Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder

by Catriona McPherson

  I looked inquiringly at her.

  ‘The Hepburns themselves are not exactly sturdy stock,’ she said. ‘Thank God Hilda seems to have brought a bit of vigour back to the line.’ Then she moved on very crisply and in a manner which prevented any wheeling back again. ‘So. Robin put his foot down about the marriage. Hilda put hers down like Rumpelstiltskin, which isn’t like her. Robert Senior – he who established House of Hepburn – was no keener and he’s a shrewd businessman that I’d have expected to be all for a merger. Dulcie, Robin’s mother, was vehemently against the thing too. Most odd, because Dulcie – perfectly pleasant little woman as I’m always the first to say –’ poor Dulcie, I thought – ‘is very . . . Home Chat, don’t you know. Knitting and recipes and what have you, and one would have thought that Mirren Aitken would be her dream of a daughter-in-law. Only I was in favour. And on the other side, as I say, Jack and Abby said no, ghastly Mary did the same and only good old Bella couldn’t see the difficulty. We talked about it on the telephone, she and I. You’ve met Bella, of course?’ I acknowledged that I had. ‘She’s splendid. Another old trout and one of the highest order. We’re a force to be reckoned with, you know.’ I smiled and waited.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, resuming after stopping to give me a cigarette and light one for herself. I noticed that her hand shook slightly as she held it to her lips and I surmised that we were coming to the crux of the matter. ‘The thing is, I wasn’t prepared to sit idly by and let young love be snuffed out for no reason. I live here – have done for years – but I still have a dower house of my own. My husband left it to me and I kept it to annoy my daughter-in-law. I also kept a tiara and a couple more pieces I should really have sold if I wasn’t going to pass them on. But it’s always irked me the way that we old girls are expected to relinquish our jewels – we need them more than pretty young faces, don’t we? Also – here’s the nub of it – I have shares in House Of. Robin gave them to me in a fit of . . . something or other, when he and Hilda were married. Sort of welcoming me to the clan kind of thing, I suppose. So all in all, I was just about able to toddle on and do my fairy godmother routine. They were going to elope and stay in the dower house – poor things: it’s pretty crumbly – living off the proceeds of the tiara until I had used my shares like a mallet to din some sense into everyone.’

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Mrs Haddo, ‘but I’ll spell it out anyway.’ She stubbed out her cigarette, grinding it away to fragments in the ashtray. ‘Mirren Aitken didn’t kill herself. She had no reason to.’

  I watched her through the ribbon of smoke which was drifting upwards from my own cigarette. She was very sure and very angry but I wondered if she had followed those angry thoughts through to their ends.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. The way she read my mind was beginning to unnerve me. ‘I think someone killed her. And I didn’t tell the police at any point during the last week because it was obvious who the suspects would be. The family of the boy.’

  ‘So what’s changed?’ I asked her. ‘Why are you speaking up now?’

  She tried to light another cigarette, but her hands shook so much that she could not get the match to strike against the side of the box. When she had missed it three times I half-stood to help her, but she waved me away.

  ‘I thought I’d be able to pull this off,’ she said. ‘Almost made it, eh?’ She grinned again but there was no humour in it now. Her eyes were large and stark in her face. ‘A week past Monday—’

  ‘You mean after Mirren had run away?’ The Scotch, with their next Friday and last Tuesday there, were always confusing me.

  ‘Was it? Well around then anyway, it was suddenly decided to pack Googie off to our friends at Kelso – as though a few days’ fishing were going to cheer him up again like a lollipop for skinned knees used to – and the thing is, they telephoned this morning. Googie disappeared from his room last night.’

  ‘You think he might turn up at the funeral and make a scene?’

  She shook her head. She was looking down at the floor, digging one elegant heel into the pile of the carpet.

  ‘Well, do you think he might suspect someone in particular? That he might be intent on revenge?’

  ‘That’s the least of my worries,’ she said. Her eyes filled and, compared to their shining, all of a sudden her face looked grey and papery, terribly old. ‘The thing is, Googie is absolutely hopeless at keeping secrets. Always has been. So when it came to the elopement, I cooked it all up with Mirren behind his back, Bella helping. We were going to spring it on him.’

  ‘And since Mirren died?’ I said, very quietly.

  ‘I didn’t tell him. I thought it would be best if he could think of Mirren as . . . well, as not the sort to make a good wife, even if she did love him . . . doing that to herself. I thought I was helping him get over her.’ Then she sniffed and put a tight, brave smile – terrible to behold – upon her face. ‘And now he’s gone missing – not angry and vengeful, Mrs Gilver, but wretched. And no one knows where he is and I keep thinking of Romeo and Juliet. Because I didn’t tell him. He still doesn’t know.’

  I questioned her very closely, asking about Dugald’s friends and habits and favourite places, and left her eventually well after one o’clock (when I was beginning to feel some concern about the length of Pilmuir Street and the nearness of the funeral hour) with a long list of telephoning to do. Quietly to myself, I remained convinced that the funeral was where Dugald would be bound after bunking off from Kelso and I was glad that Alec was going to be with me; between us we would be able to keep a sharp eye on all corners of the Abbey and might even be able to bundle the young man away before he caused a scene.

  At least the return journey was downhill but even so I became rather flushed on the way and much more dishevelled than one ought to be when presenting oneself as a mourner, my hair flying out at the sides from under my hat, my coat unbuttoned and silk scarf flapping, gloves off and jammed in my bag which had seemed a good idea for a brisk trot on a warm day but now left me with the task of getting them back again onto hands swollen with heat and hurry. I was wrestling with them as I turned down the Kirkgate, assuring myself that at least I would be able to dodge into the Abbey at the other end from where the family party would be arriving, for Abbey Park lay beyond the far side of the church grounds with a gate very handy, when to my horror in the distance I saw the unmistakable sight of four nodding black plumes which could only be the head ornaments of horses pulling a hearse. They had gone right around the Abbey to arrive at the most impressive entrance – of course, they had! Had I forgotten the winding procession on the jubilee day? – and we were set to meet on the very steps unless I swerved and found another route quickly.

  I swerved. Thankfully Dunfermline Abbey Church, plonked in the middle of the city that way, is well served with gates and I darted unseen into the nearest one.

  I should have known really that the funeral arrangements for Mirren would be lavish to the last degree. Peeping between the gravestones I could see not only the four plumed horses pulling a glass-sided hearse carriage but feathermen too, pages with batons, and what might even be mutes, if such things really still existed. Behind all of that came the same two motorcars from last week, their hoods up and their side windows shaded with black netting. The strain of moving so slowly could be heard in the rumble of their engines, and the chauffeurs’ faces were grim with tension as they tried to avoid the ignominy of stalling.

  Alec was waving at me from the Abbey doors, hopping from foot to foot, and we slipped without a moment to spare into the great stone ante-room which leads on to the church proper. Hidden from view behind one of the mighty pillars there, I grabbed both his arms in mine and started talking very fast and low.

  ‘Dugald’s granny and Bella Aitken were hatching an elopement for them,’ I said. ‘Mirren knew. She had no reason to kill herself, Alec. It was murder. It had to be.’

  ‘But what about the swabs?’ Alec said. ‘The police were s
ure.’

  I had been thinking about the swabs and I had an answer. I folded one of my hands around one of his, guided it to his temple and squeezed his fingers.

  After a moment, he nodded.

  ‘But not Abigail,’ he said. ‘Unless she wore gloves.’

  ‘Which she’d either have had on her or would have hidden somewhere,’ I said.

  ‘Did the police search the attics?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Alec glanced round to the front doors where the sound of heavy tramping feet on the gravel announced the arrival of the coffin at the door.

  ‘Should we try to stop this?’ he asked. ‘Make them take her body back to the doctor?’ I am sure my face fell at the prospect and Alec was no keener.

  ‘It’s not a cremation,’ I began and that was all he needed. He nodded energetically and together we hurried on tiptoe across the vast darkness and into the lighted nave.

  We shuffled ourselves into a back pew, prayed briefly to avoid shocking our neighbours and then sat up and surveyed the sea of hatted heads stretching away in front of us to the distant altar. The Abbey was stuffed to bursting, even the side chapels filled with tight ranks of glum-faced townspeople. And I had forgotten, after years of village churches and house chapels, just how enormous Dunfermline Abbey was; my confidence that Alec and I could subdue Dugald Hepburn, should he suddenly appear, seemed like hollow hubris now.

  ‘It would help if we knew what he looked like,’ Alec whispered, clearly having similar thoughts to mine.

  ‘He’ll look like a twenty-year-old boy rushing up to hug the coffin,’ I replied out of one corner of my mouth. The elderly couple who had squashed up to make room for us both swivelled their eyes and glared. They could not possibly hear what we were saying, but we were whispering in church and that was enough to earn black looks from them. I lowered my voice even further before I spoke again.

  ‘Straight to the police after this?’ The female half of the elderly couple gave a ringing tut which drew attention from all around, from members of the congregation who had not been troubled by Alec’s and my soft whispering. He mouthed to me that we would talk later.

  The organist was already in his seat and at that moment he pumped his feet up and down on the pedals and laid his hands against the keys, sending a miasma of doleful chords rolling over the bowed heads of the waiting mourners. I could hear muffled knocks and thumps from behind as the coffin was manhandled, and I shivered.

  Perhaps it was just the cold, the chill of damp air pressing down and the chill of old stone creeping up, so cold that even though every side-table and pillar at the altar and every niche and alcove up the sides was filled with flowers none of their scent could reach us. That was possibly a blessing, for the arrangements – three feet across and cascading to the floor – were made up of enormous rhododendron heads in the palest pink and masses of white narcissus as well as the usual lilies; in a warm room they would have been suffocating.

  Here came the coffin, white and glittering, with another heap of flowers resting on it. These narcissi were trembling, showing us that the pall-bearers, although they looked steady and strong, were not unaffected by the burden on their shoulders. Jack Aitken was one of them, Mr Muir the manager of the gentlemen’s side another; I did not recognise the other four and saw no family resemblance although I was sure they were not professionals, being too individually dressed in their best dark suits and black shoes, not decked out with the uniformity of undertakers’ men.

  Behind the coffin the Aitken women made their way up the aisle as though it were a cliff-face and there were a howling gale blowing hard against them. Bella, towering over Mary and Abigail, spread her arms protectively behind them and ploughed unsteadily on, while the two smaller women tottered one faltering step and then with effort another and swaying a little yet another and the congregation held its breath, men in the aisle seats shifting, ready to help should the pitiful threesome flounder.

  When they had made it to the front pew and sunk down out of view, the rest of us sat back and the gust of our collective sigh drowned out the low notes of the organ as it began an even more sepulchral lament than before.

  Then the minister and two session clerks emerged from the vestry, bowed to the coffin, bowed to the family, and the minister mounted the altar to begin. I swept the edges of the pews with a gaze, checking the sides of every pillar to see if there were any trace of someone hiding there. I could see Alec doing the same. The minister was speaking, intoning, more mournful than the organ even, and he finished with the words: let us pray. I crossed my fingers and bent my head.

  ‘We should have stayed standing up at the back,’ Alec whispered.

  ‘Well, we can’t go skipping off now,’ I whispered back.

  ‘Ssh!’ hissed our neighbour, managing to imbue the sound with all the indignation we deserved. I bent my head even further and tried to block out the words of the prayer, listening hard for movements where they should not be.

  As it turned out, our vigilance was unneeded. The service wore on, ended, and the coffin and woebegone trio of Aitken ladies left again without any interruptions beyond the odd moment when one of the congregation, trying to weep silently, momentarily failed and had to apply a handkerchief to smother a sob or one of those great wuthering sighs. Alec and I had slipped out in advance of the family party of course, to keep an eye on potential trouble in the kirkyard, but the coffin was deposited back into the hearse, surrounded by wreaths, and the family deposited back into the motorcars, without incident. As the congregation filed out a procession formed behind the second motorcar and then at a snail’s pace and with the engines growling, the chauffeurs as tense as before, they drew away from the Abbey doors and began the dreadful journey through the streets to the cemetery. (The Abbey kirkyard had long been full, I concluded, looking around at the mossy old gravestones with their epitaphs worn away, and even if there were a plot remaining here and there into which a town worthy or church official might be squeezed, a suicide was never going to have rules bent and space found for her.)

  Alec stood watching the procession snaking away. ‘Police now or graveside first?’ he said. He shivered slightly as he spoke, although one could not tell whether to blame the prospect facing him on the sudden chill in the air – the sun had retreated behind a bank of dark, determined-looking clouds as though it meant to stay there.

  ‘Police for me and graveside for you,’ I said. ‘I’d stick out like a sore thumb anyway.’ The old Scotch tradition of women staying away from the burial held strong in Dunfermline, it seemed. The procession was made up of men alone, and their wives idled at the Abbey door and among the graves, wiping their eyes and shaking their heads and beginning to talk of Mirren and the shame of it all and then slowly but inevitably of other things.

  I kissed Alec’s cheek and was watching him edge up the side of the procession with a perfect mixture of purpose and decorum so that he could be close to the hearse, when someone sidled up to me and passed me a folded note.

  ‘From Mrs Ninian, dear,’ she said. I recognised Aitkens’ institution, Mrs . . .

  ‘Mrs Lumsden,’ she said, seeing me searching for her name. ‘Mrs Ninian asked me to make sure you got this if you were here.’

  I opened the note and began to read it.

  Dear Mrs Gilver, it said.

  ‘This isn’t Mrs Ninian’s writing,’ I said to myself, frowning.

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Lumsden. ‘She was very upset. She dictated to me.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, how kind you are. You must be such a help.’ Mrs Lumsden looked a little uncomfortable, which was puzzling. I gave her an uncertain smile and returned to the note again.

  I must beg your patience with regards to a meeting to settle your account. I will be detained at the funeral tea for Mirren today.

  I stared, disbelieving, then, aware of Mrs Lumsden waiting for me to answer, I roused myself.

  ‘There’s a reception?’ I said faintly. Her homely fac
e puckered as she tried to combine her natural loyalty with her equally natural good common sense.

  ‘At the Emporium. Just for the staff,’ she said, at last. ‘There are a hundred of us and we all loved the lass. Loved her dearly. We want to give her a send-off no matter what the rights and wrongs of what she did to herself, the poor love.’

  ‘You knew her well, then?’ I said. Mrs Lumsden’s face was formed for cheerfulness and it took some effort for her mouth to turn down and stay there, but she managed it.

  ‘From as soon as she could walk, she toddled about the store,’ she said. ‘Up and down on that lift like it was a see-saw. The hours she spent sitting on the counters and she never once fell off. Well, it’s every wee girl’s dream, isn’t it? Playing at shops in a real shop. Yes, we all loved her.’

  ‘And did it seem . . . that is, were you surprised at what she did?’

  ‘Surprised is hardly the word,’ said Mrs Lumsden. She looked startled at my understatement and I tried to explain.

  ‘Of course, I do beg your pardon. Of course, it was a horrid shock. It must always be so. But surely, I mean to say, I imagine there are people one could always see taking that way out of life’s difficulties and then there are people one couldn’t believe would ever do it, no matter what the provocations.’

  Mrs Lumsden was frowning at me.

  ‘Take my two—’ I was going to say sons, but a flash of white panic at the thought stopped me from going further. ‘Take my brother and sister,’ I said instead. ‘Mavis is a gloomy sort of girl, always was so. She used to have funerals for her dolls and she has a dreadful habit of adopting three-legged horses and one-eared mongrels and then weeping over them. I’ve told her time and again to get a healthy puppy from good stock and a clean home and she won’t spend such hours nursing and mourning. But she’s half in love with easeful death, Mrs Lumsden. I wouldn’t drop from shock to hear that Mavis had killed herself, so long as it were beautiful enough. Floating off like Ophelia, you know, or something.’