by Gwen Moffat
‘Why did you?’
‘Because of what he did to Jen, and Val, and all of us. Jen lost her family and hated her mother for ten years. I shot Charlie before he could do more harm. I was afraid he was about to send Jen away again.’
‘How did you do it?’
‘Why, you guessed. I went fast through the canyon like you said and I was letting the mare have a blow when I heard someone coming, so I got off the trail as Bret passed. By the time I reached the cabin, Charlie was away up the hill after the bear that Bret told him was there in the rocks. I caught up and shot him with his own pistol. I told him why I was doing it and he went for his rifle. He would have shot me — not that I’m excusing myself; I meant to shoot him before I started out, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken his pistol. It was his own, he kept it in his night table. He’d threaten me with it sometimes for fun. I threw it in the river afterwards.’
‘If you knew Charlie had lied to Jen all those years ago why didn’t you do something? You could have found her, Sam could have persuaded her to come home.’
‘You don’t understand what kind of a man my husband was. He would lie and retract; you never knew what was the truth. Ten years ago he said he’d told Jen that Skinner was her father, next thing he said he was only teasing me. Last week he said she’d been pregnant and it wasn’t until then that I put it together: I saw Jen left home because she thought she was about to have a baby by her own daddy. I decided there would be no more of Charlie’s jokes.’
She stopped talking and allowed the other to think about it. After a while Miss Pink asked, ‘When you called Sophie the morning that he left for hunting camp, you told her everything?’
‘No, no, not at all. I meant to’ — Edna smiled ruefully — ‘I was thinking of joining you for the picnic at Mazarine Lake, of our losing you in some way; I’d go down to the cabin: shoot him, push him in the river, anything — and Sophie would cover for me. But as soon as I started to tell her Charlie had known all along that Jen was pregnant, had given her money, she flipped. I let her rave for a while, but I knew that no way could I use her as an alibi. She can’t conceal her feelings. Whatever I did, I had to do it alone, so I let her think that was all there was to it: Jen being pregnant and Charlie keeping quiet about it, and what should we do about this secret meeting at the cabin? When Sophie came back to Ballard I rode to hunting camp.’
‘What happens when Skinner is caught? Would you let him hang?’
‘Of course not. Actually, I doubt they’ll ever catch him. I told him to go to Mexico; he can make a reasonable living there and the silver horses will give him a good start in a new life. He can come back when I’m dead because I’m going to leave a full confession with my will, although there’ll be no mention of my true reason for shooting Charlie. However, I’ll think of something, make it sound right.’
‘I suppose one place is as good as another for Skinner to live.’ Miss Pink was grudging. ‘Suppose he were caught in your lifetime. Would you confess then?’
‘“Sufficient unto the day…” but no, I wouldn’t let even the man who seduced my granddaughter hang — and after all, she was seventeen. Girls should know their own mind at seventeen. If I should live that long I’ll put my trust in Jen’s money and a good lawyer.’
‘And a plea of self-defence perhaps; Charlie went for his gun. How would you plead in the case of Byer?’
Edna pondered. ‘Maybe I should plead self-defence there and think of something else for Charlie.’
Miss Pink regarded her with awe. ‘You must have scared the daylights out of Skinner. How many people know of your involvement?’
‘Just you, dear. Clyde had to know about Byer and no doubt the older members of the family suspect the rest, but no one’s going to talk, are they?’
20
Next day, when the evening rush was over, Russell went upstairs to call on those he thought of as his ladies. He found them in party mood, drinking champagne.
‘What are we celebrating?’
‘A new beginning,’ Sophie announced, handing him a glass. ‘Starting over, as Edna has it.’
‘I see. How is Edna? Any improvement?’
‘She’s virtually back to normal.’ Sophie seated herself and splashed champagne in Miss Pink’s glass. ‘By that I mean she’s her old scatty self — like she always was.’
‘It was the shock,’ Miss Pink murmured.
Sophie threw her a glance. ‘Exactly — and then secondary shock kicked in.’
‘Good.’ He beamed at them. ‘I mean good that it isn’t Alzheimer’s or dementia, whatever. What happens at Glenaffric now?’
‘Jen’s full of plans,’ Sophie told him. ‘Like making apartments for herself and Bret, and for Edna. Clyde too, if he wants. It makes sense for the young people to live there; they have all their stock on one ranch and Bret was only renting the property at Benefit. Sam will have to look for a new hand — or two. That would leave him free to help out with the pack-trips and at Glenaffric.’ She giggled. ‘My crazy sister says she’s going to start riding again: at her age!’
‘She isn’t seventy yet,’ Miss Pink protested. ‘You won’t see seventy again, nor me.’
‘That’s different,’ Sophie snapped. ‘Edna hasn’t been on a horse in centuries, and look at her: she couldn’t get a foot in the stirrup, let alone stay on once she was in the saddle.’
‘That’s no way to talk of your sister,’ Russell chided. ‘However, I’m glad she’s staying at Glenaffric; it’s her home, and now that she has Bret and Jen as company and to look after the stock —’ He stopped, his eyes dancing.
‘What?’ Sophie barked.
‘I was wondering where Charlie’s silver horses are at this moment. Melted down or gracing a collector’s mantelpiece in Seattle?’
‘Is there any news of Skinner?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Not so far.’
‘And Byer?’ Sophie prompted.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to know —’
‘Of course we do. What happened with the autopsy? You know something?’
‘They recovered the bullet, but they have to wait for the forensic report. The bullet and the rifle have gone to the laboratory, but my reporter friend says Hilton is reasonably sure that the rifle — the one the kid took from Byer’s pick-up — has to be the gun that fired the bullet.’
‘It couldn’t have been suicide.’ Miss Pink looked puzzled. ‘Not with a rifle, not to shoot himself in the chest.’
Russell blinked at her. ‘There are no prints on the gun except those left by the kid and his dad. It had been wiped before they handled it. Obviously it wasn’t suicide, it was Skinner. Byer’s truck was mired just below his place and he was about to do a runner when Hilton arrived. He was actually hitching his horse trailer to his pick-up. He said he was going to work for Edna. Did you know she confirmed that?’
‘She didn’t know what she was saying.’ Sophie was dismissive. ‘She knew she needed a hand to replace Byer, so when Cole asked, she assumed she’d engaged Skinner.’
‘Hilton had the guy right there, in his hands, and he let him go. And now he’s vanished.’
Miss Pink’s eyes glazed. Sophie said flatly, ‘He’ll have changed his vehicle.’
‘Hilton’s in a rage,’ Russell said. ‘Here he has two murders, he knows who done both of ‘em — well, accomplice anyway — and no chance of closing the case — cases — until he catches Skinner.’
‘Accomplice?’ Miss Pink surfaced from her reverie.
‘For Charlie’s murder. It needn’t have been the two of them working together but it’s more likely. And Clyde always maintained Byer was unpredictable. He’d be a threat to Skinner, wouldn’t he? Gives Skinner a motive — although shooting Byer could have been no more than the result of a drunken quarrel.’
‘You don’t need motives for that kind of low life.’ Sophie was scathing. ‘They’ll never catch Skinner; the guy’s too terrified of being brought back; we have capital punishment in Montan
a.’
‘Oh yes,’ Miss Pink echoed. ‘He’ll be terrified.’ But not of hanging or lethal injection; Skinner would be terrified of Edna.
‘She’d blow him away,’ Sophie said.
Miss Pink started. Telepathy? ‘Charlie was her husband,’ Sophie insisted. ‘No matter he could be a prickly bugger on occasions, it was a terrible way to go: dragged over the rocks, dying out there alone.’
‘And they left him there.’ Russell shook his head. ‘And then’ — he waxed indignant — ‘not content with murder they have to start blackmailing — that is, Byer did. That would be another motive to get rid of the guy, he was playing with fire: Byer, a killer, trying to set someone else up for the murder.’
‘Stupid,’ Miss Pink said.
‘Tell me about it. And then the thefts from Glenaffric.’
‘All criminals make mistakes,’ Sophie pointed out. ‘And these two were only amateurs initially: poaching and petty theft —’
‘There was that rumour that Carol Skinner didn’t fall in the river,’ Russell reminded her. They eyed each other speculatively. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That was Charlie’s slander. Forget it.’
‘We have enough without it,’ Sophie told him. ‘More than enough motivation for Skinner to kill Byer.’
‘What would be their motive for killing Charlie?’ Miss Pink asked, all innocence.
‘Oh, that’s simple!’ Sophie cried. ‘He’d caught Byer thieving and was going to fire him —’
‘Had told him he was fired,’ Russell corrected.
‘And Charlie had accused Skinner of killing Carol —’
‘— would never let him forget it —’
‘Motives enough,’ Sophie declared with finality.
Miss Pink subsided, seeing the flaws, trusting that she was the only one to do so, with the exception of these two. They had only Edna’s word for it that any objects had been stolen from Glenaffric and, indeed, that Charlie was about to fire Erik Byer. And what sane killer would have left his victim’s vehicle within half a mile of his own home? She had been listening to a wily team constructing a scenario; they too would spot the flaws in time and work out clever ways round them.
It was ironical that Charlie, head of the family, should have derived so much pleasure out of manipulating its members, without ever dreaming that one of his jokes might misfire. Justice prevailed in the end, however primitive its form, and they’d kept it within the family, all of them, and that included Russell, a kind of honorary member, and Miss Pink: uncertain whether she was bound by a sense of fair play, or friendship, or respect for what was basically a very private concern.
RETRIBUTION
To the memory of Rebe Taylor of
Rochdale, the original Miss Pink
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter One
The cloud ceiling was solid around a thousand feet but there was no question of her getting lost, not on the ascent anyway, and even where the path crossed the boggy uplands it kept to the firmer ground and was marked by boots and the odd cairn. Not that you could spot the cairns at any distance in the mist, in fact there wasn’t much the solitary walker could see at all; there should be butterwort and sundew here, even orchids, but no flowers would show up today until you were about to trample them. Miss Metcalf grimaced; if the cloud didn’t lift she was going to miss the orchids. Never mind, the walk was exercise and she might detour and nip up Blaze Fell, test her navigation skills. She tramped on, peering close to make out the bootprints, hindered by her tinted glasses (but she’d see even less without them); on the other hand she didn’t have far to look. Less than five feet tall, with a face like a shrivelled walnut under a baseball cap, wearing Austrian boots and carrying a neat rucksack, she would have occasioned more than a casual glance from anyone encountered in the cloud: a diminutive solo mountaineer moving with confidence, at least on the level. Had the chance-met stranger known that she suffered from cataracts and incipient arthritis, and was rising eighty, he wouldn’t have believed it – but Miss Metcalf met no one and felt smug. She liked to have her mountains to herself.
She crossed the high moor and started down the other side to emerge below the cloud and see the pale stretch of Closewater below. Not a bird moved, even the sheep were silent. No sunshine showed anywhere. This was May in the Lake District. She snorted and dropped down the escarpment, not all that happily now because of the stiff knees, but her mood lightened when she saw that the beck coming down beside the path had plenty of water in it, cascades showing white among the crags. It made for a bit of excitement.
She came to the road beside the lake, turned right and reached the car park at eleven o’clock. Three cars were there, two with RSPB stickers, their owners no doubt looking for the red kite which had been seen here once – but surely not today. Miss Metcalf wasn’t interested; she lived here, if she wanted to see kites she’d pick a good day.
Paths took off from the head of the lake, all neatly signposted in carved wood; this was, after all, a national park. Miss Metcalf nodded approval at the signs and turned to the Gowk Pass route. There was a faint drizzle in the air now. She paused to read a new notice at ground level, small, unobtrusive: ‘Drivers of Off-Road vehicles are requested not to use this track in wet conditions’. She frowned. That drivers of off-road vehicles could use tracks in national parks under any conditions infuriated her. Grudgingly she admitted that farmers might be excepted although she deplored the noisy little farm bikes, you came on their tracks everywhere, even on the tops. Time was when shepherds walked or rode a pony. And a lot more healthy they were then. She could hear an engine now, very faint, but in this amphitheatre of hills and muffled by the mist it was impossible to tell its direction.
She climbed the track at the pace of an old guide until her legs would accept the gradient, slow enough to become convinced, with rising tension, that there was a vehicle ahead of her. Its track showed: too wide for anything other than a Land Rover, and then she realized that the sound of an engine was growing louder. Was it approaching her, descending? She was climbing into the cloud again and could see nothing above. She would have a word with the driver, force him to see reason. This track was in a shocking state; a wide bed of unstable stones had forced the vehicle to take to the bog in places, leaving long ruts that were over a foot deep (she measured them with her hand). With a mounting sense of disaster she knew that, half-way to the pass, she must be approaching the orchids that were her goal.
She was breathing fast now and her blood thudded in her ears, counterpoint to sudden bursts from the engine above. Puzzling over those erratic snarls, trying to reassure herself that the noise of her own blood was no more than the result of the climb, she came to a morass of exposed peat and, casting about for a way round, she saw high ground to one side – but someone else had seen it first.
She was in the cloud but it was thin, wavering to expose clear patches, and there, brave and solitary, was one pale orchid, all that was left of a tiny colony of fragile blooms now gouged and ravaged by great ruts.
Above her the engine roared like something animate and died away. The truck was stalled – mired – stationary – no matter, it was the one that had ruined the orchids; clots of peat were falling in the ruts as she watched, sick with misery.
The nausea passed and she strode straight uphill through the bogs regardless of wet feet, overwhelmed with rage. A tunnel appeared in the cloud. Above her a Land Rover was canted steeply on the point of a zigzag. She glimpsed a figure, saw the truck
start to move away, and lifted her binoculars.
The cloud disintegrated in mid-afternoon but too late for walkers to start out for the tops, and the grey day had discouraged motorists from taking the winding lane to Borascal. At five o’clock the village, now basking in sunshine, was as quiet as it had been when Miss Metcalf left, and Eleanor Salkeld decided to close her tearoom. She’d already sent her waitress home, trying not to begrudge the cash she’d had to pay Sherrel for waiting on no more than half a dozen parties; now she went out to the gate to reverse the Open sign on the discreet notice: ‘Jollybeard House. Cream teas. Home Baking.’
‘You’re closing early,’ someone said.
Eleanor’s expression, already disgruntled, deepened to a glower. She saw one customer only: old, casually smart, heavy: no cream tea order, a pot of Earl Grey and one cake would be this one’s preference. Despite the advanced age that weight wasn’t fat but muscle. She looked after herself.
‘I’m not a customer.’ A reassuring smile, but Eleanor had the feeling the survey was mutual even though the eyes behind designer spectacles were shadowed by a white cotton hat. ‘Not that kind,’ the woman continued, and Eleanor relaxed a little, listening to the tone. ‘I’ve taken Ashgill for a fortnight and I forgot to bring any bread. I was wondering if you could spare a small loaf.’
Eleanor started to bloom, thinking that this was a kindred spirit and there were few enough of those in the dale, old, well-educated, independent. There was Phoebe Metcalf of course, but Phoebe was rough – no, not rough but – well, aggressive, not what one might call a lady. This one, introducing herself as Melinda Pink, belonged to a past generation, soft-spoken and courteous, exclaiming with approval as she followed Eleanor indoors and saw the batch of fresh loaves on the kitchen table.
‘My version of granary,’ Eleanor said. ‘Or there is soda bread?’
