Cold, Lone and Still

‘I have no recollection of what we talked about. If the body on Rannoch Moor had been a figment of my imagination, I might still be worried, but what I found was a real man. I mistook him for Carbridge, that’s all. I had given my head quite a bash, you know. There was only one thing about the interview which worried me a little. Well, not worried me exactly, but made me feel a bit of a fool.’

‘Dame Beatrice’s diagnosis about hysteria, I suppose.’

‘Yes. Previously I had connected hysteria only with nervous females.’

‘What about shell-shock? If she had used that word to describe your condition, you wouldn’t have minded. Now I’ll tell you something else. You’ve been under stress for some time. I noticed it before you ever went on that Scottish jaunt, and now these two encounters of yours with murdered men have triggered off something which has been dormant for months. Why didn’t you tell Dame Beatrice what is really worrying you? — or you could tell me. We’re both safe enough as the repositories of guilty secrets.’

‘But I haven’t got any guilty secrets, dammit! All the same, I’m not too sure now that I ought to have agreed to hypnosis. I mean, it makes one so vulnerable.’

‘Think nothing of it. She would never make any capital of anything she learned that way; no doctor would. The point is — has her treatment worked?’

‘Like a charm, so far.’

‘Well, then, what are you worried about?’

‘I’ll tell you. Now that Bull has been cleared —’

‘Oh, but he hasn’t, you know. I thought the head beak made that abundantly clear. Bull has been put back into circulation, but only while Bingley gets more evidence. If what you tell me about Bingley is a correct assessment, he’s not the man to let go while he’s got his teeth into a suspect. You know that, as well as I do. You’ve said as much.’

‘There’s something Bingley doesn’t know, unless somebody has tipped him off. I’ve been waiting and dreading the day when it comes out that I had a row with Carbridge at Crianlarich.’

‘Well, you told me you had one with Todd, and he’s still alive.’

‘Yes.’

‘Could anybody else in the party have known about the quarrels?’

‘Not unless Carbridge himself had talked. Unfortunately, he was the sort of gregarious babbler who very easily might have done. Oh, I suppose Perth knew — and possibly the Minches.’

‘If anybody knew and had blabbed to Bingley, you would have heard about it long before this, but no wonder you’ve been worried. No wonder, either, that it was Carbridge you thought you had found on Rannoch Moor. I understand everything now. Let’s talk about something else. I’ve got my problems too, you know. This business of you and Hera. She’s been on to me again about joining the firm and having a partnership. I still don’t like the idea, Comrie. I don’t want any takeover bids and Hera is a very determined woman.’

‘She won’t kick in enough capital to make her anything but a very junior partner. We could do with a bit more money, couldn’t we?’

‘Well, yes, but in this case I’m sure the interest we should have to pay in the form of her making a takeover bid would be too high. Would you mind very much if I turned her offer down very determinedly indeed? We’ve stalled, up to the present, but I’m willing to bear the brunt of telling her firmly that there’s nothing doing. I quite see that it would be very embarrassing for you if you had to slip her the news.’

‘We’ll stick together over this. I am altogether of your point of view, although I shall have to involve you to some extent, of course.’

‘Help yourself. It won’t break this camel’s back if you load me up.’

‘After all, I don’t want her running round in this office, and that for more reasons than one. For one thing, as I’ve told her, I want her home when I get there after a hard day’s work. I’ve always said so to her.’

I envisaged a stormy interview but, although she set her lips and tilted that obstinate chin, she took my arguments calmly.

‘You may think differently when we are married, if ever we are,’ she said. ‘I believe you’ve cooled off.’

‘I’m only waiting for you to fix the date,’ I told her.

‘I’ve got commitments for the autumn, but some time in the New Year ought to be all right. And don’t worry about me and your agency. I knew, before we went to Scotland, that Sandy would talk you over.’

‘Nothing of the sort! You know very well that I want a wife, not a business partner. That’s the size of it.’

‘I could be both, but never mind.’

I gave Sandy the news that I was to be married in the New Year and that I had been firm about the partnership.

‘How did she take it?’ he asked.

‘Fairly lamb-like. She’s disappointed, of course, but she has accepted the situation with more grace than I thought she would. She said she knew what our decision would be.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since before she and I went on that tour — or so she said. She must have had the partnership in mind for months.’

‘Oh, well, now she will have a good many weeks to get used to the idea that she is not joining the firm. Nothing like a bit of a cooling-off time to resolve these little difficulties. Women are far more reasonable and amenable than men over business arrangements. By the time you’re married, everything will be all right.’

I was not too sure that either ‘reasonable’ or ‘amenable’ applied to Hera, but I did not argue. She had agreed