Chapter 13
Emma startled as the big log on the fire settled, sending out a flurry of sparks.
For a moment she had forgotten where she was, her mind now firmly on the island of Skye and already making notes on what she had learned.
The first thing she needed was a map of Scotland and, more importantly, a map of Skye.
She drew what she had pictured from the descriptions.
Kyleakin on a point adjoining a similar promontory on the mainland and the town of Kyle of Lochalsh.
She didn’t know enough about the circumstances of the crime yet to make more notes on that, but she added a Mistress MacLeod to the character list. As she was about to tackle the fourth chapter the telephone rang.
She looked around the room and saw the phone on a small round table by the front door.
She went over and picked it up cautiously.
“Hello?”
“It’s Miss Morton,” said the throaty voice. “Cook wishes to know when you would be requiring your luncheon to be brought to you.”
Emma glanced at her watch and saw it was almost one o’clock. “Look, I can easily come across. I don’t want to cause an inconvenience,” she said. “Besides it would be good for me to stretch my legs.”
“As you wish,” Miss Morton said and replaced the receiver.
Emma stacked the pages she had read in a neat pile, then put another log on the fire before going through to the bathroom to wash her hands.
The water that came out of the tap was ice cold.
She let it run for a long time before admitting it was not going to heat up.
Surely there was supposed to be hot water in a guest cottage?
She dried her hands, then noticed through the bathroom window that the sky had darkened.
The first raindrops were already falling as she opened the front door, making her go back for her mack.
Perhaps going across for lunch was not such a good idea after all.
She could wait until the rain passed over.
But then she realized she was hungry. She’d only had that slice of cake to eat all day.
It wasn’t raining too hard. As she made a dash across the heavens opened, and by the time she came in through the side door she was truly soaked.
“Oh my dear. What bad timing. You could have waited until this passed over.” Cynthia Morton met her in the hallway, presumably having watched her mad dash.
“I thought you meant that lunch was being served now,” Emma said, realizing how hard she was trying not to put a foot wrong.
“You should have stayed put,” Cynthia said. “We could have sent Maggie over with your food.”
“There’s no reason Maggie should get wet instead of me,” Emma replied. “Besides, it’s only water. I’ll dry.”
“Leave your wet coat here on the hook in the hall, and come through to the kitchen,” Cynthia said. “I’ll have Cook give you a bowl of soup to warm you up.”
Emma followed her into a big, modern kitchen with a row of pans hanging over an AGA cooker. In the centre was a scrubbed pine table, and on this a plate and cutlery had been laid.
“You can sit here, if you don’t mind,” Cynthia said. “Iris is not feeling too well and will have her lunch in her room, so it didn’t seem worth laying the table in the dining room just for us.”
“It’s fine,” Emma said. “Nice and warm in here.”
“Thanks to the AGA,” Cynthia said. “I insisted that Iris have one installed. What a wonderful invention. Do they have them in Australia?”
“I don’t think it would be a good idea for us,” Emma said, smiling. “It heats the whole room nicely, doesn’t it? We spend most of our time trying to keep cool.”
Mrs Fisk turned from the cooker and gave Emma a withering stare. “There’s leek and potato soup,” she said. “Is that all right for you?”
“Thank you. Sounds very nice, Mrs Fisk,” Emma said and watched the woman’s expression soften just a little.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing fancy today. The mistress just wanted a boiled egg. So for us it’s nothing more than cold ham and pickles.”
While she talked she ladled soup into an earthenware bowl. She put this on the table in Emma’s place, then carried over a board with a basket of rolls, slices of ham, a hunk of cheddar cheese and a jar of piccalilli.
“Get that lot inside you and you won’t do too bad,” she said.
The soup was warm and rich, the rolls crusty and the lunch satisfying.
Emma felt self-conscious sitting there to eat alone.
She wondered if the others had already eaten or would eat later.
She knew that English hours were much later than Australian ones.
At the winery they had their evening meal at six, whereas in England they thought nothing of dining at eight.
While Emma was eating, Cynthia Morton returned to the kitchen, poured herself a cup of tea from the pot on the AGA and pulled out a stool opposite Emma at the table. “So have you taken a look at the book yet? Had a chance to get started?”
“I have,” Emma said.
“And what do you think so far? Is it good enough? Is it going to be good enough to publish? That’s what’s worrying me. I don’t know how the dementia is affecting her writing, and I’m no reader. Besides, she wouldn’t show it to me.”
“I think it’s going to be very good,” Emma said.
“You do? You’re not just saying that to be polite or kind?” Cynthia’s expression became quite hopeful.
“I’m absolutely riveted so far. But it is very different from her usual books. Much more descriptive, and it gives us more insight into Inspector Melrose than we’ve had before.”
“Interesting,” Cynthia said. “I’ve no idea why she suddenly got this bee in her bonnet to write another book. And Scotland of all places. What does she know about Scotland? I thought she was quite happy to retire gracefully and live on the spoils of her royalty checks.”
“Maybe it had to do with her diagnosis,” Emma said. “She wanted to prove she could still write a book before it was too late.”
“Which of course she couldn’t,” Cynthia said sharply.
“I thought it was an absolutely absurd idea and I told her so. I said at the beginning that it would only lead to tears. ‘Rest on our laurels,’ I told her. ‘You’ve more laurels to rest on than any other damned person on this planet. You’ve nothing to prove to anyone.
’ But she wouldn’t listen to me. Never does, of course. Just plunges ahead. Typical Iris.”
“I haven’t got far enough to know if she’s thought through the plot logically,” Emma said. “So far she’s just setting the scene. We’ve got a murder and apparently some suspects, but I’m already hooked, and I like the young Melrose. He’s in many ways more human than the later one. More vulnerable.”
“Well that’s a blessing.” Cynthia gave a derisive snort. “I never did take to that man. I always found him too clever by half, patronizing and supercilious.”
“Maybe that was a defence mechanism in his later years,” Emma suggested. “He was always a bit of an outsider in London, wasn’t he?”
Cynthia drained her cup. “I can’t really tell you.
As I say, I’ve never read much of them. Iris made me try a few times.
Not my cup of tea.” She stood up. “Well, I’d better let you get back to work.
Iris will want a full report in the morning when she’s feeling better, I’m sure.
Come across for supper at about seven. We’ll eat in the kitchen again, I expect. ”
As she went Emma remembered. “Oh, by the way, Miss Morton. There doesn’t appear to be any hot water in the cottage.”
“Oh no. Silly me. I forgot to turn on the boiler. I’ll come over and do it this afternoon, when I have a moment.
” Then she walked out before Emma could say another word.
Emma detected the hint of a smile on her face.
She’s enjoying making things difficult for me.
First she didn’t light the fire and now there’s no hot water, she thought.
Is she trying to scare me off, or just punish me for being here?
She shook her head, trying to understand Cynthia’s motivation.
Shouldn’t she be glad if Iris wanted to finish another book while she still could?
Was it just that she felt Emma wasn’t up to the task and wouldn’t do Iris’s work justice, or was she so attached to Iris that she resented any intruder claiming Iris’s attention?
She suspected there might be a romantic attachment on Cynthia’s side even if Iris did not reciprocate.
But then Iris had never married either, so . . .
Emma shrugged, got up and carried her plates over to the sink.
“Just leave them,” Mrs Fisk snapped. “There’s no need for you to do kitchen work. You’re here to help the mistress, although if you ask me, she’s bitten off more than she can chew.”