Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 09 - Now May You Weep

“No. I was in the kitchen, getting the meal ready.” The uncertainty that had characterized Innes’s earlier answers seemed to have vanished, and Ross suspected he was telling the truth.

“But Hazel and Donald had a row about this woman, during dinner, was it?”

“I don’t know anything about that. I was in the kitchen, and serving the food.”

“I understand they went out together, after the meal.”

“Neither of them came into the sitting room for coffee, that’s all I can tell you. I didn’t see them go out.”

“You didn’t hear them arguing?”

“No.”

Ross sat back with a sigh. Innes’s answers had become not only firm, but mulish. Was it Hazel Cavendish the man was protecting? And if so, why? “I think that’s all

for now, Mr. Innes,” he said. “A constable will take your statement.”

“I’m free to go?” Innes sounded as if he’d expected to be hauled off to the nick.

“For the moment, unless you’ve something else to tell me?”

“No. I— Is it all right if I fix the breakfast now?”

Ross’s stomach rumbled in response to the thought of food, and he thought regretfully of the breakfast he had forgone early that morning in favor of gardening.

“This is aye a murder inquiry, Mr. Innes,” he said testily, “and there are more important matters to attend to than food.” Ross sensed Munro’s suppressed smile behind him, which made him all the more irritable. Munro knew, from long experience, that he got cross when he was hungry.

“I’m sorry.” Innes looked abashed. “God knows I didn’t mean any disrespect to Donald. But I thought it might help, you know, with the shock, if everyone had something to eat. It’s my remedy for all ills, cooking.”

The man was right, Ross had to admit. It never failed to amaze him that, in the midst of tragedy, the human body kept on demanding food and drink and sleep—even sex, often enough. “The constable is taking statements in the kitchen,” he said a bit more kindly. “You’ll have to wait until she’s finished, and your scullery will remain off limits for the time being.”

When Innes had left the room, Ross said to Munro,

“That wee mannie is hiding something, but I’ll be damned if I know whether it has anything to do with the murder.”

“Do you want to see the wife next, Chief?” asked Munro, rising.

“No. I think we’ll have a word with Miss Heather Urquhart.”

*

She would be a striking woman under other circumstances, thought Ross, with the contrast between her pale skin and her mass of long, dark hair. But now the hair was carelessly matted, the rims of her eyelids red from weeping. They had established that she had worked for Donald Brodie for ten years, beginning as his personal assistant and working her way up to distillery manager, and throughout the questioning she had been tightly abrupt, as if she didn’t dare give rein to her emotions.

Now Ross said thoughtfully, “Miss Urquhart, was your relationship with Donald Brodie romantic in nature?”

She stared at him with an expression of intense dislike.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Oh, but I’m afraid it is.” He leaned forward, saw her instinctive recoil. “Your employer, Miss Urquhart, was brutally murdered, and that makes everything about Donald Brodie my business. Have you ever seen a shotgun wound?” he added, deliberately cruel, meaning to shake her cold self-possession. “Not a pretty sight—”

Her hands flew to her face, as if she could shield herself from his words with her long, pale fingers. “Stop, please,” she said shakily. “No. The answer is no. Donald and I were friends—good friends—but that’s all.”

“Then maybe you can explain the woman who called on him last night, the one with the child.”

Nodding, Heather lowered her hands to her lap again, but not before he saw the tremor. “Her name is Alison Grant. That was her little girl, Chrissy. She’s a cripple.” Her voice held a faint distaste, as if the child had displayed bad table manners. “Donald had seen Alison a few times, but I think lately he’d been trying to avoid her.”

“So she came looking for him?”

“I don’t know how she’d have known he was here,”

said Heather, sounding puzzled. “I don’t think he’d have told her. I certainly didn’t.”

“Do you know where can we find Alison Grant?”

“She has a flat in Aviemore; I don’t know the address.

But she works in the gift shop on the main road, just down from the railway station.”

Ross made a note. “Did she argue with Mr. Brodie last night when she came here?”

“I don’t know. He only spoke to her outside.”

“And you didn’t discuss it with him afterwards?”

She shook her head. “No. There was dinner, and then . . . then he went out.”

“With your cousin, I believe, Hazel Cavendish.”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Couldn’t, or won’t?”

“I can’t, Chief Inspector. What either of them did after they left the dining room, I’ve no idea.”

“But there was a relationship between your cousin and Donald Brodie?”

“At one time, yes. But it was before I went to work for Donald, and I wasn’t privy to any details.”

“You weren’t close to your cousin?”

“No,” Heather said sharply, and then as if afraid she’d been too abrupt, she added, “not since we were children.

Her family moved away when we were in our teens.”

“Then perhaps you can tell me what will happen to the distillery, with Mr. Brodie gone.”

“I—I’m not sure. Donald’s sister is dead—you’ll know about that. His parents divorced before his father died, and his mother has remarried, so she has no claim on the estate. I’ve no idea what provision Donald made for his shares.”

“You’ll have the name of Mr. Brodie’s solicitor?”

“It’s Giles Glover, in Grantown. They were school friends.”

Ross took this down, then dismissed her.

Munro spoke up from his chair against the wall.

“Prone to tragedy, the Brodies, I’d say, with what happened to the father and daughter, and now the son.”

“I remember reading something in the papers—”

“Climbing accident on Cairngorm. Snow came down suddenly, cut them off. It was days before they found the bodies.”

“A bad business,” Ross agreed. “But I don’t see how there could be a connection.”

Munro looked disappointed, but rallied. “It seems to me the lassie was verra weel informed about Mr. Brodie’s affairs, for all her protest to the contrary.”

“Maybe, maybe not, considering her position in the firm. We’ll see the solicitor first thing tomorrow. But now, let’s light the fire in this bloody room. Then we’ll see what Mrs. Innes has to say.”

Louise Innes reassured them, with more confidence than her husband had shown, that she had not seen any member of the household near the gun cabinet, or any strangers in the garden or near the scullery. She couldn’t remember when she had last glanced at the cabinet, nor could she tell that her key ring had been tampered with in any way.

“What about last night, Mrs. Innes?” asked Ross. “I understand it was you who answered the door to the young woman who came calling for Mr. Brodie.”

Pursing her lips in disapproval, Louise Innes said,

“She was really quite rude. She demanded to see Donald.

I was afraid she was going to make a scene right there on the doorstep.”

“What did she say, exactly?”