Dead in the Water (3 page)

Cat and Janet were alone in the kitchen, mugs of tea and a plate of flapjacks in front of them. The Tin, a family institution, was open on the table, with a chocolate cake, shortbread, a fruit loaf and some more of the flapjacks inside. It was battered now by years of service, but Janet still regularly filled it up to bring to the farm and take back empty.

Marjory came in and bent to give Janet a hug. Was it just her imagination, or had her mother got smaller this last year or two?

‘Had a good day, pet?’ Janet asked, as she had done since her daughter was coming home from Primary One. ‘I’ll just make you a cup of tea.’

‘No, no, Mum,’ Marjory protested. ‘You sit down. I’ll get it myself.’

Cat, unfolding her long legs, stood up. ‘Stop bickering, you two. Mum, sit down and
I
’ll make some tea. You want another cup, Gran?’

Marjory and Janet exchanged smiles, doing as they were told. As Cat lifted the lid of the Aga and pulled across the kettle, she said over her shoulder, ‘Did you hear about the filming, Mum?’

‘Filming? No.’

‘I was just telling Gran. You know
Playfair’s Patch
?’

‘Know it, yes,’ Marjory said, ‘but don’t ask me to watch it. Playfair’s a superintendent, allegedly, and does house-to-house enquiries. Try asking Donald Bailey to go out knocking on doors and see what answer you get!’

Cat brought back the teapot and put it on the table. ‘Oh, Mum, get with it! It’s a crime series, OK? It’s not a documentary. Bet if they filmed what you do all day it’d be so boring no one would watch it.’

‘You have a point there. Sometimes I can hardly bear to watch it myself.’ Marjory took a flapjack.

‘The thing is, they’re coming to shoot an episode over in the South Rhins next week. Isn’t that totally wicked?’ Cat’s eyes were sparkling.

‘I thought
Playfair’s Patch
was in Glasgow,’ Marjory objected.

‘Well – yeah. So? It’ll look good and you could kind of think it might be somewhere in Strathclyde.
Anyway
,’ Cat went on as her mother seemed ready to argue, ‘the thing is, Karolina’s going to ask you for a few days off – she’s got a Polish friend in catering in Glasgow and heard they needed extra help in the canteen. They’re wanting school kids as extras too, so I said how cool it would be if I could get in on it, and she goes, “Well, my friend knows the director – he’ll mention you.” Wouldn’t that be fantastic? I phoned Anna and we could go together – it would be, like, amazing!’

Cat and Anna seemed to do most things together these days, but that was fine. Anna was a great improvement on some of Cat’s earlier chums – pretty, clever and nice too.

‘Sounds fun. But what’s Karolina going to do with Janek?’

‘I could baby-sit for her—’ Janet began, but her daughter interrupted, shaking her head.

‘It’s so like you to offer, and granted, Janek’s an engaging little scamp, but you’ve no idea what a handful a lively three-year-old can be.’

‘Calling Janek lively is like saying it’s a bit blowy during a hurricane,’ Cat put in. ‘I’m always wiped out after baby-sitting, even though he’s mostly asleep. No, she’s parking him in a nursery – worth the money, she said, because it could really boost her catering company. That’ll be brilliant, won’t it?’

Marjory agreed, as enthusiastically as she could. It wasn’t impressive that her first thought had been to wonder about its effect on her domestic life, when this would indeed be a wonderful opportunity for Karolina.

Cat didn’t notice, but Janet was quick to pick up reservation in her tone. ‘Don’t worry about the house, dearie. I can easily come up and keep things running for you, now I’ve no one to think of but myself.’

‘Of course not!’ Marjory exclaimed. ‘I wouldn’t take advantage of you like that. You do enough – visiting at the old people’s home, all the baking for those constant coffee mornings and church fairs. You were exhausted after the Lifeboat fundraiser last week when I came to see you.’

‘Well, I’d been on my feet the whole day,’ Janet protested, but her daughter went on.

‘Anyway, Karolina’s doing fine at the moment and it may take some time to get major clients. But Cat – next week, did you say? You’ve got school.’

‘Yeah, but it’s a complete doss just now. It’s only a week till the end of term, it’s just revision and we’ve covered the syllabus already. I’ll work in the evenings, I swear.’

Marjory looked at her daughter doubtfully. She was quite eye-catching, blonde and slim with long legs and pretty blue eyes, and if they needed an attractive teenager she would certainly fit the profile. ‘You’ll have to ask the Head. If he agrees, I won’t object.’

Cat came over to fling her arms round her mother’s neck. ‘Thanks, Mum. I’m sure the Heidie will say it’s OK. He’s almost human – says it’s good to broaden our experience.’

‘Who’s the star, anyway?’ Marjory asked idly. ‘I remember seeing him – quite good-looking, fortyish.’

‘Marcus Lindsay. And his sidekick’s Jaki Johnston. He’s meant to be sort of posh, and she’s not. It said in
Heat
they’re an item.’

‘Marcus Lindsay!’ Janet said. ‘Now, I know something about him – what is it, now? Give me a wee minute . . .’ She frowned, then her brow cleared. ‘That’s right! It’s not his real name – not the Lindsay bit. He’s Marcus Lazansky – Lindsay was his mother’s name, and I suppose he’d need something easier for folk to remember. His father was a Czech, Ladislav Lazansky – he was a fighter pilot. Stayed on after the war.’

Janet gave a little sigh. ‘Laddie Lazansky! My, he was handsome – a charmer, too! We’d coffee mornings then too, raising funds for poor folks in Middle Europe, and he’d always be there. So dashing – I mind him wearing a blue cravat, just the colour of his eyes . . .’

‘Gran! You’ve gone quite pink!’ Cat teased.

Janet laughed softly. ‘Oh, I was young once! And I’d an eye for a braw lad – I chose your grandfather, after all, and a fine-looking man he always was.’

Her eyes had misted, and Marjory said hastily, ‘Was Laddie a suitor too, Mum?’

‘Oh dearie me, no!’ Janet seemed shocked at the suggestion. ‘I was only a wee smout then, younger than you, Cat. Anyway, he’d a wife in Czechoslovakia, though I doubt he ever went back there. Got a divorce and married that Flora Lindsay – county family, with an estate up near Dumfries, but then he was meant to be the same kind back where he came from. They’d a grand house over Ardhill way.

‘They’re both dead now – I mind his mother died last year – but Marcus still has the house, though I doubt he’s ever there. He’d be about your age, Marjory, I would jalouse, but they sent him away to school in the south so you’d never have met him.’

‘Is there anyone in Galloway you
don’t
know about?’ Marjory said, amused. ‘You put our official records to shame.’

She considered asking Janet about the unsolved murder, but she was reluctant to spoil this pleasant family time. Anyway, she could hear the roar of quad bikes arriving, then Bill talking to Cammie and the boy’s familiar grunt in reply. They’d be wanting their supper soon.

‘You’ll stay for supper, Mum, won’t you?’ she said to Janet.

‘That would be nice, pet. Now, what can I do? Peel potatoes—’

‘No, no need. I’ve a wonderful casserole with some unpronounceable Polish name in the freezer, and it only needs rice. You can talk to your son-in-law while I go up and change.’

‘That’ll be lovely,’ Janet said, but, Marjory thought, her voice sounded a bit flat again. Talking about Angus must have brought it all back.

2

The fire in the basket grate of the Adams-style fireplace was burning low and it was a cold night. In spite of the central heating, the room felt suddenly chilly, and with an anxious glance at his companion Marcus Lindsay went to fetch logs from a huge wicker basket.

Even here in his own house there was an air of theatricality about him, as if he were following a stage direction: ‘
Cross to stage left, fetch logs and place on fire
.’ He was above medium height, though not tall; he was slim and well-built, with a face marked by strong eyebrows and a square chin. It was too irregular for classical good looks, but his very blue eyes, in contrast to his dark hair, were striking. They had an attractive way of crinkling at the corners, too, when he smiled as he did now, picking out a couple of peat sods to add to the flames beginning to lick round the logs.

‘I’m probably committing an eco-crime by burning peat, but I just love the smell, don’t you?’

‘
Après nous le déluge
, darling,’ the woman said in the husky voice with a slight break in it which had made her famous. She held up the crystal brandy balloon she was holding in a toast and finished what was left in it. A moonstone ring on the third finger of her left hand sparkled in the light from the Chinese lamp on a side table.

Sylvia Lascelles was much older than Marcus, well into her seventies, and she was no longer the beauty she once had been. But good bones age well: she still had fine grey-violet eyes, and her thick white hair was swept up in a loose knot on her head. She was wearing black jersey Jean Muir, but the hand holding the glass was gnarled, and though she was sitting in a high-backed Jacobean armchair, a wheelchair stood waiting and she had a black cane with a heavy silver knob at her side.

‘Another one?’ Marcus suggested, going to the butler’s tray where the drinks were, carrying his own glass.

She shook her head. ‘Shouldn’t even have had this one. Quarrels with my medication but I couldn’t resist. Find me some bloody sparkling water, darling, and I can pretend it’s champagne.’

Pulling a sympathetic face, he brought it to her. ‘Here’s to old loves,’ she said, in her usual toast, then added with a touch of bitterness, ‘and to charity.’

‘Sylvia! If that means what I think it does—’

‘Oh, sweetheart, forgive?’ She held out her hand in what was still a graceful movement. She had great power to charm; he took it and kissed it.

‘I’m such a self-pitying old bag,’ she went on. ‘I keep opening
Vogue
and seeing women my age like sodding Jane Fonda, all air-brushed and cut to shape, talking about being seventy years young.

‘It’s a real bitch, I tell you, when your body lets you down. Oh, there’s no gratitude – the money I lavished on it, boring mud-wraps, massages, spas, hours on the beastly treadmill . . .’ She turned it into a joke, aware perhaps that old people talking about their ailments is the ultimate turn-off.

He smiled with her, then said seriously, ‘Look, let’s knock the charity thing on the head, right now. This part’s made for you. Asking you to do it was a no-brainer. When I said I thought I could persuade you, the director went crazy. It’ll probably double our audience – a rare appearance by the fabulous Sylvia Lascelles.’

‘Flatterer! But it’s dear of you to have thought of me. And to have a few days down here with you, in this heavenly place, with all its memories of darling Laddie—’

She turned the ring on her finger, her eyes going to the photograph on the mantelpiece, a photograph of a man with the romantic looks of a Thirties film star. His son’s looks were much less striking, but there was a strong resemblance.

Marcus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had adored his father’s mistress since the day when, aged sixteen, he had met her at lunch at the Ritz. She was sophisticated, glamorous and at the height of her fame, with a couple of wildly successful films and some acclaimed stage roles to her credit. The
coup de foudre
when Laddie had met her through a Czech director friend was by then a permanent relationship; childless herself, Sylvia had given Marcus the maternal warmth and open affection his awkward mother never showed.

Flora Lazansky had more in common with her dogs and horses than with her only son. Marcus made a dinner-party anecdote out of her kissing her black Labrador more often than him, but it had hurt nonetheless. His memories of home were fairly bleak, and since his father probably felt he took second place to his wife’s favourite hunter, Marcus couldn’t blame him for his infidelity.

Laddie was a passionate man. He adored Sylvia, but there could never be a divorce, because when he married Flora he had fallen in love – with the house she was given when they married, a dower house for the Kendallon estate.

Tulach House had an unexpected style in this exposed area where low, solid houses huddled against cruel winds from the Irish Sea. Built just outside the village of Ardhill at the same time as Edinburgh’s New Town, Tulach had an aristocratic disdain for the elements: the view from its huge sash windows was incomparable, though the draughts, too, were in a class of their own. But the perfectly proportioned rooms almost compensated for having to wear thick sweaters for ten months of the year, given a good summer, or more, if not.

Flora took it for granted, but Laddie was impassioned about it. He was a displaced person; Tulach gave him the dignity he had lost.

The ‘memories’ Sylvia mentioned could only be of times when Flora was away judging horse trials or visiting a friend. Marcus could understand his father wanting to bring Sylvia to this house which so perfectly matched her in elegance, but he still felt uncomfortable about it.