No Suspicious Circumstances Read online

  She nodded with a twitch of a smile.

  ‘So,’ I continued, ‘I go ze day ze sea is not…’ I waved my hands up and down once again.

  That should ensure I was on the same boat as Gina Lombardini. But then I had an awful thought. I might have to make the trip on both days, if she didn’t turn up on the Thursday. On possibly choppy seas. My mal de mer was not wholly fictional. Merde.

  The bus deposited me a few yards from the driveway of the White Heather Hotel. There was no sign of my car by the side of the road where I’d abandoned it the night before. I hoped that meant that the mechanic had left it in the hotel car park as instructed.

  I heard the click of putter against ball as I reached the bend in the drive. I rounded the curve to see Hiram J Spinks engaged in another bout of golfing practice. Here was an opportunity to size up one of the residents. Stepping over the Keep off the Putting Green notice, I strolled across the grass towards him. He gave me only the briefest of glances before taking up a huddled semi-stooped position, knees firmly together. A frown of concentration creased his forehead.

  ‘Hi ma’am! Just observe this putt.’

  I watched politely. Thwack. The ball sped across the grass, hit a tussock, bounced over the hole, rolled several yards down the slope of the lawn, and ended up in the heather bed.

  Straightening up, Spinks turned towards me. ‘Made a real goof there—’ Suddenly, he threw down his putter and strode off towards the hotel without a backward glance.

  The embarrassment of a missed putt couldn’t matter that much, could it? Strange. I turned to make my way back to legitimate territory before Mrs Mackenzie spotted me treading on the hallowed turf of the putting green.

  Gorgonzola, a moth-eaten furry mound, was stretching and yawning in the middle of the drive. Did Spinks have cat phobia? Could that be the explanation for his abrupt departure? Well, I felt much the same way about spiders. Bathed in a glow of sympathetic fellow feeling, I retrieved the ball from amongst the heather and laid it and the hastily discarded putter neatly beside the hole. No doubt he’d come back and collect them later when he’d recovered.

  G rubbed against my legs, then sat down and looked up at me with an ostentatious licking of her lips, reminding me that I had been a little remiss.

  ‘Past your teatime, G? OK, it’s coming.

  I spotted my car parked close to the edge of one of the heather beds. Too close. The rear wheels were crushing the life out of a clump of Mrs Mackenzie’s cherished white heathers. I’d better remedy that before she added the damage to my bill. I fished in my pocket for the car keys, and came up with a few coins and a used bus ticket. I must have left the spare set in my room.

  I directed G to the back of the hotel. ‘Tradesman’s Entrance for you.’

  She walked haughtily off, twitching her tail to show offence had been taken. I gently swung the carrier bag containing her tartan coat, and smiled meanly.

  Spinks had left the front door ajar. The lobby was deserted, the tick of the grandfather clock loud in the silence. I eyed my room key lying beside an envelope in the pigeon-hole. If I went behind the desk to retrieve it, Mrs Mackenzie would be sure to materialise like a genie from a bottle. I behaved myself and summoned her with the porcelain hand bell.

  Her bony face split into a joyless smile of greeting. ‘The mechanic has left his bill with your keys.’ She reached into the pigeon-hole. ‘I trust you had a pleasant day, Miss Smith?’ She lingered thoughtfully on ‘Smith’.

  I enthused as expected, omitting any reference to the Royal Mile and the Tourist Information Centre, building up my cover by adding, ‘Of course, it wasn’t all holiday. I was also taking the opportunity to find trade outlets. You know, cat owners can be fanatical about their pets’ diet. The trouble is, I’ve got to carry samples that will…’

  I went on to expatiate at some length on the trials of a travelling sales rep’s life. Mrs Mackenzie’s sour features stiffened into boredom.

  Back in my room, I came to some decisions. Tomorrow, I’d open that tin of haggis and send a sample to forensic. Gorgonzola could have the rest. It would be her introduction to Scottish food. After all, when abroad one should sample the native cuisine. Tonight, there was just time before dinner to feed her, and transmit my report to London via the encrypted mobile link.

  I opened the window. No sign of Gorgonzola yet, as making me wait was her way of asserting her independence. I had finished my report and was logging off, when I heard a faint scrabbling, and she slithered in over the windowsill. Ignoring me, she padded straight to the YOURS holdall and sat pointedly washing her paws.

  ‘OK, G, let’s see what’s on the menu tonight.’ I reached into the YOURS holdall and stopped with my hand on the tin. It didn’t appear to have been searched, but eyes had been prying. The cat food retail lists were now in a different order.

  I had purposely left the YOURS unzipped for prying eyes to view. I had positioned the MINE holdall so that the letter M matched up with a long scratch on the edge of the luggage rack. It was still perfectly aligned. My ruse had worked. Whoever had wanted to find out about me seemed to have been satisfied by all that innocent-looking cat info.

  With a sharp nudge Gorgonzola pressed hard against me, the moth-eaten tail dusting my nostrils, semaphoring ‘tired of waiting’. When she acts uppity I like to show her who’s boss. I unwrapped the hideous tartan coat and held it up. ‘Look what I’ve bought for you, G. This will keep you warm and dry in that horr-rr-id Scottish haar.’

  Her eyes grew large as she took in the vile red, violet, and yellow monstrosity.

  ‘Would you like to dress for dinner?’ I advanced upon her, coat held out invitingly.

  Her back arched and with a derisory Haar she shot under the bed. Satisfied that I’d established who was boss, I opened a tin of Scottish salmon from the YOURS holdall.

  I hoped my own dinner would prove equally appetising. I arrived at the dining room just after the gong, only to find that the other guests had already seated themselves for dinner in anticipation of Mrs Mackenzie’s culinary talent. As I hesitated in the doorway, Felicity Lannelle looked up and, to my surprise, made an unmistakable gesture for me to join her.

  My bottom was still hovering above the chair when she leant forward across the table. ‘Do introduce yourself, Ms… I’ve quite forgiven you for that fright you gave me this morning, or at least I will,’ she lowered her voice confidentially, ‘when you tell me where you acquired that tin of haggis.’

  ‘Er…’ I rotated my wineglass in uneasy circles over the tablecloth.

  She placed a hand over mine, as soft and pudgy as rising dough. ‘It’s ab-saw-loot-ly essential for my research that I compare the tinned variety with the delicious haggis we are served at dinner. Very often the canning process affects the flavour – makes it, well, you know,’ she sought for the right word, failed, and settled on ‘tinny’.

  She paused discreetly while the waitress came to take my order. When the girl had gone, she glanced round and lowered her voice further so I had to strain to hear. ‘I asked if I could have a tin. Would you believe it? Mrs Mackenzie refused me, Felicity Lannelle, gastronome extraordinaire, and laughed in the most horribly condescending way.’ Miss Lannelle’s plump cheeks glowed pink at the recollected humiliation. “My dear,” she said to me, “our haggis is a culinary triumph that can be experienced only in our dining room, or abroad in high class specialist outlets. Tins simply cannot be obtained here. They are for export only.”

  ‘“Well,” I said to her, “in that case why does one of the other guests have a tin?” The dragon favoured me with a stony stare and snapped, “I refuse to believe that!’’’

  Shit, shit, shit. I managed to school my expression to one of polite interest.

  Felicity Lannelle glanced round the room to reassure herself that no one was listening. ‘Of course, she asked me to identify that guest. Unfortunately, I didn’t know your name…’ she paused, eyebrows raised in interrogation.

  ‘Deborah
Smith,’ I mumbled. Thank God she hadn’t known who I was.

  ‘But I described you. Early thirties, short brown hair, healing cuts on hands – have you been in an accident recently, dear?’ Without waiting for a reply, she steam-rollered on. ‘I assured her that you definitely had a tin.’

  Scuppered. There were only a couple of other guests in my age group, and neither of them had cuts on their hands.

  ‘When did this conversation take place?’ Though my pulse was racing, I kept my voice casual.

  ‘Just a few minutes ago, before dinner.’ The gastronome gave a fruity chuckle. ‘By her reaction, one would have thought you had stolen the crown jewels.’

  I could visualise the scene all too well.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said slowly, desperately searching for something to say, ‘the recipe is a family heirloom, a sort of industrial secret.’

  This was something Felicity Lannelle could understand, her eyes gleamed. ‘You simply must tell me where you got that tin.’ She shot me a calculating look. ‘You could, of course, sell it to me.’ She opened her handbag and rummaged. ‘How much do you want for it?’

  I thought quickly. ‘No, no… It’s not a matter of money. I would gladly give you the tin for your research, Miss Lannelle…’

  ‘Ms,’ she corrected automatically.

  ‘Ms Lannelle,’ I continued, thankful for the few seconds extra thinking time. ‘But the fact is, when I was coming down to dinner just now, Mrs Mackenzie caught me on the stairs and demanded it back. That’s why I was a little late.’

  She closed her handbag with a disappointed snap. ‘You see, I’ve taken a self-catering apartment here precisely so that I can make my tests, on site as it were. There’s so much more freedom with self-catering. Of course, I have my little travelling stove for places that don’t have cooking facilities.’ She fell silent, toying with the half-eaten roll on her plate. ‘Mrs Mackenzie’s repossessed the tin, you say?’

  I nodded.

  ‘What a pity! Such a golden opportunity to find out if this establishment has managed to retain the flavour of their gourmet food after the canning process.’

  I relaxed. That plausible lie of mine had worked.

  All of a sudden Ms Lannelle brightened. ‘You can still tell me where you got the tin.’ She played her ace. ‘I gather Mrs Mackenzie didn’t give you it in the first place, so just how did you acquire it?’

  My turn to fall silent. I couldn’t tell her the literal truth, ‘fallen off the back of a lorry’ – or in this case a van. There’d be no harm, I suppose, in telling her that I had got the tin from the garage. If she tried to filch one, her amateurish attempt would perhaps help to divert suspicion from DJ Smith…

  That seemed to satisfy her, but I finished the meal without much recollection of what I had eaten.

  As soon as I decently could, I excused myself and hurried up to my room. I’d hidden the tin of haggis in the YOURS holdall underneath the other tins of cat food. It had still been there on my return from Edinburgh. I seized the holdall and without ceremony upended it on the bed. Out rolled tins of turkey, salmon, pâté de foie gras, caviar, and cream dessert.

  But of the tin of Mackenzie’s Taste of Scotland there was no sign, no sign at all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Pensively, I made my way downstairs. Was my cover blown? The haggis tin had been in the same holdall as the cat food so, with a bit of luck, the Mackenzies might think that I had taken it to add to my samples. That would be the line I would take if they brought up the matter.

  In Mackenzie avoidance mode, I paused at the final turn of the stairs and scanned the hall below. The reception desk was unmanned, though the door behind it stood ajar. From behind the closed door of the lounge filtered the muffled sounds of television, male voices, and a high-pitched female laugh. I’d head for the lounge and seek safety in numbers.

  I was tiptoeing past the reception desk when I heard Mackenzie voices raised in bitter argument, ‘Bloody woman…tin…’

  I crept round the desk to the door behind and eased it further open to reveal a narrow corridor, dark uncarpeted stairs, and at the bottom a shaft of light streaming out of an open doorway.

  I heard Murdo whine defensively above the faint clash of dishes. ‘But, Morag, how was I…?’

  ‘Mackenzie, a bairn of ten wouldn’t be as gormless as you…’ The steely voice sliced off his words with the efficiency of an unsheathed skean-dhu.

  A tongue-lashing followed. I was quite enjoying Mrs M’s inventiveness, but I knew I mustn’t risk being caught eavesdropping

  I was just easing the door shut again, about to tiptoe away, when I heard her snap, ‘Perhaps no harm has been done, but when you go off to the meeting tomorrow afternoon, you’d better keep quiet about that tin of haggis, or it won’t just be me you’ve got to deal with.’

  Mackenzie said something indecipherable in reply. The shaft of light from the open door widened. Time to leave. A couple of strides took me across to the lounge door. I could hear the scrape of footsteps ascending the stairs from the kitchen.

  Sudden tell-tale sound burst from the lounge as I opened the door, a dead giveaway to the Mackenzie on the stairs who’d hear it and realise that whoever was in the hall might very well have overheard the argument in the kitchen.

  I slipped into the room, swiftly closing the door behind me, and subsided onto the sofa beside Felicity Lannelle. A breathless, ‘Sorry had to rush away from the table. Phone call to make. Can’t wait to hear your verdict on the meal.’

  ‘Oh! You did give me a bit of a turn there,’ she clutched hand to heart dramatically. ‘It does upset the digestion so. You see, stress can cause acid production in the stomach and…’

  Over her shoulder, I was aware of the angular Mrs Mackenzie framed in the doorway. She glanced round speculatively. After an interminably prolonged inspection, she announced, ‘Hot drinks and biscuits will be available, here in the lounge, between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.’ She withdrew with a last suspicious look round the room.

  ‘…you will, won’t you?’ Felicity was looking at me expectantly, obviously waiting for a reply.

  I had been listening with only half an ear. ‘Er, well…yes, of course,’ I hazarded.

  She gave a delighted cry. ‘I knew you’d help when I explained how important it was to get hold of some haggis.’ She leant forward confidentially. ‘Now, I’ve been thinking. We won’t have to break into the garage to get a tin—’

  ‘Break into the garage? We?’ My acid levels took a hike. ‘We won’t?’

  ‘No,’ she folded her arms and sat back triumphantly. ‘Because they prepare it in the kitchen. I’ve smelt it. Such a heavenly aroma!’ Her eyes rolled ecstatically.

  Oh God, I seemed to have committed myself to assisting Felicity in a raid. Too late, I tried to extricate myself.

  ‘But I don’t think I could… No,’ I said firmly, ‘I certainly couldn’t.’ I cast round for a convincing excuse.

  Ms Lannelle’s soft brown eyes narrowed and grew hard as olive stones.

  ‘Oh, but you must,’ she urged softly. Leaning forward, she patted my arm. ‘If you don’t, I’ll have to tell Mrs Mackenzie your little secret.’

  How could she know anything about Operation Scotch Mist? I stared at her with wide-open insincere eyes. ‘But I haven’t got a secret.’

  She put a plump finger to her lips, then reached for the television remote control and twitched up the volume a couple of notches. ‘Fib!’ she cried playfully. ‘I saw you letting that scruffy stray cat into your room. But don’t you worry. I’m a cat lover myself.’ She looked pointedly at the scratches on my hands. ‘Take my advice, dear, stick to pedigree cats. They’re less likely to turn on you. Help me with my little problem, and the whole affair will be just our little secret.’ She closed an eye in an exaggerated conspiratorial wink. Considerations of ethics patently played no part in a gastronome’s scheme of things.

  Hell hath no fury like a Foodie scorned. I felt a grudging admiration for Ms Lan
nelle’s tactics. But Operation Scotch Mist would be seriously jeopardised if I were thrown out of the hotel and could no longer keep the Mackenzies under close observation. Though I knew I was beaten, I made one last attempt to wriggle out of her cunning trap.

  ‘But, Ms Lannelle,’ I said with not-altogether feigned astonishment, ‘I don’t see why you need my help. I’m quite sure that you could manage perfectly well on your own. All you’ll have to do is sneak across from your cottage in the middle of the night and help yourself to a sample of haggis from the kitchen. I’ll give you my key to the front door.’

  She sighed. ‘Well now, I have my own little confession to make.’ A rush of words, ‘I have this silly fear of the dark, have to keep a night light on in my room. If there’s a power cut at night,’ her massive frame shuddered, ‘I just go to pieces!’ She gave an embarrassed giggle.

  At 2.05 a.m. a triangle of light, too bright for a night bulb, escaped from between the curtains of Felicity Lannelle’s self-catering cottage, evidence that she was awake, eagerly awaiting my arrival with the coveted haggis.

  I turned away from the window and crossed to the bedroom door. Gorgonzola lazily opened one eye, curiosity wrestling with comfort. Comfort won. She decided my activities had nothing to do with her, and went back to sleep.

  A black shape amid the shadows of the upper landing, I stood at the top of the stairs, letting my eyes adjust to the dim glow of the emergency lights. The rays of a full moon stained the stair carpet with the patterns of the Victorian window, its bright colours of daytime now washed out and anaemic. I listened to the sounds of the sleeping house, vague creaks and rustlings, the measured tick…tock…from the old grandfather clock down in the hall. Satisfied there was nobody else about, I carefully made my way downstairs.

  The lock on the door behind the reception desk was no match for the gadget I took from my pocket. One twist and the levers clicked back. I flicked on a pencil torch, picked my way down the steps to the basement kitchen, and played its narrow ray on the door at the foot of the stairs. No antiquated Victorian lock, this, or even a modern five-levered mortise, but a device that might be a match for even my sophisticated equipment. Overdoing the security for the kitchen of a country house hotel, weren’t they? Evidence of something to hide?