‘Well, it would,’ said Mrs Smellie. ‘But tell me this, madam: do you think Miss Abigail knows who her father is?’
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Definitely not. She thought she was helping Mary when she told her about Robin yesterday.’
‘What a mess,’ said Margaret-Ann, almost groaning.
‘I hope getting it off your chest will bring you some comfort,’ I said. I noticed that despite the pink light bulb my face in the glass, and hers too, was rather grey. ‘And you know the inspector was right in a way. It is perhaps best that Mirren at least is beyond the suffering that the knowledge must have brought to her. Oh, the poor child! I could never imagine what would make someone turn to suicide but I can see how she might not be able to bear herself once she knew.’
‘The inspector?’ said Mrs Smellie. I blinked at her. ‘I never mentioned my husband’s rank, madam.’
‘I think you did, you know,’ I replied.
‘I know I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I never do. Because my sister is married to an inspector. She always gets it in somewhere and it always grates on me.’
‘Well then, I can’t account for it,’ I said. I stood and pushed the little pink chair tidily in under the looking-glass table. ‘A lucky guess? Or maybe Dulcie said so. Yes, that’s it. Dulcie told me.’ A faint ghost of that mischievous grin was back on Mrs Smellie’s face although her complexion was still waxy.
‘Mrs Gilver?’ she said. I froze. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘I was so angry with George when he told me what he had done to you. I didn’t scold him because he had a steak clapped to his face and he couldn’t answer me back, but for two pins I’d have socked him one on the other side and balanced it out for him.’ I let my breath go in a huge rush.
‘You were angry with your husband?’ I said. ‘Not mine? Not me?’
‘Certainly not you, Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘My gracious heavens, if we all had to take the blame for what our husbands do! And as for Mr Gilver – he was sticking up for you; he sounds a fine man if you don’t mind me saying. Besides,’ she dropped her voice, ‘policemen can get too used to tramping about in their size elevens telling everybody else what’s what and how come. Don’t you think so?’
‘I wouldn’t like to say, Mrs Smellie,’ I said.
‘Smiley,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘He’s the stubborn one, madam, not me.’
Alec was tucked up in a club armchair in what I perceived to be the gentlemen’s corner of Hepburns’ tearoom. Most of its area was covered with more of the little Continental-looking tables and chairs where pairs of ladies perched and nibbled at pastries, but in one corner, furthest away from the doorway into the hairdressing salon (from which unmistakable traces of Marcelling lotion were emanating to mingle with the aroma of good fresh coffee and warm buns), there was an oasis of armchairs, where daily newspapers were folded on the tables and where husbands and chauffeurs might wait in relative masculinity.
I waved to Alec and beckoned him to join me at a wrought-iron perch, rather an out-of-the-way one where I might speak freely.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘Mystery solved?’ I nodded. ‘Coffee? Cake?’
I shook my head. ‘You’ll wish you hadn’t had any either when I tell you.’ He raised one eyebrow and sat back with his arms folded to hear the tale. Now, I know Alec thinks I veer too much towards the dramatic for no reason, so I should really have tried to make sure he braced himself for what was coming. As it was, his face drained and he gulped and one of the waitresses – Hepburns’ staff were really quite stupendously attentive – came over to ask if he felt quite well and did he perhaps require a drink of water or a taxi. He accepted the offer of water with grateful thanks.
‘No wonder Mary went off like a rocket years ago when she returned home to find things so chummy with the young Hepburns and Aitkens,’ he said.
I shook my head; it was so awful that one almost had to laugh: almost.
‘But what she didn’t see and what Robert Hepburn didn’t see either was that they made the other family forbidden fruit with their stupid feud. Jack and Hilda got an extra frisson from trysting with one another, and in Aitkens’ too. Robin probably thought he was being very daring with Abigail.’
‘And what was Abby up to?’
‘Following her mother’s hints,’ I said. ‘Finding an obliging lover so that she could carry on the Aitken name, even if not the bloodline.’
‘Well, Abby doesn’t have any Aitken blood, does she?’ Alec said. ‘No wonder Mary wasn’t worried about her marrying her so-called cousin Jack.’ He blew out hard. ‘And so the secret of Mirren’s parentage was what Abby told Mary yesterday.’
‘And for all Mary knew, Mirren might have told Dugald and so Mary couldn’t rest until she found out if any of the surviving Hepburns knew about it and, if so, whether they could be trusted never to say.’
‘And do they?’
‘I think Robert does,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he recognised Dulcie’s likeness in Mirren and worked out what it means. Remember, he couldn’t bring himself to look at her picture and when he saw it in spite of trying not to he was horrified. He saw his wife there.’
‘How long do you think he’s known? How did he find out?’
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Mary told Mirren that she was Dugald’s cousin some time ago, trying to put a stop to the marriage plans. Abby told Mirren that Robin was her father, to make Mirren believe that she was Dugald’s sister, to stop Mirren eloping. Of course, what that revealed to Mirren is… the thing I can’t seem to say.’
‘Her mother and father were brother and… Yes, I see what you mean, Dan. It doesn’t trip off the tongue’ ‘And that’s why Mirren ran away. She couldn’t face her mother once she knew.’
‘Poor child,’ said Alec.
‘Poor everyone,’ I agreed. ‘One can’t really blame Robert or Robin, if the women were really out to ensnare them. And one can’t blame the women. They each of them wanted a child. Mary gave it years and years with Ninian and Abby gave it five years with Jack.’
‘Dandy, don’t be so disgusting. You sound like a farmer. What about Jack and Hilda? Is it poor them too?’
‘If, during that time of tennis and card parties when Mary was away, when Abigail was trying to seduce Robin-’
‘Doesn’t sound like any tennis party I’ve ever been to,’ Alec said.
‘-if, as I say, Jack and Hilda got a whiff of what their spouses were up to, why shouldn’t they have thought that what was sauce for the goose and gander was sauce for the gander and goose?’
‘Neatly put,’ Alec said. ‘And then of course Hilda had been kept in the dark about the four sisters until she was up the aisle and it was too late. I must say, I blame whoever brought about that piece of diplomacy.’
‘Except, look around,’ I said, waving a hand towards the hair salon. ‘Hilda has been pretty lavishly indulged in her life, hasn’t she? And anyway she found a way around the worry of Robin’s poor sisters.’
‘I feel for Abby most,’ said Alec. ‘Poor, heavy-hearted Abby doing her mother’s bidding. I don’t say Jack doesn’t feel guilty, but he’s guilty like a little boy, half-sheepish and half-pleased with himself and hugging his naughty secret.’
‘But still I can’t help thinking that Abby should have been more careful about parties and chance meetings in such a small town,’ I said. ‘I mean to say, we ourselves thought it was the most eligible match imaginable, didn’t we? How could Dugald and Mirren have failed to meet? Either the Hepburns or the Aitkens should have cut their losses and left town. There are no innocents, Alec. Not a one.’
Alec thought for a moment and slapped his hand on his thigh.
‘Bella,’ he said. I cocked my head at him. ‘She’s innocent.’