Death of a Gossip (3 page)

‘Oh, there’s Constable Macbeth,’ said Alice.

The lanky figure of the policeman had materialized behind the group.

‘Those sandwiches look very good,’ he said, studying the sky.

‘Help yourself,’ said Heather, rather crossly. ‘Packed lunches are not all that expensive, Mr Macbeth.’

‘Is that a fact,’ said the constable pleasantly. ‘I’m right glad to hear it. I would not want to be taking away food that cost a lot.’

To Alice’s amusement, he produced a small collapsible plastic cup from the inside of his tunic and held it out to Heather, who muttered something under her breath as she filled it up with
tea.

‘You obviously don’t get much crime in this area, Officer,’ said Daphne caustically.

‘I wouldnae say that,’ said Hamish between bites of ham sandwich. ‘People are awfy wicked. The drunkenness on a Saturday night is a fair disgrace.’

‘Have you made any major arrests?’ pursued Daphne, catching Jeremy Blythe’s eye and inviting him to share in the baiting of Hamish.

‘No, I hivnae bagged any majors. A few sodjers sometimes.’

Amy Roth let out a trill of laughter, and Daphne said crossly to Hamish, ‘Are you being deliberately stupid?’

Hamish looked horrified. ‘I would no more dream of being deliberately stupid, miss, than you yourself would dream of being deliberately bitchy.’

‘Fun’s over,’ whispered Jeremy to Alice. ‘Back comes Lady Jane.’

She came crashing through the undergrowth. Her broad face was flushed, and she had a scratch down one cheek. But her eyes held a triumphant, satisfied gleam.

John Cartwright hurriedly began to make arrangements to move his school on to further fishing grounds for the afternoon. Boxes of hooks were distributed. More knots demonstrated – a towel
knot and a figure of eight.

This time even Lady Jane struggled away in silence to master the slippery nylon. The fever of catching fish was upon the little party.

‘Now,’ said Heather, ‘we’ll issue you each with knotted leaders, but have your own leaders knotted and ready for tomorrow morning. We have the Anstey River for the
afternoon. Carry this fishing permit – I’ll give you each one – in your pockets in case you are stopped by the water bailiffs. Marvin and Amy, I believe you have done some fly
fishing in the States. We’ll start you off on the upper beats. We suggest you keep moving. Never fish in one spot for too long. If you come back to the hotel before we set out, then
we’ll issue you with waders. John and I will show each of you what to do as soon as we’re on the river. We’ll need to take the cars. John and I will take Alice and Charlie. Daphne
can go with Jeremy, and I believe the rest of you have your own cars. Has anyone seen the major?’

Lady Jane spoke up. ‘He was fishing about on the other side of the loch, pretending to be an angler. At least it makes a change from pretending to be an officer and a gentleman.’

‘The rest of you go on to the hotel,’ said John hurriedly. ‘I’ll go and look for the major.’

‘I wish you were coming with me,’ said Jeremy to Alice.

She looked at him in surprise. She had been so obsessed with Mr Patterson-James that she had never really stopped to think any other man might find her attractive.

As Jeremy moved off with Daphne, Alice studied him covertly. He really was a very attractive man. His voice was pleasant and slightly husky. He did not seem to have to strangle and chew his
words as Mr Patterson-James did. Her heart gave a little lift, and she unconsciously smiled at Jeremy’s retreating back.

‘No use,’ said Lady Jane, appearing at Alice’s elbow. ‘He’s one of the Somerset Blythes. Quite above your touch, wouldn’t you say? Daphne’s more his
sort.’

Alice was consumed by such a wave of bitter hatred that she thought she would suffocate. ‘Fook off!’ she said, in a broad Liverpool accent.

‘Attagirl!’ remarked Marvin cheerfully.

Lady Jane muttered something. Alice thought she said, ‘I’ll make you sorry you said that,’ but she must have been imagining things.

Alice was prepared to find herself cut off from Jeremy for the rest of the day. But when they reached the river Anstey, which broadened out at one part into a large loch, Heather arranged that
Jeremy and Alice should take out the rowing boat and fish from there while the rest were distributed up and down the banks several miles apart.

Before she allowed Alice to go out in the boat, Heather gave her a gruelling half-hour lesson in casting. Alice caught her hat, caught the bushes behind, wrapped her leader around the branches
of a tree, and then quite suddenly found she had mastered the knack of it.

‘Don’t keep worrying about all that line racing out behind you,’ said Heather. ‘Just concentrate on what you’ve been told. Now you’re ready to go. Jeremy,
you’ve obviously done this before.’

‘Yes, but very clumsily,’ said Jeremy.

‘Take the boat and row upstream and then drift slowly back down,’ said Heather. ‘You may not catch a salmon but you should get some trout.’

He rowed them swiftly up the stream while Alice nervously held her rod upright and wondered what on earth she would do if she caught a fish. The day was warm and sunny, and she felt laden down
with equipment. Her long green waders were clumsy and heavy. She had a fishing knife in one pocket and mosquito repellent in the other, since clouds of Scottish midges were apt to descend towards
dusk.

She had a fishing net hanging from a string around her neck, and from another string a pair of small sharp scissors.

On top of her wool fishing hat, kept back from her face by the thin brim, was a sort of beekeeper mosquito net which could be pulled down over her face if the flies got too bad.

Jeremy rested the oars. ‘Pooh, it’s hot. Let’s take some clothes off.’

Alice blushed painfully. Of course he meant they should remove some of their outer woollens, but Alice was at an age when everything seemed to sound sexy. She wondered feverishly whether she had
a dirty mind.

Thank goodness she had had the foresight to put a thin cotton blouse under her army sweater. Alice took off her hat and then her sweater after unslinging the fishing net and laying it in the
bottom of the boat. She kept her scissors around her neck. Heather had been most insistent that they keep a pair of scissors handy for cutting lines and snipping free hooks.

‘Well,’ said Jeremy, ‘here goes!’

The water was very still and golden in the sun. A hot smell of pine drifted on the air mixed with the smell of wild thyme. Alice felt herself gripped by a desire to catch something –
anything.

She cast and cast again until her arms ached. And then . . .

‘I’ve got something,’ she whispered. ‘It’s a salmon. It feels enormous.’

Jeremy quickly reeled in his line and picked up his net. ‘Don’t reel in too fast,’ he said. He picked up the oars and moved the boat gently. Alice’s rod began to
bend.

‘Reel in a bit more,’ he said.

‘Oh, Jeremy,’ said Alice, pink with excitement, ‘what am I going to do?’

‘Take it easy . . . easy.’

Alice could not wait. She reeled in frantically. Suddenly the line came clear, and she jerked it out of the water.

On the end of her hook dangled a long piece of green weed.

‘And I thought I had a twenty-pound salmon,’ mourned Alice. ‘Do you know, Jeremy, I’m still shaking with excitement. Do you think I’m very primitive, really? I
mean, I wouldn’t normally hurt a fly, and there I was, ready to kill anything that came up on the end of that hook.’

‘I don’t think you’re all that quiet and timid,’ said Jeremy, casting again. ‘Only look at the way you put down Lady Jane. I heard all about that.’

‘I can’t believe I did that,’ said Alice thoughtfully. ‘I’ve never used that sort of language to anyone in my life. But it was all so beautiful when we were having
lunch, I wanted it to go on forever. Then suddenly she was there, bitching and making trouble. She drops hints, you know. Almost as if she had checked up on us all before she came. She . . . she
told me you belonged to the Somerset Blythes.’ Alice bit her lip. She had been on the point of telling him the rest.

‘She did, did she? Probably one of those women with little else to do with their time. I hope she doesn’t make life too hard for the village constable. She probably will complain to
his superiors.’

‘Poor Hamish.’

‘I think Hamish is well able to take care of himself. And what policeman, do you think, would rush in to take his place? Hardly the spot for an ambitious man.’

‘What do you do for a living?’ asked Alice.

‘I’m a barrister.’

Alice felt a pang of disappointment. She had been secretly hoping he did something as undistinguished as she did.

‘What do you do?’ she heard Jeremy asking.

He was wearing a short-sleeved check shirt and a baggy pair of old flannels, but there was a polished air about him, an air of social ease and money. All at once Alice wanted to pretend she was
someone different, someone more important.

‘I’m chief accountant at Baxter and Berry in the City.’ She gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘An odd job for a woman.’

‘Certainly for someone as young as yourself,’ said Jeremy. ‘I didn’t think such a fuddy-duddy firm would be so go-ahead.’

‘You know Baxter and Berry?’ queried Alice nervously.

‘I know old man Baxter,’ said Jeremy easily. ‘He’s a friend of my father. I must tease him about his pretty chief accountant.’

Alice turned her face away. That’s where telling lies got you. Futureless. Now she wouldn’t dare even see Jeremy again after this holiday.

‘When I was your age, which was probably all of ten years ago,’ said Jeremy gently, ‘I told a perfectly smashing-looking girl that I was a jet pilot . . .’

‘Oh, Jeremy,’ said Alice miserably, ‘I’m only the chief accountant’s secretary.’

‘Thank you for the compliment.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a long time since anyone’s tried to impress me.’

‘You’re not angry I lied to you?’

‘No. Hey, I think you’ve caught something.’

‘Probably weed.’ Alice felt young and free and lighthearted. Mr Patterson-James’s saturnine face swam around in her mind, faded and disappeared like Scotch mist.

She reeled in her line, amused at the tugs, thinking how like a fish floating weed felt.

There was a flash and sparkle in the peaty brown and gold water.

‘A trout!’ said Jeremy. He held out his net and brought the fish in.

‘Too small,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We’ve got to throw it back.’

‘Don’t hurt it!’ cried Alice as he worked the fly free from the fish’s mouth.

‘No, it’s gone back to Mum,’ he said, throwing it in the water. ‘What fly were you using?’

‘A Kenny’s Killer.’

He took out his box of fishing flies. ‘Maybe I’ll try one of those.’

A companionable silence settled between them. The light began to fade behind the jumbled, twisted crags of the Two Sisters. A little breeze sent ripples lazily fanning out over the loch.

And then out of the heather came the midges, those small Scottish mosquitoes. Alice’s face was black with them. She screamed and clawed for her mosquito net while Jeremy rowed quickly for
the shore.

‘Quick – let’s just bundle everything in the car and drive away from the beasts,’ he said.

Alice scrambled into the bucket seat of something long and low. They shot off down the road, not stopping until they were well clear of the loch. Jeremy handed Alice a towel to wipe her
face.

Alice smiled at him gratefully. ‘What about Daphne? I’d forgotten all about her.’

‘So had I.’ Jeremy was shadowed by a stand of trees beside the car. He seemed to be watching her mouth. Alice’s heart began to hammer.

‘Did . . . did you buy this car in Scotland?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I thought you and Daphne came up by train.’

‘We did. My father had been using the car. He knew I was coming up this way and so he left it in Inverness for me to collect.’

‘You’ve known Daphne a long time?’

‘No. Heather wrote to me to ask me if I would join up with Daphne. She had written to Heather saying she did not like to travel alone.’

He suddenly switched on the engine. Alice sat very quietly. Perhaps he might have kissed her if she hadn’t kept on and on about stupid Daphne. Daphne was probably back at the hotel
changing into some couture number for dinner. Damn Daphne.

‘I never thought indecision was one of my failings,’ said Jeremy, breaking the silence at last. ‘I don’t want to spoil things by going too fast too soon.’

Alice was not quite sure if he meant he had wanted to kiss her and had changed his mind. She dared not ask him in case he should be embarrassed and say he was talking about fishing.

But he suddenly took one hand off the wheel and gave her own a quick squeeze.

Alice’s heart soared. A huge owl sailed across the winding road. Down below them nestled the village of Lochdubh.

Busy little fishing boats chugged out to sea. The lights of the hotel dining room were reflected in the still waters of the loch. Down into the evening darkness of the valley they sped. Over the
old humpbacked bridge which spanned the tumbling waterfalls of the river Anstey. Along the waterfront, past the low white cottages of the village. Out in the loch, a pair of seals rolled and
tumbled like two elderly Edwardian gentlemen.

Tears filled Alice’s eyes, and she furtively dabbed them away. The beauty of the evening was too much. The beauty of money emanating from the leather smells of the long, low, expensive car
and the faint tangy scent of Jeremy’s aftershave seduced her senses. She wanted it all. She wanted to keep the evening forever. Scenic beauty, male beauty, money beauty.

A picture of Lady Jane rose large in her mind’s eye, blotting out the evening.

If she tries to spoil things for me, I’ll kill her, thought Alice passionately.

And being very young and capable of violent mood swings, she then began to worry about what to wear for dinner.

When she entered the dining room an hour later, the rest of the fishing party, except for Lady Jane, Charlie, and the major, was already seated.

To her disappointment, the only available seat was at the other end of the table from Jeremy.