“Yes. One of the guests here at the B&B. I found him in the meadow, just the other side of the woods.” Gemma pointed towards the river.
“And you would be?”
Belatedly, Gemma fished in the pocket of her jacket for her identification. “Gemma James. Detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police. I’m a guest here as well.”
If the officer was startled by this bit of information, she betrayed it only by the slight elevation of her eyebrows.
She spoke unintelligibly into her radio before saying to Gemma, “Ma’am. Now, if you could just show me the deceased.”
The journey across the garden and back through the woods seemed a nightmare to Gemma. Her legs began to
feel as if they were mired in clay; the distance seemed to extend itself with each step. She stopped to point out the area of crushed ferns, then again to indicate where Hazel had vomited.
“One of the other guests saw the body,” she explained,
“before I could stop her. She was sick here, as I was taking her back to the house.”
At the far edge of the woods, Gemma stopped, finding herself unable to go farther. “Just over there.” With a nod, she indicated the tussocks of heather hiding Donald.
Gemma watched as the officer continued along the path, saw the moment of hesitation as the young woman came close enough to make sense of what she saw. But the officer went on, her posture more businesslike than ever, and squatted to make a cursory examination of the body.
The yellow of her jacket stood out against the heather with the brilliance of a clump of gorse. She stood and spoke into her radio again before returning to Gemma.
“We’re to wait here for the backup from Aviemore, ma’am,” she said grimly. Her skin had paled beneath her makeup.
“What’s your name, Constable?” asked Gemma, sympathy momentarily overriding her personal worries.
“Mackenzie, ma’am.”
“You’re from around here?”
“Carrbridge. That’s just north of Aviemore, on the A,”
Constable Mackenzie added, unbending a little, as Gemma had hoped.
“I don’t suppose you see many fatalities,” Gemma said gently, thinking that the young woman couldn’t be long out of training college.
“The A is bad for motor crashes. And a few weeks ago, we had a pensioner wander off—died of exposure before we found him.”
“You haven’t worked a homicide before?”
The constable stiffened at this. “What makes you so sure it’s a homicide, ma’am?”
“No gun,” Gemma answered. “And I knew him, a bit.
I can’t believe he’d have shot himself.”
Tucking a stray hair behind her ear, Mackenzie opened her notebook again. “The deceased’s name?”
“Donald Brodie.”
Mackenzie stared at her. “Brodie of Benvulin?” When Gemma nodded, the constable said, “But you told me he was a guest at the B&B.”
“He was. It was a special cookery weekend.” As Gemma explained, all the complications of the situation came flooding back. Where had Hazel been that morning, and what was she to say about Hazel’s relationship with Donald?
Detective Chief Inspector Alun Ross knelt at the edge of his flower border, setting out a flat of lobelia. From the springy turf beneath his knees, moisture seeped through the fabric of his old gardening trousers, but he didn’t mind—it made him feel connected to the earth. Tamping the four-inch plant into the rich, composted soil, he sat back to admire his handiwork.
The tiny, star-shaped blossoms of the lobelia were a brilliant blue against the pale pink of the compact azaleas just coming into bloom behind them. A few feet farther along the border, a stand of magnificent white iris were just showing their tightly furled buds.
Although it was still early on Sunday morning, the sun soaked into his back like warm honey, and a light breeze cooled the sweat above his collar. The sound of bells came faintly over the garden wall, and in his mind’s eye he saw his tidy terraced house and square of garden as the
jewel in Inverness’s crown, and from it the tiered streets dropping down to St. Andrew’s Cathedral on Ness Walk.
As a child, he had attended services there, and he imagined his mother’s dismay if she could see him now, slacking on a Sunday morning. But this was his idea of heaven—why should he look any further?
Not that his wife had agreed with him, mind you—his ex-wife, he should say. She was married now to a fertil-izer salesman who liked to dance.
It had served Ross right, according to his daughter, Amanda, who had told him he should have taken her mum out a bit more. But then his daughter sometimes seemed to him as incomprehensible as an alien species—and how could he have explained to either of them that the last thing he’d wanted after a day on the job was to go out.
What he wanted was his own small universe, house and garden, a world he could control, an order he could impose. He came home; if it was fine enough he would work in the garden—there was always something needed doing—and if not, he did his chores round the house, then he would settle by the fire with his gardening books and catalogs and his dram of whisky.
Now his routine was undisturbed by anyone’s nagging, and he liked it just fine, thank you very much. He had seen his ex-wife not long ago, walking along Ness Bank.
She’d looked like a tart, hair newly bouffant, makeup too heavy, skirt too tight and too short. He’d been cordial enough to her and her paunchy, balding husband, but he’d been glad to make his escape—and if he’d felt a stirring of the old desire, he’d quickly banished it.
Now, setting the last of the lobelias into its new bed, he stretched in anticipation of a well-deserved break. He’d make himself a cup of tea from the kettle he’d left simmering on the kitchen hob, then he’d sit in his gazebo and
have a browse through the Sunday newspaper while the bees hummed beside him in the lavender.
But as he dusted off his knees at the kitchen door, he heard the phone ringing.
His heart sank. No one called him for a friendly chat at this hour of a Sunday morning. Looking out, he saw that the light in the garden had faded as suddenly as if someone had thrown a blanket across the sun. With a sigh of resignation, he crossed the room and lifted the phone from its cradle.
He should have known. He’d been a policeman too long to believe in such a thing as a perfect day.
The call came as Kincaid was trying to grind beans for coffee and butter Toby’s toast simultaneously, a feat he had not quite mastered. Nor was his multitasking helped by the fact that both dogs were beneath his feet, barking madly at the grinder, while Sid, the cat, hissed and batted at them from his perch on the kitchen table.
He switched off the grinder, shouted at the dogs, slid Toby’s plate precariously across the table, and grabbed the phone without glancing at the ubiquitous caller ID.
“This had better be good,” he snapped, assuming the caller was Doug Cullen, his sergeant.
There was a silence on the other end of the line, then Gemma’s voice, sounding more than taken aback.
“Duncan?”
“Oh, sorry, love. I thought you were Cullen, ringing to nag me for the umpteenth time—”
“I’ve been trying to reach you all weekend. Either the phone’s been engaged, or you haven’t answered, and your mobile is going straight to voice mail.” She sounded unexpectedly distressed.
“Doug’s been bending my ear all weekend over this re-
port I left with him,” Kincaid explained. It was fudging the truth a bit, but he didn’t want to discuss Kit over the telephone, especially when the boy might appear at any moment. The fact that Kit had not come downstairs after all the canine commotion was a clear sign that he was still shutting out Kincaid—and Toby.
When he was a boy Kincaid’s mother would have called it “a fit of the sulks”—the description a little harsh considering Kit’s circumstances. But Kincaid was beginning to find the behavior a bit aggravating.
“—and I left the spare battery for the mobile at the Yard,” he continued to Gemma. “Why didn’t you leave a message? I’d have rung you back.”
“I didn’t want to talk to the bloody machine,” Gemma said, her voice rising in an uncharacteristic quaver.
“Gemma, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”
“Yes. No. Not really. It’s Hazel.”
“Is she ill? What’s happened?”
“There’s been a death, a shooting, early this morning.
I found the body. His name was Donald Brodie, and he and Hazel were lovers before she was married. She was thinking of leaving Tim—”
“Good God.” Kincaid dumped Sid unceremoniously from the kitchen chair and sank into it. “She was having an affair with this Brodie?”
“Not exactly. At least, not until— The thing is, I don’t know what happened last night, and now I can’t talk to her. The police have everyone else sequestered in the house with a constable until the investigative team gets here from Inverness.”
“And you?”
“They’ve let me stay in the barn conversion—that’s where Hazel and I were sleeping. But she left sometime in the night, and only came back after I’d found him—
Donald.” Gemma’s voice broke, and Kincaid waited while she made an effort to get it under control. “If I’d just talked to her before the police arrived, then—”
“Gemma, I’m sure you did all you could. Look, I’ll get the next train—or the next flight to Inverness—”
“What about the children?”
“I could get Wes to come, or take them to your parents—”
“No. Just wait. But could you see Tim Cavendish? Tell him what’s happened? I don’t mean about Hazel and Donald,” she amended quickly, “just that there’s been a death, so he’ll be prepared.”
“Gemma—surely you don’t think Hazel could have shot this bloke?”
“No,” she said sharply. “Of course not. But—if there’s some connection—what if Hazel is in danger, too?”
Chapter Nine
So you are happed and gone, and there you’re lying, Far from the glen, deep down the slope of seas, Out of the stormy night, the grey sleet flying, And never again for you the Hebrides!
We need not keep the peat and cruise glowing, The goodwife may put by her ale and bread, For you, who kept the crack so blithely going, Now sleep at last, silent and comforted.
neil munro, “The Story Teller” (written on the death of Robert Louis Stevenson) From the Diary of Helen Brodie, Benvulin,
December
This morning’s post brought the news of the death of Charles Urquhart at Carnmore from a virulent fever, contracted on his return from Edinburgh a fortnight ago. Poor Charles! His constitution was never strong, as I recall, and he was caught out in the blizzard that has isolated us here at Benvulin. My heart aches for his poor wife and son. What a loss, a needless loss, of a man in his prime.
I remember Charles as a serious lad, one who
preferred to sit in the corner at dances and talk about books. And yet there was a spark of humor about him, and a kindness in the eyes. For a time, I had thought . . . but that was before he met Olivia Grant. From then he had no thought for anyone else, and rumor had it that Livvy’s father encouraged him, seeking a stable and well-connected marriage for his daughter.
How will Livvy Urquhart manage now, I wonder, with sole responsibility for the distillery? We must do something for her, and hope that Charles showed more wisdom in the matter of Pattison’s than my dear brother.
That brings me to the day’s other ill tidings. Not that it was unexpected, of course, but it still came as a shock to see it written in the Edinburgh newspaper. Pattison’s, the Edinburgh firm of blenders, has indeed failed, due at least in part to the profli-gate spending of the Pattison Brothers.
What this will mean for Benvulin I dare not think.
Rab, like our father before him, has always been inclined to invest recklessly (although, unlike Father, Rab’s weakness is the distillery itself, rather than the house) and he has committed to several
“joint adventures” in which he has sold whisky to Pattison’s without payment, in expectation of a price rise; a price rise that will now never occur.
I assure myself that we shall weather this crisis, as we have others, but I cannot help but wish that my brother had not spent his wife’s funds quite so readily. Margaret, the belle of Grantown society little more than a decade ago, has become fat and indolent in the security of her marriage. She has no
knowledge of the business and no interest in anything other than the vagaries of fashion or the latest gossip.
Nor does she give proper attention to the children, who have become wayward from lack of dis-cipline or schedule. Rab plays only the occasional game of cricket with little Robert, and of poor wee Meg he takes no notice at all.
How different might things have been if he had followed his heart rather than his pocketbook? A woman who challenged his intellect and his character might have made a different man of him, and perhaps a different father as well.
The snow grows heavier as I write, and I can no longer see the river from my window. Benvulin will soon be cut off again in its own little world, a state I used to anticipate with pleasure as a child, but have come to loathe. Only early December, and already a second fierce storm afflicts us. I fear this is a harbinger of a bad winter.
The knock came just as Gemma was ending her call to Kincaid. Opening the door, Gemma found Constable Mackenzie hovering on her doorstep, her hand raised to knock again.
“Ma’am—”
“Has the investigating team arrived?” Gemma asked.
Among the police cars parked half on the lawn, leaving a clear path for the scene-of-crime and mortuary vans, she saw two new unmarked cars. Poor Louise, she thought with a pang of sympathy as she noticed the tire tracks in the soft turf.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mackenzie answered. “It’s Chief Inspector Ross, from headquarters in Inverness.”
“He’ll be wanting to talk to me, then. I’ll just—”
“Ma’am.” Mackenzie colored slightly. “The chief inspector’s asked that I escort you to join the other guests.”
“Escort?”
“Yes, ma’am. They’re all in the sitting room of the main house. If you’ll just follow me.”
“But—” The protest died on Gemma’s lips. The constable’s embarrassment was obvious, and there was no use making things difficult for the young woman. She would have the opportunity to talk to the chief inspector soon enough, and in the meantime, she wanted to see Hazel.
But as she meekly followed Mackenzie around the house to the front door, she thought that Chief Inspector Ross from Inverness had made it quite clear that he had no intention of treating her as an equal.
Another constable stood at parade rest just outside the door of the sitting room, his broad face impassive.
John Innes jumped up as Gemma slipped into the room. “Gemma! What’s all this about? They’ve said Donald’s been . . . killed. Surely that’s not—”
“Shot,” said Hazel, with the clear articulation of the very shocked. She sat crumpled in the wing chair near the fire, hugging herself and rocking gently. “I told you. It was so neat, so tidy . . . I’d never have thought . . . There was hardly any blood at all.”
Gemma couldn’t tell her that the blood would have pooled beneath his body, his back a mess from the force of the pellets’ exit. But Hazel was at least partly right—
there would not have been much bleeding, even from the exit wound, because Donald’s heart must have stopped pumping instantly.
The room, heated by the morning sun, smelled of stale
ash and, faintly, of sweat. On the table by the window, the heads of the mauve tulips drooped as if they, too, were grieving.
Louise gave Hazel a concerned glance and whispered, “I’ve tried to get her to drink tea, but she wouldn’t touch it.”
�
��So it is true.” John began to pace. “Donald’s really dead.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite compre-hend it. “But why would someone kill him? Donald, of all people? Everyone loved Donald. And why herd us in here and put a guard on the door?”
“The police will be treating it as a suspicious death,”
Gemma explained. “It’s routine procedure, until everyone has been questioned and the initial search completed.”
“Oh, right. You would know, wouldn’t you?” said Heather Urquhart from the other corner of the sofa. Although she sat with her feet tucked up beneath her in her usual feline pose, the tension in her body erased any grace.
Pascal and Martin gave Gemma wary looks, as if they’d just remembered her job, and she swore under her breath. Damn the woman.
“Have they sent you in here to spy on us?” added Heather, her voice rising. Her skin without makeup was blotchy, her long hair tangled and carelessly tied back.
“Is there some reason you think they should have?”
“No, of course not.” Heather gave a dismissive shrug, but her eyes slid away from Gemma’s.
“Look, I’ve no special privileges here,” Gemma told them. “I’m a guest, just like you, but you can’t expect me not to apply my experience.”
Pascal studied her. “How can you be sure it was not an accident?” He looked rumpled, as if he had dressed hur-
riedly in yesterday’s clothes. “These things happen, even with the most experienced hunter, a stumble—”
Had Gemma been in charge of the investigation, she’d have put the constable in the room, rather than outside it, to prevent just this sort of speculation and exchanging information. But since Chief Inspector Ross had not done so, she might as well take advantage of her position. “The gun was missing,” she said, watching as their expressions registered varying degrees of surprise.
Martin Gilmore spoke for the first time. “But . . . what if someone was shooting and didn’t see him—”
“Not if the wound was neat,” interrupted John. “That means the gun was close, maybe only inches—”
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