‘We got some answers to our questions. Is Tash all right?’ Mirabelle checked. In the confusion, she had almost forgotten about the Americans, still upstairs, sleeping.
‘She’s not awake yet,’ Gregory replied, ‘but the cops say they’re going to release Nina’s body today. At last.’
That made sense. Mirabelle drained her cup. The tea warmed her, though her arm had started to ache horribly now the adrenalin of the fight had subsided. Her brain felt as if it was working too slowly and that was frustrating. There were still matters to consider.
From the direction of the yard, McGregor came into the kitchen, carrying the account book Mirabelle had last seen in the safe. It surprised her that she hadn’t wondered where he had got to. ‘Where did you get that?’ she asked.
‘I cracked the safe,’ he said, ‘the one in Eleanor’s office – behind the painting,’ and then, as he realised his cousin was there, added, ‘Sorry, Bruce.’ He put the book on the table. ‘I think I’ve figured out what Eleanor was doing. I mean, where it went wrong. The alexandrite was just money, wasn’t it? I mean, if you consider it that way, it’s quite clear.’ He flipped open the book, indicating the columns of figures. ‘The accounts for the distillery make absolute sense. So does what’s entered for the cashmere mill. But here,’ he said, ‘Eleanor’s tweed enterprise. How much did you give her, Bruce, to start that?’
‘I put in two hundred guineas,’ Bruce said sullenly, raising his hands in surrender. ‘For a couple of looms. I didn’t think it was wrong.’
‘Not at all,’ Mirabelle said kindly. ‘Oh Bruce.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ McGregor removed a pencil from his pocket and jotted down some figures in the margin. ‘Not counting your two hundred guineas, the place has received a lot of investment.’
Mirabelle sat up. She forgot how badly her arm hurt. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘It’s had more than a thousand pounds, in fact. It’s currently highly unprofitable. The money has been run through in round figures – large round figures. Not the kind of sums you get from crofters investing their savings. They don’t seem to be selling much of their product, either. Anyway, this shows how Eleanor has tried to hide what she did – by showing the investment as if it was income from sales, but then over here,’ he flipped a page, ‘she hasn’t adjusted the stock. Almost everything they’ve made is still in the warehouse. They take a tally monthly. So I had to ask, where did the cash come from? She didn’t have any of her own, did she Bruce?’
Bruce shook his head. Mirabelle’s eyes narrowed. She remembered the note in Nina’s journal – the tweed collective, she realised, was what had raised her suspicions. She was in the rag trade – she’d spotted it wasn’t making money. Her cryptic note that just said ‘Red?’ wasn’t about red fabric. She had realised something was going on. Beside her, Mrs Gillies sank down at the table as McGregor continued. ‘You said Elizabeth called Eleanor a thief?’
‘And a traitor.’
‘This must be why. Try this for size – Eleanor is evangelical in her beliefs. She set up the tweed collective because she wanted to change the world. Not a bad notion. But she needed more money than she could take from the estate to get it going. Bruce told her to stop spending from his account and she was determined to get the investment she needed from somewhere – she wanted the tweed collective to work. In fact, I think it will work – eventually. The production is efficient and once the investment is made, they only have to buy wool. Where they’ve made sales, the mark-up is excellent. Long term, they will be able to pay off the capital if they can sell goods worth, say, a hundred and fifty a month. And when you look at what the cashmere mill is taking in, that’s entirely possible. Eleanor wasn’t wrong. It’s only a matter of where she got the money to set the place up and keep it going until the profits roll in. And that’s shown here – deposits in cash.’
‘Go on,’ Mirabelle encouraged him.
‘So where did she get the cash? Well, like all evangelists, Eleanor thought people would agree with her because she believed herself to be right. So to keep this enterprise going, she borrowed money from the Russians – or, rather, the way they looked at it – she stole it. She has admitted they were already using her to bring in the alexandrite and I can see that’s entirely possible. The coastline here is long and difficult to police. It would be relatively easy to arrange a drop – a good old-fashioned case of smuggling. You said that Eleanor put her hand up to supplying the stones to other people and also to selling it. On the international market, no dealer would buy from the Russian government without attracting a lot of adverse attention, but an upper-class woman is a different matter. I’m sure Eleanor lied and said she was selling the alexandrite for White Russian friends. Or that they had been in her family for years. Both plausible stories – White Russian assets are mostly in artefacts. Anyway, whatever Eleanor was doing for the Russians, she took some of the stones (or the money from the stones) for herself, or rather, for her pet project, and her comrades at the Soviet Socialist Republic weren’t pleased when they found out.’
‘You think she was a fence?’ Gregory asked.
‘That would fit, wouldn’t it, with what she said to you, Mirabelle?’
Mirabelle nodded sadly.
‘So basically a thief and a traitor,’ Bruce said disconsolately. ‘As the maid said.’
‘That’s harsh, Bruce,’ McGregor told him. It seemed wrong to make it worse than it had to be. ‘The Russians recruited Eleanor, that’s true, but there’s no sign she was being paid, apart from the money she creamed off to support the collective – Mirabelle said she was shocked at the very idea. I think she was naïve. We have no reason to believe that she lied to Mirabelle when she said she was fencing the jewels to forge links. A sort of appeasement. In the scheme of things she didn’t take a huge percentage – far less than a professional dealer would have pocketed – and, in her eyes, it was probably merited all the more because it wasn’t for her – it was for what she considered a good cause. She did a good job, actually, as far as I can see.’ He tapped the accounts book. ‘It must have been going on for the last three years, at least.’
‘How could she?’ Bruce said weakly. ‘I just don’t understand who’d want to buy alexandrite up here? It’s hardly … Hatton Garden,’ he finished, realising as he said it that he had answered his own question.
They all stared at each other. ‘June,’ Mirabelle said. ‘She did it in London, every June.’
McGregor opened the book again and struck his pencil off the page. ‘Yes, she did. Large deposits and capital purchases made in July and August of last year and,’ he turned back a few pages, ‘the same the year before. Maybe she thought the Russians wouldn’t notice or maybe she thought they’d support what she was doing. It was a collective, after all.’
‘Can you prove any of this?’ Bruce snapped. ‘It sounds like nonsense to me.’
‘The evidence is here, Bruce,’ McGregor said. ‘I trained as an accountant. Don’t you remember?’ Mirabelle allowed herself to smile. Their eyes locked. ‘It’s solid police work, that’s all,’ McGregor added.
Gregory let out a low whistle. ‘Are you saying …’ he started.
‘Gosh, yes. Sorry, Gregory. I’m afraid Eleanor confessed to killing Nina. Not a premeditated murder. Nina, it seems, was blackmailing Eleanor and they got into a fight. Eleanor won that fight.’
Gregory got to his feet. ‘God,’ he said. ‘I’d better tell Tash.’
‘Do you want me to do it?’ McGregor asked.
Gregory considered. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Leave it to me.’
After he’d gone there were a few moments of silence before Bruce nodded, acceptance dawning. ‘Eleanor was never normally interested in shopping,’ he said. ‘But she loved Hatton Garden. She’d pop over on her own while I was catching up with the chaps from my regiment.’ He looked as if he might be sick.
In due course, Gregory brought down Tash, Niko and Nina’s bags and piled them by the front d
oor. They looked like some kind of leather cairn, built in memoriam. Mirabelle and McGregor retired to the drawing room while Bruce poured his first whisky of the day. He sat on the sofa alone, his expression hollow, and looked, by Mirabelle’s estimation, at least ten years older than he had when they’d arrived.
‘Tash is coming down,’ Gregory said, loitering by the door.
‘You’ll have to look after her,’ Mirabelle told him.
Gregory saluted. ‘I know. But once she’s settled and the funeral is over, I think I might come back.’
‘Here?’ Mirabelle sounded perturbed. It seemed odd he would want to.
Gregory shook his head. ‘Britain. London. Brighton maybe. Despite all this, your country feels kinda enlightened. And I’d like to meet your friend and her husband. What are their names?’
‘Vesta and Charlie.’
Mrs Gillies brought in a tray with coffee. There seemed little prospect of anyone facing lunch. She was pouring inky black cupfuls when Tash came into the room. She had dressed hastily in mourning clothes, ready to retrieve her godmother’s body, but she was not a woman enmeshed in grief, rather one inflamed by anger. She stared unrelentingly at Bruce, who put down his whisky and got to his feet, but couldn’t quite meet her eye. ‘How could she?’ Tash managed to get out.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Bruce said. ‘I didn’t know.’
Tash’s lips pursed. ‘But you were married to her. That bitch. And all the time she’s been saying “Tash dear, this” and “Tash dear, that” and she’d murdered Nina in cold blood. My godmother.’ The girl’s voice broke as she started to cry. ‘This house is a killing zone,’ she spat. ‘Susan MacLeod. And that poodle. What the hell did she think she was doing just ruining people’s lives?’
A single tear ran down Bruce’s cheek. He wiped it away. ‘Say something!’ Tash demanded.
‘Eleanor didn’t kill Susan. That was the Russians, as I understand it,’ Bruce said, and Tash broke, rushing towards him, hitting him ineffectively as she cried like a child in the grip of a tantrum. McGregor moved to help but Mirabelle waved him off. It was better to let it out. ‘I don’t get it,’ Tash sniffed as her passion subsided. ‘Eleanor was a Red? A real Red?’
Mirabelle nodded. ‘At least, she was on their side.’
Bruce looked as if he was going to cry. ‘My wife,’ he spluttered, ‘is not some pinko Communist. I can’t let you say that.’
‘Perhaps not in the doctrinal sense,’ Mirabelle agreed. ‘She suffered from reasonableness in a strange kind of way. That’s the thing I can’t quite seem to get a hold of.’
Tash’s eyes burned. ‘It wasn’t reasonable to kill my godmother.’
‘No. Absolutely not. But I have no doubt that she was trying to be reasonable. Eleanor was passionate in her views. She found Gwendolyn Dougal deeply offensive – more than most of us – more even than you, Tash. I can’t say I entirely blame her. Think of her comments about the Russian involvement in Suez or how she reacted to Khrushchev’s recent one-upmanship. I feel I know more about what she was against than what she stood for. Other than just some general sense of fairness. I don’t think she was right. But it does explain what she did.’
Bruce looked flummoxed. ‘Fairness is a good thing,’ he said.
‘So you’re defending her – a murderer,’ Tash sneered.
‘It’s easy to become hysterical about political affiliations,’ Mirabelle insisted. ‘Things aren’t always cut and dried. We’ll get it out of her, Tash. I promise. A full confession. And she’ll go to prison. I’m sure of that.’
Tash blew her nose. ‘This whole thing,’ she said. ‘It’s just horrible.’
Mirabelle continued. ‘I should say, we wouldn’t know as much as we do if it wasn’t for Gregory. He was the first to say follow the money, and that was the lynchpin of the whole thing. I should have known as soon as your godmother’s post-mortem results came in. I mean she had swallowed the stone – that’s a kind of transaction in itself.’
‘Nina was blackmailing Eleanor, that’s what Gregory told me,’ Tash said.
‘I believe that,’ Mirabelle confirmed. ‘Though obviously Eleanor shouldn’t have killed her.’
It was to the girl’s credit, Mirabelle thought, that she could see Nina as she really had been. Death was a great romancer of reputations, but Tash hadn’t fallen into that trap. That said, it was better not to tell her that Eleanor was still in the house, only a few yards away. She’d find it too difficult.
‘The main thing now is that you get your godmother home again,’ Mirabelle said smoothly.
‘Niko arranged the church.’ Tash gestured vaguely, her beautiful eyes moist. ‘An open casket – orthodox. Back home. And he got a lawyer, so I guess I’ll leave him to that. But this has to be taken into account when they try him – he was living in a house with the person who killed his sister. It’s too weird.’
Mirabelle wasn’t sure what to say. She gave Tash a hug. The girl clung on to her for a moment, like a kitten digging in its claws.
Then, Gregory loaded the luggage into the hired car and they gathered in the hall to say goodbye. The house was emptying of police officers, and only the men hand-picked by Eddie were allowed to stay. It would take days before Tash would be back in New York with Nina’s body. ‘Write to me?’ Mirabelle scribbled her address on to a card. ‘Make sure you look after her, Gregory,’ she instructed.
‘I promise.’
Tash hugged McGregor and even Gillies, but she couldn’t bring herself to shake Bruce’s hand. Outside, the air was biting cold as they waved at the retreating car. At the gates there was a policeman now, rather than the pressmen.
‘At least that’s one good thing,’ Bruce said. ‘They’ve lost interest.’
Mirabelle thought the Robertsons were a well-matched pair – always thinking the best. ‘I expect Eddie had a word,’ she said.
‘I must thank him,’ Bruce said vaguely, as if it had been done for his benefit and not a blackout of classified information.
As they turned inside, Eddie appeared from the study. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘The Yanks have gone.’
Mirabelle found, with surprise, that she was, after all, considering lunch. She hoped Mrs Gillies might be able to rise to something tasty. It felt as if things had come together, however troubling. Bruce, she realised, had retreated to the fireside alone. They’d need to look after him but, essentially, they’d figured out what had happened.
When she raised her eyes, she was surprised to see Eddie and McGregor standing as if they were waiting on something. ‘This way, old girl,’ Eddie said, ushering her into the dining room and closing the door behind her.
‘Well? Do you know who it was?’ McGregor asked Eddie as they grouped around the mahogany table.
‘Who?’ Mirabelle’s mind was blank.
The men’s eyes met. ‘Did Mrs Gillies give you a painkiller?’ McGregor checked.
‘There’s no time,’ Eddie cut in. ‘This is too important. We need to focus fast. I know who it is and the last thing I want is another bloody Burgess and Maclean on my hands.’
Mirabelle withheld from asking what was going on. McGregor put his hand on hers. He pulled a couple of sheets of paper from his pocket. ‘OK. Here’s what I’ve got. I found more circumstantial evidence – a loose end. Apart from the accounts. Here,’ he pointed at one paper, ‘this is the police inventory from yesterday – from Eleanor’s office. When Belle and I were there earlier in the day, there was definitely a leather briefcase under Eleanor’s desk. Do you recall? Burgundy, with her initials embossed on it? It isn’t on the police inventory for the room. I assumed they’d taken it as evidence, but it’s not noted here either – in the stuff they took away. And that’s because it was gone. I think Eleanor took it when she bolted. I think it contained the stones.’
‘What’s the second sheet?’ Mirabelle peered.
‘That’s today’s. Cameron let me have a copy. The leather case wasn’t in the cottage where they found her. It’s not
in this house either. I had a man double-check – everywhere we could think of. It’s gone. So the question is: what did Eleanor do with it? There are two real propositions, I think.’
‘Three,’ Eddie corrected. ‘Either she delivered it, she hid it, or somebody took it from her – this Russian she talked about.’
‘But she wasn’t kidnapped,’ Mirabelle said. ‘She couldn’t have been. She left of her own volition. Besides, the Russians wanted to kill her, not tie her up and leave her in a cottage.’
‘Fair point,’ Eddie said. ‘But somebody did tie her up. I confirmed with the men who found her, she was bound and gagged all right. She can’t have done that to herself. And she was in the cottage that belongs to St Andrews University. I rang them. I started at the physics department – I mean, we’re looking for somebody who is interested in alexandrite’s applied properties. It wasn’t difficult. Dr Peter Dunn is on leave,’ he raised an eyebrow. ‘Or that’s what the department thinks. He left yesterday afternoon. He said he had to visit an aunt who had fallen ill. I mean, really! He isn’t on any of our lists – or nothing at a high level, anyway. No previous interest or affiliations that we’d consider suspect. I got a description. He’s in his late thirties. Ginger hair. On the small side.’
‘The opposite of how Eleanor described her kidnapper when we brought her back,’ McGregor said as he thought it through.
Eddie’s stare communicated his frustration. ‘Quite,’ he added. ‘Your cousin’s wife is a slippery customer.’
‘And was he working on these, what do you call them? Masers?’ Mirabelle asked.
‘Well, almost. Something called a laser, apparently. Similar theory – different application. This is our man. Something happened between them. He tied Eleanor up. And he probably took the stones. In her case.’
Mirabelle’s mind raced. ‘But then why would Eleanor protect him? I mean, she could have given us a description. She could have told us who he was.’
‘A bloody traitor is who he is,’ snapped Eddie. ‘We can worry about the motive later. I’ve put out an alert. So far, Eleanor hasn’t said anything that would help us narrow down where the man might have gone. She’s insisting that she isn’t – what was it now? – a “snitch”.’ Eddie lit a cigarette. ‘We’ll see about that. But as far as I can reckon it, she left here on foot yesterday late in the afternoon and made to meet this chap either at the cottage or somewhere on the way. She had the stones with her. Yes, she had sold some down south, but Dr Dunn was to be the recipient of whatever was left. She was supplying him – had been supplying him, most likely, for the last two or three years, on behalf of the Soviets.’
[Mirabelle Bevan 08] - Highland Fling Page 26
