[Mirabelle Bevan 08] - Highland Fling

by Sara Sheridan

  Gwendolyn continued her commentary as if nothing had happened. ‘Do you see that little whitewashed bothy?’ She pointed. ‘Willie’s grandmother had it built. She and her husband used to play at being crofters. They’d stay overnight and she’d make porridge. Silly but romantic. It’s nothing like a real cottage inside, of course. They made frightfully posh crofters but it’s a sweet story.’

  ‘Do you and Willie ever stay overnight in the bothy?’ Tash’s eyes sparkled.

  ‘Certainly not!’

  Downstairs, in the great hall, the maid arrived with their coats. Gwendolyn continued playing lady of the manor, talking about the thickness of the walls and the horrors of the dungeon. ‘It’s full of wine now, and barrels of whisky,’ she cooed. ‘They say if you were incarcerated in the Dougal dungeons, you could scream for a hundred years and nobody would hear. The best of it is we don’t need to build a fall-out shelter. I mean, if we had a new house like yours …’ she drawled. Mirabelle smiled politely. Bruce and Eleanor’s house had been built in the eighteenth century.

  ‘Well, you must come for dinner one evening,’ Gwendolyn continued. ‘Are you free over the next few days?’

  ‘We’ll see about the arrangements for the Orlovs,’ Eleanor piped up. ‘The police have not yet released Nina’s body.’

  ‘Yes, of course. It’s a time of mourning.’

  Mirabelle wasn’t quite ready to leave but it was difficult to get a word in edgewise, never mind find out anything useful. ‘My, aren’t you colourful?’ Gwendolyn commented as Mirabelle pulled on her coat.

  She took her chance. ‘I can’t help wondering, how did you meet Nina, Gwendolyn?’

  Gwendolyn’s chest practically swelled. ‘She wrote to me,’ she said. ‘When she knew she was coming to Scotland. She’d heard about the castle and asked if she might visit.’

  ‘And did she?’

  Gwendolyn looked sad. ‘She didn’t have time. Her life was cut so tragically short.’

  ‘So when you visited her that afternoon… ?’

  ‘We had corresponded. I had seen pictures of her in the society pages – we take all the magazines at Brochmor, even the American ones. Willie has cousins across the pond. I knew Nina and I would get along like a house on fire.’

  ‘Did she invite you over?’

  ‘We were coming to the Robertsons’ anyway. It’s such a sweet little lodge, isn’t it?’ Gwendolyn slipped a sly smile. ‘It must be so handy for you, Eleanor, when you haven’t the room to accommodate guests in the main house.’

  Again, Eleanor did not rise to the bait. ‘Thank you, Gwendolyn,’ she said. ‘We’d best be going. Our menfolk will be expecting us.’

  Gwendolyn stood waving at the door as the car disappeared down the hill. Tash sat back in her seat and laughed. ‘God, she is awful, isn’t she?’

  ‘Well, she seems to have hit it off with your godmother. Do you know what Nina could possibly have seen in her?’ Mirabelle asked.

  ‘I do.’ Tash turned in her seat. ‘Gwendolyn told us herself – they would have agreed. Politically, I mean.’

  ‘But Gwendolyn is a racist. I don’t understand – for a start, Nina employed Gregory …’

  ‘My godmother wasn’t very … nice. That’s the truth. Running her stupid errands was all Gregory was fit for as far as she was concerned. She treated him like a slave.’ Tash fumbled with a button on her coat. Her cheeks flushed. Mirabelle realised this explained the girl fussing after Gregory, pouring him a whisky. She had been embarrassed by Nina’s behaviour. She’d wanted to differentiate herself. Tash pursed her lips. ‘Also,’ she paused, ‘I expect Nina and Gwendolyn had an arrangement.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The girl heaved a breath dramatically. ‘Nina was partial, Mirabelle. Gosh, I’m not sure how you even put it here. She liked women. As well as men. She just liked everything, I guess. That’s what they said about Nina and my mother. That is why she took me in. My mother was the love of my godmother’s life. Not that her death stopped Nina, you know, with other people.’

  Mirabelle cast a glance over her shoulder. Gwendolyn was still at the door, waving. From the driver’s seat, Eleanor giggled, her eyes alight in the rear-view mirror. ‘You look shocked,’ she said. ‘I guess that’s what you get when you go poking around – you can’t complain when you actually uncover something.’

  ‘Oh. Quite right. But you mean that Gwendolyn is …?’ Mirabelle couldn’t quite finish the sentence. Gwendolyn Dougal seemed so proper. ‘I mean, she’s married,’ she managed to get out, realising how naïve she sounded.

  ‘It’s not entirely a secret, poor Willie. Well, I say poor Willie, but as Bruce always says, perhaps he likes it,’ Eleanor said. ‘Who can tell?’

  Tash seemed relieved to have got this off her chest. ‘Gwendolyn was just Nina’s type. She had a thing for rich and vicious.’

  Mirabelle pieced it together. ‘So when Mrs Gillies said she didn’t want any gossip—?’

  Eleanor cut in. ‘She probably meant about a Sapphic love affair. She is protecting your honour, Tash. She seems to have taken a shine to you. Or maybe it’s the honour of Scotland or Gwendolyn – I don’t know. She’s probably out-and-out shocked that such things go on, as if it isn’t just the way people are. Your face, Mirabelle, is a hoot.’

  Mirabelle sat back in her seat. ‘It’s not that it’s shocking – it’s a motive, don’t you see? Do you think the police know?’

  ‘There have been rumours for years about Gwendolyn Dougal,’ Eleanor said over her shoulder.

  ‘So, that afternoon, if they had fought or even if they hadn’t. If Gwendolyn had become jealous … why, it could be key—’

  ‘Gwendolyn left with her husband that night. I can attest that she was so drunk she had to be helped into the car,’ Eleanor cut in again. ‘She can’t drive anyway. It’s far too modern for her. Are you suggesting Willie drove her back to our place the following night to an assignation with her lover that went wrong?’

  ‘Or perhaps he drove back himself. He might have been overtaken with jealousy. Maybe it wasn’t her, it was him.’

  Eleanor laughed. ‘I’ve known Willie and Gwendolyn for a few years now. The pair of them are the least passionate people I ever met. I doubt it, Mirabelle. Honestly I do.’

  ‘Gwendolyn was pretty uncomfortable there.’

  ‘That might not be on account of the murder. It takes a special kind of person to blame the Russians for the Suez Crisis rather than Sir Anthony Eden. She probably didn’t want to admit her association with Nina. It must be difficult – I mean someone you’ve had relations with being killed.’

  ‘She doesn’t like you much.’

  ‘Of course she doesn’t. I’m everything she hates – a trumped-up colonial. I’m somebody who doesn’t agree with her about black people and Jews and, well, anybody who isn’t like her. She’s a snob – she lives in a medieval castle; she’d still have serfs if she could. The best she has to deflect from her secret is to slander Bruce – the Green Lady rises when the laird hurts a woman.’

  ‘I knew Gillies sounded too outraged for it to be about them drinking champagne.’

  ‘Well, at least you know now,’ Eleanor said. ‘Nina was a lesbian.’

  Tash stared out of the window. ‘Technically I don’t think she was a lesbian. I mean, she liked men too. Back in New York she has quite the following. I’m going to miss this place when I go home,’ she said. ‘Imagine Gwendolyn sitting there serving tea and biscuits and thinking that we didn’t know.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Mirabelle said, sheepishly.

  Tash slipped her arm through Mirabelle’s once more. ‘Maybe it would be best,’ she said, ‘if you left the investigation to the police.’

  Chapter 11

  If Heaven had looked upon riches as valuable,

  it would not have given them to such fools

  The newspaper men blocked the gates. Murdo Kenzie stood in the middle of the drive so Eleanor had to stop. She honked her horn a
nd he grinned at her. ‘Two murders on your property, Mrs Robertson,’ he shouted when she refused to roll down her window. ‘It’s only fair we hear your side.’

  Eleanor kept honking while the photographers took pictures. When Kenzie finally stood aside, she accelerated. Bruce met them at the front door. ‘The police are in the orangery. They want to speak to everyone,’ he said.

  Inside, the figures were obscured by plants. ‘Ah, Miss Bevan,’ the inspector greeted the women through the foliage. ‘Miss Orlova. Mrs Robertson.’

  Next to the senior officer, a uniformed policeman stood to attention. Bruce took a seat on a wicker chair. Niko and McGregor stood side by side next to the stove.

  ‘There’s nothing missing,’ Niko said, inexplicably.

  ‘It must have come from somewhere,’ the detective objected. ‘Are you sure it didn’t belong to Miss Orlova?’

  Niko shook his head. ‘Nina wasn’t interested in jewellery.’ McGregor put a hand on Niko’s back. Looking more closely, Mirabelle could see the baron had a tear in his eye. She was reminded of Tash’s story of White Russian women festooned in Fabergé they couldn’t sell.

  ‘Jewellery?’ she asked, slipping into a seat. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We found a gemstone. An amethyst.’

  ‘And you think it was Miss Orlova’s?’

  The policeman looked uncomfortable. McGregor shifted. ‘It seems Nina swallowed the thing shortly before she died,’ he said.

  Tash looked distressed. ‘God. That’s weird,’ she burst out.

  Niko made a dismissive sound – a kind of grunt. ‘So you cut her?’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but under the circumstances …’

  ‘It was necessary. I understand.’

  ‘I’d like you to look at these.’ The officer removed an envelope from his inside pocket, took out three small square photographs and passed them round. The image was a purple stone on a piece of dark velvet. A wooden ruler lay beside it showing the stone measured half an inch or so, square. ‘We’re having an expert look at it today in Edinburgh,’ the detective continued. ‘To see if there is any clue as to where it came from. It’s a substantial piece.’

  Niko examined the photographs carefully. ‘Well, inspector, I think your expert will tell you that isn’t an amethyst.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a large piece of alexandrite,’ Niko sounded triumphant.

  A ripple of interest shuddered across the room. ‘What’s alexandrite, Uncle Niko?’ Tash asked.

  Niko stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she had asked the question. ‘It’s rare, I suppose. Why would you know? It’s Russian. Only found in the Ural Mountains. In daylight it looks green, like an emerald, but in artificial light it appears purplish-red. This picture has been taken under a lamp – hence your error.’ He handed back the photographs. ‘This stone is worth a lot more than an amethyst – tens of thousands of dollars, I’d say. There’s very little of the stuff for sale outside Russia.’

  The policeman scribbled notes. ‘And you’re sure it didn’t belong to Miss Orlova?’

  Niko lit a cigarette. ‘I told you – Nina wasn’t interested in that kind of thing. As currency, gemstones aren’t popular with my people – not any more. The point is, when I said the Reds were implicated in my sister’s murder, everyone thought I was crazy, but now you’ve found this. A Russian stone. Don’t you see?’

  Mirabelle noticed the merest flicker of annoyance cross the policeman’s face. It must be tiresome, she thought. Murders of women were generally the result of a fight with a man, usually a lover, or at most a dispute over money, and yet here was the victim’s brother, repeatedly implicating a hostile state. The officer handed the photographs to Tash.

  ‘It’s not hers,’ Tash confirmed. ‘She didn’t even like purple.’ Mirabelle thought about the cardigan that Tash had just bought – a paler version of the colour of the stone.

  ‘But it’s progress,’ Bruce said. ‘Somebody is bound to report something that valuable missing. It’s a motive, isn’t it? Almost a relief, in fact. At least we know what the whole thing is about.’

  Orlov looked as if he might hit Bruce. ‘My sister was not a jewel thief,’ he growled. ‘If that’s what you’re hoping to imply.’

  ‘Not at all, old man.’ Bruce sounded shocked.

  ‘So far we’ve had no report of a robbery, sir,’ the detective said. ‘Well, if that’s all, we’ll speak to the staff briefly,’ he continued. ‘Then we’d best get back to Inverness.’ The policemen left the room.

  Niko waited until they were gone. ‘He wants to accuse Nina of being a thief,’ he spat. ‘And then he can say she deserved to die for taking the stupid thing.’

  ‘Investigations don’t work that way,’ McGregor said. ‘He’s a good detective, that man. He held back the pictures so he could measure our reactions.’

  ‘So he thinks it’s one of us?’

  ‘He thinks it might be,’ McGregor said. ‘Of course.’

  Everyone lapsed into an awkward silence, only broken by Bruce rubbing his hands together. ‘I could do with a sharpener,’ he said. ‘Who’s with me?’

  Niko and Tash fell in behind him. The others stayed where they were. Eleanor seemed stunned and, like Mirabelle, just stared, this time in daylight, at the spot where Nina Orlova had been found.

  ‘Do you think this is related to the murder?’ Mirabelle broke the silence.

  ‘Well, it would be weird if it wasn’t,’ McGregor said. ‘Though I can’t see how.’

  ‘She must have been hiding it.’

  ‘Probably. But from whom? And why? And where did she get the stone? Niko is determined it wasn’t hers. Tash confirmed it.’

  ‘A lover’s gift maybe?’ Mirabelle suggested.

  ‘A lover?’

  ‘This morning I found out that Nina had formed a connection with Lady Dougal.’

  McGregor couldn’t help but smile. ‘The Lady Dougal?’

  ‘Yes. Gwendolyn.’

  ‘I say. Well, perhaps it was a gift.’

  Eleanor shook her head sadly. ‘I’ve known Willie and Gwendolyn since I first came to Scotland. If Gwendolyn could save half a shilling on the Highland Ball, she’d do it. I’d lay a pound to a penny that it was Nina who stumped up the champagne they were drinking the day they met. I doubt Gwendolyn gave Nina a present worth, what was it? Tens of thousands of dollars.’ Eleanor got to her feet. ‘Bruce’s right. A whisky would help.’

  They were well matched, drink for drink, those two, Mirabelle thought. ‘We’ll be through in a minute,’ she said.

  They waited for her to leave. Mirabelle got up. She checked through the open door and, finding the hallway empty, closed it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I eavesdropped yesterday, on Gillies and Gregory in the kitchen. I’m just checking there’s nobody outside to eavesdrop on us.’

  McGregor’s face split in a grin. ‘So, you’re a snoop and you’re checking nobody else can snoop?’

  ‘Exactly. I think Gillies hates me,’ Mirabelle whispered.

  ‘Gillies disapproves of everybody,’ he said. ‘You can’t blame her for not wanting to talk about it all. Highlanders are very tight lipped.’

  ‘What was she like when you were a child?’

  ‘She was a maid in those days.’

  ‘And just as gruff?’

  ‘Actually, she gave me a toffee once.’

  ‘And Mr Gillies? What happened to him?’

  ‘I have no idea. The Great War, I imagine. I suppose this affair you’ve discovered explains why Nina never married.’

  Mirabelle nodded and thought that, if Nina Orlova hadn’t married because of her feelings for other women, what might be Niko Orlov’s reason for remaining single. Though, the same question, she realised, might be levelled at her and McGregor. Maybe they all had secrets, which had made it more difficult to settle. At least until now.

  ‘This stone looked around six carats. Bigger than your
engagement ring.’ McGregor lifted Mirabelle’s left hand to inspect the pink diamond and then kissed it. ‘Mirabelle, there is more. I didn’t want to say it in front of the others – well, not the Orlovs.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s about Gregory. The detective ran a check with the New York Police Department and Gregory isn’t actually Gregory’s name. It’s Wilbur – Wilbur Jones. That’s what it says on his passport. That’s why they took him to the station the other day.’

  ‘People go by different names.’ Mirabelle shrugged.

  ‘Sure. He might be using an alias for any one of a hundred reasons. He could be hiding a criminal record. Or maybe he’s hiding from someone. Or, it could be a stage name, for a particular kind of work.’

  ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘The detective did some digging and found that Gregory boxes semi-professionally. It turns out the Orlovs are not his only source of income. He’s good, apparently. He competes locally in New York. He won four knockout fights last year.’

  ‘And he calls himself Gregory?’

  ‘Gregory the Grim. In the last eighteen months he has won a couple of good-sized purses – hundreds of dollars each.’

  ‘Hands-on violence,’ Mirabelle said, thinking of the two corpses.

  ‘Strangulation is a piece of cake for a boxer. They’re used to fighting up close – skin on skin,’ McGregor nodded. ‘And there’s something else. His alibi isn’t holding up or, weirdly, it’s turned out to be too sound. It seems he was in Glasgow all right. He drank in a bar near the Clyde – the Scotia – until closing at ten.’

  ‘Do you know the place?’

  ‘Let’s just say I wouldn’t take you there. But it’s a city institution. He was seen, of course. The place was busy.’