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Authors: Catriona McPherson

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BOOK: Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder
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Perhaps it was just the cold, the chill of damp air pressing down and the chill of old stone creeping up, so cold that even though every side-table and pillar at the altar and every niche and alcove up the sides was filled with flowers none of their scent could reach us. That was possibly a blessing, for the arrangements – three feet across and cascading to the floor – were made up of enormous rhododendron heads in the palest pink and masses of white narcissus as well as the usual lilies; in a warm room they would have been suffocating.
Here came the coffin, white and glittering, with another heap of flowers resting on it. These narcissi were trembling, showing us that the pall-bearers, although they looked steady and strong, were not unaffected by the burden on their shoulders. Jack Aitken was one of them, Mr Muir the manager of the gentlemen’s side another; I did not recognise the other four and saw no family resemblance although I was sure they were not professionals, being too individually dressed in their best dark suits and black shoes, not decked out with the uniformity of undertakers’ men.
Behind the coffin the Aitken women made their way up the aisle as though it were a cliff-face and there were a howling gale blowing hard against them. Bella, towering over Mary and Abigail, spread her arms protectively behind them and ploughed unsteadily on, while the two smaller women tottered one faltering step and then with effort another and swaying a little yet another and the congregation held its breath, men in the aisle seats shifting, ready to help should the pitiful threesome flounder.
When they had made it to the front pew and sunk down out of view, the rest of us sat back and the gust of our collective sigh drowned out the low notes of the organ as it began an even more sepulchral lament than before.
Then the minister and two session clerks emerged from the vestry, bowed to the coffin, bowed to the family, and the minister mounted the altar to begin. I swept the edges of the pews with a gaze, checking the sides of every pillar to see if there were any trace of someone hiding there. I could see Alec doing the same. The minister was speaking, intoning, more mournful than the organ even, and he finished with the words: let us pray. I crossed my fingers and bent my head.
‘We should have stayed standing up at the back,’ Alec whispered.
‘Well, we can’t go skipping off now,’ I whispered back.
‘Ssh!’ hissed our neighbour, managing to imbue the sound with all the indignation we deserved. I bent my head even further and tried to block out the words of the prayer, listening hard for movements where they should not be.
As it turned out, our vigilance was unneeded. The service wore on, ended, and the coffin and woebegone trio of Aitken ladies left again without any interruptions beyond the odd moment when one of the congregation, trying to weep silently, momentarily failed and had to apply a handkerchief to smother a sob or one of those great wuthering sighs. Alec and I had slipped out in advance of the family party of course, to keep an eye on potential trouble in the kirkyard, but the coffin was deposited back into the hearse, surrounded by wreaths, and the family deposited back into the motorcars, without incident. As the congregation filed out a procession formed behind the second motorcar and then at a snail’s pace and with the engines growling, the chauffeurs as tense as before, they drew away from the Abbey doors and began the dreadful journey through the streets to the cemetery. (The Abbey kirkyard had long been full, I concluded, looking around at the mossy old gravestones with their epitaphs worn away, and even if there were a plot remaining here and there into which a town worthy or church official might be squeezed, a suicide was never going to have rules bent and space found for her.)
Alec stood watching the procession snaking away. ‘Police now or graveside first?’ he said. He shivered slightly as he spoke, although one could not tell whether to blame the prospect facing him on the sudden chill in the air – the sun had retreated behind a bank of dark, determined-looking clouds as though it meant to stay there.
‘Police for me and graveside for you,’ I said. ‘I’d stick out like a sore thumb anyway.’ The old Scotch tradition of women staying away from the burial held strong in Dunfermline, it seemed. The procession was made up of men alone, and their wives idled at the Abbey door and among the graves, wiping their eyes and shaking their heads and beginning to talk of Mirren and the shame of it all and then slowly but inevitably of other things.
I kissed Alec’s cheek and was watching him edge up the side of the procession with a perfect mixture of purpose and decorum so that he could be close to the hearse, when someone sidled up to me and passed me a folded note.
‘From Mrs Ninian, dear,’ she said. I recognised Aitkens’ institution, Mrs . . .
‘Mrs Lumsden,’ she said, seeing me searching for her name. ‘Mrs Ninian asked me to make sure you got this if you were here.’
I opened the note and began to read it.
Dear Mrs Gilver
, it said.
‘This isn’t Mrs Ninian’s writing,’ I said to myself, frowning.
‘No,’ said Mrs Lumsden. ‘She was very upset. She dictated to me.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, how kind you are. You must be such a help.’ Mrs Lumsden looked a little uncomfortable, which was puzzling. I gave her an uncertain smile and returned to the note again.
I must beg your patience with regards to a meeting to settle your account. I will be detained at the funeral tea for Mirren today
.
I stared, disbelieving, then, aware of Mrs Lumsden waiting for me to answer, I roused myself.
‘There’s a reception?’ I said faintly. Her homely face puckered as she tried to combine her natural loyalty with her equally natural good common sense.
‘At the Emporium. Just for the staff,’ she said, at last. ‘There are a hundred of us and we all loved the lass. Loved her dearly. We want to give her a send-off no matter what the rights and wrongs of what she did to herself, the poor love.’
‘You knew her well, then?’ I said. Mrs Lumsden’s face was formed for cheerfulness and it took some effort for her mouth to turn down and stay there, but she managed it.
‘From as soon as she could walk, she toddled about the store,’ she said. ‘Up and down on that lift like it was a see-saw. The hours she spent sitting on the counters and she never once fell off. Well, it’s every wee girl’s dream, isn’t it? Playing at shops in a real shop. Yes, we all loved her.’
‘And did it seem . . . that is, were you surprised at what she did?’
‘Surprised is hardly the word,’ said Mrs Lumsden. She looked startled at my understatement and I tried to explain.
‘Of course, I do beg your pardon. Of course, it was a horrid shock. It must always be so. But surely, I mean to say, I imagine there are people one could always see taking that way out of life’s difficulties and then there are people one couldn’t believe would ever do it, no matter what the provocations.’
Mrs Lumsden was frowning at me.
‘Take my two—’ I was going to say sons, but a flash of white panic at the thought stopped me from going further. ‘Take my brother and sister,’ I said instead. ‘Mavis is a gloomy sort of girl, always was so. She used to have funerals for her dolls and she has a dreadful habit of adopting three-legged horses and one-eared mongrels and then weeping over them. I’ve told her time and again to get a healthy puppy from good stock and a clean home and she won’t spend such hours nursing and mourning. But she’s half in love with easeful death, Mrs Lumsden. I wouldn’t drop from shock to hear that Mavis had killed herself, so long as it were beautiful enough. Floating off like Ophelia, you know, or something.’
Mrs Lumsden was staring aghast at me and just too late I remembered that Mirren’s death had been anything but beautiful, slumped against brown distemper with blood matting her hair. I pressed on.
‘Whereas my brother, Edward, is quite the opposite. He left his right hand and his right eye at the Somme and all he ever said about it was that it got him a prettier wife than he deserved because she felt the patriotic echo of Lord Nelson.’
Mrs Lumsden was blinking rather, but she did answer.
‘Hard to say, Mrs Gilver, about our Mirren. Very hard to say. She was a cheery, sunny wee thing, right enough. More like Mr Jack than Miss Abigail in that respect although she doesn’t favour either of them in looks. Didn’t, I mean. Didn’t favour. Oh my!’ I patted her hand. ‘And she wasn’t a girl ever to make a fuss or throw a tantrum. She had wanted to go to school, you know, and then to college – she was as sharp as a tack, for all her sweet ways – but she didn’t sulk and huff when her grandmother said no. Now you’re asking about it, in fact, Mrs Gilver, it
is
out of character. Not that she didn’t love the boy.’
‘Her grandmother,’ I said.
Mrs Lumsden started and put one of her plump little hands over her mouth. ‘Her family, I should have said. I spoke quite out of turn. Mrs Ninian has been a good friend to me.’
The females left behind by the procession were beginning to disperse now and despite the many gates in and out of the Abbey grounds it seemed to me that it was the narrow way by the old Abbot House, past the library and on towards the Emporium, where Mrs Lumsden kept glancing.
‘Does the reception begin soon?’ I asked.
She nodded, shifting from foot to foot.
‘Right away,’ she said. ‘Best way to keep the lads out of the public houses. Mrs Ninian isn’t coming along until later, when she’s got Miss Abigail home and settled, and I promised I’d keep an eye on everything.’
‘Don’t let me keep you,’ I said and it was as though I had cut the string of a balloon. She sped off, throwing apologies and explanations over her shoulder. I heard ‘temperamental tea urn’ and ‘far too much lipstick if I’m not there to stop them’ and she was gone.
I stared after her and then at the note again, and began to wonder. If I put on my most innocent face and roundest eyes, could I claim to think I had been invited? If, I debated to myself, I went straight to the police now as I had promised Alec I would, it would be cap in hand, knees knocking, to deliver a theory that would sound like criticism to the nasty inspector who already disliked me. If, on the other hand, I went to Aitkens’, found the girl from Household who had seen Mr Hepburn in the store, slipped away to the attic rooms and found a pair of ladies’ gloves hidden there, still bearing traces of cordite, I should be able to waft along to the police station trailing clouds of glory and a witness behind me. Besides, standing in the churchyard was getting too miserable to be borne.
So I hurried after Mrs Lumsden, with the note in my hand, threading my way through the narrow streets, watching the town come back to life again. The shops, which had closed while the funeral was going on, were beginning to raise their shutters and turn their signs back to
Open
ready to furnish all comers with luggage and rugs once more.
Aitkens’, of course, was closed for the day, a discreet card in the lower left corner of every window announcing that business would resume on the following Friday morning, and Ferguson the doorman in deepest black was letting in staff members while deftly turning customers away with ambassadorial ease. He hesitated when he saw me but I waved the note and so he opened the door and held it for me; the revolving door with its whirling gaiety was, I gathered, unsuitable for such a sombre day.
‘Welcome, Mrs Gilver,’ he said, bowing. ‘I hear the funeral passed off as well as could be expected.’
‘Weren’t you there?’ I said. A spasm crossed the man’s face.
‘Someone had to mind the shop,’ he answered. ‘And they tell me Mr Muir carried out his task most competently.’ His look discouraged further comment and so I contented myself with a sympathetic smile and made to move away.
‘It’s the second floor, madam,’ he said, ‘but the lift boy isnae on duty today. Do you think you could manage it?’
‘No, no,’ I said, remembering the slow creaking. ‘I’ll take the stairs, Ferguson, gladly.’
‘Aye but the staff’s all using the big stairs, today,’ he said, ‘since the store’s closed anyway.’ He frowned at me, calculating how the necessary distinctions might be maintained, how the prospect of a shopgirl sharing stair treads with me might best be avoided, until his attention was summoned by a banging on the door. He turned and his brow cleared at the sight of a young girl in a suit of rather flashy grey hound’s-tooth check and, as Mrs Lumsden had feared, a great deal of red lipstick.
‘Oh, here’s Miss McWilliam,’ he said, opening up again. ‘She’s a dab hand with that shipper rope, are you no’, hen? Goan take Mrs Gilver up, will you?’
‘Fine by me,’ said the girl. ‘Save my legs in these shoes.’ And with that she swished off on her high heels, leaving me to follow her.
The lift seemed wheezier and more arthritic than ever when we entered and the girl pulled the rope which was supposed to set it rising. It gave some very alarming clanks, moved a foot or so and stopped.
‘I don’t mind the stairs, actually,’ I said and the girl, heels or no heels, nodded in fervent agreement, but then before we could get out again the carriage started moving and we had missed our chance. I held my breath as it hauled us up two storeys and only let it go once we had arrived and the girl had jerked the rope to stop us and opened both doors. Even then, as though by way of farewell, it dropped an inch or so as I stepped forward and we both got out very hurriedly.
BOOK: Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder
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