M.C. Beaton - Death of a Gentle Lady

“Worked that out as well, did you?” sneered Cyril. “Do you know what she did?”

“Why don’t you sit down and tell me?” suggested Hamish.

“You mean why don’t you sit down and talk while you think of a way to disarm me?”

“I’m genuinely curious. You are one verra clever man.”

Cyril’s eyes glittered. “Yes, I am, amn’t I? I planned this revenge for a long time. Do you know what she did, my precious mother? She’d got pregnant by some lowlife that frequented the nightclub where she worked. Abortions were expensive in those days. She worked as long as she could and then stayed with a barmaid from the club down in the East End. The barmaid wanted a baby so as soon as I was born, I was handed over. No adoption papers. The barmaid and her nasty husband who couldn’t have children were to bring me up as their own. Well, right after that, the barmaid became pregnant and had twins. I was forgotten after that. He beat me regularly. When I was thirteen, he let his homosexual brother have the care of me and the abuse started. But I got the brother to pay for my education, I got as much as I could out of him, and then I killed him and dumped his body in the Thames.

“I joined an agency and began to get bit parts in films and television. I hadn’t any formal training but I was damn good.

“All I ever thought of was getting even with her. I read about her marriage. I stalked her. I wanted some identity to adopt to finally track her down and not be suspected. I’m not homosexual, but there is a type of homosexual that is easily gulled. I picked up Harold Jury in a pub. He begged me to move in with him. He had a nice flat and lots of money. He had a private income from a trust, which allowed him to ponce about as a writer. Ideal. I chose him because we looked a good bit alike.”

“Where did Irena come in?”

“I studied the comings and goings at the castle. When Irena went out one day on her own to shop, I followed her and struck up a conversation. She hated Mrs. Gentle, she said. I asked her why she didn’t leave, and she confessed to having a stolen passport. Said she was afraid her old Russian protector would send the boys to hunt her down. We spent a lot of time together. She agreed to help me. I said I would, in return, help her get a visa. She was flirting with Mark Gentle and that worried me a bit. Then she phones me one day and says she’s going to marry you. I was terrified she would betray me.

“I told her to meet me down in the cellar and we’d have a celebration drink before she went off to be married. She’d given me a key and she’d found out where the back stairs were.

“She came down to the cellar, saying, “Hurry up. I’ve got to change for my wedding.””

The wind howled and shrieked around the police station.

“I’d got a bottle of sherry and two glasses laid out. She was in such a hurry that she gulped down a glass of sherry without even noticing that I wasn’t drinking. I’d drugged the sherry. She turned to leave and collapsed on the floor. I hit her on the head with a hammer. Then I carried the body over and shoved it in that trunk and piled the others on top of it.”

“How did you get Mrs. Gentle to meet you?”

“Easy. That bitch liked power. I’d hidden in the castle at that family reunion and I knew all their voices. So I dressed as a woman and phoned her and put on Mark Gentle’s voice, pleading with her and saying I had to see her. She loved that. I said I would meet her on the cliff at the side of the castle.

“So she turns up all dainty and lovely-old-lady, the act she had perfected.”

Hamish glanced quickly at the coffee machine. He had forgotten to switch it off.

“I loved every minute of telling her who I was. She turned to run and I caught her round the neck, strangled her, and hurled her over the cliffs. My God! The joy of sinking my hands at last into her wrinkled neck and seeing the fear in her eyes. What are you doing?”

“I’m getting a cup of coffee.”

“You’re a cool one. Any last words?”

“Why didn’t you clear off? Why the play?”

“Because I loved doing it. I love anything to do with the theatre. I felt safe. I liked being an author. I liked having Harold’s money to stay at a posh hotel. It’s so remote up here, so far from anything I’d ever known. Safety. Respectability. I wanted a bit of that. And that bitch Priscilla led me on.”

“So why kill me?”

“Because I could have got away with it. You didn’t fool me with that spilled glass of wine or knocking me over. You wanted to see my feet, and the minute I realised that, I knew you were onto me. You could have seen my feet anytime before but it was because I was dressed as a woman. I have small feet for my height. Dancer’s feet. Priscilla told me they were looking for a woman with size seven feet. Before I finish you, what was it Irena told you that was so important?”

Hamish half turned, his hand on the coffeepot.

“She told me nothing. I only put that about to try to flush you out. The mileage you must have covered. Up to Grianach, down to London. Why did you put that amateurish bit of wire over the stairs?”

“I thought that with any luck it might work and if it didn’t, it would reinforce the idea that a woman was the culprit, maybe one of the family.”

“Why did you kill Mark Gentle?”

“I had to see him. I couldn’t risk leaving any loose ends. I had to make sure Irena hadn’t confided in him.

“He invited me in when I said I was Harold Jury. He said he’d heard I was staying up in the Highlands when he was there. I asked him if Irena had said anything about me. He began to look suspicious and asked me what was so important about anything that Irena might have said about me. I had to kill him. Well, let’s get on with this.”

In one fluid movement, Hamish threw the contents of the scalding hot coffeepot in Cyril’s face.

He screamed as Hamish wrested the gun from his hand. But he stumbled to his feet and lashed out and kicked Hamish full in the stomach. As Hamish doubled over, he heard the kitchen door slam, and as he clutched his stomach and headed in pursuit, he heard the roar of a car engine.

Outside in the hell of the shrieking gale, Hamish doubled over again and vomited. Cursing, he finally straightened up, jumped into his Land Rover, and headed in pursuit.

He took the humpbacked bridge out of Lochdubh at such speed that he bumped his head on the roof of the vehicle. Great sheets of rain were obscuring his view. The windscreen wipers were barely coping.

Hamish could not see the shine of any taillights ahead. Would he have gone to the hotel?

He talked rapidly into the police radio as he drove. He screeched across the gravel at the hotel forecourt and rushed inside. The night porter swore that no one at all had come in.

Hamish sat down suddenly in a chair in the reception. He was sure Cyril would not take any of the main roads in case of roadblocks.

Then he thought – the castle! Would he hole up there? It was worth a try.

He got back into the Land Rover and hurtled back out into the night.

He was driving fast along a narrow road leading to the castle when a tree crashed down in front of him, blocking the road.

Swearing, he climbed out. Why should the county of Sutherland, usually bereft of trees, choose to throw this one in his path?

He wrestled to try to move it. It was an old ash tree which had seen many years. In the light from his headlamps, he could see the great broken roots and the branches whipping back and forth as if the tree were a live thing in its death throes.

He switched off the lights and the engine and leapt over the tree, setting out on foot. At times he was blown backwards by the sheer force of the gale.