving awkwardly. ‘I wondered, Miss Bevan, if you’d be interested …’

  ‘I’m definitely not interested, Mr Kenzie.’

  ‘But I understand you were there. The second victim. You found her. Is that right?’ Kenzie took out his notepad.

  ‘Murdo Kenzie, you can put that away,’ Jenny said, her hand on the dog’s collar. ‘You can turn around too. It’s a police matter and you shouldn’t be harassing two ladies out for a walk.’

  Kenzie grinned. ‘Jenny,’ he said, not taking her seriously.

  ‘Pearce,’ Jenny raised a finger and pointed straight at the journalist. Pearce growled and began barking. ‘I’ll let him have at you. Don’t think I won’t,’ Jenny threatened. Kenzie looked nervous. He began to back off. ‘I just need a quote,’ he said. Jenny kept one hand in the air and the dog continued barking. ‘Be fair,’ Kenzie whined. ‘Go on now,’ she said. The dog strained.

  The journalist disappeared back up the brae. ‘Thanks,’ said Mirabelle when he’d gone. Something about the girl taking no nonsense heartened her. Everyone in the house was some kind of victim. Not Jenny Fraser. ‘Imagine your father was a respectable man. A schoolteacher. And you get a job for a scandal sheet instead of doing something worthwhile.’

  ‘You know, I’m on the market for some whisky,’ Mirabelle said with a smile. ‘And potentially some of that gin of yours. A case of each?’

  Jennifer blushed. ‘You don’t have to, Miss Bevan …’

  ‘But I want to.’ Mirabelle mounted the horse. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Fraser. Get in touch with the house and we’ll sort it out?’

  On the ride back, the sun was shining and the light cast a pure, pale yellow across the fields. The hills were dotted with sheep. If it wasn’t so cold, Mirabelle would have thought it was summer – only patches of snowdrops betrayed the time of year. She loved that the cold made her skin sting – a sign of being alive. In the paddock at the front of the house, the other horses raised their heads, as ahead of her the old ambulance snaked down to the main road. This meant the police had removed Susan’s body. As it passed the gates, the pressmen scrambled to take photographs. They clustered, discussing whether there might be something of interest left up the back road – if they’d be able to identify the scene of the crime. One of them began to walk along to investigate. Mirabelle dismounted, giving the horse a sugar cube from her pocket and throwing a blanket over him. Then she walked to the side of the house to put away the tack.

  As she did so, the hired car McGregor had driven to the police station drove through the gates and the remaining pressmen mobbed it, their shouts carrying up the hill as they barked questions at the vehicle. McGregor didn’t slow more than a fraction as he turned into the drive. Murdo Kenzie, back at his post, ran after the car a little way up the drive but gave up quickly – he was having a bad afternoon. Mirabelle grinned, watching from the hut around the side of the house as Gregory got out of the vehicle and held the door for Tash. He was out.

  She followed them inside, catching the front door as it closed behind them. Ahead, McGregor and Tash disappeared into the drawing room. Gregory headed towards the kitchen and, in a split second, on a whim, Mirabelle decided to follow him. The door was ajar and the smell of baking bread billowed into the hall. She stayed on the blind side as Gregory greeted Mrs Gillies.

  ‘Have you eaten, son?’ Gillies asked.

  ‘I could do with something.’

  Gillies brooked no more discussion with Gregory than she did with anybody else. Instead Mirabelle heard the sound of plates and cutlery being arranged. ‘Tea.’ She made it sound like a fact of life. ‘You didn’t tell them anything?’

  ‘No, ma’am. There didn’t seem any point making trouble.’

  ‘You did right,’ Gillies said. ‘Discretion is the mark of good service. I checked in the village with my sister in case there was any chatter, but you kept your nerve and quite right too. It was nothing to do with the murder. That poor dead woman deserves some privacy. As do we all.’

  Mirabelle cocked her head while the sound of cutlery on porcelain betrayed Gregory’s hunger. She shifted from foot to foot before making the decision to enter. ‘I wonder if you might send some tea into the drawing room, Mrs Gillies,’ she said airily. ‘Gregory, I’m glad to see you back.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ Gregory got to his feet. He was wearing a thick black jumper. It looked as if it was cashmere.

  ‘Please, eat your meal.’ Mirabelle gesticulated at the vivid constellation of boiled eggs, ham and mayonnaise. ‘I’m glad they released you. Tash was terribly concerned. We all were.’

  Gillies put the kettle on to boil. ‘If you need anything, you can just ring, miss,’ she said coldly.

  ‘I’m somewhat disoriented today, I’m afraid. Gregory, I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to ask exactly what the police wanted with you?’

  Gregory remained calm. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘they asked me about Miss Orlova and my alibi is all.’

  ‘Tash was worried they had picked you up because of the colour of your skin.’

  ‘They have a right to ask me questions.’

  Mirabelle sat down at the table. Behind her, Gillies clattered a pan in protest. ‘They kept you a while. A few hours by my reckoning.’

  ‘Well, they had a lot to ask in the end, what with Susan’s body turning up.’

  ‘It doesn’t sit right with me, all this,’ she said, as if confiding in him.

  ‘Two murders? I should think not.’

  ‘One expects a narrative.’

  Gregory’s face split in a grin. ‘Pardon me, but are you saying Miss Nina’s death has disappointed you with its lack of story? And the girl too?’

  ‘There’s clearly information missing.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s strange.’ Mirabelle turned in her seat. ‘Because I could have sworn I heard you and Mrs Gillies, before I came in, saying that there was something you hadn’t divulged.’

  Gillies’s expression was flawless. For a moment, Mirabelle thought that neither of them was going to crack, but then Gregory slumped in his seat, abandoning his cutlery. ‘It was nothing,’ he said.

  ‘I’d still like to know.’

  ‘You’re something else, miss.’

  ‘That’s a compliment in America, isn’t it?’

  ‘Kinda.’ His dark eyes were still as he made the decision to tell her. ‘It’s only that I saw Nina with the other woman. The neighbour,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you were in Glasgow.’

  ‘I don’t mean the night she died. I saw them the day before.’

  Gillies let out a low tutting sound. ‘I never thought I’d see the day when we’d have guests of the laird eavesdropping.’

  Mirabelle didn’t reply. ‘Which neighbour?’ she pressed.

  ‘The one with the title. Nina had the king-sized hots for that kind of thing. She said they were her people.’

  ‘You mean Gwendolyn Dougal?’

  ‘Yeah. The two of them were thick as thieves. Nina was getting bored, I guess, in the country. They cracked a bottle of champagne at the lodge and they were talking, you know, like they were long-lost friends. Just the two of them.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘In the afternoon.’

  ‘So they knew each other? Nina and Lady Dougal?’ Mirabelle remembered the diary entry – the card Nina had noted to send.

  ‘It looked that way. She shooed me off. I had only gone to see if there was anything she needed.’

  ‘And you withheld this information from the police?’

 
; Gillies couldn’t restrain herself any longer. ‘It would cause gossip in the village. I asked Mr Gregory not to say anything out of respect for the dead.’

  ‘But I don’t understand.’ Mirabelle was genuinely confused. ‘What kind of gossip were you thinking of, Mrs Gillies?’

  Gillies’s lips pursed. ‘It’s a small village.’

  A smile played around Gregory’s eyes. ‘Lady Dougal has a reputation,’ he added.

  ‘Champagne in the afternoon. It’s hardly necessary.’ Gillies sounded furious.

  Mirabelle caught Gregory’s eye. Her forehead creased. She was about to push him further, but he shook his head a fraction and she decided not to. It seemed a strange association. Tash loathed Gwendolyn and, if Mirabelle was honest, she had as well. But Nina it seemed hadn’t – quite the reverse. ‘Did Susan know about this meeting?’ Mirabelle asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Gregory said.

  ‘Do you have alibi for Susan’s death?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. All day yesterday. The police questioned me for a while. Then I was with Mrs McCrossan and then helping one of the farmers down in the village.’ His eyes flashed. ‘Do you have an alibi?’

  Mirabelle got to her feet. She certainly wasn’t going to let him ask questions. ‘I can take that tray, if you like, Mrs Gillies,’ she said.

  Outside, she lingered a moment in the hall. The sound of Gregory resuming his meal was the only noise in the kitchen. Then the door pulled back and Gillies stood brooding. ‘I’m going,’ Mirabelle said.

  She set off with the tray, hoping people might be glad of some tea. She could use a cup anyway. As she rounded the corner into the main hall, she felt a pair of strong hands around her waist. ‘What?’ she said out loud, and upturned the milk jug as she was pulled into one of the alcoves. Her heart pounding, she took a deep breath, ready to use the tray as a weapon as she swung it round. ‘Shhhh,’ McGregor put his fingers to his lips. Then he kissed her. ‘Are you the new maid?’ he asked.