? Death of a Cad ?
10
A crofter’s son once defined a croft as a small area of land entirely surrounded by regulations.
—katharine stewart.
Summer returned for the day of the crofters’ fair. Hamish rose early and unstopped Mrs Cunningham’s drainpipe. He was interrupted by the superintendent, demanding to know why PC Macbeth had been sounding his police siren. Hamish said he had been testing it out, as he did periodically, because you never knew when it would come in handy, to which Chalmers replied, “Well, go easy on the booze, son.”
As all the members of the house party were to attend the crofters’ fair, Chalmers said he had got Colonel Halburton-Smythe to agree to a further search of all the rooms in the castle. He ordered Hamish to attend the fair and to see if he could elicit any further information from the guests.
Hamish tactfully did not point out that he had promised to attend anyway and that the police car was being used to transport cakes and scones to the fair.
The school kitchens were being used for last–minute baking. When Hamish arrived there shortly after nine o’clock, it was to find all the members of the house party helping out. Even old Sir Humphrey Throgmorton appeared to be completely recovered and was beating batter in a bowl with a gingham apron tied round his waist.
Lady Helmsdale advanced on Hamish with a bowlful of raisin-spotted batter. “Be a good man,” she boomed, “and give that a stir while I get on with something else.”
“I’m surprised to see you all here so early,” said Hamish. “I thought you wouldn’t turn up until this afternoon.”
“Got to keep these people on the move,” said Lady Helmsdale. “Can’t have them moping around the castle being badgered by those scribe-chappies and nosy coppers and dosing themselves with tranquillizers. Tranquillizers, pah! Lot of muck, if you ask me. In my mother’s day, a good dose of castor oil put an end to stupid fancies. People are getting murdered every day. Can’t take this one too seriously. Fact is, the world’s a better place without that cad.”
“You cannae expect me to approve of people taking the law into their own hands,” said Hamish.
“Why not?”
“That’s anarchy.”
“Nonsense, Bartlett was a cockroach. Someone stepped on him. Jolly good for someone, is all I can say.”
She moved off to make sure everyone was working.
Hamish noticed Priscilla and Henry were working together at a table over in the corner. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Hamish thought they might have had some sort of reconciliation after a quarrel. They were being playful and giggling a lot, rather like a couple trying to show the world how really happy they were, reflected Hamish, feeling sour with jealousy.
Carrying the bowl, he moved over to join Diana and Jessica.
“Can’t we ever get away from the police?” said Diana nastily.
“I’m not policing at the moment,” said Hamish mildly. “I’m beating cake mixture.”
“I don’t mind you joining us,” said Jessica. “Unlike Diana, I don’t have a guilty conscience.”
“I’m tired of your bitching, Jessica,” said Diana. “Some friend you’ve turned out to be. You’re so jealous of me, you can’t resist making a crack at every opportunity.”
“Why on earth should I be jealous of you?” demanded Jessica.
Diana ticked off the items on her fingers. “I have looks, and you don’t. I attract men, and you don’t. Peter was wild about me and he thought you were a joke. He said it was rather like screwing the old grey mare who ain’t what she used to be.”
Jessica picked up a bowl of batter and slammed it full into Diana’s face.
“Now, now,” bleated the Reverend Tobias Wellington, bustling forward. “Christian charity, girls! Christian charity!”
“Oh, piss off, you old fruit,” said Diana, clawing batter from her face.
Mrs Wellington brushed her husband aside and strong-armed both the girls out of the kitchen into the school-yard where her voice could subsequently be heard berating both with magnificent force and energy.
“I do wish she wouldn’t go on and on,” said Pruney Smythe, appearing at Hamish’s elbow. “It reminds me of my school-days.”
“Serves them both right,” said Vera Forbes-Grant, with her mouth full of freshly baked cake. “This stuff’s delicious.”
“Leave some of it for the fair,” said Lady Helms-dale. “You’ve eaten half a chocolate sponge cake already.”
Diana and Jessica came back, looking chastened. Now that they were both under attack, their odd friendship had resurfaced.
“Ghastly old trout,” muttered Diana. “I bet she wears tweed knickers.”
“I’ve a good mind to put a dose of rat poison in her bloody cake,” said Jessica. “Let’s clear off and find a pub. Thank God, they don’t have licensing hours in Scotland.”
“Exit Goneril and Regan,” murmured Sir Humphrey.
“Goodness, did someone say something about gonorrhoea?” asked Lady Helmsdale.
Sir Humphrey flushed. “No, no, dear lady. I was referring to the daughters in
“Oh,
With the absence of Diana and Jessica, the cooking party became very merry. Even Freddy Forbes-Grant, who had been mooning around his wife, suddenly brightened up and began to help with the preparations. Jeremy Pomfret, who had been in the grip of an almost perpetual hangover since the murder, drank a glass of Alka Seltzer and began to look almost human again.
Hamish waited around even after the first batch of cakes was ready, hoping Priscilla would look at him or smile at him, or show in some way she had not forgotten their dinner date. But Mrs Wellington sharply ordered him to get a move on, and so he set out with the police car loaded up with boxes of cakes, pies, and scones for the fair, which was to be held on a sloping field at the back of the village.
Colonel Halburton-Smythe and his wife had gone on ahead and were already there, loading up a mass of junk on to a table that constituted the White Elephant stand. It was a sort of recycling of junk. People bought it one year and then handed it back the next. Fat little ponies cropped the grass, their tiny owners strutting about, brandishing large riding crops.
Some gypsies were setting up side-shows. Hamish wandered over. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you lot,” he said. “No bent rifle sights this year, no glued-down coconuts, and no brick-hard dart-boards which no dart could possibly stick in.”
“We’ve got to make a living,” whined one.
“But you’ve begun to cheat all the time,” complained Hamish. “It fair breaks my heart to see the children wasting their pocket money and not even winning a goldfish for their pains.” He picked up a rifle from the rifle range and held it up to his eye. “Deary me,” he said mildly. “Bent again. Fix those sights, or get out.”
He wandered off, followed by a volley of Romany curses.
On the other side of the field, Mrs Mackay was setting up her spinning wheel, preparatory to giving her annual demonstration. “This is the last time ever, Hamish,” she said. “I feel such an old phoney, me that buys all my clothes from Marks and Spencer.”
“Aye, well, the tourists like it,” said Hamish. “How’s your leg?”
“Better. As long as I don’t walk about too much, I’ll be all right.”
“I hear you had the royal visit?”
“Oh, Miss Halburton-Smythe and her fellow. Aye. Talk the hind leg off a donkey, he would.”
“I’d better be getting back for the next load,” said Hamish. “There’s the stuff to collect from St Mary’s after I’ve done with the Church of Scotland.”
Like most Highland fairs, the crofters’ one ditjiered along in a chaotic mess until two in the afternoon, when everything suddenly took shape. Henry Withering was right there in the swing of things, buying a sheepskin rug, a
