With that, she shot forward to where Miss Shanks was stumping along and I dropped back and fell into step with Miss Barclay and Miss Christopher, together again like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
‘I’ve upset Miss Lovage,’ I told them.
‘Not difficult,’ said Miss Barclay, with a world of scorn in her voice for artists and their flighty ways.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ said Miss Christopher.
‘Well, I was asking about Miss Blair to start with,’ I said. ‘Which she didn’t like at all.’ The chalky little titter of Miss Barclay and the rattling chuckle of Miss Christopher were loud enough to cause some of the girls to turn and stare.
‘Hardly a surprise!’ said Miss Barclay. ‘Not much kindred spirit there.’
‘Because of the cricket?’ I asked.
‘Oh, you heard about the cricket, did you?’ said Miss Christopher. ‘Some of the mummies and daddies didn’t think it was quite nice. And such a waste of the lovely new tennis courts too. Not to mention her taste in music.’
‘Violins?’ I asked. I could think of nothing worse than the sound of children learning to play the violin.
‘Bagpipes,’ said Miss Barclay.
‘Dear God!’
‘But Miss Shanks took over when Blair left us in the lurch, and the girls are just as well off with callisthenics and country walks. And Mrs Tully in the village is happy to listen to them playing their scales.’
We were at the church gate now, joining the rest of the flock being gathered in under the stern eye of a black-garbed minister who stood on the step, and it was impossible to resist the unspoken command to stop talking and stare at the ground as one passed him. Just as well, I daresay, for how could I relate Miss Lovage’s horror at the makeshift way I had dropped French and taken up English to two women who were cribbing science and history by staying one page ahead of the girls in the textbooks?
During the service I had plenty of time for quiet reflection, for the rites of the Church of Scotland – in which there are no kneeling and no responses and what little standing is required is heavily cued by the organ – give one’s mind a blissful chance to wander with no one able to tell. Actual snoring is frowned upon, but pew after pew of glazed, slumping parishioners dreaming of their dinners is the sight which greets many a minister of that kirk every week, I am sure.
And so after the service, when I excused myself from the walk along the promenade and dodged into the Crown by the back way, I felt I had plenty to tell.
To my surprise and slight annoyance, Alec was not alone in the parlour but was sharing a glass of beer and a plate of sandwiches with an off-duty Constable Reid, rather resplendent in britches and a golfing jersey and with a pancake of a golfing cap lying beside him on the settle.
‘The sarge’s no’ buying it,’ he said. ‘Good news for you, missus.’
‘Buying what?’ I asked.
Constable Reid took a pull at his pint glass before replying.
‘Five murders. Or even one murder. I’ve telt him all about Miss Lipscott – good family, went off the rails, teachin’ in a school, livin’ like a nun – and he reckons she’s likely a wee bit’ – he twirled his hand beside his head and whistled – ‘and no need to listen to her.’
‘But she has to be found!’ I said. I had had a complete change of heart in the matter of Fleur’s protection, thinking that if the police wanted her for murder, they would work all the more for her safe return.
‘We don’t know how she got away,’ said Reid. ‘She didn’t get on the train here nor Stranraer nor Glenluce as far as the station masters can recall – and she’d have had a wheen of luggage, mind.’
‘Stranraer?’ I said.
‘I already asked about a ferry-boat,’ said Alec. ‘No joy. And she didn’t hire a car or ring anybody to come and get her.’
‘And she’s no’ holed up in any wee place in town or in Portlogan that takes in guests unless they’re lyin’ and why would they? So there you have it. She’s gone.’
‘And Sergeant Turner is simply washing his hands of her?’ I said.
‘I told him what you told me,’ said Reid. ‘That they women are always taking off. He’ll send her lines out – her description – to the other forces but nobody’s reported her missin’ and so…’ He shrugged.
‘Can I report her missing?’ He was shaking his head already. ‘Her headmistress? Or one of her sisters?’
‘Aye, a sister for sure,’ said Reid. ‘Then we’ll have another wee look-see.’
‘But in the meantime, Dandy,’ said Alec, ‘it’s you and me.’
‘And what about the corpse?’ I said.
‘It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper,’ said Reid. ‘We’re asking the ferries and the fishing boats – no’ that our fishermen would have a woman aboard, mind – and asking down the coast if anyone’s missin’ and we’ll just need to wait till somebody pipes up.’
‘And no clues from the body itself?’ I said. ‘Did someone search the headland?’ Reid was nodding. ‘And question passers-by?’ Now his eyes flashed. ‘Yes, I do mean Cissie,’ I said. ‘If she was there on her own, noticing Mrs Aldo with her mysterious companion, she might have noticed someone else too.’
‘But only on Tuesday evening and only at that spot, Dan,’ said Alec.
‘Better than nothing,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to the girl and do it gently.’
‘Or me,’ Alec said.
‘I think you’ll have other fish to fry,’ I said. ‘Do you suppose you could impersonate a distressed headmaster, or a doting and wealthy father of at least five?’ I sailed on without waiting for a reply. ‘Here’s what I’m thinking. How many gym-cum-music mistresses can there possibly be in this rather small country – Scotland, that is – who like to get their charges playing cricket and bagpipes?’ Neither man answered. ‘Now, if Miss Blair left suddenly in the middle of a term – and I think she did – wouldn’t she most likely apply with some haste to an agency to find work? And even if she didn’t, mightn’t an agency know her of old?’
‘And I what?’ said Alec. ‘I ring up pretending to want a woman to teach cricket?’
‘Exactly,’ I said.
‘Wouldn’t it be easier for you simply to keep digging for a home address or something?’ he said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘On two counts, no. First, if I “dig” they’ll get suspicious, and secondly you can do this right now instead of waiting. And if you find one ex-mistress you can ask her about the others.’
‘But why start with Blair?’ said Alec.
‘The other two have even more dispiritingly ordinary names – Taylor and Bell.’
‘What’s ordinary about Lipscott and Bow-clark?’ said Reid, making me flush.
‘Very sound point, Constable,’ I said. ‘Although it’s a bit quick to expect Fleur to be back on the books.’
‘I’ll eat my hat if she turns up on agency books at all,’ said Alec. ‘She’s lying low, mark my words. Mademoiselle Beauclerc though… could be.’ He thought for a moment, sucking on his unlit pipe in that disgusting way (the very thought of what it must taste like made me grimace). ‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘not getting a whiff of them doesn’t mean anything. They might have gone home to their people.’
‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘But if we did find Miss Blair, for instance, happily coaching some pigtailed first eleven somewhere, we could stop worrying that she’d been murdered.’
‘No’ that again,’ said Reid. ‘If the body we’ve got the now isn’t the French one, why think there’s anything in it that four other teachers went away?’
‘Because I still don’t believe we can be sure that the corpse isn’t Miss Beauclerc,’ I said, to a chorus of their groans. ‘I know Miss Lipscott said not, but she ran away straight afterwards. And I know Miss Barclay said not, but…’ Both of them sat forward and opened their eyes very wide. ‘I don’t trust her,’ I finished lamely. ‘I don’t trust anyone in that place.’