by Jane Renshaw
‘Mr Jarvie, Perdita’s father, has Aucharblet,’ Mrs Mac was saying. ‘The estate that’s neebours with Pitfourie to the south and west. Mr Jarvie’s given her Drumdargie to live in when she’s mairit – married. A castle on the estate.’
‘Oh shit,’ said Karen.
Mrs Mac glared at her.
‘Okay, so in theory getting a castle as a wedding present’s pretty amazing, but that place is like really creepy. It’s supposedly haunted. Hector and Damian’s ancestor Black John used to own it, in the 16th Century? He basically woke up one morning and decided I want Drumdargie and went over there and killed the people who lived in it and took it. You could do that kind of thing then and no one pulled you up for it. If we’d been servants here back then, if we’d broken something, Black John would have chucked us in a dungeon and tortured us. But his wife wasn’t too happy about him doing that sort of thing at Pitfourie, so he switched all the murdering and torturing to Drumdargie. He had a secret torture chamber built there.’
Mrs Mac snorted. ‘That’s just blethers. Stories. It’s true that the Forbes family used to own Drumdargie – the castle and the land roon’ aboot. But they had to sell it after the First World War, to pay death duties, and the Jarvies bought it from them. For a pittance, I might add. As if the Aucharblet estate wisna big enough already.’ She looked at Karen and sniffed. ‘This one’s living in a cult on Aucharblet, if you can credit it.’
Karen sighed patiently. ‘Cults are all about religion? We’re pretty much all atheists?’ Apart from Doffy and Rainbow who had spiritual beliefs all of their own, but Karen wasn’t about to get into that with Mrs Mac. ‘It’s not a cult, it’s an eco-farm.’
‘A fit?’
‘An eco-farm!’ she yelled.
‘There’s nae need to shout. I’m nae deif.’ Mrs Mac turned to Claire. ‘She’s living at what used to be a farm, Moss of Kinty it’s ca’ed – called – with a lot of tinky-type folk and junkies on benefits. It’s nae a farm now, it’s just a midden. The Mowats that had it afore them will be furlin’ in their graves. Affa good farmers, the Mowats. Nae a weed in sicht.’
Karen sighed again. ‘Because they pumped in loads of herbicides and pesticides. Those practices are like totally discredited now? Any farmer who wants to look after the land properly has to leave room for wildlife, and yes, that means encouraging so-called weeds, in other words native plants. All farmers should do it. It’s not difficult. You just need to not plough right up to the dykes and stuff, but most of them are too greedy and sucked in to the capitalist system to even consider it.’
‘That’s just lither. Laziness.’ Mrs Mac shook her head. ‘What state those poor beasts are in, I dread to think. Nan Craib’s sister at Mains of Kinty – Mary Marshall – she says she’d hae a lookie but she’s feart. Her man had an affa stromash with one of the junkies about their goats getting into his corn – fences aa malafoustert.’
‘What?’ said Claire.
‘Fences in a gey state. The junkie ca’ed him elky name – every name under the sun. What Mr Jarvie is thinking renting to them at aa, I dinna ken. Tinky, nae Kinty, folk ca’ it noo.’
There was no point in trying to argue.
Karen jiggled her right leg and felt the fork jab her.
Mrs Mac ran the duster over another photograph, of Hector’s mum and dad’s wedding. ‘The Al’ Laird and his lady. Fine, fine folk. She was from the Islands. Her father was Maclean of Berensay – a great Highland chieftain!’ A sigh. ‘Aye, she was affa weel-likit, the craitur.’ And as Claire looked blank: ‘Very well-liked, the poor thing. Mr Forbes is just like her.’
What crap.
Hector’s mum had had red hair and everyone, not just Mrs Mac, said she’d been a lovely person. Mum had really liked her. She’d started up a club in the hall in Kirkton for young people, and Mum had gone to it, and they used to do things like play badminton and go to concerts and organise jumble sales for charity.
‘She wisna even thirty when she died.’ Mrs Mac shook her head.
Claire frowned. ‘Oh. But – So she’s not Damian’s mother?’
‘Na na.’ Mrs Mac pointed to another photo, of Hector and Damian and some of their relatives on a yacht. ‘That’s their aunt and uncle and cousins with them in that one.’ She always changed the subject when Irina was mentioned, and no wonder.
To piss her off, Karen said, ‘Damian’s mum’s like evil. I mean properly evil.’
‘Karen!’ snapped Mrs Mac.
‘Well, she is. When we were little kids and I used to come here to play, I always hoped she wouldn’t be here because – I mean, okay, she could be really fun, making up these weird games and stuff, but then suddenly she’d be all “All right, darlings, now I need you to go away and leave me alone for the sake of my sanity!” and she’d do things like once when me and Anna and Damian were running about being too noisy she locked us in one of the garages and when she let us out she was all “Oh darlings, what are you doing in there, you silly billies?” like she had nothing to do with it. She never really wanted Damian and when his dad died she just buggered off –’
‘Karen!’
‘Well it’s true. She just buggered off because everything in Irina’s world had to be perfect and Damian wasn’t any more.’
Damian never talked about her but everyone knew what had happened.
Claire was staring at her in horror. ‘Oh, but that’s –’
‘Yeah, I know. And his Auntie Bea, his dad’s sister – that’s her in the photo on the yacht, in the red hat – she’s like really really nice and she wanted to adopt him but Hector wouldn’t allow it and –’
‘Claire isna wanting to hear your silly notions,’ said Mrs Mac.
The Ride of the Valkyries suddenly blared out, and Mrs Mac fished her phone from her cardie pocket. Damian had put that on it as her ringtone. ‘Oh, Jean... Aye, just a minutie.’ And she handed Karen the duster and left the room.
‘So Damian’s mother,’ said Claire. ‘Where is she now?’
Karen shrugged.
‘Does he have any contact with her?’
‘Nope. I don’t think Hector would let her come anywhere near him even if she wanted to.’ She went to one of the radiators under the windows and sat on it. Outside it was already getting dark, the sky inky blue with streaks of pink across it, and in the light from the windows the gravel sparkled with frost. ‘These old radiators are good for warming your bum.’
Claire perched on the one under the middle window. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in my life.’
‘Yeah, wait till January. Wait till you get snowed in and the only company on offer is the goons, Mrs Mac, Hector or Damian. Have you met Damian yet?’
‘No, but I’m looking forward to it. He sounds like quite a character.’
‘Yeah,’ Karen chortled. ‘What can I say? That he’s not as bad as Hector?’
‘Well, Hector seems very nice.’
‘Yeah, I bet he does.’
Claire shot her a look.
‘He’ll be jumping on your bones first chance he gets.’
‘Karen –’
‘Sorry, I know that’s being what my grandma would call coorse, but it’s only fair to warn you. He’s a sex maniac. He can’t be friends with a woman without shagging her.’
Karen had been hoping to shock her, but Claire just said, ‘I hate to break it to you, but a lot of men have that issue.’
‘But not like Hector. That photo of all the Hooray Henrys and Henriettas? Guaranteed Hector will have shagged every single one of those girls. And he was a drug dealer. Got put in prison for it.’ Okay, so that was stretching it, but he had gone to prison for supplying his friends with cocaine and for drug-driving.
Claire blinked. ‘But –’
‘When he was twenty-one. And then he got kicked out of the army and he went to South America to work as a mercenary. He killed babies and stuff.’
Claire just went ‘Uh!’
‘He maybe didn’t want to, but he
had to do it so as not to look like a wimp in front of the other soldiers, who were like really barbaric, but the point is he did it. When they raided villages in the jungle?’ That was what Chris McClusky had told her, and he was probably winding her up, but then again...
‘I think that’s pretty unlikely.’
‘Yeah well.’ Karen shrugged. ‘Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t.’
When Mrs Mac came back, she had the rescue phone with her.
‘Ooh, has it charged up?’ Karen snatched it from her and switched it on.
‘Aye, I think it.’
‘Yesss!’ The little screen lit up with the Nokia hands coming together, and then the menu appeared. ‘It’s working! I wonder if there’s any balance left on it.’ She navigated through to the relevant number and held the phone to her ear. ‘Oh my God, forty-six pounds and thirty-seven pence!’ She looked at the little phone. ‘And some idiot with more money than sense just threw it away! Or maybe they forgot there was so much still on it.’
Mrs Mac shook her head. ‘That’ll larn them.’
‘Yeah, serve them right.’ Karen was navigating through menus. There were no contacts, no sent messages, and just one unread message in the inbox.
She opened it.
OK see you at 6 at boathouse
The date on it was 14 August.
The day Chimp had disappeared.
The day he must have died.
13
She couldn’t serve this! The top sheet of pasta had burnt and crinkled, like corrugated iron, and when she dipped a spoon into the lasagne’s depths she found that the other sheets of pasta were still brittle. The vegetables were also uncooked, the white sauce she had spent an hour making had somehow curdled, and the tomato sauce had turned to water.
When Mrs Mac had suggested she make lasagne for tonight’s dinner, Claire should have said something like ‘Good idea’ and then just made salmon, boiled potatoes and peas. Why hadn’t she done that? There was loads of salmon in the freezer. She’d told Hector she’d do salmon for his dinner party tomorrow, but there’d be enough for tonight too. She’d had three hours, though, and had told herself she could watch a few YouTube videos and give the lasagne a go.
Okay, think!
Omelettes? They were meant to be easy. There was time to watch another YouTube video. She grabbed her tablet from the worktop and sat down at the table. It was six-thirty. She had half an hour.
‘Oh Goddddd!’ she wailed.
And of course that was the moment the door to the larder opened and Damian came into the room. She assumed this must be Damian – the little blond boy from the photographs, all grown up.
He was film-star-level good-looking.
She got to her feet, willing him not to look at the worktop.
He smiled and held out his hand. ‘Thought I’d just introduce myself. I’m Damian. Hector’s brother.’
And there was something in his expression, something perceptive and quizzical but above all friendly, that had her taking his hand and laughing and saying, ‘I’m Claire and I’m a fucking disaster area!’
He was laughing too. ‘Wow, that’s some internal critic you’ve got there.’
‘If only that was the problem.’ She waved at the worktop. ‘Exhibit one.’
When he raised his eyebrows he was very like Hector.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s really nice to meet you but –’
‘– get out my fucking hair?’
And Karen’s story came back to her, about his mother locking the children in a garage... She knew, from her experience in uniform, that that was likely to have been the tip of the iceberg; that this horrendous-sounding woman had probably been a hundred times worse when alone with her child.
‘No, not at all.’ She smiled at him. ‘But you might want to retreat to a safe distance.’
He crossed the room to the worktop, and she noticed the limp, but it was less marked than she’d expected from what she’d seen – what DCI Stewart had somehow obtained – of his medical records. He was wearing dark navy walking trousers and a mossy green sweater. She knew in exactly which parts of his wardrobe those items of clothing belonged, but she wished she didn’t. She wished there was a way of not involving Damian Forbes – who was still, by law, a child – in any of this.
He picked up the spoon and prodded the corrugated iron topping.
‘I’m not expecting you to eat it.’
‘Hector would probably give it a go. What happened?’
‘I’ve never made fucking lasagne!’ The words seemed to jump out of her mouth.
Oh God, those eyebrows.
‘I – I’ve been working for an Icelandic family and before that for people who hated Italian food, so... So, weirdly, I’ve never made lasagne.’
‘But you decided to experiment on your first day in your new job?’
And now it was DCI Stewart’s words she was remembering:
He’s slee, that one.
‘I know, it was really stupid. You see? Disaster area.’ She took a breath. ‘Mrs MacIver suggested lasagne. But what am I going to do?’ She glanced at the clock above the Aga. ‘In twenty-five minutes I have to serve you and your brother a three-course meal!’
‘Are the other courses done?’
‘No.’ And then: ‘I had thought omelette?’
He smiled. ‘Did you ever watch that programme Ready Steady Cook?’
It took him all of three minutes to stick a frozen strudel in the Aga and conjure up two substantial smoked salmon, creme fraiche and watercress starters, with a large plate of bread and butter, which he put on a tray and disappeared with through the larder to the lift, suggesting over his shoulder that she slice some mushrooms. Ten minutes later he was back with the empty plates and had the mushrooms frying in a heavy-bottomed pan on one of the Aga’s hotplates.
All she could do was stare at the mushrooms in the pan.
‘Have you used an Aga before?’ he said.
‘Oh – yes. Well, a while ago. The Icelandic family didn’t have one.’
‘Okay, quick refresher. This plate in the middle is the hot plate, for frying and boiling. The one on the right is for simmering, and this one on the left without a lid is the warming plate. The oven at the top right is the hot one, bottom right moderate, top left lowish, bottom left for warming. Karen has been known to stick her Uggs in there, so I tend not to use it.’ He sort of shook and jerked the pan in the same movement, and all the mushrooms flipped up and over obediently. ‘Eggs,’ he said. ‘In that basket. Maybe eight or nine. We’re pretty much gluttons.’
What was he expecting her to do with them? Break them into the pan? A bowl?
‘Um...’
‘Sorry – bowls are in that cupboard. Whisk in the drawer under the draining board – or a fork. I know you’re going to tell me that eggs for an omelette shouldn’t be beaten too much. And salt in the crock. Pepper grinder next to it.’ He gave her a big smile, and she had the horrible, heart-sinking, appalling conviction that he knew. In twenty minutes he’d rumbled her. He knew she couldn’t cook.
He knew she was a fraud.
◆◆◆
Pond Cottage was already coming to feel like a little haven. Standing on the doorstep with the key in the lock, Claire almost forgot to check her security measure, which consisted of a tiny piece of twig she’d trapped between the door and the frame when she’d left that morning. Not that she was expecting an intruder – Hector and Co. had already had ample opportunity to search the place for anything incriminating Chimp might have left behind – but old habits died hard.
Phil had taught her well, although his method was the traditional hair, held in place with clear tape. Claire had started to use a piece of plastic cut from a yoghurt carton or something, trapped in the door, but out here a tiny piece of twig seemed more in keeping, so small that when you shut the door on it you couldn’t see a thing unless you knew where to look.
It was still in place.
When she’d shut and loc
ked the door behind her, all she wanted to do was soak in the bath for half an hour and go to bed and not think about food ever again. The thought of that soft, high bed in the little room with the sloping eaves was just so appealing... A hot water bottle...
But she had YouTube videos to find. She sat down at the table in the kitchen and fired up her tablet and typed ‘How to pluck a pheasant’.
It was all Damian’s fault.
That boy was going to be an issue. Should she throw herself on his mercy, confess that she had no experience and her references were fake, but she needed the job desperately? Tell him some sob story about escaping from an abusive relationship? Or just say nothing and hope she was wrong, that he didn’t in fact suspect anything, other than that she was a bit incompetent?
God!
Way to crash and burn. When Damian had disappeared upstairs with the apple strudel, she’d sat at the kitchen table staring at nothing, wondering what was going on up there, what he was telling his brother.
What Hector Forbes was going to do about it.
She’d just started the dishwasher and had been giving the worktops a final wipe down when Hector and Damian had appeared to thank her for a lovely meal.
‘Perfect omelette,’ Hector had beamed at her. ‘Perfectly cooked.’
So Damian hadn’t let on what had happened?
‘Oh, um. Glad you enjoyed it.’
‘It occurs to me that Mrs Mac may not have shown you the game larder. Damian’s reminded me that there are several brace of pheasants in there that’ve been hanging for over a week and are getting what you might call a bit ripe, so the sooner they’re eaten the better. Would it be possible to have them tomorrow night, do you think, instead of salmon?’ And he’d held open the door to the passage for her to precede him.
The game larder was a pokey little room with a high window and a concrete floor. It was icy cold, but that hadn’t stopped the massacred animals in there rotting on their hooks. It smelt of death. Towards the back of the room was something small and furry – a rabbit? – and something big that had been skinned and had its head and legs cut off and a big hook put through its arse. A deer?