by Gwen Moffat
‘She never married?’
‘Dear me, no.’ He shot her a glance. ‘That doesn’t mean to say. . . . But Euphemia never had any children—to survive, that is. Just as well. Those lines ought to be allowed to die out, or be quietly sterilised. Perfectly simple: diagnose a suspected tumour, open ’em up, and there you are. Relatives would be relieved if they knew but—least said, soonest mended, eh? MacNeill’s another: very unstable.’
‘I thought that young Willie was rather a fine specimen.’
‘Oh yes, indeed: fine physical specimen; Skye provided some of our best infantrymen in the old days. But that’s the trouble: all the animal attributes and no control—not nowadays, not in civilian life. And now look what’s happened.’
‘What did the police say?’
He snorted and smote one hand with his fist. ‘There! That’s why I came to find you! They found it difficult to believe, and I had to put Willie on the line but by that time he was in tears; they’ve no reserves, but then, if he . . . However, as I said, they thought him drunk and asked what I made of it all, and what could I say? So I told them I’d come down and have a look myself. Was just going to take my boat out. But you’ve seen this body?’
‘There’s no doubt about it.’
He nodded. ‘Would you go up and speak to the police? I told them you were a magistrate; that’s right, isn’t it? But Willie was the weak link, you understand. Do you think any harm’s been done by the delay?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘How long—? When do you think he pushed her over—I mean, assuming it was a man?’
‘Could a woman have carried her?’
‘Carried her?’
‘From Largo. She wouldn’t have gone along those cliffs in the dark with a stranger.’
‘Did it have to be in the dark?’
She stared at him. ‘With Euphemia and the Hunts and all the camp site watching, not to speak of the MacNeills? How could it have been done in daylight?’
‘Of course. You have a very sharp mind. Why do you say “the MacNeills” in the plural? Don’t you think the lad did it?’
‘No, I don’t.’
And there was the light at Largo, she thought; surely the killer would never have left the light on when there was a body in the house?
*
Willie was hiding something. After she’d made her telephone call to the police—baldly stated it sounded merely as if a body had been washed up by the sea—Miss Pink went to the kitchen to find Vera Hamlyn and Ida Hunt sitting at a huge scrubbed table drinking tea and exchanging what by now must be weary comments. Between them Willie sprawled with his elbows on the table, a cup of tea and a glass of whisky in front of him. At her entrance, he looked truculent, but the women regarded her with expectancy, Vera rather less eagerly than Ida Hunt who was flushed with excitement.
‘I’ve rung the police,’ Miss Pink told them, and looked at the tea pot.
At that they remembered their manners and, while Ida leapt up and whisked the pot to the sink, Vera stood up and pulled out a chair.
‘Please sit down. Mrs Hunt will make fresh tea. Have you had your lunch?’
‘Don’t worry about me—but a cup of tea will be most welcome.’ She addressed them generally but her glance lingered on Willie. He glowered at her and licked his lips. He appeared to expect help from Vera and Ida but they watched him in silence, Vera with circumspection, Ida with a hint of ghoulishness.
‘All right then!’ he burst out. ‘I did go across, but I didna go in! I didna go inside the door! It was closed then!’
‘What time was that?’ Miss Pink asked conversationally.
He shook his head, wide-eyed. ‘Before eleven. The old man had gone to bed; he goes some time after ten.’
‘Was there a light in Largo?’
‘Not in the house, no.’
‘Where, then?’
‘In the burn!’
Vera and Ida looked meaningly at each other, then at Miss Pink, implying that he was drunk. He intercepted this and was furiously angry.
‘I’m telling you! I stood outside the door thinking that she’d gone to bed because her light was out, and I heard a noise from the burn. I looked and saw a torch. It was a bit difficult at that moment because the Lights was very bright—’ he forgot his truculence and waved an arm indicating the Northern Lights wheeling in the sky, ‘—so I walked towards the burn and she was washing the dishes: those aluminium sort they use camping; I heard her put them down on the rocks and I saw them shine in the torch light. I called to her and she put the light out.’
‘How long did you stay?’
‘I didna!’ His voice rose again. ‘She’d got a fellow with her.’
Miss Pink studied him. ‘Who was it?’
‘I dunno. I didna hear him speak.’ His eyes sharpened suddenly.
‘How did you know it was a fellow?’ Miss Pink pressed.
‘It musta been, mustn’t it? Why would she keep quiet like that if it was a girl with her? Besides, there wasna another girl at Largo—’less someone went over from the youth hostel or the camp site, but she didna know anyone. Why would she keep quiet if it was a girl with her? It was a fellow.’
‘Did you hear him speak?’
‘It was just a low mumble: his voice and hers, high and low. I couldna hear the words.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I turned round and went home; I wasna wanted, I could see that.’
*
‘What do you think?’
Miss Pink and her hostess had left the kitchen and were sitting on a garden seat in front of the house. Bees hummed in a hedge of Michaelmas daisies.
‘I think he was in love with her.’
‘A sex crime? She wouldn’t have him because of Irwin?’
‘No. She was promiscuous. She wouldn’t refuse Willie—he was far too attractive. Besides, she wasn’t sexually attracted to Irwin.’
Vera was astonished. ‘Are you sure of that?’
Miss Pink frowned. ‘You don’t agree?’
‘I never saw them together—and I’m not sure that I’m much good at that kind of thing.’ Miss Pink showed polite attention and Vera looked away, embarrassed. ‘I find it better, you know, not to see what’s going on—sometimes. I don’t think I’d be very happy if I knew. So I’m rather naïve that way. She seemed to me very—er, obvious. You really mean the friendship with Irwin was platonic?’
‘I’ll amend that; there was sexual attraction, but not physical. Willie would be the boy—’ Miss Pink coughed. ‘Quite healthy, of course.’
‘What would be unhealthy?’ There was a short silence. ‘Watkins?’
They were very still. Out on the lawn blades of grass shivered and crumbs of rich black soil erupted above a burrowing mole.
‘Watkins,’ Vera repeated thoughtfully.
‘Need a good cat.’
‘What?’
‘For the moles. Nothing like it. Euphemia’s cat is called the Sheriff.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘After dark.’
‘Euphemia wouldn’t see anything then—unless she was out, of course.’
‘No. She was safe in bed when it happened.’
They were quiet again for a time then Vera said: ‘I wonder what his story will be?’
‘He won’t have one.’ Miss Pink sounded casual. ‘He’ll have spent the evening in his tent and then: bed—or rather, sleeping bag. He could have an alibi.’ She looked surprised at her own words.
‘How could he? He didn’t come up here last night. You’re thinking of a girl from the camp site, or the youth hostel—who spent the night with him?’
‘I imagine an alibi would have to cover all the hours of darkness.’
Lavender Maynard came walking out of the trees and across the lawn. She had a peculiar gait: flat-footed, and she moved her legs stiffly from the knee, as if her pelvic joints were frozen. She wore a large white hat and a yellow dress. She started to smile at them, the
n her eyes flickered from Vera’s overall to Miss Pink’s breeches and boots.
‘Has something happened?’
‘Come and sit down.’ Vera patted the seat between them.
‘Kenneth!’
‘No, no, no!’ Vera gave a comforting little laugh. ‘Nothing to bother you.’
Lavender seated herself and her colour came back. ‘Stupid of me, but when they climb—but of course, Colonel Hamlyn climbs. . . . It’s different when you do it yourself; and then, taking a woman guide! I wouldn’t worry if he would employ men but a woman’s no good in emergencies, is she?’ She shrugged. ‘I mean: they go to pieces.’
The others looked bland.
‘But something’s wrong,’ she went on more naturally.
Vera glanced at Miss Pink who said, ‘Terry Cooke has had an accident.’
Lavender licked her lips. ‘What kind of accident?’
‘She’s dead.’
‘Oh yes? Well, that’s bad.’ Only her mouth moved. ‘What happened?’
‘The body was put in a plastic bag and dropped down Scarf Geo.’
‘That—is—unbelievably—horrible.’ The voice was expressionless. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You asked.’
‘You’re being deliberately callous. What significance does it have for me?’
‘None,’ Vera said chidingly. ‘Miss Pink isn’t callous, just practical; she’s getting it over as quickly as possible.’
‘I see.’ Lavender addressed herself to Miss Pink. ‘You do know that Kenneth and I share a room?’
Vera looked stupid. Miss Pink stared, then nodded in comprehension: ‘And you don’t take sleeping pills?’
‘I do, as a matter of fact. When was she killed?’
Vera gave an exasperated sigh and went indoors.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Lavender asked histrionically.
‘She’s tired. We’ve had a busy hour or so.’
‘I didn’t come down for lunch. I was resting. What happened? Was she killed at Largo?’
Miss Pink recounted the facts. She didn’t say that when she left Irwin that morning she had started to wonder where Terry Cooke might be if she had never left the glen, nor that she was not concerned with pollution when she first looked down Scarf Geo. At the end of the account Lavender observed that the girl had brought it on herself. Miss Pink stood up.
‘Where are you going?’ the other asked suspiciously.
Miss Pink went in the porch and emerged with her rucksack. She didn’t answer but waved a hand and strode up the drive.
Chapter Seven
From a vantage point Miss Pink raked the slopes above Glen Shira through binoculars and, having located her quarry, met the Lindsays and Watkins above the waterfall. She made no pretence that the encounter was an accident but there seemed little to be gleaned from their initial reactions to her appearance.
Betty seemed pleased to see her, Watkins amused; Lindsay’s expression was, as usual, faintly anxious, but it was impossible to decide whether this originated in his difficulty with human relationships or merely from the fear of putting his foot in a rabbit hole.
After an exchange of cursory greetings (as if they really had met by accident), she accompanied them to the lip of the ravine, where they halted and looked back at the waterfall dropping daintily down the rock. Betty remarked that they needed rain.
A small sigh escaped Miss Pink and the younger woman turned, her expression questioning, then alert. She glanced from Miss Pink to the glen. The road and Glen Shira House were hidden by a convex slope but they could see across the mouth of the valley to Largo and Rahane and, following the green shelf westwards, it was possible to make out Scarf Geo.
‘Terry Cooke has gone,’ Miss Pink said.
Watkins looked startled, then relieved. ‘That’s a pleasant welcome at the end of the day.’
Lindsay shot him a glance. Betty asked, ‘Gone where?’
The guide gave a snort of laughter. ‘What the hell does that matter so long as she’s off my back?’ A thought struck him. ‘You do mean she’s left the glen?’ he asked of Miss Pink.
‘No. She’s dead.’
Betty gasped. There was a pause, then she said coldly, ‘You mean—drowned? A swimming accident? Or did someone take her climbing . . .? Or—’ She looked down at the ravine.
‘Her body is in Scarf Geo.’
‘Oh—h!’ The exclamation—of enlightenment, and drawn out—came from Lindsay, and Miss Pink turned to him. His face was clear and boyish and he smiled at her weakly. His forehead was damp. ‘Suicide,’ he observed.
‘That is possible. But if so, then she died in some other place, because the body is in a survival bag.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Betty said.
‘One of those large plastic bags that we carry— You probably have one in your pack now.’ She addressed the guide.
‘Yes,’ he said quickly, ‘I have.’
Betty said with deliberation, ‘You mean someone put her in a bag? But that would mean murder.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Miss Pink was brisk. ‘She could have met with an accident or committed suicide and then someone put the body in a bag and dropped it down Scarf Geo. There are reasons for people covering up a death, or otherwise confusing the issue. Bodies are often moved after car accidents for example, and, in the case of an illegal abortion, it’s important to get the body off the premises as quickly as possible.’
‘But that doesn’t hold in this case,’ Lindsay pointed out. ‘She wasn’t pregnant.’
‘How do you know?’ Miss Pink asked with interest. He was dumbfounded. Watkins swallowed painfully.
Betty said reasonably, ‘In those tight pants it would have shown; she was as flat as a board.’
‘I never saw her in pants,’ Miss Pink said, and watched Betty’s face freeze. ‘In the dress which she was wearing on Saturday evening it would be difficult to tell.’
Watkins started to grin. Betty looked from him to her husband and said meaningly, ‘I think we’d better get down.’
She touched Lindsay’s arm and gestured towards the glen. The guide watched them go, then turned and joined Miss Pink in contemplation of the waterfall. When she sat down on a bank he followed suit, then asked, ‘When was she killed?’
‘I don’t know.’
He moved impatiently. ‘When was she found then?’
‘About midday today.’
‘And who saw her last? Alive?’
She looked at him and he added quickly, ‘I mean, who apart from the killer?’
‘It seems that a man was talking to her some time before eleven last night—’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, naturally I’m interested. He could be lying, could be trying to protect himself. . . . It’s likely that the fellow who told you she had a visitor last night, could be the killer, yes?’
‘I didn’t say my informant was a man.’
‘So it was a woman.’ He turned his head. The Lindsays were out of sight. ‘Could be.’ He looked at her with an expression of candour. ‘I always thought she liked young girls. That’s the trouble between her and her husband; you’ve noticed it, of course. She’s wearing the trousers in that set-up, no mistake about it, but I never thought it went any further: outside the family, like. But there’s no reason why those sort shouldn’t be the same as everyone else—I mean, they’ve got their appetites, haven’t they? And she didn’t—doesn’t—give a damn about her husband; there’s nothing between them at all. You could tell she was attracted to Terry on Saturday night; she was so spiteful. Love-hate relationship, that’s what it was.’
‘How curious that you should put that interpretation on it.’ Miss Pink was thoughtful. ‘Granted she’s a powerful woman, but I thought her very feminine at heart.’ She laughed deprecatingly. ‘In fact, I would have said that she was very much attracted to yourself.’
His mouth stretched in a nervous grin. �
�Yeah, she was a nuisance, like that.’ There was a brief pause. ‘I couldn’t shake her off; middle-aged women are far worse than kids. They get infatuated; a lot of it’s the glamour of the job. She used to come down to the camp site in the evenings.’ He stopped as if waiting for questions.
‘Alone?’
‘Difficult to remember.’ He grinned again. ‘I had a lot of visitors. She made a number of suggestions to me—propositions, you’d call them rightly.’
‘What was her husband’s reaction?’
‘Oh, he didn’t care; he’d be used to it.’
‘You didn’t think this was an isolated instance, then?’
‘Come again?’
‘She was often infatuated with younger men?’
He drew a breath. ‘There were several things—contributory factors.’ He smiled, pleased with the term. ‘There was the heat, she often remarked on it: made us fed-up—I mean, we wanted to concentrate on the climbing. It would be her age, I guess; that would be another factor. And then they’d never had any children. She wanted to mother me—and him, but that’s unhealthy, isn’t it?’ He grimaced in distaste. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I’ve always found her a bit of a drag. I’ve been guiding them for years now; they’re quite good climbers but I must admit she’s getting embarrassing lately; not enough to make me refuse to guide them any more but little things—some of them more than little: make your hair stand on end, the things she says. Everything had a double meaning, you know? And a party’s pretty intimate on the hill; you’ve got to strike a delicate balance if a situation’s not to get out of hand. I don’t mind admitting that with Mrs Lindsay I’d got to the stage where I wondered if she was round the twist. I’d not wanted to take them this year and I’m definitely going to find a way to get out of taking them next year.’ He lifted his hand and stared blankly at a piece of lousewort clutched between his fingers. ‘None of this surprises me,’ he added.
*
‘Ah, good evening!’ Ken Maynard came into the cocktail lounge, still bouncing with energy after his day on the hill. ‘Just in time for a quick one, Gordon; two lagers, please.’
‘Make it pints,’ Madge amended, following him. ‘It’s humid today; I feel dehydrated. Good evening, Miss Pink; I didn’t see you in the corner.’