Not a moment too soon. Boots crunched on gravel. I lay with my chin pressed into a soft carpet of leaf mould. From behind a drooping safety-curtain of shiny green leaves, I watched Mackenzie warily advancing on the garage, an ugly tyre wrench gripped tightly in one hand and a saucer of milk in the other.
He set down the saucer and eased open the access door. ‘Here, puss…puss…puss.’
I squirmed cautiously backwards, thankful that I’d managed to zip Gorgonzola safely into her holdall. To my ears drifted strident exhortations from an increasingly impatient Mackenzie. As he finally lost his temper, the door crashed back on its hinges with an ear-splitting report.
‘Bloody mog! When I catch you, I’ll bash your bloody brains out!’
The stream of invective effectively drowned any tell-tale rustlings that might have betrayed my presence as I slithered through the undergrowth. At what I judged to be a safe distance, I rose to a crouch and, still keeping under cover, made my way back to the road and my car.
I ticked off the gains – the discovery of an active canning plant, a consignment ready to move, and, possibly, the Achilles heel of Hiram J Spinks. I gazed fondly at Gorgonzola, my secret weapon.
Then reaction set in. I stroked Gorgonzola with a hand that shook slightly and gazed thoughtfully through the windscreen. ‘Well, G, I think you lost another couple of your nine lives there.’
And I’d so nearly lost my only one… If Mackenzie had lifted that trapdoor a fraction higher…
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I found it at the bottom of page four of the morning newspaper. It was quite inconspicuous really. No Island of Death headline, only one small paragraph. I sipped my coffee and read about the untimely end of a young woman, identity unknown, cut off by the tide, and drowned in a foolhardy attempt to wade back across the causeway. Kumiko Matsuura fared little better, her obituary rated two column inches. There were no suspicious circumstances, Spinks (and Macleod) had seen to that. Death by misadventure for both of us.
From a long list of eating places in the Tourist Guide, I had selected this little café-cum-gallery solely because it would be on Felicity’s route back to Edinburgh. Now, as I spread a thicker layer of butter on my scone, and let the mellow red sandstone walls of the courtyard and cheerful pots of fiery red geraniums draw me back from the shadows of the grave, I congratulated myself on my choice of rendezvous for the debriefing session.
‘Coo-ee, dear!’
I looked up to see the gastronome extraordinaire billowing into the courtyard and surging towards me.
‘I’m s-o-o-o excited. I’ve had an ab-saw-loot-ly marvellous idea!’
She subsided onto the spindly chair opposite me. Its fashionably thin metal legs bowed ominously, redesigned forcibly from twentieth-century Modern to nineteenth-century Regency.
‘But first, my dear, how did you get on with your investigations? It all depends on that.’ She leant forward expectantly, absent-mindedly helping herself to half of my scone.
‘Well…’ To play for time, I waved over the waitress and ordered a further supply of scones and coffee. Was Felicity, after all, planning on staying at the White Heather Hotel? If so, she would be a very useful spy in the camp. ‘I found no trace of contamination.’ I shrugged my shoulders and made a dismissive hand gesture. ‘Everything was spotless.’
She beamed, scooped a large bundle of notebooks out of her handbag and deposited them on the table. The pile leant precariously, a multi-coloured replica of Pisa’s Tower. ‘Then I can include Mrs Mackenzie’s establishment in my new project, Cook Alongside the Master Chefs in your own Kitchen. Learn their Secrets. It’s to be an interactive one-to-one tutorial linked to a computer and CD Rom. What makes this different from the run-of-the-mill is that the student copies a chef’s actions as he cooks. These notebooks are my research for it.’ She seized my cafetière and poured herself a cup. ‘Now what do you think of that?’
‘Learn from Mrs Mackenzie the secrets of a Scottish Larder, you mean? Learn her Secrets, I like it!’ I was positive, however, there was one secret of her larder that Mrs Mackenzie wouldn’t be revealing.
‘Everyone will like it, my dear.’ To make way for the new supply of scones, Felicity deftly resited the Tower of Pisa on top of a nearby table and slid the plate nearer to herself, inhaling appreciatively. ‘The heavenly aroma of freshly baked scones really is one of the seven wonders of the culinary world.’
With the measured discipline of a Japanese geisha performing the ritual tea ceremony, she raised her knife and sliced the scone. Reverentially, she positioned a square of butter on each warm half, then with a sigh of anticipation sat back, her hands clasped as if in prayer.
I sipped my coffee. Now that I was no longer in the land of the living, I needed someone on the spot at the White Heather Hotel, someone who wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Felicity’s little project would solve that part of the problem, but to ask her to keep tabs on Spinks and the Mackenzies hardly fitted with my adopted role of Government Health Inspector. Perhaps if I…
‘Er…’ I said, not quite sure how I was going to broach the subject.
Without taking her eyes from the buttered scones, she leant towards me. ‘I know just what you’re going to ask, dear. And the answer is, that it really depends on all sorts of factors.’
The mouthful of coffee chose the route to my lungs instead of my stomach. Through a storm of hacking coughs and watering eyes I managed to croak, ‘You do?’ The woman was a marvel – not just a gastronome extraordinaire, but a clairvoyante extraordinaire. Even I hadn’t known what I was going to ask.
Felicity swooped on one of the pieces of scone. ‘Yes, my dear,’ she said through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Secret…observation!’
I dabbed at my streaming eyes. ‘That’s just what I was going to say.’ But how on earth had she rumbled my interest in Spinks and the Mackenzies?
‘How perceptive, my dear. Yes, the secret is observation. These scones, you must watch them carefully. The time to eat them is just as the butter softens.’
‘Oh! I quite agree,’ I said, swallowing my disappointment, and a mouthful of dark coffee.
She patted her lips with her serviette, picked up the other half of the scone and bit into it delicately. For a few moments there was silence. The gastronome was mulling over her verdict.
‘Umm…wonderful texture. It always comes down to timing and observation. But I’m afraid I must plead guilty this morning to a minor lapse in both. Of course, at the time, my mind was fully engaged in planning my new project. Such possibilities. Such a challenge.’
I refilled my cup from the cafetière, listening with only half an ear. My observation problem was with Spinks. I stared at the dark liquid as if it contained the answer.
Indignation raised Felicity’s voice an octave, fully capturing my attention. ‘I didn’t see Mr Spinks’s suitcase at all. Well, he had left it in a very silly place.’
My cup crashed back onto the saucer, sending a shower of murky brown spots onto the white cloth.
‘Suitcase? Mr Spinks’s suitcase?’ I repeated.
‘Well, yes,’ Felicity sounded uncharacteristically defensive. ‘I gave it just the teeniest bit of a knock. I chose that moment, you see, to reverse. Just after the silly man put down his luggage behind my car.’
‘He was leaving?’ I asked, struggling to sound only mildly interested.
I needn’t have worried. She was busy scribbling in a thin notebook plucked from the top of the Tower of Pisa.
‘I thought he was booked in till after that golf tournament next week.’ Again my tone was casual.
She paused in her scribbling. ‘I don’t want to think about him at all.’ Her vast frame shuddered theatrically. ‘He made the most frightful scene.’
‘He did?’ I breathed, suitably agog, all pretence of casual interest forgotten.
‘I thought I’d just gone over one of those silly edging stones again. So awkwardly placed, just where they’re bound to catch your wheels!�
� The hand holding the pen wafted away one of Life’s Little Vexations as though it were a bothersome gadfly. ‘The next thing I knew, that awful man was banging on the side of my car and shouting the rudest things.’ A spot of high colour glowed in each cheek at the recollection.
I clutched at a straw. ‘I don’t suppose he said where he was off to?’
Felicity closed her notebook with a vicious snap. ‘Hell was mentioned several times, but I rather presume that he was scheduling it as my destination rather than his.’
Long after Felicity had gathered the Tower of Pisa to her ample bosom and left, I sat there trying to work out what to do. Spinks had vanished into thin air, a conditioned reflex to cover his tracks, or a rule of never staying too long in one place? Or perhaps he’d got wind of my resurrection and gone to ground because he felt threatened. Whatever the reason, I’d lost him. I stared thoughtfully at the pots of red geraniums, the same clear red as Gina’s coat. The living Gina had led me to Inchcolm and Tantallon. Perhaps the dead Gina could finger Spinks from the grave. I fished out my notebook and thumbed through it to the page where I’d copied her hastily scribbled notes exactly as she had written them.
Inchcolm Cramond May
Tantallon Fast
Longniddry Bents
I ran my finger down the list. Perhaps I’d find a clue to Spinks’s present whereabouts. Inchcolm – I was pretty sure he’d been the cause of my ‘accident’, so I could count that he’d been there. Cramond – he’d most definitely been there. I was a hundred per cent sure he was that hunched figure behind the wheel in the fog at Tantallon, and the murderous golfer at Longniddry Bents. So, for his next scheduled appearance, that left the little island guarding the River Forth, the Isle of May. Or Fast Castle, on the coast, south-east of Edinburgh. I stuffed the notebook back into my pocket and rose to my feet. I’d better consult that map again, and call on Macleod.
‘I thought you’d be interested in this.’ Macleod pushed a sheet of paper across his desk. ‘It came in a couple of days ago. The receiving officer didn’t think it merited further action, and filed it with the other reported traffic incidents. It was a bit of luck that the same officer happened to be manning the computer in the Incident Room when the description of the body found on Cramond Island was being circulated.’
‘I could do with a bit of luck. The trail’s going cold. If Fast Castle or May Island doesn’t turn up trumps, we’ve lost him.’
Without much hope, I scanned the paper, a routine traffic-incident form detailing a case of dangerous driving in Edinburgh’s Queen’s Park. The witness statement, given by a Mr Henry Crawford, described how a car had mounted the pavement, demolished a park bench and narrowly missed a woman sitting on it. Description of Car. Colour: red. Make and registration: unknown. Description of Driver: Asiatic female, gold streak in hair.
Very public-spirited of Harry to report my near demise but where was the new lead in this? Puzzled, I looked up. Macleod was leaning back in his chair eyeing me with what was definitely a smug, self-satisfied smile. ‘At the end,’ he said.
I glanced down again at the report. At the bottom of the page was a handwritten footnote, dated 29th June. Ref Road Traffic Incident E8642: Witness H Crawford reports second sighting of Asiatic female driver at Anstruther Harbour, Fife.
I returned Macleod’s smile. ‘Time, I think, to have another little word with Harry.’
Edith and Harry were obviously keen gardeners. Window-boxes of pink and purple petunias half-obscured the windows and cascaded in multi-coloured waterfalls down the pebble-dashed walls. Above the door, a giant hanging basket gyrated slowly in the light breeze. Regimented rows of red geraniums and white and blue bedding plants were drawn up around a parade-square of manicured lawn. Cuidado con el Perro warned a white and blue ceramic plaque fixed to the wrought-iron gate, a message spelt out pictorially by a line drawing of a fiercely snarling mastiff. A bit of wish fulfilment on the little terrier’s part? I suppressed a smile. I dodged the gyrations of the hanging basket and rang the bell.
Edith answered the door, wiping her hands on a blue-striped apron. ‘Yes?’ she raised her brows in polite enquiry.
Peering cautiously from behind her legs, the terrier gave a half-hearted wuff. From the kitchen came the rattle of dishes.
‘I don’t know if you remember me, but you and your husband were in the Queen’s Park a week ago when I was nearly hit by a car…’
‘Oh yes, that was dreadful!’ Edith’s eyes widened at the memory. ‘You could have been killed. I just said to Harry the other day—’
As if on cue, Harry called from the kitchen, ‘Who is it, Edith?’
‘Harry, you’ll never guess who it is…’ She beckoned me in.
For the next hour I heard all about Harry’s skill at growing geraniums, petunias and potatoes, Edith’s latest adventures at the supermarket, and the dog’s visit to the vet. But of their sighting of Kumiko Matsuura, I heard nothing. Whenever I tried to bring up their second encounter with her, the conversation veered off in another serpentine turn as they animatedly reminded each other of some corroborative incident.
At last in desperation, I glanced casually at my watch. ‘Good heavens!’ I gave an exaggerated shriek of horror. The dog lying on the rug at Edith’s feet opened one eye, decided that its guard dog services were not required, and resumed its post-lunch siesta. ‘Twenty past four already. If the car’s not back at the hire company by five, they’ll rob me for another day!’
Relying on Edith and Harry’s Scottish thrift to imbue them with a sense of urgency, I rummaged in my bag and pulled out a notepad and pen. ‘The police say they’ll charge the driver of the car that nearly killed me, if I can trace her.’ Then, I asked a question that, with luck, would allow no diversions. ‘The driver, you saw her again – in Anstruther, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right,’ Edith turned to Harry. ‘We’d just parked the car, hadn’t we, Harry?’
‘No, I don’t think so, Edith. We’d been—’
I thrust the notepad under Edith’s nose. ‘Just write down what she was doing.’
Edith took the pen. ‘Well now, dear…I’ll need my glasses. Did I have them when I was in the kitchen, Harry?’
He scratched his head and thoughtfully massaged his chin. ‘Don’t think so, Edith.’ His brow wrinkled, his lips pursed, ‘Now, you had them when—’
I grabbed back the notepad. ‘It’s all right. Just tell me what she was actually doing.’
‘Doing? I don’t think she was doing anything much, was she, Harry?’ Edith frowned in concentration.
‘You’re right, Edith. I don’t think she was.’
Gritting my teeth, I tried again. ‘You mean she was just standing there? In the centre of Anstruther?’
Both shook their heads, Edith from left to right, Harry from right to left.
‘No,’ she said.
Harry, a fraction of a second later, ‘No.’
‘No?’ My voice rose in a squeak of frustration.
‘Not in the centre. Down at the harbour on the boat.’
‘No, she wasn’t standing, she was sitting on the boat.’
‘Boat?’ In striking contrast to the unstoppable flow issuing from both of them, my input to the conversation seemed to have been reduced to single words.
‘Yes, the boat. Mind you, it wasn’t a good day for going, was it, Harry?’
‘Oh no. All those low clouds. I said it would rain, didn’t I, Edith?’
‘You did, Harry. And you were right.’ Edith gazed fondly at her husband. Weather forecasting, it seemed, was another of his accomplishments.
‘Boat going where?’ I prised the words into the dialogue like a pearl fisher inserting his knife into an oyster.
‘May Island, where the bird-watchers go.’ Edith looked faintly surprised at my ignorance.
‘Isle of May,’ said Harry. ‘Haven’t you been there?’
I shook my head. In my mind was Gina’s list and that scribbled word May.
&
nbsp; ‘Oh, it’s a place to visit for bird-watching, right enough.’ Harry nodded wisely. ‘Guillemots, gulls, puffins…’
‘I do like the puffins, Harry. They’re so comical. Do you remember the time we took the binoculars and watched them going in and out of their burrows on the cliffs?’
Harry’s weather-beaten face creased into a smile. I slipped in my question before he could embark on another of those lengthy reminiscences.
‘So you think that woman was bird-watching, then?’
‘Oh no, I don’t think so.’ Edith was quite emphatic. ‘Not with those flimsy shoes. I wouldn’t like to walk about the garden with those shoes.’
‘You’re right there, Edith.’ They both laughed at the folly of human nature. ‘You need shoes with good soles. Now, the fellow with her had the right idea. Golfing shoes with studs.’
‘She was with someone?’ I said faintly. I’d broken another cardinal rule of witness interrogation. Don’t assume anything. What else could Edith and Harry be unwittingly hiding? What else could be uncovered with the right question?
‘Yes, they had their heads together studying a bit of paper. A map of the island, I think it was, one of those tourist things. You see, the boat was just about to cast off. We do love watching the boats leave the harbour, don’t we, Edith? We were standing up there on the quay, and she was down below us and a little bit away. It was when she looked up and I saw that gold streak in her hair that I recognised her. I looked at Edith and she had noticed it too. We didn’t know what to do, did we, Edith?’
‘No, Harry, we didn’t. We could hardly jump on the boat and march up to her and say, “Excuse me, didn’t we see you nearly running down a lady in the Queen’s Park the other day?” She would have denied it, wouldn’t she? Or pretended she didn’t understand, didn’t speak English. All we’d have got would have been a flood of Chinese or some such foreign lingo.’
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