“They haven’t proven that Brodie was shot with that gun.”
“No,” mused Gemma. “But I can’t believe that John Innes’s small-bore shotgun would mysteriously disappear at the same time Donald was killed with a different gun.
That’s stretching coincidence a bit too far. And how would Tim have known who Donald was?”
“Tim left London on Friday. He could have been watching her the entire weekend.”
Gemma thought of the scene between Donald and Hazel she had witnessed by the river on Saturday morning, and of the nest she’d discovered in the woods. She felt cold.
“Gemma, you’ll have to tell your Scottish detective. It will be up to him to follow through.”
“But this is Tim! How can I give Hazel’s husband to the police as a suspect?” She was near shouting.
“How can you do otherwise, when Hazel herself is a suspect? Don’t kill the messenger, love,” he added, sounding as weary and discouraged as she felt. “I’m only telling you what you already know. And if you’re lucky, if your chief inspector is doing his job properly, he might beat you to it.” Kincaid paused a moment.
“Gemma, about Tim . . . Hazel may not thank me for interfering, but after I left the house tonight, I rang Tim’s parents and asked them to go back. Tim’s mother seems a sensible woman. She said they’d take Holly home with them.”
“You told Tim’s mother—”
“As little as I could. That it was a stressful situation, and I thought Holly might be better with her grandparents. Will you tell Hazel? And I’ll ring you from the train in the morning.”
“Wait.” The rush of her anger had drained away, leaving her feeling shaken and hollow. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s—it’s been a beastly day.”
“I know.” His voice was gentle. “Get some rest, love.”
“Tell the boys I miss them.”
There was the slightest pause before he answered.
“Right . . . They miss you, too.”
When he’d rung off, she sat for a moment, wondering
if she had imagined his hesitation. Another sliver of worry lodged itself in her heart. Was there something wrong at home that he had failed to tell her?
On reaching the B&B, Gemma drove past the front of the house and parked near the barn. She’d seen the pale blur of faces through the uncurtained sitting room window, but she was determined to freshen up a bit before she returned Pascal’s keys. And she wanted to check on her room, see what sort of mess the forensics team had made.
They had left the lights on, she thought with a flicker of irritation as she stepped inside. Turning, she gasped in surprise. Hazel stood by the bed, her suitcase open, a half-folded nightdress clasped against her chest.
“Hazel! You’re back. I’ve been so worried—”
“He had to let me go. Someone saw me in the railway station this morning, just at the time you reported hearing a gunshot.”
Relief flooded through Gemma. “Thank God.” Then she remembered what she had to tell Hazel, and her heart sank. “Hazel—”
“I’m going home. There’s a late train.” Hazel put the nightdress carefully into her case. “Chief Inspector Ross said I could.”
Gemma pulled out the dressing table chair and sat down. “Hazel, there’s something you have to know,” she said reluctantly, knowing there was no way to cushion the news. “Duncan went to see Tim this evening. Tim knows about you and Donald.”
“Oh, Christ.” Hazel sank down onto the bed as if her knees had given way. “But how—”
“He didn’t say. I’m sorry.”
Hazel gazed into space, her expression desolate. “I had
meant to tell him, but in my own way, and in my own time. But now . . . how am I going to face him?”
Gemma felt a moment’s qualm at the idea of Hazel going home to her angry and disillusioned husband. But surely she was safer there than here, where Donald had been murdered. “Don’t,” she told Hazel. “Go back to London, but don’t see Tim just yet. Pick Holly up from Tim’s parents and go to our house. Then, when Tim’s calmed down a bit, you can meet him on neutral ground.”
“That’s good advice.” Hazel’s smile held a bitter irony.
“I might have given it myself, once. What about you?”
Gemma hadn’t reconsidered her own plans. With Hazel cleared by the police and off to London, there was nothing stopping her from going as well. She could ring Duncan tonight and tell him not to come—she could, in fact, pack her things and get on the train with Hazel.
Except that she found she couldn’t. She had known Donald Brodie, and had liked him, and someone had murdered him, had shot him while she slept a few hundred yards away. She could not—would not—leave it in other hands.
“I think I’ll stay,” she said slowly. “At least another day or two. If John and Louise can’t keep me here, I’ll find a room somewhere else. I want to see things . . . wrapped up.”
Standing, Hazel went to the bedside table and picked up a bottle of Scotch Gemma hadn’t noticed. It was, she saw, the last-issue Carnmore that Donald had given Hazel the previous night. Hazel cradled it, as if it were a living thing, stroking the label with a fingertip. “You intend to find Donald’s killer yourself,” she said quietly, not meeting Gemma’s gaze. “Do you think I would do less for him?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“As long as I know Holly’s all right, I’m staying, too.” She looked up, and Gemma saw an unexpected resolution in her eyes. “I’ll see Donald buried—I owe him that.”
Chapter Thirteen
The friends are all departed,
The hearthstone’s black and cold, And sturdy grows the nettle
On the place beloved of old.
—neil munro, “Nettles”
Grantown-on-Spey, May
Every year, since Livvy had left her father’s house to marry Charles Urquhart, she had come back to Grantown in May and September for an extended visit.
Usually, both Charles and Will had accompanied her, but as Will had grown older, he and his father had several times made their own expeditions.
These annual fortnights had been a necessary and much-anticipated element of Livvy’s life. There was shopping for staples and household goods not readily available in the Braes or Tomintoul, the refurbishing of their wardrobes, the time spent cloistered with her father in his study, the visits with her two aunts and her father’s neighbors, the catching up on the latest in fashion and gossip. Always Livvy had made the transition from coun-
try to town easily enough, but this time, on their arrival in Grantown in mid-May, she found herself restless and out of sorts, unable to settle to any of her ordinary pursuits.
First, there were the condolences to be got through, trial enough, so many months after Charles’s death, even if kindly meant. But as the days regained their ordinary pattern, she felt more alien, rather than less. She began to realize that although she and Charles had not spent much time together on these visits, she had been unconsciously aware of the solidity of his presence, and it was this that had kept the two parts of her life linked together.
Now she was adrift.
She had moved back into the room she’d occupied as a girl, hoping to find some connection with the person she had once been, sufficient unto herself, but that long-ago girl eluded her. The days were lengthening, and she found it difficult to sleep, as she always did at this time of year.