by Blake Banner
“Can you believe that woman?”
“I think she’s a gas. The world needs more people like that.”
“You could be right. But what a set up, Stone…”
“I know what you were doing, Dehan.”
“What?” Her face was a picture of innocence.
“You were fishing for motives.”
She looked away, frowning. “No, I wasn’t. Not as such.”
“And you didn’t find one. Bee’s resentment for her sister’s death, if she felt any, would have been directed entirely toward Charles, not his father. If anything, she would have felt some sympathy with his father.”
“You’re getting into this as much as I am, you fraud. OK, so she has no apparent motive to kill the dad. But if the son is a rake, who’s to say that was not learned behavior, or hereditary? And if the dad was as much a rake as the son, then maybe he upset somebody on the island.”
I made a face that was skeptical. “You’re speculating.”
“Yeah, but we’re not on a case, Detective Stone, and we are not going to arrest anybody, so I can speculate if I want to.”
“In that case, it is possible.”
We had entered among the trees, mostly tall, whispering pines that seemed to arch over the road like the nave of a cathedral. There was a soft, green light in the air and our voices acquired a muted echo. I took hold of Dehan’s arm and stopped her gently. She smiled at me.
I said, “Don’t make any sudden movements. Very gently turn around and look.”
Through the pines I could see a glade, dense with ferns maybe three or four feet high. A shaft of sunlight was leaning in through the canopy above and, caught in its beam, there was a stag with great, spreading antlers, motionless, watching us. It was a scene of perfect beauty and it made Dehan gasp. The quick intake of breath alarmed the stag and it turned and bolted, leaping through the ferns until it had vanished among the trees.
She didn’t say anything. We walked on in silence, going ever down, deeper into the woods without speaking until after twenty minutes or so we came upon the first house, an old stone cottage with flowerpots suspended beside the door, set back a little from the road. After that, the houses became more numerous and the woods fell back until we came to a large clearing with a green, a post office, a grocery store, and an inn.
The inn was half timbered with a red slate roof and a tall, red brick chimney. A sign swinging outside proclaimed that it was the Gordon Arms. We pushed open the door, a bell clanged, and the warm sound of conversation greeted us, along with the good smell of roasting meat and baking pies.
There were a few men at the bar drinking dark brown beer with no froth. I leaned on the counter and the publican, a cheerful, round-faced man in his forties grinned at me and said, “What’ll it be, sir?”
“Two pints of best, and we’d like to have lunch.”
“Nay problem. Thus the dining room though thar. I’ll bring yer pints to yiz.”
I followed the direction he’d pointed in through an open door into a long room with a large, open fireplace and a dozen tables set with cutlery. Only one of them was occupied. It was occupied by a woman who sat staring at us. She attempted to smile, but failed.
Dehan came up beside me. “Hello, Mrs. Gordon,” she said. “Are you having lunch here? Would you like to join us?”
Pamela opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“No… I mean, I am not having lunch. I just stepped in for a quick drink and wanted to get away from the…” She waved her hand at the public bar next door. Then she tried to smile again. “I’ll join you for a drink, then I’ll leave you to your lunch. I had better get back. Charles will be wondering…” She trailed off, then gestured at the chairs opposite her. “Won’t you join me?”
As we sat, Dehan went straight in. With a bright smile she said, “We bumped into Bee on the way down here.”
Pam sighed and looked away. “That woman!”
I said, “Have you known her long?”
“Forever!” She said it with feeling. “It feels that way, anyway.”
Dehan nodded, with big innocent eyes. “Were you at school together?”
Pam laughed without humor. “Gosh, no. I went to the local comprehensive. Lady Bee went to Benenden.”
Dehan frowned and shook her head. “What is that? Local comprehensive and Benenden?”
I let Pam explain. She sighed and there was a whiff of condescension about her. “Comprehensive school. What you would call state school. And Benenden is the private girls school that little aristocrats go to, to learn to be proper ladies.”
There was no mistaking the vitriol in her voice.
“Oh.” Dehan glanced at me. “I hope my question wasn’t intrusive…”
Pam shook her head and sighed. “No, sorry, you weren’t to know…” The barkeep came in with our pints, handed us the menu he had under his arm, and Pam said, “Bring me another G&T, would you, Len?”
“Comin’ right up, Pam!”
He went away and she flopped back in her seat. “It just gets so wearing sometimes. Keeping up the pretense. I tell you, sometimes I think, if I could turn the clock back and do it all again…”
Dehan nodded, smiling ruefully. “I hear you. I tell you.” She pointed at Pam across the table. “Sister, you can get it right a million times, but you only need to fuck up once to regret it all your life.”
Pam seemed to thaw. Her smile became more human. “You got that right. But you know? The biggest mistakes? The ones you will definitely regret all your life? They’re the ones where you are not true to yourself. It sounds cynical, but it’s true: you let somebody else down and that’s bad. You’ll regret that. But let yourself down and you will pay for it your whole life long!”
I made a face and nodded a lot. “That sounds like wisdom. I’ll drink to that.”
I raised my glass to her and pulled off a long draught while she watched me curiously.
Dehan took a long pull, then wiped her mouth on the back of her arm and looked at me wide-eyed. “Man! That is something else! This is beer?” She held up the glass in front of her face and said with feeling, “Where have you been all my life?”
Pam burst out laughing. I did too, but as my laughter subsided, Pam laughed more. It was as though Dehan had opened a valve with her sudden expostulation, and Pam covered her mouth with her hand and squealed a strange, half strangled outburst. Dehan joined in and I sat and watched them both, smiling to myself and shaking my head.
Then Dehan was leaning across the small table, gripping Pam’s arms, repeating, “This is beer? They’ve been lying to me all my life! Man! I just died and went to Scotland!”
She leaned back with a foolish grin on her face, chuckling and watching Pam through hooded eyes, while Pam wiped hers and said, “Oh! I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me. I haven’t laughed like that… I can’t remember since when.”
Dehan’s expression changed. There was just a hint of compassion in her eyes. “Too long,” she said, and then, “Say, what’s so important? Join us for lunch.”
After a moment, she smiled and turned to me. “Do you mind? You’re on your honeymoon with this lovely lady. I don’t want to intrude…”
“You’re not intruding,” I said.
Dehan added, “Please, stay, and tell us all about yourself, your castle, your life…”
SIX
We didn’t have duck or pheasant because they were not in season and it just didn’t feel right, so we had steak and kidney pie instead. It was home made and superb. So while Dehan continued with her Oscar winning performance as a vivacious, lovable bad girl from the Bronx, soul sister to her Orkney Isles counterpart, I concentrated on my luncheon and listened. It started with an innocent question. Dehan speared a roast potato, paused and shook her head.
“I love this place, Pam. When you work cold cases, homicides in the Bronx, this is like paradise. But I have to ask you, don’t you get bored? I mean, too much paradise is like too much of an
ything. There are only so many times you can go and marvel at the standing stones.”
Pam heaved a huge sigh. “You have no idea.” She turned and gazed out the window, ignoring the food in front of her. When she next spoke, her accent had slipped slightly and there was more than a hint of her brogue trying to get through.
“Can I be really honest with you? I know this is kind of crazy, and maybe it’s because I’ve had a couple of G&Ts already, but I feel you’ll understand.”
Dehan reached across the table again and covered her hand. “Hey, Pam, a couple of weeks and we’ll be gone. What you tell us, stays right here, with us.”
It didn’t make a lot of sense, but it sounded good and it was what Pam wanted to hear. She squeezed Dehan’s hand and let the gin do the talking.
“When I met Charles—I mean, I wouldn’t say a word against him, he’s my husband—but when I met him it was totally different. We were just having a laugh, you know? He’d come over from America for a holiday, and straight away he’d come to the pub, sometimes he’d even have his luggage with him, you know? Like, it was on his way to the house, he had to pass by, so he’d stop. And before you knew it, we was gassing and hooting and he was a right laugh, so he was.”
She paused, looking at Dehan, studying her face. When she spoke again, her expression was almost apologetic.
“I didn’t talk like this back then. I had the local accent. He didn’t care. He liked it. He said it was sexy. It was funny.” She glanced at me, then back at Dehan. “Happy days. But be careful what you wish for, right?”
She paused again. I ate and waited.
Dehan said, “What did you wish for?”
She sighed. “The stupid thing is, I wasn’t in love with him. He was a gas. He was real good fun. But I would not have dreamt in a million years of marrying him.” She sat up, wide-eyed, and spread her hands. “But then the daft git went and proposed! He was a fucking millionaire, for fuck’s sake! A multi-multi-multi millionaire! And I didn’t even own the house I was living in! What was I supposed to do?”
She slumped back in her chair. “At first I was going to tell him no. It was crazy. It was too much. I was actually scared of what would happen, of how much things would change. But my dad got really angry with me, and some of my friends. They were all thinking, you know, how it would benefit them. And in the end I was weak and I kidded myself it was a dream come true. When really what it was, was the beginning of a fucking nightmare.”
Dehan took a long pull on her beer and smacked her lips. “How come? I mean, I get he’s a bit eccentric.” She grinned. “Maybe a bit of a drama queen. But a nightmare? You’re rich, you can do whatever you like, can’t you?”
She shook her head. “The first thing he had me do, as soon as we were married, was change everything about myself: the way I dressed, the way I talked, the way I behaved, all my friends, I had to stop seeing my family so often. In exchange, they were shipped off to the mainland and put up in a big house with a monthly allowance, but I got to see them only once a year, in the week before Christmas. He completely isolated me and he completely erased the woman he said he had fallen in love with, to replace her with…” She gestured at herself. “This!” She shrugged. “Now, how does that make any sense? Why? Why did he marry me in the first place, if he wanted a different woman?”
Dehan shook her head. “People can be weird like that. Was it a power thing? Was he proving that he owned you?”
I couldn’t stop myself. I said, “Was he punishing his father?”
She sighed and shrugged. “Probably all of the above. I wasn’t a Gordon. We were originally from the mainland. My mum and dad came over when I was a wee baby, to run the pub. So as far as Old Man Gordon was concerned, I didn’t even exist. Well, he may as well have been right, because his son set about systematically erasing me.”
Dehan grunted. “That sucks, Pam. I can see why you’re mad at him.”
Pam snorted. “That was just the start of it. We got married just a week after his father died. It was like he couldn’t wait. He went kind of crazy. And where before he was wild, after his father was killed he became kind of eccentric, you know? He became arrogant and all kind of superior, where he had never been like that before. It was as though, now that his dad was dead, he had to take over from him. He insisted I had to be the ‘Laird’s wife’ and behave and speak appropriately. He even kind of anglicized his own accent.” She paused, staring at the tabletop, ignoring her untouched food in front of her. “But the worst thing of all, after I had done all that, after all the sacrifices I had made for him, the worst thing was when he started having his affairs.”
Dehan froze, like she hadn’t known all along. “Oh,” she said, and then, “Bee?”
Pam nodded. “Among many others. But Bee was special. It’s complicated.” She sighed, rubbed her eyes and suddenly the not-quite-perfect cut glass accent was back. “I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear all this. I am intruding on your honeymoon and it’s unforgivable of me.”
“Hey, come on. You think I didn’t notice?” Dehan leaned her elbows on the table and looked her in the eye. “Us girls have to look out for each other.” She glanced at me and grinned. “No offence, Stone, man. But you understand, right?”
I raised an eyebrow at her that said she was overdoing the act. “Hey, I’m just sittin’ here groovin’ with my pie, sista.”
She told me with a wink that she didn’t give a damn, she was having fun. I kept on eating and she turned back to Pam. “It was pretty damn clear last night that CG Sr. was being a pain in the ass, and you’d had enough.”
Pam nodded. There was something tragic about the way she did it. “Sally is his latest. Women seem to find him fascinating for some reason. It must be the combination of his wealth, his power and his total lack of inhibitions.” She sighed, picked up her fork and prodded her food. “He was engaged to Bee’s sister, you know. She died a few months after he broke it off with her. Most of her friends and family suspected suicide, but nothing was ever proved. You’d think Bee would hate him, wouldn’t you? But instead she stepped right into her sister’s shoes and became his long-term lover.”
Her eyes drifted toward the window and for a moment she looked as though she was going to make a move to leave again. Dehan preempted her.
“So what was the old man like? You must have known him quite well. Did you get on?”
She kept looking at the window, but she smiled. “Oddly enough, we did got on. He was all right.” She blinked and turned to look at Dehan. “He was what he was. D’you know what I mean? He didn’t pretend to be anything but the arrogant, ruthless, obsessed bastard that he was.”
“So you did know him well?”
“Oh, aye.” Her accent was slipping again. “He used to come to the inn, often on a Sunday for a Sunday roast. Part of his act as the Laird, you know, mixing with the riff-raff, staying connected with ‘his subjects’. I used to tease him. I was a shameless flirt back then. I’d make him laugh and more than once he bought me a drink. Aye, we got on OK.
“When his son proposed to me, he came out straight and told me. You’re not right for him, and he’ll not make you happy. And he was right, God bless him. I wish I’d listened.”
I said, “Did you resent him for saying that?”
She shook her head. Then she hesitated and made a face. “Not at first. I agreed. But then, as everybody started pressuring me, and forcing me to change my mind, then I did, a bit.”
Dehan pointed to her glass. “One for the road?”
“Ah, go on then. It’s good to get all this crap off my chest, I can tell you. I’ve never spoken to anyone about it. You should be a fucking psychologist. I tell you, you have a gift.” She smiled at me. “Hasn’t she?”
“She has that, Pam. No question.”
Dehan smiled. “So, come on, level with me. Your husband is convinced that his father was murdered. You hinted at that last night. So what do you really think?”
She shook her head. “Na
h, that’s nonsense. I was just winding him up. It is so typical of him, shifting the blame. He killed his father, with his arrogance, with his ruthlessness. The old man had a dream, let him have his dream! We could have been lovers. He was not in love with me, and I was not in love with him. We could have just had the occasional shag and let it run its course. He could have married Bee’s sister, or some rich Gordon from Scotland or America, who would have suited him better. But he had to stick it to his dad, hurt him, humiliate him. And also, he wanted a woman he could control and shape and possess!” She shook her head. “No, he killed his dad the same way he killed Margaret. He broke their hearts, but rather than admit it and take responsibility for what he’s done, he says it was murder. Who? Who would murder the old man? And what for?”
I had finished the pie. I laid down my knife and fork and drained my pint of bitter, then suggested, “A jilted lover?”
She looked surprised. Len appeared smiling at Dehan’s side.
“Everything OK? Are we happy?”
I made a face of contentment. “I’m happy, Len, but you know what would make me delirious? Some Stilton cheese and the best local single malt you have.”
He made a face that was conspiratorial. “Ooh,” he said. “We have some fine whuskeys in the Orkneys. No doot aboot that. I’ve a ten year old Highland Park there that’ll have yiz singin’ your heart oot afore the afternoon’s done. Ut’s the northernmost distillery in the world, so it is, and one of the oldest and the finest. Started as an illegal still in Orkney by one Magnus Eunson in 1790. A priest by day and a smuggler by night, God bless his heart.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Who do I have to kill to get some?”
He laughed. “Nerry a soul. I’ll bring yiz a dram right away.”
Dehan raised a hand. “Make it two.” She pointed at Pam, who shook her head and Len went away with our plates. I was wondering how I could subtly reintroduce the question without sounding as though I was prying, but Pam didn’t need reminding.
“He wasn’t like his son in that way. He had a lover, but he didn’t cheat, he was in love with his castle, his family, his fantasy.”