by Kennedy Kerr
‘Really? How interesting.’ Temerity looked at Molly’s picture again. ‘I guess just because she was beautiful doesn’t mean that she was likeable.’
‘Aye. Makes nae odds. Someone still slipped poison in her tea.’
‘I heard you on the radio. Any idea about where the poison might have come from? Tilda said it could be sourced from a few different plants that would either grow locally, or are easy enough to grow at home.’
‘I might’ve known yer sister would have an opinion.’ Hyland grinned. ‘Aye. Could be one of the traditional poison plants, could have been that someone got hold of the chemical, maybe someone has access to hospital stores.’
Muriel brought over a huge slab of moist fruitcake, dotted with cherries, sultanas, raisins and apricots with a thick crunchy brown sugar crust on the top and laid it in front of Temerity. She poured tea into both their mugs, topping up Kim Hyland’s from a large copper teapot she held with a red tartan oven glove.
‘Muriel darlin’, yer a bobby dazzler.’ Hyland sipped at the hot, dark brown tea gratefully. It was warm in the café, but outside the frost was still on the windows.
‘Thanks, Muriel.’ Temerity picked up the slice of cake and took a bite: it was rich, boozy and delicious as always. ‘I swear, you must put a bottle of whisky in every cake. It’s probably not even legal for me to eat it at this time of the morning.’
‘Ah, get away with ye! Just a wee dram goes in, that’s all!’ Muriel tutted. ‘It’s all fruit. Good for ye.’ She went to serve a couple of tourists at a table, topping up their coffee from a steel pot with a black handle. Temerity reflected that if they thought they’d be getting filter coffee or something as grand as Tilda’s gourmet beans then they’d be disappointed; Muriel’s tea was legendary, but her coffee was instant. She noticed that there was a copy of T.L. Hawtry’s The Mysteries of Lost Maidens Loch on the table next to them: more audience for Muriel’s tall tales.
‘So the poison was dropped in her drink? In which case it has to be one of the teachers who were in the staff room at the same time.’ Temerity leaned forward. Hyland raised his eyebrow.
‘Aye, possibly, but there might be other ways for the poison to hae got intae the cup. It did definitely come from the cup; we found traces of atropine. The inside was old, pretty cracked. Helped to retain the chemical.’
‘Interesting. So, who was in the staff room at the time Molly collapsed?’ Temerity asked.
Kim Hyland sat back and drank his tea.
‘You know I cannae tell you that,’ he chided her. ‘That’s confidential.’
She thought for a minute.
‘Okay, you can’t tell me who was there. Can you tell me who wasn’t there?’
Hyland gave her a fond but exasperated look.
‘You can work out who wasnae there, if you really must. The kitchen staff, the receptionist, whoever was on playground duty.’ He gave her a stare.
‘I see.’ Temerity looked over at Muriel: Brenda would have filled her friend in on all the details by now. Muriel would know exactly who was in the staff room and who wasn’t. Temerity was invested in this murder now, partly because she cared about what happened in the village, but mostly because her vision of the stag was really bothering her. She hadn’t had any additional insights about the animal – what it meant, where it was, or what it was doing there. It was driving her mad.
‘In fact, if ye want tae help, ye can visit Molly’s flatmate with Constable Harley this afternoon.’ Hyland interrupted Temerity’s thoughts.
‘I don’t think Constable Harley likes me very much.’ Temerity shook her head.
‘I dinnae think he likes many people,’ Hyland agreed. ‘But he’s a professional and so are ye. He’s goin’ tae interview the woman about Molly – if she was seein’ anyone, had she had any falling out with anyone, money problems, that kinda thing. Whilst yer there, see if ye can get any impressions from anythin’. Touch her things, see if ye can get any intel.’
Temerity wasn’t going to refuse an opportunity to put her mind to rest, even if she did have to endure more of Angus Harley’s rudeness.
‘Fine. I’ll go. Where is it?’
‘No need. Harley can walk with ye.’ The Inspector nodded to the door of the café which had just opened to reveal Constable Harley, who glowered at them both. If you ignored his expression, he was handsome; for a moment, Temerity indulged herself by imagining his broad shoulders and toned muscles in a traditional kilt and shirt, striding confidently through the mountains.
‘Miss Love.’ The Constable nodded curtly at Temerity. She held out her hand.
‘Please, not so formal. It’s Temerity.’
Harley looked at her hand but didn’t shake it and turned his attention to the Inspector.
‘All statements have been taken at the school, sir.’ Temerity half-expected him to salute Kim Hyland, which he didn’t, but nonetheless stood expectantly, as if waiting for an order. Rude, rude, rude, she thought and ate her cake, irritated by his presence already. Does he have no actual social skills? Or is it just me that he dislikes for some reason?
‘Thank ye, Angus. We were just talkin’. I’d like Temerity tae visit the flatmate with ye. Ye’ll lead the interview, o’ course, but I want Temerity tae see if she can get any information aboot Molly from her possessions.’ Hyland fixed the Constable with a look that said, This is happening, so get used to it. Temerity didn’t have to touch Angus’s hand to know how he felt about that, but he nodded.
‘Fine. Shall we go?’
Temerity wrapped up the remainder of her slice of cake in a napkin and slipped it in her coat pocket. Fine.
‘Sure, of course, I’m ready.’ She put her coat on and followed Harley out of the café.
6
The townhouse Molly had shared with Beth Bennett was two streets away from Love’s Curiosities, Inc. It reminded Temerity of Patrick’s family home, which had seemed so beautifully normal compared to their freezing, damp house full of rotting hunting trophies and bear rugs (Tilda had thrown those all out when their parents died), odd paintings (some of them had turned out to be very valuable) and the books that Tilda now cared for.
Some of Tilda’s books had unusual care requirements: a few very old, strange volumes were bound in pigskin, which had to be sponged with a moist cloth every now and again to keep the leather supple. Others had to be regularly re-glued and have their board covers restored or even their gold lettering retooled, all of which Tilda did in a little shed at the bottom of the garden where she could keep all her bookbinding materials.
There had been almost no conversation on the ten-minute walk from the café, which was quite a long time not to talk to someone who was standing right next to you. Temerity tried on a couple of occasions, but got nowhere: Are you from near here? Answer: No, and What do you think of Lost Maidens Loch? Answer: Interesting.
Eventually, Temerity gave up and started imagining a more interesting set of questions and answers:
Temerity: Why are you so rude?
Harley: Please excuse my manners. I was raised by wolves.
Temerity: Where are you from?
Harley: The wolf commune was high up in the Transylvanian mountains. In the winters we ate travelling salesmen.
Temerity: What do you think of Lost Maidens Loch?
Harley: I’m still getting used to a house that has indoor plumbing.
She was starting to enjoy entertaining herself in this way when Angus stopped at one of the houses and knocked on the front door.
‘Hello?’ Beth Bennett looked pleasantly surprised to find a policeman who looked like he’d stepped straight off the Quaker Oats box on her doorstep; she looked at Temerity with rather less interest.
‘Miss Bennett, we spoke on the phone. I’m Constable Harley and you might know Miss Love?’
‘I’ve seen her around. Come in,’ Beth said dismissively, watching Angus as he walked in front of her into the lounge. Temerity couldn’t blame the girl; if she hadn’t been the recip
ient of Angus’s appalling rudeness she might have been more enthusiastic about his very fine physique.
‘Coffee?’ Beth twinkled at Angus; Temerity thought she didn’t seem particularly upset that her flatmate had just been murdered, but of course, appearances could be deceptive.
‘No, thank you.’ He nodded politely and sat down on a leather sofa. Temerity took the matching armchair.
‘I’d love a glass of water,’ she called out to the girl, who had gone into the adjoining kitchen. Beth returned with a packet of chocolate biscuits, a cup of coffee for herself and a small, grubby glass of water for Temerity.
The compact lounge looked out onto a scrubby garden; Temerity sipped the water, which was warm.
‘Not keen gardeners, then, either of you?’ she smiled, pointing at the garden.
‘I don’t exactly have the time to have my knees in the dirt in my line of work,’ Beth replied huffily.
Temerity, who actually did frequently have muddy knees and grass stains on her clothes from gardening or doing magic outside, resisted the urge to make a snide comment.
‘And what line of work is that, if I may?’ Harley had got his notebook out, pen poised.
‘I’m a personal assistant. I work in Glasgow,’ she replied, crossing her legs. Where Molly had had the type of slim yet curvaceous figure many women coveted, Beth had more in common with Temerity, who was angular and relatively flat-chested, though Beth wasn’t as tall as she was. Temerity had always been the tallest girl at school and even when she was a teenager she still towered over some of the boys even in Tilda’s year – not that she cared, then or now.
‘And how long had you and Molly been living here together?’
‘She moved in about six months ago, when she started working at the school.’ Beth frowned at Temerity. ‘What’s she here for? She runs the antiques shop over the road. She’s not with the police.’
Talk about me like I’m not here, why don’t you, Temerity thought, plastering a fake smile on her face.
‘Miss Love is helping us with our enquiries. Do you have an item of Molly’s – something she was fond of, maybe, that Miss Love might be able to look at?’ Temerity could hear in his voice how much Angus disliked having her along. He plainly thought what she did was theatrical and false – like Muriel’s invention of the blacksmith’s ghost – but she could also tell that he thought so highly of his own code of conduct that he would never explicitly say this to her. Temerity personally thought it was better manners to be honest about what you thought rather than passive-aggressively implying something but refusing to ever say it, but she supposed not everyone shared that view.
Beth looked suspiciously at Temerity.
‘What kind of thing?’
‘Anything. A hairbrush, favourite book, teddy bear, ornament.’ Temerity shrugged. ‘I touch it and I can tell something – usually, more than one thing – about who it belongs to. Inspector Hyland thought it might help the case.’ She smiled purposefully brightly at them both. I don’t really care what either of you think, she thought. I just want to find out whatever this stag is supposed to mean and what happened to Molly, and then I don’t care if I never see either of you again.
Beth stared at her for a long minute, then got up, went to a bookshelf on the left wall and handed Temerity an egg-shaped amber ornament.
‘Here you go. This was hers.’
Beth watched as Temerity held the egg-shaped amber stone in her hands and closed her eyes. Yet the images she got immediately – a young, gawky girl being handed the egg, the same girl holding the egg at a funeral, crying – were all of Beth.
Temerity opened her eyes and handed the egg back to the girl.
‘This is yours,’ she said. ‘Your grandmother gave it to you when you were about seven, maybe eight. It was in your coat pocket, you held it at your grandmother’s funeral. You had a black dress on and a brown coat. You were in your teens then. It rained.’ She held Beth’s gaze and watched her eyes widen in shock. ‘I need something of Molly’s, please.’
‘You… how could you know that?’ Beth whispered. ‘She couldn’t have known that!’ she repeated to Angus, who also looked surprised.
‘I’m one of the world’s most respected psychic provenance experts, specialising in rare and arcane artefacts from ancient cultures,’ Temerity snapped. ‘It’s what I do. Now, can I have something belonging to your roommate or not?’
Beth stared at her.
‘Upstairs. Her room is… was… on the right of the stairs. Help yourself,’ Beth murmured.
‘Thank you.’ Temerity stalked out. It annoyed her when normal people didn’t believe she could know things, just by touching them – especially when the world’s antique experts sought her out for their most difficult cases. She sighed and climbed the narrow stairs, which were covered in a nondescript beige carpet. She remembered chasing upstairs just like this at Patrick’s house – Can’t catch me! Can’t catch me! She smiled at the memory, her irritation receding. It wasn’t Beth’s fault. What Temerity did was strange.
Some people thought that Temerity herself was strange, but as Tilda said, you could never be responsible for other people’s opinions of you.
That way madness lies, Temerity thought as she opened the door to Molly’s bedroom. Or if not madness, then severe irritation.
7
Molly’s room was sparsely furnished; a double bed without a headboard was topped with a plain blanket and sheets that had once been white, but had gone in with a mixed wash too many times and were now rather grey. The door to the narrow white plywood wardrobe in the corner stood open; Temerity flicked through the clothes, which were generally well made and classic in style; nothing spoke to her as remarkable. It was often knick-knacks or personal possessions that worked for Temerity rather than clothes: she didn’t know why. Maybe it was to do with them being washed, or something.
Other than the bed and the wardrobe, the room was almost bare. There was a pile of four well-thumbed paperbacks beside the bed. Temerity flicked through them, but there was nothing of great interest there: they were all of the self-help relationships kind that told single women how to find men.
The only decorative items Molly seemed to possess were some crystals – Temerity recognised black tourmaline, smoky quartz and tiger’s eye – and a Russian doll, all of which were arranged on the windowsill. Temerity picked the doll up and closed her eyes.
Instantly, images flooded her mind. First, there was Molly as a child being given the doll from an older woman, a grandmother, maybe. Temerity had the sense that the woman was family, but that Molly didn’t know her too well. The woman’s face was hazy. Next, there was an argument with another girl: a friend, maybe. Molly snatching the doll from the other girl’s hands, who protested, But I only wanted to look at it.
Temerity took in another breath and refocused her energies on the doll. She saw Molly, older now, picking up the doll to pack it in a box: she was moving house. Then, unpacking it and placing it on this shelf.
There was something else, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. An unpleasant feeling, like being watched. Temerity looked over her shoulder, feeling the sensation intensify. The stairs creaked out in the hallway and she expected Constable Harley to appear in the doorway, but no one came. She walked into the hall holding the Russian doll, and heard Harley and Beth’s voices in the lounge downstairs.
Temerity walked back into the room, sat on the bed and looked at the doll. It appeared to be a standard issue medium-sized matryoshka, the traditional wooden doll-within-a-doll; this one was hand-painted with a red cloak and a red headscarf over her blonde hair and pink roses on the dress underneath. It was in good condition, but Temerity had noted that they often were: children didn’t play with them much, at least, not nowadays. She looked at the base; it was made by a popular and long-standing Russian tourist manufacturer she recognised that had sold nesting dolls all over the world for the last fifty years. It wasn’t at all valuable and it could have been boug
ht in London or New York just as likely as in Moscow.
Carefully, she took the dolls apart, revealing the next, smaller one inside. She had opened six when she came to the smallest, an intricately painted identical copy of the rest. Temerity took it out and held it; it was the size of her pinky finger.
The feeling of unease intensified. Temerity had the strong sense that she should put the doll down and leave the house; she laid the dolls on the bed and stood up, ready to go, then caught herself. Where was the sense of foreboding coming from? There was no reason for her to leave: Constable Harley was still interviewing Beth downstairs and she had only been in Molly’s room for a few minutes.
She made herself sit down and pick up the dolls again, fighting the unpleasant feeling that hit her as soon as she did. It was something between nausea and anxiety, a feeling that nagged at her; a sense that she was doing something wrong. Temerity felt irrationally repulsed; she heard herself doubting why she was even there. I should go home, I’m not a policewoman, what right do I have to be here, she thought, even though she knew she had every permission to be here. She dropped the dolls on the bed, testing herself, and the feelings subsided. She picked them up again and instantly felt sick and worried.
How strange, she mused, frowning. Temerity looked at each layer carefully for anything unusual. There was nothing, except in the last hollow doll, which held the smallest one. Peering into the light wood interior – the dolls were painted on the outside, but not within – Temerity could see something written on the base. It was very tiny and could have been mistaken for a maker’s mark or serial number, except that Temerity knew that these particular mass-market matryoshkas rarely featured their maker’s mark on their bases.
She held it up to the light coming in from the window; it was still unclear, so she fished her green-rimmed reading glasses out of her bag – Tilda said they made her look like a 1950s librarian – and peered at the mark again.
