[Mirabelle Bevan 08] - Highland Fling

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘Bruce?’

  ‘Bruce. He put down his paper and stared out of the window. And then, he waved, Mirabelle, at one of the protesters. So I went over. “Excuse me,” I said. “But do you support that cause?” And he was horrified. “Oh no,” he said, and he pointed through the window, “but that young fellow is the son of a friend of mine, and he does.” I thought it was the most wonderful example of, well, Britishness.’

  Mirabelle started to cry.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Eleanor found a handkerchief in her pocket. ‘It’s rather damp, I’m afraid,’ she said as she handed it over.

  ‘So you fell in love?’

  ‘Not then. I thought he must be the most fearful snob. But we got talking and he took me for dinner and he was charming. Then about a week later he asked me up here for a long weekend, and that’s the thing. I mean, there’s The Ritz and Westminster and all of that, but here he is, making things happen – looking after this place. He’s not just living off it like some feudal lord. Truth is there isn’t all that much money, though nobody would believe it.’

  ‘He says you’re the one who makes things happen.’

  ‘Well, I geed things up. I brought the place into the twentieth century after we ran away together and tied the knot.’

  ‘Where did you get married?’

  ‘Edinburgh. There was literally nobody there. We were in a rush and we didn’t want any fuss. Afterwards we came home here and got started on what I think of as our real life.’

  ‘Attracting American business to the cashmere mill?’

  ‘That one hasn’t worked out so well, has it? But the French came and that resulted in pretty good orders. And I geed up the distillery and helped make the farms more profitable – looking at yields.’ Eleanor raised her glass. ‘And I started the tweed collective.’

  ‘It’s a collective?’

  ‘Yes. I read about collectives – they’re a good idea, don’t you think? Bruce can’t expect to make money out of everything. I mean he owns part of the distillery and the mill and he gets the farm rents too, so I got him to stick in a few hundred towards the collective – to put something back. I think it’s important that people have ownership. The papers are so gloomy about everything. I mean, if they drop the bomb, they drop the bomb. What are we going to do? Hide under the kitchen table? I don’t think so. We just have to do our best with the small things. Everyone has secrets, Mirabelle. Every marriage has them. Alan is a good man. I don’t suppose anyone knows him better than Bruce. Bruce adores him and I trust my husband’s judgement.’

  Mirabelle blew her nose. Across the courtyard the blurred figure of Susan dashed towards the office, her apron flying in the wind. She burst through the door, her mousy hair two shades darker on account of the rain.

  ‘Mrs Gillies said you hadn’t had enough breakfast, ma’am,’ she said, and withdrew a Thermos flask and two plastic cups. ‘She made you coffee.’

  ‘Thank you, Susan. It’s a terrible day.’

  Susan looked confused. ‘Miss Orlova died yesterday, ma’am—’

  ‘I meant the weather,’ Eleanor cut in. ‘Of course, today will not be so terrible as yesterday. Even if we have a hurricane.’

  Susan opened the Thermos flask and poured two servings into the plastic cups. Steam rose in thick curls as she reached into her pocket and brought out a container of milk. She seemed, Mirabelle thought, agitated.

  ‘Thank you,’ Eleanor said. ‘Make sure to get warm back in the kitchen. You’re soaked.’

  The girl loitered, moving from foot to foot. ‘I had hoped to talk to you, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s a private matter.’ Susan’s eyes slipped towards Mirabelle, and Mirabelle wondered if she intended to complain about her and McGregor – houseguests bedhopping in the night. It seemed faintly ridiculous, especially now.

  Eleanor’s eyes danced. A slender smile slipped across her lips. ‘Might it wait until after Miss Bevan and I have finished? You seem most exercised, Susan. If you are still agitated about yesterday you may, if you wish, go home to visit your family. I know the events of the last twenty-four hours have been difficult.’

  Susan’s cheeks flared. She bobbed a kind of half-curtsey. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said, and disappeared out of the door.

  Mirabelle wrapped her fingers around the plastic cup, which felt comfortingly warm. ‘Do Susan and Mrs Gillies live over the yard?’

  ‘Right above here. Two bedrooms, a sitting room, a bathroom and a galley kitchen. I did it out when I arrived. It was positively Victorian but now it’s quite cosy.’

  Mirabelle noted that meant that the women were on the wrong side of the house to see anything in the orangery. ‘I don’t suppose the police are making much progress,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t suppose they are.’

  ‘There won’t be any evidence left now. On the ground.’

  ‘I don’t know how we’re going to get over this.’ Eleanor sighed. ‘I can’t bring myself to go into the orangery. I feel as if there’s some kind of presence. I mean, I hardly knew Nina, but it’s so ghastly. What would you advise?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. I can tell you’ve lived through things. What’s the worst thing you ever saw?’

  Mirabelle sighed. ‘Nuremberg,’ she whispered. ‘The trials.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘I assisted one of the prosecutors. It was horrible.’

  ‘And I’ll bet you haven’t told Alan.’

  Mirabelle shook her head. ‘It’s still classified. I shouldn’t say anything. But you’re very easy to talk to, somehow.’

  ‘Do you get nightmares?’

  ‘Not for years.’

  ‘Well, that’s it then. I’m going to stop being such a baby going on about Nina after what you must have seen. I mean one dead Russian! One! What was I thinking?’

  Mirabelle managed a smile.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Eleanor said, and she stared out of the window. Raindrops were bouncing off the surface of the laneway as Susan disappeared through the back door and the car drove past, raising a wave as it cut through the puddles. ‘That’s the boys off fishing. They’ll be gone most of the day. Your Mr McGregor will have time to think. And so will you.’

  Chapter 6

  Happiness was born a twin

  Mirabelle curled up in the drawing room alone for the rest of the morning. The fire shifted as it burned in the grate, and outside the window the whirlwind of grey provided a counterpoint to the glowing embers. She watched the rain lashing down and the sky slowly lightening as the downpour gradually softened into drizzle. At midday Tash came down and, with a languid ‘Good morning’, installed herself on the sofa opposite. ‘I missed them, didn’t I?’

  ‘There was no shooting,’ Mirabelle said. ‘The rain was too heavy. They went fishing instead.’

  Tash wrinkled her nose. It seemed that fishing did not fulfil her requirement for violent release. The Inverness Courier had been removed, but she picked up The Times and, skipping past the headlines, turned to the arts pages.

  Mirabelle was grateful the girl didn’t want to engage in conversation. She held a book open in front of her but she wasn’t reading. Instead she ran over everything McGregor had said that morning and the occasions when she might have noticed his leg or have asked about his war. His revelation seemed to call the whole of their relationship into question.

  Mirabelle had always been intrigued by scars. Her father had taken a bullet during the Great War. He’d let her touch the scar once, running her tiny finger over the indent between his ribs until her mother had pulled her away and said it was too morbid. Her parents never discussed her father’s four-year absence from her childhood, and Mirabelle had been too young to remember anything except the excitement the day her father came home. He had a tan. ‘India,’ he’d said, and it hadn’t seemed odd to her because she was too small to have expected him to be fighting in France. Besides, her father was a hero, wherever he’d been – he had
the medals to prove it. The world was simpler in those days.

  When it came down to it, it wasn’t McGregor’s injury that troubled her. It was the secret he’d withheld. What would it be like, she wondered, making love to him in the light now? Knowing all of him – a man who had misjudged his duty and spent the rest of his life atoning for it. What would it be like to kiss him? It surprised her that she was prepared to consider it.

  ‘I think I’ll go down and see my cow,’ Tash announced out of the blue, folding the newspaper and getting to her feet.

  ‘Your cow?’ Mirabelle found herself smiling.

  Tash sighed. ‘Well, she’s not mine, but she is magnificent. She’s one of those Highland cows. You know, with the horns.’

  ‘You can’t go on your own,’ Mirabelle said, thinking of how she had chided herself for setting off along the back lane earlier or standing out in the darkness last night. ‘I mean, we don’t know who could be out there.’

  Tash nodded. ‘Do you think it’s safe if we both go?’

  They pulled on wellington boots from a collection under the stairs and tied matching green silk squares over their hair. Mirabelle mentioned to the police officer that they were going for a walk. ‘We’re proper countrywomen now,’ Tash said as she slammed the front door and set off down the hill through the thick grass. She looped her arm through Mirabelle’s. The ground was soft and the air was fresh. The last of the downpour fell in a drizzle as fine as a cobweb and a calm silence overtook the landscape as they tramped onwards. Mirabelle scanned the vista – it didn’t seem threatening. It was daytime. Still, it was never as quiet as this in Brighton because of the sea. The sound of the tide washing back and forth on the pebbles woke her almost every morning. It should have felt more restful here, she thought, in such silence. But not today. ‘Nina said this weather was good for the skin,’ Tash said stoutly. ‘There are places in Russia where it’s wet all the time and the women are known for their beauty.’

  ‘I suppose it must be good, when you think about it,’ Mirabelle replied. ‘All that moisture.’

  Tash cut across a field at the bottom of the driveway and Mirabelle followed. The ground was uneven, random blades of grass spraying water droplets like diamonds. At a wooden fence, she climbed up and perched on the planking, beyond which a huge Highland cow stood, completely sodden. The animal’s coat had darkened in the rain to a deep tan, and drops of water flew from the ends when she moved. Mirabelle thought she looked annoyed, though she realised that was an assumption based on how she would have felt if she’d been caught out in such bad weather. The field was entirely treeless. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ Tash said, her cheeks shining.

  Mirabelle agreed. The cow stared at them as if the rain had been their fault.

  ‘Nina said there are black ones, but I like this brown colour. It has …’ the girl searched for the word, ‘texture.’

  ‘You seem better today,’ Mirabelle said.

  Tash shrugged. ‘He’s still out here, isn’t he? Somewhere. But what else are we going to do?’

  Mirabelle laid a comforting hand on the girl’s arm. ‘They’ll find him.’

  ‘When I woke up this morning, I didn’t remember what had happened,’ Tash said. ‘When I did, it was as if my stomach was flattened. I told myself, at least it was quick. It was probably painful, but it was quick, right?’ She sniffed and then wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jacket, waiting for Mirabelle’s reply.

  ‘Yes – it would have been,’ Mirabelle reassured the girl, though she knew that speed was relative. Cutting off her air supply meant that Nina would have lost consciousness in a few seconds, but it would have taken a few minutes for her to actually die. She decided against filling Tash in on the medical reality – nobody knew what the victims of strangulation were aware of as they lay there, apparently out cold. Instead she elected to push for more information. ‘Tash, can you think of anyone who would have wanted to kill your godmother?’

  Tash shifted her position. The cow looked at her as if this was a personal insult, then slowly turned and sauntered to the opposite corner of the field. ‘People were jealous of her in New York. Her family got out with money. Not all the Whites were so lucky.’

  ‘White Russians, you mean?’

  ‘Yes – the opposite of the Reds – thousands of families got out in ’17 and ’18 and most of us penniless. There are duchesses who’ve become seamstresses. Actually, Nina employed a couple at one point. There are princes hanging around the Waldorf Astoria on Fifth Avenue, hoping to pick up an American heiress. My grandfather was lucky – so was Nina’s. They changed their roubles to American dollars before the currency devalued, so our families had something at least. They couldn’t have known. It was terrible for most people. They brought out their roubles too late and couldn’t change them. Even if they got out diamonds – the market was flooded. You can still buy Fabergé for a pittance because there was so much for sale. In the end, people stopped trying to sell it. What was the point? There are broke, old Russian women, sipping borscht in Brooklyn, who are just covered in Fabergé. So people were jealous of Nina and Niko, for what they had. And that they made more too. Nina made a lot of money. She had a great eye.’

  ‘And Niko?’

  ‘He made his mint in transport. He bought a firm that runs a fleet of trucks and grew it. Hundreds of people work for him now – drivers and mechanics. His great-grandfather made money investing in the railways in the old country. I guess this was Niko’s version of the same thing.’

  This, Mirabelle realised, was interesting, but not specific enough to be a motive. ‘I know it’s horrible to consider, but can you think of anyone who actually wanted your godmother dead – a single person? Can you think of any arguments she may have had? Something more … precise?’

  ‘We’d only been here a week when she died. The people at the cashmere mill loved her. I mean, she swanned in and she bought. She sweet-talked them about ply widths, for heaven’s sake. Apart from that, we hadn’t seen anyone except for Eleanor and Bruce and their friends.’

  ‘Which friends?’

  ‘We had dinner one night – Tuesday, I think. It was fun, actually. It was just the locals – the neighbours. One couple had driven from Inverness. Eleanor mixed cocktails and a few people stayed.’

  ‘Bloody Marys?’

  ‘They were good. How did you know?’

  Tash wiped her eyes – a tear or two. Then she jumped down from the fence and began waving, as if she was signalling an aircraft. Mirabelle peered. On the other side of the field a figure cut to the east. He moved quickly given the unevenness of the ground. ‘Gregory!’ Tash called, jumping up and down. ‘Gregory!’

  In the distance, Gregory either didn’t hear or he ignored her. He disappeared into a patch of trees. Tash seemed downhearted. ‘I wonder where he’s going.’

  ‘You’re fond of him.’

  ‘He’s all I have of home,’ she replied, though Mirabelle wondered if it was more than that. The girl wasn’t as hard-headed as she seemed, talking about marrying a rich man and then doting on a family retainer. This worried her. If his alibi proved unsound, Gregory was the most likely murderer, as Bruce had pointed out the night before.

  ‘He’s certainly attractive,’ she said doubtfully, wondering if this had played a part in events.

  Tash waved off the comment. ‘Muscle,’ she said vaguely. ‘Mirabelle, I know it’s creepy but I have a favour to ask. My books are at the lodge and I don’t want to go on my own to fetch them. It seems chicken to have someone else do it. Would you come with me? Do you think it’s safe?’

  ‘Yes. Of course,’ Mirabelle replied. ‘The two of us together.’

  They walked down the hill and through the trees. The air smelled of crushed pine cones, and where they could see flashes of the burn it was swollen into a torrent. Bunches of twigs – detritus of the storm – clung to the bank.

  ‘You said you liked staying down here,’ Mirabelle said.

  ‘The main house is fanci
er, but it was fun – Nina and I living in a cottage in the woods. Like a fairytale. And that funny bath in the hut outside.’

  ‘Yes, I wondered about that.’

  ‘There was something great about it. Like camping. One evening I left the door open so I could see the stars. Then every day we’d tramp down to the village to fetch supplies. They make this bread – bannock, they call it. It’s good. Truth is, it’s the most time I’d spent with Nina in ages.’

  ‘Didn’t you spend time together at home?’

  ‘She was always working and I have my friends.’

  ‘I had the impression you were close.’

  ‘We are! We were. God, just walking down here is giving me goosebumps.’

  ‘You said Nina didn’t like the lodge?’

  ‘She would have preferred to stay in the big house.’

  ‘That’s our fault, I’m afraid. Eleanor had this idea that we should be on our own up there, like a proper family.’

  Tash shrugged. ‘I guess we got to stay alone – like a proper family too.’

  The lodge remained unlocked. The two leather suitcases from the wardrobe had been packed and lay in the tiny hallway. Tash stood frozen on the threshold. Mirabelle gave her a moment and then touched the girl’s arm. ‘All right?’

  ‘We were talking right here, you know, Nina and I, that last evening, sitting in those chairs. We had a discussion about what to do if the bomb dropped. I mean,’ she rolled her eyes, ‘what can you do, right? I said I’d go out, into the fields and watch it coming, and Nina just said, “God, I can’t imagine dying in this hole.” And in the end she did, of course. Not right here, but not in New York. She would have wanted to go in New York. In the Stork Club. Wearing a marvellous frock.’

  Mirabelle squeezed Tash’s forearm. ‘I’m sorry.’