No Suspicious Circumstances Read online

  Purrrr…purrrr…purr purr. Grrrrrrrr… Tantalised beyond endurance by the raised spoon, Gorgonzola lost patience. She twined herself tightly round my legs in an anaconda embrace more akin to a rugby tackle than an affectionate reminder.

  ‘OK, OK, sorry, sorry, sorry.’ Penitently, I added a generous amount of gravy to the plate and placed it in front of her.

  Chomp. Slurp. Chomp. I closed the door behind me.

  I was halfway down the stairs when the soft black curtain that had been drawn across my mind suddenly lifted, and a fleeting memory from those missing hours returned… Gina and a shadowy figure whispering in the gloom…

  I realised I might come face to face with her in the dining room. And perhaps, with her shadowy accomplice too. Suddenly, I remembered the hand thudding into my back, saw the dormitory steps rushing up to meet me.

  ‘Pull yourself together,’ I scolded, mouth dry, resentful of my own weakness. ‘It’s an ideal opportunity to see her reaction when you walk in.’ I might even get a lead on the identity of that shadowy figure.

  I took a deep breath and made my way into the dining room. Keyed up as I was, a glance round the room brought disappointment. No sign of Gina. Casually, I made my way towards an empty table with a good view of the door. As soon as she entered, we’d see each other.

  On my way past Hiram J Spinks’s table, I brushed against the heavily starched folds of the tablecloth, knocking a spoon to the floor. He looked up, and the leaflet he had been studying fluttered from his grasp.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I bent down to retrieve the fallen items.

  His hand closed over the leaflet an instant before mine. When I straightened up, a wave of dizziness caused Spinks and the room to sway alarmingly. I clutched at the tablecloth to steady myself, and with a loud clatter the rest of his cutlery followed his spoon onto the highly polished floor. Mrs Mackenzie’s reproving figure materialised in the doorway like a malevolent genie.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr Spinks,’ I stammered. ‘Still a bit wobbly after Friday’s accident, I’m afraid.’

  Mrs M began fussing over Spinks and resetting the table, casting pained glances in my direction.

  His eyes examined me closely. ‘Accident?’ he drawled. ‘You sure look as if you’ve been in the rough, ma’am, if you’ll excuse a golfing expression. I hope you weren’t hospitalised?’

  ‘No, but—’

  He sprang to his feet and pulled out a chair for me. ‘Why don’t you sit down here, ma’am, and tell me all the details from A to Zee.’

  Though I hadn’t intended to speak to anyone, I sank onto the chair with some relief, my mind still geared to watching for Gina.

  I might as well try out my story. ‘I can’t remember anything at all about the accident,’ I said slowly. ‘I’d gone on a boat trip to Inchcolm and I was found at the foot of some stairs in the church there – they call it the abbey, I think.’

  Mrs Mackenzie placed our soup on the table.

  ‘And you can’t remember a thing about it?’ His eyes studied me over his soup-spoon.

  I shook my head. ‘Must have tripped on the steps, I suppose.’

  ‘Now hold it right there.’ He took a last mouthful of soup and leant forward eagerly. ‘Folks don’t just trip for no reason. Maybe the lighting was bad, or a step needed fixing?’ His eyebrows were thin twin interrogation marks. ‘I can put you in touch with a swell personal injury lawyer, if it comes to a matter of litigation.’

  ‘I’m afraid it must have been my own fault, Mr Spinks.’ My smile was rueful. ‘I’m a bit disaster prone. Falling into the pond at the Botanics – and now this!’

  He stared at me. ‘You really can’t remember a thing?’

  There was something in his voice that troubled me, but the need for an immediate reply was postponed by the arrival of Mrs Mackenzie with our second course. While she removed our soup plates and proudly laid her culinary masterpieces before us, I tried to analyse the underlying tone in his last question. I finally identified it. Relief, definitely relief. I felt the knotting of muscles in the pit of my stomach. Could Gina’s accomplice be Hiram J Spinks? Spinks, the idea seemed preposterous. And yet…he had been at the Botanics the day I had followed Mackenzie there. And there was that early morning glimpse of his distinctive yellow golfing cap just before my discovery of Hinburger’s body in the Jacuzzi. The hairs on the nape of my neck bristled.

  ‘You really can’t remember a thing?’ he repeated.

  I’d see how he reacted when… Furrowing my brow as if trying hard to recall what had happened, I said slowly, ‘I have just remembered something.’

  His elbow jerked convulsively and his cutlery made a second descent to the floor. Mrs Mackenzie, her looks thunderous, rematerialised to restore order, giving me a precious moment to think of my next move. I hadn’t been too clever. My hole-in-one looked like turning out to be an own goal, if I didn’t convince him pretty quickly that what I remembered wasn’t at all significant.

  I leant forward. ‘Yes, I remember the blinding pain as my head hit the stone floor. But,’ I rattled on, giving my best rendition of a wry smile, ‘the doctor said that I’m suffering from post-traumatic amnesia, so it’s very unlikely that I’ll ever remember the accident itself. In fact, I can’t remember anything after getting on the boat at the Forth Bridge.’

  His eyes stared into mine for what seemed a lifetime. Then he picked up his fork and turned his attention to the herring fried in oatmeal, one of Mrs Mackenzie’s specialities.

  Had I convinced him? My life might well depend on it. The vision of Waldo’s dead face floated in front of me, a bit like Banquo’s ghost at the Macbeth dinner table. For the rest of the meal I did my best to chatter brightly about trivial touristy matters, anything that would convince him that I really did not remember events before the accident, and so harboured no suspicions at all.

  At last Spinks pushed back his chair. ‘Gotta leave you now, ma’am.’ He gave a swing of an imaginary club. ‘Must get in some practice while the light’s still good.’ The stringy figure made its way to the door.

  I sagged back in my chair. That had been a close call. I could only hope that I had talked my way out of immediate danger, but one thing for sure – I’d certainly not be taking another Jacuzzi in the White Heather Hotel.

  A brightly coloured Tourist Board guide to East Lothian was wedged under Spinks’s plate. I reached over and drew it towards me. I skimmed quickly through it. Nothing for Operation Scotch Mist there. Just places of interest and recreation, with the golf courses circled in heavy black marker.

  I was folding the leaflet ready to slip it back under his plate, when I noticed the faint pencil marks. Two places on the coast had been lightly underlined. I held the shiny paper up to the light. He might come back and catch me reading the leaflet…but it was worth the risk.

  Jackpot. The underlined place names were castles, Tantallon and Fast Castle. In those snatches of conversation I’d overheard at the Botanics, hadn’t Mackenzie insisted that ‘the castle’ was the best place for – something?

  Hands moist with nerves and excitement, I stuffed the leaflet back under the plate and made a strategic withdrawal from the dining room. Not a moment too soon. My foot was on the bottom step of the stairs when Spinks, putter in hand, hurried by to retrieve his map.

  By the time I reached my room, reaction had set in. My head was pounding and my limbs felt weighted with lead as the after-effects of concussion took their toll. I looked longingly at the bed. How wonderful to be able to lie back against its soft pillows and fall blissfully asleep, like Gorgonzola, who was comfortably curled up in the centre of the bed digesting her belated dinner.

  Instead, I retrieved the mobile from the holdall and sent a coded progress report on Operation Scotch Mist. Hiram J Spinks prime suspect in Hinburger death. Request no action meantime. Tantallon and Fast Castle, East Lothian, possible drop sites. Investigation proceeding.

  I closed down. If Spinks was busy putting, and Gina was out and a
bout somewhere, there wouldn’t be a better opportunity to search her room. G was now lying on her back enjoying the softness of the bed, feet relaxed and purring contentedly. I tapped her briskly on the shoulder. The purring stopped, she stiffened and lay as one dead.

  ‘Time for duty,’ I said heartlessly, slipping on her working collar.

  One resentful eye opened, she yawned, stretched, and deliberately took her time to get into gear. I waited patiently for her to finish her little demonstration of independence. When she had jumped lightly to the floor, I quietly pulled open the door of my room and slipped out into the corridor.

  There was no interruption this time as I wielded the electronic pick-lock. Two seconds was all it took, and Gorgonzola and I were inside with the door locked behind us. Though there was probably little chance of Gina returning unexpectedly, I took the precaution of leaving the pick in the lock to prevent a key being inserted from the outside.

  It’s more difficult to search a meticulously tidy room and leave no traces, but Gina Lombardini was one of those untidy people who leave their belongings scattered around in chaotic disarray. Someone like that wouldn’t notice the difference if a whirlwind hit the room and swirled everything around.

  ‘Search, G.’

  She padded across the floor, tail erect, the tip twitching as if it too was sniffing out forbidden substances. I commenced my own methodical search of the room, working clockwise. After ten fruitless minutes, my headache was worse than ever. Gorgonzola, too, had given up, and was now sitting on one of Gina Lombardini’s expensive dresses watching a large bluebottle buzzing angrily against the window.

  I felt as frustrated as the bluebottle. She must have noted something down somewhere, yet I hadn’t found it. Disorganised people have scatty, disorganised minds. They have to write important things down or they would never remember them.

  I stared irritably at the buzzing bluebottle. Gorgonzola stared at it. Suddenly, she pounced. Insolently, the bluebottle circled her head. A retaliatory swipe of her paw missed its target completely and knocked to the floor Mrs Mackenzie’s stand-in for the Gideon Bible, a novel by Sir Walter Scott, placed in each room for the edification of guests. The bluebottle did a victory roll. Pretending that was what she had intended in the first place, Gorgonzola converted the follow-through of the swipe to a rub of her ear.

  I bent down to pick up the book, The Bride of Lammermuir. In it, acting as a makeshift bookmark, was a piece of paper roughly torn from an Italian magazine. Was it likely that someone who was not a fluent English speaker would choose to read so difficult a book? Hoping against hope, I opened it at the marker. Halfway down the page, the words Wolf’s Crag were heavily underlined in red ink, and scrawled untidily in the margin opposite was the word Tantallon. I almost missed the smaller piece of paper nestling behind the bookmark. In the same flamboyant handwriting was written Lunedi 23 14.30 and underneath, Mercoledi 25 19.00.

  I’d found what I was looking for.

  I felt like hugging Gorgonzola – and Gina too if she had been here, though neither lady would have appreciated it.

  At that moment of euphoria, the door handle rattled. Someone tried to fit a key in the lock. More rattlings. I tiptoed to the door and put my ear to the panel. Muttered imprecations in Italian were followed by the clack of retreating footsteps. I reckoned I had barely two minutes to make my escape before she returned with one of the Mackenzies.

  It took less than half that time to replace the book on the windowsill, scoop up Gorgonzola, and slip quietly back to my room.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was one p.m., a full hour and a half earlier than necessary, when, car mobile once again, I drove past the lane leading to Tantallon Castle, and parked as inconspicuously as possible beside some cottages. Since I was engaged in surveillance, it would be too conspicuous to use the official car park, as there’d be few other cars on such a foul day as this. With yet another dense Scottish haar blanking out all but my immediate surroundings, it felt like winter rather than the height of summer. Definitely more like November than June.

  I hunched deeper into my jacket as I made my way on foot up the castle drive. The approaching car, engine note muffled by the fog, was almost upon me before I heard it. A hundred yards ahead, the dipped yellow beams of headlights attempted to stab their way through the thick misty blanket. I pressed myself hard against the dripping foliage of one of the large bushes lining the road. The dark shape of a small car crawled by. As far as I could tell, there seemed to be only one occupant. The mist swirled and eddied in the vehicle’s wake before closing in again as impenetrably as before. I disentangled myself from the bushes, uncomfortably aware of moisture soaking coldly through the shoulders of my jacket from a shower of drips. I was here in the course of duty and I felt a twinge of sympathy for those tourists inexorably programmed for sightseeing, sun, rain – or Scottish haar.

  It was now five past one. Gina’s scribbled note in Mrs Mackenzie’s book had set the rendezvous for half past two. There’d be time to look round the castle and find a suitable position from which to monitor her movements, but tracking her would be difficult in this mist.

  The official car park, as I’d thought, was almost empty, occupied only by a Vauxhall, a Renault, a battered blue Ford and a tour bus, bodywork dulled, windows opaque with a thin film of mist. Good thinking to have left my car beside the cottages. Gina would have been sure to spot it.

  Behind the wooden hut that served as a ticket office, the ground rose in a series of green humps and mounds, and beyond, through the billowing haar, loomed the dark rectangular bulk of the castle. On the side of the hut was a board with a list of admission charges and opening times. When I tapped on the steamed-up window, it slid smartly open.

  The grey-haired custodian tore a ticket from a machine. ‘Good morning, with this weather I didn’t expect any more visitors.’ He handed me my change. ‘You’re only the fourth we’ve had today, apart from the scheduled bus party.’

  ‘It must be a pretty boring job on a day like this.’ I picked up a leaflet and flicked through it. Tantallon Castle, built in 1350…besieged by Cromwell…visited by Queen Victoria… There on the back page was what I was looking for – a plan of the castle.

  ‘You’ll find that leaflet quite interesting.’ He settled his arms more comfortably on the window ledge.

  My heart sank. He was obviously getting ready for a lengthy chat. I paid for the leaflet and began to edge away.

  He leant forward confidingly. ‘I’m afraid Scots don’t know much about their own castles. I have to say that English visitors like yourself seem to be more knowledgeable.’

  I nodded and inched away a little more.

  He warmed to what was obviously a well-loved theme. ‘I don’t know what they teach them in schools nowadays. School kids seem to know nothing at all about Scottish history. All they seem to have heard about is Robert the Bruce and his encounter with the spider. And all they know about William Wallace is what they’ve seen in that film Braveheart. It’s a disgrace that foreigners know more about Scottish history than the Scots. Now…’

  I smiled politely and shifted from one foot to another, hoping that my impatience did not show.

  ‘…only half an hour ago a foreign lady, Italian I think she was, actually wanted to know if there was any danger from wolves here. I thought at first she was getting mixed up with the Wolf of Badenoch’s castle near Newtonmore – but it turned out that she had actually read Walter Scott’s novel, The Bride of Lammermuir, and wanted to see its castle, Wolf’s Crag. Well, I had to tell her she’d made a mistake with the castle. Wolf’s Crag is not Tantallon, but Fast Castle further down the coast. You won’t find many Scots nowadays who’ve read that book, or any of his novels, let alone know that he was writing about Fast Castle…’ he trailed off, a faraway look in his eye.

  So Gina was already here. By not being in position early enough, I’d committed one of the most elementary mistakes in surveillance.

  I tried to sou
nd casual. ‘What a coincidence! An Italian lady staying at my hotel told me about Sir Walter Scott, Tantallon, and The Bride of Lammermuir. I expect she was interested because of its connection with the opera. It must be her. Perhaps I can catch her up. Or has she left yet?’

  ‘The coach party’s still here, and the chap from France.’ He rubbed his hand over his chin. ‘I think the American’s gone. Been several times, he has. He didn’t stay long this time, though. I suppose the weather must have put him off. I’m surprised he bothered to come at all today. Paid his money and away again in twenty minutes. Well, that’s Americans for you! Money doesn’t mean the same to them, does it? But I think the Italian lady’s still here. It’s gratifying when people take a proper interest.’

  That reference to an American jolted me like a hammer blow. Could that American be Hiram J Spinks?

  ‘Thank you. I’ll just see if I can find her.’ With a smile I turned away and walked over the wet grass towards the outer walls of the castle. I quickened my step. It looked like I’d missed the rendezvous, but I might still learn something if I could find Gina.

  I passed through the remains of the outer gate. The ruined bulk of the inner castle reared ahead of me, blurred, dark, vaguely menacing. The faint swish of the sea on my right swelled to a hollow boom as I made my way over a stretch of closely cropped grass towards a fence. Far below, through the swirling mist, I could just make out the moving surface of the sea and the tips of jagged rocks. I shivered and turned away.

  The haar eddied, then lightened. Like a fade-up on a film screen, the castle materialised on the edge of the cliff. Ruined red sandstone, lichened curtain-walls topped by a high tower, reared upward for forty to fifty feet. I crossed another drawbridge to a low arched doorway below an eroded coat of arms.

  There was no sign of Gina in the inner courtyard of the castle. The only vantage point was the crumbling wall of the mid-tower. The ancient stones, wet and dripping from the haar, soared floorless till roofed four storeys above by a grey-white blankness of sky. The only sounds were the whisper of my shoes on the smooth flagstones and the flutter of pigeons disturbed from their nesting places in the old fireplaces. I moved on.