She walked on, trying to put her mind into neutral, admiring the tidy symmetry of Grantown’s High Street, which opened out into a large green at the top end. The town was ringed by the hills that rose above it on the north and west, and by the heavily wooded valley of the Spey on the southeast. It gave the place a secure feel, and as lights began to glow in the windows of the large houses facing the square, she found herself enchanted.
The imposing edifice of the Grant Arms Hotel anchored the square. Gemma was just crossing the greensward to have a better look when the sky darkened and a squall of wind and stinging rain blew up out of nowhere.
Sprinting for the hotel entrance, she darted inside and stood in the lobby, panting and shaking the water from her hair like a drenched dog.
Although she had seen tour coaches parked outside, the hotel appeared comfortably elegant. The woman from the reception desk crossed the lobby, and in a friendly, Highland voice she asked Gemma if there was anything she needed.
“A cup of coffee would be grand,” admitted Gemma, still shivering slightly from her unexpected soaking. “The rain caught me by surprise.”
“That’s the Highlands for you,” the young woman said with a smile. “We pride ourselves on our unpredictabil-ity. The restaurant’s closed until dinner, but I’ll just fetch you a cup from the kitchen, if you don’t mind having it in here.”
Having accepted gladly, Gemma wandered about the lobby as she waited, discovering a small plaque detailing the history of the hotel. When the receptionist returned with her coffee, Gemma said, “I see you had Queen Victoria as a guest.”
“In .” The young woman grinned. “That was the greatest moment in Grantown history, if you can believe it. Still,” she added a bit wistfully, “it must have been grand in those days—all the balls and dinner dances. And the clothes must have been lovely.”
“And bloody uncomfortable,” offered Gemma, and they both laughed. “Can you imagine corsets?”
When she’d finished her coffee, the rain had stopped.
She went out again onto the green and stood for a moment, looking up at the hotel in the gathering dusk, imagining the square filled with carriages and traps and the chatter of excited voices.
With a sigh of regret, she turned away. She had no business indulging in a fantasy of a happier time. Returning to the car, she phoned the police station in Aviemore and inquired about Hazel. There was a different—and much less accommodating—sergeant on duty, who told her only that he believed Mrs. Cavendish was still with Chief Inspector Ross.
Gemma then rang the bed-and-breakfast and spoke to Louise.
“You’re coming back for supper?” Louise said, an appeal in her voice. “John’s put together a goat cheese tart.
He thought it would suit Hazel . . . he was hoping . . .”
“Don’t count on me,” Gemma told her evasively. “I’ve a few more things to do, and I wouldn’t want to hold you up.” The idea of sitting in the Inneses’ dining room, facing two empty chairs, suddenly struck her as an impossible feat.
But the truth, she realized as she drove slowly out of Grantown, was that she had nothing to do, and her frustration at her lack of control was interfering with her ability to think clearly. She somehow had to let it go, to find a different perspective. She’d stop somewhere, have a pub meal, think things through.
Once on the main road, she passed up the turning for Nethy Bridge and took the next, the route to the village of Boat of Garten. The receptionist had recommended the bar meals in the Boat Hotel there. She found the place easily enough, but as she climbed out of the car, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the car window. For the first time that day, it occurred to her that she was un-washed, uncombed, and still wearing the clothes she had thrown on before six that morning. Oh, well, she thought, shrugging as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, she would just have to do.
Entering the bar, Gemma gave her order and took a table by the window. Over her solitary meal of cock-a-leekie soup, she tried to sort out the events of the day in her mind. So accustomed was she to having Kincaid as a sounding board that she felt handicapped without his presence.
But it was more than that, she admitted to herself as she finished her half pint of cider and walked back out to the car park. It wasn’t her lack of authority in the investigation that had her stumbling round so ineffectu-ally, nor was it the absence of her usual intellectual give-and-take with Duncan. It was her doubts about
Hazel that were keeping her from approaching the case in a logical way.
She thought of all the times Hazel had been there for her, a calm center when she’d struggled with crises at work and at home, an unwavering support through the loss of her baby. Hazel might be more complex, and less perfect, than Gemma had realized, but she was still her friend, and Gemma owed her the same support. She would put away her doubts, and start from there.
Looking up, she saw that the long dusk was fading into night, and the last remnants of clouds had been swept away by the wind. Lights had begun to wink on in the comfortable houses lining the village street. Below the hotel, the locomotive belonging to the steam railway that went from Aviemore to Boat of Garten sat on the track like a great black slumbering beast, and beyond the little railway station, the ever-present River Spey flowed silently, cold and deep.
Chiding herself for her fancies, Gemma was nonethe-less glad to shut herself in the close warmth of the car.
When her mobile phone rang, she jumped as if she’d been bitten, and her heart gave an irrational flutter of fear.
But it was Kincaid’s voice she heard when she answered, and a smile of pleasure lit her face.
“Any news, love?” he asked.
Sobering quickly, she said, “No. Hazel’s still at Aviemore Police Station. But I can’t believe they’ll keep her much longer, unless Ross actually means to charge her.”
“What about getting a solicitor?”
She told him about her conversation with Heather Urquhart. “Heather said she’d tell Mr. Glover as soon as he rings in the morning.”
“Can you trust her to do it?”
“Yes,” answered Gemma, rather to her surprise. “I think so.”
“Good. I’ll be getting the seven o’clock train. Can you pick me up at Aviemore at half-past two tomorrow afternoon?”
“What about Tim? Did you see him? Is he coming with you? Holly could stay—”
“Gemma, I did see him,” Kincaid said flatly. “But he’s not coming.”
“Not coming? But—”
“He knows about Hazel and Donald. I didn’t ask him how he found out. He says he won’t help her. He doesn’t want to see her at all.”
There was silence on the line as Gemma tried to come to grips with this latest disaster.
“You’ll have to tell Hazel,” Kincaid said, breaking into her thoughts. “And, Gemma, I’m not at all sure Tim’s telling the truth about where he was over the weekend.”
Her stomach knotted as the implication sunk in. “No. I can’t believe Tim had anything to do with this. Not Tim—”
“He’s got motive. He’s got no witnesses to his movements. He’s obviously distraught. And his car’s muddy. It didn’t rain in Hampshire.”
“It did here,” Gemma said slowly, unwillingly. “But even if Tim drove to Scotland—and that’s a long shot—
how could he have walked into the B&B in the middle of the night and taken John Innes’s gun?”