[Mirabelle Bevan 08] - Highland Fling

by Sara Sheridan

  Tash stared miserably into the fire. ‘Perhaps he gave it to her.’

  ‘And she decided to swallow it?’

  ‘Perhaps he gave it to her in exchange for her silence. So she swallowed it. Nina was dramatic like that – always on show.’

  ‘And the Russian gun?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Mirabelle’s eyes darted. It still seemed strange to her that Bruce had cried over Nina’s body. McGregor had dismissed the idea, but what if her gut feeling was right – Tash’s too – and Bruce had killed these women because he couldn’t bring himself to admit his infidelity? Susan had wanted to tell Eleanor something the morning she died. Perhaps she wanted to make some kind of sordid confession.

  ‘Should I say something to the police?’ Tash asked.

  ‘No,’ Mirabelle was surprised how emphatic her tone was – a knee-jerk reaction. ‘I want to think about it. And don’t tell your uncle,’ she hissed. ‘For heaven’s sake.’

  The rest of the morning, they saddled the horses and Eleanor set jumps in the paddock. They took turns to sit on the fence and appraise each other’s performance. Niko came down and joined in. He had, Mirabelle noted, a passable seat. ‘You missed church,’ she said.

  ‘There isn’t a Russian Orthodox church nearby,’ he quipped drily.

  ‘Do you normally attend on a Sunday?’

  ‘Nina and I used to go together. We are a devout family.’

  Tash looked as if she was going to say something but then thought the better of it. It occurred to Mirabelle that the girl didn’t believe in God, and more – Niko didn’t know.

  The constable who had been left to monitor the premises paraded in front of the house like a guard at Buckingham Palace. It was almost one o’clock when the car drove back up the drive with another, smarter, vehicle following it. Mirabelle was just clearing the last vertical when McGregor and Bruce got out and came over, followed by a well-dressed couple who emerged from the other car.

  ‘God, that was awful,’ Bruce said, kissing his wife. ‘It’ll take me a while to get over this morning.’

  Mirabelle dismounted and tied up the horse. ‘It must have been difficult,’ she said.

  ‘Difficult? The MacLeods have seven children and somehow I thought that might make it easier for them. There are times when I am an idiot. The police had better find the damn fellow,’ he spat. ‘That’ll at least help everyone draw a line under the whole sorry business.’

  McGregor introduced the couple from the second car. ‘Belle, these are the Walkers – Desmond and Valerie. This is my fiancée, Mirabelle Bevan.’

  The Walkers were plump and pleasant, outfitted in perfectly tailored black clothes. Mrs Walker wore a Victorian jet brooch on her collar and a tiny hat with a veil that covered her face. Both the Walkers, Mirabelle noted, had red hair, which, in the instance of Mr Walker, was peppered with white.

  ‘How do you do,’ Mirabelle held out her hand. ‘Was it you who came to dinner the night before the first murder?’

  ‘We did,’ said Valerie Walker, who, Mirabelle noted, had an admirable grip. Mrs Walker continued. ‘Gosh – calling it the first murder. How awful, but then what else would we call it? I must say, it is shocking – the men at the gate.’

  ‘Press,’ McGregor confirmed.

  ‘And on the Sabbath.’ Valerie lifted her veil. Her expression was stony but her eyes sparkled with delight. She was thrilled by the murders, Mirabelle realised. Eleanor introduced the Walkers to Niko, who gave one of his stiff, military bows.

  They moved inside, Tash receiving the attentions of Mr Walker, who was passing on his condolences. The corner of a pretty lace handkerchief emanated from her sleeve and she reached for it as she started to cry quietly. ‘It seems to come in waves,’ she said.

  ‘We had to come,’ Valerie Walker insisted as she perched on the edge of the sofa. ‘I mean, the police questioned Desmond and me about going to dinner. I ask you! I said to Desmond, this is grim for us, darling, but can you imagine what it must be like for the poor Robertsons? And that beautiful child.’

  Tash managed a smile.

  ‘Now you’re here, you must stay for lunch,’ Eleanor insisted.

  ‘It’s kind of you but there’s really no need,’ Valerie Walker replied without conviction.

  ‘Tosh. You came all this way.’

  ‘Well, it only seemed right. Poor Miss Orlova. And your maid as well.’

  Eleanor looked crestfallen. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The second murder. It’s a terrible thing.’ That phrase again.

  ‘What have the police said?’ Mrs Walker asked.

  Mr Walker cast his wife a glance, as if she had gone too far. ‘Valerie,’ he said. ‘Poor Eleanor has been through enough. I’m sure the Robertsons aren’t privy to the police investigation.’

  Everyone shifted uncomfortably. After all, it was one thing to discuss matters among themselves, quite another to gossip. ‘The police haven’t told us much,’ Bruce said.

  ‘How do you know each other?’ Mirabelle chimed, hoping to divert the flow of conversation.

  ‘Desmond is in confectionery,’ Bruce explained. ‘His father was a friend of my father’s. We were at school together.’ It struck Mirabelle that Bruce, well into his fifties, talked about school as though he had only just left.

  ‘That car of yours hardly makes a sound,’ McGregor said, pitching in.

  ‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’ Bruce replied enthusiastically. ‘Not like my old tin bucket. Desmond let me have a go last summer – she’s a bit of a tank but she drives smoothly. I took her as far as Castle Dougal. I thought Gwendolyn was going to explode when she saw it.’

  Mirabelle laughed out loud.

  After lunch the Walkers insisted on seeing both crime scenes – first the orangery and then taking a long walk up the back lane to the field where Susan had been found. On the way back in, through the kitchen, Valerie Walker suddenly felt faint and Mrs Gillies looked for a moment as if she might slap the poor woman, but instead withdrew a bottle of smelling salts from her apron and insisted Valerie sit on the kitchen bench, with her head between her knees. No matter how stridently Mrs Walker objected, Gillies kept her there a full five minutes. Mirabelle liked her for that.

  By five, the Walkers had left. ‘We may have to start charging for guided tours,’ Eleanor said. ‘I bet the church was aflame with people dying to come up here and poke about.’

  Bruce shrugged. ‘It’s only natural,’ he said.

  Tash excused herself, to go for a bath. Niko sat reading.

  ‘Do you think there’s anything we can do?’ McGregor asked.

  ‘Do?’ Bruce leaned forward. ‘What could we do?’

  ‘It feels as if we’ve overlooked something. We must have.’

  Eleanor sighed. ‘You’re just those kind of people,’ she said. ‘I mean, you and Mirabelle – you want to put the world to rights. Help yourself. Search the place.’

  Niko looked up. ‘Damn Reds,’ he said under his breath. ‘That’s what I keep coming back to. I should have made Nina send somebody else to buy the cashmere. I should have put down my foot and none of this would have happened.’

  ‘And Susan?’ Mirabelle ventured. ‘I mean, you think the Russians killed Nina and we’ve been through why that might be the case. But the maid?’

  ‘She must have known something.’ Niko was insistent. ‘Or perhaps they’d come back for me. Or for Tash. Perhaps the poor girl disturbed them. Who knows? I guess we’ll find out more when they’ve done her autopsy.’

  ‘Her neck was broken,’ Mirabelle said.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Bruce said. ‘The last thing we need is everyone getting worked up, and please, no more about the post-mortem examination. Susan was a good girl. She wasn’t interested in politics.’

  ‘Don’t you read the newspapers?’ Niko said. ‘The space race. The rocket launches. The threats. That’s the kind of people those pinko bastards are. They infiltrate everywhere. It’s impossible to say who is and i
sn’t interested in politics any more. A man was killed in Berlin only last week – a commuter. I read about it. They used poison.’

  ‘We should dress.’ Eleanor stood up. ‘It’s almost time for the gong.’

  Upstairs, Mirabelle perched on the edge of the bed. McGregor leaned on the door frame. ‘Dinner is going to be fun,’ said Mirabelle.

  ‘Sundays in the country are usually dull,’ he replied. ‘Niko might not be as wrong as we all thought, though. I had a word with the inspector this afternoon, on the telephone. They’re thinking of passing the file on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Kicking it upstairs.’

  She looked blank.

  ‘To the Foreign Office. The local police force is jumpy – what with the Russian gun and the alexandrite. And today a woman in the village came forward with a sighting of a man wearing what sounds like a naval jacket on the morning it rained. She thought he must be a poacher and didn’t want to grass him up, but she told a friend on her way to church and they convinced her it would be best to come forward. There aren’t many strangers round here and he was distinctive.’

  ‘What did she mean “naval”?’

  ‘Sounds like a donkey jacket – the kind of thing a submariner might wear. At first they thought it must be one of the journalists, but they organised an identity parade in the back room of the pub and the woman swears the fellow was darker and taller than any of those chaps. None of them has a navy jacket either. It puts a stranger, possibly someone military, in the vicinity, though only one woman saw him – she was out on her bicycle and visibility was limited, but she swears he was heading north of the village, into the woods.’

  Mirabelle lay back on the mattress. ‘God,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking that it might be Bruce.’

  McGregor put his head to one side. ‘I can’t see it, Belle. Can you? Really?’

  Mirabelle shrugged. ‘We need more information,’ she said. ‘Or we aren’t going to get anywhere.’

  Chapter 14

  To do a great right do a little wrong

  After dinner, everyone went to bed early. Mirabelle watched McGregor, naked under the covers, his breathing smooth as the moonlight seeped around the edges of the bedroom curtains like waves lapping at the fringes of the shore. The air was chill. It was, by her estimation, three in the morning, but she couldn’t sleep. When they had come upstairs, the sound of distant music had emanated from Tash’s room – she was playing gramophone records. Tab Hunter singing ‘Young Love’, with a descant of Tash’s reedy voice out of tune, had reverberated along the hall. It hadn’t seemed right to complain.

  Now the house was silent. Mirabelle pulled on her dressing gown and went to the window, reaching through the curtains and cooling her hands on the glass. It was beautiful outside; the moon-washed fields stretched for miles. Then, in the hall, she heard a floorboard creak; her heart lurched at the thought of the Green Lady. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she chided herself quietly, though she eyed the dressing table to see if anything on it could be used as a weapon. Her heart slowed when the figure of Niko appeared in the open door between the two rooms. He wore a thick silk dressing gown and his shotgun was slung across his arm – in a way quite debonair. McGregor turned over and snored. The tiny silver carriage clock on the bedside table showed a quarter past three.

  ‘Go away! This isn’t appropriate,’ she hissed.

  ‘It’s Tash,’ he whispered. ‘She isn’t in her room.’

  ‘Have you checked downstairs?’

  ‘Of course I have. Help me. Please. God knows where she’s gone.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Mirabelle scrambled into her slippers and, gesturing for Niko to follow her, they sneaked through the second bedroom and down the hallway. ‘Did you talk to the policeman on duty?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘She didn’t pass him but it’s a huge house and he walks around the perimeter every half an hour. I’m scared she’s gone on some damn-fool excursion like my sister did. I heard the police had a report of a man – a sailor – the day the maid died. Did you know?’

  Mirabelle nodded solemnly.

  ‘Anything could have happened with a Russian agent on the loose,’ Niko insisted.

  Mirabelle was about to object – nobody had established that the mystery man was Russian, but then Niko had a right to be jumpy – there had been two murders. ‘Let’s be logical. We’ll start in her room,’ she said.

  There was nothing obviously missing. Tash’s walking shoes were stowed in the wardrobe, along with an array of cashmere cardigans and sweaters. The evening dress she’d worn to dinner had not been replaced on its satin hanger, and the shoes she had been wearing were not on the shelf. ‘She didn’t get changed, then,’ Mirabelle commented. She led Niko back into the hall and downstairs.

  ‘I’ve looked down here,’ he objected.

  Mirabelle ignored him and perused the coat rack. ‘Her coat is gone. Did you notice that?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Oh God.’

  Mirabelle opened the cupboard where the wellington boots were arrayed tidily. ‘It’s hard to be sure, but she hasn’t left her heels here. I think it’s safe to say she won’t have got far wearing a satin evening dress and a pair of stilettos, though she must have gone outside. I mean, that’s presumably why she’s taken her coat.’

  ‘She promised she wouldn’t leave the house.’ Niko sounded angry.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She was talking about it earlier. The little fool had some damn notion about Nina going out under the stars the night she died. As if it was romantic. I mean Nina. A woman who never walked when she could drive and never drove when she could fly. She didn’t give a fig for stars or a nice view. Tash knew that.’

  Mirabelle took this in. ‘Well, she must have gone somewhere,’ she said.

  With the idea that perhaps the girl had gone to find Gregory, she led Niko into the kitchen but there was nobody there. Continuing, she unbolted the back door. Outside, the windows in the staff quarters were dark over the old stables. The silence hung heavily in the air, resonating like a long, clear note.

  ‘She’s not out here,’ Niko pointed out. ‘She couldn’t have bolted the door on the inside if she’d left.’

  That was true. Mirabelle looked up. She squinted. High above the main house, the orange tip of a lit cigarette glowed in the sky. ‘Oh!’ The thought occurred to her in a flash. ‘She promised you she wouldn’t leave the house and she didn’t,’ she said. ‘Come on.’ The soles of her slippers clattered back down the corridor, through the kitchen and up the staircase. Niko followed. At the rear of the first floor they climbed the wooden stair to the terrace.

  Mirabelle put out her hand and steadied herself. As she stepped outside, the freezing air hit her skin, so cold up here it almost took her breath away. The sky was cloudless. Ahead, the roof was empty, but she swivelled to check in the other direction and, sure enough, lying on the slates on a cashmere rug, Tash lay smoking. Swaddled in her coat, her breath clouded into the wide, starry sky.

  ‘Mirabelle,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it marvellous? You can see for miles. I swear the sheep look luminous in the dark – it’s the most amazing thing. I keep seeing shapes moving in the trees and I can’t quite make them out.’ She put on a comedy voice. ‘Maybe someone is coming to get us.’

  Mirabelle moved towards the bench and Niko followed, with his shotgun still over his arm. ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning,’ he spluttered.

  Tash sat up. ‘At home it’s barely time for dinner. You can’t make the house into a prison, Uncle Niko. Things are bad enough and it’s glorious out here.’

  Mirabelle shuddered. She surveyed the view. Tash was right. It was extraordinary at night. The trees were silhouetted on the ridge above the house in such detail they might have been minutely painted by hand. Looking up, there was nothing for miles as the land rose and fell, mountain and glen, the animals lying still in the darkness. Below, she could make out the glassy outline of the orangery, li
ke a ghost-room, haunting the house with its glossy darkness. The constable walked up the back lane, the badge on his cap glinting in the moonlight. A single streetlight gleamed in the village, miles away, down the hill. Beside her, Niko stood peering at the vista, as if he couldn’t understand it.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said.

  Tash got to her feet. ‘If it was summer, I’d want to camp up here. Still, perhaps you’re right. It’s time to go down.’

  In the hallway, she disappeared obediently into her bedroom with a cheerful ‘Goodnight.’

  Mirabelle and Niko loitered. ‘Did you tell your policeman?’ Niko said. ‘About the war? Did you discuss your relationship?’ Mirabelle didn’t move, didn’t say a word. Niko smiled. ‘OK. It’s none of my business. Thanks for helping me find Tash. This place has me spooked. They’re out there, you know. I can feel them.’

  Mirabelle gave a slim smile. Places in which there had been a murder were always inhabited by the dead. For a while at least. It had taken her years before she could face walking up the street where Jack had died. Niko was bereaved. He had lost his sister. But that didn’t mean there were Russian agents in the shadows. ‘Try to get some sleep,’ she said gently. ‘Goodnight.’

  Back in bed, she slipped cold limbs beneath the sheets. The house creaked. She thought about the view from the roof and then, just as she began to close her eyes, there was an unholy bang. It sounded like an explosion.

  McGregor jumped out of bed, stubbing his toe and cursing. Mirabelle snapped on the light. ‘Jesus!’ McGregor scrambled for his dressing gown. Already awake, Mirabelle grabbed hers and made it to the bedroom door ahead of him, starting down the hall.

  Bruce was at the head of the stairs, staring along the corridor at Niko, who had abandoned his shotgun against the wall and was on his knees over a man’s body. He was alive, whoever it was. He was moaning. McGregor strode past his cousin and pushed Niko out of the way. Mirabelle gasped. It was the policeman who had been on duty. The poor man moaned once more, a wide, red rip in the sleeve of his greatcoat dripping blood as he turned, yelping in pain.