Death of a Glutton (6 page)

‘Going to visit anyone?’ asked Priscilla sweetly.

‘I don’t know anyone,’ snapped Jenny and walked off.

Half an hour later, Priscilla decided to run down to the village herself and call on Hamish Macbeth.

She drove to the police station. The hotel car was parked outside.

She swung the wheel and drove back to the castle.

Inside the police station, Jenny was saying earnestly, ‘It must strike you as odd that I should join something like Checkmate.’

‘I just thought it was the fashion these days.’ Hamish heard a car driving up, stopping and then turning about and driving away. He was sure that it had been Priscilla and he looked at Jenny Trask with a certain amount of irritation in his eyes.

‘I am a policeman, Miss Trask,’ he said, ‘and not used to being disturbed so late in the evening except on police work. I do have a certain amount of chores to do before I go to bed. Did you come to see me about anything important?’

‘I felt I had to see someone sane,’ said Jenny, improvising wildly. Things were not turning out as she had expected. She had thought that Hamish might be intrigued by her visit. ‘I wish I had never come up here. It’s all so foreign and wild and weird. It gives me odd ideas.’ She knew she was babbling on but somehow could not stop. ‘The other night, I looked out and there seemed to be this great darkness approaching the castle. It turned out to be a cloud, but it gave me a creepy feeling. I went to the cinema once with a friend and no sooner had we sat down than I said to her, “Let’s move. There’s someone mad behind us.” Well, it was pitch-black, for the film had started, so my friend said it was nonsense. But a few moments later, this old woman behind us started muttering obscenities.’

Hamish looked at her, a sudden alertness in his eyes. ‘So you think one of the party at the castle is mad?’

‘There’s something about it all that makes me uneasy,’ said Jenny a trifle defiantly because this Highland policeman was making her feel like a fool.

‘Why do you want to get married?’ asked Hamish.

Jenny coloured up. ‘Most people do, you know. I’m only a legal secretary. It’s not as if I would be throwing up a great career to be a wife and mother.’

‘Why not have a great career?’ Hamish leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

‘What?’

‘Your family must have money, or Checkmate wouldn’t have accepted you. So you could study for the bar. Take a law degree. My, my.’ He half-closed his eyes. ‘I can see it all: Jenny Trask, QC, defender of the poor and oppressed.’

‘I never even thought of it.’ Jenny gave an awkward laugh. ‘Me … standing up in court! I’d be too shy.’

‘I don’t think you would be shy at all if you were defending someone, fighting for some-one’s innocence,’ said Hamish.

She wrapped her legs round the kitchen stool she was sitting on and clasped the cup of coffee he had given her tightly to her bosom. She could see herself in wig and gown. She could see herself on television outside the Law Courts with a successfully acquitted celebrity beaming beside her.

‘And now,’ prompted Hamish gently, ‘it’s getting late, and so …’

Jenny’s mind came into land on reality and she blinked at him.

‘Oh, yes, I must go. Thank you for the coffee.’

Hamish shook his head in amusement when she had gone. He had given her a dream to chew over and he hoped that would keep her happy for the rest of the week.

He went outside to make sure he had locked up his hens for the night and then he walked down to the garden gate and looked out over the loch.

A sudden burst of wind came racing down the loch, setting the boats bobbing wildly, tearing among the rambling roses over the police-station door, whipping off the rubbish bin lid, flying down Lochdubh and then disappearing as quickly as it had come.

The ripples on the loch subsided, the air grew close and still and a few stars burned feebly in the half-light of the sky.

He picked up the rubbish bin lid and replaced it with automatic fingers. It was as if that wind had been racing towards Tommel Castle. He gave a superstitious shiver.

‘Daft,’ he chided himself as he went indoors, as daft as Jenny’s imaginary mad people at the castle.

The landscape had lost its clear sharp colours when the party assembled outside the bus in the morning. They were due to go on a visit to a fish-farm, returning to the hotel for lunch and then a leisurely afternoon playing tennis or croquet in the grounds.

Crystal arrived at the bus despite the early hour. She was wearing a brief sun-suit which left little of her stupendous figure to the imagination. ‘Auntie’s not coming,’ she volunteered. ‘She’s gone. She’s left a note to say she’s walked down to get the early-morning bus.’

The women looked relieved. ‘Thank God,’ muttered Maria.

Priscilla watched them all drive off, wondering uneasily whether Peta had had second thoughts about Sean’s behaviour. She was joined by the hotel manager, Mr Johnson. ‘Good riddance,’ he said.

‘Mrs Gore’s up and gone,’ said Priscilla.

‘Oh, dear. I’d better tell Sean not to bother preparing lunch for her. I don’t like that fat woman, but she’s worked wonders on Sean. He does everything without complaint. I was even beginning to think she was an asset. Why don’t you take some time off now that she’s left? Your father’s not here to pester us.’

‘What about lunch?’

‘The waitresses are all on duty. I’m here.’

Priscilla hesitated. Then she said, ‘I might take a packed lunch and go off somewhere.’

Helped by Sean, who was almost servile, Priscilla packed a picnic hamper with enough for two, hoisted it into the Range Rover and drove down to the police station. Hamish was sitting in his front garden in a deckchair, reading the newspapers.

‘I’m glad to see you’ve got the crime wave of Lochdubh subdued,’ said Priscilla. ‘If Detective Chief Inspector Blair could see you now!’

‘Well, thon pest’s safely in Spain. What brings you? Everything all right up at the castle?’

‘Very much all right. Peta’s gone. She left a note to say she was walking down to get the early-morning bus.’

Hamish slowly put down his newspaper. ‘That’s odd,’ he said.

‘What’s odd? I mean, what can be so specially odd in the behaviour of a woman whose whole lifestyle is odd?’

‘Well, she probably had heavy luggage …’

‘Why? She didn’t dress very well. A few baggy cotton dresses, things like that.’

‘A glutton like her would have stashed away some goodies in her luggage, probably had whole hams and sides of beef in there.’

‘Well, if she had, she’d have eaten them by now. What are you getting at?’

‘For a fat woman like that with plenty of money to get up early and carry her suitcase down to the road to wait for the bus is verra strange. Also, if she was fed up, it would have been more in her nature to tell everyone off before she went. Then she would surely have said something to her niece.’

‘You’ve been too long without a crime,’ said Priscilla with a laugh. ‘She’s gone and that’s that. Would you like to come on a picnic with me, just somewhere up on the moors where we can get a bit of fresh air?’

‘Love to. I’ll just switch on the answering machine. And I’d best put my uniform in the car.’

‘You’re expecting trouble!’

‘Just in case. I would hate to run into trouble and then the police from headquarters would come rushing up to find me without my uniform on.’

‘It’s this weather,’ said Priscilla. ‘It would give anyone odd ideas. It’s so still and close; it feels threatening.’

When she returned to the hotel with the others, Maria went straight up to Peta’s room. There on the dressing-table was the note, typewritten and unsigned. It said: ‘Gone off to get the early-morning bus. Fed up with this place.’

Maria frowned down at it. Had something happened to irritate Peta? She opened the wardrobe and then the drawers. All her clothes were gone. She went into the bathroom. The first thing she saw was Peta’s sponge-bag. It was a draw-string one and it was dangling by its strings from one of the taps. She unhitched it and opened it up. It contained deodorant, toothpaste, hairpins, and an expensive bar of soap. But Peta’s toothbrush was not there. She must have at least taken that. Puzzled and yet relieved at the same time, Maria carried it off with her. She could return it to Peta in London.

Jenny Trask sat on a deck-chair on the castle lawn. Things had settled down now that Peta was no longer with them. Mary French was teaching Matthew Cowper to play croquet, her high autocratic voice carrying to Jenny’s ears. From the direction of the tennis courts came the sound of jolly laughter. Deborah was playing tennis with Sir Bernard. Peter Trumpington and Jessica Fitt were walking slowly together along by the flowerbeds. Jenny felt a little stab of irritation. Peter certainly seemed a shallow young man without much in the way of intelligent conversation, but he was handsome and rich and it was strange he appeared to feel so at home with the faded Jessica. Although she had little in the way of self-esteem, she did know that she was by far the best-looking female there, that is if one did not count Crystal, who was lying stretched out on the grass a little way away in a bikini of quite amazing brevity.

A shadow fell over Jenny and she looked up. John Taylor stood there, politely raising his hat. ‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Delighted,’ said Jenny politely.

He drew a deck-chair up next to hers and sat down. ‘Isn’t it odd, Peta taking off the way she did,’ said Jenny.

Unconsciously echoing Priscilla, John said, ‘Everything about her was odd.’

‘Maybe, but she was very vain … goodness, I’m talking about the woman as if she were dead. I mean, she seemed to take delight in riling and competing with Maria. I can’t imagine her walking off without blaming someone first.’

‘Perhaps this is her way of complaining,’ said John lazily. ‘Maria’s looking worried, and that’s probably the effect Peta meant to create.’

‘But to leave without breakfast! Oh, well. At least this visit has got me thinking about a career.’

‘In what way?’ asked John. ‘I thought the purpose of your coming here was matrimony.’

‘It was. I’m grateful to Peta in a way because she has made the whole business of this dating or marital agency distasteful. I’m thinking of taking my law exams.’

John looked at her in sudden dislike. ‘And no doubt you will end up a judge. And do you know why?’

‘No.’

‘Because tokenism is slowly going to destroy the legal system of this country. Someone like you will be made a judge, not because of talent or brilliance or capability but simply because you are a woman. First it was the ethnic minorities, now it’s bloody women.’

‘I have not even started to study,’ said Jenny in a thin voice, ‘and yet you are prejudging my ability. Hardly a proper legal outlook.’

‘Tcha!’ said John and got up and walked angrily away.

Nasty man, thought Jenny, watching him go. Who is he to be so high and mighty? He was smarming around Peta at the theatre.

After a time, she rose and walked into the castle. Mr Johnson and Sean were standing by the reception. Sean was complaining that ‘the fat wumman’ had most certainly had breakfast; in fact, as far as he could tell, she had walked off with one of the castle picnic hampers and various goodies from the kitchen. Mr Johnson pointed out that Priscilla had packed and taken a picnic hamper, but Sean said he knew about that. She was probably off romancing that layabout of a policeman, he said.

Jenny walked on up to her room. So there was something between Priscilla and Hamish. And yet they must have known each other for some time and were not engaged.

She turned about and ran downstairs. Mr Johnson and Sean were still arguing. She interrupted them and asked Mr Johnson if she could take one of the castle cars.

‘Let me see,’ he said, ‘Priscilla’s got the Range Rover and Dougie borrowed the mini. The colonel’s got his car. The old Volvo should be out front. You can have that. The keys are in the ignition.’

‘I forgot to ask you before. Am I expected to pay for petrol?’

‘Not if it’s a short journey,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘But never leave the tank dry, always put back in what you use if you’ve been driving for a good distance. Have we got your driving-licence number?’

‘Priscilla took a note of it last time.’

‘That’ll be all right then. But I wouldn’t go too far today, if I were you. The weather looks bad.’

‘There isn’t a cloud in the sky!’

‘The forecast’s bad and there’s a purple haze on the hills and that means thunder.’

Jenny got into the car and opened all the windows and the sun-roof. She drove quickly down to the police station, but there was no sign of Hamish. So he probably had gone off with Priscilla. She drove on to the harbour and parked the car against the wall.

She was feeling hot and thirsty, so she went into the Lochdubh bar and ordered a gin and tonic and then wished she had not for the bar was full of men, not a woman in sight. ‘How much is that?’ she asked the barman.

‘The chap down the end o’ the bar’s paid fur it.’

Jenny looked flustered. ‘Who? What? I can’t really …’

A tall young man in working clothes walked towards her. ‘Sure, you looked as if you needed a drink,’ he said. He had an engaging smile and a mop of black curls and blue, blue eyes.

‘Did you pay for this?’ asked Jenny.

‘Yes, I always like to buy a pretty girl a drink. I’m working with Baxter’s Forestry on the other side of the loch but we’ve packed it in for the day. One of the fellows dropped with heat exhaustion.’

Jenny felt herself relax. He seemed inoffensive and friendly. She finished her drink as they talked and then she bought the next round and somehow they found themselves sitting at one of the rickety bar tables telling each other their life stories. She forgot about Hamish Macbeth.

Hamish and Priscilla were having a late lunch. Hamish belonged unexpectedly to that irritating breed who can never make up their minds where they want to choose to have a picnic, until Priscilla at last rebelled. She stopped after circling for quite some time round the narrow winding Highland roads at a spot on top of the moors where they could get a good view of both the castle and the surrounding countryside.

While they ate, Hamish went on and on about Peta’s leaving, turning over the whys and wherefores until Priscilla said sharply, ‘I’m bored with the very sound of that woman’s name. Leave the subject alone, Hamish.’

His eyes mocked her. ‘What would you like to talk about? Us?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘What’s so silly about it?’ he asked, suddenly hell-bent on mischief. ‘Here we are, a man and a woman, in the romantic Highlands of Scotland.’

‘The Highlands of Scotland are only romantic to people who don’t live in them,’ said Priscilla, looking about for some way to change the subject. ‘Look at those buzzards.’

Hamish twisted his head and shaded his eyes as he looked up at the sky. A pair of buzzards were circling lazily overhead a little distance away.

‘Buzzards have the right idea,’ he said, ‘no marital agencies for them. Still thinking of joining Checkmate yourself, Priscilla?’

‘Of course not. What’s got into you, Hamish? There’s something … uncomfortable about you.’

‘If you want me to be comfortable, don’t go around agreeing to kisses.’

‘I only meant it to be a kiss on the cheek!’

‘Oh, Priscilla.’ He edged near her on the heather. She looked wide-eyed at him, her hands clenched. He put an arm about her shoulders and turned her face up to his.

A scream tore across the silence of the still landscape, a loud, frightened scream.

He jumped to his feet and stared around wildly. The scream was coming closer, now a thin whistling sound like an old-fashioned steam train heading for a tunnel.

Hamish ran out into the road. A small boy dragging a smaller boy behind him was running down the road, his mouth stretched by that horrible scream to its widest.

The boys collided into Hamish, the eldest throwing his arms round Hamish’s knees.

‘Quiet now,’ said Hamish sternly and the scream stopped abruptly and the boy began to cry. Hamish prised him loose and knelt down and held him by the shoulders. He recognized the children as Jamie Ferguson and his little brother, Bill.

‘Jamie, Jamie,’ he said. ‘It iss me. Hamish Macbeth. What iss it?’

‘She’s deid,’ yelled Jamie and began to sob again.

‘Where?’ Hamish gave him a little shake.

‘Ower there.’ The boy pointed back the way he had come, in the direction of the circling buzzards. Priscilla had come up to join them.

‘Look after this pair,’ said Hamish to her. ‘Give them some hot sweet tea. There’s some left in the flask.’

He set off down the road at a run.

He knew every inch of the countryside and remembered that round the next turn, under the circling birds of prey, was a disused quarry which formed a small amphitheatre beside the road.

Hamish hurtled into the quarry, looking wildly about. And then he saw a foot sticking out from behind a great boulder, a fat foot in a thin sandal, a foot with painted toenails.

He walked round the rock.

Peta Gore lay on her back, her sightless eyes staring up at the brassy sky. One large sandwich, half eaten, was clutched in one dead hand. But the most horrible thing, the ultimate indignity, was that a large red apple was crammed in her mouth.

He bent down and felt her pulse. He did it automatically, although he knew she was dead. He saw tyre tracks, faint in the dust of the quarry floor. Then he straightened and looked up at the sky. It was deepening in colour and a puff of damp breeze touched his cheek.

He ran back frantically to where Priscilla was comforting the boys. ‘It’s Peta. She’s dead,’ he said. ‘Get these boys down to Lochdubh, phone Strathbane, and then bring help back here. Get some of the men. Tell them to bring groundsheets and a tent. It’s going to be a storm soon. Hurry! Oh, damn. My uniform.’

He grabbed his uniform out of the back of the Range Rover, tore off his casual clothes and changed into it while Priscilla, with quick efficient movements, cleared up the picnic and coaxed the shivering boys into the car.