“It could be some parishioner that he is consoling.”
“You didn’t see the look on his face.”
“Crivens!” said Ailsa. “That wee man. I’d never have believed it. Did he see your hair?”
Eileen shook her head. “He was too wrapped up in that woman.”
“Are you going over there to confront him?”
There was a silence while Eileen looked down at her hands. Then she said, “No, I’m not.”
“But you’ll speak to him this evening?”
“Maybe not.”
Ailsa looked at her curiously. “You look a bit shocked, but not furious or distressed.”
Eileen gave a small smile. “Maybe I’m in shock.”
Ailsa took a meditative sip of a blue cocktail called Highland Wind, tilting her head so that the little tartan umbrella sticking out of the top of the concoction did not get in her eye.
“It’s a rare piece of gossip.”
“You’re not to talk about it,” said Eileen fiercely, “not to Jock, not to anyone.”
“All right.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“We’d best take our time until Colin leaves,” said Eileen. “Do you know what amazes me?”
“What? I thought the whole business of Colin being maybe unfaithful to you would be enough puzzlement.”
“That woman is wearing a ton of makeup and dyed hair, yet if I put on so much as lipstick, he shouts at me that it is not fitting for the wife of a minister.”
“Oh, that doesn’t puzzle me at all,” said Ailsa. “Men were aye the same. The minute they’ve got you, they start to try to get rid of all the things about you that attracted them to you in the first place.”
And despite her bewilderment at her husband’s behavior, Eileen felt once more enfolded in the world of women, a world banded together against the peculiar alien world of men.
¦
It took Hamish Macbeth some time to find Angus’s path. At last he located it and found his way up the mountain, searching all the while for clues. But by the time he had nearly reached the top, an easier climb than the other path, he found to his surprise, he had found nothing at all. The path looked as if no one had used it for years but rabbits and deer.
Still, anyone using the path could have easily reached the bit under that outcrop of rock. But how would anyone know Penelope was to stand there? Was it in the script?
He thought after some reflection that the murder had not been premeditated. Either Fiona or Gervase or Harry had seen the opportunity to get rid of her and had taken it. Right under the outcrop was a flat, sheltered bit where someone could have stood. Harry could have easily slid down there, reached up and pulled Penelope’s ankle to overbalance her. Fiona could have run off in the mist and done the same, or Gervase. And where had Patricia really been that day, and was her plea to him for help merely a blind?
Could the seer really think that Fiona had done it? If so, who had supplied him with that information? Angus rarely went out these days, but picked up gossip from his visitors. From time to time there were articles in the newspapers on ‘the seer of the Highlands,’ and he had been on television several times.
He noticed how clearly he could hear all the voices of the men still searching the heathery plateau above.
Anyone lurking down here could have heard the instructions to Penelope.
He made his way back down the mountain and headed for Drim Castle to learn that Patricia had been taken off to Strath-bane for further questioning. The information was supplied by Fiona.
“So what happens now?” asked Hamish.
“To Patricia?”
“No, to the TV show.”
“We go on. Mary Hoyle is flying up today. She’s a competent actress.”
“I’ve seen her in some things. Hardly a blond bombshell.”
“It’ll take a few alterations to the script, but we’ll manage.”
Hamish studied her for a few moments and then asked, “Do you think Patricia did it?”
“Yes, I do,” said Fiona, puffing on a cigarette which Hamish was pleased to note was ordinary tobacco.
“Why?”
Fiona put down her cigarette and ran her hands through her short-cropped hair. “None of us could have done it. I’ve worked with all these people before. It’s not in them. But writers! Take it from me, they’re all mad with vanity. They don’t understand how television works, and they expect us to dramatise every dreary word they’ve written.”
“It could be argued that murder is not in Patricia, either. She is very conscious of being a lady.”
“‘God bless the squire and his relations, and keep them in their proper stations,”’quoted Fiona.
“Aye, something like that. Is Sheila around?”
“She’s been taken to Strathbane for questioning as well. She was heard shouting to Penelope, “I hope you break your neck.””
“Have they taken in Gervase Hart?”
“No, not him.”
“I wonder why. He was overheard telling Penelope he’d kill her.”
“Who told you that?” demanded Fiona sharply.
“Meaning you’ve told them all to shut up, except when it comes to Sheila.”
“That’s not the case at all.”
Hamish sighed. “Lies, lies and more lies. Don’t go around trying to hide things from the police. All it means is that a lot of innocent people get grilled by Blair when the murderer could be running around loose.”
He decided to spend what was left of the day trying to find out if anyone had seen Patricia on the morning of the murder. He drove over to Golspie and learned that the police had already questioned the waitresses at the Sutherland Arms Hotel and had found that Patricia did indeed have lunch there. No one had noticed that her manner was anything out of the way. She had, for example, not been muttering and talking to herself as she had been on the day that Dr. Brodie had found her. But although he diligently checked around Golspie – calling first on Hugh Johnston, the owner of Golspie Motors, the main garage – no one had seen Patricia or her car. It was a white Metro. Perhaps she had stopped somewhere for petrol. He drove miles, checking at petrol stations without success.
¦
Colin Jessop, the minister, arrived back at the manse and called, “Eileen!” No one answered. He went through to the kitchen. There was a note on the kitchen counter. It read, “Gone to Inverness with Ailsa. If I am not back, there is a casserole of stew in the fridge. Just heat it for your dinner.”
He glared at the note and then crumpled it into a ball. It was this silly film business of Eileen’s that was making her forget her duties as a wife. Well, as soon as she got back, he would put a stop to it.
He ate his solitary dinner, looking all the time at the kitchen clock. At nine o’clock he heard a car drive up.
He got to his feet.
His wife came in. He stared at her in outrage, at her makeup and at her dyed hair.
“You look a disgrace,” he shouted, the veins standing out on his forehead. “You will go and wash that muck off your face, and tomorrow you will get your hair put back to normal, and then you will stop this film business which is leading you into the paths of sin.”
Eileen looked at him coolly. “At least my hair is not bleached blond. I was in that new restaurant in Inverness today. What’s it called? I know. Harry’s. That’s the place. You see some interesting sights in there. I wonder what your parishioners would say if I described one of the sights I saw. But I’ll say no more about it, Colin. The hair stays, the makeup stays and the filming goes on.”
He sank down slowly into his chair. Eileen gave him a gentle smile and went out, quietly closing the kitchen door behind her.
