were situated in Inverness. Mrs. Gentle had visited them a year previous to draw up her will.
“What were the conditions of the will?” asked Jimmy. “And how much was she worth?”
“With this building, stock and shares, and so on, close to twenty-five million pounds.”
“And how was it to be left?”
“Fifty per cent to her son, Andrew Gentle, thirty per cent to her daughter, Sarah, and twenty per cent to her nephew, Mark.”
“Did you know she planned to make a new will, leaving her estate divided equally between her son and daughter?”
“No, this is the first I’ve heard of it. I learned from your superintendent that you would be wishing to see me, and so I came straight here. Perhaps I should take the opportunity to have a few words with the family if they are not too distressed.”
“I don’t think any of them are grieving at all,” said Jimmy.
“Where is Mr. Daviot?” asked Hamish when the door had closed behind the lawyer. “I thought he was taking over.”
“Our Supreme Being has decided that I should do the interviews first, then he’ll take over and interview them all again.”
Sounds of a screaming altercation faintly reached their ears. “Someone’s not enjoying the news about that will,” said Hamish. “You know what is puzzling me? Twenty-five million pounds is a great deal of money, yet if Byron Gentle was a top financier, it doesn’t seem much.”
“It was at the time he died,” said Jimmy. “Let’s have the daughter in.”
Sarah erupted into the room, wild-eyed with distress. “I want you to arrest Mark right away,” she howled. “He’s your murderer.”
“Have you any proof of that?” asked Andy MacNab, speaking for the first time.
“It stands to reason. She was going to change her will, and he would have got nothing.”
“Please sit down, Mrs…is it Dewar?”
“Yes, I’m divorced.”
“Where were you during the past week?”
“I was down in Edinburgh looking for a job.”
“Do you have proof of that?”
“I stayed at a rotten little bed-and-breakfast, put my name down with Jipson’s employment agency in Leith Walk, and went for various interviews.”
Jimmy gave her a sheet of paper and a pen. “Just write down where you are staying in Edinburgh and the exact address of the agency.”
Hamish spoke up from his corner. “You must have been very angry when your mother threw you out.”
“What are you talking about? Mother was devoted to me. But I wanted my independence.”
“I overheard her telling you to get out,” said Hamish. “It was on the day I called on your mother.”
Sarah glared at him, finished writing, and then said defiantly, “Well, no one wants to admit to having been sent away.”
“It would be as well to stick to the truth,” said Jimmy harshly. “You were suddenly forced into finding work. What had you done before by way of employment?”
“I married young but got divorced two years ago.”
Again Hamish’s voice. “And you blamed your mother for the divorce. What happened?”
All the truculence and defiance left Sarah, and she seemed to crumple. “I had an affair, just a brief fling. I don’t know how Mother got to know of it but she told Allan, my husband. I hadn’t ever worked so I told her she owed me and she could keep me.”
“That seems a good reason for murder,” said Jimmy.
“My own mother! Don’t be stupid.”
“Now, about the maid, who we now know was called Irena. Was there anything that happened at the family party that she might have overheard and used to blackmail someone?”
“No, but she caused a lot of trouble. Mark was flirting with her and so was Andrew.”
More questioning, and then she was allowed to leave.
“Now what?” asked Jimmy. “The children, I suppose. Neither of them married. We’ll have John in first.”
John Gentle drifted in and sat down opposite Jimmy.
He seemed to be thinking of something other than the interview. He gazed dreamily at the ceiling while Jimmy restarted the tape recorder and read out his name, age, and address.
“Where were you during the last five days?” asked Jimmy.
John studied his nails. Then he said, “In my studio in London.”
“You are an artist?”
“Yes.”
“Have you witnesses?”
“My friend, Robbie. He lives with me.”
“I want you to write down his full name and also where you were in the evenings.”
John bent over the paper and began to write slowly. Hamish studied him curiously. When the family had first arrived, John had looked frightened. Not any more. He was almost too calm.
When he had finished, Hamish asked, “Have you taken tranquillisers?”
“Oh, yes. Lots. My nerves are delicate, you know.”
The questions continued, and John answered them all in the same dreamy manner.
He was finally dismissed and told to send his sister in.
¦
What a name to be cursed with, thought Jimmy, when you’re a stocky, tough-looking girl. Her large, almost swollen lips were somehow unnerving.
Twinkle answered all the questions he had already put to the others with a sort of brisk efficiency. She was a computer expert and worked for a merchant bank in the City. They could check that she was at her desk the day her grandmother was murdered.
When she had gone, Jimmy said, “What a mouth!”
“Trout pout,” said Hamish. “Collagen.”
“How do you know these things?”
“I observe,” said Hamish.
“Well, observe this. We seem to have at least two motives if we can break their alibis – Sarah and Mark.”
“If it was one of the family, they’d need to have had an accomplice,” said Hamish. “The woman who made that phone call was tall and slim.”
Jimmy’s phone rang. He listened carefully and then rang off. “Dr. Forsythe’s done the toxicology report. Date-rape drug in the sherry. She must have felt herself blacking out and tried to vomit the drug up. It was the blow on the head that killed her. Only one of the wineglasses had been used. The other one was clean.”
“I feel if we could solve the murder of Irena, then we could find out who murdered Mrs. Gentle,” said Hamish. “Anything about her from the Russians?”
“Not yet. They should come up with something, however. It’s not as if it’s political.”
“Unless her protector, Grigori, is in the mafia and the Russian mafia has links to politics,” said Hamish.
“I tell you what, Hamish. Get back down to Lochdubh and see if you can find that woman or at least the bike. I’m going to have them in again.”
? Death of a Gentle Lady ?
5
