No Suspicious Circumstances Read online

  I might be able to spot Gina from the top of that covered staircase leading to the battlements. I started up the hollowed foot-worn steps, the only light-source artificial sconces and narrow slit windows through which the haar insinuated ghostly grey fingers. A huge spider’s web, insubstantial and dusty, hung from the roof like some ancient moth-eaten battle standard. Had I been a bona fide holidaymaker, I would have enjoyed the Gothic atmosphere.

  As it was, when I finally emerged onto the battlements, all I felt was frustration. Grey mist blocked all vision to right and left. Enclosed in a narrow grey-walled corridor, I strained my ears for any sign of human presence – a voice, a footstep – but the only sound was the mournful, muffled surge of the sea. There seemed no point in climbing higher. With such poor visibility I wouldn’t be able to see anything useful.

  A breath of wind momentarily tugged aside the grey blanket to reveal another narrow staircase, this time leading steeply downward. I took it and found myself in the central courtyard of the castle. At this level, the mist had retreated, an invader repulsed by the old red walls. Over to my left, Japanese tourists, heads covered by plastic rain hoods, were studying with serious expressions the remains of an old tower. They’d make excellent cover. I made my way over to join them.

  ‘These stairs…’ The Scottish guide was pointing to weathered steps hugging the walls and spiralling ever upwards to a small patch of grey sky. ‘Just think how many feet have climbed them.’ He looked expectantly at his flock. The Japanese gazed back with inscrutable politeness and varying degrees of comprehension.

  He’d got me thinking. I studied the worn treads. What fears and hopes…?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of red as a figure disappeared into a doorway on the opposite side of the courtyard. Gina Lombardini wore a red coat.

  I walked quickly across the courtyard, running the last few yards, and peered in the doorway through which the figure had vanished. Pit Prison. A small notice pointed down through a series of arches. The dank smell of damp earth, mould and stagnant air drifted up unpleasantly from below, the smell of despair and death. Poor wretches had been thrown down there, never to emerge. From such a place there was only one entrance – and no exit. All I would have to do was conceal myself behind a convenient pillar and wait.

  After several minutes, I heard the soft scuffle of footsteps ascending the narrow stairs. A dark head appeared, then red shoulders. One of the Japanese tourists. There was nothing particularly memorable about the woman’s features, but her hairstyle was quite distinctive, a broad gold streak dyed into her coal-black hair. Was this woman Gina’s contact? An Asian connection would give a whole new dimension to Operation Scotch Mist. I watched her make her way across the courtyard and join the rest of the group. If possible, I’d catch up with her later and take her photograph.

  I withdrew behind the pillar and waited. Gina could still be down there. She wouldn’t leave the Pit Prison until a decent interval had elapsed.

  Ten minutes later, with no sign of Gina, I knew I’d wasted my time. There was no one down there. Shit. It had been a mistake to assume that someone wearing a red coat might be Gina. After all, she hadn’t been wearing red on those visits to Inchcolm and the Botanics…

  With the clarity of a video replay, I saw myself lying submerged in the warm waters of the Tropical House… Gina striding ahead of Hinburger and Mackenzie, and calling impatiently over her shoulder in her heavily accented English, ‘Come, come! Let us get out of here quickly. You know I no like being shut up in these so closed places!’ Gina was claustrophobic and wouldn’t have tolerated even one minute in the dark foul atmosphere of the Pit Prison. Shit, Shit, Shit.

  There was no point in wasting energy in self-recrimination. The haar was staging another counter-attack, closing in. The Japanese tourists were barely visible.

  One minute, they were earnestly following their guide towards the edge of the cliff top, the next, the men were pointing and gesticulating, the women were standing with their hands to their mouths, their eyes frightened and staring. I ran across the grass and peered over the rain-hatted heads.

  And found Gina Lombardini.

  A buttressed tower loomed through the mist, its red sandstone walls an extension of the cliff face. From a tall narrow window protruded the head and shoulders of Gina, panic-stricken, her mouth a round O of terror. She seemed to be trying to lever herself out of the narrow opening. Both arms were flailing in a frenzy that battered her hands mercilessly against the rough walls. Her body shuddered and convulsed. From her lips came a peculiar mewing sound. Sixty feet below, as the sea surged and fell back, sharp rocks bared their teeth in anticipation.

  I pushed my way to the front of the group. ‘Gina! Gina! Go back.’

  I waved and shouted, but the wide staring eyes were incapable of seeing. She was obviously beyond rational thought. I elbowed my way through the silent, staring Japanese and ran.

  It took only a few seconds to reach the wide entrance at the base of the tower. Inside, to the left, was a small studded door. Frantically, I lifted the iron latch, pulled and tugged at the massive door. The door didn’t budge. Could it be locked? But there was no key in the huge keyhole.

  ‘Gina! Gina!’ Heedless of bruised knuckles, I hammered on the thick wooden panels. There was no response.

  I peered through the keyhole into a tiny enclosed space that would be terrifying to the claustrophobic Gina. There was only one small window and Gina’s body was blocking out most of the light. It took a few seconds for my eye to become accustomed to the darkness. Then I could just make out the stones of the wall and, occasionally, a wildly waving foot.

  Behind me I heard a jangle of keys. I turned to find the custodian, his chest heaving with the effort of running, and at his shoulder the guide, red-faced and agitated.

  The custodian gazed at the empty keyhole, his brow furrowed. ‘That lock was so rusted up the key wouldn’t turn. Can’t understand it, Dave. The key was there this morning when I opened up and made my rounds. It must have been taken by one of those souvenir hunters, they’re always making off with bits of the castle. Don’t know how the buggers did it, though.’ He searched the ground with his eyes, as if willing the key to materialise. ‘Don’t think there’s much chance of getting that door open.’ He pushed back his cap and scratched his head. ‘We’ll have to break it down.’

  That would need the fire brigade and a battering ram. I knew we didn’t have time.

  ‘Perhaps if you rattle one of those other keys around a bit, she’ll realise that help is coming,’ I suggested.

  ‘Good idea.’ Muttering to himself, he selected the largest from his bunch of keys and moved it vigorously from side to side in the lock.

  A thin film of sweat beaded my forehead. How long before she lost all reason and threw herself out of the window…?

  I pressed my ear to the door. Feet scrabbled on sandstone… Abruptly the sound stopped.

  Filled with foreboding, I applied my eye to the keyhole. The tiny room was no longer dark. The obstruction in the window had gone. I could see only a segment of the room, and it was empty.

  ‘I think she’s jumped,’ I burst out, my voice shaking.

  We ran back to the fence on the cliff top, stumbling in our haste over the uneven ground. The Japanese tourists stood in a huddled, silent group, staring across at the window. Heart thumping, I followed their gaze.

  Gina had not jumped. In her frenzy to escape she had somehow managed to force her body through that slit of an opening onto a narrow ledge. Her face was pressed against the rough stonework of the tower. She had lost her shoes. One stockinged foot scrabbled for purchase on the crumbling sandstone, the other dangled helplessly over the sixty-foot drop to the rocks below.

  All her weight was being taken by that one foot on its precarious hold. As we watched, she teetered, the grip of her clutching fingers weakened. For a moment she seemed to recover. Then with a terrible slowness, first one hand, then the other slid away f
rom the wall in the ghastly travesty of a farewell wave. Arching backwards, she toppled down… down…to the waiting rocks below.

  Disturbed by the falling body, fulmers darted up through the mist, their eerie call like the wail of a lost soul. From the Japanese came a sharp intake of breath, followed by a long sigh.

  As her body fell, I’d squeezed my eyes shut. Now I opened them. With the mist for a shroud, Gina was lying spread-eagled on the rocks. One out-flung arm, plucked by the waves, seemed to be reaching forlornly for a yellow canister drifting slowly back and forth in the surge.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mercifully, within a few seconds the eddying haar blotted out the scene below, the sea washing over Gina’s body, her skull smashed by the sharp rocks. Legs trembling, I swallowed hard, engulfed by a wave of nausea. Shock, of course. For what seemed a long, long time no one moved or spoke. Then the custodian rubbed his hand wearily over his eyes.

  ‘I’ll phone the police and emergency services, Dave. You’d better get your lot back to the coach and tell the driver to take them off to the hotel.’ He gave me a quick glance. ‘You and the lady here will be needed as witnesses.’

  I nodded, and he turned away, his footsteps heavy and slow. No need for haste now. Speaking in low, hushed voices, the tourists trailed back to the coach behind their guide, leaving me alone on the cliff top.

  Death was so final. And yet for others life had to go on.

  It was not that I was unfamiliar with violent death, but this had been so totally unexpected, so…so…unnecessary. If only that key had still been in position… If only Gina had managed to control her fear enough to wait till we had forced the lock… I couldn’t bear to visualise her rising panic. Once she had realised that she was trapped in that tiny room, she wouldn’t have been able to control her fear. What rotten luck that a practical joker had slammed the door on her and locked it… It was the sort of silly prank that children indulged in. No children here today, though. It wasn’t likely that one of those oh-so-serious Japanese was responsible. And yet… One of them had left the others. The Japanese woman in red. I tried to remember whether I had seen a red coat in the group straggling back to the bus. I couldn’t be sure – I’d been too upset to take in anything. Who else was here today? A Frenchman, the custodian had said. I hadn’t seen anything of him, but that didn’t mean…

  There was something else… It was hovering on the edge of my memory…so frustrating. Something that didn’t quite add up… That was it. Would a practical joker acting on impulse remove the key from the lock? And there was something about that keyhole… I reviewed my actions. I’d hammered on the door, looked through the keyhole, listened for movement. Something important that I’d missed was on the verge of surfacing. Perhaps if I went back to the tower…

  I stood for a moment staring at the studded door. I looked round to see if anybody was watching, then I mimed hammering and shouting. When I peered through the keyhole, I could clearly see the floor and the wall opposite. Gina wasn’t blocking the daylight with her body now. But nothing triggered the elusive something at the edge of my consciousness. Disappointed, I straightened up. But I might as well complete the rerun of my actions…

  I pressed my ear to the door. And heard again that faint scuffling, the scrabble of her feet on the sandstone sill… The short hairs on the nape of my neck prickled. As if the wood of the door had suddenly become red hot, I leapt back and stood there, heart pounding. At last, I summoned up courage to look through the keyhole again. And saw a scurrying grey shape, and another. Rats. Trapped in a small room with rats would be enough to send most people into a panic, even if they didn’t suffer from claustrophobia.

  With a quick movement, the rat disappeared from my narrow zone of vision. Close to my eye was a bright bead of moisture. Curious, I inserted my finger into the keyhole, rubbed it about inside, and very carefully withdrew it. A thin layer of something translucent and yellowish coated my finger. Cautiously, I sniffed at it. No doubt about it, a releasing agent.

  I stared at the incriminating evidence on my finger. The door was locked. Someone had oiled that rusted lock and turned the key. Gina was not the unlucky victim of a mindless prankster but of a cold-blooded killer, her death premeditated, the place carefully chosen. By someone who knew that Gina suffered from claustrophobia. Whoever had locked the door had calculated that Gina would jump. Wanted her dead.

  It was hard to envisage one of the Japanese tourists oiling the lock and removing the key. But someone had, so the only other visitors to the castle, the Frenchman and the American, must be prime suspects. And if Hiram J Spinks had indeed been that American…

  The old walls with their gun ports now seemed menacing and hostile. In a shaken and thoughtful mood, I made my way back to the entrance and the custodian’s hut.

  Halfway across the bridge, I stopped for a moment and traced a huge question mark in the grey film of moisture clinging to the smooth metal surface of the handrail. The custodian had said that the American had left after only twenty minutes. Time enough to lock the tower door, but certainly not enough for the releasing agent to penetrate the rust of years. Of course, it was just possible that the red-coated Japanese woman might have been responsible. She had been wandering about on her own. But it seemed that the time factor for the releasing agent to work also cleared her, as she had arrived either with the rest of the Japanese, or later than I had. That was something to check with the custodian.

  As I rounded the corner, the departing coach revved its engine, its rear lights brightening, then dimming as it drove off into the mist. The door of the hut opened and the custodian emerged carrying a board with the words CASTLE CLOSED TODAY in double size white letters.

  ‘The police’ll be here shortly, miss.’ He blocked off the castle access with the board. ‘They’ll be wanting a statement from you, so if you’d care to wait inside…’

  He shut the door against the fog and motioned me to one of the two chairs, sitting down heavily on the other while Dave busied himself with kettle and teapot. For a long, long moment he sat slumped in his chair, the silence oppressive. The rattle of teaspoon against thick china mugs sounded unnaturally loud.

  He raised his head to look at me. ‘I should never have left that key in the lock, but my full strength couldn’t move it, so I thought it was quite safe…’ His voice trailed off and he gazed wearily into space, seeing not the thin walls of the little hut but worn red sandstone and those fingers clutching desperately at their last chance of life.

  Dave raised his eyes interrogatively at me as he deposited a steaming mug of poisonous tarry brew on the ledge beside the custodian’s elbow. The sight of the peat-brown liquid instantly extinguished my longing for a good restorative cup of tea. I shook my head.

  ‘Cheer up, George. Don’t blame yourself.’ Dave patted his colleague’s shoulder consolingly. ‘It was just a terrible accident. Nobody’s fault.’

  Dave’s well meant sympathy foundered and sank like a stone. In the heavy silence that followed his remark, the faint shriek of a sea bird was a disturbing reminder of Gina’s last cry.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Nobody’s fault, you said? I think the police might come to an entirely different conclusion.’

  George’s hand shook violently, sending a brown tidal wave of tea over a pile of pristine guidebooks and leaflets. Dave set down his mug with a crash and stared at me defensively.

  ‘Now, just a minute. I don’t think you can—’

  ‘No, no. I wasn’t pointing a finger at either of you. I didn’t mean that anyone here was to blame.’

  They looked unconvinced.

  I hurriedly extricated myself from the invidious position of accuser. ‘The lock had been recently oiled so that it would operate. That woman’s death was not an accident but murder.’

  A second tidal wave of tea engulfed the guidebooks.

  Some exhausting hours later, I drove back to the White Heather Hotel. Try as I might, I couldn’t shut out the awful images that forced th
emselves to the front of my mind. Those wild staring eyes. The frantically scrabbling fingers. Gina half-submerged in the surf, dead hand stretching out for the yellow canister bobbing just out of reach…

  And I was no nearer to identifying the mysterious American. With much wrinkling of brow, George had trawled his memory but been unable to furnish any useful description. ‘Just an ordinary American chappie,’ was all he had been able to come up with.

  After the first shock, he had seized on my startling theory of murder with the fervour of a drowning man clinging to an offered branch, a welcome escape from self-tormenting guilt. The grey-haired policeman who arrived to investigate the reported accident took a lot more convincing. There was much avuncular soothings and casting of knowing looks at his colleague over my head. It was only when I produced my identity card with its security rating that he grudgingly accepted that I was unlikely to be deranged by shock, and that there could just possibly be a grain of substance in my theory. Even then, I had to take him aside and tell him of Gina Lombardini’s connection with an international drug ring before he took me seriously enough to summon the Crime Squad and the forensic task force.

  The police procedures dragged on for hours. The obligatory statements had to be taken in painstaking detail. The fire brigade arrived with ladders, ropes and other gear, and with practised ease, Gina, more photographed in death than in life, was stretchered off to the mortuary. Then I had to hang around while they dealt with the opening of the tower door. They had to take an axe to it in the end…

  I’d hoped to persuade the scene of crime officer to let me have a look at any papers, if Gina’s shoulder bag was there. But there was no bag in the room. Only one of Gina’s designer sandals lying beneath the window, the strap gnawed by rodent teeth.