‘You didn’t suspect that she was actually there, then?’ I said. ‘When you say you wanted to be close to her…’
‘No,’ said Abigail. ‘I had no idea where she was. I’d have gone to her otherwise. I’d have comforted her and brought her home.’ She fell silent.
Very gently, Alec tried to jog her into speech again. ‘So you went off to the back stairs?’
Abigail blinked. ‘Yes, I went up the back stairs and when I was near the top I heard a noise and I went out onto the landing and Mirren was there. On the floor. And her pretty hair.’ Abigail Aitken put her hands up and stuck her fingers into her own hair, pulling them through its tangles. I winced, hearing it snapping and watching her tug her hands free again. ‘She had the softest, most golden curls,’ she said. ‘As light as little feathers. When she was a baby she had a halo of gold all round her head and then little curls along her neck and then when she was three, finally enough curls to make a pigtail and she used to ask me “When will I have lady’s hair like you, Mama?” and I would think how I hoped she would never have anything but those thistledown curls.’
After a pause, I took a turn at nudging her.
‘And you took the gun out of her hand?’
‘Yes,’ said Abigail. ‘No. She wasn’t blinking, you see. So I put the lights out in case they were hurting her. Because she wasn’t blinking and she used to get sore eyes sometimes and I would put drops in for her. Then I took the gun. And I walked away, because I didn’t want to fall on top of her and hurt her, and I turned it on myself and shut my eyes and tried to squeeze the trigger but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make my finger move. And then I was sitting down and you came with Bella and then Bella went away and that’s when I saw how I could make it work. If I said I had squeezed the trigger and I had killed her then they would hang me. And do you know what I wish now?’
I shook my head.
‘I wish I hadn’t walked away to the other wall. And do you know why? Because then when I sat down I would have been beside her and maybe even touching her and I didn’t get to touch her after the police came. So that’s what I wish now.’
Bunty stood up, took a few paces forward and looked up at Abigail’s face, her tail waving very slightly. Then she turned and shuffled herself as close as possible in towards Abigail’s legs, sat down and leaned. Abigail laid a hand on her broad smooth head and patted her.
‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘Good dog.’
‘Now, Mrs Aitken,’ I resumed, feeling quite a lot better about questioning her now that she had darling Bunty as solace, ‘in the time between hearing the shot and coming onto the landing, did you hear anything else? Footsteps, doors opening or closing, any kind of scuffling? Any indication that someone else might have been there?’
Abigail continued her steady stroking of Bunty’s head. Bunty’s eyes closed in bliss. Abigail was almost smiling.
‘There was no one else there,’ she said. ‘My poor Mirren shot herself, Mrs Gilver. I wish you would believe me.’
‘If you would tell me why you’re so sure perhaps I could,’ I said, but Abigail shook her head.
‘I promised to be as open as I could without hurting another person,’ she answered. ‘If I told you why I was so sure I would be hurting someone who has done nothing to deserve it.’
‘Then let us tell you something,’ Alec said. ‘It might change your mind about suicide. Your mother-in-law, Mrs John, along with Dugald’s grandmother had formed a plan for the young people.’
‘I know,’ said Abigail. ‘An elopement. Mirren told me.’
‘She did?’ This was surprising news. ‘When?’
‘The night before she ran away,’ said Abigail. She withdrew her hand from Bunty and, winding both fists into her shawl, she stretched it tight across her body. ‘The night before.’
‘She told you about a planned elopement and the next day she was gone and yet you were sure she hadn’t eloped?’ Alec said. Abigail nodded her head.
‘She would never have married him,’ she said. ‘Never.’
‘That brings us very neatly to the next question,’ I said. ‘Why not? What was wrong with Dugald Hepburn? Why was the marriage forbidden so vehemently?’
Abigail said nothing for a moment or two. Then she spoke up with a harder note in her voice.
‘You should ask my mother,’ she said. ‘She was the “vehement” one.’
‘But you were against the notion too, Mrs Aitken, and so we are asking you. You liked the boy and Mirren – no matter what you say – seemed to love the boy. So what was wrong?’
‘My mother didn’t want it,’ said Abigail. ‘Nor my husband.’
‘Yes, we’ve heard from your husband,’ I said. Alec started, but I wiggled my eyebrows at him and went on. ‘Do you know why he was against it? Is it the same reason for you?’
‘No,’ said Abby quietly. ‘It can’t be. He didn’t know… Mirren’s secret.’
‘He told us it was money,’ I said.
‘What?’ said Abigail.
‘Mirren’s shares,’ Alec said. ‘The future of Aitkens’.’
‘Oh, yes, that,’ she said, doing nothing to shore up any belief we might have had that the shares really were a part of the difficulty. ‘My mother didn’t want to see Aitkens’ being… what was the word she used… consumed by Hepburns’, you see.’
‘Subsumed, I think you mean,’ said Alec. ‘She would rather have seen the business bled white by the Lawson estates?’
‘What?’ said Abigail.
‘Your mother and Lady Lawson were hoping to broker an engagement between Mirren and Roger,’ I said.
Abigail considered this for a moment or two, then she nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That might have done very nicely. I wish my mother had told Mirren about it. It might have given her something to look forward to.’
‘You’d have gone along with it?’ I asked. ‘You’d have taken your mother’s side in it?’
Abigail nodded, smiling.
‘My mother likes to have the arrangement of things,’ she said. ‘She chose Jack for me, you know. My father was not in favour of it – Uncle John was already gone by then – but Mother won the day. My father never really forgave her, you know. And when he died, I think Mother berated herself. For displeasing him. Even though it was too late then to undo the harm. Poor Mother. She’s the same now. About Mirren.’
She gave me a quick look, to see – I think – if I understood and I nodded to show that I did.
‘She spoke most heartrendingly to me,’ I said. ‘She feels utterly wretched about Mirren. She blames herself.’ I sat forward and fixed Abigail with my most serious stare. ‘If you could take that burden off her shoulders, Mrs Aitken, you would be doing a very fine thing.’
Abigail stared back at me and then she flushed and tears sprang into her eyes.
‘You mean tell my mother someone killed our girl?’ she said. ‘That wasn’t what happened. Why don’t you believe me?’ Bunty, upset by her voice, turned round and put a paw up onto her lap. Abigail shook it and a ghost of a smile came back to her face. ‘Good girl,’ she said again. ‘Good dog, aren’t you? We should get a dog,’ she said, looking up again. ‘I might get a puppy for Mother. Anything to help her. Anything to stop her being ill.’ She bent down and kissed Bunty’s head. ‘After my father died,’ she said, sitting up again, ‘my mother had to go away for a while. That’s how bad it was. In her grief, she became quite… it sounds dreadful to say this, but quite peculiar. She spoke very oddly, saying some dreadful things. About Jack and me – our being cousins, you know. So long as she said them to me alone, I didn’t mind, although it was very upsetting, but I was concerned when she started talking to the staff, you know.’
‘The servants?’ said Alec.
‘No, at the store,’ said Abigail. ‘Mrs Lumsden, for one. Telling her things that no one should say outside the family and even inside the family really.’