Henry could not bear unpopularity. He began to ask them questions about themselves, which they answered in polite monosyllables.
When Priscilla stood up and said they must leave, it was a relief.
They drove off in silence, and then Priscilla said in a small voice, “Did you have to be so patronizing, Henry?”
135
“I behaved very well,” said Henry stiffly. “Good God, Priscilla, they’re not the easiest of people to talk to. They’re as thick as pig shit.”
“They are not! They are very intelligent and very sensitive and they knew immediately you thought the things in their house were a hoot. You kept looking round at everything with a sort of unholy glee.”
“You’ll be saying next I should admire then-taste,” scoffed Henry. “All those ghastly ornaments. And that carpet screaming at the wallpaper.”
“It’s cosy,” said Priscilla. “Look, if you’ve been brought up among old, old things that have been used for generations, you have a longing for things that are bright and new. The government grants have made a difference. They have some money for the first time in then- lives. It’s only people who’ve been used to comfort who find domestic antiques beautiful. Mr Mackay’s son has an arts degree from Glasgow University. These people are different. And they often know what you’re thinking. What’s this big thing about good taste anyway? We went for dinner with those friends of yours before we left London, you know, those two raving queens in Pont Street. Everything was exquisite and the cooking was cordon bleu, but they were screeching and vulgar and petty. And in my opinion, anyone who puts funny junk in the loo is the absolute end.”
In the bathroom of Henry’s London flat was a framed series of mildly pornographic Victorian photographs.
“Don’t preach to me!” said Henry. “What about the glorious load of fakes in that home of yours? Fake armour, fake panelling – your father’s probably a fake colonel.”
Priscilla tightened her lips. If Henry had been a woman, he would have been damned as a bitch, she thought.
“It’s no use talking to you,” said Henry. “Look this murder has put us all on edge.”
“I am not on edge!” Priscilla’s angry voice seemed to fill the car. “You did not have to talk about countries you had been to and then carefully explain where they were on the world map. When you were talking about Lawrence Olivier, you might have called him by his proper name instead of talking about ‘dear Larry’. And I can only assume ‘darling Maggie’ is Princess Margaret, since, in your case, it could hardly have been Margaret Thatcher. I wonder the comrades ever put up with you. They must have loved being patronized. Were you one of those slobs who titillated the Left with cosy stories of sodomy and beatings at Eton?”
“Shut up!” shouted Henry, because what Priscilla had said was true.
“No, I won’t,” said Priscilla. “It’s almost as if you had unlearned how to be a gentleman, and now you’ve started being a gentleman again, you’ve forgotten how to go about it. You even hold your knife and fork as if you’re holding a couple of pencils. People like Mr Mackay and yes, even old Mr McPhee, are gentlemen.”
“What do you know about anything, you bloodless little Sloane Ranger?” howled Henry. “You with your ‘Not tonight, Henry’ and your prissy little disinfected mind.”
“We are definitely not suited,” said Priscilla in a quiet voice.
“You’re overwrought and talking rubbish,” said Henry in a conciliatory tone. “Didn’t I get on well with those people from the Crofters Commission? Honestly, darling, I am a very popular fellow, or had you forgotten?”
“That’s in London,” said Priscilla darkly. “Everything’s different in London.”
Henry shrugged and fell silent. She was in a bad mood. He would talk her round when they got back to the castle.
The day had changed. Great black, ragged clouds were rushing in from the east, a reminder that autumn comes early in the Scottish Highlands. Small wizened trees creaked and swayed beside the road, and the tarns on the moors gleamed black under the looming shadows of the mountains. The Two Sisters, the mountains above Lochdubh, stood up against the sky, as sharply silhouetted as if they had been made out of black cardboard.
Priscilla drove straight past the castle gates, where a group of shivering journalists and cameramen were huddled. She stopped about a mile along the road at a disused lodge.
“It’s only a little walk,” she said, “and it will bring you out in front of the castle.”
“And where are you going?”
“Somewhere,” said Priscilla, tight-lipped.
Henry muttered something under his breath and climbed out.
After Priscilla had roared off, he turned about to walk back to the main gates of the castle. Why should he let the chance of a lot of glorious free publicity slip past? And he had seen a London television unit when they had driven past. When he arrived, the press hailed him with delight.
Hamish was back at the police station in Lochdubh. Detective Chief Superintendent Chalmers was staying at the Lochdubh Hotel. Blair, Anderson, and MacNab had been transferred to a boarding-house at the other end of the waterfront.
He was interrupted during his evening chores by two American tourists whose car battery had gone dead. Hamish jump-started it and then invited the tourists in for tea. They were a pleasant couple from Michigan. Hamish, like most Highlanders, felt more at home with Americans than he did with the English. He chatted away happily for an hour and then sent them on their way, telling them to call at the garage when it opened at nine the following morning, and promising to see them at the crofters’ fair.
He had noticed while he was entertaining them that the kitchen floor was sorely in need of a scrub. He changed out of his uniform into his old clothes, got a pail of soapy water and a scrubbing brush, and got to work, fending off Towser, who thought it was some sort of game.
He was aware of being watched, and looked up. The evening was growing dark and he had not yet switched on the electric light in the kitchen, but he recognized the slim figure lurking in the doorway.
“Come in, Priscilla,” he said. “I’ve just finished.”
“You’d better put down newspapers, Hamish, until the floor dries,” said Priscilla, “or Towser will ruin your good work.”
“There’s a pile on the chair over there,” said Hamish. “Pass them over.”
“I’ll put them down for you,” said Priscilla, switching on the light.
Hamish looked sharply at her, but she quickly bent her head, her thick hair falling forward to shield her face.
“I was just about to have my supper,” said Hamish. “I would ask you to join me, but I suppose you’ll soon be getting back to the castle for your dinner.”
“I would like to stay,” said Priscilla in an uncharacteristically small voice,
“Aye, well, you’d better go ben to the office and call your parents and tell them where you are or they’ll be worried.”
“I don’t want to tell them I’m here,” said Priscilla.
“No, well, chust tell them you are going round to the Church of Scotland to discuss the arrangements for the White Elephant stall. We’ll go along afterwards and that’ll make it all right.”
“All right, Hamish,” said Priscilla meekly. She left the kitchen and he looked curiously after her.
He thought gloomily of the two mutton pies he had bought at the bakery on his road home. Then he shouted, “I’m stepping out. Back in a minute.”
He ran into his back garden and cleared the fence with one lanky leap. He knocked on his neighbour’s door.
Mrs Cunningham, a faded English lady who ran a bed-and-breakfast, answered the back door.