Snare (6 page)

‘And then what happened?'

‘Why, Alec went for him and young Knox ran away. I thought, from a distance you know, that no harm had been done, except a few bruises to horse and rider. I did hear a scream, however.'

‘That was the dog. It was all Alec could say when he reached home: “She screamed.” He's not going to forget it in a hurry.'

* * *

‘That was an understatement,' Beatrice said. ‘Alec's world revolved around that animal. He told me once, and without a trace of self-consciousness, that he thought of her as his “kid sister”. His words.'

They were in the sitting room at Feartag. This evening Beatrice was in fine pink wool and in the lamplight her skin looked like parchment, the deep eye sockets stressing her age and fragility.

‘Another dog would hardly fill the gap,' Miss Pink mused.

‘He'd kill it.' The statement was without emotion and Miss Pink was amazed. On reflection she agreed that this would be likely.

‘You know how his mind works,' she conceded. ‘I didn't tell Anne Wallace this, but he would have attacked young Knox – he'd picked up a heavy branch – but the boy ran away. So then he aimed a blow at the pony.'

‘A natural reaction for anyone, and Alec has less control than most people.'

‘What can his relationship with young Knox be now?'

‘Someone may have to accompany him on his walks for a while, but if there's no dog he won't take walks. The answer might be to send him away for a time, on a supervised holiday.'

‘Or Hamish might be sent away for a while?'

‘Hamish will do as he pleases.'

‘His parents have little influence?'

Beatrice regarded her guest speculatively. ‘Have you heard about the police car being found in Anne Wallace's drive at dawn? The village people pretend it was Hell's Angels, who were also supposed to be breaking into cars around that time. But they wouldn't have known about Knox and the nurse, and they didn't have access to the keys of the police car. But if local youths moved that car, then the keys still had to be handed to them, and replaced.'

‘Why would Hamish want to do a thing like that?'

‘As a practical joke. The village has known – I should say some of us have known – for a long time that Knox was more friendly with Anne Wallace than he should be. I suspect his own wife knew. But Joan Knox is a doormat and even if she weren't, she might hope that the affair would run its course. Be that as it may, people knew, but with the discretion that you get in small communities nothing was said, at least in public. There was no gossip. We have to live together. Turning a blind eye is a survival tactic in a place like Sgoradale. Hamish doesn't have that tactic.'

‘Have there been other incidents?'

After a while Beatrice said, ‘There are telephone calls.'

‘What kind?'

‘The type where you pick up the phone and no one speaks. Sometimes there is a laugh. The phone at the other end is put down with a clatter.'

‘A pay phone or private?'

‘A private line.'

And the laugh?'

‘Muffled, breathless, more of a snigger.'

‘Does anyone else get such calls?'

‘I haven't asked. It's not the kind of thing one talks to people about.'

‘How long has this been going on?'

‘For a few weeks. I've had two of them – that is, two that I've answered. They come late at night. The first two times I came downstairs; now I let the phone ring and I lie there, listening. It rings for ages. One gets more and more disturbed. I find the whole business absolutely monstrous!' She shuddered and bit her lip.

Miss Pink said calmly, And you think Hamish is making these calls?'

‘Oh, no. No!' Beatrice was shocked, ‘It's one thing to play a bad joke on your father, but quite another to set out to terrify a woman living alone. But someone's making them, certainly. I'm inclined to think it's some children on the lighthouse road – older children, adolescents.'

‘You've not talked to Coline about it?'

‘No. I find Coline superficial and peculiarly arrogant. She's sociable, but she's more concerned with her books than with real people. Of course the books are money-spinners and sometimes I wonder if Coline's only interested in money. She seems to have little feeling, even for her family. No, I don't confide in Coline. And as for Ranald, he would be gallant and get on the telephone to the Chief Constable – and what could he do? This would never have happened when Robert was alive.'

‘Why not? Even he couldn't have done anything about an anonymous caller.'

‘You don't understand. The call isn't dangerous; it's a signal – that someone is out there who knows you're alone, who could even have seen the lights go on in your house as you went downstairs to answer the phone.
You're being watched.
He's revelling in your fear; fear that he's going to break in and ... you know the rest. None of it could have happened with a man in the house, a man whom everyone knew was a splendid shot and without fear.' Miss Pink had stiffened at mention of someone watching the house, but all she said was, ‘Are his guns still here?'

‘Yes. Locked up of course. But a gun's pointless unless you're prepared to use it.'

‘It might be a good idea to put in some shooting practice. Do you have a firearms certificate?'

‘Yes. One has to keep down the rabbits and grey squirrels.'

A timer rang in the kitchen and brought an end to the conversation. Over dinner, Miss Pink gave an account of her meetings with the Campbells earlier that day. At the end she asked, ‘What do you feel about these stories of Campbell's involvement with the Special Branch, and sinister people lurking in the wings?'

Beatrice shrugged. ‘I ignore it. To be frank, I find it annoying because I'm the one who is actually getting telephone calls, while with Campbell the persecution is all in his mind. Then I've caught myself wondering whether I could have dreamed those calls, whether I could be going senile. So I discourage Campbell's fantasies; they come too close to home.'

After dinner they had the slide show. Polar wastes were not Miss Pink's favourite kind of country but they were magnificent to look at, particularly from the comfort of an armchair, and Beatrice took obvious delight in the pictures.

‘When I see that glacier on the Greenland ice-cap, I hear his voice talking about “crevasses like green glass”. I repeat it deliberately; it brings him back, if he ever went away.'

As she was preparing to take her leave, Miss Pink considered whether this was the right moment to suggest that Beatrice should send for an expert to advise her on security. She caught the other woman's eye.

‘Don't worry,' Beatrice said. ‘When you look at it sensibly I've nothing to lose. I don't even have an animal as a hostage to fortune.'

‘And how is Alec?'

On the other side of the counter Rose Millar stiffened. ‘As well as can be expected. Nurse told us what you said happened. Are you certain it wasn't done deliberate?'

‘There's no question,' Miss Pink assured her. ‘The pony was going full pelt; Hamish was lucky not to be seriously injured.'

‘He should have controlled the beast.'

Rose was a small round woman and when she was angry she looked like a fiery robin. Suddenly the fire left her. ‘It's their land,' she said miserably. ‘I s'pose the lad can do what he likes when he's exercising their horses. Alec was in the wrong being there, but Lady Coline never minded no one walking through the park.'

‘No one's to blame,' Miss Pink said, ‘It was an accident.'

‘
He's
not going to believe that.' Rose jerked her head at the ceiling. ‘He's lying there, in bed. He won't eat, he won't talk. He don't cry any more though.'

Duncan Millar appeared in the doorway that led to the living quarters: a thickset man in his sixties with a beard, wisps of grey hair showing below his old deerstalker. Like most local men he was a jack of all trades – ghillie, fisherman, estate worker. Now he was out of his depth. ‘He says he'll kill him,' he told his wife.

‘He's talking then?' Rose was relieved. ‘You mind the shop, and I'll take him his breakfast. I knew he'd come round; it was the shock.'

‘We can't let him out.' Duncan was morose.

Rose's eyes went from him to Miss Pink as the meaning penetrated. ‘One of us will have to go with him. But he'll be wanting to stay in for a time, get his strength back. His turns take a lot out of him.'

The post van drew up outside and the driver entered with the mail. In the ensuing bustle Miss Pink stepped back and collided with Esme Dunlop, who had come in from the street. They apologised to each other, Esme continuing with voluble explanations of her presence involving a parcel of bulbs and then – ‘How is Alec?' she asked abruptly.

Miss Pink told her what she knew – leaving out the part about Alec's brandishing the tree branch – while Rose busied herself with the mail. Duncan had retreated to the back premises.

‘You saw it all,' Esme said, her eyes gleaming.

‘From the top of the cliff. How did you know that?'

‘I was visiting Anne Wallace last evening.' She smiled indulgently. ‘Quite simple, you see. No spying involved. Is that parcel for me, Rose?'

‘No, Miss Dunlop, but I did see a letter here somewhere.'

‘I'll hang on; I need some bicarb. I eat too fast, that's my problem –'

‘Here you are, Miss Dunlop.'

‘I don't know this writing,' Esme said, taking a small white envelope from her. ‘It's probably some poor old soul who wants me to sort out her electricity bill or something.' She smiled ruefully. ‘What it is to be a secretary!' She unfolded a sheet of paper absently, but as she read her lips parted and she lost colour. Miss Pink could see that the paper bore a short message in letters of differing size and type. Her eyes met Esme's appalled stare and then the woman turned and blundered out of the shop.

Rose was occupied with the postman and showed no interest in the scene. Miss Pink stepped outside and saw Esme running towards the cottages on the bend of the Lamentation Road. She reached her front door, pushed it open and stumbled over the sill. The door slammed.

* * *

Miss Pink telephoned Beatrice Swan, thanked her for her hospitality of last evening and returned the invitation. She conveyed the latest news of Alec and said that she had to go to Inverness: ‘My typewriter's jammed. Can I bring you anything?'

‘Please. I need vanilla pods, plain chocolate, leaf gelatine. I'll tell you where to go ...'

By ten o'clock she was on the Lamentation Road, coming over the moors on yet another glorious morning. She found herself wondering what she might do when the weather broke. Was it to be the Mediterranean or back to Arizona? She couldn't return to her house in Cornwall because that was let – much to the chagrin of her housekeeper, who was looking after the tenants as well as the property.

She realised with astonishment that she had given no thought to the outside world for days on end. She had been absorbed by Sgoradale and its inhabitants. Now the outer world impinged and she felt as if she'd been away for months, not days.

The road dipped and sank over the long brown swells. A mile or so ahead there was something on the tarmac, and as the gap closed it was revealed as a hitch-hiker. At first she thought she was overtaking a tramp, his belongings in a bedding roll on a string, then she saw that he was carrying one of the large strap bags now favoured by trendy travellers. He turned and thumbed the car; it was no man, but Flora MacKenzie.

She was wearing the baggy pants, the chic sweater that she had worn at the dinner party, but a navy watch cap was pulled low on her forehead. Miss Pink stopped and the girl opened the passenger door.

‘Good morning! Lovely to see you. Can you give me a lift?'

‘How far are you going?'

‘Edinburgh?'

‘I can take you to Inverness.'

‘Right. I can catch a train from there.'

‘You don't drive?' Miss Pink said as they started off again.

Flora stared at her. ‘I'm only sixteen.'

‘Of course. Why didn't someone run you to Inverness?'

‘My mother, you mean? Why should she? I wouldn't expect it.'

‘She does know you're going to Edinburgh?' Flora giggled. ‘Do I look like a runaway? Mum knows. I'm staying with a friend – very respectable people; her father's a barrister.'

‘But hitching! Don't you have the bus fare?'

‘Hitching's more fun; you never know who you're going to meet.'

‘That's the point.'

‘You mean rape. Miss Pink, you've
seen
Sgoradale. D'you really think it's swarming with rapists?'

‘You only need one, and everyone has to start somewhere, even rapists. And rape can lead to murder.' Flora looked bored. Miss Pink changed the subject. ‘So what's the next step? University?'

‘You need A-levels for that. In any case, I see no point in my going up to university. What's it for?'

‘Further education, perhaps. What's your interest?'

‘If there's nothing else to do, you write, don't you?'

‘Is that a deliberate insult, or thoughtlessness?'

‘I'm so
sorry!
' She did look devastated. ‘I meant the trash Mum churns out. You're a professional.' She stared anxiously at Miss Pink's profile.

‘Forget about creative writing. Journalism might be the answer if you're interested in people –'

‘Oh, I am!'

‘So is there a plan in the short term, or am I probing?'

‘I suppose I
am
one of the beautiful people – isn't that what you used to call us?' Flora smiled engagingly, ‘I'm teasing you, but I'm used to being slapped down at home so I'm taking advantage. The fact is, I shan't be independent until I'm eighteen. Then I come into Grandmama MacKenzie's money – along with a castle in Angus. I'm an heiress.' Her lips twitched. ‘So I'm hanging around, waiting. But I am considering training for something. It's just ... there was no one to ask.'