As Benoit left the room, the constable on duty in the hall stepped in. “Sir, we’ve found a gun cabinet in the scullery. It’s not locked, and it’s possible there’s a gun missing.”
“What’s the owner’s name?” Ross glanced at his list.
“Innes, sir.”
“Take him to look at the cabinet, then bring him in here.”
As they waited, Ross heard the first sharp spatter of rain against the windowpanes. He swore under his breath, and Munro stood and looked out the window.
“I think the worst of it will hold off a bit yet.” Munro stretched his long neck and cracked his knuckles, a habit Ross found profoundly annoying.
“Will ye stop that, man,” he snapped. “How many times do I have to tell ye?”
“Sorry, Chief,” said Munro, looking more doleful than ever. “I get the cramp in my fingers.”
They sounded like an old married couple, Ross thought with a glimmer of amusement, although Munro was much better tempered than Ross’s ex-wife. Before he could apologize, the door opened and the constable popped his head in.
“Mr. Innes says there is a gun missing, sir, a small-bore Purdy.”
“Send him in, then.”
“I don’t know how it could have happened,” John
Innes said as he entered the room. A large man with thinning hair, dressed in a pullover that had seen better days, he seemed to vibrate with agitation. “That was my grandfather’s gun. I always lock the cabinet, always. I don’t know how—”
“Sit down, Mr. Innes, and let’s begin at the beginning.
I’m Chief Inspector Ross.”
Innes hesitated for a moment, as if unsure what to do with himself in his own dining room, then pulled out a chair.
“Now, that’s better,” Ross continued. “Why don’t you describe the gun for me.”
“It’s Purdy lightweight, a twenty-gauge. A scroll and vine pattern, made before the Great War.”
Ross blanched. In good shape, a gun like that could be worth thousands of pounds. How could the man have been so careless? Making an effort to keep his temper, he said, “This gun cabinet of yours, Mr. Innes, who would have access to the key?”
Innes took a breath. “I keep mine on my key ring. It’s usually in my pocket, except at night, when I put them on the dressing table.”
“Is that the only key?”
“No. My wife has a copy. Louise usually hangs her keys on the hook by the scullery door when she’s at home.”
“So you leave the key to the gun cabinet in plain sight, in the same room?”
Flushing, Innes said, “This is the country, for God’s sake. We run a guesthouse. We’d never have done that in Edinburgh, but here, you don’t think—”
“You are legally responsible for the security of your weapons, Mr. Innes. Do you understand that you can be prosecuted? Or at the very least, fined?” Ross persisted,
but wearily. The man had a Highland accent; he had probably grown up in a household where guns were kept as casually as dogs.
“Tell me, Mr. Innes, who had access to the gun cabinet?”
“Access? The guests normally go in and out through the front, but I hold my cookery classes in the kitchen, and there’s nothing to stop anyone going in and out as they please.” He rubbed his fingers across the stubble on his chin, the rasping clear in the quiet room. “But surely you don’t think Donald was shot with my gun?”
“I think it beggars coincidence that a man was found shot dead on your property on the same day as your gun turns up missing.”
Innes’s sallow skin blanched. “But you can’t think it was one of my guests! Someone could have come in and taken the gun—you’ve just said so. What if I did leave the cabinet unlocked, and some tramp saw his chance—”
“And why would a tramp be shooting Mr. Donald Brodie in your field in the wee hours of this morning?”
asked Ross, giving free rein to his sarcasm.
Innes went quiet at that. When his protest came, it was feeble. “I don’t know, do I? But it is possible.”
“Aye. The Loch Ness Monster is possible. But it’s not verra likely, is it, Mr. Innes? Are you telling me now that you left your cabinet unlocked?”
“No!” A film of sweat had appeared on Innes’s brow.
“I’m sure I locked it. I just meant it’s a habit, the sort of thing you don’t really think about doing.”
“Have you seen anyone in the household near the gun cabinet?”
“If you mean have I seen anyone lurking suspiciously in the scullery, no. But the entire class was in the kitchen much of yesterday.”
Ross considered what he had learned so far. “Mr.
Innes, were you aware of a special relationship between Mr. Brodie and Hazel Cavendish?”
“No!” The response was too quick, too emphatic. “I mean, I knew they were friends, Louise and Hazel and Donald, from a long time ago. It was meant to be a sort of reunion, this cookery weekend, a surprise for Hazel.”
“Do you mean that Hazel didn’t know Donald would be here?” asked Ross, deliberately using their Christian names.
“I—I’m not sure. It was Louise who arranged it.”
“And what about this other woman who turned up with her child to see Donald yesterday evening? What can you tell me about that?”
“I’ve no idea who she was. I didn’t see her. It was Louise who answered the door.”
“You didn’t look out the window?” Ross asked with a hint of disbelief.
“No. I was in the kitchen, getting the meal ready.” The uncertainty that had characterized Innes’s earlier answers seemed to have vanished, and Ross suspected he was telling the truth.
“But Hazel and Donald had a row about this woman, during dinner, was it?”
“I don’t know anything about that. I was in the kitchen, and serving the food.”
“I understand they went out together, after the meal.”
“Neither of them came into the sitting room for coffee, that’s all I can tell you. I didn’t see them go out.”
“You didn’t hear them arguing?”
“No.”
Ross sat back with a sigh. Innes’s answers had become not only firm, but mulish. Was it Hazel Cavendish the man was protecting? And if so, why? “I think that’s all
for now, Mr. Innes,” he said. “A constable will take your statement.”
“I’m free to go?” Innes sounded as if he’d expected to be hauled off to the nick.
“For the moment, unless you’ve something else to tell me?”
“No. I— Is it all right if I fix the breakfast now?”
Ross’s stomach rumbled in response to the thought of food, and he thought regretfully of the breakfast he had forgone early that morning in favor of gardening.
“This is aye a murder inquiry, Mr. Innes,” he said testily, “and there are more important matters to attend to than food.” Ross sensed Munro’s suppressed smile behind him, which made him all the more irritable. Munro knew, from long experience, that he got cross when he was hungry.
“I’m sorry.” Innes looked abashed. “God knows I didn’t mean any disrespect to Donald. But I thought it might help, you know, with the shock, if everyone had something to eat. It’s my remedy for all ills, cooking.”
The man was right, Ross had to admit. It never failed to amaze him that, in the midst of tragedy, the human body kept on demanding food and drink and sleep—even sex, often enough. “The constable is taking statements in the kitchen,” he said a bit more kindly. “You’ll have to wait until she’s finished, and your scullery will remain off limits for the time being.”
When Innes had left the room, Ross said to Munro,
“That wee mannie is hiding something, but I’ll be damned if I know whether it has anything to do with the murder.”
“Do you want to see the wife next, Chief?” asked Munro, rising.
“No. I think we’ll have a word with Miss Heather Urquhart.”
*
>
She would be a striking woman under other circumstances, thought Ross, with the contrast between her pale skin and her mass of long, dark hair. But now the hair was carelessly matted, the rims of her eyelids red from weeping. They had established that she had worked for Donald Brodie for ten years, beginning as his personal assistant and working her way up to distillery manager, and throughout the questioning she had been tightly abrupt, as if she didn’t dare give rein to her emotions.
Now Ross said thoughtfully, “Miss Urquhart, was your relationship with Donald Brodie romantic in nature?”
She stared at him with an expression of intense dislike.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, but I’m afraid it is.” He leaned forward, saw her instinctive recoil. “Your employer, Miss Urquhart, was brutally murdered, and that makes everything about Donald Brodie my business. Have you ever seen a shotgun wound?” he added, deliberately cruel, meaning to shake her cold self-possession. “Not a pretty sight—”
Her hands flew to her face, as if she could shield herself from his words with her long, pale fingers. “Stop, please,” she said shakily. “No. The answer is no. Donald and I were friends—good friends—but that’s all.”
“Then maybe you can explain the woman who called on him last night, the one with the child.”
Nodding, Heather lowered her hands to her lap again, but not before he saw the tremor. “Her name is Alison Grant. That was her little girl, Chrissy. She’s a cripple.” Her voice held a faint distaste, as if the child had displayed bad table manners. “Donald had seen Alison a few times, but I think lately he’d been trying to avoid her.”
“So she came looking for him?”
“I don’t know how she’d have known he was here,”
said Heather, sounding puzzled. “I don’t think he’d have told her. I certainly didn’t.”
“Do you know where can we find Alison Grant?”
“She has a flat in Aviemore; I don’t know the address.
But she works in the gift shop on the main road, just down from the railway station.”
Ross made a note. “Did she argue with Mr. Brodie last night when she came here?”
“I don’t know. He only spoke to her outside.”
“And you didn’t discuss it with him afterwards?”
She shook her head. “No. There was dinner, and then . . . then he went out.”
“With your cousin, I believe, Hazel Cavendish.”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t, or won’t?”
“I can’t, Chief Inspector. What either of them did after they left the dining room, I’ve no idea.”
“But there was a relationship between your cousin and Donald Brodie?”
“At one time, yes. But it was before I went to work for Donald, and I wasn’t privy to any details.”
“You weren’t close to your cousin?”
“No,” Heather said sharply, and then as if afraid she’d been too abrupt, she added, “not since we were children.
Her family moved away when we were in our teens.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me what will happen to the distillery, with Mr. Brodie gone.”
“I—I’m not sure. Donald’s sister is dead—you’ll know about that. His parents divorced before his father died, and his mother has remarried, so she has no claim on the estate. I’ve no idea what provision Donald made for his shares.”
“You’ll have the name of Mr. Brodie’s solicitor?”
“It’s Giles Glover, in Grantown. They were school friends.”
Ross took this down, then dismissed her.
Munro spoke up from his chair against the wall.
“Prone to tragedy, the Brodies, I’d say, with what happened to the father and daughter, and now the son.”
“I remember reading something in the papers—”
“Climbing accident on Cairngorm. Snow came down suddenly, cut them off. It was days before they found the bodies.”
“A bad business,” Ross agreed. “But I don’t see how there could be a connection.”
Munro looked disappointed, but rallied. “It seems to me the lassie was verra weel informed about Mr. Brodie’s affairs, for all her protest to the contrary.”
“Maybe, maybe not, considering her position in the firm. We’ll see the solicitor first thing tomorrow. But now, let’s light the fire in this bloody room. Then we’ll see what Mrs. Innes has to say.”
Louise Innes reassured them, with more confidence than her husband had shown, that she had not seen any member of the household near the gun cabinet, or any strangers in the garden or near the scullery. She couldn’t remember when she had last glanced at the cabinet, nor could she tell that her key ring had been tampered with in any way.
“What about last night, Mrs. Innes?” asked Ross. “I understand it was you who answered the door to the young woman who came calling for Mr. Brodie.”
Pursing her lips in disapproval, Louise Innes said,
“She was really quite rude. She demanded to see Donald.
I was afraid she was going to make a scene right there on the doorstep.”
“What did she say, exactly?”
Louise considered for a moment, then said carefully,
“ ‘I want to see Donald. Tell him I know he’s here.
There’s no use him skulking about, the lying bastard.’ ” Shaking her head, she added, “And in front of the child, too.”
“You’d never seen her before?”
“No. She wasn’t our sort.” Louise Innes seemed to feel no need to apologize for her snobbery.
“Did you overhear any of her conversation with Donald?”
“No,” Louise said, with what might have been a trace of regret. “I was getting the dining room ready, and helping John with the food.”
“I was under the impression that the guests did the cooking on a cookery course.”
“The class did most of the preparation yesterday, but John likes to do the last bits himself. He thinks that if people are paying to stay, they should have a little pam-pering—or at least that’s what he says. If you ask me, I think he just can’t bear to give up that much control of the kitchen.”
Ross gave her an encouraging nod. “Now, about your friend Hazel Cavendish, Mrs. Innes. Did she have some special understanding with Donald Brodie? A relationship?”
“Oh, not for years. But— Well, it was Donald who wanted to invite Hazel this weekend. I told John from the beginning I thought it was a bad idea,” Louise added, with the self-righteousness of the justified.
“You thought there might be trouble?”
“Oh, no—of course I never imagined anything like this! It’s just that—well, no matter what Donald wanted, Hazel is married. He couldn’t expect . . .”
“Are you telling me that Donald Brodie was still in love with Mrs. Cavendish? Were they having an affair?”
“No! I don’t— Donald wanted to see her, that was all.
For old times’ sake.”
“But Mrs. Cavendish knew he would be here, when you invited her?”
“Well, I did mention it, of course.” Louise smoothed already immaculate hair behind one ear. “She didn’t seem too concerned one way or the other.”
“But she was angry last night, after the young woman called for him?”
“I—I don’t know. I wasn’t in the dining room much at all.”
Ross had the distinct feeling she was prevaricating.
“Mrs. Innes, I know you mean well, but it really is best for everyone if you cooperate fully. Withholding evidence in a police inquiry is quite a serious matter.”
Louise Innes tucked her hair behind her ear again, then clasped her hands, rubbing the ball of one thumb over the top of the other. “There’s nothing, really. It’s just that . . . after dinner, when I went to take the rubbish out to the big bin, I heard them in the garden. They seemed to be arguing.”
“Did you hear what they said?”
/> “No, just raised voices. It was dark by then, and I couldn’t be sure exactly where they were. I hurried back inside—didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping.”
Ross found it interesting that she hadn’t said she didn’t want to eavesdrop; only that she didn’t want to be caught.
“Mrs. Innes—”
“You’re not thinking Hazel had something to do with Donald’s death?” She gazed at him, her hand lifted halfway to her mouth. “That’s just not possible! Hazel would never hurt anyone. And besides, Martin said Don-
ald came back to their room last night, so even if Donald and Hazel were together last night it doesn’t mean—”
“No, it doesn’t, but Mrs. Cavendish’s movements are unaccounted for this morning, and that is the crucial time period.”
“Oh.” The pupils of Louise Innes’s pale blue eyes dilated. “But . . .”
“Did you see Mrs. Cavendish this morning?”
“No. Not until after . . . her car was gone when I first went out into the garden. She drove up just as Gemma . . .” For the first time, Louise looked near to tears.
“Did you hear the gunshot?”
She shook her head, the bell of her hair swinging with the motion. “No. At least I don’t think I did—I might not have paid any attention. I was in the kitchen for a bit, making coffee, doing my usual morning chores, making a good bit of noise, I suppose. But after John left, I went out into the garden. I would surely have heard it then.”
“Your husband left this morning?” Ross’s interest quickened. Behind him, he heard Munro shift position and knew his sergeant had caught it as well. “I don’t remember your husband mentioning going anywhere this morning.”
“He ran to one of the neighboring estates to pick up some fresh eggs for breakfast—they keep free-range hens. What’s the harm in that?”
“Do you know what time this was?”
“I— No, I didn’t notice. You don’t think—you can’t think John took the gun,” she went on, her voice rising in horror. “He couldn’t have. I was in the kitchen when he left.”
“He could have put the gun in the car earlier—perhaps during the night.”
“You are surely joking, Chief Inspector,” Louise said flatly, as if she would not have it be otherwise. “Even if it were possible that John could do such a thing, how could he have known that Donald would be walking in the meadow this morning? How could anyone have known?”
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