“Yes.” Dropping her hands, Hazel looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I still can’t believe it.”
“Have you any idea why Donald left you his shares?”
asked Gemma.
“No.” Hazel shook her head in bewilderment. “Especially considering the way his father felt about me. I’m the last person Bruce Brodie would have wanted in control of his business.”
“Could that have been why Donald chose you?”
“To show his father up? But Bruce has been dead for years.”
“What if he felt his father had ruined his life by driving you away . . . a bit far-fetched, I’ll admit,” Gemma added with a sigh. She thought for a moment. “But what if Donald meant it as a gesture to prove his commitment to your future together? In which case, he must have in-
tended to tell you what he’d done.” Gemma’s heart gave a lurch as she realized where her supposition led. “Hazel, Donald didn’t tell you, did he?”
Hazel looked appalled. “Of course not! You can’t think I knew—”
“No, no. I’m sorry.” Gemma reached across the table and touched Hazel’s hand. “That was stupid of me. But what if Donald told someone else?”
“You think someone murdered him because of it? But why would someone kill Donald because he’d left his shares to me?”
“Is there any way someone could profit from your ownership?” asked Gemma. “What about Heather?”
“No. Heather’s the one who’s lost most over this, after everything she did for him. Only if I—” Hazel looked down at her stew and seemed to focus great concentration on taking a bite.
“What? Tell me what you were going to say,” demanded Gemma.
“Nothing. It was nothing. We should eat,” Hazel added brightly. “The stew’s getting cold.”
“That’s bollocks.” Gemma caught Hazel’s gaze, held it. “If you keep things from me, I can’t help. You do want to find out who killed Donald, don’t you?”
“You know I do.” Hazel shut her eyes, and Gemma saw her shudder, as if she were recalling the sight of Donald’s body. “All right,” she said at last. “It’s just that Heather made me an offer today. She said Pascal’s firm would buy my shares outright, immediately. She said I could just walk away from the whole thing, easy as pie.”
“That’s what she wanted from Donald,” mused Gemma. “But he wouldn’t give it to her. Maybe she thought you’d be an easier mark.”
“I don’t believe that. She’s my cousin, for God’s sake.
I’ve known her since she was a child.”
“You don’t know her now,” Gemma argued. “You haven’t seen her in ten years.”
“That doesn’t matter. I know she couldn’t have shot Donald. She loved him— I don’t mean they were lovers, but they were friends. She was like family to him.”
Too often, Gemma had seen love mutate into violence, but she didn’t have the heart to share that with Hazel. Instead she asked, “What are you going to do? Will you sell Pascal the shares?”
“How could I? That would mean betraying Donald—
and how could I agree to profit from Donald’s death?
That’s—that’s obscene.” Hazel pushed her bowl away abruptly, as if the smell made her ill. Her eyes filled with the tears she’d managed to hold in check for two days.
“This is too much. And then, when I talked to Carolyn tonight . . .”
“Tim’s mum?”
Hazel nodded. “We were friends, Carolyn and I, and now I’ve betrayed her, too. She kept trying to comfort me, telling me it was all some dreadful mistake and that things would be all right. But it’s not going to be all right.
If I’d had the slightest hope that Tim and I could patch things up, Donald giving me those shares put an end to it.
How can I possibly explain this to Tim?”
“Right now it’s more a question of Tim explaining where he was over the weekend,” said Gemma practically. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Tim had been there, perhaps close enough to touch, and yet she knew that was the last thing Hazel would accept.
“I’m sure he just wanted some time on his own. Why are the police talking to him, anyway, if they think Donald was shot with John’s gun?”
“They have to be thorough,” Gemma told her, feeling a twinge of guilt for having insisted that Ross have Tim interviewed.
“Not that I believe for a minute that John would do something like that,” continued Hazel. “I mean, why would he have wanted to hurt Donald?”
Gemma thought of the usual motives for murder. There was jealousy, but John had never met Hazel until that weekend. There was greed, but she couldn’t see how John had benefited from Donald’s death. There was revenge, but as far as she knew, Donald had been a good friend to John. And then there was the desire to protect a secret.
“Hazel, what do you really know about John?” she asked. “You and Louise hadn’t seen each other for years.”
Hazel considered for a moment. “Louise met John after Donald and I split up—after I’d gone back to England—so I never knew him when Louise and I were living in Grantown. I don’t think she ever really dated anyone seriously until she met John, come to think of it.
Um, let’s see.” She chewed her thumbnail. “I know he sold commercial real estate in Edinburgh before they came here, and that he and Louise had a flat in the New Town. I know he always wanted to cook. And then there are the obvious things, of course—he’s married to Louise; he has a much younger brother, Martin, from his mother’s second marriage.”
John did have another connection with Donald, Gemma realized, one she had forgotten. They had both been friends with Callum MacGillivray.
“This is dreadful,” Hazel said suddenly. “These are my friends. How can I be sitting here, speculating about them?” She pushed her bowl aside.
“I’m sorry.” Gemma could have kicked herself for being so insensitive. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked
you. This is hard enough for me, and I’ve only known them a few days.”
“No, I’m sorry.” Hazel gave her a tremulous smile.
“You’re trying to help, and I snapped at you. And here you must be worried sick about Kit, and I’ve been no use to you at all.”
“I’m certain he’s all right with Nathan,” said Gemma, reassuring herself as much as Hazel. She wondered what had happened to Duncan, and if he had succeeded in reaching Ian. “Why don’t you go on to bed,” she told Hazel, “and I’ll give Louise a hand in the kitchen.”
Hazel had protested, but without much force, and Gemma soon convinced her to go back to her room for a bath.
“You’re not staying with me, are you?” asked Hazel. “I think Louise meant to put you and Duncan in Pascal’s room.”
“You’re certain you don’t mind?” Gemma still didn’t feel entirely comfortable leaving Hazel alone, but she didn’t want to worry her by saying so.
“Positive.”
“Okay. I’ll just pop in and get my things later on.”
When she had seen Hazel out the front door, she stood in the hall for a moment, listening. There was a low murmur of male voices from upstairs. Duncan and Martin had obviously found something to talk about.
Collecting a stack of dirty dishes from the dining room, she carried them into the kitchen and looked around. There were cooking pots piled in the sink and an unfinished bowl of Cullen Skink on the small table, but there was no sign of Louise. Gemma thought she would have heard if Louise had gone up the stairs, so she stepped out through the scullery to have a look outside.
The garden was quiet, deep in the shadows of the late dusk. From somewhere nearby she caught the faint, pungent scent of tobacco smoke. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she noticed a flickering glow of light coming from the garden shed. “Louise?” she called out, crossing the lawn.