Miss Pink Investigates 3

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘I doubt it.’ Miss Pink braked for a strolling cat. ‘She’ll be with the Millars or old Sinclair. But she’s not in danger.’

  ‘What makes you so sure of that?’

  ‘The murders were connected with the practical jokes. Mary had none played on her.’

  ‘So far as you know. And I thought we were agreed that knowledge of the car thefts—which weren’t jokes—was insufficient motive for murder.’

  ‘There was a connection.’

  As they came up the drive the tower showed in the headlights; the forecourt was empty of cars. The family was gathered in the drawing room; everyone had dressed for dinner but no one looked dressy and the group had an air of sombre respectability.

  ‘How are the Knoxes bearing up?’ Ranald asked, bringing sherry to the guests.

  ‘There’s no way of knowing,’ Beatrice said. ‘All our information comes by way of the police, and Flora will have more from that source.’

  ‘They’re coming up for drinks,’ Flora said.

  ‘Pagan and Steer?’ Miss Pink couldn’t hide her surprise.

  ‘I invited Steer,’ Flora explained, ‘and he was uneasy about accepting, so I said to bring his boss as well.’

  ‘Common courtesy,’ Coline said. ‘We should set an example. Haven’t you had them along for drinks?’

  ‘One asks them to have a drink if they’re there,’ Beatrice said, ‘but is it etiquette to issue a formal invitation to men investigating a murder? It could be thought that you wanted something from them.’

  ‘I do,’ Flora said. ‘Steer’s going to be useful with the ponies.’ Seeing their expressions, she shifted ground. ‘OK, he told me what’s happening. It’s wild! Not just this case, but all the cases he’s worked on. My mind’s made up, Melinda; I’m definitely going to be a crime reporter.’

  ‘It’s rewarding to find someone who knows what she wants,’ Miss Pink said. ‘And what conclusions have you—and they—come to about this crime?’

  She looked solemn. ‘There’s evidence to suggest a connection between the deaths—’

  ‘That’s more than obvious,’ Ranald barked. ‘We’ve got a multiple murderer! I keep telling you—’

  ‘Obviously Hamish murdered Campbell,’ Flora said loudly, overriding him. ‘It had to be him because he didn’t know enough about the tides to sink the body where it would still be submerged at low water. A local, born and bred, would have known.’

  ‘That’s a point,’ Miss Pink conceded. ‘And how did he lure Campbell back from the island?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not with you.’

  ‘Campbell was about to eat his supper. The body and the boat were sunk just off the mainland shore. What was so urgent that he went ashore leaving his spoon in the beans?’

  ‘And why weren’t his fingerprints on the dixies?’ Beatrice asked.

  ‘Well, let’s say that Campbell never went to the island, that Hamish was stalking him as he walked to the cove—we know someone did follow him—and Campbell was killed before he reached his boat. Then Hamish rowed to the island and set up the interrupted supper scenario, came back and scuttled the boat with the body attached.’

  ‘What would be the purpose of the Marie Celeste bit?’ Coline asked.

  ‘Hamish wanted people to think that Campbell did go back to the island.’

  ‘Why?’ Ranald asked.

  No one answered him. He got out of his chair and went round the circle, filling their glasses.

  ‘Something to do with an alibi?’ Coline ventured. ‘To do with times?’

  ‘He hadn’t intended Campbell’s body to be found?’ Miss Pink wondered.

  ‘If we’d only discovered the tent,’ Beatrice said slowly, ‘and the abandoned supper, and Campbell’s body had remained submerged, had never been found, wouldn’t we have assumed that he’d capsized during the storm and been drowned by accident?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Miss Pink countered, ‘because the tent was found before the storm.’

  ‘But the body needn’t have been! If you hadn’t taken it into your head to stroll along the southern shore at low water and then hung around sheltering from a shower, you’d never have seen it. Even then at first you thought the hand was weed.’

  ‘But we’d have gone back to the island to find out if he’d revisited the tent.’

  ‘Not necessarily before the storm. We were intended to think that Campbell drowned by accident. Or suicide: we thought that at first.’

  Miss Pink regarded her friend thoughtfully. Coline said, ‘This means we haven’t got a double killer, but two killers. That’s worse.’

  ‘One of them’s dead,’ Flora said.

  ‘But who killed Hamish?’ Ranald asked.

  ‘The investigation bifurcates at this point.’ Flora grinned, enjoying her own pomposity. ‘Either you say that Hamish was running a scam with someone else and that person killed Hamish because the boy was a threat in some way; or Campbell was killed by this other guy after all, and again Hamish had to be killed because he could expose the killer. That way you come back to the theory of the double murderer.’

  ‘Which do the police favour?’ Miss Pink asked.

  Beatrice said quietly, ‘If Hamish was killed because he could expose his partner, why did the partner allow a whole day to elapse before silencing him? Hamish could have talked to anyone during that time; he was free to come and go as he pleased. Why wasn’t he killed at the same time as Campbell?’

  ‘I can answer that one,’ Ranald put in. ‘When he saw this fellow—X, he’s called usually—saw him take a swing at Campbell, he got the wind up and took to his heels. Murderer couldn’t catch him, see?’

  ‘He had all night and the next day in which to find Hamish,’ Beatrice persisted.

  ‘Found him, didn’t he?’ Ranald blared in triumph. ‘Found him the next night and silenced him for good.’

  ‘And kept him—where?’ Flora asked. ‘The body was kept under cover for two days.’

  ‘Under cover?’ Beatrice repeated.

  ‘And carefully concealed. You were searching for it, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘We weren’t,’ Miss Pink said. ‘It was thought he’d run away.’ She turned to Ranald. ‘And if you’re right in thinking the murderer found Hamish the following night, what made Hamish leave his bed? There was no sign of anything other than a voluntary exit, you know: the dummy in the bed, the absence of noise—’

  There was a knock at the front door. ‘That will be the police,’ Coline said, and laughed at her own words. ‘How ominous that sounds!’

  Pagan and Steer had brought good suits to Sgoradale. Changed, bathed and smelling of after-shave, they made an exotic addition to the party. Far from merging with their environment, they stood out against it: stiff, smart, even handsome. Given that Steer found it difficult to keep his eyes off Flora, these two men were still the experts; side by side on a sofa, Miss Pink and Beatrice sat like embattled Buddhas—observing, listening, correlating and at first saying nothing.

  ‘We were trying to solve the case for you,’ Coline said brightly as the new arrivals accepted whisky.

  ‘Oh, come,’ Ranald protested. ‘It was all hypothesis.’

  ‘Well, not quite,’ Flora murmured, and Steer’s eyes came round to her as if drawn by a magnet.

  ‘And you have no forensic evidence, sir,’ came Pagan’s response. ‘Let alone the autopsy reports.’

  Miss Pink and Beatrice sat up, Ranald gaped, Coline frowned. Flora’s eyes sparkled until she remembered that Hamish was a kind of employee and carefully smoothed out her expression.

  Pagan glanced at Miss Pink. ‘Not much in the way of surprises externally,’ he said. ‘We knew about the post mortem staining, of course, and the depressed fracture of the skull; not enough to cause death incidentally, and delivered with a piece of wood. Not a cudgel or a club, more like the branch of a tree; there was a splinter caught in a crack of the bone—the only thing the sea left for us. Externally, that is.’ He stopped talking and w
as met by silence. A log shifted in the fire and a few sparks flew up the chimney. ‘Internally,’ he went on, ‘was another matter. He was full of alcohol.’

  After some moments Flora said, ‘He didn’t drink.’

  Pagan ignored her. ‘He was given a lot to drink, hit on the side of the head and suffocated.’

  Ranald spoke first. ‘He couldn’t have been in the bar, or Butchart would have talked. He must have been in someone’s house.’

  ‘Where would he go?’ Pagan asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ranald was blustering,

  ‘It doesn’t have to be someone’s house,’ Coline said. ‘He could have broken into a holiday cottage, taking a bottle with him. That could be why he went to Camas Beag originally; we never thought of that.’

  ‘Wrong night,’ Flora said. ‘I told you, he called me from Camas Beag and that was two nights before he was killed.’

  ‘He didn’t have to be in a house,’ Steer said. ‘He could have been sat in a hayloft, or even in the open, drinking with a friend—or someone he thought was a friend.’

  ‘Did he ask you for money?’ Pagan asked sharply.

  ‘Me?’ Flora was startled, then she gave the question thought. ‘He was kind of rambling; well, more than that, almost incoherent. All I could make out was that Campbell was on to him—his words: “He’s on to me,”—and he burned the place down to destroy his prints.’

  ‘Go on, sweetie,’ Coline urged. ‘He asked you if the place was insured; he wasn’t all that incoherent.’

  ‘He had lucid moments, but on the whole he wasn’t thinking straight—although he did say he wouldn’t come to Edinburgh, that he’d go to Glasgow.’

  ‘You didn’t say that before,’ Pagan said.

  ‘It’s not important. He was always talking about leaving home.’

  Pagan nodded. ‘His father hinted as much. What would he need in order to leave?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Flora looked blank.

  ‘How much money would he need?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You don’t know much about this lad. He had over six hundred pounds under the lining of a drawer in his bedroom.’

  Flora was surprised, but all she said was, ‘There are good pickings in tourists’ cars.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a lot of cash for a boy to have in his possession,’ Ranald pointed out, ‘even if he was a delinquent. What does Knox have to say about it?’

  Pagan looked tired. ‘The same kind of thing any parent would say who suddenly discovers he’s got a delinquent son.’

  In the ensuing silence Miss Pink caught the sound of voices outside the door. Flora had heard them too. She said quickly to her mother, ‘I asked them up for drinks since we were having a party.’

  Despite her surprise, Coline had her expression under control as Esme and Anne Wallace came in—Esme determinedly jolly, the nurse diffident, if not tense. In the resulting bustle, Miss Pink stood up and crossed the room to Pagan. ‘This isn’t following your advice about security,’ she told him.

  ‘On the contrary, ma’am; while they’re here, they can’t get into trouble.’

  Her eyes flickered. ‘He’s in this room? Silly question, there’s only Sir Ranald. She is in the room? Oh, come now, it could have been anyone from outside the district, or any villager.’

  Pagan smiled. ‘You misunderstand me. When I said these people can’t get into trouble I meant that, while under my eye, there’s no danger of their becoming victims.’

  ‘And I walked straight into the trap. You’re a devious man, Mr Pagan.’ She looked towards Steer, who had settled on a window seat beside Flora. They were staring at the room with unseeing eyes, their lips moving in a private conversation. ‘What interpretation do you put on Hamish’s being drunk?’ she asked.

  ‘He was easier to kill.’

  ‘Is there any clue as to where his body was kept?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not even of where he was killed. Only the splinter in the skull. It didn’t have to be a branch; it could have been a log. Everybody burns logs.’ Their eyes went to the wood basket beside the fire. ‘Whether there are two killers or one is immaterial,’ he murmured.

  It was a moment before the last statement penetrated her brain. ‘Say that again.’

  ‘If Hamish didn’t help with Campbell’s murder, he was there; that’s why he had to be killed. I’m looking for the person who killed Hamish; once he’s found, the other murder will slot into place.’

  Ranald had approached. ‘What you have to do,’ he told Pagan, ‘is find out where the body was kept—’

  Miss Pink drifted away, finding Esme and Anne Wallace in a huddle with Beatrice. Across a space of carpet behind them, Flora was listening to Steer’s low murmur.

  The cool, clear voice of Beatrice was audible for some distance: ‘… only in its broadest sense, Esme; by sex, I meant no more than relationships between the sexes.’

  Anne Wallace said tightly, ‘You’re saying the motive was sexual?’

  ‘She said she didn’t—’

  ‘I didn’t make—’

  Esme deferred to Beatrice, who started again. ‘I didn’t make myself clear, I’m afraid; I was thinking that there were few crimes without any sexual angle. I’m not suggesting the poor boy was killed for a sexual motive; that would be quite bizarre, even if …’ Aware that this part of the room had fallen silent, that Steer and Flora were staring at her, she bit her lip.

  Esme asked ominously, ‘Even if what?’

  Beatrice lowered her voice. Miss Pink pressed closer. ‘Even if he wasn’t normal.’ The old lady looked from Esme to Anne. ‘You know that,’ she said.

  ‘Know what?’ Anne asked. ‘All I know was that he was a juvenile delinquent, and heading for trouble.’

  Miss Pink saw that Steer’s interest was divided between the conversation and that part of the room where Pagan was still talking to Ranald.

  ‘He was already in trouble,’ Beatrice said. ‘He always would be, given his tendencies.’

  Esme’s eyes were slitted. ‘Are you saying he was gay?’

  Anne’s reaction was a whisper. ‘I don’t believe it!’

  Beatrice addressed Miss Pink. ‘It accounts for everything—including the streaker, so-called.’

  ‘What streaker?’ Several people spoke at the same time. Steer stood up, followed by Flora. Beatrice said, ‘The naked man who couldn’t get into his car. He ran away and found a bin liner to cover himself—he stole it from Campbell’s cottage, and probably Campbell saw him. Campbell knew what was going on anyway. Why didn’t that man go to the police and report that his clothes, his keys, almost certainly his wallet had been stolen? Why did he take his clothes off in the first place? We all know why people do that, and it’s not usually a crime. But Hamish was under age.’

  Their silence was stunned and their attitudes so stiff that Pagan, becoming aware of something untoward, started to make his way across the room. Flora was staring at Beatrice with wide eyes, smiling incredulously.

  Miss Pink said, ‘Is that anything more than a hypothesis?’

  Beatrice sighed. Steer intercepted Pagan and spoke quietly. Flora looked from the police to Beatrice with the absorbed air of a child.

  Pagan advanced. ‘Tell me about this naked man, ma’am.’

  Beatrice shook her head. Things had got out of hand, she implied. ‘Village gossip. I know nothing more than anyone else. I just remembered, that’s all. Everyone else had forgotten.’

  Coline and Ranald approached and the other residents hastened to enlighten him, delighted to find something he hadn’t known—something which he obviously found important. Miss Pink hovered on the edge of the group, listening to them trying to cap each other’s stories concerning that hitherto forgotten incident. After a while, she became aware that her feet were aching and was reminded that she’d walked a considerable distance today. Looking round for a comfortable seat, she saw that Flora and Beatrice had retreated to a sofa where they were absorbed in conversa
tion—Flora pensive, Beatrice talking with animation. They were discussing wildlife: ‘badger’, Miss Pink caught, and ‘Kenya’.

  ‘Kenya?’ she repeated, subsiding in an easy chair. ‘What’s this?’

  Flora blinked at the interruption, even Beatrice looked a trifle disconcerted. Miss Pink realised that she could have drunk too much Tio Pepe; it was unusual for her to force herself on others but then, she thought, it is a party and one circulates at parties. Beatrice was saying, ‘Flora was suggesting I go abroad for the winter. We were discussing possibilities, such as Kenya. I’ve always wanted to see big game. Have you been on safari, Melinda?’

  Although taken aback, Miss Pink forced herself to concentrate. ‘Not as such. I’ve seen puma and grizzlies in the States, of course. Why don’t you go? It would be just the thing; get away from this awful climate.’

  ‘Distance myself from the climate of violence?’ Beatrice suggested.

  ‘That too. But why not? You have no pets, and the garden can take care of itself at this time of year. Kenya’s relatively cheap.’

  ‘There speaks the career woman! Flora takes the same view—and that’s the heiress talking. Oh yes, you are, my dear—’ as the girl shifted impatiently—‘Do you know the cost of a safari, Melinda? Two thousand pounds! I’ve made enquiries.’

  ‘Sell something,’ Miss Pink suggested.

  Beatrice looked at her sternly and Flora said, ‘Lateral thinking’s the answer. Consider the situation from a different angle.’

  ‘Such as?’ Beatrice asked with interest.

  ‘Look at it this way: the Highlands are uncongenial at this time of year.’ She grinned. ‘Right now they’re actually unsafe, particularly for people on their own.’

  ‘Your contemporaries call that going over the top.’

  ‘I’m only thinking of your welfare.’

  ‘I’m sure you are.’ Beatrice patted the girl’s hand. She looked at Miss Pink. ‘Two thousand pounds isn’t a lot to raise when you consider all your options,’ she admitted. ‘Would you come with me?’

  Flora stood up. ‘Mum’s making signals. I’m probably needed in the kitchen. We’ll get rid of the fuzz and then we’ll eat.’

  ‘Fuzz,’ Beatrice repeated when she’d gone. ‘How do they think of these words?’