The Time and the Place

by Jane Renshaw

  She had a shopping list compiled by Damian, which he’d texted her – quite a short list, as they seemed to buy whatever they could locally from independent shops. This was good, as it meant they were less likely to be familiar with Tesco’s Finest range, which she was intending to plunder and attempt to pass off as her own work. She’d made a list from the options online: crab and chilli linguine, fish pies, cauliflower cheese, chunky oven chips, beef stroganoff, potato dauphinoise, steak and ale pie, apple crumble...

  ‘Hi, Claire!’

  It was Helen and Oskar, standing grinning at her from the other side of a loaded trolley.

  ‘Oh, hi! Looks like you’re ready for the Christmas siege!’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Helen. ‘I think we’ve probably got our own weight in custard creams alone. Are you psyching yourself up for it?’

  ‘Damian’s given me a list.’

  ‘In shelf order? Starting with boxed and tinned items and working backwards to the fruit and veg to prevent squashing?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We could use that sort of organisation,’ twinkled Oskar.

  ‘Yes, unbelievably given the volume of stuff, I’m sure we’ve forgotten half of what we need.’ Helen smiled happily. ‘It’s our first Christmas together. In Switzerland, the main celebration is on Christmas Eve, so we’re having a double dose of stodge.’

  ‘Fondue!’ Oskar rubbed his hands together. ‘For an authentic Swiss Christmas experience, fondue is non-negotiable.’

  Claire smiled and, on the pretext of putting her phone away in her bag, got a glimpse of the time. Just four minutes to go – but she could hardly excuse herself with the explanation that she had an appointment with the tinned vegetable aisle.

  Helen was burbling on: ‘Uncle Jim’s been completely blaikit – blindsided by the concept of fondue. But he’s got his head round it sufficiently to decide that he needs sausages, pepperoni and cheese straws for dipping purposes.’

  ‘Cheese on cheese!’ Oskar enthused.

  ‘He and Oskar are both on diets, but calorie limits are to be suspended from midday on Christmas Eve until midnight on Boxing Day.’

  ‘A couple of grizzly bears attempting, against the odds, to lay down fat reserves for the winter!’ grinned Oskar.

  Claire laughed. ‘Marzipan in chocolate?’

  Oskar stared at her. ‘You are a genius! We need marzipan!’

  Helen sighed. ‘We’ve got marzipan.’

  A woman with two young children gave them an irritated look as she edged past them with her trolley.

  ‘Sorry,’ Claire said. And to Helen: ‘I think we’re holding up the traffic...’

  Helen pushed her trolley up against the shelves, settling in for a chat. ‘Are you going home for Christmas?’

  ‘No.’ How to get away without being rude? ‘I spent a couple of weeks with my family before starting my new job. I’ve got Christmas Day and Boxing Day off, but I think I’ll just zonk in front of the TV. I got the impression that they have a pretty quiet Christmas at the House.’

  ‘Well, yes, relatively, apart from the carol singers on Christmas Eve.’

  Claire didn’t encourage her by asking about this, but no encouragement seemed to be required.

  ‘The local kids and their parents organise a Christmas Eve carol-singing extravaganza every year. They go round the houses in Kirkton and then troop up the drive to the House, where they sing for their hot chocolate and cinnamon buns. Like something from Dickens! My cousin and I used to do it. A great ploy.’ She looked off with a nostalgic smile, then back at Claire. ‘You’ll love it! And then at New Year there’s always a huge party – all the tenants and estate workers are invited. Has Hector not mentioned it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But listen, why don’t I come over on New Year’s Eve morning and give you a hand? I’ll be going stir crazy by then. Really, it’s no problem. Does Hector –’

  ‘Sorry Helen – thanks so much, that would be great, but I’m bursting for the loo – maybe see you at the tills?’

  As she did a trolley dash up the next aisle, Claire reflected that the House of Pitfourie seemed to have a mysteriously magnetic effect on a good proportion of the female population.

  Thank God, there was Phil, standing contemplating the selection of beans as if he were one of her fictitious Icelanders on the hunt for the perfect soup ingredient. As she bumped against him and said ‘Oh, sorry!’ and he passed her the carrier, she deliberately avoided eye contact, hoping that Phil would think she was just being thorough, minimising the interaction between them like a good UC.

  A good UC.

  She pushed the trolley away from him and into the next aisle.

  Even after the Bristows, Phil still had faith in her. When she’d wanted to resign, he’d talked her round by enumerating all her successes. ‘You have a real instinct for this,’ he’d insisted. ‘We need you, Claire. We need you. You’re a good UC.’

  Maybe her “instinct” was telling her that DCI Stewart was wrong and Hector was completely innocent. Maybe there was an innocent explanation for why he was out with Chris McClusky in the small hours, driving around in a vehicle with false registration plates.

  She stopped at the chiller cabinet and stared blankly at all the different kinds of cheeses as tears threatened.

  Never let your guard down.

  Of course he wasn’t innocent.

  Of course she wasn’t a good UC.

  24

  The door to Damian’s room was shut, but Claire could hear voices in there – presumably Mollie and Cat had bearded him in his den, and he’d be only too glad of rescue when she asked for some help with the stocktaking. She had decided to tackle him about the night John Innes had died.

  She knocked on the door and waited.

  And waited.

  She opened it and walked in.

  The two girls stood guiltily, their backs to the desk. The dark-haired one was similar enough to Karen to enable Claire to identify her as Mollie.

  Damian wasn’t in here.

  ‘Well, girls.’

  ‘We only...’ The blonde girl, presumably Cat, looked at Mollie.

  ‘Damian said we could play with Wilkins,’ Mollie said in a rush.

  ‘Wilkins?’

  Cat went to the display cabinet and pointed through the glass at the little wind-up mouse. ‘Would that be all right?’

  ‘If Damian says so.’ Claire suppressed a smile. ‘But did he also say you could poke about in here amongst his things?’

  ‘We weren’t –’

  ‘We were only –’

  ‘Please don’t tell him!’ Cat was staring at her, comically beseeching.

  ‘Well, take Wilkins out of here and play with him somewhere else.’ Claire supervised Mollie opening the cabinet and carefully removing the mouse. ‘Aren’t you a bit old for playing with a wind-up mouse, anyway?’

  ‘Automata were basically toys for adults in Victorian times,’ Mollie said loftily.

  ‘Wilkins isn’t Victorian,’ Cat corrected her. ‘He was probably made in about 1910. That makes him Edwardian. Damian and Hector’s great-grandmother was given him by her husband.’ She smiled down at the little mouse sitting on Mollie’s palm. ‘You have to be really careful with him,’ she told her friend. ‘He’s kind of delicate.’

  ‘Okay, come on, then.’ Claire shepherded them out of the room. ‘How about you make yourselves comfy in the library and I’ll bring you a snack?’ She opened the library door. ‘Light the stove if you like.’

  Both girls beamed at her. ‘Thank you!’

  ‘That’s really kind of you,’ added Cat.

  Claire decided she’d better light the stove herself. As she struck a match: ‘You don’t know where Damian is, do you?’

  Mollie, setting Wilkins carefully down on a side table, sighed. ‘He had to go and make a phone call. We were supposed to stay with Mrs Mac but she fell asleep.’

  ‘We escaped,’ Cat confided.

  �
��If you see him,’ said Mollie, ‘could you maybe ask him to get something from the library?’

  Claire raised her eyebrows. ‘So you can wait here in ambush?’

  The girls giggled.

  But Claire didn’t see Damian on her way to and from the kitchen. When she returned to the library with a tray on which she’d arranged two bowls of crisps, two glasses of juice and two satsumas, she found Cat face down on the big purple sofa, her face in a cushion, crying her eyes out. Mollie was sitting by her head stroking her hair.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Claire set the tray down on a table. ‘What’s happened?’ She put a hand on Cat’s back.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mollie. ‘Cat’s understandably upset because her parents have randomly decided to move to the Outer Hebrides and she doesn’t want to go.’

  Cat said something into the cushion.

  ‘I know,’ Mollie sighed. ‘They didn’t even consult her. Or Ruth. That’s her sister. Lizzie’s too little to have a say.’

  Lizzie.

  So Cat was presumably another of Fiona McAllister’s children. With that colouring, though, presumably this one hadn’t been fathered by Hector. Although genetics could be strange. Gabby had blonde hair, David dark and Claire auburn.

  ‘That’s a long way away.’

  Cat pushed herself up and glared at Claire, her face pink and wet, her hair mussed out of its ponytail. ‘I’m not going! They can’t make me! I’m going to stay with Grandma and Grandpa. I’ll visit Mum and Dad and Ruth and Lizzie in the holidays and stuff but I don’t want to go and live on Harris with them! It’s horrible! We don’t know like anyone there. All my friends are here and... everything.’ She looked around the room, her lips trembling.

  Claire remembered exactly what it was like, being that age and in the throes of a first crush – so much more vivid, more intense, more painful than any that came after, as firsts of anything generally were. When she was twelve, Claire’s whole universe had revolved around a boy two years above her at school, a boy who didn’t even know she existed but who could send her spirits through the stratosphere simply by walking past her in the corridor.

  Then: ‘Is that apple juice?’ said Cat.

  Claire turned away to hide a smile.

  The resilience of youth.

  As she was descending the stairs, she heard Hector’s voice from below. Then a woman said, brightly, ‘I’ll drop Mollie on the way. It’s no problem.’

  Hector: ‘All right. I think they’re upstairs.’

  ‘Probably stealing Damian’s toothbrush or something. Has he gone into hiding?’

  As Claire stepped onto the half-landing, she could see Hector in the hall with Yummy Mummy Fiona. She had a bag on her left shoulder and her right hand was holding the straps in place, arm across her body. Hector stood at the other side of the hall, his face in shadow.

  You could have cut the sexual tension with a knife.

  ‘Oh, hi, Claire!’ Fiona said with obvious relief. ‘I’m looking for my renegade daughter and her partner in crime.’

  ‘They’re in the library. I’m afraid Cat’s been a bit upset, but I left her tucking into crisps and juice, so I think she’ll survive... Oh, nothing bad’s happened, she just seems upset about your impending move. I guess the Outer Hebrides must seem like another planet when you’re twelve.’

  Fiona blinked at her. ‘Oh. Yes. Sorry. Thank you. Nothing’s settled yet, so... I’d better go up.’

  ‘Damian’s not with them, I don’t suppose?’ said Hector.

  ‘No. I don’t know where he is.’

  ◆◆◆

  She found him in the kitchen, lounging in the chair by the Aga reading a paperback.

  ‘Here he is, girls,’ she called behind her up the stairs.

  He lurched to his feet, a hunted look in his eyes as he assessed the possible exits.

  Claire laughed.

  He grinned. ‘That was coorse.’

  ‘Hmm. What really is “coorse” is leaving those girls in the charge of a septuagenarian in need of her afternoon nap... with the consequence that they escaped to run amok in your room.’

  ‘Oh God! What –’

  ‘It would serve you right if they had. They’ve been in there, but they don’t seem to have touched anything other than Wilkins – and that under my supervision.’

  ‘God almighty, Claire.’

  ‘Sorry. But you brought it on yourself.’

  He grimaced a concession. ‘What was I supposed to do, though? It’s ridiculous! They just stand there, mute. When I try to talk to them, all they can do is giggle like idiots. They’re not in their right minds.’

  ‘Of course they’re not. They’re in love.’

  ‘No they’re not!’

  ‘Have you never had a crush on someone older than you? A friend’s sister? A teacher?’

  He was blushing! The oh-so-cool Damian was actually blushing, and it was adorable.

  But she had to change the tone of this exchange. She sat down at the table. ‘Actually, I’m hardly one to criticise. I’m kind of hiding out here myself. It’s meant to be my afternoon off.’ She smiled at him, let her lip wobble, and rubbed her face with her hands. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ve had enough of hysterical females for one day.’

  He limped over to sit down opposite, his expression suddenly, and just as adorably, full of concern. She wished she didn’t have to do this.

  Any of this.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I – oh, it’s silly. But I had a conversation with Mick yesterday and it’s sort of freaked me out. Being all alone in Pond Cottage... but please don’t tell Hector, I don’t want him to think I’m a complete liability, after last night and the pheasants...’

  ‘Uh, sorry about the pheasants.’ He grimaced at her.

  She copied his expression. ‘Oh, no, don’t worry about it, that was my fault entirely... And I’m just being silly about Pond Cottage, I know that.’

  ‘What exactly did Mick say?’

  As she related, haltingly, Mick’s fears about Chimp’s death not having been an accident, Damian was quick to reassure her. ‘But of course it must have been an accident. What else could it have been?’

  ‘If it was just Mick, I could maybe dismiss it as the trauma talking, the trauma of losing his friend so suddenly like that... But he said the police were all over it.’ Slight exaggeration. ‘That they questioned everyone about their whereabouts that night. As if they thought... Well, as if they thought it was possible someone had –’ She dropped her voice: ‘– murdered him.’

  Silence. Then: ‘The police around here can be a bit gung-ho. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Did they question you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘That must have been awful.’

  She hated having to do this so much.

  But he was telling her, confiding in her: ‘It wasn’t too bad. They didn’t resort to thumbscrews or anything. I was with Hector that whole evening, but I think Campbell Stewart – he’s the local DCI – I think he was hoping I was lying about that, and he was going to be able to break Hector’s alibi. He’s rather got it in for Hector.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  A shrug.

  She waited.

  And he eventually filled the silence. ‘I don’t know. I think it’s because of what happened years ago – there was a party on Midsummer’s Eve and two people went missing, and Hector was arrested for drink-driving and handing round drugs.’ Another shrug. ‘But what happened wasn’t his fault.’

  As he looked at her so earnestly – as if needing her to tell him yes, that must be all it was, Campbell Stewart could surely have no other reason to suspect his brother of anything – she knew that here was her chance. He was, for once, off balance. The subject of drink-driving had just been brought up. Here was her chance to ask him, quite naturally – sensitively, sympathetically – about the accident in which he had watched his father die.

  But she couldn’t.

  She just couldn’t
do it.

  She smiled, and stood. ‘I’m just being silly. Ignore me.’

  She virtually fled from the kitchen.

  In the courtyard, dusk had fallen. She had parked the Land Rover she’d taken to do the shopping next to Hector’s unmarked one at the far side of the courtyard, away from the house. Right. She could do this, at least. Keys in hand, humming to herself, she marched along one of the gritted paths through the snow.

  She’d left a bag of shopping on the back seat. She unlocked the door to grab it, and let its contents spill out onto the snow.

  ‘Damn!’

  Tins had rolled everywhere, and she scrabbled about to retrieve them. A tin of tomato soup had rolled right under Hector’s Land Rover. As she squatted between the vehicles, apparently reaching for the tin, she pushed the tracker up until she felt it tugged out of her hand by the magnetic force pulling it up against the undercarriage.

  ◆◆◆

  Karen let herself in at the back door of the House and hurried along the corridor to the kitchen – Ade would probably be timing her – where Hector was stirring something in a pot at the Aga. She said, ‘Where’s Damian?’ and he looked at her and said, ‘He did the right thing, you know, telling your parents about this so-called boyfriend of yours,’ and she didn’t have time for this, she couldn’t deal with this right now, so she just said, ‘Yeah yeah,’ and Hector said, ‘He’s in the library,’ and she scooted past him and up the stairs.

  It was warm in the library and quite dark – only a couple of lamps were on. The wood-burning stove was roaring, and Damian was asleep on the sofa. He had a rug over him, but she could see by the flat bit where his right foot should be that he wasn’t wearing the prosthesis. A pair of crutches were propped against the sofa arm.

  Dammit.

  She always found it hard to be angry with him when his disability was in her face. And he was going to be weird because he hardly ever let people see him without the prosthetic leg. He stayed off school when he had a problem and couldn’t wear it.