by Gwen Moffat
‘I’ll ask her later. She had some toast at tea time.’
*
Dinner was a silent meal with the Lindsays hardly speaking to each other, and Miss Pink and Maynard alone at their tables. Afterwards, Lindsay went out in the grounds and the others drifted back to the lounge to find a coffee tray on the table in the window but no one behind the bar.
‘I’m for brandy,’ Betty announced truculently. ‘Miss Pink, what can I get you?’
‘A Cointreau, please.’
‘Ken?’
‘Brandy, dear.’ He spoke absently. He stood in the window, jingling coins in his pocket and staring at the fog.
Betty rang the bell on the counter. The door behind the bar opened and Euphemia looked in. ‘Yes, miss?’
‘Oh, it’s you!’ In her surprise Betty sounded rude. ‘We want drinks.’
‘Mrs Hamlyn’s upstairs in their sitting room.’
‘Well, where’s the colonel?’
‘In the stable. Will I be after fetching him?’
‘If you will.’
Euphemia backed out. Two minutes later Hamlyn bustled in.
‘So sorry,’ he breathed, ‘didn’t think you’d finish so soon. I’m trying to get the rescue equipment sorted.’
‘If you’ll just attend to us, you can go back to it.’ Betty’s tone was acid and Maynard raised expressive eyebrows at Miss Pink. The sarcasm failed to rile Hamlyn.
‘Not at all,’ he countered comfortably. ‘While my guests are in the bar, I’m here to serve them. There’s plenty of time for the gear.’
‘It’s just this kind of weather you might have an accident,’ Betty pointed out, still unpleasantly, but he didn’t respond, merely served their drinks with the deft movements of a barman.
After a while Andrew Lindsay came in from the hall, stood at the bar making desultory conversation with Hamlyn, then drifted out again. Vera put her head round the door, smiled at the guests and asked her husband who was in the stable.
‘No one. Why?’
‘The light’s on.’
‘Yes, I left it on. I was working out there.’
Maynard was at the bar now. ‘Serve this round,’ he told the other firmly, ‘and go out and finish it. We can spare you.’
‘I’ll relieve you as soon as we’re finished in the kitchen,’ Vera promised. ‘Give me a quarter of an hour.’
Betty excused herself, saying she was going to write letters. Hamlyn went away and Maynard and Miss Pink were left alone.
‘We’re all very restless,’ he observed.
‘How is Lavender?’
‘She’s feeling better now; she’s had some toast and chicken broth.’ Miss Pink didn’t comment. ‘We all have our drugs,’ he said, and downed his brandy at a gulp. ‘Lavender’s is ill-health. And now I’ve finished my drink, do I wait to be served? Like hell I do.’ He got up and went behind the bar to pour himself a Martell. He returned to his seat.
‘Brandy isn’t your drug,’ Miss Pink said thoughtfully.
‘No.’ His mouth twitched but he didn’t smile. ‘This is a superficial palliative . . . but not for a superficial sorrow, would you say?’ He slumped in his chair. ‘No, you wouldn’t. She was beautiful and young and innocent but she was nothing to do with me; I didn’t even want to go across to Largo. The tragedy is: I don’t care.’
‘Why are you drinking then?’
‘Because of that. I’m burned out. Because a beautiful being has been wantonly destroyed and all I’m concerned about is that I’ve missed a day’s climbing.’
‘Why do you think the murder was wanton?’
‘Surely the destruction of beauty is always that?’
‘Not necessarily. There could have been a good reason for killing her.’
He opened his mouth to reply but at that moment Vera Hamlyn came in. She glanced round the bar in rueful concern at its emptiness, then poured herself a gin. Maynard stood up.
‘You can’t stay behind the bar, dear; come and join us.’
‘Well—’
‘Do come, Mrs Hamlyn.’ Miss Pink added her persuasion.
Vera came across. ‘I’ll draw these curtains then; it’s such a miserable night.’ She looked round the lounge again. ‘How quiet we are,’ she said, and shivered.
‘The nights are drawing in,’ Miss Pink observed, and thought how tired the other looked.
‘It’s been an exhausting day, what with the police—and everything.’
‘Why do you think she was killed?’ Maynard asked of Miss Pink. Vera stared at him, blinked, and transferred her gaze to the older woman who made a helpless gesture.
‘Who can tell? We’ve been speculating since yesterday. Quite frankly, I’m drained of ideas and prefer to stick to facts. It seems obvious that she was strangled, and most probably at Largo; those aren’t facts but they’ll do until we know the results of the autopsy.’
‘When will that be?’ Vera asked.
‘I believe a pathologist was arriving today. We should know tomorrow.’
Vera said, ‘Did you get any joy from the crofters?’ Miss Pink was startled and the other smiled wryly. ‘Euphemia has put herself on the pay-roll again; she said you were at Sletta.’
‘And me?’ Maynard asked.
‘You went rowing before the fog came in, then had half an hour at Sletta.’
‘Good God!’ He grinned nastily. ‘The fog will stop them; they can’t see through that.’
‘Don’t you believe it; they say news runs through the grass in Glen Shira.’ For the second time she shivered.
Miss Pink appeared to be following her own line of thought, sparked off by an earlier question. ‘I don’t think the crofters care enough.’
‘To kill,’ Maynard elaborated.
‘Someone cared.’ Vera said. ‘A lover presumably.’
‘A former lover?’ Maynard hazarded. ‘One who never made it? A young man on the make, a middle-aged roué obstructed, or old age killing what it hated?’
Vera frowned. ‘Is that brandy, Ken?’
‘Yes, dear; a double, please.’
‘Are you climbing tomorrow?’
He hesitated. ‘Yes.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m going to cheer Madge along the ridge.’
His glass wasn’t empty but Vera picked it up and went to the bar.
‘Your friend,’ he emphasised, following her. Miss Pink sat like a cat by a mouse hole. He put both hands on the counter. ‘Your friend Madge,’ he repeated.
‘I think you should go to bed after this one.’ Vera put his glass on the counter. She was a bad colour under her tan.
‘You know you’re in the wrong, don’t you?’ he told her earnestly.
‘I’m not talking about it.’ Her voice was rising.
He snorted derision. ‘Gordon and Madge! Don’t give me that!’
‘You’re being impertinent—’
‘You’re fond of her! What’s she done that you suddenly—’ He stopped as if switched off and the silence drew out agonisingly. Miss Pink watched his rigid back and, in the mirror, his staring eyes, and Vera’s eyes, not staring but watching carefully, flicking towards the window and back to Maynard.
‘Oh no,’ he breathed. ‘Not Madge! You’re mad, you’re off your—’ He turned and looked at Miss Pink. With great care he pulled himself together. It was a long process, then, ‘I am most appallingly drunk,’ he announced. ‘Please accept my apologies.’
Leaving his brandy on the counter, he walked out of the room and up the stairs.
In the taut silence Vera fidgeted with something below the counter. Miss Pink was wondering how to re-open the conversation, if that were possible, when she was spared the decision by the return of Hamlyn, breathing satisfaction.
‘One thing I’ll say for this—event; it’s made me introduce some order into that stable.’
‘Anything you have to do with is always in apple-pie order.’ Vera sounded like an automaton.
‘That’s only the appearance. Anyone can make a neat stack on a shelf, but the
shelves themselves were filthy! It’s a good job all the First Aid stuff is sealed—by Jove, yes!’ He chuckled. ‘Not that sterile equipment makes any difference in practice. Jimmie Carr always says he’d sooner operate in an open field than in an operating theatre.’
‘Why?’ Miss Pink asked, because someone had to say something.
‘Bugs in the air conditioning!’ As he roared with laughter Vera slipped out through the kitchen door.
*
It rained in the night and although this cleared the sea fog, in the morning clouds were skimming the watershed on the western side of the glen. Largo was closed and abandoned and Miss Pink wondered who would be the next person to occupy it—or would old MacNeill let it crumble into ruin?
As she came downstairs Betty Lindsay was leaving the dining room. The woman looked as if she hadn’t slept much and she explained, rather long-windedly, that Lindsay had taken Watkins’ van to the hospital, so now she must go over in their car to bring her husband back. Miss Pink was puzzled. It seemed early for Watkins to have rung Glen Shira, but Betty’s expression was defiant. It might be advisable to wait until evening before asking for elucidation.
Maynard was alone in the dining room, drinking black coffee. He regarded her guiltily. ‘Please don’t say anything,’ he implored, ‘I’m far too ill.’
She glanced at the window. ‘Perhaps some fresh air—?’
‘I might be able to crawl uphill. At least Betty isn’t coming.’
‘Have you seen the police?’
‘No, and I don’t intend to. They don’t seem to have left anyone in the glen last night, so let’s get away before they arrive.’
Miss Pink, who had her own reasons for wanting to talk to him in private, agreed and, against her principles, hurried over her breakfast. It was raining again by the time they were ready to leave but they didn’t hesitate and started smartly up the drive in their waterproofs, speculating on whether Madge would retreat, go on regardless, or shelter under a rock. Maynard thought she would shelter; she wasn’t out for a record and she would not want to continue the traverse in wet clothes. She would be travelling light and carrying no waterproofs.
‘Aren’t we being remiss in not backing her better?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘Surely people doing the ridge normally have more support?’
‘Not nowadays, not chaps, anyway; they just pop out and do it, and Madge wouldn’t expect any discrimination in her favour. I did think of going up last night to wish her well and ask if there was anything we could do, but by the time I’d thought about it, it was too late.’
Miss Pink remembered the state he was in. ‘And one wouldn’t want to be wandering around in the dark and fog on the lip of this ravine.’
‘Good Lord, no!’
The fall was in view with quite a lot of water going over the drop and looking most dramatic against the green foliage and purple heather. Then Madge’s tent appeared but there was no one moving around it. Still higher, they looked back because it faced upstream, but the flaps were closed, which indicated that she was on the ridge ahead of them, as they’d expected.
‘What time would she start?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘About five. I’m going like a cripple. Don’t you think it would be best to go straight up the Sgumain Stone Shoot? If we did a route to reach the ridge, she could go along the top while we were climbing and we’d miss her. If we go up the Sgumain screes we could be on Alasdair quickly.’
‘Scree!’ she repeated feelingly.
He had his way, not least because all the steep rock looked dauntingly wet and cold in the cloud shadow. The Sgumain screes were strenuous but they were safe.
It was also eerie. They scrambled upwards into mist and the black rock walls closed round them. It was far too warm but by the time they stepped out on the summit ridge, the rain had stopped and they could take off their stifling waterproofs. Anoraks followed, and as they started off again, with big loads but in their shirtsleeves, there was a hint of blue above, a glimpse of a dark loch far below and next time Miss Pink looked up all the peaks to the south were rampant against a cerulean sky.
‘If it’s been like this since dawn,’ Maynard said, ‘she’ll be a fair way along the ridge already.’
‘She won’t be this far. What a pity we can see only the peaks; she must be in sight at this moment, or would be if the cloud would drop a little more.’
They avoided the Bad Step of Alasdair by an easy chimney and were on the summit by one o’clock, still with no sign of the guide, but they were not too surprised at this. Only the top hundred feet or so of the highest peaks were clear of the cloud; for long stretches the ridge was invisible. They settled down with rocks as back-rests and ate their lunch. It was strange that no one should appear at all; they assumed that the climbers were still climbing and that scramblers wouldn’t venture on the ridge when they thought that it was in cloud. They did see people on the Inaccessible Pinnacle across Coire Lagan but they were going the wrong way: north to south. Madge would be moving north.
At last Maynard said, ‘I can remember mentioning Madge last night but what did I say?’
‘You told Vera that an affair between Hamlyn and Madge was ridiculous.’
‘So it is.’ There was another silence. After a while he asked carelessly, ‘Was there anything else?’
‘There was a suggestion that Madge killed Terry; that Vera could have suspected that.’
‘How circumspect. I didn’t actually accuse Vera of harbouring that suspicion?’
‘No. And she knew you were drunk.’
‘It’s fortunate that I should have made an exhibition of myself in front of the only two people who won’t spread it around.’
‘That could have been deliberate.’
‘You mean, I chose you?’
‘Or you didn’t mind getting drunk in our presence. You had to let off steam.’
He stared at the mist wafting round the stolid bulk of Mhic Coinnich across an enormous chasm. ‘It was missing this that was the trouble,’ he said quietly, ‘and losing Madge.’ After a while he added, ‘There’s nothing between us. You’re not surprised. I think you know what I’m talking about.’
‘And there’s your magazine.’
‘How discerning of you. You’re so right: no one can exploit sex if they still have any passion left. Funny, I took over that publication with such high principles—but that was before the deluge. . . . One only has so much energy, and if one’s lived a riotous—and perhaps careless—life, the privileges one’s enjoyed spawn responsibilities; like dragons’ teeth, of course.’ He turned his spaniel eyes on her. ‘One can’t disown mistakes and if you can’t remedy them you have to learn to live with them. Marrying was a mistake.’ He did not qualify that by suggesting that he might have married someone other than Lavender and then it wouldn’t have been a mistake. ‘And a few years ago,’ he went on, ‘there was Madge, after others. The others didn’t matter; they were just lovely girls. Madge was hardly a gorgeous mistress but I needed her as much for what she represented as what she was. After all, we fall in love with an ideal, don’t we? It’s all subjective. She was rather dull on a weekend in London, but a fortnight with her on Skye—and twice we went to the Alps—these times were out of this world. For the routes we did, of course; you’ve got that? Our affair was so short-lived and innocuous compared with—a kind of triangular relationship: rock, Madge, me, that it hardly mattered. It would have died and we’d have gone on as a climbing team, but Lavender found out. You can imagine the result.’
Miss Pink stirred uncomfortably but said nothing. There was no need to. She had known Lavender for five days.
He went on, ‘Lavender is alone in the world. She’s only got me. On the other hand she can make life pretty unbearable. There’s been blackmail on both sides. Now I am “allowed” Madge for two holidays a year and some weekends but, of course, even if I loved her, there’d be no affair, not after Lavender discovered it. There are more ways than one of emasculating a man.’
> Miss Pink thought for a moment, not offering facile sympathy, then she said, ‘I think she is more jealous in these circumstances.’
‘Naturally. She could never have competed in the same field. If it’s only a matter of sex, women can blame their inadequacy on age or loss of looks—there’s always some alibi, something they can share with other ageing women. What Lavender finds literally unbearable is that I go to Madge not for bed but to be taken up steep rock.’
‘And she knows you enjoy rock more than sex,’ Miss Pink pointed out. ‘It’s logical.’
After a while he said quietly, like a child, ‘These don’t hurt you,’ meaning the mountains.
‘Well—’
‘There’s no malice,’ he amended. Suddenly he looked round, startled. ‘But where is she? And what’s happened to the weather?’
Insidiously but very fast, the sky had been overdrawn by an opaque film. A breeze came sniffing round the rocks like a dog with a wet nose.
‘She must have passed Alasdair before we got here,’ he said. ‘At that rate she’ll be going up Dearg now, and there’s the cloud. . . .’
Miss Pink raised her binoculars. ‘There’s a party coming down the side of the Inaccessible under the South Crack, but they’re three, and going the wrong way. We won’t see a thing now; the cloud’s rising faster than a climber.’
‘It’s only two o’clock; shall we follow her route round the skyline?’
They set off but had hardly reached the top of the next point when they were engulfed by the cloud and navigation became tricky. They didn’t speak and they forgot the guide; they needed all their concentration for their footing. As Mhic Coinnich loomed above, Miss Pink felt a prickling sensation on her scalp and saw that her companion’s hair was standing on end.
‘There’s too much electricity about,’ she called. ‘Let’s get off the ridge.’
They were close to the easy descent into Coire Lagan but they’d lost only a few hundred feet of height when the storm struck and further progress was accompanied by glaring flashes and stupendous claps of thunder which rolled and reverberated through all the corries. Then the rain came, hissing across the dry rocks and then settling to a dull drumming on their heads like small rubber balls.