Belchester Box Set

by Andrea Frazer

  Lady Amanda’s knock on the study door was bold, as befitted an innocent person whom someone was trying to frame for a murder. A not-too-strongly accented voice bade her enter, and she went in and was waved to a chair. ‘Lady Amanda Golightly?’ enquired the broad-shouldered man sitting behind Cardew’s desk, a notepad sitting before him, and Lady A was glad there were no ‘r’s in her name for him to mangle.

  ‘That is correct.’

  He rose and held out a hand, saying in his soft Scottish lilt, ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Inspector Glenister, here to find the murderous cur who made away with Jock Macleod …’

  She held up a hand to stop him and asked, ‘I don’t suppose you’re any relation to a young PC of my acquaintance, in Belchester. I know the odds against it being a close relation are pretty long, but I have to ask.’

  ‘That’ll be my nephew Adrian, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘Nooo! What a coincidence! We’ve worked on two cases together so far – unofficially, of course,’ she informed the inspector.

  ‘Aye, I know. He’s told me all about you. Apparently you give him a little light relief from that miserable lump Inspector Moody.’

  Lady Amanda sighed deeply with relief. ‘Then you’ll know that I’m simply not the murdering kind,’ she said, relaxing a little.

  ‘Aye, that is so. And now I’ll share a little secret with you. My PC MacDuff is such a miserable and sulky soul that we refer to him at the station as PC Moody, so my nephew and I have a matching pair, as it were.’

  ‘Is he here with you?’ she asked, staring round the room, as a knock sounded on the door, which she had thoughtfully closed behind her, to ensure privacy.

  ‘That’ll be him now. Come in, MacDuff!’

  A portly young man in uniform entered the room, his face a picture of misery. Even his uniform seemed to droop in sympathy with him. He sidled across the study, avoiding making eye contact with Lady A, and sat himself in a chair away from the desk, with his own notebook at the ready.

  ‘Before we start,’ began Lady A, relaxed now she knew she was in safe hands, ‘Is Glenister a Scottish name?’

  ‘It certainly is, m’lady.’

  ‘Do call me Manda. It’ll make things so much smoother. Now, what do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to know when you last saw the deceased. I want to know how your hip flask got into his sporran, and I need to ascertain that you are not, in fact, a killer,’ he told her, smiling broadly at the thought of his interviewee wielding a sword.

  ‘To your first enquiry, I hadn’t seen Jock since last night, when he piped for the haggis and the dancing. About the hip flask, I haven’t the faintest idea. I do know that it means someone’s been going through my room, and that makes me feel cold all over. As to the third piece of information you require, I can definitely confirm that I am not the murderer. Gosh! This is beginning to feel a bit like a game of Cluedo. Lady Amanda – in the snow – with something very long and sharp. Wrong!’

  ‘Do you know of anyone who had a grudge against, or harboured any bad feeling, towards Jock?’

  ‘Not if you don’t count the number of guests here who were not over fond of his seven o’clock reveille on his pipes, no,’ she replied. ‘The last time I was here, his father was the piper, Jock Senior, so this is the first time I’d come across him. I say, have you found the weapon yet?’

  ‘Aye. It was taken from a wall display, used on Macleod, wiped, rather inexpertly I might add, as we found blood on the wall where it was hung, having been replaced whence it had come. I got MacDuff to bag it up, and it’s gone off in the helicopter with your hip flask.’

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ she informed him, ‘Did you sort out the bulldog clip and the haggis?’

  ‘Naturally. This is not my first murder investigation,’ he replied with a smile.

  ‘I’m perfectly sure of that, but did Macdonald tell you that there was tape over his mouth when he uncovered the poor man’s face?’

  ‘No, he didnae. This is news tae me. And what exactly happened to this piece of what might be vital evidence?’

  Lady A was grateful for a short speech that contained no evidence of ‘r’s. Putting her hand carefully into the handbag that she had, naturally, brought with her, for no lady goes anywhere without her handbag, she removed her handkerchief, within which the incriminating piece of tape rested.

  ‘I think this is what you require,’ she announced, with a smug little smile. ‘Be careful. I know Macdonald just pulled it off, but I lifted it by a corner while wearing gloves, and immediately placed it in my handkerchief for safety. You never know, it might still contain some useful fingerprints.’

  ‘Ye’re a marvellous woman! Adrian was right about you. And we’ve got a murder bag with us, so we can test for fingerprints right here in the castle,’ he crowed, taking the proffered square of material, and handing it to MacDuff, to place in an evidence bag.

  ‘Tell me, Inspector, how come your nephew has no trace of a Scottish accent?’

  ‘My brother moved south not long after I joined the police force. He said it was not a fit job for a red-blooded Scotsman. Adrian was born down in England, and was fascinated with mystery stories when he was a child, and murder stories as a teenager.

  ‘With an uncle already in the police force, it gave him, I think, the extra push to do what he wanted to do, which was join the force himself. He’d been having a bit of a hard time of it with yon Inspector Moody, until he met you, but he says you’ve brightened up his working life no end. He phones regularly, to let me know how he’s getting on.’

  ‘Ah, so he was brought up in England. That explains it. Now, if you’ve finished with me, shall I send down Mr Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump?’

  ‘Oh, that is his name. I was wondering if it was a bit of a misprint, it was so long. And dinnae fash yersel’. There’s no reason why MacDuff here can’t go and fetch him. And when I’ve spoken to your party, which I believe consists of four persons, then MacDuff here will be well practised for the rest of the summoning. Very pleased to have met you, ah, Manda.’ Not only did he remember to address her informally, as previously bidden, but he also went completely overboard on ‘very’, as if using the extra rolls of the ‘r’, like an impromptu drum roll, for emphasis.

  ‘Just a word before I go,’ she said, as MacDuff disappeared on his errand. ‘Has Siobhan, by any chance, given you a guest list?’

  ‘She has, that,’ he replied, wondering where this was heading.

  ‘I think you need to be forewarned because, after all, forewarned is forearmed,’ she replied, taking the list he had picked up from his desk.

  Inspector Glenister had listened to Lady Amanda’s pronunciations of the various names with a growing look of disbelief on his face, now and again shaking his head, as he repeated each name, and an occasional shake of the head at the ridiculousness of the situation. At the end, however, light dawned, and he and Lady A shared a conspiratorial smile. ‘PC MacDuff’ she said pointedly.

  ‘PC MacDuff,’ he repeated, his face breaking out in a gleeful grin. ‘I think I might enjoy this afternoon more than I anticipated.

  As she left the study and headed for the stairs, the gong for luncheon sounded, so she betook herself off from the entrance hall and towards the dining hall instead. Inspector Glenister would have to wait for his next three interviewees until after they had eaten. As she was crossing the hall, she noticed Mary Campbell’s frail figure staggering towards the dining hall under the weight of a great tureen of soup, Macdonald standing by the doorway, observing, but not anxious to come to her aid.

  Taking herself off to help the girl, when she returned, she noticed that Macdonald was still standing where she had last seen him, as if waiting for a crash, or the sound of breaking china. Suddenly irked by his lack of gentlemanly response, she went over to give him a bit of a talking to.

  ‘Couldn’t you have stirred your stumps and given the poor girl a hand? She’s very tiny, and not really strong enough to deal with
the dish she was sent through with,’ she enquired, still wearing her autocratic manner like a diadem.

  ‘I’ll nae lift a finger fer a Campbell,’ he replied curtly. ‘They’re traitors, every last one o’ them.’ His accent was definitely thicker than Glenister’s.

  ‘Oh, come on, Macdonald. That was four hundred years ago,’ she chided him, referring to the Massacre at Glencoe.

  ‘That makes nae difference, lassie,’ he responded.

  ‘But, Macdonald, it wasn’t your personal blood that was spilt, was it?’

  ‘Now, I’m gonna tell ye this just the once. ’Twas Macdonald blood that was spilt there, and Macdonald bone that was smashed. I was bred from that blood and bone, and that makes it my blood.

  ‘We took them in, and offered them our hospitality. They broke bread wi’ us: they took whisky wi’ us. Then they rose like the very Devil himself from Hell, in the night, and slaughtered us.

  ‘’Tis Campbell blood that ran in their veins; aye, and ’tis Campbell blood that runs in her veins, the same noo as it was then. I’ll no dae it, m’lady. I’m sorry, but I just cannae bring meself’ to.’

  Lady Amanda walked quietly away without reply. She was not only shocked by the naked hatred in the old man’s voice, but really shaken that such a strong feeling could have survived for centuries, and still walk abroad.

  Over lunch, Lady Amanda related the tale of what had happened in the hall, and her host and hostess were not surprised at all. ‘We went to an inn one night, having been caught out by the weather, and deciding not to continue our journey till morning,’ Siobhan began, obviously relating a tale to back up what Lady Amanda had just told the table.

  ‘We stopped at this quaint little place which looked just right to shelter from the storm. Well, there we were, standing in this sort of foyer place, shaking our umbrellas and taking off our mackintoshes, when I heard Cardew ‘harumph’, and when I looked up, he was staring, and pointing to a sign that said, in large red letters, ‘No Campbells’.

  ‘I thought it was some sort of joke, but Cardew told me not to say a word when we went in, for if they found out that we knew any Campbells, they’d not let us stay. The sign was deadly serious. That’s how high feelings still run, even after all these years.’

  There were murmurs round the table, to confirm that she was not the only one who had come upon such open hostility to the surname and, for a moment, Lady Amanda thought how strange and tribal Scotland still was, in comparison with England, and she longed to be in Belchester Towers, in front of a blazing log fire, eating muffins and butter, and sipping a soothing cup of Darjeeling.

  After what passed for coffee in this household, the other three prepared for their interviews, Lady A letting them stew, hugging the secret that the policeman was a relative of PC Glenister on their own patch. She’d had to stew. Nobody could have told her; so she kept it to herself, waiting with good humour, for the wigging she would undoubtedly receive, when they came out.

  While they were otherwise occupied, she began to float around, a second cup of the disgusting brew in her hand, casually getting into conversation with whomsoever she could, in an effort to find out as much about her fellow guests as she could.

  She did not include Moira, Drew or Siobhan in this exercise, as she had no suspicions of them, and she also wrote Cardew off as a non-starter, as he’d hardly invite a bunch of folk to his home for Burns’ Night, then murder his own piper. That way, madness lay, as far as she was concerned.

  She found the effete Ralf Colcolough reading an old edition of The Scotsman by the fireside, and sat down next to him on the sofa, in her brashest manner. ‘Hello,’ she said, brazening out her unlooked-for interruption to his reading. ‘How do you know dear Siobhan and Cardew?’

  Ralf, too well brought-up to rebuff her, launched reluctantly into how they had met. ‘It was about ten, maybe twelve, years ago, and I came here for the shooting – a little party got together by the office. When I got here, I wasn’t too keen on killing things, but I found that Cardew and I got on like a house on fire. We’re both very keen photographers.

  ‘In fact, it was I who persuaded him not to stalk deer to kill them, but to photograph them. He was bowled over with the idea, and immediately invited me to come back on my own, so that we could try it out. His gamekeeper was furious, but it wasn’t Macdonald’s call. I’ve been visiting regularly ever since.’

  Writing him off as a useful source of gossip, after half an hour of listening to him drone on about the technicalities of photography, she excused herself and went in search of another victim. This time she espied Wallace Menzies and Quinton Wriothesley at the other end of the room, apparently engaged in earnest and animated conversation.

  Hastily pouring the contents of her cup into a pot plant, then swanning over to the coffee table to refill it, she sauntered over to them and, without waiting for them to notice her, interrupted with, ‘I was just wondering what you two gentlemen thought of what happened to the poor piper. I’m sure you’re both gentlemen of the world, and must have a much more sophisticated outlook on things than poor, parochial little me.’

  Both regarding her crossly, Menzies lifted an eyebrow, lifted a lip in a sneer of contempt, and announced that, as they did not mix with the working classes, they had no idea how they behaved. Wriothesley – Grizzly Rizzly – nodded in ill-natured agreement, and suggested she speak to the staff, who, being those sorts of people, understood their motives much better.

  ‘Do you have no ideas, yourselves?’ she battled on bravely, in the face of intense lack of interest and hostility.

  ‘There’re plenty of pipers in Scotland. Cardew will easily replace him.’

  ‘That’s not the point, though, is it?’ Give Lady A her due – once she had her teeth into something, she would not give up easily. ‘His father before him was piper to this household and, if we checked, we’ll no doubt find that his father before him held that post, as well.’

  ‘And your point is?’ asked Menzies, most objectionably.

  That was enough for Lady Amanda. ‘I offer my apologies,’ she said, in her loftiest voice. ‘I was of the opinion that I was conversing with gentlemen. Obviously I was mistaken.’ And with that, she turned on her heel and stalked off, determined to speak to Siobhan about the people she invited into her home as guests.

  While Lady Amanda was thus engaged, Hugo was re-summoned for his interview with the inspector, which he approached with some misgivings. He was, after all, in a foreign country, and didn’t know the ways of the natives.

  A ringing voice bade him enter Cardew’s study, and the gloomy-faced constable followed him into the room, taking a seat along the back wall. After the inspector had greeted Hugo, the constable turned a delicate shade of puce, and dropped his face into his notebook. That wasn’t how he had pronounced the old gentleman’s name at all. How could he have been so wrong, unless his list was full of spelling mistakes?

  When the inspector had introduced himself, Hugo became much more amenable and, after a short discussion about the unfortunate demise of Jock Macleod, Glenister asked him if it was really true, that his nephew had actually discovered him hiding in a downstairs privy, in darkest night, in a house that was not his own.

  ‘I tried to act casually, but I don’t think he was convinced,’ Hugo replied in all seriousness.

  ‘He told me he also found your partner-in-crime hiding behind the sofa. Is that true as well? I thought he was making it up.’

  ‘True as I’m sitting here in this tutu,’ said Hugo, then smiled his ingenuous smile. ‘We were caught red-handed, trespassing on someone else’s property, without their permission, and your nephew had the kindness just to ignore us, and let us get on with whatever it was we were doing. The woman’s case is coming up shortly. If I were the judge, I’d direct the jury to bring in a verdict of justifiable homicide.’

  ‘Adrian thinks you two are priceless, and hopes he’s got so much get-up-and-go at your age.’

  ‘I wish I had so mu
ch get-up-and-go at my age,’ replied Hugo, with unintentional humour. ‘Investigating does rather keep the old noodle ticking over, though. If I’d stayed where I was, before Manda rescued me and welcomed me into her own home, I expect I’d be dead by now. Give him our regards when you speak to him, and tell him to call round for afternoon tea, or a cocktail, when he’s not on duty. It must be very tedious for him, working for someone as miserable and mean-spirited as Inspector Moody.’

  ‘He does find it rather trying at times,’ replied Glenister, with a small smile, remembering the swearing that had carried along the telephone line, the last time he had spoken to his nephew.

  ‘I say,’ Hugo asked, in a small voice, ‘You don’t really suspect Manda, or one of us, do you?’

  ‘I don’t, so don’t waste your worry on that. I’ve a feeling the answer to this one lies closer to home than you four.’

  Beauchamp was next on the list, followed by Enid, and both these interviews were amiable and polite, Glenister having no cause to suspect that they could ever have met the piper before, living where they did, and had already confirmed this with Sir Cardew.

  His nephew had described them all to perfection, and when he had finally met them, he felt he already knew them. He had absolutely nothing to worry about on the Belchester Towers front, and knew that, if he needed anyone to spy for him, or ferret out something, it was one of this crew that he would choose.

  Meanwhile, Inspector Glenister’s afternoon was getting better and better. He had made a copy of his guest list and given it to the gloomy and taciturn MacDuff, requesting that he bring the guests to him in the order listed if possible. The constable had already fallen foul of Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump, but restored his confidence with Beauchamp (who answered to any variation of his name, if good manners necessitated) and Tweedie. He would not make a fool of himself again.