Dolly and the Singing Bird (12 page)

“So did I.” There seemed no point now in failing to mention it. “Because I saw it last night. On an identification chart in Hennessy’s wheelhouse.”

There was a long silence. Then, “Did you, indeed?” said Johnson thoughtfully.

I knew what he was thinking. With the tide as it was, that mine was planted—if it had been planted —no more than a short time before
Dolly
’s party arrived. And Hennessy had been at the cave just before us. I said it aloud.

“Yes. Hennessy could have carried it,” said Johnson. “It wasn’t big. A small packing case or a reinforced kitbag would hold it. Also, from what you say, he had the radio equipment to trigger it off.”

I sat down and hugged myself in my alpaca coat, and the silver of my Mexican earrings pattered cold on my cheek. I said, “But it needn’t be Hennessy. There must have been other boats, too.”

“Not so many. I checked with MacBrayne and Iona,” said Johnson. “The puffer
Willa Mavis
, of course, but she had passed hours before we arrived on the scene. Duke Buzzy’s
Vallida
had long since gone, too, after chucking in the champagne. Lenny and Ogden brought
Seawolf
over, but that was after we were all in the cave, and if Ogden’s got a children’s telephone set, never mind a short-wave radio, I’m Alexander Graham Bell. The
King George
arrived afterwards, too. So did
Binkie
, while we were all in the cave, but the Buchanans didn’t go ashore, and I don’t suppose they’ve got an R.T. Apart from one or two fishing boats who passed through earlier and were miles away while we were there in the cave, that’s the whole list of suspects.” He glanced up at me.

“You realise that someone has been carrying that mine, from Crinan or Rhu, with just this sort of purpose in mind? Stick it near a boat and trigger it off, and there’s nothing to show afterwards why any yacht got blown out of the water.”

I don’t get excited either. Not easily. “Why didn’t this one get triggered off, then?” I asked. “And anyway, how could they be sure of doing it at the right time?”

“Binoculars,” said Johnson. “That’s why it had to be someone who was within reasonable range while we were inside the cave. And frankly, I don’t know why they didn’t explode it. The boat with the shortwave radio maybe couldn’t get within binocular range at the time. There may have been someone with us they wanted to spare. They may have meant simply to give us a fright.”

“What do you mean,” I said. “
Someone they wanted to spare
?”

“Well,” said Johnson, his gaze fixed on the streaming burgee. “Someone might have an accomplice. Are you sure now, for example, that your Lochgair ducking was nothing but accident?”

I stared at him, but there was nothing to be seen of his face but the glittering glass. Lochgair, where the unhitched boom had knocked me into the sea. They had all sworn it was the wind in the crutch. Lenny had declared it was in perfect order when he went to bed, and he and Rupert were both sure that no one could have boarded
Dolly
that night unheard…

And yet—I was thinking—and yet, I heard a whisper that night using the words Kenneth uses. Who else would have known them?

Who else? What about Michael Twiss?

But I was his golden disc-making goose. Why should he try to kill me?

Now, of course, we had quarreled. But we had patched it up then. Unless, I thought slowly, he planned to quarrel and did not intend patching it up? For Michael, and no one but Michael, knew in which banks, all over Europe, I kept my money under all my various names, and where my jewels were. If I were to die…

I had not considered this before. But if I were to die, Michael Twiss would be rich. Except that Michael, too, was there in the cave.

Except… No. Put it another way, said my brain. Except that Michael, too, was there in the cave far longer than he had intended. Unconscious, after his fall.

I could face, until I had thought all that through, neither the upper nor the lower reaches of the bifocals. I made an excuse, abruptly, to Johnson, and locked myself into my room.

That night, I had to use sleeping pills and Michael knew it: I saw it in his sharp, cologne-imbued face the next morning. I behaved as usual, to Michael, to Rupert, to everyone. Johnson would, I believed, give me protection. The rest was my own affair, after all.

On deck there was nothing but sunshine and sea, although Rupert’s silent anxiety dimmed his exuberance. The night’s progress had been abysmal, the winds freakish and contrary, dropping now to something near calm. We were nowhere near the island of Barra, our next port of call. But the twelve yachts still left in the race were doing no better than we.

Only Johnson showed no signs of impatience. He had, I saw, clipped his easel into place behind the cockpit, and when we all adjourned there with our coffee, with Lenny at helm, I sank into my allotted place, back to the saloon. I wanted the portrait finished.

For the moment, smoking, Johnson painted in silence, timing his strokes with the roll of the boat; and it came to me that he also knew that time was running out. The techniques, too, had altered. Now, the glistening coils of colour on his palette were swept off in hodfuls, and laid on the canvas like satiny twill. The reek of linseed oil came in snatches, allowed by the wind. Rupert hovered with turpentine on a rag, vociferating as he lifted from paint and varnishwork the flying flecks from Johnson’s sables and hogs.

After a bit, it got easier and Johnson said, unexpectedly, “No advertising could do justice to the planes between your cheekbone and jaw. Hence your voice timbre, I suppose.”

This was true, of course. I have widely spaced cheekbones, with big and resonant hollows within them. Inside, my palate too is arched very high, which gives me my head tones, along with the spaces inside the head, I explained. With age, my range would probably drop, but provided I kept in good health and maintained my technique and breath control, I could sing lyric and even dramatic roles for thirty years yet.

“Will you?” said Johnson conversationally. “Without Michael Twiss?”

I am Tina Rossi,
cara diva
to Visconti, Serafin, Karajan, Bernstein;
Madame
to the world. I did not need Michael Twiss to tell me how to move, to speak, to dress any longer. Michael Twiss’s interpretation of Marguerite, Titania, Tosca, Norma, Lucia, Nedda, Rosina, Ameria and Imogene were all on record, in my voice: I had only to replay them to study them. While Colbert La Berge could earn me five thousand dollars for one
Quando rapita in estasi
, I should not starve. I had spent all night thinking that out.

So: “Galli-Curci managed without Michael Twiss,” I said now mildly to Johnson’s enquiry. “And Adelina Patti. And Jenny Lind and Luisa Tetrazzini. One can always find managers.”

“But you mean to go on with it?” he asked, all his attention on the planes of my face. “Don’t you get tired of living out of suitcases, of planning every day of your life three or four years ahead?”

“Why?” I said. “Do you think it is better to be of the moneyed idle: to sail, to fish, to form little parties for Bermuda and Ascot, to sleep a little with whoever appeals, to ski, to gamble, to attend charity balls and weddings and hunt balls and first nights and public luncheons and private supper parties until one dies in one’s corseting?”

“Isn’t that why you learned to sing in the first place?”

In my mind only, I answered. Not quite, it isn’t. I learned to sing for fame, as well as for fortune: for that moment when the thunder of the orchestra is suspended, the choirs stop, and my voice is revealed, single, pure and celestial, embarked on a passage of tender
bel canto
. I do not want to lose that elation, that power, that applause. And how can I start leading a life of style, leisure and luxury when I have no friends?

Then Johnson said placidly, answering himself, “No. I’m sure you have a true vocation. But there is a halfway house, you know, with time for new friends, new relationships. Lots of people work like hell just because they are lonely.”

Almost… almost I was tempted. But not quite. I am not Cecil Ogden with my Victoria.

“They are lucky,” I said. “To have solitude, freedom from one’s poor lame dogs and one’s admirers and overpowering friends… What bliss! To stay on Barra, for instance.” I gazed where Rupert had pointed out to me the hilly ridge of the Outer Isles, where Castlebay, Barra, was to be our landfall today. “To retire to Barra. To go native on an unknown island where no one has heard of me… There
is
an airport?” I said.

There was an airfield, of sorts. And save for Sundays, the Glasgow plane arrived there each day.

The wind freshened after that, and soon after lunch, I looked through the starboard porthole to see a low whaleback of sunlit moorlands on the right, beyond a black perch. By the time I was on deck, we were passing the creamy crescent of Vatersay’s beach, and low hills ahead of us were sliding slowly towards our port flank as the harbour of Castlebay, Barra, opened out on our right.

It was a wide bay, limpid blue, with white and grey houses scattered around it and climbing the base of a tall, rounded hill, below which lay the jetty, half masked by a big MacBrayne’s cargo boat, with a trawler tied up at the side.

Between ourselves and the jetty was a rock rising clear out of the sea, with the square walls of a castle on it. From its roofwalk, a strange flag was flying. I stared.

“On the starboard bow,” said Rupert helpfully, “the Red Hand of the Macneils, denoting that the chief of the clan is in residence at Kishmul’s castle… there’s
Symphonetta
, damn her.”

There indeed was
Symphonetta
, her poles bare, and, looking through the glasses, one could see
Symphonetta
’s power boat tied up by the trawler, with someone in glistening white oilskins therein. Stanley Hennessy had lost no time in checking in. His mouth shut, Rupert scanned the rest of the bay.

Four others, including the Buchanans of
Binkie
were in, or sailing in just behind us. Ogden’s
Seawolf
was not yet in sight, though there were one or two strange boats also anchored, including a steam yacht just taking position with a good deal of fussing, having been thrown out from the quay by the steamer. It was a pretty sight: the water reflections like blown silvery dandelion clocks running over hull, flank and sail of the moving boats, while the long, dark wake of the steam yacht slid sideways in bars underneath them, making the smaller yachts tilt, their reflected sails twisted like corkscrews.

“
Vallida
,” said Rupert with unwonted clarity, indicating the steam yacht. “The tourist element. Or Duke Buzzy’s annual
weekend relaxe
or
semaine tonique
with friends.”

“Why not?” said Johnson. “The chap owns half the shooting and fishing rights north of the Highland line, not to mention several distilleries. You enjoyed his champagne.”

“Tourist element,” repeated Rupert firmly. “That oceanic bingo-box there will be shoulder to shoulder with Middle European industrial creeps getting a little free fishing and losing their gold bridge work at blackjack. Look at them.”

I took his binoculars. “I’m looking,‘’ I said. A vast powerboat laden with bald heads and shooting-lodge men’s wear had put off from
Vallida
and was whipping off on a line for the jetty. Stanley Hennessy, I noticed, was on the steps of the jetty, awaiting them. Naturally. It came to me, suddenly, that I should like to visit Duke Buzzy, too.

As it happened, I had plenty of time. For the first time in recorded memory (said Rupert) the Royal Highland Cruising Club had let down its members. The checkpoint officials who should have been there, prepared on the pier, had been detained at Glasgow airport, Abbotsinch, by the fog. There were no reporters there, either.

As the bay filled up with furious yachtsmen, a hasty checkpoint, set up by Hennessy, took unofficial note of their times. A little later a small enclave of senior yachtsmen, again led by Hennessy, declared that no one shoud set off for Rodel until the Club officials had ruled on procedure.

That meant until an Olympian decision was arrived at in Glasgow. There was a lot of argument, which we watched from the gate of the pier and I wondered, looking at Hennessy, why he was so anxious to enforce a pause here at Barra. Everyone, of course, could do with a rest: we had been at sea, after all, since the previous evening. And since only sailing times counted, the running order of the race would be unaffected. But it disturbed me and Johnson, perhaps seeing my face, came over and said, “We’ll be later in Portree than we thought. You did warn your friend, you said, didn’t you?”

I knew what he was thinking, for I was thinking it too. If anyone wanted to get rid of Kenneth, he was safer on South Rona than anywhere else. That base would be guarded. But if, on the other hand, he were hanging about in Portree, he was badly exposed to attack.

I had begun to have other misgivings. The press, for example might be in force there, hoping for news leaks about the
Lysander
disaster. The Portree hotel, into which I had booked by wire from Crinan, might be full of high-ranking officials brought to Skye by the same thing. For a while, I could avoid recognition, with a headscarf and dark glasses, if they thought I was on
Dolly
still with Johnson. If I could persuade Kenneth, we could leave for the mainland almost immediately, by hiring a car.

Now, I was going to be late. More, I didn’t like being stuck here with all these yachtsmen. With all these yachtsmen and Michael. And the steamer had gone.

“Come on,” said Johnson. “Let’s hire a car, and show you around.”

He did.

Barra is a delightful part of the Western Hebrides. In spring, the primroses cover the machair in acres. In summer, the surf rolls in along miles of unoccupied silvery beaches, with untouched sand fine as milled silk running out under the blue and green water, without pebble or rock. The children are charming, the people gentle-spoken and courteous. After two hours, I could have seen Barra in hell.

Back at the pier, the Caribbean tan and glistening waves of Stanley Hennessy waited. He was just back from
Vallida
, with an invitation from Duke Buzzy for me.

Just for me.

I saw Johnson open his mouth to make my excuses. I thought of that mine, and the diagram in Hennessy’s wheelhouse. I also thought of the diamonds and all those middle-European gentlemen in tweeds. I wished now I had asked Johnson to lend his revolver but I hoped he would understand there was safety in numbers. For I wanted to go on board the
Vallida
very much indeed. “I should be delighted,” I said. I saw Johnson’s bifocals still gazing after me with melancholy as
Vallida
’s power boat set off over the bay, carrying Stanley Hennessy and myself to His Grace’s
weekend relaxe
.

I had wondered, when dressing that morning in my black quilted silk trouser suit, with the white frogging and detachable ermine-trimmed hood, if I hadn’t over-egged the pudding a trifle. In the event, I was glad I had put on my black opal earrings as well. It was that kind of a call.

The
Vallida
of course was a steam yacht, built in Edward VII’s day, all mahogany and close carpeting and brasswork polished like twenty-four carat gold, with some gold polished like twenty-four carat gold as well. Plodding over the Axminsters to arrive at a stateroom, I was conscious of the Greuze over the wrought-iron radiator and a fighting-force of after-shave lotions, divergent in all except cost.

In my room was a marble washbasin, a bidet, a Degas and six gold-encased lipsticks with the Duke’s proper initial. The top drawer was full of unused feminine clothes in cellophane packs. I didn’t look at the others. I returned, slowly, to the steward awaiting me, and he showed me into the saloon.

That was like Brighton Pavilion, and would have boasted a baby grand piano, save that on
Vallida
no one boasted. One practised the art of the self-evident, drawn to a point. Then the Duke, tall, pink and hairless with a bright, pearly smile, came forward to greet me, and, with a large neat whisky in hand, I was taken on tour.

I do not remember now all their names, but they were all bald, German, and thoroughly weekend relaxed. Hennessy, at ease among them, patted my arm as I passed. The last guest in the last Louis Quinze armchair was Michael Twiss. “Hello,” he said. “My dear. His Grace thought you’d be busy. But I knew you’d be delighted to come.”

The bastard. I sat down, smiling, beside Duke Buzzy. How had Michael got himself asked to
Vallida
? He had gone off, of course, in Cecil Ogden’s old wooden pram. Was Ogden on calling terms with the Duke? I looked at Michael again in his pale sharkskin suit. I knew that self-satisfied glitter. New contacts. New fields opening up. Michael couldn’t shoot, or hunt, or run a distillery. But then, a dozen years before, Michael knew nothing of music.

I refused, automatically, the Duke’s invitation to go to bed with him straight away; and he rose, smiling without impatience, to make way for two heavily-built middle-aged men who sat on either side of me on the Duke’s Chinese brocade, with no packing space to speak of. My drink was renewed. So was theirs. We exchanged badinage, of a sort.

I have seldom spent a more uncomfortable hour. Relays of whisky appeared, but no food. Hennessy watched me ceaselessly as the Duke’s guests, in rotation, took their turn on my sofa. He watched me, but talked of electric switchgear, and the programming of steel supplies, and the trend on the Stock Exchange. They all did. I was the light relief. I began to wonder how to get myself out.

In a moment, the problem was solved for me. The steward tripped. And I received four Scotch on the rocks straight down the white frogging and the black quilted trouser suit.

Amid the sibilant, middle-European hissing of sympathy, the Duke whipped out some monograms and dabbed at me uselessly, then commanded the steward, with satisfying acerbity, to lead me out and find me something to wear. There was a practised air about the whole scene which I found even touching. This sort of thing I can handle.