The Stalking Party Page 4

  He considered jumping through the window and giving them a fright, but resisted the impulse. It was better to see without being seen, and they didn’t look in the mood for jokes. Elspeth’s expression was sullen as she scattered cutlery with a careless hand. Ishbel, wife of Big Ian the ferryman, moved with one hand pressed to the small of her back. Her thin face was pale: another mouth to feed was on its way.

  Fergus padded on, keeping to the wall of the house as he crossed the patch of moonlight in the angle of two wings, where anyone looking down from a bedroom might see him. The dogs were hunting in the shrubbery; now the rabbit bolted across the lawn, white scut bobbing, with all three in silent pursuit.

  He was about to whistle them back, when a voice close at hand startled him. A man’s voice, deep and angry. ‘Is that a threat?’

  It came from the darkened library on the corner of the house. Fergus flattened against the wall, straining his ears. Who would dare threaten Everard Cooper?

  Another voice spoke, too far away to identify, but Cooper’s indignant response was clear enough.

  ‘You dirty little slut! I’m damned if I will.’

  Mutter, mutter went the second voice. Fergus tried to guess who it was. Mr Cooper’s rudeness to his wife was legendary, but surely even he would not call Lady Priscilla a dirty little slut? Could it be Ashy, his stepdaughter? She often holed up with a book in the library after dinner.

  Cooper growled, ‘Tell him, then, and see what good it does you. It makes no odds to me. But I warn you, you’re on thin ice. Don’t do anything foolish, or you’ll regret it.’

  Footsteps stamped across the floor. A door slammed. Fergus longed to know who was standing by the window, looking out over the moonlit loch. Then the curtains swished across. Thoughtfully he whistled up the dogs and went on round the house.

  *****

  When Nicky had put his wet tweeds into the drying-room and up-ended his boots for Duncan to dubbin, he went into the kitchen to discuss Mary’s needs, and spent half an hour chatting to her and Duncan as they cleared the last of the vegetable dishes and scoured the saucepans.

  There was nothing modern or even hygienic about her cooking arrangements. No environmental health officer would have approved of the way the four-oven Aga backed on to the larder, which was made even hotter by two freezers in which fishing-bait, surplus salmon, chopped lights for the dogs, and hard-to-classify joints of meat were accommodated.

  Along the wall whose windows overlooked the gravel drive, three stained Belfast sinks held a variety of cooking utensils at different stages of purification, and dishes wrongly shaped for the dishwasher, as well as a bucket full of muddy shooting-stockings. Beneath the sinks were black polythene bins labelled Tins, Hens, and Burning. The deal table, six-foot by four, dominated the middle of the room, and instead of fitted units with easy-wipe surfaces, a collection of oddly-shaped and rickety cupboards held Mary’s dry stores, china, and serried ranks of tins.

  Tea-trolleys and an untidy stack of trays were parked in one corner. The table at which the single men ate their meals was pushed against the wall by the scullery door, where the glaring fluorescent strip turned even hill-weathered complexions to a ghastly pallor.

  Everard Cooper never entered this kitchen without a shudder, but for Nicky it was the most welcoming room in the house, and Mary a lifelong ally.

  Tonight he noticed a coolness in her manner, and knew she did not approve of Beverley. He would have liked to spend the rest of the evening in the kitchen’s shabby warmth, but after securing his promise to shoot a young roe for her larder before the weekend, she chased him back to the drawing-room.

  ‘Be off wi’ ye now. They’ll be wondering where you are.’

  He left reluctantly, pushing through the swing door that led from the uncarpeted kitchen wing to the polished boards of the serving-room and dining-room, with the great entrance hall on his left.

  The party had split up. The click of balls from the billiard-room indicated that his father had accepted Benjamin’s challenge to a return match. As he passed the door of the adjoining study, Nicky saw his cousin John Forbes at his father’s desk, poring over the Game Book, with curvy Cynthia Page draped decoratively over the back of his chair.

  In the drawing-room, the big bay windows were shuttered and curtained with the faded but still beautiful silk curtains made in Hong Kong in the ’Fifties. Black-lacquered Chinese cabinets acquired at the same time now held boxes full of indoor games: Halma, spillikins, backgammon, and numerous packs of cards.

  His aunt Marjorie was at the piano, strumming from a heap of yellowing sheet-music, while Ashy sang snatches and turned the pages. Two black labradors, a spaniel and a whippet occupied the chairs and sofa, looking indulgently down on the humans crouched on the carpet to play Racing Demon.

  ‘Come on, on, on!’ urged Gwennie, fidgeting like an impatient child. ‘Four of hearts. Four of hearts. Someone must have it!’ Her hand, rings flashing, stretched out and pounced. ‘Look, Maya, in your Demon. Staring you in the face.’

  ‘Ten, Jack, Queen –’

  ‘King!’ Triumphantly Joss Page slapped the card face down on top of the suit.

  ‘Cheat,’ muttered Lady Priscilla, and he flushed.

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘I saw you. You’re supposed to turn over in threes.’

  Joss said in his prim, pained way: ‘The rules clearly state that you can turn over the last three cards singly.’

  ‘Stop arguing,’ snapped Gwennie. ‘Thank you, Joss, just what I needed. Four, five, six... wait for it. Seven, eight, black on red...and I’m out!’

  She sat back on her heels, flushed and animated.

  ‘You can’t have shuffled properly. I’ve got six left in my Demon,’ Joss complained. ‘God! My legs are agony.’ He turned to Maya. ‘Do you see how it goes?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Right. Then we’ll call that a trial round and begin properly now. Come on, draw to deal.’

  They’ll be at it for hours, thought Nicky, stepping carefully over their legs and sinking into an armchair near the window. Ashy left the piano and joined him.

  ‘Where’s Bev?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘God knows.’ She surveyed him with a little smile. ‘Tell me, Nicks, do you think she’s going to enjoy herself here?’

  ‘She wanted to come,’ he muttered. ‘I told her what it would be like.’

  ‘But why did she want to come?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Ashy, give me a break.’

  ‘I’m curious, that’s all. I’m wondering what she’s going to do all day. Sit about the house and get in Mary’s hair?’

  He said with a touch of defiance, ‘It’s no skin off your nose if she does.’

  ‘Oh, but it is. I can’t bear to watch my friends being taken for a ride.’

  ‘Nobody’s taking me for a ride,’ he said irritably.

  ‘You’re sure of that?’ Her aquamarine eyes were mocking. ‘Would you like to know where your girlfriend is now?’

  ‘You said you didn’t know.’

  ‘I said, God knows. And so, as it happens, do I. And I know who’s with her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My beloved stepfather.’

  ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘Exactly. You should have warned her, Nicks.’

  ‘I did.’ He glanced over at Lady Priscilla, but she was absorbed in her game. ‘I warned her about the whole damned lot of you.’

  ‘Even little me?’

  ‘Especially you. I told her she’d be bored and uncomfortable…’

  ‘Yet she came all the same.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Ah, the power of love!’

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘You still haven’t said why you brought her. Why you let her push you around. Come on, Nicks: give. You can trust me.’

  ‘I wish I knew who I could trust,’ he said, pushing the hair off his forehead. ‘Oh, Ashy, I’m in such a mess.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she coaxed. ‘Troub
le shared... You know me, Nick-knack. I can keep a secret.’

  For a moment he looked her full in the face, considering. Seeing him waver, Ashy pressed her advantage. ‘Did I snitch when you pulled up Jock Taggart’s lobster-pots and sold the fish down the strath? Did I let on who knocked out those pitons and left the bird-nesters stuck on the ledge all night?’

  ‘Served them right.’ He grinned reminiscently. ‘Anyway, how did you know? I heard you tell the rescuers that it must have been old Logie up to his tricks again.’

  Ashy said seriously, ‘I don’t like to see my friends getting into trouble. If I can help them out of it, I will. So how about it, Nicks? Are you going to tell me what’s up this time?’

  For a long moment he hesitated, looking round the room as he weighed pros and cons, but finally shook his head. ‘Not here,’ he muttered. ‘Not now. I … I just can’t.’

  Ashy’s clearcut profile was suddenly hard as marble, her eyes chips of blue ice. ‘All right, Nicks. If you can’t, you can’t.’ She rose and stood looking down at him with a mixture of affection and contempt. ‘Well, I’m off to bed. Sandy and I have to leave early. Remember, if you feel like coming, we’ll be glad to have you along.’

  He said nothing, and she turned and left the room.

  *****

  ‘Bloody cock-teasing dyke!’ Everard crashed the bedroom door shut and stalked across the worn, pale-blue carpet to stand behind the dressing-table where his wife was brushing her hair.

  In the mirror, she surveyed him warily, wondering how she had ever found him attractive. His big body was heavy now about the middle; his strong nose and jaw padded with good living. Though still thick, his hair was streaked badger-grey, and his burning chestnut eyes were meshed in wrinkles. All the same, he still exuded the strength of will and brute energy that had wrested her from courtly, indecisive Mike Macleod, her first husband. Now the quality that had attracted her seemed wholly repellent.

  There was no need to ask whom he meant. An hour earlier she had seen him detach Nicky’s girlfriend from the group about the billiard-table as expertly as a collie cuts out a ewe from the flock. By the time Gwennie finished pouring out coffee, they had vanished, and she had thought wryly that at least she would have the full width of the double bed to herself. Leggy, sexy, common as hell, Beverley was just the sort to appeal to Everard, especially if he could steal her from under the nose of a younger man.

  Clearly the encounter had been a disappointment, and Everard meant to vent his temper on her. Let him try, she thought. If he starts to knock me around, I shall ask Gwennie to find me another room.

  ‘What went wrong?’ she asked coolly. ‘I thought she looked rather your type.’

  ‘Is that why you went and told her about the Mona Peat report? Thank you for nothing, darling! I should have thought even you would have more sense.’

  ‘Mona Peat? Don’t be absurd. Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘Then how the hell did the little bitch hear of it? We’ve been very careful to keep it out of the media.’

  ‘I expect she heard you talking about it.’

  ‘How could she, you daft cow?’

  ‘You men are such gossips. Useless at keeping secrets,’ said Lady Priscilla, beginning to enjoy herself. ‘Who does your boardroom lunches, for instance?’

  ‘What the hell has that got to do with it?’

  ‘Quite a lot, I imagine. Who organises them?’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest. Old Witherspoon deals with that kind of thing. I think he gets in a team of girls – you know – freelances. Cordon Bleus.’ He paused. ‘You don’t mean …?’

  ‘Perhaps he uses a firm called Gentlemen’s Relish. I’m told they do a lot of boardroom meals. Eliza McNeil – Ian’s wife – used to drum up business for them.’ She smiled at him blandly. ‘Waitresses aren’t blind and deaf, you know.’

  He said slowly, ‘You mean this … this Beverley …’

  ‘Was Eliza’s partner, that’s right.’ She watched the information sink in, then added gently, ‘I expect Beverley Tanner has enough dirt on you and your fellow tycoons to put half of you behind bars; or at least out of the running for a K.’

  ‘Put a sock in it, you ugly bitch!’ Her husband’s hands were heavy on her shoulders, and abruptly she stopped enjoying herself. He said between his teeth, ‘If she breathes so much as a word about that report to Archie, I’ll do her in, I swear. And if you, my dear wife, try to …’

  ‘Hush!’

  He listened. Next door the bath water had stopped running.

  ‘It’s only Gwennie,’ he said.

  ‘Not unless she’s taken to wearing Brut. What does it matter about the report? Won’t it soon be common knowledge?’

  Everard said with suppressed anger, ‘It matters because if Archie gets wind of it, bang go my chances of buying this place. Don’t you understand? If he thinks I’m involved in peat extraction, he’ll refuse to sell, no matter what I offer.’

  She met his eyes in the mirror. ‘Surely you would never think of extracting peat here? Not if you owned it?

  ‘That’s beside the point.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He said furiously, ‘That little bitch threatened to tell Archie. Can you beat it? A tuppeny-ha’penny tart like that trying to blackmail me?’

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘What do you think? Ten grand to some blasted charity of hers. Some hope!’

  He fiddled with the pots and tubes on the dressing-table, opening, sniffing, putting them down without their lids. She guessed he would pay up, all the same.

  ‘If it’s Home from Home, you might as well make your cheque out to Cash,’ she said dryly.

  ‘Isn’t it on the level?’

  ‘Very far from it, I believe. It’s the British offshoot of one of those phoney American churches. Homes for the hopeless and homeless. Charismatic ministry, signs and portents, that kind of nonsense. They hang about universities and try to get their hooks into youngsters with more money than sense.’

  ‘Nicky?’

  ‘Precisely. Poor Archie is not going to be pleased when he hears that his only son has given up reading for the Bar in order to devote his energies to charity work.’

  Everard considered this information, wondering how he could turn it to advantage. He said explosively, ‘That little bitch! I’d like to break her neck.’

  ‘So I gather. Well, you may find that Joss Page beats you to it.’

  ‘Joss?’ He was pleased to find a fellow-guest in the same boat. ‘What has that old whited sepulchre been up to, then?’

  ‘All I know is that when we were walking along the river path this afternoon, she started asking him questions about some share support operation, and Joss looked absolutely pea-green and said he’d come to Scotland to forget all about the Square Mile. Then he walked away so fast that he left me with the pleasure of Beverley’s company for the last mile back to the lodge. That was when I found out that she and Eliza McNeil had worked together.’

  ‘Good old Priss. You’re not such a fool as you look,’ he said grudgingly.

  ‘Thank you. Now for God’s sake leave my make-up alone. That stuff costs the earth.’

  ‘Captive Loveliness. Reveal your true imprisoned beauty,’ he said mockingly. ‘My God, Prissy, why do you bother? I mean, it doesn’t make much difference, does it?’

  ‘We’re not all blessed with your devastating allure,’ she snapped, and he grinned.

  ‘Trust you to have the last word.’ His hands slid over her shoulders, sensuous and caressing. ‘Come on, old girl. How about it? All cats are grey in the dark.’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  She shook off his hands and stood up, gaunt and sallow in her peach silk nightdress. ‘If you’re that way inclined, you’d better try the maids’ bedrooms. Straight up the stairs and on the right. I expect you’ll find what you want there – at a price.’

  Everard clenched his fists. After all these years, despite his wealth and success, she was still
capable of making him feel inadequate. Hairy-heeled, as her father used to say. The private jet, the racehorses, membership of The Squadron still counted for nothing because plain, dowdy, old Prissy, with her horse-teeth and bony figure, possessed what money could not buy him.

  Silently he turned and went into the dressing-room.

  Chapter Four

  AT NINE NEXT morning, the dining-room was deserted. Untidily stacked plates still smeared with egg, porridge, and marmalade, coffee-dregs in abandoned cups, chairs pushed back and scrumpled napkins showed that those bound for a day in the open had eaten heartily, but in haste.

  Their promptitude surprised Beverley. She had imagined Sir Archie’s guests idling about the house in dressing-gowns on this far from alluring morning, with grey rain sluicing down the tall sash windows, and gusts of wind bending the trees around the whipped-cream loch. She had glanced through the window after Ishy brought her tea and pulled back the curtains, and guessed that last night’s plans would be cancelled, or at least postponed until the weather improved. Guessed wrong, apparently.

  She checked the covered dishes on the sideboard’s heater, grimacing to find that the choice lay between kippers, sausages, black pudding, bacon, and three kinds of eggs. Replacing the lids, she poured a glass of fruit juice. There was barely half a cup of coffee left in the percolator. She unplugged it, and went in search of more.

  In the cave-like kitchen, Mary was rolling thin strips of pastry on the flour-strewn table, while the girls peeled potatoes, nudging and giggling at private jokes.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Beverley. Och, ye didna have tae bring that here,’ said Mary, hurrying forward to take the coffee pot. ‘The bell’s beneath the table. Just ring for Elspeth if ye’re needing anything.’ She refilled the pot. ‘Now, is there toast enough for ye? Everyone’s breakfasted except her leddyship.’

  ‘Where’s Nicholas?’ She had expected to find him in his room at the end of the corridor, covers still pulled up to his chin.