The Stalking Party Page 23

  Mary Grant folded her hands in her lap and placed her well-shaped calves decorously sideways. ‘She was no’ a bad lassie, but she hadna been brought up tae service,’ she said judiciously, when asked the reason for Elspeth’s dismissal. ‘She didna take kindly tae orders.’

  ‘It must be difficult to get girls to work here,’ suggested Robb, and she gave a scornful snort.

  ‘That one didna know the meaning of work!’ Her constraint in speaking ill of the dead rapidly evaporated as she continued with mounting indignation, ‘Always wanting time off and blethering about unsocial hours – oh, she’d a grand idea of her rights, and none at all of her duties. But what could ye expect, brought up the way she’d been? It was wasting breath tae try tae change her, as I told her leddyship right out.’

  ‘You complained about your niece? To Lady Hanbury?’

  ‘And why not? I never asked for her in my kitchen, not that she spent a wheen time there. Too busy playing her tapes wi’ young Ben tae fash if vegetables were peeled or no. She’d no training, and little respect, and if I raised a hand to her she’d threaten me with the Social. Her leddyship turned a blind eye as long as she could, even when Elspeth left Ishy tae serve dinner alone, but she had tae heed me in the end.’

  ‘She left Ishy alone on your day off last Tuesday?’ Robb remembered old Catriona’s description of Elspeth dressed for the concert, and felt things were falling into place at last.

  ‘I’d have sacked her then and good riddance,’ said Mary Grant, the hard woman. ‘Her leddyship’s too soft – doesna like trouble among the staff. She gave her warning: one more complaint from me, and that was it. “Nosy old besom,” says Elspeth, with her leddyship hardly out of the room. “She can’t boss me around.” “You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head,” I told her. “One more peep from you and your feet willna touch the ground.” After that, she minded me, but when Miss Marjie caught her in Benjamin’s bedroom after dinner, the fat was in the fire and her leddyship told her to pack her bag.’

  ‘Was Elspeth upset? Angry?’

  Mary considered. ‘More angry, I’d say, sir, though her leddyship gave her four weeks’ pay instead of notice. Nothing was ever her own fault, not with Elspeth.’ Belatedly she recollected the circumstances of her niece’s death and added with a nod at convention, ‘Well, she’s paid for her folly now, poor wean; but what in the world were the pair of them at, there in the larder where they’d no business to be?’

  ‘That,’ said Robb, ‘is a question we’d all like answered.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘ROUND UP EVERYONE who was here when Eliza McNeil died, and make them account for themselves between noon and three o’clock yesterday,’ snapped Robb, harassed now, and deeply worried. He was also keenly aware of living on borrowed time. The long-drawn-out and, from his point of view, most welcome armed siege in Kilmarnock had ended peacefully, and the ravening media pack, cheated of drama there, was likely to turn its attention here. Brash reporters would demand a press conference where they could trip him up and tie him in knots in order to fabricate sensational headlines: Killer Stalks Blood Mountain. Teens in Freezer Tragedy.

  ‘Concentrate on the men. Find out if anyone went near the larder after the stalking party left yesterday, but first make sure of everyone’s whereabouts. I want the whole lot together under one roof, Strathtorrans included. No one, repeat no one, is to go anywhere without my permission. Got that?’

  Winter nodded at McTavish, and they hurried from the study. Robb tapped his biro against his teeth, staring down at the contour model, then ran his forefinger lightly over the thread of path that ran from the back of Strathtorran House, over the shoulder of Ben Shallachan, and down to the sheltered bay in which the salmon-cages were tethered. Beside the tiny matchstick pier lay a minuscule ferryboat half the size of a walnut, with a wisp of cottonwool above the funnel and a scrap of flag emblazoned Island Maid.

  That’s the way he came back, he thought. Too far on foot, impossible by car, but a mountain biker could get from the salmon farm to Loch a Bealach in less than an hour. The car-crazy teenager, the long bag of golf clubs: it all fitted.

  He got up restlessly and stared out of the window at the sea-loch whipped to a creamy foam by the incoming westerly breeze. Winter’s voice close behind made him start: did he have to creep about like a bloody panther?

  ‘McNeil brought two stags from Strathtorran and hung them in the larder between noon and one o’clock, according to Duncan,’ reported Winter. ‘He was in his garden, and McNeil shouted to him that the beasts were weighed and labelled. “For once,” Duncan said.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Still trying to trace him, sir. He hasn’t been at the fish-farm today. The lads there think he’s off on his mountain bike because it’s missing from its shed behind the office.’’

  Bingo! thought Robb, but his sense of pressure increased. There would be time enough to sift and slot together evidence when all were safely gathered in. Until then...

  ‘Looks like Donny’s found one of the strays,’ said Winter, recognising the red woollen cap. ‘Now, which – ?’

  It was John Forbes, panting, white-faced, visibly distressed. Before they could move to intercept him, Gwennie ran out from the french window and hurried across the lawn. They watched her speaking earnestly, shaking her head. Eventually she put an arm round his shoulders and led him indoors.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I couldna keep it from him,’ said the young ghillie defensively, following Sir Archie into the study. His gaze flickered uneasily over the leather-bound books, the high-backed wing chairs and the rugs worn bald by generations of recumbent dogs. ‘He’d a fish on the line when I found him, and didna wish tae leave the water.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Robb. ‘Where’s Mrs Forrester? Wasn’t she with him?’

  ‘No, sir. She was gone from the pool where Mr Johnny left her, but there’s still a mile of bank canna be seen from the track. Will I take another look for ye?’

  Robb hesitated, glancing at the map. From the bridge spanning the Greeting Pool, the Glen Buie fishing extended three miles down- and three upstream before losing its identity in the maze of small burns and lochans that formed the spawning pools.

  ‘How long would it take you to walk the length of the river?’

  ‘Look here,’ broke in Sir Archie with authority, ‘we’d better take my car to the bridge and split our forces. ‘I’ll go one way and Donny can go the other. That’ll be quickest.’

  ‘Just a moment, sir.’ Further investigation would become impossible if people rushed hither and thither on ill-defined missions. ‘Sergeant Winter will go with one of you, and Constable McTavish with the other. Tell me just where Mrs Forrester was last seen, Donald.’

  ‘By here.’ The boy’s bitten nail scratched a dent in the map about a mile above the Greeting Pool. Robb bent close to peer at the tiny print.

  ALT NA CHORAIN, MAIDEN POOL; FALLS; TIGHTROPE.

  ‘Come on, we’re wasting time,’ urged Sir Archie, and Robb nodded, understanding his need for action, however futile; and wished that he, too, could stride up or down the river bank instead of waiting passively here for the next disaster to strike.

  For a few minutes after the searchers drove away, he went on staring at the map, thinking of accidents that could have been murder; of times and distances and bodies in deep black pools. A rap on the door disturbed his musing.

  ‘See who that is, Peg.’

  Voices murmured in the passage. Wpc Kenny returned. ‘It’s Lady Priscilla, sir, and Miss Macleod, wondering if you’d spare a minute.’

  Lady Priscilla’s long horse-face was pale and purposeful, and all the bounce had gone out of Ashy.

  ‘So sorry to barge in, Inspector, but my daughter has something to tell you,’ she said with controlled anger. ‘Go on, Ashy.’

  ‘Not with you here.’ Ashy was subdued but defiant.

  ‘Very well. I’ll leave you to it, but no running out, mind! If you
don’t come clean, I’ll tell him myself.’

  ‘Go away, Mummy! Don’t talk to me about omerta,’ she said bitterly as the door closed. ‘My mother doesn’t know the meaning of the word. And if you tell me the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I’ll –’

  ‘Miss Macleod, this is a murder enquiry,’ Robb cut in harshly. ‘If you have something relevant to tell me, please do it now and don’t waste my time.’

  The edge to his voice startled her as he had intended. She blinked, gulped, and almost visibly took herself in hand.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she said unevenly, ‘I’ve done something really stupid. Criminal, I think. And now Maya’s missing... All I can say is that it seemed a good idea at the time.’

  *****

  Johnny will be wondering where I am, thought Maya, flicking her line into the deep, dark water and waiting for the current to carry the fly across the narrow rocky pool. She felt a twinge of guilt at slipping away without a word to him.

  ‘I’ve come to rescue you,’ Nicky had smiled, appearing unexpectedly on the river bank while she was struggling to unravel a snarl of Gordian complexity without attracting an offer of help from Johnny. ‘Where’s the guru?’ he added. ‘I thought he was teaching you to cast.’

  Maya had put her finger to her lips and pointed to the slender tip of a rod projecting from the bank some forty yards downstream. An hour’s instruction by Johnny had been every bit as tedious as she had anticipated.

  ‘Come with me. I know a much better place than this,’ said Nicky, eyes dancing with mischief.

  Maya was glad enough to be rescued. ‘OK, but just hang on a tick while I tell Johnny.’

  ‘Do you really want him tagging along? He will, you know.’

  ‘Well –’ Maya had hesitated – ‘maybe not...’ and she had followed Nicky along the bank and out of sight while Johnny fished on, oblivious.

  ‘Let me carry the rod. This is where we cross,’ said Nicky leading her towards a triangle of cables stretched from one bank of the river to the other; but Maya took one look at the perilous drop beneath the wires and shook her head firmly.

  ‘No way. It gives me vertigo just to see it.’

  ‘Oh, come on! It’s not as bad as it looks, honestly.’

  ‘Can’t I cross some place else?’

  ‘Well, there’s the ford, but I’m afraid it’ll go over your boots.’

  ‘I can take them off,’ said Maya, and she had crossed the shallow, fast-running stream barefooted, with her boots in one hand and clinging to Nicky with the other, glad of his support because although the water was no more than knee-deep, its force was quite enough to sweep her off her feet. On the farther bank she had dried them as best she could, and replaced socks and boots. Now, under Nicky’s instructions, she was trying to catch one of the big silver salmon she could see cruising among the rocks, while he sat smoking and watching twenty yards away, with his anorak hood pulled over his head and his back against a rock.

  ‘You try,’ she said at last, joining him under the sheltering ledge as the long-threatening rain began in earnest.

  ‘No, no, keep at it. You’re doing fine. This is just what we want to freshen up the pool. As soon as the water rises the fish will start to take.’

  ‘Don’t you think we should be getting back?’ She stifled a yawn. ‘Sorry! I didn’t sleep much last night.’

  ‘Something on your mind?’

  ‘I was thinking about your aunt Marjorie. It seems kinda mean to let her go on worrying where Ben has gotten to.’

  ‘I know.’ Nicky threw his stub into the water; his expression was serious now, even sombre. ‘You heard what they were saying in the serving-room yesterday morning, didn’t you?’

  ‘I heard them fix a meeting at the larder, so that he could give back her tapes.’

  Nicky smiled, his mood lightening. ‘Look, Maya, my advice – for what it’s worth – is to let sleeping dogs lie. Ben will turn up in his own good time, and quite honestly I think Aunt Marjorie would worry even more if she knew he’d gone off somewhere with Elspeth.’

  ‘Maybe so.’ Unconvinced, she got up and bent her head forward to let the water drain from her hat-brim. ‘I guess I’ll go on back now, just the same.’

  ‘Wait!’ He laid a thin hand on her arm, drawing her back under the rock. ‘There’s something I want to –’

  Abruptly he broke off, and following his gaze she saw a kammo-clad figure moving along the path on the other side of the river. Slinking, she thought, though she would have found it hard to say exactly what it was about that steady, stealthy gait that immediately suggested furtiveness, a wish to remain unseen.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she asked in a low voice, although the noise of water would have covered anything less than a shout.

  ‘Ian McNeil, after our salmon again.’

  ‘Why would he want to do that?’

  ‘Because they’re ours, of course.’ His lips tightened. ‘I’m going over to have a word with him. Wait here.’

  It didn’t make sense to Maya. Why would a man who raised captive salmon for a living want to poach yet more fish from his neighbour’s river? Wet and tired as she was, she dreaded the idea of confrontation, the inevitable delay in getting back to the Lodge.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said quickly, hoping that if she was there to act as a buffer, they might feel obliged to stay civilised, but Nicky simply shook his head.

  ‘Won’t be long,’ he said tersely, and was gone before she could protest.

  Damn, damn, damn! she thought, watching him swing rapidly across the wire bridge and hurry up the bank to the path. Now I’m stuck here until he comes back.

  There could be no doubt that the river was rapidly rising; rocks upon which water had broken in white spray when she began fishing were now submerged, and the lazy swirls of current had straightened out to form an urgent, tumbling torrent as feeder burns high up in the hills delivered fresh rainwater to the main stream. Remembering the unexpected force of water against her legs as she clung to Nicky’s hand, she doubted very much that she could cross even the ford alone now. That left two equally disagreeable options: either she faced a wet wait of indeterminate length, or she must tackle the wire bridge.

  *****

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said Robb. ‘You hid Beverley’s body beneath the boat because you thought she had been shot by Fergus?’

  ‘It seemed absolutely obvious,’ said Ashy with exaggerated patience. ‘She was dead, but only very recently, and from where I was sitting on Carn Mhor, I had seen Fergus fairly hurtling down the shoulder of Carn Beag, nearly as far as the path; and then a few minutes later climbing up again, still carrying the rifle.’

  ‘Had you heard a shot?’

  ‘No, but that doesn’t prove anything. When our own party got down to the path, I said I wanted a pee and dropped behind Sandy and Archie, and there I found her, right down by the loch. It looked as if Fergus must have shot her.’

  ‘And when did you begin to doubt that?’

  ‘Not soon enough,’ said Ashy. ‘I’m sorry now that I even tried to cover up for him, but at the time I was so shocked that I simply wasn’t thinking straight. I just pulled the boat over the top of her to give myself time to work out what to do next, and spent the rest of that day and most of the night wondering how on earth I was going to make sure no one else put two and two together.’

  She looked defiantly at Robb. ‘OK, yes; I went back to the trout-loch next day, saying I wanted to sketch it. Then I sent Maya off to fish from the bank, while Nicky walked up to the Prince’s Rock, and when I was sure they were out of sight, I nipped over to where I’d left the boat, heaved poor old Bev into it, and brought her down to the jetty. Then I loaded her on the pony – that was a struggle, I can tell you – and down the hill to the river path. I tied a good big rock to her legs, and dumped her in the Greeting Pool where, apart from that interfering ass of a stepfather of mine –’

  ‘Please confine yourself to the facts,’ said
Robb coldly.

  ‘Oh, OK. Well, once she was in the river, I thought that was that. But of course I didn’t know that Maya had already looked under the boat.’

  ‘You didn’t telephone the hostel to say that Beverley had cut short her holiday?’

  ‘Good lord, no. And I was amazed when Gwennie said one of the maids had taken a message from Bev on Stornoway, but Elspeth is such a scatterbrain, I thought –’ She stopped and bit her lip.

  ‘Go on,’ said Robb brutally. The less opportunity she had for digression, the more likely he was to hear the truth.

  ‘Well, of course I was horrified when my stepfather went and fished Bev’s body out of the water. As soon as I could, I got Fergus to meet me at the pub – you saw us there the other evening, didn’t you? – and told him what I had done and why.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He wasn’t in the least grateful,’ she said indignantly. ‘In fact, he called me an interfering you-know-what, and when I tried to make him see sense, he walked out on me. The end of a beautiful friendship,’ said Ashy, pulling a face, ‘and all I was trying to do was help him.’

  ‘But why did you think Fergus should have wanted to shoot her? Had he a special reason to want to get rid of her?’

  Silence from Ashy. Robb tried again. ‘Was she threatening him in some way?’

  ‘Fergus is the sort of man who hates being pinned down.’ She gave him a sideways glance.

  ‘Was Beverley trying to?’

  She shook her blonde head. ‘Not Bev, but Eliza McNeil. Ian’s late wife.’

  ‘Who drowned in the Greeting Pool nearly three years ago?’

  Ashy nodded sombrely. ‘She and Bev were mates, you know. They ran a catering business together. I thought Bev might have known that Fergus had been Eliza’s lover...and...and... You know she was pregnant when she drowned?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Robb, as a chunk of jigsaw clicked into place. ‘So you envisaged a sequence of events in which – correct me if I’m wrong – he wanted to break off the relationship and she didn’t – right? And she tried to pin him down, as you put it, by threatening to tell her husband – right? And she persuaded him to meet her at the Greeting Pool to sort it out on January 3rd three years ago, and somehow or other Eliza ended up in the river? Is that what you thought?’