[Mirabelle Bevan 08] - Highland Fling

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘I thought I saw something outside,’ Eleanor said. ‘There was talk of a wolf a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Are there wolves up here? I didn’t know that,’ Mirabelle said.

  ‘It’s a silly rumour. That’s all.’ Eleanor sat down again.

  ‘Well, it’s a good night for a wolf.’ Tash grinned. ‘That big old moon and the sky so clear.’ She let out a whoop, a lame kind of wolf cry, not a patch on McGregor’s howl at the ridge. Then she laughed. ‘Ha! I’m hopeless.’

  Mirabelle laid the broken saucer on the tray. ‘Would you like another coffee, Eleanor?’

  ‘I’ve probably had enough.’

  Then they all jumped at the rap that emanated from the glass. Eleanor let out a squeal, rather than a scream. At the window a dark shadow tapped once more. The girl squinted. ‘Gregory!’ she shouted and flung open the double doors, flooding the room with light from the hallway. Eleanor snapped the lamps back on. ‘I knew I’d seen something,’ she said.

  Tash returned with a black man in tow. He was tall and broad and his clothes were so dark, it was no wonder his figure hadn’t been clear on approach. Mirabelle thought he had the air of a boxer, as if he was ready for a fight and wasn’t the least afraid. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, nodding in Eleanor’s direction, his voice like American honey slowly dripping from a spoon. ‘I only just got back. They told me what had happened in the village. I understand the police want to speak to me.’

  ‘Well, they aren’t here at this time of night,’ Eleanor said testily. ‘You gave us quite a fright sneaking up to the house like that.’

  ‘I came to check if Miss Natasha was OK. When she wasn’t at the lodge, I assumed she was with you.’

  ‘I’m fine, Gregory,’ Tash replied smartly. ‘I’m just shook up, is all.’ She poured him a whisky from the tray beside the door. ‘Here,’ she said. Then her eyes filled with tears and she began to sob. Gregory put down the glass and held her as her body shook with grief. Mirabelle felt a tug of relief that Tash was with somebody familiar. She’d put up quite a front. Gregory withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and helped the girl to sit down. She glanced shyly at the other women. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Losing it like that.’

  ‘Darling, don’t be silly,’ Eleanor perched on the edge of a footstool in front of her. ‘We all understand. Everyone here has lost their mother – Nina brought you up.’

  ‘Were you ladies sitting in the dark?’ Gregory asked, looking around the room.

  ‘We were stargazing. Like schoolgirls.’ Tash giggled. ‘Mirabelle, this is Gregory. He’s our steward.’

  ‘Mr …?’ Mirabelle was certain that Gregory was not the man’s last name. Everyone was so casual here, but it seemed wrong not to address him properly.

  ‘Just call me Gregory, ma’am. Everybody does.’

  ‘Well … Gregory. If you don’t mind me asking, where have you been?’ Mirabelle’s voice sounded like cut glass, she realised, amid all these soft American tones. Next he’d encourage her to call him Greg, she thought, or something equally awful.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Miss Bevan is Mr Robertson’s cousin,’ Tash explained. ‘Her husband is a detective.’

  Mirabelle decided not to elucidate. ‘It’s only you said you just got back,’ she said. ‘I wondered where you’d been?’

  ‘Glasgow.’ His accent made the city sound foreign, almost exotic.

  Tash sniffed. She gesticulated towards Gregory. ‘He went to speak to an exporter about shipping our cashmere. The mill can do it from here, but Nina thought we’d be better to have our own guys. She sent him yesterday morning in the hired car.’

  ‘What happened?’ Gregory asked gently. ‘In the pub they said it was murder.’

  ‘Miss Orlova was strangled last night,’ Mirabelle said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. In the orangery.’

  Tash began to cry again. Everyone shifted. It was beginning to seem cruel to talk like this in front of her. ‘Come along, dear, I’ll take you up,’ Eleanor said.

  As Tash followed willingly, Gregory’s gaze followed her. Then the dining-room doors opened and Bruce and Alan crossed the wide wooden boards on a tide of post-dinner jollity, cutting into the sombre atmosphere. ‘Goodnight,’ Bruce called to the women disappearing up the hallway. ‘Ah, Gregory,’ he said, as if he’d temporarily mislaid the steward and only this second discovered him under some papers on his desk. ‘The police asked where you had got to.’

  ‘I’m a suspect?’

  ‘We’re all suspects. I hope you have an alibi for last night.’

  ‘I was in Glasgow. In a bar. And if I wasn’t there, I was asleep, and if I wasn’t there I was at the docks early this morning.’

  Bruce snorted. ‘You’re doing better than I did. At least you stand a chance of witnesses in town. Today when they asked me where I had been, all I could say was upstairs and not a soul had seen me.’

  ‘I thought Eleanor was with you,’ Mirabelle objected.

  ‘Yes. But we were asleep,’ Bruce pointed out.

  ‘Where did you sleep, Gregory?’ Mirabelle asked.

  ‘At the Central Hotel, ma’am. I rose early and drove to the port at Greenock.’

  ‘Business go well?’

  ‘Lady, I don’t think they had ever seen a black man.’

  Bruce smiled. ‘Oh, I doubt that, old man. It’s a port. Though they might not be used to doing business with one.’

  ‘This wouldn’t have happened if I had been here.’

  McGregor stepped forward. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If I was here, I’d have been able to protect her.’

  McGregor took a moment to process this information. ‘I don’t doubt your abilities, but Miss Orlova would appear to have left the lodge in the middle of the night and come up to the house alone. Even if you had been here, you probably wouldn’t have been with her.’

  Gregory nodded. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘But it’s my job.’

  Bruce poured himself a coffee. He flung a piece of tablet in the direction of Jinx. It hit the dog on the side of the head and the poodle snapped it off the carpet. ‘Sorry old man,’ Bruce apologised. Then he gestured towards McGregor, offering coffee. McGregor declined. ‘There’s nothing you can do tonight,’ Bruce continued, putting a piece of tablet into his own mouth. ‘You’d best go down the hill and get some sleep. The police will want to speak to you in the morning.’

  Gregory carefully put down his glass of whisky. He hadn’t tasted it. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I guess they will.’

  Later, on her way up to bed, Mirabelle overheard Alan and Bruce talking. The men had retired to Bruce’s study but the door was open. A huge pair of antlers, mounted on the wall, cast fingers of shadow on to the long planks of oak that floored the hallway.

  ‘Do you think he could have made it there and back in time?’ Alan asked.

  Bruce considered. ‘Glasgow’s a good five hours – what with the roads, it might be more. And in the dark. Greenock’s perhaps another hour on top.’

  ‘They’ll find witnesses, if anyone saw him. He’s black – they’ll have noticed him at the Central Hotel if he really stayed there. And I suppose, in the bars. We don’t know the time of death yet, that’s the thing.’

  Mirabelle hesitated a moment before stepping through the door frame. The men sprang to their feet but she waved them back to their seats.

  ‘I couldn’t help overhearing,’ she said. ‘When we were talking by the fire, Tash said she went to bed at three last night. That means Nina was alive at three and in evening wear. It at least shaves a few hours off Gillies’s time-of-death estimate. She would have had to change and get up the hill. I’d say the earliest she could have been here was 3.30, and Mrs Gillies said she must have been dead “before breakfast”. When is breakfast?’

  ‘About nine,’ Bruce replied thoughtfully. ‘Though Gillies probably consumes hers at some ungodly hour.’

  ‘It gives a shorter ti
me frame,’ McGregor said slowly, figuring it out. ‘Well then, yes. Gregory could have done it if nobody saw him in town. He could have come back from Glasgow after closing time and made it down again to check out of the hotel. A sleepless night, but he could just about do it. It depends what times he was seen.’

  Bruce knocked back his whisky. ‘I can’t see who else could have,’ he said.

  Mirabelle crossed her arms. ‘And you think he somehow arranged to meet Miss Orlova in the orangery in the middle of the night, even though she’d sent him away on business?’

  ‘They’re on New York time. Tash said so,’ Bruce chimed.

  ‘Four in the morning is only eleven at night across the pond. Sure. But why here? If she wanted to see him for some reason, he could have called at the lodge. It doesn’t make sense – she’d just sent him away. Where is he staying?’

  ‘He has a room in a boarding house outside the village. It’s a farm, really,’ Bruce said. ‘You’re right, of course. There was no reason to send the chap away and then call him back. I’m not even sure she could have – and if she’d left him a message at the hotel, there’s bound to be a record. The police will find out.’

  McGregor nodded. ‘Yes.’ He got up and stood beside the window. ‘Maybe the police will find evidence of a prowler. There’s always the chance it was a random attack.’

  ‘Lucky,’ Bruce said. ‘I mean, out here. A prowler. First of all, not knowing where they were going, one presumes, and second of all not knowing if anyone would be up. Especially given, well, you know.’ He nodded towards the mahogany, glass-fronted cabinet beside the fireplace. That side of the room was dark, but Mirabelle could make out the vertical lines of shotgun barrels stored tidily in a row. ‘Mind you, the chap would have a fighting chance,’ Bruce continued. ‘By the time I got downstairs and unlocked the damn thing—’

  ‘Don’t joke,’ McGregor cut in. ‘You don’t want to end up on a self-defence charge.’

  ‘In my own home,’ Bruce objected.

  ‘You can’t shoot people for coming inside, Bruce.’

  ‘It might have been better for poor Nina if I had.’

  Mirabelle peered through the glass. The guns were in good condition. The barrels had been oiled. They glowed in the low light.

  ‘They belonged to my father,’ Bruce continued. ‘Made to measure. Luckily Al and I are more or less the same dimensions in the shoulder. The two on the left belonged to my grandfather. They’re out of date now. We’ll see how you take to them tomorrow, Al. My guess is that Dad’s will fit you like a glove.’

  McGregor grinned. ‘It’s good you have them locked up.’

  ‘Grandad always had a proper cabinet. Even before you had to.’

  Mirabelle turned back into the room. ‘If it was a prowler, are you sure nothing was taken? It occurs to me that the whole thing still might have been a burglary gone wrong.’

  Bruce was adamant. ‘There’s nothing missing. Not at all.’

  After midnight, Mirabelle found herself craving the darkness and the cold. She pulled on a coat and sneaked some sugar cubes from the sideboard. Her steps echoed in the hallway now everyone had gone to bed. Outside, the darkness swallowed her. The horses hardly stirred. ‘Hey,’ she said, coaxing them with the sugar. ‘Here.’

  One woke and sauntered over to eat from her outstretched palm, his breath hot on her skin, the smell of hide and hay wafting around him. Above, the sky went on for ever. She shuddered as she imagined Nina walking up the hill, glad to get inside the house – so much warmer than out here. Then she turned, hoisting herself on to the fence to stare back at the mansion, the windows dark, the silence absolute. This was how it had been last night – the murder just under twenty-four hours ago. Her heart quickened. She was vulnerable out here alone, she realised suddenly, with a murderer somewhere. It felt different from the usual run of things. A town. Streetlights. Officers on patrol. She jumped as the door opened, casting round for a weapon, about to get off the fence and pick up a rock from the ground to defend herself in the darkness as a shadow moved across the threshold. If she screamed everyone would hear her on this side of the house, but could they come quickly enough? She took a breath, letting it out slowly in relief as the light from the moon revealed the figure as McGregor. He helped her down, his hands firm on her waist.

  ‘You OK?’

  She laid her head on his shoulder. ‘We are so small,’ she said, ‘aren’t we?’

  She had never been so glad to see anyone.

  Chapter 5

  Better three hours too soon than a minute too late

  Mirabelle had never seen rain like it. She woke in the morning to the sound of hammering on the window-pane. It seemed impossible that such a deafening clatter could follow the stillness of the night. They had made love when they came indoors and this time so tenderly that she felt as if there was no space between them. Now the morning light filtered blearily through the curtains as her eyes adjusted. Susan was standing in the middle of the room staring as Mirabelle sat up.

  ‘Miss.’ The girl dropped her eyes.

  Mirabelle smiled. McGregor was asleep next to her. If she woke him, he’d be mortified. ‘Thank you, Susan,’ Mirabelle said quietly, nodding towards the fire that was kindling in the grate. ‘You can leave the curtains.’

  Susan walked smartly out of the room. McGregor turned over and snored as Mirabelle laughed softly at the girl’s shocked expression at finding two unmarried people in bed. She wondered if Susan would tell Mrs Gillies – the shame of it. It wouldn’t be the first time in a house such as this, but unmarried love was ever the scandal.

  As she turned over, the details of Nina Orlova’s death came back to her. Sleep was usually a good way to work things through but this morning the murder remained stubbornly inexplicable. Gradually, the sound of the rain intensified. Mirabelle thought it must sound like being under fire – not that she ever had been. Still, the noise woke McGregor. He shifted blearily and reached for her, kissing her neck, hauling himself out of bed and padding along the hall towards the bathroom. The lock on the door clicked behind him.

  Mirabelle got up and pulled the curtains. The sky was overcast. Below, there was movement in the orangery. The police must hardly be able to hear what they were saying, she thought. Such heavy rain on glass would drown out normal conversation. A large, grey puddle, the size of a small lake, had formed in the middle of the lawn. A little way off, three black-and-white milk cows sat under a tree. From the bathroom she could hear the pipes sing as McGregor ran a bath. Mirabelle slipped into the seat at the dressing table and fixed her hair. It seemed impossible that the men would go shooting in this weather. She had hoped she might walk up the hill again today. She always thought of herself as a town mouse. It surprised her that she was enjoying the country. Still, the wild landscape had granted her a reprieve from the world of wedding dresses, and standing outside with McGregor, holding each other in the darkness after midnight, had been the best part of the day. Getting up, she pulled a tweed skirt and a sweater out of her wardrobe and tied the laces of her sensible shoes. She’d leave him to his ablutions.

  Downstairs, Bruce sat alone at the breakfast table, reading a newspaper. ‘Morning,’ he said, bobbing up and down as a matter of courtesy. ‘You’re the early bird.’

  Mirabelle helped herself to scrambled eggs from the warmer and smoked fish poached in milk. She was surprised she was hungry – most days she skipped breakfast, but the Highland air or the holiday spirit seemed to have endowed her with an appetite.

  ‘We’re headline news.’ Bruce pushed the newspaper towards her. American heiress murdered at midnight in local estate – the article took up the whole front page and featured an out-of-date picture of Nina Orlova in an old-fashioned dress, which must have been obtained from a press agency. ‘It’s only the local paper – that idiot, Kenzie. Of course, she wasn’t really American and she survived midnight. The fool didn’t get anything right. His father sent a note this morning, apologising.’


  Mirabelle poured a cup of tea and added a lump of sugar and a splash of milk.

  ‘We’ll hide it from Tash,’ Bruce said, pulling out a copy of The Times and laying it on top of the Courier.

  ‘I’ve been wondering,’ Mirabelle said, ‘why the orangery? I mean, what is it usually used for?’

  ‘We use it all the time,’ Bruce sounded bluff.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Afternoon tea. Sometimes we have drinks there before dinner – in the summer when it’s light. And Eleanor reads there. She says it’s away from the bustle of the house.’

  ‘Quieter, she means?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  Mirabelle considered this. If Nina Orlova had arranged to meet somebody, the orangery was certainly out of the way. An argument in the drawing room might be overheard, she thought, even at night, but to the rear, close to only the guest bedrooms, which were empty on the night she died, you had the least chance of being either overseen or overheard, despite all the glass. Eleanor was right – the orangery was out of the way.

  ‘It’s too wet for shooting, I suppose?’ she said, taking a forkful of eggs.

  ‘Probably. But it’s ideal fishing weather,’ Bruce said cheerfully. ‘They say there’s no bad weather in Scotland, only the wrong attire. The river’s on our neighbour’s land, but we have an agreement. I’ll look out gabardines and Al can join me. It’ll be salmon en croute for dinner, if we’re lucky.’

  ‘Are the neighbours far?’

  ‘The Dougals? Not really. They’re the nearest proper house. Ten miles, I suppose. Ah, good morning dear,’ Bruce said, as his wife came into the breakfast room.

  ‘You’re down?’ Mirabelle had expected Eleanor to eat in her room. It was the usual way for a married lady.

  ‘Yes,’ Eleanor said as she helped herself to a pile of toast and pulled a dark pot of plummy jam towards her. Mirabelle admired Eleanor’s forest green cashmere twinset. She had adopted the best of Highland style, and no mistake. ‘I’m engaged in a stand-off,’ she admitted. ‘For the first three months of our marriage, Gillies delivered a tray to my room and I brought it to the table. It was round one and I won it. However, she downright refuses to make coffee for breakfast. Round two. We’ll get there.’ Eleanor bit into a slice of toast and sipped reluctantly on a cup of tea. ‘I was just thinking,’ she continued, ‘how marvellous it is that Tash has broken free of her family’s past. She’s remarkably open-minded, don’t you think?’