No Suspicious Circumstances Read online

  and sweet onion

  Slowly I reread the list, savouring every item. After much agonised indecision, I at last settled on the artichoke and the salmon. Now I could relax. I fished in my pocket for the torn cigarette packet from Gina’s car and studied the list of places.

  Inchcolm Cramond May

  Tantallon Fast

  Longniddry Bents

  No other information. No day, no times. Perhaps the Japanese woman would provide a lead, if they managed to trace her.

  With the arrival of my meal, speculation was put on hold, so it was an hour later, over coffee served with a jug of cream, that I got out my map and attempted to locate Gina’s rendezvous points. I stretched out for a chocolate mint and traced the coastline of the River Forth with my finger. There seemed to be quite a number of islands. Fidra, Bass Rock, Inchkeith, Inchcolm and May. And Cramond Island, facing Inchcolm from the Edinburgh side of the Forth. Interesting. All were within easy reach of Edinburgh and the White Heather Hotel. Thoughtfully, I put down my empty coffee cup.

  A waiter hovering with a pot moved forward to offer a refill.

  I stabbed a finger down on the map. ‘I wonder if you could tell me anything about this Cramond Island?’

  ‘Certainly, madam.’ He put down the coffee pot and bent over the map. ‘Let’s see… You are here. It’ll take you about an hour to get there. It’s an island only at high tide. At other times you can reach it by causeway.’

  I took a pencil and circled the spot. I pencilled another neat circle round Tantallon. Both were on the coast, both within an hour’s drive of the White Heather Hotel. If my theory was right… I followed the southern coastline of the River Forth. Longniddry… On the coast. And near a golf course – two golf courses, in fact. That should please Hiram J Spinks. I lassoed Longniddry with another pencil mark. Fast Castle took a little longer to find. It was well to the right of Tantallon, halfway towards Berwick-upon-Tweed. Again on the coast.

  I folded the map and pushed back my chair. Two o’clock. It was time I made tracks. Longniddry was the nearest of my targeted places. Perhaps I’d have time to give it the once-over on my way back from Police Headquarters. By now the Japanese woman would have been interviewed along with the rest of the group, ostensibly as another witness to the accident, and the police would be keeping a discreet eye on her movements.

  The rain that had been threatening was now coming down in earnest. I shrugged my shoulders inside my thin raincoat and ran for the car.

  But at Police Headquarters I met only disappointment and frustration.

  ‘Well, the good news is that we’ve established the identity of the Japanese woman.’ Was there an artificial heartiness in the tone of Detective Chief Inspector Macleod of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency? ‘Her name is Kumiko Matsuura.’ He paused.

  ‘And the bad news?’ I said.

  ‘We’ve lost her. When our man arrived to interview her early this morning, he found she’d left the hotel.’ He didn’t meet my eye. ‘By two o’clock when the group was scheduled to travel north to Pitlochry in the Scottish Highlands, she hadn’t returned, so it’s “whereabouts unknown” for her.’

  Why oh why, had they left it until late this morning to set up the interviews? I hoped that I managed to hide my annoyance. I didn’t want to sour relations. That way lay difficulties I could do without. I had to admit it was partly my own fault. I should have stressed the need for urgency. I eyed the clock on the wall, twenty minutes past three.

  DCI Macleod intercepted the glance and reached for the telephone. ‘Our man will call in if she puts in an appearance.’ He spoke apologetically, embarrassed and edgy, sensing my silent recriminations. ‘But I’ll just see if anything new has turned up.’

  I moved away from the desk and walked over to look out of the window. I’d come across a similar view in a guidebook, but not the usual run-of-the-mill sort of publication. It was an interesting mix of information about places to visit and poems about Edinburgh, beautifully illustrated with unusual views of the city, like that rain-drenched Edinburgh roofscape accompanying a poem by Alfred Noyes.

  City of mists and rain and blown grey spaces…

  Rain and blown grey spaces… Rooftops, grey-slated, precipitously pitched in their perpetual battle against the Edinburgh weather…

  Behind me I heard DCI Macleod’s noncommittal, ‘I see.’

  At the sound of the receiver being replaced, I turned. The long black second-hand of the wall clock had hiccupped its way only once round the dial since he had begun his call. Not a good sign. My eyes met his.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘She’s not come back yet. The rest of the group waited an hour for her, then left for Pitlochry. We’ve asked the hotel to inform us if she turns up.’

  I gazed out at the streaming rooftops. Had Kumiko disappeared of her own free will? If so, why? Was she a frightened witness, who had seen Spinks locking the tower door? Or was she an accomplice to murder? Unlikely. She wouldn’t have drawn attention to herself by disappearing from the group. Or was there a more simple explanation – she’d merely gone out for a tour of the city and got lost? The fact remained that the woman seemed to have vanished into thin air.

  The heavy driving rain had reduced itself to a mere drizzle as I drove away from Police Headquarters. By the time I reached the outskirts of the city, the rain had stopped altogether and fugitive patches of blue sky had appeared amid racing grey clouds. If the weather continued to improve, I’d have a look at this Longniddry place. It’d take me only a couple of miles out of my way. Yes, I’d plenty of time before Mackenzie, a flabby version of J Arthur Rank’s muscleman, would be beating the gong for dinner. Not, of course, that I was hungry after that magnificent lunch, but I couldn’t afford to spend too long there. Turning up late for dinner a second night running would be the last straw in my relationship with Mrs Mackenzie.

  The narrow road twisted and turned, trees on both sides, their branches blocking out the view. Where the road ran near the sea, the winds had sculpted the exposed tops of the gorse bushes into rounded shapes as if some topiary artist had been at work.

  LONGNIDDRY BENTS. I almost missed the small notice, its lettering blasted by sand and salt. An arrow pointed down a narrow track between high banks. BENTS? Had the T originally been a D? I swung the car onto the track. Though narrow, it was tarred, and led after several twists to a surprisingly large car park surrounded by trees and high dunes. I let down the window and switched off the ignition. The cloud-ceiling had lifted and the patches of blue sky were bigger, but the threat of rain was not far away. In good weather, this would be a popular picnic area. Now it was completely deserted.

  I got out of the car and took a narrow sandy path leading to the small bridge over a brackish river. I caught glimpses of the sea as the path climbed gently to the top of the sand dunes through thickets of gorse interspersed with hawthorn bushes and small trees. Faced with a twisting maze of crisscrossing paths, I paused at the top of the first dune. To the left was a line of Scots pines, the silhouette of their dead branches eerily resembling gossiping old women gesticulating with gnarled witchy fingers. To the right, not far off, lay the sea and the distant coast of Fife, its hills patched with fluorescent-yellow rape fields. A cool wind whipped across the dunes rustling the clumps of desiccated grasses.

  I gave an involuntary shiver, ‘someone walking over my grave’, a disturbing thought. Hadn’t I promised myself only last night to avoid lonely places? For several minutes I stood perfectly still, every nerve strained to catch the whisper of a footfall, the faintest unnatural sound above the plaintive cries of sea birds, the unceasing rush of the waves, and the soft sighing of the wind through the bushes. Those bushes were so thick that a corpse could lie hidden among them and never be discovered. Get a grip, DJ. Why was I scaring myself like this? That faint hum from a passing car meant that I wasn’t very far from the main road, quite close, really. I chose a path I hoped would take me out onto the beach and quickened my pace.
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  My shoes made no noise on the sandy ground. Neither would a mugger’s. There I was – scaring myself again, scaring myself to death. A rather unfortunate turn of phrase. If Spinks poked his head out of the bushes, he wouldn’t have to lift a finger, I’d drop down dead with fright. I took a deep breath. This was a popular picnic spot, after all, not the setting for a murder movie. There I was, at it again. I gave myself a figurative bawling out, and moved briskly on.

  A final twist of the path, and I was standing among low dunes on the edge of an enormous bay. In front of me, half submerged, was an uneven line of jagged stakes, the skeletal ribs of a rotting ship, seawater now its only cargo. I consulted my map. Those white buildings on the far side of the bay must be the golf club. There were no other buildings, making it an ideal spot for landing drugs, isolated, yet near the road for transport…

  How peaceful it all was. Blue-green grass spiked the yellow of the dunes. A sudden shaft of sunlight spotlighted a seagull as it flapped its way lazily along the triple line of white breakers at the water’s edge. In the distance, a golfer was practising his swings on the hard flat sand, cheaper than paying for a round at the adjacent golf club, I suppose. Golf had started that way, after all, with men thwacking a ball across sand dunes. And now it was a multi-million-pound leisure business.

  Yes, a cargo of drugs could easily be put ashore here. How far was Tantallon from Longniddry? Was that island Inchkeith? The wind pulled and tugged at the map, making consultation difficult. Dropping to my knees on the soft sand, I laid it on the ground and weighed the edges down with a couple of stones. Tantallon there… Inchcolm there… Longniddry here… It all made a neat triangle. I spent a few minutes considering the possibilities.

  I heard a metallic clunk close by. While I had been studying the map, the golfer had worked his way steadily towards me and was practising his bunker shots less than two hundred yards away. All that was visible above the top of the dunes was the glint of sunlight on the head and shaft of his club. Idly I watched as rhythmically it rose and fell.

  I turned back to the map. Tantallon… Longniddry… Was it possible to see Tantallon from here? I stood up. That smudge on the coast to my right – was that the castle? I narrowed my eyes and squinted at the distant, blurred outline.

  The sand shifted under my feet. I lurched, stumbled over a thin whippy root, and fell forward on my hands and knees. Swoosh overhead. Sand fountained up and trickled down the face of the dune as a golf ball driven with lethal force smashed into the sand a yard away from me. For a long moment I stared in disbelief at the embedded ball. It must have been travelling at head height. My mouth opened, but shock constricted my throat. Instead of a shout of outrage, all that emerged was a strangled croak. If I hadn’t slipped, the ball would have shattered my skull. That golfer was dangerously irresponsible.

  A wave of anger flooded through me and broke the paralysis. I scrambled to my feet on trembling legs that barely supported me.

  Unladylike language rose to my lips. ‘You bloody fool. You incompetent bastard,’ I shrieked. ‘You…you…shitb—!’ The sand avalanched beneath my shaking feet, sending me sliding further down the dune.

  I expected a startled apologetic face, red with embarrassment, but there was only silence. And the whisper of another lethal golf ball thunking into the sand.

  This time I didn’t cry out.

  The unnerving silence said it all. My assailant was not a carelessly irresponsible golfer. It had to be that coldly efficient killer, Hiram J Spinks. His characteristic modus operandi was murder masquerading as accidental death. First to die, Waldo M Hinburger. Next, Gina Lombardini. Third, DJ Smith. I could visualise the stark headline, GOLF BALL SLAYS HOLIDAYMAKER.

  My ears, made super-sensitive by adrenalin, picked up the soft slither of moving sand and pebbles from the far side of the dune in front. I hadn’t made a sound since my slide down the dune, and the murderer was moving in to view his handiwork, coming to find out if I was lying dead in a hollow. Which was what I would be, if I didn’t do something about it.

  Bending low, I scuttled crab-like away. I had a minute, perhaps less, before the would-be assassin poked his head over the top and discovered that his victim had taken flight. My first instinct was to make straight for my car. I couldn’t be far from the car park track and – there it was.

  I raced along, thankful for the cover of the trees and bushes and the twists in the path. The dead, lichen-covered branches clutched at my arm, plucked at my coat. Heart pounding, I quickened my pace, but had to slow. Wiry roots hidden in the soft sand were too much of a hazard.

  Ahead of me, the paths branched, one leading eastwards in the direction of the car park, the other seeming to twist back towards the sea. Which way, which way? Already my breath was coming in great shuddering gasps. Perhaps it was not such a good idea to head for the car. My pursuer might have anticipated exactly that, be lying in wait. Was he ahead or behind? Was that the dry rustle of wind through the gorse bushes…or…?

  I darted along the seaward path. Prickly gorse crowded in on either side. Impossible for anyone to hide there. Unexpectedly, the path turned back on itself, veering suddenly away from the sea in the direction of the road. Sand underfoot gave way to grass and a thick carpet of dead twigs from a huge Scots pine. They’d snap easily. I’d have to be very careful. Cautiously, I tiptoed my way across. I must find somewhere to hide until he gave up the search. I ran on.

  The square shape of the building was almost hidden by a clump of hawthorn bushes and trees. I hesitated. Perhaps a double bluff would work. He wouldn’t expect me to choose so obvious a hiding place. The bushes scratched and tore as I gingerly picked my way through, careful not to leave a tell-tale trail of trampled undergrowth. Overhead, the late afternoon light was blocked by the thick canopy of leaves from the sweeping branches of an enormous horse chestnut tree. In the gloom, the small flowers of a wild white rose glimmered palely. My outstretched hand touched the rough concrete sides of a low shed almost engulfed by the horse chestnut and hawthorn. There was no window or doorway. I edged my way round. On this side, more light came from above. The low concrete ‘shed’ was nothing more than a couple of huge anti-tank blocks, part of the World War II sea defences. No hiding place here. I ran a tongue over dry lips. I’d wasted too much time. A trickle of sweat ran down my back.

  A sudden flurry overhead sent twigs and leaves spiralling to the ground. Startled, I looked up. Two enormous birds, rooks or crows, were squabbling and bickering over a piece of road-kill. In their violent tussle their feet scrabbled for purchase. Wings beating, one snatched the prize, and both fluttered out of sight behind the thickly clustering leaves.

  Where I was standing, a great branch hung, half torn off, and the tide of bushes had reluctantly receded, to be replaced by a thick bed of vicious looking nettles. I leapt upwards and hung on. There was an ominous creaking, but it held. By bracing my feet against the concrete, I was able to work my way upwards until I could wriggle onto the top of the block.

  I did not stand up. That would expose me too much. From my position I could see high into the tree. My weight had extended the long jagged tear, exposing bright new wood. It all looked dangerously unsafe. Before doubts and fears made me lose my nerve completely, I gripped the branch, and, using it as a primitive ladder, hauled myself little by little into the crown of the tree. As I clawed my way up, the large five-pointed leaves parted, then closed protectively round me.

  I stopped when the branches thinned and began to flex and bend in my grasp. It was just as well that my perch was surprisingly comfortable. I might have to stay up here for hours. How long before it would be safe to come down? After dark? That might prove even more dangerous. Anyway, it didn’t get really dark till nearly midnight, another seven hours or so. Would Spinks give up his search before that? I couldn’t count on it. All he had to do was lie in wait in the car park. Well, two could play a waiting game. I leant back against the trunk of the tree…

  My ears became attuned
to scores of faint sounds, the wind fluttering the leaves of the horse chestnut, the creak of its branches, the distant cries of sea birds and, closer at hand, the twittering and chirping of sparrows and blackbirds. Occasionally, I heard the muffled hum of a passing vehicle – the road must be quite close… My thoughts drifted…

  Crack…crack… It was the sound of brittle twigs snapping under a careful foot. I sensed a movement below. I pressed myself hard against the trunk and turned my head away. If I looked down into the gloom, whoever was down there might sense he was being observed…

  Slowly, ever so slowly, I eased my arm sideways till I could see my watch. Five minutes. Ten. Then crack…crack… Spinks coming back? Or had he been standing there all along? Listening. Waiting. Was he even now climbing the tree? As if in answer, the leaves below me rustled and shook, then trembled ever more violently… I bit into my lip to stifle a scream.

  I saw no triumphantly grinning face, no homicidal Spinks. With a whirr of wings a small brown bird darted out from its hiding place and flew off. I felt the tension draining out of me. How silly, how dangerous, to let my imagination run riot like that. I had so very nearly revealed my presence. I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply. Gradually my heart rate steadied as reason reasserted itself. If I remained in the tree, I was safe. It was going to be a long, long wait…

  Salvation came from an unexpected quarter. The hard throbbing bass of a ghetto blaster thumped its way towards me on the breeze. There was an irate shout, then a sudden silence, broken by youthful voices laughing and shrieking. Another shout, and the laughter and shrieks trailed off. In its place came the faint strains of ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’, bawled rather than sung. Slowly the volume increased and the words became more distinct. Crak…crik…crak…crak… A fusillade of snapping twigs heralded an unmusical cavalry to the rescue.

  Carefully, I moved aside some plate-sized leaves and peered down at the path. Into my narrow field of view wound a file of children. No orderly school-crocodile this, but a mad centipede of skipping, dancing legs. Each hand waved a treasured souvenir of the seashore, each throat strove to out-decibel the rest with an enthusiastically hideous imitation of cow, sheep, horse or cockerel. Harassed authority figures at head and rear hustled and chivvied like good-natured sheepdogs. The man at the front carried a cardboard box brimming with squashed tin cans, crumpled crisp packets and empty bottles. Perched precariously on top, in imminent danger of crashing to the ground, was the enormous ghetto blaster, mercifully silenced. The man bringing up the rear lugged along a net sack bulging with footballs, cricket bats and old tennis rackets. Scampering ahead of everyone else, a skinny redheaded youngster took noisy pot-shots with an imaginary rifle at any startled birds that broke cover.