“You were prepared to fire Fiona when Jamie asked you.”
Harry rose, his large bulk looming over her. “And look what happened to him,” he said. “I’ve taken enough. Get on with it, luv. Because it would be easier to replace you than either Fiona, Gervase or Sheila. There’s plenty of little totties with good bodies and thin talent prepared to take your place.”
“Are you saying I can’t act?”
He shrugged. “You’re no great shakes. Think about it.”
After he had gone, Penelope scrabbled in her handbag. Her pills had gone!
One of them must have taken them, but she couldn’t very well complain. She swallowed a couple of tranquillisers. They couldn’t really fire her. They wouldn’t dare.
¦
To everyone’s relief, Penelope performed her part during the rest of the day without any awkward scenes. Her acting was a little wooden, but Giles decided to let it go for the sake of harmony.
By evening Penelope’s tranquillisers had worn off, and she was feeling cross and irritable and hard done by.
Fiona was the one she hated the most. She wanted revenge. She had demanded that Fiona be fired, and that demand had been refused.
When she arrived in the dining room of the Tommel Castle Hotel that evening, she pointedly did not join the others but took a table on her own in a corner. She ordered trout and a bottle of champagne. After the others had left, she stayed in the dining room, finishing the bottle.
And then she heard a high, fluting English voice, saying, “I am a trifle late, but I do not feel like cooking for myself tonight.”
Penelope looked up. Patricia Martyn-Broyd was being escorted to a table. Suddenly Penelope, elated and angry with champagne, thought she saw a way to get even with Fiona. She rose a trifle unsteadily to her feet and weaved between the tables in Patricia’s direction, and came to a stop in front of her.
She leaned one hand on the table for support and said, “You surely weren’t taken in by that farce this morning, Patricia.”
“Well, at first it did look a little bit shocking, but after Fiona had explained it, I just had to accept that I am a bit behind the times.”
“You silly old cow,” said Penelope contemptuously, “that scene with the nightwear was laid on for your benefit. The real scene, the screwing one, is the one that will be shown.”
“You must be lying!”
“Why should I bother? Instead of constantly complaining and interfering, you should be kissing our feet that your dreary books have got some recognition.”
“I shall get a lawyer tomorrow,” said Patricia, “and get it stopped.”
Penelope shrugged. “You can try. The reason you are shocked at the thought of naked bodies is because of the horrible one you’ve got yourself. I bet you have to hang a towel over the bathroom mirror.”
Patricia looked wildly around and saw the manager. “Mr. Johnson,” she called. “Remove this person.”
“I’m going,” said Penelope, feeling all powerful. “But I tell you this,” she said over her shoulder. “You should save your money. You signed the contract and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
After she had gone, Patricia sat at her table like a stone. The maitre d’ came up with the menu.
“What?” said Patricia in a dazed way.
“Are you ready to order, madam?”
“Yes…no…no, I am going home…home.” Patricia stood up. She knocked her handbag to the floor, and the contents scattered over the carpet. She knelt and began to pick them up. Jenkins, the maitre d’, stooped to help her.
He remembered afterwards, when questioned by the police, that Miss Martyn-Broyd had been weeping.
To Fiona’s relief, it was a very subdued Penelope who reported for work at seven the following morning. The scene of the chase across the mountain was to be reshot. The sun had gone and the day was misty, all colours bleached out of the landscape.
“Won’t the mist be too thick up on the mountain?” Fiona asked the director.
“It’s supposed to lift later,” said Giles, “and we might get some good atmospheric shots.”
Once the helicopters had everyone up on the heathery plateau, they all climbed out. Sheila felt there was something wrong in being in the same place where Jamie had been murdered. Mist swirled around. Sometimes it lifted and she could see everyone clearly, and then it closed down again.
“We’ll just do the running shot,” said the director when everything was set up. “Perhaps it won’t work with this mist. You start from here, Penelope, and run over to the edge and stop short.”
“Isn’t that where Jamie was murdered?” asked Penelope.
“No, he was murdered over there. Sheila, go over to that crag and show her where to stand.”
Sheila obediently trotted off. The mist lifted again like a curtain being raised, and they could see Sheila standing on an outcrop of rock.
“You’ll come to a stop right here, Penelope,” Sheila called back. “Then you stand and shield your eyes and look down the mountain.”
“Wait there a minute,” Giles called.
Sheila stood where she was. A shaft of sunlight suddenly lit up the village of Drim, standing beside the black loch. The air was pure and clean and scented with wild thyme.
“All right,” she heard Giles shout. “You can come back now.”
Sheila walked back. “So, Penelope, in your own time,” said Giles, “start running and then stop just where Sheila was.”
“Mist’s closing down again,” said Fiona.
“I know,” said Giles. “But I just want to try one shot and see what she looks like disappearing into the mist.”
Penelope was wearing a long scarlet dress which floated about her excellent body.
They all took up their positions. “Right,” said Giles softly, “when you’re ready, Penelope. Quiet, everyone. And…action!”
Penelope ran off into the mist as fleet as a deer. She disappeared into the thickening mist. There was a silence.
Then suddenly there was a high, wailing, descending scream.
“She’s fallen!” screamed Sheila.
“Not her,” said Giles dryly. “Just playing silly games. Go and get her, Sheila. Fiona!…Where’s Fiona?”
Sheila ran forward. She reached the outcrop. There was no sign of Penelope.
“Penelope!” she shouted.
At first there was no sound at all, and then she heard a faint moan coming from far below her.
Then the mist lifted again and she saw Penelope spread out on a rock a dizzying distance below the outcrop.
“Oh, God, she has fallen!” she screamed. “Get help! Phone Hamish Macbeth!”
As if in mockery, the mist lifted entirely and the sun blazed down.
¦
Harry Frame, Fiona, Giles and the production manager, Hal Forsyth, sat huddled in Fiona’s office in Drim Castle.
“Her family are going to sue the life out of us,” muttered Harry Frame.
The phone rang, making them all jump. Fiona picked it up and listened. Then she said in a bleak voice after she had replaced the receiver. “That was Sheila from the hospital in Inverness. Penelope’s dead. She died on arrival.”
“Shit!” said Harry Frame bitterly. “Time’s running out. We’ll need to get a new actress, coach her. Winter comes here early.”
Major Neal put his head round the door. “Police,” he announced.
Startled faces turned in the direction of the door.
Detective Chief Inspector Blair lumbered in, followed by Macnab and Anderson.
“Penelope Gates is dead,” he said.
