by Gwen Moffat
Miss Pink said, ‘Mrs Hamlyn is going to be lost without your assistance.’
Euphemia looked embarrassed. ‘I wouldn’t want to hurt Mrs Hamlyn, she knows that.’
‘But you don’t want everyone to know all your business.’
‘I don’t know nothing; it’s no good keep asking me.’
‘Are you afraid of someone?’ Miss Pink was blunt.
Euphemia poured the tea. ‘Who would I be afraid of?’
‘A man who’s killed once could very likely kill again, almost certainly to protect himself. If you were out Monday evening and you met someone, on the shore or in the wood, you might keep quiet for fear of getting that person into trouble. But if he was the killer, he’d want to kill you to keep you from talking. If you said what you’d seen, or whom, then you’re safe. Do you see?’
‘I didn’t see nothing,’ Euphemia said, bewildered. ‘Nothing. The light went out about half past ten and that was all.’
‘No one came out of the cottage with a torch? It would be Terry going to wash the dishes in the burn.’
Euphemia was very still. ‘I went to sleep, I didn’t see nothing. Will you be after telling them that?’
‘Yes.’ Miss Pink sighed. ‘I’ll see that everyone knows, then you can come back to the house—can’t you?’
‘Is Ida Hunt staying?’
‘To the best of my knowledge she is.’
‘I’ll come back then, but remember—’ Euphemia was deadly serious, ‘I told you everything I know.’
*
Madge Fraser was packing a small rucksack with food. She had pitched her tent about a hundred yards from the top of the waterfall, not an ideal spot, for the ground was lumpy and would be wet when it rained, moreover at this point the burn was not easily accessible, its banks being miniature rock walls. In fact, the site had appeared abandoned when Miss Pink arrived but within a few moments Madge emerged from a hollow some distance upstream and approached carrying a plastic water bottle. There ensued a search for the top which, being green, took some time to find in the heather. The guide seemed badly organised today.
Miss Pink remarked on the tent which was very different from the sophisticated designs of those on the dunes. The bay front was two triangular flaps fastened with buttons.
‘It’s old,’ Madge explained listlessly. ‘The button holes are so worn it comes undone in a breeze but those two loops on the flaps keep it closed. It suits me for the odd occasion. After all,’ she added dryly, ‘I’m not much interested in clients who can’t afford to put me up in a hotel. Can I offer you a cup of tea? I’ve just had the last of my whisky.’
Miss Pink declined the tea. She glanced at the empty half-bottle on the grass in front of the tent and wondered how often the guide drank whisky in the morning. Aloud she asked, ‘Did you go across to Largo on Monday evening?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did Terry have to say?’
‘I didn’t see her. I didn’t go to the cottage; there was no light.’
‘What time was that?’
There was a pause. ‘About half past ten.’
‘Did you see the light go out?’
‘No.’
‘Why did you go across if there was no light?’
‘There was when I left the house. I looked to see. It went out before I reached the river.’ Another pause. ‘So I came back.’
‘Did you see anyone come out of the cottage?’
‘No,’ Madge said tightly, ‘I didn’t see anyone. There was no torch. I came back.’ Her tone grated with hostility.
‘What time did you return to the house?’ Miss Pink wondered why she wasn’t told to mind her own business.
‘Not long after I turned back. I couldn’t have been away for more than ten minutes.’
‘What has Vera Hamlyn got against you?’
Madge turned exhausted eyes on the other woman. ‘She thinks I’m having an affair with her old man.’
‘You quarrelled with her last night?’
‘Of course, you were in the passage. Yes, I did. Is it your business?’ It was said carelessly, without heat.
Miss Pink looked embarrassed. ‘There were two points to clear up: what time the light went out, and the cause of your quarrel with Vera.’
‘The light went out around ten-thirty.’
‘She was alive some time after that.’
‘What?’ Miss Pink watched with interest as the girl struggled to recover herself. ‘Who saw her?’
‘Willie MacNeill went to Largo at eleven, at which time she was washing billies in the burn.’
Madge inhaled deeply. It seemed to take a long time for her lungs to fill, then, as she exhaled, she started to giggle quietly. Miss Pink looked at the islands and waited. After a while the giggling stopped and there was a long silence. Far away, probably at Rahane, a dog barked.
‘So it was Willie,’ came her voice, calmly.
‘Willie says she had a man with her.’
‘When?’
‘About eleven,’ Miss Pink repeated patiently. She turned and looked at the guide. She had changed—again. Now she was excited. ‘I’ve been such an ass,’ she said warmly, ‘Lavender was implying the most revolting things about Ken; she was obscene! But, well, mud sticks. I got to worrying and remembering things about Ken, and how he was attracted to young girls. Lavender hinted he went over to Largo that night; I think she’s getting a kick out of pretending he’s the killer.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, from about a quarter to eleven until well after midnight he was drinking with me in the lounge.’
Miss Pink nodded. ‘That’s one point cleared up.’
‘I don’t think he left that bar all evening. When I came in, he and Gordon were hard at it on one of their interminable arguments.’
‘So Hamlyn was there too?’
‘Oh yes; the three of us: from before eleven until after midnight.’
Miss Pink looked at her watch. ‘I must be getting down.’ She hesitated. ‘Will you be taking your meals at the house?’
‘No, I got some food from the youth hostel. I’m going to do the ridge tomorrow, and I’ll be leaving Skye the next day—assuming the police will let me go. Ken’s paid me and cancelled the engagement. We couldn’t have gone on with it when Lavender was in this mood. I’ll fade out and go to the Lakes; my next engagement is in Langdale.’
‘Don’t you ever take a holiday?’
‘When the season’s over. Can’t afford it before; I’ve got a daughter, you see.’ Miss Pink’s face was alert with interest and Madge was forced to elaborate: ‘Her father was killed on Monte Rosa before she was born.’
‘That was tragic!’
Madge shrugged. ‘She might never have known him if he’d lived. He was married and I doubt if he’d have contributed towards her support. He wasn’t like that. In any case, I’m making enough to keep a family going. There’s my mother too; she’s got a widow’s pension. She looks after Barbara. We manage all right.’ She stood up briskly. ‘I’m going to put some grub on the ridge by that Stone Man, and then take the car to Sligachan and leave it to pick up tomorrow evening.’
‘How will you get back to Shira today?’
‘I’ll get a lift; there’ll be plenty of people on the road, what with the murder and everything.’
Miss Pink said wonderingly, ‘You don’t seem to have been affected by Terry’s death.’
Madge was surprised at the comment. ‘I’m not.’ She added earnestly, ‘It was bound to happen, you know.’
‘But when you said you’d visit her when she was on her own, I thought you liked her.’
‘Well, I thought she might be lonely with Colin away. I mean, she was only a few years older than my kid.’
‘But now she’s dead, you don’t think of her like your own daughter.’
‘That’s the point! I’ve got my own people to think about, haven’t I? She’s gone; what can I do about it?’ She was fitting the plastic water bottle into her pack. She glanced up at
the headwall of Coire na Banachdich and in an instant she was cool and professional again. ‘If the weather breaks, I can always come down the corrie.’
‘You think it might be going to break?’
‘I don’t like it. Something’s brewing. The air’s sticky. Feel it?’
Chapter Nine
‘Corroboration helps.’ Merrick indicated the pile of papers in front of him. ‘Madge Fraser was with Hamlyn and Maynard in the lounge from a quarter to eleven to ten past midnight because on that point the three of them agree. But there’s only her word for it that she turned back from Largo, although several people confirm that the light went out about ten-thirty. Who put it out?’
‘I’m beginning to think it was the murderer,’ Miss Pink said.
He was puzzled. ‘He puts the light out and then helps her wash the dishes? Why put it out when she’s still alive?’
‘Why does it have to be Terry in the burn?’
‘Because he said—wait a minute.’ Merrick sorted through the statements, picked one out and read it, his lips moving. He looked up. ‘He saw no faces, only torchlight on pans, and he heard only mumbling.’ He looked back at the statement. ‘“I heard her talking and then I heard a man. . . . I couldn’t hear what she said. . . .” So they were both mumbling. I see what you mean, ma’am; he heard a woman and assumed it was Terry, but you think it was another woman—and the killer?’
‘Terry was a town girl; would she put the lamp out, wait half an hour, then go outside to wash the pans, and come back to a dark house? I asked Euphemia if someone came out with a torch but she was definite that nothing happened after the lamp was put out. So is Madge Fraser.’
Merrick was dubious. ‘Could she have put the lamp out in order to watch aurora? She might not have seen the Northern Lights before.’
‘It’s the time lag,’ Miss Pink insisted. ‘The lamp went out at ten-thirty, the pans were being washed close to eleven. What was happening during that half hour? I can’t believe that Terry was standing outside Largo watching aurora.’
‘So what do you think was happening? All right, there was a couple washing the pans. Which couple is missing from the house—this house? Or anywhere else,’ he added thoughtfully.
‘The Lindsays are the only married couple who were both in their rooms at that time,’ Ivory said.
Merrick stared at his sergeant. ‘Why wash the dishes?’ His eyes came round to Miss Pink.
‘Billies,’ she corrected absently. ‘To confuse the issue—the time of death? Irwin wasn’t expected back until late the following night. If the murderer left the billies dirty, wouldn’t that imply that she died shortly after she’d eaten? But if they were washed, no one would know when she died.’
‘It could be more concrete than that,’ Merrick said. ‘Surely, with MacNeill tipping rubbish, there was a chance she wouldn’t be found at all and it would be assumed, since the killer had removed all her belongings—except for that marble chip you found, ma’am—that she’d left the glen? The billies could have been washed to give colour to that theory. If they’d been left dirty, the chances might be that Irwin would suspect foul play simply because, if she’d left him voluntarily, she’d have cleared up first.’
Miss Pink shook her head. ‘I doubt if he’d think twice about it. I reckon the killer didn’t mind the body being found; all he wanted was to spread the time of death over a few hours because he had no alibi for the actual time.’
There was a pause. ‘Read Lindsay’s statement,’ Merrick said, passing it across. ‘See if you can confirm it.’
It was short. ‘He doesn’t mention that they had a difference of opinion during dinner,’ she observed. ‘“We left the dining room about seven-thirty. . . .” In fact, he flung out during the pudding course and she hurried after him. I heard them go upstairs. I didn’t see them again but then I went up myself about eight-thirty. Does his wife corroborate his statement that they went straight to their room and stayed there until breakfast on Tuesday?’
‘I’m sure she will, ma’am.’
‘Yes.’ She was equally expressionless. ‘It will be interesting to learn why they argued so heatedly that evening. She’s a powerful woman.’
‘Could she carry a body on one of those pack frames?’
‘She’d have less difficulty with it than her husband would. I take it you found no unauthorised prints in the Rescue Post?’
He shook his head. Everyone had been fingerprinted for elimination, including herself. ‘There were Hamlyn’s and the two guides’ in the Rescue Post, and only Irwin’s and yours in Largo’s kitchen.’
She jerked to attention. ‘Where were Terry’s?’
‘Exactly. Largo was wiped after the murder, and there were glove smudges. Our chap knows what he’s doing. Or our woman. A woman would be more likely to think about washing pans to confuse the time of death. Why would Betty Lindsay want to kill the girl? Because of George Watkins?’
‘That’s most unlikely. By Monday evening everyone knew how he’d treated Terry; according to Betty, he maintained that the girl was pestering him. She had no reason for killing Terry.’
Merrick leaned back in his chair. ‘So if the Lindsays are out of it, who were that pair in the burn? Not the Hamlyns because he was in the bar when the dishes were being washed—the same with Ken Maynard. But the couple in the burn don’t have to be married. Madge Fraser admits to being over there, or near there at what we think is the relevant time—’
‘I didn’t tell you; a curious twist to her account of that incident is that, as I see it, she thought Maynard was the killer; she was hysterical with relief when she learned that the girl was alive at eleven—because she was drinking with Maynard from a quarter to eleven.’
Merrick looked for a statement and found it. ‘Maynard says he was with his wife in their room until some time after ten-thirty when he went down to the lounge, then outside . . . Why outside? Oh, there was no one behind the bar. “I went back to the cocktail lounge when I heard Hamlyn come downstairs and stayed there until after midnight. Miss Fraser came in at about a quarter to eleven.” If that’s corroborated by his wife—and we believe her—then he left the house for only a few minutes, and even then he was so close to the front door that he heard Hamlyn come down.’
‘What does Hamlyn say on that point?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Hamlyn.’ He paraphrased: ‘He was in the cocktail lounge till just before ten. He had no customers and he went up to his sitting room to listen to the news on the radio, then came down again about ten-thirty. He read his newspaper behind the bar until Maynard and Miss Fraser came in. He went to bed about twelve-fifteen.’ He looked up. ‘Mrs Hamlyn corroborates his times. She was in their sitting room after dinner. Madge Fraser was with her until about a quarter to ten when the girl went to her room to write a letter.’
‘I wonder what they talked about,’ Miss Pink mused. ‘She must have gone across to Largo about ten-twenty. And that seems to cover everyone in the house. What is Watkins’ alibi?’
‘I wondered when you were going to come to him. He was drinking at Sligachan. The barman says he was there shortly after seven and stayed until a quarter past ten. He wasn’t sober when he left but he appears to have got back to the glen in one piece—which is surprising, considering the shape his old van is in. He could have been in just the right mood to strangle the girl if he found her at his tent, but if he got back before eleven, as he must have done, would the other campers have heard nothing? They’ve been questioned and no one heard anything out of the way, although they did hear him come back. If he managed to strangle her silently on the camp site, he’s still got a hell of a job to get her body to the cliffs, and retrieve all her possessions from Largo. There are two things against it; one, he was too drunk not to leave some trace—and remember, the killer wiped his prints from Largo—and secondly: the times don’t fit. If he left Sligachan at ten-fifteen, who put the light out at Largo and who was the man in the burn?’
‘He could have bee
n the man in the burn,’ Miss Pink protested. ‘It takes only twenty minutes or so to drive from Sligachan to Glen Shira, but he wouldn’t mumble quietly when he was drunk—not George Watkins, and where and when did he have time to pick up the woman he was mumbling with? I agree, it wasn’t Watkins—unless something’s been missed out.’
‘Of course, it’s not watertight,’ Merrick admitted. ‘He didn’t have to be drunk. Drunkenness has been simulated before now. And then there’s Irwin, with no alibi at all.’
‘I didn’t think he would have,’ Miss Pink said. ‘He was in a tent at Sligachan.’ She paused. ‘I assume it was coincidence that those two were near each other.’
‘They didn’t meet. Irwin had dinner with his client in the hotel, Watkins was in the public bar. Irwin went to his tent at nine and stayed there until he got up at eight for breakfast. That’s his statement, but our local people tell me he had time to get from Sligachan to here and back, without transport, and to dump the body, all during the hours of darkness.’
She thought about that and agreed that it was possible, using the track across the moor, but, she pointed out, there was no shadow of a motive. Like Willie MacNeill, Irwin would never have needed to kill Terry.
Merrick said heavily: ‘If we always had to show motive, ma’am, there’d be far fewer convictions.’
‘Be that as it may, I like a good sound motive, and so far I don’t think you’ve discovered one. You’ve gone through the people at Glen Shira House and most of those outside. You’re left with the crofters: Captain Hunt and old MacNeill.’ Her voice was a little strained. ‘I really can’t see the Hebridean crofter feeling so passionately about a girl he’d strangle her. I know Hunt is a liar but he’s no Dominici.’
‘Dominici? Who—? Ah yes. Captain Hunt as a Peeping Tom.’ Merrick looked sideways at his sergeant. ‘Well, there’s a thought. Did that ever occur to you?’
Ivory absorbed it slowly, with a frown.
‘And Malcolm MacNeill?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘I’ve yet to meet him.’ To her astonishment they both looked serious. There was a hint of impatience in her voice: ‘Can you see the crofters wiping off prints, washing billies. . . . Who—’ she asked acidly, ‘was the woman in the burn? Euphemia?’