Hazel disappeared into the cover of the trees, and Gemma, hampered by her fear of damaging evidence, couldn’t quite manage to gain on her. It was only when Hazel reached Donald’s body that Gemma caught up.
Hazel stood, staring, both hands clamped hard over her mouth as if to stifle a scream. When Gemma put an arm round her, she seemed unaware of the contact.
“Hazel, it’s all—” All right, Gemma had started to say.
But it wasn’t, and all the platitudes she usually called up to comfort the bereaved seemed suddenly senseless, absurd. It wasn’t all right. It was not going to be all right.
“Hazel,” she began again. “We need to go back to the house now. The police are coming.”
“But . . . Donald . . . I shouldn’t leave him. I shouldn’t have left him. Last night. I should never have—” Hazel gave a convulsive sob and began to shake.
“Hush. Hush.” Gemma comforted her as if she were a child. “There’s nothing you can do. Come with me, now.”
Hazel moaned, pulling back towards Donald’s body, but Gemma managed to turn her back towards the house.
They had reached the woods when Hazel sagged against her, then fell to her hands and knees, her body racked by vomiting.
The spasms ceased after a few minutes and she looked up at Gemma, bewildered.
“It’s all right,” Gemma reassured her. She lifted Hazel to her feet again and urged her on. “We’ll get Louise to make us a nice cuppa when we get back to the house,”
she murmured, knowing it a ridiculous bastion against the horror of Donald’s death, but knowing also that it didn’t matter what she said, only that Hazel should hear the sound of her voice.
When they reached the garden at last, she saw Louise sitting on the bench by the kitchen door, her hands hanging limply between her knees.
Galvanized by their appearance, Louise jumped up and ran to meet them. “I’ve rung the police. And John.”
“John?” asked Gemma. “He’s not here?”
“No. He’d gone to one of the estates to pick up some free-range eggs for breakfast. He’s on his way back now.”
Breakfast? With a shock, Gemma looked at her watch and saw that it was only now just after seven. “And the others?”
“Still sleeping, as far as I know. I didn’t—should I have wakened them?”
“No. You did exactly the right thing. Now, if you’ll take Hazel inside, I’ll wait for the police.” Gemma squeezed Hazel’s arm and Louise slipped an arm round her shoulder with unexpected tenderness.
It was only as Gemma watched Louise shepherding Hazel in through the scullery door that she remembered the gun cabinet. There had been at least one shotgun, but she hadn’t looked closely—hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Would she know now if a gun was missing?
Her mind balked at following that thought any further.
She didn’t want to consider the possibility that someone in this house—someone she knew—had fired that shot—
but she knew it was a possibility that had to be considered.
Should she examine the gun cabinet now? Hesitating, she realized that the sky had darkened, the clouds scud-ding in from the west on the rising wind. Not rain, she thought with dismay. Rain would play hell with the crime scene, diminish any hope of collecting trace evidence.
But it wasn’t her crime scene, she reminded herself.
She had no jurisdiction here, no official responsibility to investigate Donald’s murder.
But she had liked Donald, had felt an unexpected connection to him in spite of her disapproval of his relationship with Hazel—Hazel, who had loved him enough to risk her marriage.
And someone had shot him, put an irrevocable end to his future, and to any future Hazel might have had with him—and they had done it right under Gemma’s nose.
She would help the police find the bastard responsible.
She owed it to Donald—and she owed it to Hazel.
Thinking furiously, she walked round to the front of the house, but before she could collect herself, a car with the distinctive yellow stripe of the Northern Constabulary pulled into the drive.
As the officer emerged from the car, Gemma saw that she was young and female, with dark hair, very blue eyes, and a square face that might be pretty when she smiled.
Reaching Gemma, the woman whipped her notebook from her belt with no-nonsense efficiency. “Ma’am. Was it you that reported a death?”
“Yes. One of the guests here at the B&B. I found him in the meadow, just the other side of the woods.” Gemma pointed towards the river.
“And you would be?”
Belatedly, Gemma fished in the pocket of her jacket for her identification. “Gemma James. Detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police. I’m a guest here as well.”
If the officer was startled by this bit of information, she betrayed it only by the slight elevation of her eyebrows.
She spoke unintelligibly into her radio before saying to Gemma, “Ma’am. Now, if you could just show me the deceased.”
The journey across the garden and back through the woods seemed a nightmare to Gemma. Her legs began to
feel as if they were mired in clay; the distance seemed to extend itself with each step. She stopped to point out the area of crushed ferns, then again to indicate where Hazel had vomited.
“One of the other guests saw the body,” she explained,
“before I could stop her. She was sick here, as I was taking her back to the house.”
At the far edge of the woods, Gemma stopped, finding herself unable to go farther. “Just over there.” With a nod, she indicated the tussocks of heather hiding Donald.
Gemma watched as the officer continued along the path, saw the moment of hesitation as the young woman came close enough to make sense of what she saw. But the officer went on, her posture more businesslike than ever, and squatted to make a cursory examination of the body.
The yellow of her jacket stood out against the heather with the brilliance of a clump of gorse. She stood and spoke into her radio again before returning to Gemma.
“We’re to wait here for the backup from Aviemore, ma’am,” she said grimly. Her skin had paled beneath her makeup.
“What’s your name, Constable?” asked Gemma, sympathy momentarily overriding her personal worries.
“Mackenzie, ma’am.”
“You’re from around here?”
“Carrbridge. That’s just north of Aviemore, on the A,”
Constable Mackenzie added, unbending a little, as Gemma had hoped.
“I don’t suppose you see many fatalities,” Gemma said gently, thinking that the young woman couldn’t be long out of training college.
“The A is bad for motor crashes. And a few weeks ago, we had a pensioner wander off—died of exposure before we found him.”
“You haven’t worked a homicide before?”
The constable stiffened at this. “What makes you so sure it’s a homicide, ma’am?”
“No gun,” Gemma answered. “And I knew him, a bit.
I can’t believe he’d have shot himself.”
Tucking a stray hair behind her ear, Mackenzie opened her notebook again. “The deceased’s name?”
“Donald Brodie.”
Mackenzie stared at her. “Brodie of Benvulin?” When Gemma nodded, the constable said, “But you told me he was a guest at the B&B.”
“He was. It was a special cookery weekend.” As Gemma explained, all the complications of the situation came flooding back. Where had Hazel been that morning, and what was she to say about Hazel’s relationship with Donald?
Detective Chief Inspector Alun Ross knelt at the edge of his flower border, setting out a flat of lobelia. From the springy turf beneath his knees, moisture seeped through the fabric of his old gardening trousers, but he didn’t mind—it made him feel connected to the earth. Tamping the four-inch plant into the rich, composted soil, he sat back to admire his handiwork.