Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘What we want to know, really, is if your wife found out.’ Again there was no answer. ‘If perhaps she told Mirren.’ Yet more silence. ‘If that perhaps was why Mirren—’

  ‘No!’ said Jack, his head jerking back up. ‘Abby doesn’t know. And Mirren certainly didn’t know. I told you, she was so kind to me the last weeks, she can’t have known about my . . . lapse.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten. Well, in that case, can you explain why Abby was against the marriage?’

  ‘She’s a dutiful daughter.’

  ‘And why she was so sure Mirren wouldn’t elope?’

  ‘So was Mirren,’ he said. The look that crossed his face was the genuine one I had seen once or twice before. When all was said and done, he was not a monster and his child had died. Not his only child, since he had at least one (and possibly four) with Hilda, but his child, all the same.

  ‘We won’t detain you any longer,’ I said, trying to speak kindly.

  ‘Let me see you out,’ Jack said, standing.

  ‘Oh, we’re not finished,’ said Alec, who had clearly not been entertaining any such sentimental thoughts as mine. ‘We’ll ring the bell for Trusslove when we’re ready to speak to your wife.’

  ‘You won’t tell her, will you?’ said Aitken.

  ‘Not if we can avoid it,’ I said. ‘I’m not in the business of doling out gratuitous pain.’

  Jack Aitken crumpled at that – sagged anyway – he was no match for Alec and me. He nodded his head wearily and went on his way.

  ‘Well,’ I said when he was gone. ‘He is the worst and yet the most dedicated liar I have ever seen. One almost wants to laugh. Does he think we can’t see the joins, between one posture and the next? Are we supposed to forget the last mood when he clicks his fingers and moves on to the next one? Grieving father, man of the world, fierce protecting husband, loyal son . . .’

  ‘You can’t see whatever it is that Hilda Hepburn sees in him then?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ I said. ‘She called him as tricky as a bag of monkeys. She finds it entertaining but it makes me sick.’

  ‘I especially didn’t swallow the act of protective husband,’ said Alec. ‘Well done, Dandy, spotting the flaw. You’re right of course. He would have said “her child” or “her own child”. It was Hilda who was making him so fierce, not his poor wife.’

  ‘And speaking of his poor wife,’ I said, ‘shall I ring for Trusslove to fetch her? I have to know why she banned the marriage. I’ll never sleep again otherwise. And, besides, I’d like to ask her about what happened up on that landing. She was right there. If there’s any chance a murderer was there too, surely she’d know.’

  The butler’s good, kind face clouded a little at our request but he went just the same.

  ‘This is quite a place,’ Alec said, looking around himself as we waited.

  ‘The house, you mean? Or the library?’

  ‘Well, both,’ Alec said, ‘but especially the library. If we can call it that. Where are the books?’

  ‘In those glass cases,’ I said. ‘All five hundred years old and worth a fortune. They must keep the almanacs and three-volume novels elsewhere.’

  The door opened and Abigail Aitken came in.

  ‘Again?’ she said. ‘More questions? I’ve told you everything I know.’

  Alec stood and guided her to a chair. Dear man, he could not help it; she looked even more frail today and she looked, too, as unkempt as Bella, her great mane of hair dull and greasy at the roots and the shawl which once more she hugged about herself giving off the kind of stale, sour odour I had only ever smelled in two-room cottages before.

  ‘My dear Mrs Aitken,’ I said to her, ‘I am more sorry than I can tell you, but I have no choice but to come again. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t try to get to the bottom of what happened here.’

  There was just one quick glint in her eyes then.

  ‘You would be surprised, Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘You would be very surprised to find how able we are to live with ourselves. What choice do we have after all? Our eyes close at night and open the next day and we are still here. We breathe in and out and we drink water and eat food and our eyes blink and we shiver in the cold and squint in the sun and go on and on and on.’ Her head had fallen as she spoke but now she looked up at me again. ‘And after an eternity, we add up the days and it has been ten. Ten days since she died. Fifteen since I saw her alive. And we go on some more.’

  I looked over at Alec. Despite everything I had said, I was willing to leave this house and this case and let this poor woman grieve in peace, if he gave me the slightest sign. He stared ahead stonily.

  ‘I made a mistake, you see,’ Abigail Aitken went on. ‘I thought if I could just get through the funeral, everything would be better then. If I could make it through until after the funeral and come home . . . you won’t believe what I thought if I could make it through the funeral and come home.’

  ‘You thought she’d come back again,’ Alec said.

  ‘Yes!’ said Abigail and it was almost a shout, she was so delighted that he had understood her. ‘How did you know? Oh! I’m sorry. Who have you lost? That you should know.’

  ‘My brother,’ Alec said. ‘It was his memorial, for me. If I got the memorial finished and installed in our little chapel at home, he’d come to see it and complain about the wording probably.’

  ‘Your brother,’ Abigail said. ‘Jack’s brothers died too, you know. But he doesn’t understand how I feel.’

  I tried to stop shock showing on my face. And not only his brothers, I thought. His daughter too. Did his wife not see what a monster she made him sound? In case it should occur to her and pain her, I hurried to fill the silence in the room.

  ‘Mrs Aitken,’ I said, ‘I know the police have closed the case, but I also know that they have some misgivings. I would rather not go to them if I can avoid doing so. I would rather spare you all the pain.’

  ‘I think I must be immune to further pain, Mrs Gilver,’ said Abigail, ‘but if you could spare us disgrace – my mother and Bella too who have done nothing to merit it – I would be thankful. I don’t care what happens to me. Ask away.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘First, if you can bear it, I’d like to ask about what happened up on the attic landing when Mirren died.’

  Abigail nodded, but drew her shawl a little tighter around her.

  ‘There would be no point in my confessing again,’ she said. ‘It didn’t work the first time.’

  ‘Can you tell me why you went up there?’ I said.

  ‘The police asked me that,’ Abigail said. ‘I was downstairs with Jack and Mother – but of course you were there, weren’t you? – and then Jack went away – I don’t know why.’

  ‘He went to check that the doors were closed,’ I said. ‘Your mother was worried about gatecrashers.’

  ‘All I knew was that he was gone and I thought I might fall down. I felt faint and there were so many people all watching. I wanted to hide. I just wanted to curl up somewhere until it was over. I didn’t want to be there at all, really. But then I remembered Mirren’s special little place, up in the attics – like a little play house really except that it was a proper room. She had begged all sorts of things out of her granny to furnish it and so I went there. Or that’s where I was going. To curl up and put my hands over my head and feel close to her.’

  ‘You didn’t suspect that she was actually there, then?’ I said. ‘When you say you wanted to be close to her . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Abigail. ‘I had no idea where she was. I’d have gone to her otherwise. I’d have comforted her and brought her home.’ She fell silent.

  Very gently, Alec tried to jog her into speech again. ‘So you went off to the back stairs?’

  Abigail blinked. ‘Yes, I went up the back stairs and when I was near the top I heard a noise and I went out onto the landing and Mirren was there. On the floor. And her pretty hair.’ Abigail Aitken pu
t her hands up and stuck her fingers into her own hair, pulling them through its tangles. I winced, hearing it snapping and watching her tug her hands free again. ‘She had the softest, most golden curls,’ she said. ‘As light as little feathers. When she was a baby she had a halo of gold all round her head and then little curls along her neck and then when she was three, finally enough curls to make a pigtail and she used to ask me “When will I have lady’s hair like you, Mama?” and I would think how I hoped she would never have anything but those thistledown curls.’

  After a pause, I took a turn at nudging her.

  ‘And you took the gun out of her hand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Abigail. ‘No. She wasn’t blinking, you see. So I put the lights out in case they were hurting her. Because she wasn’t blinking and she used to get sore eyes sometimes and I would put drops in for her. Then I took the gun. And I walked away, because I didn’t want to fall on top of her and hurt her, and I turned it on myself and shut my eyes and tried to squeeze the trigger but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make my finger move. And then I was sitting down and you came with Bella and then Bella went away and that’s when I saw how I could make it work. If I said I had squeezed the trigger and I had killed her then they would hang me. And do you know what I wish now?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t walked away to the other wall. And do you know why? Because then when I sat down I would have been beside her and maybe even touching her and I didn’t get to touch her after the police came. So that’s what I wish now.’

  Bunty stood up, took a few paces forward and looked up at Abigail’s face, her tail waving very slightly. Then she turned and shuffled herself as close as possible in towards Abigail’s legs, sat down and leaned. Abigail laid a hand on her broad smooth head and patted her.

  ‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘Good dog.’

  ‘Now, Mrs Aitken,’ I resumed, feeling quite a lot better about questioning her now that she had darling Bunty as solace, ‘in the time between hearing the shot and coming onto the landing, did you hear anything else? Footsteps, doors opening or closing, any kind of scuffling? Any indication that someone else might have been there?’

  Abigail continued her steady stroking of Bunty’s head. Bunty’s eyes closed in bliss. Abigail was almost smiling.

  ‘There was no one else there,’ she said. ‘My poor Mirren shot herself, Mrs Gilver. I wish you would believe me.’

  ‘If you would tell me why you’re so sure perhaps I could,’ I said, but Abigail shook her head.

  ‘I promised to be as open as I could without hurting another person,’ she answered. ‘If I told you why I was so sure I would be hurting someone who has done nothing to deserve it.’

  ‘Then let us tell you something,’ Alec said. ‘It might change your mind about suicide. Your mother-in-law, Mrs John, along with Dugald’s grandmother had formed a plan for the young people.’

  ‘I know,’ said Abigail. ‘An elopement. Mirren told me.’

  ‘She did?’ This was surprising news. ‘When?’

  ‘The night before she ran away,’ said Abigail. She withdrew her hand from Bunty and, winding both fists into her shawl, she stretched it tight across her body. ‘The night before.’

  ‘She told you about a planned elopement and the next day she was gone and yet you were sure she hadn’t eloped?’ Alec said. Abigail nodded her head.

  ‘She would never have married him,’ she said. ‘Never.’

  ‘That brings us very neatly to the next question,’ I said. ‘Why not? What was wrong with Dugald Hepburn? Why was the marriage forbidden so vehemently?’

  Abigail said nothing for a moment or two. Then she spoke up with a harder note in her voice.

  ‘You should ask my mother,’ she said. ‘She was the “vehement” one.’

  ‘But you were against the notion too, Mrs Aitken, and so we are asking you. You liked the boy and Mirren – no matter what you say – seemed to love the boy. So what was wrong?’

  ‘My mother didn’t want it,’ said Abigail. ‘Nor my husband.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve heard from your husband,’ I said. Alec started, but I wiggled my eyebrows at him and went on. ‘Do you know why he was against it? Is it the same reason for you?’

  ‘No,’ said Abby quietly. ‘It can’t be. He didn’t know . . . Mirren’s secret.’

  ‘He told us it was money,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ said Abigail.

  ‘Mirren’s shares,’ Alec said. ‘The future of Aitkens’.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that,’ she said, doing nothing to shore up any belief we might have had that the shares really were a part of the difficulty. ‘My mother didn’t want to see Aitkens’ being . . . what was the word she used . . . consumed by Hepburns’, you see.’

  ‘Subsumed, I think you mean,’ said Alec. ‘She would rather have seen the business bled white by the Lawson estates?’

  ‘What?’ said Abigail.

  ‘Your mother and Lady Lawson were hoping to broker an engagement between Mirren and Roger,’ I said.

  Abigail considered this for a moment or two, then she nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That might have done very nicely. I wish my mother had told Mirren about it. It might have given her something to look forward to.’

  ‘You’d have gone along with it?’ I asked. ‘You’d have taken your mother’s side in it?’

  Abigail nodded, smiling.

  ‘My mother likes to have the arrangement of things,’ she said. ‘She chose Jack for me, you know. My father was not in favour of it – Uncle John was already gone by then – but Mother won the day. My father never really forgave her, you know. And when he died, I think Mother berated herself. For displeasing him. Even though it was too late then to undo the harm. Poor Mother. She’s the same now. About Mirren.’

  She gave me a quick look, to see – I think – if I understood and I nodded to show that I did.

  ‘She spoke most heartrendingly to me,’ I said. ‘She feels utterly wretched about Mirren. She blames herself.’ I sat forward and fixed Abigail with my most serious stare. ‘If you could take that burden off her shoulders, Mrs Aitken, you would be doing a very fine thing.’

  Abigail stared back at me and then she flushed and tears sprang into her eyes.

  ‘You mean tell my mother someone killed our girl?’ she said. ‘That wasn’t what happened. Why don’t you believe me?’ Bunty, upset by her voice, turned round and put a paw up onto her lap. Abigail shook it and a ghost of a smile came back to her face. ‘Good girl,’ she said again. ‘Good dog, aren’t you? We should get a dog,’ she said, looking up again. ‘I might get a puppy for Mother. Anything to help her. Anything to stop her being ill.’ She bent down and kissed Bunty’s head. ‘After my father died,’ she said, sitting up again, ‘my mother had to go away for a while. That’s how bad it was. In her grief, she became quite . . . it sounds dreadful to say this, but quite peculiar. She spoke very oddly, saying some dreadful things. About Jack and me – our being cousins, you know. So long as she said them to me alone, I didn’t mind, although it was very upsetting, but I was concerned when she started talking to the staff, you know.’

  ‘The servants?’ said Alec.

  ‘No, at the store,’ said Abigail. ‘Mrs Lumsden, for one. Telling her things that no one should say outside the family and even inside the family really.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Lumsden and Miss Hutton both hinted to me that your mother was not so strong as she looks,’ I said.

  ‘They didn’t tell you what she said, did they?’ said Abigail.

  ‘Do these secrets have any bearing on what’s happening now?’

  I had never seen any family resemblance between Abigail and Mary before. Both were small, but Abigail was a plump, sweet, little dumpling of a woman still, at nearly fifty, with a round rosy cheek and a full curve to her shoulder and hip, while Mary was like an iron poker, a tiny rigid pillar of black, tight-lipped, straight-haired, the skin stretched across her jaw and her neck as t
hough no flesh cushioned it from the bones beneath. Now, though, for the first time, I saw the mother in the daughter. Abigail’s eyes turned to chips of grey ice and her mouth was a lipless line.

  ‘I apologise, Mrs Aitken,’ I said, ‘if I sounded flippant. I didn’t mean to be.’ The line softened and a little blood came back into her lips, although her eyes stayed just as hard when she answered me.

  ‘The two things are not connected,’ she said ‘My mother felt that she had been a poor wife to my father, giving him only one child and a girl at that. And she regretted pushing me into marriage with Jack. We had been five years married when my father died and there were no grandchildren.’ Alec was squirming so hard he might almost have worn his seat away. ‘My mother thought that all her life was coming to nothing. She felt she had displeased God and was being punished for it.’ I am sure that I boggled at that, and certainly my mouth dropped open. ‘But I don’t think she deserves scorn. I think she was right. About Jack and me.’ A small sound escaped Alec’s lips. Bunty wrinkled up her brows and gave him a puzzled look. ‘We weren’t blessed the way that other marriages had been. After five years we were still waiting and Mother became convinced that we weren’t really married in the eyes of God. That we were’ – she whispered – ‘fornicators. She read her Bible day and night. Scoured it for guidance, I suppose you would say.’

  ‘And then eventually she . . . went away?’

  ‘For a while and when she came back she was her old self again. And I—’ Abigail flicked a glance at Alec but went on, although her cheeks burned a little, ‘I had happy news for her. Then when Mirren was born, we all doted on her. It was a wonderful time for us Aitkens.’ There was a defiant note in her voice which I did not understand. ‘We needed no one and nothing except ourselves. Bella and Mary had their granddaughter and Jack and I our daughter and all was well at home and what matter anything else.’

  ‘Twenty years ago,’ I said, thinking that perhaps I could, after all, guess the reason for such emphasis on the family circle and the new baby and the rest of the world go hang. Twenty years ago was when House of Hepburn arrived to end Aitkens’ Emporium’s uncontested rule of Dunfermline town.