‘Shame about these shoes,’ Alec said. He was holding one up – a high-heeled evening slipper of plum-coloured kid with a glittering gilt buckle. The buckle was rusty and there was bloom of mould on the kid too. ‘Shame the boxes aren’t sturdier, I mean. There’s water been getting in here. Or damp, anyway.’
‘Water,’ I said.
‘Or damp.’
‘Water bottles. Hot water bottles, Alec, let’s find them.’
I could not remember where in the exuberant chaos of Aitkens’ attics the hot water bottles had been and so we just circled around, opening door after door until my head at least – Alec kept his own counsel – was whirling.
‘Ah!’ I said, when we opened a door and saw a profusion of plaster limbs. ‘I think they might be near here. With marmalade.’ Alec had gone on ahead.
‘Twenty-five tins, dangerously blown, masochists, for the use of,’ he called back. ‘Here’s marmalade anyway. And, yes – eureka! – water bottles. Quite a lot of them.’
‘With the price tickets gone,’ I said, joining him and crouching down beside the heap of India-rubber water bags. Their stoppers were in now, but I unscrewed one and tipped it up. Some drops of brownish water fell out onto the floor.
‘Something wrong with their insides to turn the water that colour,’ Alec said. I sniffed the open neck of the bottle and then gave it to him to do the same.
‘It’s not water,’ I said. ‘It’s tea.’
Alec stared, sniffed again, and nodded.
‘India tea,’ I said. ‘If you don’t interrupt me and I concentrate very hard I think I might be able to explain everything.’ I sat back on my heels, took a deep breath and began. ‘On the day of Mirren’s funeral but well before it, when the store was empty, Dugald Hepburn came here to meet someone, to see the place where Mirren died. And that someone took gloves from the shop floor to guard against fingerprints and shoved him down the lift shaft. Then that same someone took a whole display of eiderdowns from the Household Department and covered the body. Then took a load of bottles and filled them with the only ready supply of hot liquid – the contents of the tea urn – draining it to the bottom and burning the element. The bottles were put around the body too so that after the funeral it was still nice and warm for the doctor coming.’
‘Mary after all,’ Alec said. ‘You said she was in a spin about the lift man coming.’
‘No, Alec, you’ve got it completely upside down,’ I said. ‘The lift man had to come and find the body quickly so that the doctor could be here before it had cooled down. Mary was the one being normal. Mary thought it was hideous to have the lift mended on such a day. And besides, Mary complained about the sheets being where the eiderdowns belonged, with not a thought about drawing my attention that way. And Mary is competent to the core. The person who did this is clumsy and haphazard and was very keen to get the lift man here.’
‘Bella,’ Alec said.
‘Bella,’ I agreed. ‘I remember thinking at the time how odd it was that they seemed to have swapped roles. One sister-in-law all gone to pieces and the other suddenly taking charge and getting things done. She said she’d get the lift up to the top floor and jam it there. She was the one who had the chance to take the quilts and hot bottles off and get them away out of sight.’ Alec was beginning to nod. ‘And she did a pretty shoddy job of it. Spilled tea all over the labels and stuffed the quilts away in a mess. Even when she came to tidy up, she couldn’t make the neat job of it that Mary would have. And Mary wouldn’t have burnt out the urn.’
‘That woman downstairs just said as much, didn’t she? There’s no one to take the place of Mrs Ninian.’
‘Bella stepping in was a special event,’ I said. ‘A one-day-only offer.’
‘When did she come back then?’ Alec said.
I thought for a minute or two. ‘The day Mary collapsed,’ I said. ‘She was out, remember. She was at the store, ostensibly thanking the staff, actually up here kicking over her traces.’
‘No wonder she’s gone so badly to pieces about Mary then,’ Alec said. ‘Guilt. Because of course she must think it’s the deaths that overwhelmed Mary. She can’t possibly know about the rest of it.’
I put the stopper back into the bottle I had been holding and placed it carefully on the top of the slippery pile of them.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t know about all the… bed-hopping, I suppose is the only word… the labyrinthine family trees of the Aitkens and Hepburns. Bella doesn’t know any of the secrets.’ We looked at one another, an uneasy glance.
‘So why did she do it?’ Alec said.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘And unless we come up with a motive, no one will believe she did. Who’s going to listen to hot water bottles and eiderdowns and gloves?’
‘But she did do it, didn’t she? She must have. She was the one who summoned the lift-mending man.’
‘But even that could be argued away,’ I said. ‘The lift was in a very bad state. Everyone agreed. No one was taking Bella’s word for it.’
‘Maybe she nobbled it then,’ Alec said. ‘Maybe she was surprised it was working at all. She meant it to be broken down completely when everyone got back. In fact, maybe she left it up at the attics and she was horrified to arrive and find it trundling up and down with the body all wrapped up in quilts and hot bottles just above people’s heads. Imagine if someone had opened the hatch to see what the funny noise was and found him there?’
‘If it was nobbled surely there would have been signs of mischief,’ I said
‘Let’s go and ask Mr Laming,’ said Alec. ‘See if he noticed anything strange.’
Laming’s Engineering: heavy machinery repair and maintenance and small engine specialists – which seemed to cover everything – was housed in a yard up a rough lane behind Mr Laming’s house, which was out of town beyond the linen works. Mr Laming and the gormless boy were both there, bending with great concentration over a large lump of oily black metal – an engine, I supposed – laid on their work bench like a patient on a surgeon’s table.
‘May we interrupt you?’ Alec said. ‘Just a question or two.’
‘Again!’ said Mr Laming, straightening up and resettling his cap. ‘I’ve just tellt the lad all I ken and I cannae do more.’
‘Which lad?’ I said. ‘All you know about what? It’s Aitkens’ we’re interested in.’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ said Mr Laming. ‘Hector, away you in and get a piece and cuppy. I’ll shout you back oot when I need you.’
‘I’ve had an extra piece already, Paw,’ said Hector, ‘when thon polis wis here. I’ll no be fit for ma dinner.’
‘Well, you can go and run aboot till yer appetite’s back after this yin,’ said his father. ‘Gawn!’
‘The police,’ I said when the boy was gone. ‘The lad? Let me guess: Constable McCann?’ Mr Laming nodded. ‘I knew he was a bright boy,’ I said. ‘Well, well. So he’s been digging around too.’
‘What did he ask you, Mr Laming?’ Alec said.
‘He tellt me to keep it to myself,’ said the man. ‘He was on his ain time.’
‘Let me put it another way,’ Alec said. ‘What we’d like to ask you is what was wrong with Aitkens’ lift. Did you ever get to find out? Did you go back to it once the police had been and gone?’
‘Because,’ I chipped in, ‘we suspect it might have been tampered with. Nobbled, you know.’ Mr Laming gave me a grin, his false teeth dazzling in his grimy face.
‘You’re no’ so dusty either, missus,’ he said. ‘The boy McCann was just asking; he’d not guessed it for himself.’ I kept my beam of pride down to a reasonable wattage, and he went on. ‘Porridge oats,’ he said. ‘Fine oatmeal in the pulley wheel. I’ve seen bran before now.’
‘Presumably,’ I said, ‘Aitkens’ food hall doesn’t carry bran.’