‘They’re all obsessed,’ the schoolmistress said fondly, shaking her head, her eyes continuing to follow the girl.
‘After The Norseman?’ Alice asked, nudging her onwards, reminding her where she had got up to in the story.
‘After that…’ the woman replied, her washed-out blue eyes finally moving from the child and onto Alice’s face, ‘we went to the theatre to see A Woman of No Importance. It had Martin Jarvis in it. We both love him. We had no booking at The Norseman so we took pot luck.’
‘Really?’ Alice said, thinking to herself how unconvincing it all was. The sisters’ versions tallied unnaturally well, the very expressions they used were identical. Everything matched, and all just too closely. They sounded more like echoes of one another than two independent voices, and that effect could not have not been achieved by accident or coincidence, but as a result of planning. They had conferred together, exchanging and agreeing all the details. Something was going on.
‘What,’ Alice began, conscious as she asked the question that it might push this highly-strung woman beyond her limits, is A Woman of No Importance about?’
A new-born baby rabbit finding itself staring into the eyes of a stoat could not have looked more petrified. But Miss Mitchelson drew on her reserves, managed to control herself and said, in a cracked voice, ‘You know… I simply cannot remember. I slept through large chunks of it. I haven’t been sleeping well lately for some reason. Martin Jarvis took the part of Lord Illingworth, I know that much. Otherwise it’s completely slipped my mind. Perhaps, thinking about it, the trauma of Gavin’s death… has blanked it out, somehow. But Heather could tell you, I’m sure of that. You could always ask her, if you really need to know.’
The theatre’s website was of little use, as the play’s run had come to an end, so Alice, deciding to try her luck with a human being, phoned the theatre instead. When the receptionist answered the call she was still trying to get her head around number nine of the ‘Ten Ways To Titillate Your Lover’ in her magazine. It must surely be for Olympic athletes only, she thought, turning the page upside-down in wonderment. Finally wresting her attention away from the article, she answered her caller, parroting, ‘Martin Jarvis, on Saturday?’
‘Yes, he was in a starring role in your recent production of A Woman of No Importance, is that right?’
‘Martin Jarvis was in A Woman of No Importance?’
‘Yes, was he? On Saturday last?’
‘Sorry, I’m temporary here,’ she replied, then, turning away from the receiver, shouted, ‘What you sayin’? He what?’ In the background, Alice could just make out the voice of a man bellowing at the receptionist.
Her voice returned. ‘He was, but he got sick, like, so for the last few performances it was his understudy. What’s that?’ she bawled at her colleague before returning to the line. ‘Simon,’ she said, ‘Simon… something or other took over for him.’
‘On the Saturday, for the Saturday performances?’
‘Yer. Yer. On the last performance on the Friday and all Saturday.’
‘Are you certain about that? someone told me he was playing the part last Saturday.’
‘We certain?’ the receptionist shouted to her informant, and after a short pause she came back and continued, ‘He wasn’t even in Edinburgh on the Saturday. He’d gone home.’
Dusk was beginning to fall as Detective Inspector Manson drove down Haddington’s High Street, drawing furiously on his cigar, inhaling and re-inhaling its smoke endlessly, his car windows sealed against the cold. Chains of sparkling Christmas lights were hung between the elegant Georgian buildings on either side of the street, lighting it and the people below as they scurried from shop to shop, parcel-laden, racing against closing time. Just as he passed the Victorian statue of a rampant goat, he was forced to swerve in order to dodge a mud-spattered Land Rover, which, accustomed to the local car etiquette, had reversed from its parking place into the main thoroughfare as if it had right of way.
‘I’ll get you later, you fucker,’ shouted Manson, his words lost behind the glass.
Hand still pressed hard on his horn, he turned right into the Sidegate, past the entrance to St Marys, heading south across the Tyne on the Waterloo Bridge and then hugging the Lennoxlove Wall for a mile or two. To his jaded eyes, the countryside before him looked dead, bare-leaved and black-earthed, no crops yet through with their promise of life to come. The vast expanse of East Lothian sky was tinged with crimson from the sun’s dying rays, and, suddenly and unexpectedly, he felt unutterably miserable, intimidated by the oppressive, unnatural silence, and made desolate by the empty, alien landscape. He speeded up on the deserted road, determined to finish his task as quickly as possible and return to the city with its bright lights, its warmth and its people. Return to Margaret.
As he passed the turn-off to Samuelston, a pheasant dashed out of the verge, straight under his wheels. Immediately he jammed on his brakes, trying to avoid it, but he heard, and felt, the thump as he hit it square on. A few stray feathers floated upwards, one brushing his windscreen. In his rear-view mirror he watched the wounded bird, lying in the middle of the road, a single wing flapping piteously, its body getting smaller all the time. He knew he could not go back to finish it off. It would die soon anyway, he told himself. The next person’s wheels would have to do the deed for him. Correction. For it.
For over a minute Manson stood outside the front door of the old manse, summoning up all his strength, all his energy, preparing to knock and begin the wearisome business of interrogation once more. But it was no good, his mind remained constantly plagued by uninvited thoughts, the host of jagged fears which now ran amok in it. And all the while, his eyes roamed over the moonlit garden, taking in the two herbaceous borders, trimmed evenly for the winter, and the perfectly circular pond set between them, its margin now fringed with ice. Beyond lay an avenue of pollarded Whitebeams leading to a rose bed, the plants there throwing their sharp shadows onto the hard ground. A drystane dyke, with not a stone out of place, marked the boundary of the garden, and in the distance lay the pale undulations of the Lammermuir Hills, their gentle curves sculpted by the passage of time.
This old woman must have some staff, gardeners in abundance, to keep the place up so well, he decided, pulling himself up to his full height in preparation for meeting a County lady and, in all likelihood, a bit of a Grand Dame.
Just as he raised his hand to knock, a Honda Civic crawled up the short driveway and drew to a halt behind his own car. Inside it, three immaculately-clad old ladies began to unbend their stiff limbs to begin the long process of disembarking from the vehicle, one of them, apparently, fankled up with her own stick. The driver, the fittest, was the first to get her swollen feet onto the ground, and with her head now down, handbag swinging on her wrist, she made unsteadily for the door. The policeman stood to one side, allowing her unimpeded access to the porch. Once there, and seemingly oblivious to the man’s presence, she proceeded to ring the doorbell. Having done so, she bestowed a gracious smile on him while pulling the ends of her coat collar close together against the cold air.
When Erica Brodie opened the front door her eyes lit immediately on her friend. She said, excitedly, ‘Well done, Beatrice! In you come. I’ve got the tea on. Did you manage to pick up Honor and Marigold as we discussed?’
‘Of course,’ Beatrice replied, starting to remove one arm of her dark-blue husky jacket and edging towards a row of coat hooks in the outer hall.