Miss Pink Investigates 3

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘You’re thinking of the police car in Anne’s drive,’ Beatrice said.

  ‘Well, that, and worse.’ Seeing Miss Pink’s raised eyebrows, Coline added, ‘One always wondered about the car thefts, you know.’

  ‘That was Hell’s Angels,’ Ranald spluttered. ‘I’d never have employed Hamish if I’d thought he was a thief.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Coline said. ‘I did. Why am I talking in the past tense? Hamish is employed by us, when he’s here. That reminds me: Flora will have to come home and look after those ponies. I haven’t the time or the inclination to exercise them, and we’ll have to start feeding soon. You shouldn’t have given them hay today, sweetie; there’s enough grass.’ She clutched her temples. ‘I’m getting distracted—and I should be working on a book! I’m going to call Flora; she won’t like it, but she’s got to think of her responsibilities. I don’t hold with children persuading their parents to buy animals and then leaving Mum to do the chores when it suits—particularly when Mum is by way of being the breadwinner.’ Venom had crept into her voice and Ranald shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘What’s the next step, once the authorities at Morvern have been informed?’ Beatrice asked.

  ‘If they think he’s in this locality, they’ll bring in a search party,’ Miss Pink said, picking up her cue. ‘But it’s more likely that they’ll look in amusement arcades and cafés—anywhere that youngsters hang out in Morvern and Inverness. You can’t search meticulously unless there’s some indication that the missing person is in that area, as we thought Campbell was.’

  ‘I still think he’s here,’ Ranald said. ‘Campbell, I mean. They’ll find his boat or his body in the sea. It’s obvious; he went mad and drowned himself.’

  ***

  They stayed to lunch at the lodge and afterwards Beatrice walked home across the park while Miss Pink, pleading the need for exercise, strolled along the drive to the highway. A few yards down the Lamentation Road she came to a gate at the back of the terrace where Esme lived. Only the upper windows of the houses were visible, the lower ones hidden by walled yards. Along the field side of the wall a path, muddied by small hooves, looked as if it would run past the back of the hotel towards the shore of the loch.

  It was a nasty slimy little path on a slope, but Miss Pink was in boots and she took her time. The slope was wooded and there were still enough leaves on the trees to obscure all but a grey glimmer of the hotel and its outbuildings as she traversed behind them. Her boots left clear prints in the mud, superimposed on sheep tracks. There were no other human prints, but before the rain came yesterday no one could have left prints except where the burn crossed the path.

  She reached that place and found an appreciable increase in the volume of water coming down. Another heavy shower was approaching, heralded by a gusty wind that sent white horses running over the surface of the loch. Spray burst on the rocks and she wondered if Campbell’s tent was still standing. Looking towards the islands, the furthest of which was now obscured, something caught her eye—something close to the mainland shore—but when she studied the heaving water the object had disappeared.

  She scrambled down to the beach and found an overhanging corner where she could shelter from the shower. From here the point on the far side of the cove was in full view. Two oystercatchers were standing on the weed, facing into the wind, their shoulders hunched. There wasn’t much wrong with her eyes; she could distinguish their scarlet bills and legs.

  The tide was lower than she’d thought. Kelp bobbed up, branched at the top, and vanished below the next wave. She hadn’t seen kelp since California, and then there’d been sea otters diving through it. She’d thought that this kind of weed was a Pacific species; surely Atlantic kelp was only exposed at the lowest tides, and this tide had two hours to go before the turn. Dry and sheltered in her rock corner, she stared out at the water and pondered her ignorance. After a while her gaze became fixed and she emerged to move along the beach. The oystercatchers took off with wild calls. She ignored them.

  She walked into the water until she was wading. When the waves were slapping her thighs she climbed on to the rocks and, stumbling across the bladderweed, reached the point she had been aiming for: within twenty feet of the kelp that now, with the falling tide, was regularly revealed in each trough of the waves.

  It was no kelp but a human arm.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sgoradale was suddenly a centre of activity, intensifying from the moment when Knox saw the thing in the water. Miss Pink had stressed that it had been immersed for a while and, when they drew near, coming in by sea, she was glad that she’d taken that precaution. The water was lower now and, in the heaving sea, a more or less globular object appeared at the end of the arm, all colour washed out: dark hair plastered to a splintered skull. The arm was no longer projecting but floating limply on the surface.

  They went back to the village, Knox informed his superiors at Morvern and was told to guard the cove. Miss Pink told him to take a gun. ‘For the birds,’ she said, when he looked puzzled. He raised no objection when she accompanied him to the boat.

  The weather was worsening and the sea rising but, once in the lee of the islands, they were sheltered from the wind. They landed in the cove. Gulls were swooping at the head and he fired at them wildly—a useless gesture. From cracked white bone, empty sockets regarded the shore, the head swaying on the stalk of a neck. The damage had been done already by crabs; gulls could do little more.

  ‘It’s been there days,’ he said.

  She calculated. ‘A day and a half. Miss Swan saw him on Saturday night.’

  ‘He must have tied something round himself and jumped in.’

  Questions crowded her mind but they were technical; she was appalled at the questions that he must be asking himself, had been ever since she told him of her grisly discovery. For him the body itself could have little importance compared with Hamish’s present whereabouts.

  Their enforced intimacy did not last long. The shoulders of that dreadful form had just appeared when a boat emerged from the islands with four people aboard. ‘It’s the Chief Inspector,’ Knox said, and walked down to the water.

  The men came ashore and pulled the boat up. The boatman was old Sinclair. He studied the partially exposed body without surprise; he wouldn’t be unfamiliar with the appearance of a body recovered from the sea. Knox introduced Miss Pink and she found herself scrutinised by pale blue eyes in a pale face. Detective Chief Inspector Pagan belied his name: short ginger hair under a flat cap, a smart trench-coat and dark tie implied conformity. His sergeant had the blunt features, the alert bearing of a bright Gorbals youth, but he wasn’t a youth, and the creases in his tanned cheeks spoke of the kind of wasting that goes with hard training. His name was Steer and he moved like a boxer. Pagan regarded the body without expression, but Steer had the look of a boy presented with his first bicycle. The fourth man was the diver.

  There was no need to use a boat. The diver approached the body from the rocks and seemed scarcely out of his depth when his head submerged, giving the impression of a monster nosing its prey. He was gone only a short time before returning to the rocks and the other officers. From the beach Miss Pink and Sinclair watched in silence.

  After a short exchange the diver went back to the body, submerged a second time and suddenly the torso gave a little jump before keeling over on the surface. The diver’s head appeared, then the rest of him as he waded shoreward dragging the corpse. He pulled it from the water and it lay on the wet sand, rope trailing behind it. The rope was tied round the ankles.

  The body lay on its face. Steer turned it over. Pagan looked towards Miss Pink, who approached. Sinclair followed her. ‘Does anyone recognise the clothes?’ Pagan asked.

  ‘Campbell was wearing a tartan shirt the last time that I saw him,’ she said. ‘That shirt is a check material. Apart from that I couldn’t say who this is—no one could except his dentist.’

  Pagan nodded. ‘Someone hated this man b
adly. It wasn’t enough to batter his skull in, they had to tie him to the boat’s painter and sink the boat—although he’d have been dead by then, of course.’

  ‘How was the boat sunk?’ Miss Pink asked.

  Pagan’s eyes were bright as a stalking cat’s; he only looked like a bureaucrat. ‘How?’ he repeated. ‘The diver reckons the plug isn’t in the boat, but what is in it, is some big rocks. This chap’—he motioned to the body—‘was tied to a rock as well as being fastened to the boat.’

  The diver had returned to the water and must have cleared the rocks because suddenly the boat surfaced, upside down. He pulled it to the shore with some difficulty. The name Blue Zulu was on the prow, and the plug was missing.

  ‘Like I said,’ Pagan observed, ‘he meant business. Didn’t study his tides though; didn’t realise this gentleman was going to expose himself at low water, did he?’

  ‘This was a man two days ago,’ old Sinclair said. ‘The corp is still entitled to respect.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Pagan seemed to glow. ‘You liked the man, did you?’

  Miss Pink looked at Sinclair and saw an old man demonstrating disapproval. She looked at Knox and saw, behind the cold policeman’s eyes … terror.

  While Steer produced a camera and started taking pictures, Pagan drew Miss Pink aside. ‘I understand you also discovered Campbell’s tent,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to show it to me.’

  ‘Certainly. And you ought to know that yesterday, before the rain, there was at least one boot mark by the burn here.’

  ‘Show me.’

  They scrambled to the path and he stared at cleated prints in the mud. ‘Those are mine,’ she said. ‘No one else had made any tracks since the rain. The track I saw yesterday could have been Campbell’s; he’s wearing boots.’

  ‘When was he seen last?’

  ‘To my knowledge, on Saturday evening.’

  ‘Yes, the boatman said he visited Miss Swan. Do you know why?’

  She told him about the message Beatrice had left in the tent. ‘He came at her instigation. Miss Swan thought he should have professional help. We were all afraid of what he might do to himself; we thought him paranoid. He said he would come ashore, take his van and drive somewhere safe.’

  ‘And his van is still in the village.’ He held her eye. ‘I’ve heard about you, ma’am; you’re friendly with Professor Brodie. You remember—the pathologist? He did the autopsies when the girls were killed on the Isle of Skye.’ [Over the Sea to Death.]

  ‘That was ten years ago. Is he still going strong?’

  ‘Like a spring chicken. So I know of you and I’d welcome your help. These remote communities close up when the CID arrives.’

  Their eyes locked. ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a curious thing. Less than two hours after a lad’s reported missing from this village, a man is found murdered.’

  ‘It sounds odd, but while the body was in the sea—assuming it’s Campbell’s—young Hamish was helping to search for him. And my finding the body was accidental; no one else has cause to visit the cove.’

  ‘Except people coming to take another look at the man’s camp-site. Show me that tent. One thing,’ he added archly as they walked to the boat, ‘a whole village may be under suspicion, but I do have one objective witness.’

  She returned his smile, wondering how much faith he put in her cooperation.

  The body was placed in Sinclair’s boat and, accompanied by Steer and the diver, conveyed to the village. Pagan had relieved Steer of the camera and Knox ferried his superior and Miss Pink to the island where Campbell had pitched his tent. The geese had disappeared from the bay, which was now an inhospitable place: colourless and swept by rain.

  Sheltered by the scrub birch the tent was still standing, apparently untouched since she had closed it yesterday on leaving. Knox was told to stand beside it to show the scale while Pagan took photographs. The constable’s face was wooden. The flysheet was unzipped to reveal the spoon in the pan of beans, then Pagan opened the inner tent. The interior looked undisturbed: the stove, the sleeping bag, the remaining dixies, cup and cutlery, the empty can and the full ones. Knox and Miss Pink held the flaps aside so that there should be enough light for photographs. Pagan put everything in plastic bags, then they struck the tent and carried the loads down to the boat.

  On their return to the village Pagan had them identify the different houses—what could be seen of them through the rain—eliciting everything they could tell him about the inhabitants. He was double-checking. As Knox responded to the seemingly casual questions the Inspector’s pale eyes noted Miss Pink’s reactions. They were halfway home when Knox eased up on the throttle and asked, ‘Is anything being done about my boy?’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ Pagan said. ‘They’re looking in all the likely places. That’s not a CID matter, of course. Maybe there’ll be some news when we get back.’

  ‘Is there a connection?’ It burst out of him as if he couldn’t arrest it.

  ‘You know better than to ask me a question like that.’ Pagan was almost avuncular. ‘I expect your lad’s in the big city spending his money on fruit machines and fags. He’ll be back when he gets cold and hungry and he’s got nowhere to sleep, mark my words.’

  No one answered him. They looked at the approaching shore and a further question hung in the air: if not in the big city, where?

  ***

  Miss Pink changed into dry clothes and walked to Feartag. Getting no response to her knock, she went round the house and came on Beatrice filling a basket with peats from the stack under the gable end. ‘You must have had a wet walk,’ the old lady said pleasantly, picking up the basket.

  Miss Pink was dumbfounded for a moment before lurching forward. ‘Here, let me give you a hand.’

  ‘No, it’s light. You shut the gate. You can bring the logs in and close the cellar door, if you don’t mind. The wind’s getting up; we’re in for a wet night.’

  Miss Pink obeyed in a kind of stupor, unable to credit that the grapevine had broken down. She closed the gate, mounted a couple of steps to the terrace, closed the cellar door, picked up a basket of logs and followed her hostess into the sitting room. She said firmly, ‘I would suggest a good stiff drink.’

  Beatrice stared at her. ‘Something’s happened.’ She moved to the sideboard, then stopped. ‘You may as well tell me. I’m prepared now.’

  ‘I doubt that. Campbell met with an accident.’

  ‘Dear God! I can guess what you mean. So he did commit suicide?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Poor fellow. And yet he gave me no indication at all. You amaze me. Could I have stopped it? I could have influenced him, I’m sure, if I’d known how his mind was working. I was very obtuse. Could—’

  ‘He didn’t commit suicide. He—’

  ‘You mean he really did have an accident. His boat capsized? Or did—’

  ‘Beatrice, let me tell you. He was murdered.’

  ‘No.’ It was quiet, little more than an exhalation. Miss Pink outlined the salient points: the fractured skull, the weights, the plug removed from Blue Zulu.

  ‘I always loved that name,’ Beatrice said. ‘But the name can be used again, can’t it, even though the boat’s gone?’

  Miss Pink stood up and went to the sideboard. Beatrice sat down and allowed herself to be waited on. She drank a glass of brandy as if it were milk while Miss Pink gave the less horrible details of her visits to the cove with Pagan, Steer and Knox, ‘who sound like a music hall turn,’ she concluded.

  ‘How can you talk like that?’

  ‘Defence mechanism. I don’t find Pagan amusing—and he’s definitely bad news for the murderer.’

  ‘He’s intelligent?’

  ‘He and his sergeant. They’re a good team. Most investigative teams are; the best men gravitate to each other. I daresay he’ll be here as soon as he’s finished at Campbell’s old cottage. He’s gone up there with the others. He’
ll need to talk to you because you were the last innocent person to see Campbell.’

  ‘The last innocent …? Of course, someone else had to see him. There’s nothing I can tell the police other than what I’ve told you.’ She sat up suddenly, spilling her drink. ‘But this is appalling! Is it—can it be someone in the village? No, that’s ridiculous. But then—was Campbell right all the time? It was some form of secret service activity?’

  Miss Pink sipped her sherry thoughtfully. ‘I hadn’t even considered it,’ she confessed. ‘What I’ve been occupied with ever since I found the body, and what concerns Knox to the exclusion of anything else, is the disappearance of Hamish.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Campbell?’

  ‘No one knows, although several people may be speculating. Knox looks as if he dreads the worst. Joan will maintain that there’s no connection at all.’

  ‘And she’d be right. If Hamish had anything to do with Campbell’s death, he wouldn’t have waited a whole day before running away. And he has no reason to … oh, this is stupid; no one had a reason for killing Campbell, no one in the village anyway.’

  Miss Pink was staring at a water-colour of an iceberg. ‘Someone had a reason,’ she murmured, ‘and if you do exclude espionage, only local people are left. The motive isn’t all that elusive either. Greed and sex are out: Campbell seems to have had nothing valuable and he surely wasn’t a philanderer. But he was a snooper. The motive was probably elimination; he got in someone’s way, or he learned something—something connected with crime?’

  ‘Not in Sgoradale. We don’t have crime.’

  ‘Hamish’s disappearance?’