funeral.” And with that, Alison burst into tears, while P.C. Graham took out her notebook to question Crispin, and Mrs. Todd moved quickly forward, saying, “Come along, now. You’d best go up to your room and leave us to sort matters out here.”
Alison stumbled out.
But she did not go to her room. She went out to the garage and wrenched open the doors. Driving, that was it, her only solace, her only comfort.
She roared off down the precipitous cliff road, her eyes blurred with tears. The road ran along the edge of the cliff and as Alison raced along, she realised dimly that she was going too fast to take the hairpin bends and pressed on the footbrake. Nothing happened. A corner hurtled towards her and she screeched round it and down the next stretch, her hands sweating on the wheel. Another corner was looming up. She screamed, wrenched into a low gear, and seized the handbrake and pulled with all her might. The car skidded off the road and slithered to a stop, the little front wheels of the mini hanging over the cliff edge.
Alison sat there, numb with shock. Below her the sea heaved and sucked at the base of the cliffs. She gave a whimpering sound and released her seat belt. Although she moved only slightly, the car gave a creak and seemed to dip. She twisted her neck. It was a two-door car and so she could not climb into the back seat and escape that way. It was out of the question to try to struggle through one of the back windows for they were too small and any effort to escape that way might overset the car.
She sat there for what seemed like ages while the screaming seagulls wheeled overhead. The wind was rising, she realised numbly. If she sat there much longer, one good gust would tip the little car into the sea.
Praying loudly, she grasped the door handle and pressed it down. The door swung open. Immediately below her was the sea and just behind, springy turf.
With a yell, she flung herself out of the car, twisting sideways, her fingers scrabbling at the springy turf. She lay face down, her legs dangling over the edge of the cliff. Beside her, with a sad little creak, the mini slowly slid over the edge of the cliff and plunged down into the sea.
Sobbing and grasping grass roots, Alison pulled herself forward on her belly. She heard a car drive up and a car door slam, but still she continued to ease forward until she was well clear of the cliff edge. Then she looked up.
Peter Jenkins was standing there, his hands on his hips, looking down at her.
“Whatever are you doing?” he asked. “Playing games?”
¦
Hamish Macbeth could never understand why mews cottages, those old converted carriage houses, should be considered chic. They had been built for carriages and coachmen out of the poorest of brick and usually faced north. The cobbled way outside mews cottages always seemed to be a magnet for dog owners who allowed their pets to use it as a lavatory.
The cottage owned by Glenys Evans was painted white and bedecked on the outside with honeysuckle and roses in tubs. Inside it was decorated in neo-Georgian with hunting prints on the walls, fake Chippendale furniture, and a ‘Persian’ rug made in Belgium on the floor.
Hamish Macbeth was not a sentimental man and did not believe in the fiction of the tart with a heart and Glenys was not of the breed to prove him wrong. She was a thin, stringy woman dressed in tweed skirt, twinset, and pearls. The tarts who squandered their money went down to the gutter and the ones who invested became middle class, thought Hamish, if Glenys and Maggie were anything to go by.
Charm was not going to work with this one and so he did not waste any time in conversation but got down to the interview, asking her respectful questions and calling her ma’am.
Glenys visibly thawed before all this correct courtesy and began to talk about the old days. It was rather like listening to an opera star reminiscing about her heyday, thought Hamish. She talked of the casinos, the private planes, the best hotels, the best restaurants, her eyes filled with happy dreams. Hamish gently steered the conversation round to the four men he was interested in.
“It’s all so long ago,” sighed Glenys. “Let me see, Crispin Witherington.” Her face darkened. “I remember him. Maggie and I were sharing a flat at the time. He had the nerve to say it was his flat and tried to turn us out. There was ever such a scene. But the deeds to the flat were in Maggie’s name whether he paid for it or not. He was only sore because she’d ditched him for that little pipsqueak, James Frame. Now what she ever saw in him, I don’t know. Anyway, I remember, she was just getting tired of him when he disappeared from the country. He wrote to say he was bankrupt, I remember. What a laugh we had about that. As Maggie said, it was nothing to do with her. He would have gone bankrupt anyway. Then Steel Ironside. I don’t know that much about him. I was living in Cannes with Lord Berringsford at that time, but she was always in the papers. Said they were going to get married. Not her type. But I suppose she enjoyed all the fuss. Peter Jenkins was soppy about her. Wrote her poetry and turned white when she came into the room. She liked that. We used to have such a giggle. ‘Here comes love’s young dream, rsquo; I used to say. But this Arab sheik came on the scene and Maggie flipped off with him. She said he was a beast, the sheik, I mean, and she didn’t get as much out of him as she had hoped.”
“Wait a minute. I might have some photographs.”
Hamish waited patiently while she disappeared upstairs. So much for the fallen woman of Victorian novels, he thought. Glenys showed no signs of being racked with guilt about her past. In fact, she seemed proud of it and obviously thought she had had a successful life which, indeed, in material terms, she had obviously achieved.
She came back downstairs, carrying a box of photographs which she proceeded to rummage through. “There we both are with Crispin,” she said at last.
Hamish looked at the photograph. Crispin had been a fairly good-looking young man. He was standing with Maggie and Glenys beside a white Rolls Royce. Maggie was slim and blonde and Glenys a sultry brunette. They must have been a formidable pair, thought Hamish. There was a press photograph of Maggie leaving a pop concert with Steel Ironside, a thinner, younger Steel without the beard.
“What happened to her husbands?” asked Hamish suddenly.
“Baird died not long after she married him. He was a stockbroker. Taught her all about the market.”
“What did he die of?”
“Heart attack. He was a lot older than her. The other one, let me see, Balfour, was a bit of a crook. Got done for doing a bank and went inside. Maggie divorced him.”
“What is Balfour’s first name and where did he live?”,
“His name was Jimmy and he lived in Elvaston Place in Kensington, but I can’t remember the number. It wouldn’t help you anyway, because he rented the flat and that was years ago.”
“And when did you last see Mrs. Baird?’”
“The last time I saw her was about a year ago. We didn’t part friends. In fact, I gave her a lecture. Letting herself go like that and all over some two-bit waiter. ‘Get on a diet,’ I said. ‘You look a fright, you do.’” Glenys patted her bony hips complacently. “‘You should be like me,’ I said. ‘You’ve forgotten that men are only good for one thing.’”
“Sex?”
Glenys looked amused. “No, darling, money.”
“What about this waiter?” asked Hamish.
Glenys sighed impatiently and told Hamish as much as she knew about the waiter but said she could not remember either his name or where he had worked but that Maggie had allowed herself to be cheated “just like a beginner!”
Hamish asked more questions and looked at more photographs, and then finally took his leave. He felt he had learned nothing much to help towards solving the case.
He seemed to have spent hours and hours with Glenys, but he found to his surprise that it was only eleven in the morning and that he had only been with her for an hour. He decided to catch the midday train to Inverness.
During the long journey back north, he kept turning the case over and over in his head. If only Priscilla would call on him, he might be able to see things more clearly. He always did after talking to Priscilla.
But there was no one waiting for him at the police station.
Only a note from Alison to say she was staying the night at Mrs. Todd’s cottage in the village and would he call on her, no matter how late.
Hamish sighed. He hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a waste of time.
