by Gwen Moffat
Miss Pink had stiffened at mention of someone watching the house, but all she said was, ‘Are his guns still here?’
‘Yes. Locked up of course. But a gun’s pointless unless you’re prepared to use it.’
‘It might be a good idea to put in some shooting practice. Do you have a firearms certificate?’
‘Yes. One has to keep down the rabbits and grey squirrels.’
A timer rang in the kitchen and brought an end to the conversation. Over dinner, Miss Pink gave an account of her meetings with the Campbells earlier that day. At the end she asked, ‘What do you feel about these stories of Campbell’s involvement with the Special Branch, and sinister people lurking in the wings?’
Beatrice shrugged. ‘I ignore it. To be frank, I find it annoying because I’m the one who is actually getting telephone calls, while with Campbell the persecution is all in his mind. Then I’ve caught myself wondering whether I could have dreamed those calls, whether I could be going senile. So I discourage Campbell’s fantasies; they come too close to home.’
After dinner they had the slide show. Polar wastes were not Miss Pink’s favourite kind of country but they were magnificent to look at, particularly from the comfort of an armchair, and Beatrice took obvious delight in the pictures.
‘When I see that glacier on the Greenland ice-cap, I hear his voice talking about “crevasses like green glass”. I repeat it deliberately; it brings him back, if he ever went away.’
As she was preparing to take her leave, Miss Pink considered whether this was the right moment to suggest that Beatrice should send for an expert to advise her on security. She caught the other woman’s eye.
‘Don’t worry,’ Beatrice said. ‘When you look at it sensibly I’ve nothing to lose. I don’t even have an animal as a hostage to fortune.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘And how is Alec?’
On the other side of the counter Rose Millar stiffened. ‘As well as can be expected. Nurse told us what you said happened. Are you certain it wasn’t done deliberate?’
‘There’s no question,’ Miss Pink assured her. ‘The pony was going full pelt; Hamish was lucky not to be seriously injured.’
‘He should have controlled the beast.’
Rose was a small round woman and when she was angry she looked like a fiery robin. Suddenly the fire left her. ‘It’s their land,’ she said miserably. ‘I s’pose the lad can do what he likes when he’s exercising their horses. Alec was in the wrong being there, but Lady Coline never minded no one walking through the park.’
‘No one’s to blame,’ Miss Pink said. ‘It was an accident.’
‘He’s not going to believe that.’ Rose jerked her head at the ceiling. ‘He’s lying there, in bed. He won’t eat, he won’t talk. He don’t cry any more though.’
Duncan Millar appeared in the doorway that led to the living quarters: a thickset man in his sixties with a beard, wisps of grey hair showing below his old deerstalker. Like most local men he was a jack of all trades—ghillie, fisherman, estate worker. Now he was out of his depth. ‘He says he’ll kill him,’ he told his wife.
‘He’s talking then?’ Rose was relieved. ‘You mind the shop, and I’ll take him his breakfast. I knew he’d come round; it was the shock.’
‘We can’t let him out.’ Duncan was morose.
Rose’s eyes went from him to Miss Pink as the meaning penetrated. ‘One of us will have to go with him. But he’ll be wanting to stay in for a time, get his strength back. His turns take a lot out of him.’
The post van drew up outside and the driver entered with the mail. In the ensuing bustle Miss Pink stepped back and collided with Esme Dunlop, who had come in from the street. They apologised to each other, Esme continuing with voluble explanations of her presence involving a parcel of bulbs and then—‘How is Alec?’ she asked abruptly.
Miss Pink told her what she knew—leaving out the part about Alec’s brandishing the tree branch—while Rose busied herself with the mail. Duncan had retreated to the back premises.
‘You saw it all,’ Esme said, her eyes gleaming.
‘From the top of the cliff. How did you know that?’
‘I was visiting Anne Wallace last evening.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘Quite simple, you see. No spying involved. Is that parcel for me, Rose?’
‘No, Miss Dunlop, but I did see a letter here somewhere.’
‘I’ll hang on; I need some bicarb. I eat too fast, that’s my problem—’
‘Here you are, Miss Dunlop.’
‘I don’t know this writing,’ Esme said, taking a small white envelope from her. ‘It’s probably some poor old soul who wants me to sort out her electricity bill or something.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘What it is to be a secretary!’ She unfolded a sheet of paper absently, but as she read her lips parted and she lost colour. Miss Pink could see that the paper bore a short message in letters of differing size and type. Her eyes met Esme’s appalled stare and then the woman turned and blundered out of the shop.
Rose was occupied with the postman and showed no interest in the scene. Miss Pink stepped outside and saw Esme running towards the cottages on the bend of the Lamentation Road. She reached her front door, pushed it open and stumbled over the sill. The door slammed.
***
Miss Pink telephoned Beatrice Swan, thanked her for her hospitality of last evening and returned the invitation. She conveyed the latest news of Alec and said that she had to go to Inverness: ‘My typewriter’s jammed. Can I bring you anything?’
‘Please. I need vanilla pods, plain chocolate, leaf gelatine. I’ll tell you where to go …’
By ten o’clock she was on the Lamentation Road, coming over the moors on yet another glorious morning. She found herself wondering what she might do when the weather broke. Was it to be the Mediterranean or back to Arizona? She couldn’t return to her house in Cornwall because that was let—much to the chagrin of her housekeeper, who was looking after the tenants as well as the property.
She realised with astonishment that she had given no thought to the outside world for days on end. She had been absorbed by Sgoradale and its inhabitants. Now the outer world impinged and she felt as if she’d been away for months, not days.
The road dipped and sank over the long brown swells. A mile or so ahead there was something on the tarmac, and as the gap closed it was revealed as a hitch-hiker. At first she thought she was overtaking a tramp, his belongings in a bedding roll on a string, then she saw that he was carrying one of the large strap bags now favoured by trendy travellers. He turned and thumbed the car; it was no man, but Flora MacKenzie.
She was wearing the baggy pants, the chic sweater that she had worn at the dinner party, but a navy watch cap was pulled low on her forehead. Miss Pink stopped and the girl opened the passenger door.
‘Good morning! Lovely to see you. Can you give me a lift?’
‘How far are you going?’
‘Edinburgh?’
‘I can take you to Inverness.’
‘Right. I can catch a train from there.’
‘You don’t drive?’ Miss Pink said as they started off again.
Flora stared at her. ‘I’m only sixteen.’
‘Of course. Why didn’t someone run you to Inverness?’
‘My mother, you mean? Why should she? I wouldn’t expect it.’
‘She does know you’re going to Edinburgh?’
Flora giggled. ‘Do I look like a runaway? Mum knows. I’m staying with a friend—very respectable people; her father’s a barrister.’
‘But hitching! Don’t you have the bus fare?’
‘Hitching’s more fun; you never know who you’re going to meet.’
‘That’s the point.’
‘You mean rape. Miss Pink, you’ve seen Sgoradale. D’you really think it’s swarming with rapists?’
‘You only need one, and everyone has to start somewhere, even rapists. And rape can lead to murder.’ Flora looked bored. Miss Pink changed the subje
ct. ‘So what’s the next step? University?’
‘You need A-levels for that. In any case, I see no point in my going up to university. What’s it for?’
‘Further education, perhaps. What’s your interest?’
‘If there’s nothing else to do, you write, don’t you?’
‘Is that a deliberate insult, or thoughtlessness?’
‘I’m so sorry!’ She did look devastated. ‘I meant the trash Mum churns out. You’re a professional.’ She stared anxiously at Miss Pink’s profile.
‘Forget about creative writing. Journalism might be the answer if you’re interested in people—’
‘Oh, I am!’
‘So is there a plan in the short term, or am I probing?’
‘I suppose I am one of the beautiful people—isn’t that what you used to call us?’ Flora smiled engagingly. ‘I’m teasing you, but I’m used to being slapped down at home so I’m taking advantage. The fact is, I shan’t be independent until I’m eighteen. Then I come into Grandmama MacKenzie’s money—along with a castle in Angus. I’m an heiress.’ Her lips twitched. ‘So I’m hanging around, waiting. But I am considering training for something. It’s just … there was no one to ask.’
‘Training?’
Flora shot her a glance. ‘How’s this for a scenario? I train as a journalist, and when I’m eighteen I buy a newspaper?’
‘What do your parents say?’
‘My mother, you mean. She expects me to marry. The MacKenzies are old-fashioned and won’t hear of me going into television or advertising, or catering for an up-market takeaway. That would mean living away from home, and there are all kinds of evils lurking out there.’
‘You’d have to leave home to study journalism.’
‘It would have to be a residential college, or lodging with friends of Mum’s. I’m a marketable property, a dynastic pawn. There, have I a way with words?’
‘You have indeed.’
‘So perhaps you would speak to my mother about a college?’
‘And you do some homework in Edinburgh: go to libraries, read some careers books.’
‘I could do that.’
Flora’s interest was spiked with boredom. When animated it was as if she never talked to other adults. As they were crossing the bridge over the Beauly Firth, Miss Pink said, ‘You’re friendly with Hamish Knox.’ Flora’s face became set. ‘I saw you riding with him yesterday,’ she went on. ‘Did he hurt himself when he came off?’
‘He was shaken up a bit. Where were you?’
‘I was on the cliff above your house. I had a bad moment; I anticipated the worst—that it would be Alec who was run down.’
Flora said nothing.
‘Unfortunate about the dog,’ Miss Pink added.
‘Did it get kicked?’
‘I suppose so. Or the pony fell on it.’
Flora was looking hard at her. ‘Did it have to be put down?’
‘No, it was killed instantly, or so I understand. Didn’t you know?’
The girl stared through the windscreen. She sighed. ‘I’m sorry. How would I know? Hamish came back to the yard, but he didn’t know either. Alec attacked him and he ran away as fast as he could. And I’ve not spoken to Hamish since, so I didn’t know about the dog. I’ll bring a puppy back from Edinburgh and give it to Alec.’
‘I shouldn’t do that. Wait until he gets over his loss. And Hamish should be the one to make amends; he was whipping that pony like a madman.’
‘He was? I didn’t look back—we’d had words about the jumps. He wanted to raise them for the gelding—but you’re not interested in shop talk. The point is, they’re my ponies and I won’t be dictated to, not by him anyway. I taught him to ride; no way is he going to tell me how to train my animals. He got mad.’ Flora grinned. ‘I guess I let the relationship get out of hand. He got pushy yesterday and I had to come the grande dame.’
‘And what does he plan to do with himself?’ They were on the outskirts of Inverness and Miss Pink’s attention was on the traffic.
‘I’ve no idea. He’s a drifter. No doubt he’ll end up as an estate worker once he’s learned to control his temper. Most of them do. End up working for us, I mean.’
Miss Pink dropped her passenger at the railway station and, Flora having declined an invitation to luncheon, lunched herself at the Station Hotel before setting out to find a man to mend her typewriter and to buy delicacies unobtainable on the West Coast. But the afternoon was warm and the city streets stank of exhaust fumes, so it was with relief that she crossed the last item from her list and, the boot stacked with boxes of food and drink, started back to Sgoradale.
She returned by a more westerly route than the central moors. The sun had set by the time she reached the coast and the tide was high. Water lay like pools of opal silk in coves where ragged stacks were silhouetted against the afterglow. As she came round the bend of the Lamentation Road, the lights of crofts were twinkling on the far side of the loch. When she pulled up on the turf and cut her engine, she could hear the water lapping a few yards away, and the air smelled of seaweed and salt.
After supper she relaxed in an armchair, a brandy at her elbow, The Times within reach. As she went to pick it up, she became aware of a sound in the kitchen, like someone knocking on the window pane.
Her thoughts flew to Esme Dunlop. There was no escape; her car was outside, her light was burning. She rose heavily and went to the kitchen. She was prepared for a face at the window pane so was not alarmed to see one, but there was no Cheshire cat grin and when she switched on the outer light and opened the back door, it was not Esme blinking in the glare but Ivar Campbell, and he looked terrified.
‘The light,’ he gasped. ‘Put the light out.’
‘Damn it,’ protested Miss Pink. ‘Pull yourself together. And don’t give me orders.’
‘Please! Let me in. Have you got a drink?’
‘I’m on my way to bed.’
‘I must have a drink.’
‘The bar’s open.’
He shook his head helplessly. Aware that she could be asking for trouble but too tired to argue, she retreated. ‘Close the door,’ she told him curtly. He did so, and bolted it.
She seated him beside the fire and gave him a tot of brandy. He was haggard: unshaven, dirty—black dirty. There were smears of soot on his face and hands. He didn’t remove his cap. She waited but so did he, and the silence gave her time to select her course of action.
‘Were you followed here?’ she asked.
‘There’s no doubt of it.’ The response was apathetic. She’d chosen correctly, not exciting him.
‘And Debbie and the children? They’re on their own?’
His eyes were desperate. ‘You don’t have to worry about them any more.’
A cold hand twisted her gut. She started to speak, but he was muttering about a fire. ‘Fire?’ She heaved herself to her feet. ‘Your house is on fire?’
‘No!’
She checked and started to breathe deeply; she must not let him rile her. She sat down carefully.
‘Are Debbie and the children safe?’
He wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘I guess so.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I don’t know! How would I know?’ Now he did look at her: angry, bewildered, lost. ‘She left me.’
‘When?’
‘Probably in the forenoon some time. I came home this afternoon and she was gone.’
‘She’ll come back.’
‘She’s taken all her clothes, and the kids’ things. Someone took her away; she couldn’t have carried all that stuff on her own.’
‘You’re not suggesting she’s been abducted?’
He looked startled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. You mean held to ransom?’
Miss Pink considered this reaction, then asked, ‘What did you say about a fire?’
‘The place was set fire to. It was in flames when I got home. I been fighting it, that’s why I’m … like th
is.’ He spread his filthy hands.
‘It’s still burning?’
‘No, I managed to put it out.’
‘Mr Campbell—Ivar—are you sure your wife and children are safe?’ Someone should check which parts of this story were fact and which fantasy, she thought, although the soot on his face pointed to at least part of its being true. Nevertheless, soot can be transferred from a fire-back to the face.
‘I didn’t hear the fire brigade,’ she said.
‘By the time I could have got to a phone, the fire was out. I don’t have a telephone.’
‘No one helped you fight the fire?’
He was surprised. ‘Don’t you know where I live? In the woods beyond the car park. The place could have burned to the ground and no one the wiser except them that set the fire.’
‘Why did they want to burn it?’
‘Ah!’ The exclamation conveyed deep satisfaction. ‘They’d have hoped I was inside, but that wouldn’t be all of it. They were after my records.’
‘Records?’
‘That’s confidential.’ He looked sly.
‘Of course. So you haven’t informed the police?’
‘No way.’
‘You’ve left the records unguarded at this moment?’
‘The place is secure, and they won’t try again tonight. They know I’ll be waiting, and they’ll be pretty sure I’m armed. Did you see any strange cars about today?’
‘No. Wouldn’t they want to read the records before they destroyed them?’
‘That’s a good point. Maybe they selected some, burned the others. The fire was started with paper; I was trained in forensics, so I could see how it started. They’d turned over the armchairs and put papers underneath and doused the lot with petrol. The house stinks of it. I’ll be printing the place, but I doubt they wore gloves.’
‘You’re taught to lift fingerprints too? But what use are they without comparison? Aren’t these people strangers to you?’