Priscilla make of his noisy, easygoing family?
He rose then and went out through the lounge to the dining-room. It was panelled in pine wood. Several small tables had been put together to make a big one and it was covered by a red-and-white-checked cloth and decorated with candles in wine bottles. A stag’s head ornamented one wall, and Hamish noticed to his surprise that it was fake. He hadn’t known that such a thing existed. Jane probably did not approve of bits of real animal being used, hence the fake head and the synthetic skins on the lounge floor.
Dinner was excellent and Hamish could only be glad that he was seated between the Carpenters and therefore protected by their bulk from Heather. Also, to his relief, conversation at dinner was innocuous. Jane was explaining that they would all go for a walk along the shore in the morning and then, after lunch, take a walk inland while there was still some light. Hamish enjoyed the excellent meal washed down with some good claret. He began to feel mellow. It was not going to be such a disaster after all. But he should show some gesture toward earning his keep.
As soon as dinner was over, he asked Jane to show him that bathroom heater.
Jane let him into her bedroom, through a door emblazoned with the legend “Sir Walter Scott.” It was furnished pretty much the same as the one allotted to Hamish, except that there were two bookshelves stuffed with women’s magazines instead of one.
He went into the bathroom and examined the heater carefully and then stood back and looked at the ceiling.
There was a patch of damp and black mould beginning to form on it. He was sure the builder had been right and that the heater had fallen off the wall because of the damp. In fact, probably the whole structure of the health farm needed to be treated for damp, but to tell Jane that at this early date would make him feel more of a fraud than he was and so he murmured non-committally that he would take another look at it on the following day, and that he would probably start his investigations by going to see Mrs. Bannerman.
Jane stood very close beside him. “I see what Priscilla means,” she said. “You are very competent.”
Hamish shied and took a nervous step back.
“How did you meet Priscilla?” he asked.
“It was at a party in London,” replied Jane. “Such a boring party, we decided to leave early and went to a bar for a drink and got talking. We had a few lunches after that.”
“And when did you last see her?”
“About three years ago, and then I heard this summer that her father had gone bust and turned the castle into an hotel.”
Hardly a friendship, thought Hamish. “Shall we join the others?” he said, easing around her and making for the door.
Jane looked a little disappointed but followed him out. “Pity,” she murmured. “I’ve never had a policeman before.” Or rather, that’s what Hamish thought she’d said.
The rest of the guests were back in the television lounge and grouped around the set. It was a talk show. A famous film star told everyone how he had got off the booze, and he was followed by a famous romantic novelist.
Heather’s eyes narrowed. “Just look at that silly woman. It gars me grue to see creatures like that making all that money producing rubbish.”
Sheila flushed and Hamish noticed that she slid the romance she had been holding on her lap down the side of the chair.
“Here, wait a minute,” said Harriet crossly. “I may only write cookery books, but I do know something about romance writers. To be successful you can’t write down, and very few of them make big money.”
Heather sniffed. “Money for old rope, if you ask me. And the historical ones are the worst. I doubt if they even open a history book.”
“Well, it’s the romance that sells it, not the historical content,” said Harriet soothingly. “For example, if I wrote a book about the French Revolution, I would describe the tyranny and horror and how the storming of the Bastille was only to get at the arsenal. There were only seven people freed, you know. Now your true romance writer would see it more through the eyes of Hollywood. Thousands of prisoners would be released while the heroine, dressed in rags, led the liberators. Great stuff. I really sometimes wonder if the less romance writers know, the better. Or, for example, I would describe a shiekh of the desert as a fat little man with glasses and a dish-towel on his head. Your true romance writer would have a hawk-eyed Rudolph Valentine character in Turkish turban and thigh-boots. It’s a harmless escape.”
“Harmless!” Heather snorted. “It’s even got women like poor Sheila here stuffing her mind with rubbish.”
“For heaven’s sake,” said Harriet crossly, “you watch the most awful pap on television, day and night. There was a programme on Channel Four last night about some Hollywood producer who does soft-porn horror films and who was treated by the interviewer as a serious intellectual. Anyone who writes popular literature, on the other hand, is treated like a charlatan, and do you know why, Heather? It’s because the world is full of morons who think they could write a book if only they had the time. You’re just jealous!”
“Yes, if you’re so bloody superior,” said John Wetherby, “why don’t you write a book, Heather?”
Heather looked at them like a baffled bull. Hamish guessed it was the very first time during her visit to the island that she had been under attack.
“Aren’t we all getting cross?” cried Jane. “Switch the goggle box off, John, and we’ll all have a game of Monopoly instead.”
Hamish was then able to see another side to Jane, the good-business?hostess side. She flattered Heather by asking her questions about the latest shows in Glasgow as she led them through to the lounge and spread out the Monopoly board on the table. She teased Sheila charmingly on having such a devoted husband and said she ought to write an article and tell everyone her secret. She congratulated Harriet on a beautiful meal and told Diarmuid, Heather’s husband, that he was so good-looking she was going to take some photographs of him to use for the health-farm brochure.
They all settled down in a better humour to a long game of Monopoly and nobody seemed to mind very much when Heather won.
Hamish at last went off to bed. The bed was comfortable and the central heating excellent. He wondered why Jane had seen fit to have extra wall heaters put in all the bathrooms, and then reflected that she was a clever- enough business woman to cosset her guests by seeming to supply them with a rigorous regime of exercise outside while pampering them with warmth and comfort indoors.
He was sure no one was trying to kill her. And yet, he could not shake off a nagging feeling of uneasiness. He put it down, after some thought, to the fact that he disliked Heather intensely and had been shocked by John’s revelations about his marriage. He would avoid them as much as possible. Harriet Shaw, now, was worth spending time with, and on that comfortable thought he drifted off to sleep.
???
Sheila Carpenter sat in front of the dressing-table in the room called Mary of Argyll which she shared with her husband. She wound rollers in her hair while her husband lay in bed, watching her.
“I could kill her,” said Sheila suddenly.
“Who?”
“Heather, of course.”
“I’ll do it for you, pet. Don’t let her bother you. She’s not wurth it.”
“Petty, stupid snob,” said Sheila with uncharacteristic viciousness.
???
“Who is that long drip of a Highlander?” demanded John Wetherby. Jane shrugged. She was putting away the Monopoly pieces in their box. “Just some friend of Priscilla’s.”
“You can’t fool me. For your benefit, your dear friend Heather told me this Macbeth was your latest.”
“It’s not true,” said Jane. “And Heather would not say anything malicious like that.”
“Oh, no? She’s a first-class bitch and I feel like bashing ‘her head in.”.
Jane studied him seriously and then said in a voice of patient reason, “You must stop this irrational jealousy, John. It’s not flattering or even sexually motivated. It is simply based on totally irrational masculine possessiveness. It said in an article I was reading the other day…”
