Hamish Macbeth 01; Death of a Gossip hm-1 Read online

  Then there was Daphne Gore. Alice envied Daphne’s obvious money and cool poise. Lady Jane hadn’t been able to get at her. But she, Alice, must not let her own silly snobbery stand in the way of luring Jeremy away from Daphne. Come to think of it, Lady Jane had not riled Jeremy either. Perhaps that was what money and a public school gave you – armour plating.

  ♦

  John Cartwright awoke with an unaccustomed feeling of dread. Certainly, he was used to enduring a bit of stage fright before the beginning of each new fishing class, but that soon disappeared, leaving him with only the heady pleasure of being paid for communicating to others his hobby and his passion…fishing.

  Now Lady Jane loomed like a fat thundercloud on the horizon.

  Perhaps he was taking the whole thing too seriously. But neither he nor Heather had really performed their duties very well this week. Usually, they meticulously took their class through more intensive instruction on casting, leader tying, fly tying and the habits of the wily salmon. But so far both of them had been only too glad to get their charges out on the water, as if spreading them as far apart as possible could diffuse the threatening atmosphere. There was nothing they could do – legally – to protect themselves from Lady Jane. There were two alternatives. They could pray – or they could murder Lady Jane. But John did not believe in God, and he shrank from the idea of violence. Lady Jane had been charming at dinner last night and seemed to be enjoying herself. Perhaps he could appeal to her better nature…if she had one.

  The mist was burning off the loch when the class assembled in the lounge. It promised to be a scorching day. Alice was wearing a blue-and-white gingham blouse with a pair of brief white cotton shorts that showed her long, slim legs to advantage. She was wearing a cheap, oversweet perfume that delighted Jeremy’s nostrils. Women who wore cheap scent always seemed so much more approachable, conjuring up memories of tumbled flannel sheets in bedsitting rooms. She was concentrating on practising to tie knots, her fine, fluffy brown hair falling over her forehead. He went to sit beside her on the sofa, edging close to her so that his thigh touched her bare legs. Alice flushed, and her hands trembled a little. “You look delicious this morning,” murmured Jeremy and put a hand lightly on her knee. Alice realized, all in that delightful moment, that her knees could blush.

  “I am so glad to meet a young man who actually pursues single girls,” commented Lady Jane to the world at large. “I’m one of those old–fashioned women who believe adultery to be a sin, the next worst thing to seducing servants.”

  This remark, which sounded like something from Upstairs Downstairs, went largely unnoticed, but it had an odd effect on both Jeremy and Daphne Gore. Jeremy slowly removed his hand from Alice’s knee and sat very still. Daphne dropped her coffee cup and swore. “No good comes of it,” pursued Lady Jane. “I’ve known girls run off and make fools of themselves with Spanish waiters and young men who seduce married barmaids. Disgusting!”

  There was a long silence. Daphne’s distress was all too evident, and Jeremy looked sick.

  “Of course,” came Constable Macbeth’s soft Highland voice, “some of us are protected from the sins of the flesh by our very age and appearance. Would not you say so, Lady Jane?”

  “Are you trying to insult me, Officer?”

  “Not I. I would be in the way of thinking that it would be an almost impossible thing to do.”

  Lady Jane’s massive bosom swelled under the thin puce silk of her blouse. She’s like the Hulk, thought Alice. Any moment now she’s going to turn green and explode.

  “Were I not aware of the impoverished circumstances of your family,” said Lady Jane, “I would stop you from scrounging coffee. Six little brothers and sisters to support, eh? And your aged parents in Ross and Cromarty? So improvident to have children when one is middle-aged. They can turn out retarded, you know.”

  “Better they turn out retarded – although they’re not – than grow up into a silly, fat, middle-aged, barren bitch like yourself,” said Hamish with a sweet smile.

  “You will suffer for this,” howled Lady Jane. “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know the power I have?”

  “No,” said Amy Roth flatly. “We don’t.”

  Lady Jane opened and shut her mouth like a landed trout.

  “That’s right, honey,” said Marvin Roth. “You can huff and you can puff, but you ain’t gonna blow any houses down here. You can make other folks’ lives a misery with your snide remarks, but I’m a New Yorker, born and bred, and Amy here’s a Blanchard of the Augusta, Georgia, Blanchards and you won’t find a tougher combination than that.”

  A strange change came over Lady Jane. One minute she looked about to suffer the same fate as her late husband; the next, her angry colour had died and she looked around lovingly at Amy.

  “Dear me,” she said sweetly, “a Blanchard born and bred?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Marvin Roth proudly. “Amy’s old money, just like the Rockefellers.”

  “Please!” called John Cartwright. “Let me begin or we’ll never get the day started.”

  They shuffled their chairs into a semicircle. Heather unrolled a screen and then started setting up a small projector. “Lantern slides,” groaned Lady Jane.

  A tic appeared in John’s left cheek, but he gamely went on with his lecture, showing slides of what salmon looked like when they headed up river from the sea, when they were spawning, and when they were returning to the sea.

  “Our prices at this school are very reasonable,” said John. “Very reasonable,” he repeated firmly after Lady Jane snorted. “The better-class salmon beats are all strictly preserved and can only usually be fished at enormous cost. Salmon are fly-caught, particularly the ones of small size, on ordinary reservoir-strength trout rods. Regular salmon anglers, however, also include in their tackle longer rods, some designed for two-handed casting, larger reels, heavier lines, stouter leaders, and flies much bigger on average than those used for trout.”

  “If we had a decent government in power,” interrupted Lady Jane, “instead of that Thatcher woman’s dictatorship, then everyone would be able to fish for salmon, even the common people.”

  John sighed and signalled to Heather to pack up the projector He and Heather loved the Sutherland countryside, and he usually ended his talk by showing beautiful colour slides of rivers and mountains and lochs. But he felt beauty would be wasted on the present gathering. “We will fish the Upper Sutherland today. Heather will pass around maps. The pools on the upper river are small, easy to fish, closely grouped together and within easy distance of the road. During the summer, the fish cannot get over the Sutherland falls and so that’s why they concentrate in the upper beats. On your map, you will see the Slow Pool marked. This is a very good holding pool, but it is particularly good in high water when it is best fished from the right bank. Heather and I will take Alice and Charlie and the rest of you can follow as before.”

  The day was gloriously hot, and even Charlie Baxter lost his customary reserve and whistled cheerfully as the large estate car swung around the hairpin bends of the Highland roads. At one point a military plane roared overhead, flying so low the noise of its jets was deafening. “A Jaguar!” said Charlie.

  John fiddled with the knobs of the car radio. A blast of Gaelic keening split the air. He tried again. Gaelic. “Isn’t there anything in English?” asked Alice, feeling the more cut off from civilization by the sound of that incomprehensible tongue coming from the radio. ‘She’s got a ticket to ride’ roared the Beatles, and everyone laughed and joined in. There was something about the scorching sun and clear air that reduced the likes of Lady Jane to a dot on the horizon. Alice could now well understand why people once thought the night hideous with evil creatures.

  Alice was only sorry the estate car was big enough to take their rods lying down flat in the back. It would have been jolly to have them poking upright out of the open window, advertising to the world at large that she was a professional fisher of salmon.<
br />
  They parked in a disused quarry and climbed out to meet the others. Lady Jane was wearing a Greek fisherman’s hat that gave her fleshy face with its curved beak of a nose an oddly hermaphroditic appearance.

  John spread out the map on the bonnet of the car and sorted them out into pairs. Daphne and Lady Jane were to fish the Calm Pool, a good holding pool, and were told that the streamy water at the top was best. The major and Jeremy were to try their chances at the Slow Pool; the Roths at the Silver Bank; and Alice and Charlie at the Sheiling. Heather would go with Alice and Charlie and John with the major and Jeremy.

  Alice fished diligently until Heather announced they should break for lunch. Fishing fever had her in its grip and she had not thought of Jeremy once.

  At lunch it transpired that Lady Jane and the major were missing. Jeremy said the local ghillie from Lochdubh had taken him aside and begun talking to him, and the major had packed up and left with him. Daphne said crossly that Lady Jane had thrashed her line about the water enough to scare away a whale and then had mercifully disappeared.

  The absence of Lady Jane acted on the spirits of the party like champagne. Heather had augmented the hotel lunch with homemade sausage rolls, potato scones, and fruit bread covered in lashings of butter and strawberry jam. Alice was dreamily happy to see that Daphne’s skin was turning an ugly red in the sun while her own was turning to pale gold. A little breeze fanned their hot cheeks and Jeremy made Alice’s day perfect by opting to fish with her for the rest of the afternoon.

  After some time, Jeremy suggested they should take a rest. Alice lay back on the springy heather by the water’s edge and stared dreamily up into the blue sky.

  “What do you think of Lady Jane?” asked Jeremy abruptly. Alice propped herself up on one elbow. “I dunno,” she said cautiously. “I think she’s learned the knack of fishing of a different sort. I think she knows everyone’s got some sort of skeleton in the cupboard and she throws out remarks at random and watches until she sees she’s caught someone. Like with you and Daphne this morning. Whatever she meant by that servant and Spanish waiter remark, it upset you and Daphne no end.”

  “Nonsense,” said Jeremy quickly. “I was upset for Daphne’s sake. I could see the remark had got home.” But you were upset before, thought Alice. “I think the woman’s plain mad. All that talk about her having power is pure rot. She’s nothing but the widow of some obscure Labour peer. She’s not even good dass. I phoned my father about her the other night. He says she’s the daughter of old Marie Phipps, who was secretary to and mistress of Lord Chalcont, and Marie forced his lordship into sending Jane to a finishing school in Switzerland. There never was a Mr Phipps, you know.”

  “You mean, she’s illegitimate!” gasped Alice. “How splendid. I’d like to throw that in her face.”

  “Don’t, for God’s sake,” said Jeremy harshly. “She’d bite back like a viper.”

  “But you said she’s got no power.”

  “Hasn’t any power,” corrected Jeremy automatically, and Alice hated him for that brief moment. “It’s just that I’m thinking of standing for Parliament and I’m very careful about avoiding enemies.”

  “You’d be marvellous,” breathed Alice. Why, he could be Prime Minister! Maggie Thatcher couldn’t live forever.

  “You’re a funny, intense little thing,” said Jeremy. He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, a firm but schoolboyish embrace. “Now, let’s go fish.” He grinned.

  Alice waded dizzily into the Sheiling, her legs trembling, a sick feeling of excitement churning in her stomach. The future Prime Minister of Britain had just kissed her! “No comment,” she said to the clamouring press as she swept into Number Ten. Where did Princess Di get her hats? She must find out.

  Sunshine, physical exercise, and dreams of glory. Alice was often to look back on that afternoon as the last golden period of her existence.

  The sun burned down behind the mountains, making them two-dimensional cardboard mountains from a stage set. The clear air was scented with thyme and sage and pine.

  To Alice’s joy, Daphne had been suffering from mild sunstroke and had been taken back to the hotel by Heather. So she was allowed to ride home with Jeremy.

  There is nothing more sensuous than a rich fast car driven by a rich slow man through a Highland evening.

  Alice felt languorous and sexy. The setting sun flashed between the trees and bushes as they drove along with the pale gold brilliance of the far north.

  The grass was so very green in this evening light, this gloaming. Green as the fairy stories, green and gold as Never-Never Land. Alice could well understand now why the Highlanders believed in fairies. Jeremy slowed the car outside the village as the tall blonde Alice had seen with Constable Macbeth came striding along the side of the road with two Irish wolfhounds on the leash.

  “That’s the love of Constable Macbeth’s life,” said Alice, delighted to have a piece of gossip.

  “No hope there,” said Jeremy, cheerfully and unconsciously quoting Lady Jane. “That’s Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, daughter of Colonel James Halburton-Smythe. Her photograph was in Country Life the other week. The Halburton-Smythes own most of the land around here.”

  “Oh,” said Alice, feeling a certain kinship with the village constable. “Perhaps she loves him too.”

  “She wouldn’t be so silly,” said Jeremy. “I wouldn’t even have a chance there.”

  “Do people’s backgrounds matter a great deal to you?” asked Alice in a low voice.

  Jeremy reminded himself of his future as a politician. “No,” he said stoutly. “I think all that sort of thing is rot. A lady is a lady no matter what her background.”

  Alice gave him a brilliant smile, and he smiled back, thinking she really was a very pretty little thing.

  The sun disappeared as they plunged down to Lochdubh. Alice prayed that Jeremy would stop the car and kiss her again, but he seemed to have become immersed in his own thoughts.

  When they arrived at the hotel, it was to find the rest of the fishing party surrounding Major Peter Frame. He was proudly holding up a large salmon while Heather took his photograph. Two more giants lay in plastic bags on the ground at his feet.

  “How on earth did you do it?” said Jeremy, slapping the major on the back. “Hey, that fellow’s got a chunk out the side.”

  “Fraid that’s where I wrenched the hook out, old man,” said the major. “Got too excited.”

  “Gosh, I wish I had stayed with you,” said Jeremy. “But I thought you went off somewhere else. Did you?”

  The major laid his finger alongside his nose. “Mum’s the word, and talking about mum, the filthy Iron Curtain champers is on me tonight.”

  “Let’s take them to the scales and log your catch in the book,” said John, his face radiant. The photograph would go to the local papers and the fishing magazines. He loved it when one of his pupils made a good catch. And no one had ever had such luck as this before.

  They all were now looking forward to the evening, reminding themselves that that was the time when Lady Jane could be guaranteed to be at her best. They were to meet in the bar at eight to toast the major’s catch.

  Alice slaved over her appearance. She had bought one good dinner gown at an elegant Help the Aged shop in Mayfair. Although the clothes were secondhand, most of them had barely been worn and the dinner gown was as good as new. It was made of black silk velvet, very severe, cut low in the front and slit up to mid-thigh on either side of the narrow skirt.

  She was ready at last, half an hour too early. This was one time Alice was determined to make an appearance. Her high-heeled black sandals with thin straps gave her extra height and extra confidence. In the shaded light of the hotel room, her reflection looked poised and sophisticated.

  Alice was just turning away from the mirror when all the barbed remarks Lady Jane had made seemed to clamour in her brain. It was no use pretending otherwise; Lady Jane had set out to fold out something about each one of th
em.

  Jeremy must never know. The future Prime Minister of Britain could not have a wife with a criminal record. But then, Lady Jane knew something about Jeremy. Had he seduced a servant? But that was an upper-class sin and therefore forgivable, thought Alice miserably. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked about her with bleak eyes.

  How perfectly splendid it would be to go back to Mr Patterson-James and hand in her notice, and say she was going to be married to Jeremy Blythe – “one of the Somerset Blythes, you know,” There was Mum and Dad in Liverpool to cope with. Alice thought of her small, poky, shabby, comfortable home. Jeremy must never be allowed to go there. Mum and Dad would just have to travel to London for the wedding.

  But between Alice and all those dreams stood Lady Jane. A wave of hate for Jane Winters engulfed Alice; primitive, naked hate.

  Ten past eight! Alice leapt to her feet with an anguished look at her travel alarm.

  The bar was crowded when she made her entrance. “Dear me, the Merry Widow,” remarked Lady Jane, casting a pale look over Alice’s black velvet gown. The fishing party had taken a table by the window where the major was cheerfully dispensing champagne. Alice’s entrance had fallen flat because the major was describing how he had landed his first salmon, and everyone was hanging on his every word. “It’s almost a good enough story to be true,” said Lady Jane.