The Stalking Party Read online

  As the commotion increased, Torquil left his seat and squeezed round behind the benches to reach the hall door. A moment later he clapped his hands, and the room fell silent.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt you, Archie,’ he called, ‘but there has been an accident. One of your guests is in the Greeting Pool. Can I have some volunteers?’

  *****

  Even with manpower a-plenty, it was a struggle to raise Everard’s sodden and helpless bulk from the pool. By the glare of roof-mounted spotlights trained down from the line of 4x4 vehicles on the bridge, he was slowly hoisted to the ledge, and carried to the flat ground at the top of the cliff.

  ‘Damned dangerous, these chest-waders,’ growled crusty Doctor Ferguson, slitting them and releasing a stream of water. ‘Stand back, all of ye. Give the man a chance.’

  The cliff and bridge were thick with spectators. ‘He’s coming to himself now,’ they told one another as Everard stirred and groaned, blinking in the white light.

  His gaze wandered vaguely over the assembled faces. ‘Where’s Archie?’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Here I am.’ Sir Archie shouldered through the throng and knelt beside him. ‘So sorry. Terrible thing to happen.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Everard painfully. ‘Got to tell you.’

  ‘Take it easy, old chap. Don’t try to talk. We’ll soon have you home and dry.’

  ‘Listen!’

  ‘All right. All right, I’m listening.’

  ‘Got to tell you.’ He paused to gather his breath, then said faintly, ‘There’s a body in the pool. Tried to get it out.’

  ‘What?’ The word was repeated in widening ripples through the crowd. ‘What’s that he said? A body?’

  ‘Tried to pull it ashore. Slipped. It’s – it’s that girl.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What girl?’

  ‘Awful creature. Nicky’s girl,’ said Everard and closed his eyes. ‘In the river. Dead.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘CAGEY LOT,’ said Detective Sergeant James Winter of the Highlands and Islands Constabulary, as he entered the book-lined study which Sir Archie had allotted to the police team. ‘Don’t suppose they’ve ever heard of the Classless Society. Not exactly falling over themselves to assist the police.’

  He was a lean, light-framed thirty-year-old, whose cropped dark head and El Greco looks would have been attractive but for his habitual aggrieved expression.

  Detective Inspector Martin Robb waved him to a chair. ‘What can you expect? Nobs don’t like finding bodies in their salmon pools, and nor do their staff. Upsets everyone. Have some coffee. It’s good.’

  As Winter poured and sipped, Robb added, ‘Tell me how you got on in the kitchen.’

  Winter grimaced and said with sudden intensity, ‘If I worked my guts out to let a lot of rich layabouts indulge their passion for slaughter, I’d be glad enough to spill any beans I had. With this lot, it’s blood from a stone.’

  Robb said soberly, ‘You can’t blame them. Jobs are scarce around here. Anyone who gets on Sir Archibald Hanbury’s payroll is going to do his damnedest to stay there, and if that means being cagey with coppers, too bad. You’ll have to work at it, Jim. Buddy up to the cook. Offer to peel spuds.’

  Winter made an impatient noise. ‘What gets me is the way they grovel to these people.’

  ‘I doubt if they see it that way.’

  ‘No? You ought to hear them. Yes, sir; no sir. Miss Ashy did this; Mr Nicky did that. Lady Priscilla said the other. Why Lady Priscilla, anyway, if her husband is just Mr Cooper?’

  ‘Duke’s daughter. Courtesy title,’ Robb said absently and then, catching the full force of Winter’s glare, ‘Don’t blame me, Jim. I didn’t invent the system.’

  ‘Rotten system, if you ask me. Do you know what the cook’s paid, after twenty years in the job? Have a guess.’

  ‘Basic agricultural?’

  ‘Sheer exploitation! Just think what Hanbury himself must be raking in. Chairman of TABC, isn’t he, and non-exec of God knows how many other companies. Three houses, wife breeds racehorses...’

  ‘My word, you have been doing some digging.’ Robb tried not to smile. Winter was new to his team, a Londoner with a redbrick degree and plenty of environmental idealism. What Robb privately dubbed a City Green – crusader for whales and rain-forests, champion of the ozone layer and enemy of agri-business – who could spout all the fashionable dogma without having any personal experience of country work. Finding himself among people to whom field sports were a way of life was bound to cause culture shock.

  Robb himself was country born and bred, and forays after rabbits and pigeons with his trusty .410 were among his early memories. He said briskly, ‘Well, Jim, how Sir Archibald spends his money is nothing to do with us. We’re here to find out how Beverley Tanner came to be in that river, right? We’ll concentrate on the matter in hand. There won’t be anything from the lab for a bit, but meantime we can get on with taking statements. Where’s that list?’

  As Robb studied it, Winter sipped his coffee and watched him, hoping they’d be able to work together. A big man, Robb. Forty-five years old, six-two and solidly built, with strong square hands and a permanently stiff knee, legacy of county standard rugger. Dark curly hair had retreated from his forehead, leaving a thick island above each ear. The baggy tweed jacket and brown cords in which he had travelled from the mainland looked as well suited to this background as Winter’s own jeans and bomber jacket were out of place.

  Easygoing, dependable Robb. Everyone’s favourite uncle until you had occasion to look closely into those light blue eyes and see the frost behind the twinkle.

  It was eleven on Sunday morning, and sun streamed through the long sash windows of the library, which overlooked the broad sea-loch and the faraway blue hills of Carse Morrish. In the middle distance, the twin funnels of a toy-size steamer puffed black smoke into a sky of duck-egg blue. The Lady of Spain was making her thrice-weekly round trip from Tounie.

  For the police team, the day had begun early with a rough voyage over heaving black water which Robb, no seaman, preferred to forget. Still fighting queasiness, he had watched as Beverley Tanner’s battered and pulpy body, with a triple-barbed hook embedded in the left arm, and a climbing-rope lashed round a boulder attached to her waist, had been removed from the lower end of the Greeting Pool. In the rocky funnel where it had lodged, the water had given it a pounding.

  ‘The wonder is that she’s still in one piece,’ said Rhys, the police surgeon, squatting on the bank to examine the remains. ‘When you look at that weight of water, you’d think flesh and blood would disintegrate in twenty-four hours. Amazingly resilient, the human body.’

  ‘Roughly how long do you reckon she’s been there?’ Robb had asked, and Rhys had pursed his lips and paused long enough to make it clear that guesswork wasn’t his style.

  ‘Best part of a week,’ he said at last. ‘Four to five days, maybe. From the general state of breakdown, I’d put it in the four to six-day bracket. Can’t be more exact until we run some tests. All right, Dave,’ he called to his assistant. ‘That’s all I want. Bag her up and we’ll get back to the lab.’

  He had risen with a gymnast’s neatness, and said, ‘Over to you, then, boyo. I’ll be in touch.’ He had nodded to Sir Archie, hollow-eyed in the chilly dawn, with Sandy a dour, protective shadow at his shoulder. Then he had snapped shut his flat black case and looked round carefully, fixing the scene in his memory.

  ‘Be seeing you,’ he murmured, and walked away.

  ‘We’ll go to the house, sir,’ Robb had said then. ‘Constable McTavish can take charge here and see no one comes collecting souvenirs.’

  ‘I’ll drive,’ said Sir Archie, opening the Land Rover door. ‘Would you two mind sitting in the back, Inspector, so that Sandy can deal with the gates?’

  With an effort, Robb hoisted his bulk over the tailgate, pushing aside the labradors squirming in greeting. ‘It’s all right, Jim,’ he said as Winter hesitated. �
��Plenty of room.’

  ‘All aboard?’ Sir Archie let in the clutch with a jolt and drove a few hundred yards before stopping again at the high gate in the deer-fence. ‘Bloody nuisance,’ he muttered.

  Robb thought he was cursing the gate, but a moment later Hanbury added, ‘Why did the stupid little bitch change her mind? Why make all that song-and-dance about visiting the Isles if she meant to sneak back here? What the hell did she think she was doing?’

  In the driving mirror he caught Robb’s eye. ‘All right, Inspector, I can tell what you’re thinking, but it’s no use pretending I liked her. She was a pain in the neck alive, and now it looks as if she’s going to be just as much trouble dead.’

  An hour later, when Robb had been installed in the study and a green baize-topped card table set up for Wpc Margaret Kenny’s tape-deck and laptop, he invited Sir Archie to sit in his own leather armchair and tell him about Beverley Tanner. The anger Hanbury had expressed in the Land Rover still simmered below the surface.

  ‘Nothing annoys me more,’ he began, ‘than people who come here and get into difficulty through their own stupid fault. I warned that girl it was no place to wander about on her own, but would she listen? Well, she’s paid for her pigheadedness now, and damned nearly drowned that ass Cooper into the bargain, not to mention putting the rest of us to no end of bother and fuss. Wherever she is, I hope she’s satisfied.’

  Well, that’s one way of putting it, thought Robb. Aloud he said, ‘I understand Miss Tanner was invited here by your son Nicholas?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘She was not someone you yourself would have chosen as a guest?’

  ‘Also correct. A thorough-going proselytising Anti. Disapproved of stalking, hunting, shooting and fishing, although she didn’t know the first thing about any of them and didn’t want to learn. Why she wanted to come here is, frankly, beyond me, but my son brought her, and since this is the first time in three years that he has shown the slightest interest in Glen Buie or his family, my wife and I didn’t feel inclined to criticise his choice of companion.’

  ‘Is Nicholas your only son?’

  ‘My only child, yes. His mother – my first wife – died when he was eight. Tell me, Inspector,’ he said with a half-smile, ‘have you firsthand experience of teenage revolt?’

  ‘I’ve three daughters, sir. Nineteen, fifteen, twelve. They have their difficult moments, believe me. Now, let me get this straight. Miss Tanner – Beverley – was here at your son’s invitation, and although you found her uncongenial, you put up with her rather than risk antagonising him?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘May I ask if the rest of your guests shared your opinion of her?’

  ‘They’ll tell you themselves, of course, but my guess is that they felt much the same as I did. We’re all old friends. Most of the party have been coming here for years. They know the form. Beverley didn’t fit in, and she made no effort to. No one was sorry when she left to explore the islands.’

  ‘Not even your son?’

  Sir Archie shook his head and took his time about replying. Finally he said, ‘The fact is, Inspector, I’ve had precious little contact with Nicky for three years, and relations are still – shall we say – delicate.’

  ‘Why is that, sir?’

  ‘He took up with some frightful pseudo-religious sect while he was at university,’ said Sir Archie bitterly. ‘My wife and I have been at our wits’ end trying to wean him away from them.’

  ‘What sect is that, sir?’

  ‘It’s an unregistered charity that calls itself Home from Home. Ostensibly their aim is raising money to help house the homeless, but as I see it, their real business is latching on to rich young idiots like my son, and bleeding them white.’

  ‘Is your son rich?’

  Sir Archie drew a deep breath and exhaled heavily. ‘Nicholas’s maternal grandfather died when Nicky was fifteen, and left the bulk of his fortune in trust for him. The papers went to town over it at the time: Schoolboy Inherits Mines Millions, that kind of stuff.’

  A poisoned chalice, thought Robb. His girls would have to work for their living, and he preferred it that way. He said, ‘Did Beverley belong to this organisation?’

  ‘I imagine she was one of the top brass.’

  ‘What was her personal relationship with your son? Were they lovers?’

  The question seemed to surprise – even startle – Sir Archie. ‘Good lord, I didn’t go into that. Separate bedrooms here, in any case. My wife’s – well – old-fashioned about that. But quite honestly, I wouldn’t have said he was up to her weight. She looked the sort to eat Nicky for breakfast. Domineering. Bossed him about. Liked to show us her power over him. If I asked him to do something, she’d tell him not to. I thought the less notice we took the better.’

  Robb recognised the problem. Kick up a fuss and provoke a row, or let sleeping dogs lie? He’d tried both with Sally, his rebellious middle daughter, and neither had worked particularly well.

  ‘How did your other guests react?’

  ‘Oh, they tried to pretend everything was normal. Ashy Macleod was the only person to tackle him head-on. She more or less told him not to let himself be trampled.’

  Robb consulted his list. ‘Lady Priscilla Cooper’s daughter?’

  ‘That’s right. My god-daughter: lovely girl. She and Nicky were great pals as children. She led, he followed.’

  ‘Did Nicholas take her advice?’

  Sir Archie nodded slowly. ‘Up to a point, I suppose he did. He started going stalking again, and fishing, which seemed a hopeful sign from our point of view, although I thought Beverley would give him stick for it later. Then she tried a different tack by going off on her own. My sister Marjorie – that’s Mrs Forbes – said she’d probably ring up from the islands and make him join her there.’

  ‘But instead she came back herself,’ said Robb thoughtfully. ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘She came back,’ echoed Sir Archie, ‘and I wish to God she hadn’t.’

  *****

  ‘Inspector Robb? I’m Nicholas Hanbury. How do you do?’ The young man’s manner was polite but nervous. ‘My father said you want to talk to me,’ he added, hovering in the doorway as if poised for flight.

  Robb had expected sandals and a beard, but Nicky was conventionally dressed in a tweed jacket and polo-neck, upmarket jeans and well-polished shoes. He was a slim, goodlooking boy with his father’s fresh complexion, but his features were narrower, more finely drawn, and his mouth was set in a defensive line.

  Robb shook his hand and made introductions, adding that Wpc Kenny’s grandparents used to live in one of the Strathtorran crofts.

  ‘Overlooking the Sound of Gash,’ said Peggy. ‘My grandfather was shepherd to the Auld Laird.’

  ‘Fas Buie – I know the house. A birdwatcher’s got it now.’ Nicky was disinclined for small talk. He said jerkily, ‘Have you found... I mean, do you know...?

  ‘Just a minute, sir. I understand that Beverley Tanner was your guest?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But she wasn’t interested in deerstalking or fishing, I gather?’

  Nicky raised his head defiantly. ‘There are other things to do here besides killing wildlife.’

  ‘Of course. So she enjoyed her visit, did she? Got on well with your father’s friends?’

  Nicky said shortly, ‘No. They didn’t even try to be friendly.’

  ‘Was that why she decided to leave early?’

  ‘Partly. Yes.’

  ‘Had you quarrelled?’

  Nicky’s colour rose, but he said composedly enough, ‘We didn’t live in one another’s pockets, you know. Bev liked her space. She wanted to explore a bit, see the islands, but she promised she’d keep in touch.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Keep in touch? Well, yes. A bit.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, she knew I couldn’t use my mobile because there are only a coupl
e of places on the peninsula where I can get a signal, but she rang the house a few times. She was going to come back -’

  ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ Robb broke in. ‘When did she come back? Did she, in fact, ever leave?’

  ‘Of course she did. I took her to the ferry on Sunday morning before breakfast. Then a few days later she rang from Stornoway and said she’d had a very rough crossing and had caught a cold.’

  ‘Did you actually see her onto the boat?’

  ‘Well, no.’ Nicky fidgeted with his watchstrap; then, seeing Robb watching, put both hands in his pockets. ‘We were early, and she told me not to wait. I left her in the queue at the ticket-office.’

  ‘So she could, in theory, have walked out again without buying a ticket?’

  Nicky shrugged and said querulously, ‘What would be the point?’

  ‘Check with the ferry line, Jim,’ said Robb, and Winter left the room.

  ‘According to the police surgeon, Beverley’s body has been in the river at least four days. There’s no way she could have crossed to Stornoway and back and spent that long in the water.’

  Nicky was silent, and Robb continued, ‘Why did she want you to think she had gone away?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Another thing. We need to notify Beverley’s next of kin, preferably before the newspapers get hold of the story. Can you help us there? Parents?’

  ‘Dead, I think.’ Nicky had gone very pale.

  ‘Anyone else you can think of? Brothers and sisters? Husband?’ He stared hard into the haunted eyes. ‘That’s you, isn’t it?’

  Nicky drew a long, uneven breath, and his shoulders sagged.

  ‘How long have you been married?’

  ‘Ten – no, eleven months. Nearly a year. Must you tell my father? Will I – will I have to – ?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want to.’ Robb gave him a moment to compose himself, then said, ‘Why did you keep your marriage secret?’

  ‘You’ve met my father. Do you think he would have been pleased?’