‘And Fiona?’ I said.
‘Less so if you ask me,’ said Alec. ‘Fiona sold off her daughter to the highest bidder and was so keen not to see his social background too clearly that she entirely missed the problems in the line.’
‘Who’s being agricultural now?’
For a moment we sat in silence, thinking about the secrets, the betrayals, the desperate schemes, the stubbornness, all the misunderstandings. Jack and Hilda’s secret, Robin and Abby’s secret, Robert and Mary’s secret too. If only Mirren had never met Dugald all the secrets would have been kept for another twenty years and twenty more and both of them would have married and made lives and never suffered a day’s torment.
‘Talk about the sins of the fathers,’ I said at last. ‘And now back to Mary. If she’s well enough to see us today.’
‘Us?’ Alec said. ‘Do you think I’ll add anything to the encounter?’ And then seeing my expression he relented. ‘Oh, all right then, I’ll come too.’
An inquiry at the cottage hospital brought the news that Mrs Aitken had been moved home under the close supervision of Dr Hill, with two private nurses in attendance night and day, and so we took ourselves once more to Abbey Park, hoping not to see Abigail if I am honest, or Jack, and half-hoping we would not be given an audience with Mary either. In fact, Alec was probably right because only Bella of the entire household did not give me a shuddery feeling when I thought of her.
Fortunately, for the swift conclusion of the case if not for the comfort of the detectives, Dr Hill when summoned said that Mary had been asking for me and he was delighted that I had come. We were taken upstairs to the drawing-room floor and ushered into a large room facing the garden and for that reason flooded with fresh afternoon sunlight. It was not, I thought, Mary’s usual bedroom, unless it had been hastily stripped of most of its appurtenances to bring it to the peak of sparse cleanliness hospital nurses demand, for there was nothing in it besides a high narrow bed – not quite a hospital bed but along the same lines – a side-table for measuring out medicines and some hard chairs for visitors. There was a second table in the bay window, where several florists’ bouquets were arranged, too far away for the patient to derive any pleasure from them but probably still too close for the nurses’ hygienic ways.
Mary, on the high bed, appeared to be asleep. At the bedside, Bella sat with her hands clasped and her eyes fixed on her sister-in-law.
‘Have you come for the dog?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Pity. Abigail has taken a great liking to her. Poor Abigail, she tries to sit with Mary but she keeps weeping and then…’ She nodded to one of the nurses and rolled her eyes. Indeed, this nurse was a fearsome-looking creature, with a complicated cap which came right down over her shoulders like folded wings and a dazzling white uniform so severely starched that it cracked like sails in a high wind whenever she moved. Her face was ruddy and stern and her chin, perhaps from years of her drawing it in to show disapproval, was almost non-existent, her face disappearing into her neck which disappeared under her collar and continued without any suggestion of a swell at her bosom or a dip at her waist.
‘Are you family?’ she said.
‘Dr Hill was very pleased we’d come,’ I replied. I knew a thing or two about nurses after my war years and a doctor was the only thing one could brandish before them which would ever make them falter.
‘I might go and stretch my legs,’ Bella said. ‘Come and fetch me if she wakes and asks where I am.’ She stood with a bit of creaking and groaning, looked down into Mary’s face for a moment and then with a tear in her eye she turned and stumped off out of the room.
The nurse tutted when she was gone.
‘Mooning around like that is no good to us,’ she said, glaring at Alec and me. ‘We need cheerful distraction and jollying along, not weeping and wringing hands.’ Alec and I nodded and mumbled and all but curtseyed and the nurse, satisfied, left us with Mary while she went off to some mysterious task in a side-room where there seemed to be a sink with running water.
As soon as she was gone. Mary opened her eyes and lifted a hand.
‘Mrs Aitken, I’m surprised at you,’ I said, taking her hand and squeezing it. ‘You were playing possum!’ Mary rewarded me with a very faint smile and a suggestion of a laugh. Her face still had the slipped-down look on one side and the rings around her eyes were darker, if anything, the line between her brows deeper than yesterday, but then the move from hospital to home must have been draining for her and the forced cheeriness of the nurse along with Bella’s doleful looks could not be helping.
‘We’ve spoken to the Hepburns,’ I said. ‘They’re not going to tell anyone anything. You have no worries there. I don’t actually think that many of them, if any at all, know the thing that’s troubling you.’ She turned her head on the pillow and regarded me with a hunted look that made me want to take her in my arms and hug her. ‘We worked it out,’ I said and she closed her eyes and moaned. ‘The one person we think might know the whole story is Robert Hepburn himself.’ Another moan. ‘But he won’t speak up. How could he? He and his son would be as shamed in the eyes of the world as any shame he could hope to bring down upon you and your daughter.’ Mary Aitken gave a short, harsh sound that might have been a laugh and rolled her head from side to side upon the pillow. ‘Well, yes, probably not, the world being what it is,’ I conceded, ‘but there would still be enough opprobrium to make sure he never tells. So, there it is. You can put it out of your mind and direct all your efforts to getting better again.’
Mary shook her head with her eyes closed.
‘But Mrs Aitken, you must,’ I said. ‘For Abigail. She blames herself for Mirren dying and she blames herself for you being ill now and if you don’t get better she will be wretched. She doesn’t deserve that. No matter what-’ I bit off the prim censure and started again. ‘And you don’t either. You didn’t know, Mrs Aitken. You knew half the story and Abigail knew the other half.’ Actually, they each knew one third; the last third was Jack and Hilda’s secret. Alec and I were the only ones who knew everything, except for a few very small little puzzles, one or two embers still glowing amongst the ashes.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I said. Mary opened her eyes and looked at me, rather wary. ‘I know you didn’t read Mirren’s letter. Never mind how I know, I’m right, aren’t I? But you must have realised that a hand-delivered note meant she was hidden in the attics. What I still don’t really understand is why you didn’t just go and search for her? Why get me involved?’
Mary had a most peculiar look in her eye now. She put the fingers of her one good hand up to her lips and rolled her eyes in a show of terror.
‘You were frightened to go?’ Alec said. Mary nodded and then she mimed a gesture that neither one of us needed to translate into words to make clear. She pointed one finger, cocked her thumb, put her hand to her head and made a popping sound with her lips.
Alec and I stared at one another.
‘Did you know she had Jack’s gun?’ I said. I remembered the stock lists in the attic ante-room and what everyone had told me about Mary Aitken’s grasp on what was where, and I felt pretty sure that she would have known exactly where Jack Aitken’s old service revolver was kept and would have checked to see if it was missing. I felt a moment’s umbrage that she had been happy to send me off looking for a girl who had a revolver and was in a troubled state of mind, but there was no point in making a fuss about what might have been and so I said nothing.
‘You’d think if she was angry enough to shoot anyone, it would have been Hepburn,’ Alec said. ‘Old Mr Hepburn, I mean. She didn’t know him and she’d been brought up with you, by you, and loved you. I’d have thought she’d have gone after the old man.’