Chapter 19
Rain snapped and popped against the library windows, wind mourning at the joints in the woodwork, while the sky hung there, murderous and dark. Letting only the meanest light spill into the gloomy room.
The weird wee redhead, Janey, had served Roberta’s teeny Major Investigation Team afternoon tea, done a weird wee curtsey, holding down the hem of her weird wee tartan miniskirt, then made her weird wee self scarce before Roberta could point out that what Skirivour Castle Hotel billed as ‘serves three’ was barely enough for one.
Roberta plucked the last cucumber-and-cream-cheese from the crumb-speckled platter and stuffed it in her dinner-hole. Crunchy and soft and creamy and delicious AND TOO BLOODY SMALL.
PC McKinnon must have seen her eyeing the last inch of his ham-and-mustard, because he wolfed it down before she could nab it.
Greedy sod. His words had to fight their way around the miniature mouthful.
‘Is it wrong I’m a bit disappointed we got through the whole thing with only two dead bodies?
If this was on the telly we’d have at least three more murders by now.
And maybe a car chase? Ooh! I know: or someone vanishing into the woods, leaving nothing behind but a mysterious note . . .’
‘Yes, it’s wrong.’ Sergeant Moore leaned forward in his armchair, setting free a squeaky-leather farting noise, and topped up everyone’s china cups from a pot the size of his head. It was the only thing the hotel had been generous with.
Well, except for the wedding cake. And that didn’t count, because the father-of-the-bride would’ve paid for it in advance, and being dead he wasn’t in any position to complain about them doling out the leftovers willy-nilly.
A small mountain of it, all cut into rectangles and piled on a plate, sat in the middle of the coffee table like sticky dot-less dominos.
‘You know what bothers me?’ Roberta helped herself to a domino of cake.
‘Only person in the whole place who’ll admit to no’ liking the old bugger is the one person you’d think would stick up for him.
’ She pulled her mouth out and down, in a proper disgusted-frog face. ‘As for the rest of them . . .?’
‘Salt of the earth.’ Sergeant Moore did the honours with the milk. ‘Such a card. A real character.’
‘It really is like they’ve been rehearsing their statements. Or someone’s coached them.’ She took a bite of sweet sticky brown cake, knocking the icing free. ‘Mmmm, cake.’ All those dates and sultanas and raisins, all working together in one sticky gooey . . .
She stopped chewing and frowned.
Then stood and scuffed her way across the tartan carpet to where the library doors sat in a recess, just wide and deep enough to accommodate a small antique table.
A hotel phone sat on top of it, nearly as big as the one at reception – probably down to the fact that they’d named the rooms after single malts, instead of numbering the bloody things like anyone with half a brain would’ve, so each button had the name of a whisky attached to it.
Sergeant Moore watched her go. ‘It doesn’t really matter though, does it? Albert Nairn killed Sir Reginald, it was right there in his suicide note. The rest of them might be rancid Tory dickheads, but at least they haven’t killed anyone.’
McKinnon helped himself to cake. ‘Wasn’t just Sir Reginald he killed. Completely murdered that poem.’
She picked up the receiver and pressed the button marked ‘LAGAVULIN’.
Silence.
OK, that was a relief, for a moment there she—
Susan’s voice burst from the earpiece. ‘Hello?’
Of course it was.
Roberta closed her eyes and pulled her lips back from her teeth, trying to hold the swearing in.
‘Hello? Is anyone there?’
Stay calm. Don’t shout. Nice and nonchalant. Forcing as much jollity into it as possible with a clenched jaw. ‘Aye, just wanted to make sure you’re still OK.’
A wee hint of saucy minx flirted its way into Roberta’s ear. ‘Why don’t you come up here and find out for yourself? I might have been very naughty.’
Stay calm.
‘Good. I’ll . . . talk to you later.’
‘Love you.’
STAY CALM.
‘Me too.’ Roberta placed the handset back into its cradle with slow deliberation.
Backed away from the antique, and probably very expensive table, then growled like a pissed-off tiger, flinging her arms and legs about as the growl built to a throat-rattling, ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ Blood pounding in her face and neck, spittle flying as she thrashed.
Sergeant Moore scrambled to his feet. ‘Are you OK?’
‘DO I SODDING LOOK OK?’ Trembling with the effort of bottling it all back up again.
Hissing out sizzling breaths. ‘The internal phone lines have been working all the sodding time! It’s just outside you can’t call.
You can chat room-to-room to your nasty little heart’s content.
’ A deep breath. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!’
‘Why are you . . .?’ His mouth fell open as his brain finally caught up. ‘“Like they’ve been rehearsing their statements.”’
PC McKinnon’s eyes widened – always last to the thinky party. ‘Maybe Agatha Christie was right after all? All them people, working together . . .’
Like the dates, sultanas, and raisins in the wedding cake. Only instead of sticky gooey deliciousness, they were working on a murder.
Sergeant Moore shook his head. ‘I hate to rain on your Miss Marple Appreciation Society parade, but Albert Nairn killed—’
‘What if it wasn’t just him? What if he had help?’ Roberta slumped against the wall and stared at the ceiling for a bit.
Well, there was nothing else for it, was there?
‘All right.’ She marched back to the coffee table, snatched another bit of cake from the plate and jammed it in her gob. Spraying dark brown angry crumbs. ‘If it’s Agatha Christie they want, it’s Agatha Christie they’ll bloody well get!’
PC McKinnon bustled out into the lobby, rubbing his hands and nodding. ‘That’s everyone.’
Roberta stuck her head around the door and peered into the library.
The room wasn’t exactly full, full, but it was getting there.
Forty-nine people milled about as Sergeant Moore shepherded them all down to one end.
Thirty-seven guests and twelve members of hotel staff, all looking a lot less pyjama-and-nightdressy than they had last time they were gathered together for roll-call at three o’clock that morning.
A low background murmur oozed out of the gathering: It’s such a terrible shock.
Isn’t it a shame about poor old Sir Reginald?
Who would have thought it? The gamekeeper!
Isn’t Lady Bradbury-Scott holding up well.
It’s Adriana and Douglas I feel sorry for – a murder and a suicide, at their wedding, I mean to say . . .
None of them seemed to notice that all the curtains were drawn, shutting out the thin grey light.
Her Ladyship had pride of place on a large leather sofa, brought in from one of the other rooms specially for the occasion.
A middle-aged fat man sat on her left, both hands clasped in front of his tweed three-piece suit, Adriana on her right.
There wasn’t any room for Douglas Moore on the sofa, so he stood behind his new wife – one hand on her shoulder, still posing for that photoshoot.
Lord Fitzroy-Galbraith perched himself in an armchair, pulled up next to the sofa, arms resting on the silver handle of a walking stick. Imperious and every inch the patriarch.
Gathered together like that, the five of them looked like something out of Grimmer Homes and Tories. Or a really nasty episode of Game of Thrones. Which probably amounted to much the same thing, only with less full-frontal nudity and more backstabbing.
Weird Wee Janey had clearly been in again, because a tray of tea and cake was set on the coffee table in front of the VIPs.
Even Susan was there, standing off to one side, by the Barbara Cartlands. Shuffling her feet, all on her own, abandoned by work colleagues and – God forbid – friends.
Sergeant Moore glanced towards the door and Roberta gave him the nod.
‘ALL RIGHT, EVERYONE!’ Raising his arms and voice till they settled into an uneasy silence.
She turned to PC McKinnon, barely whispering so none of the other buggers could overhear. ‘You got it?’
The wee spud looked a bawhair off wetting himself with excitement as he pointed at the switches just inside the door. But at least he kept it quiet: ‘Soon as you get to the dramatic bit, I kill the lights.’
‘Good boy.’ Surely even he couldn’t cock that up?
Roberta dipped into her pocket and produced the wee jar of hand cream she’d pilfered from Susan’s make-up bag fifteen minutes ago. Glass, about the size of a hockey puck, with an unpronounceable name and bum-clenching price tag.
She turned it over in her fingers.
This was going to work. Of course it was.
Always worked for Miss Marple . . .
Come on then.
Roberta marched into the library, and every face in the room turned to watch her.
She stopped beside Sergeant Moore, hands in her pockets, a wee bit slouchy, in contrast to his parade-rest pose. Maybe a wee bit more Columbo than Miss Marple, then. But a sexy Columbo, so that was OK.
Big smile. ‘I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.’
Standing in the doorway, McKinnon gave her a cheesy grin and two thumbs up.
Ah, maybe he wasn’t such a bad wee lump after all?
‘As you know—’
‘Oh, do speak up!’ Bloody Lord Fitzroy-Galbraith shifted in his armchair. ‘I can’t abide mumbling.’
Rotten fusty old sod did that on purpose.
She started again, louder and harder this time. And more than a little hacked off. ‘As you know: Sir Reginald Bradbury-Scott was murdered at some point between the wedding reception and half four Saturday morning. We believe he probably died from a blow to the back of the head.’
A Mexican wave of fake-startled-gasping rippled through the crowd.
Lying bastards.
‘A blow to the head that—’