Again Harry shook his head. “And I asked about that as well,” he said. “God, I wanted more than anything in the world to make sure that wass the last o’ him. He’d gone all right, but no one saw him leave.”
Hamish felt as if his brain were full of cobwebs when he left. If he stood back from the case and considered the fact that Peter Hynd might just have packed up and left…There was all the evidence for that. He had put his house on the market before he had disappeared. Betty, having got a taste for extra-marital affairs, could have gone out to meet someone else, someone from the village, and she could have tripped and fallen onto the rocks. Hamish frowned. But she hadn’t been carrying a handbag, nor had her hands been in her pockets, so why hadn’t she put out her hands to save herself? He should have reprimanded Heather, but somehow he could not bring himself to do so. He wished briefly he were a policeman like Blair and in Drim officially and he could harass the suspects without worrying about their feelings. Blair would have no difficulty, say, in approaching Edie and saying something tactful like; “So ye let Hynd get his leg over?”
He sighed and went down to the community hall. To his surprise when he entered, he saw the small figure of Heather.
She must have cut across the fields in her usual quick and silent way to get ahead of him. A massive woman was sitting at the piano. Nancy began to sing like Priscilla, Hamish was amazed at the purity and beauty of her voice. Annie Duncan joined her and began to sing as well, her voice deeper than Nancy’s. A spattering of applause from the women greeted the end of the song and Hamish, looking around, could see no sign of the bitter animosity that must lurk under each bosom. But then, that was the Highland way. He sat down next to Priscilla. “Going well?” he asked. “On the face of it,” said Priscilla. “Annie got the script this morning and went over to Strathbane and got it photocopied. She’s a good organizer. They might not like her choices, but it’s my belief they’ll all knuckle down and do what she says. Oh, one piece of gossip from the woman at the piano, Mrs. Denby, who cleans the manse. She says that the minister is dead set against theatricals and told Annie she was to drop the idea and Annie told him she would do no such thing. Mrs. Denby says she’s never heard them having rows before, but they’re having them almost every day now. Seems like Callum Duncan is the kind who likes his wife to be a sort of glorified servant, and ‘Yes, sir, no sir,’ and suddenly Annie’s having none of it and is rebelling at the slighest thing, telling him to make his own bloody tea when he summons her to the study and tells her to fetch him a cup, things like that.”
“That would only be of use if the minister murdered his wife,” said Hamish. Heather was now up on the stage getting her instructions, listening intently, holding the script, her eyes shining.
“And the villagers say Heather hasn’t shed a tear,” went on Priscilla. “Something wrong there, Hamish. It’s unnatural. I wish she would crack and break down and cry.”
“I’ve never seen a child further from tears,” said Hamish cynically.
Annie Duncan’s voice could be heard suggesting they all now read their parts in the first act. “And just here, after the first scene,” she said to Nancy, “you exit left where the steps go down to the dressing-rooms.”
“Dressing-rooms?” queried Hamish. “In a community hall?”
“Oh, this place is quite well-appointed,” said Priscilla. “One of those projects built quite recently by the Highland and Islands Development Board. There’s even a star dressing-room. Wonder who’s got that. Nancy, probably.”
In the first act, Nancy, the alderman’s daughter dreaming of the famous man who would one day marry her, sang an Andrew Lloyd Webber song. “Heavy royalties, that,” murmured Hamish.
“Why?” asked Priscilla. “Do you think they’re going to tell him, or that he’ll ever find out?”
The chorus of women backed Nancy and then exited right, leaving her alone on the stage. At the end of the song Nancy sailed off the stage with all the aplomb of a diva, but before the scene could switch to Dick Whittington and his cat, there was a scream from off-stage and the sound of a heavy fall.
Hamish ran forward, leaped on the stage, and ran to the exit stairs where Nancy had gone down. Nancy was lying at the foot of the stairs, her face contorted with pain.
“Don’t move,” he called.
He went down and crouched over her. “Easy now. Where does it hurt?”
“All over,” groaned Nancy.
“Here.” He put an arm behind her shoulders and eased her up. “Move your arms.” She cautiously did as she was told. “Now your legs, right and then left. That seems all right. Now, I’m going to help you up. Take it easy.”
He lifted Nancy to her feet. “There, you’re all right,” he said with relief, “although I’m sure you’ll have some bruises. What happened?”
“Something seemed to catch at my ankles,” she said, bewildered, “and over I went.”
“Come to the dressing-room and sit down,” said Annie Duncan. “I’ve got a flask of tea. Ailsa, tell the rest we’ll leave the rehearsals until the same time tomorrow.”
“Right,” said Ailsa, and Hamish saw her give a mock Gestapo salute behind Annie’s back.
Priscilla, ever efficient, had appeared to help Nancy along to the dressing-room. The rest of the women disappeared and Hamish was left alone.
He crawled up the stairs on his hands and knees, examining every inch. No sign of any string having been tied across the stab’s, nothing on the thin iron banister.
He went back down and stood to one side of the staircase and reached through. Yes, someone could have stood here easily and caught at Nancy’s ankles. The chorus had gone off to the right. But one of the women could easily have nipped round under the stage and waited for Nancy to come down. Another accident? Spite? Had Nancy broken a leg, she would have been out of the production. He felt a sudden fury against the inhabitants of Drim. And then he saw it, lying in a dark corner. It was one of those old–fashioned window-poles with a hook at the end for reaching the catch of windows high up in a church or a hall.
Now that, he thought, thrust through the banisters as Nancy came down, could have sent her flying. He longed for it to be an official case. He would even have gladly put up with Blair in order to get a forensic team to go over that pole for fingerprints.
Priscilla appeared behind him, making him jump. “You don’t think it was an accident, do you, Hamish?”
“Maybe. I think someone could have taken this pole and thrust it across the staircase just as Nancy came down. Who could it be?”
“Well, Nancy was alone on the stage apart from the pianist Let’s go back and ask Edie if she saw anything.”
Edie, when appealed to, looked startled. The women, she said, had sort of bunched together off the stage. Some had remained standing at the top at the right, watching Nancy, but she couldn’t be sure which ones. She herself had gone down to the large dressing-room shared by the chorus to put on some powder. Oh, and she had seen Jock Kennedy.
“And what was himself doing there?” asked Hamish.
“Annie had asked him to call in to help with the props. We haven’t any scenery yet, but she wanted to go over the lighting and stuff with him.”
“But he wasn’t anywhere in the hall,” exclaimed Priscilla. “I would have noticed!”
“There’s a door at the back which leads under the stage,” said Edie. “Anyone can come in that way.”
Anyone, thought Hamish bleakly, anyone in the whole of Drim, including Nancy’s husband. But it would have to be someone who had been there, who knew that Nancy would come down the stairs at exactly that time.
“What’s all this anyway?” demanded Edie, a trifle huffily. “It was just another accident.”
“Another one too many,” said Hamish grimly.
He surveyed Edie. Who, looking at her, could imagine her having an affair with a young man? Had Heather made up that list of names to throw him off the scent?
“Edie,” he began, “how close were you to Peter?”
Her face took on a guarded look. “We were friends,” she said cautiously. “He said I was the only one he could talk to.”
“And did you have an affair with him?”
Edie blushed painfully and her eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” said Priscilla. “Everyone has affairs these days.” Hamish glared at her. Except you, he thought.
Edie nodded wordlessly. There was an awkward silence.
