Lady Jane launched into her usual evening flow of anecdotes while the rest stared at her with hate-filled eyes.
What the major had done was not so bad. Alice thought he had been very clever. She herself, she was sure, would have sworn blind she had caught them.
Heather Cartwright was miserable. She had already posted off the photographs, developed quickly by John in their own darkroom, to the local papers and fishing magazines. Heather didn’t know which one she wanted to kill – Lady Jane or the major. When it had seemed as if the major had landed that splendid catch, Heather and John had heaved a sigh of relief. Surely nothing Lady Jane said could touch them now. It was the most marvellous piece of publicity for the fishing school. But the silly, vain, major had now played right into Lady Jane’s hands. Well I can just about bear it, thought Heather, but if anything happens to this fishing school, it will kill John.
“I always think those silly beanpole women who model clothes are a hoot,” Lady Jane was saying. “I remember going to Hartnell’s collection and there were the usual pan-faced lot of mannequins modelling clothes for the Season and the salon was so hot and stuffy and we were all half asleep. They were marching on saying in those awful sort of Putney deb voices, ‘For Goodwood, For Ascot’, and things like that, and then this one marches on and says, ‘For Cowes’, and we all laughed fit to burst.” Lady Jane herself laughed in a fat, jolly way.
Marvin Roth was gloomily longing for the appearance of that village constable with the red hair. No one else seemed to have the courage to be rude to Lady Jane. If she did know something about him, Marvin Roth, then good luck to her. But that remark of hers to the constable about ‘having power’ was worrying. What sort of power?
Blackmail, thought Marvin Roth suddenly. That’s it. And there was nothing he could do about it. Had they been in New York, then things might have been different. There was always – someone who could be hired to clear away people like Lady Jane…although he had heard that even in old New York things were not what they were in the early seventies, say, when a thousand dollars to the local Mafia could get someone wasted. If only he could do it himself. Maybe he should just try to pay her off before she approached him. Amy must never know. Amy was the prize. In order to get divorced from that little whore of a first wife, he had paid an arm and a leg, but gaining Amy Blanchard had been worth it. He knew Amy hoped he would make it big on the political scene. Of course,-Amy either knew or had guessed about his unsavoury past, but any approach to Lady Jane must be kept secret. There was a vein of steel running through Amy, and he was sure she would despise him for trying to conciliate Lady Jane.
Marvin polished his bald head with his hand and looked sideways at Lady Jane. No ma’am, he thought, the day I let a broad like you screw up my act, well, you can kiss my ass in Macy’s window.
At last the horrible dinner was over. Alice smoothed down the velvet of her gown with a nervous hand and smiled hopefully at Jeremy. He looked at her vaguely and turned abruptly to Daphne Gore. “Come on,” he said to Daphne. “We’ve got to talk.”
Alice’s eyes filmed over with tears. She was dreadfully tired. She felt alien, foreign, alone. When she passed the bar, it was full of people drinking and laughing, the other guests who did not belong to the fishing school. She hesitated, longing for the courage to go in and join them, longing for just one compliment on her gown to make some of her misery go away.
♦
Constable Hamish Macbeth leaned on his garden gate and gazed across the loch to the lights of the hotel. He had fed the chickens and geese; his dog lay at his feet, stretched across his boots like a carriage rug, snoring peacefully.
Hamish lit a cigarette and pushed his cap back on his head. He was not happy, which was a fairly unusual state of mind for him. This was usually the time of the day he liked best.
He had to admit to himself he had let Lady Jane get under his skin. He did not like the idea of that fat woman ferreting out details of his family life, even if there was nothing shameful to ferret out.
It was true that Hamish Macbeth had six brothers and sisters to support. He had been born one year after his parents had been married. After that there had been a long gap and then Mr and Mrs Macbeth had produced three boys and three girls in as quick a succession as was physically possible. As in many Celtic families, it was taken for granted that the eldest son would remain a bachelor until such time as the next in line were able to support themselves. Hamish had deliberately chosen the unambitious career of village constable because it enabled him to send most of his pay home. He was a skilful poacher and presents of venison and salmon found their way regularly to his parents’ croft in Ross and Cromarty. The little egg money he got from his poultry was sent home as well. Then there was the annual prize money for best hill runner at the Strathbane Highland games. Hamish had taken the prize five years in a row.
His father was a crofter but could not make nearly enough to support all six younger children. Hamish had accepted his lot as he accepted most things, with easy-going good nature.
But of late, he had found himself wishing he had a little bit more money in his pocket and yet he would not admit to himself the reason for this.
What he could admit to himself was that he was very worried about the fishing class. Crime in Hamish’s parish usually ran to things like bigamy or the occasional drunk on a Saturday night. Most village wrangles were settled out of court, so to speak, by the diplomatic Hamish. He was not plagued with the savage violence of poaching gangs, although he felt sure that would come. A new housing estate was being built outside the village; one of those mad schemes where the worst of the welfare cases were wrenched out of the cosy clamour of the city slums and transported to the awesome bleakness of the Highlands. To Hamish, these housing estates were the breeding grounds of poaching gangs who dynamited the salmon to the surface and fought each other with razors and sharpened bicycle chains.
Something in his bones seemed to tell him that trouble was going to come from this fishing class. He decided it was time to find out a little more about Lady Jane.
He sifted through the filing cabinet of his mind, which was filled with the names and addresses and telephone numbers of various friends and relatives. Like most Highlanders, Hamish had relatives scattered all over the world.
Then he remembered his second cousin, Rory Grant, who worked for the Daily Recorder in Fleet Street. Hamish ambled indoors and put through a collect call. “This is Constable Macbeth of Lochdubh with a verra important story for Rory Grant,” said Hamish when the newspaper switchboard showed signs of being reluctant to pay for the call. When he was at last put through to Rory, Hamish gave a description of Lady Jane Winters and asked for details about her.
“I’ll need to go through to the library and look at her cuttings,” said Rory. “It might take a bit of time. I’ll call you back.”
“Och, no,” said Hamish comfortably, “I am not paying for the call, so I will just hold on and have a beer while you are looking.”
“Suit yourself,” said Rory. Hamish tucked the phone under one ear and fished a bottle of beer out of his bottom drawer. He did not like cold beer and, in any case, Hamish had grown up on American movies where the hero had fished a bottle out of his desk drawer, and had never got over the thrill of being able to do the same thing, even though it was warm beer and not bourbon.
He had left the police office door open, and a curious hen came hopping in, flew up on top of the typewriter, and stared at him with curious, beady eyes.