Mercifully, within a few seconds the eddying haar blotted out the scene below, the sea washing over Gina’s body, her skull smashed by the sharp rocks. Legs trembling, I swallowed hard, engulfed by a wave of nausea. Shock, of course. For what seemed a long, long time no one moved or spoke. Then the custodian rubbed his hand wearily over his eyes.
‘I’ll phone the police and emergency services, Dave. You’d better get your lot back to the coach and tell the driver to take them off to the hotel.’ He gave me a quick glance. ‘You and the lady here will be needed as witnesses.’
I nodded, and he turned away, his footsteps heavy and slow. No need for haste now. Speaking in low, hushed voices, the tourists trailed back to the coach behind their guide, leaving me alone on the cliff top.
Death was so final. And yet for others life had to go on.
It was not that I was unfamiliar with violent death, but this had been so totally unexpected, so…so…unnecessary. If only that key had still been in position… If only Gina had managed to control her fear enough to wait till we had forced the lock… I couldn’t bear to visualise her rising panic. Once she had realised that she was trapped in that tiny room, she wouldn’t have been able to control her fear. What rotten luck that a practical joker had slammed the door on her and locked it… It was the sort of silly prank that children indulged in. No children here today, though. It wasn’t likely that one of those oh-so-serious Japanese was responsible. And yet… One of them had left the others. The Japanese woman in red. I tried to remember whether I had seen a red coat in the group straggling back to the bus. I couldn’t be sure – I’d been too upset to take in anything. Who else was here today? A Frenchman, the custodian had said. I hadn’t seen anything of him, but that didn’t mean…
There was something else… It was hovering on the edge of my memory…so frustrating. Something that didn’t quite add up… That was it. Would a practical joker acting on impulse remove the key from the lock? And there was something about that keyhole… I reviewed my actions. I’d hammered on the door, looked through the keyhole, listened for movement. Something important that I’d missed was on the verge of surfacing. Perhaps if I went back to the tower…
I stood for a moment staring at the studded door. I looked round to see if anybody was watching, then I mimed hammering and shouting. When I peered through the keyhole, I could clearly see the floor and the wall opposite. Gina wasn’t blocking the daylight with her body now. But nothing triggered the elusive something at the edge of my consciousness. Disappointed, I straightened up. But I might as well complete the rerun of my actions…
I pressed my ear to the door. And heard again that faint scuffling, the scrabble of her feet on the sandstone sill… The short hairs on the nape of my neck prickled. As if the wood of the door had suddenly become red hot, I leapt back and stood there, heart pounding. At last, I summoned up courage to look through the keyhole again. And saw a scurrying grey shape, and another. Rats. Trapped in a small room with rats would be enough to send most people into a panic, even if they didn’t suffer from claustrophobia.
With a quick movement, the rat disappeared from my narrow zone of vision. Close to my eye was a bright bead of moisture. Curious, I inserted my finger into the keyhole, rubbed it about inside, and very carefully withdrew it. A thin layer of something translucent and yellowish coated my finger. Cautiously, I sniffed at it. No doubt about it, a releasing agent.
I stared at the incriminating evidence on my finger. The door was locked. Someone had oiled that rusted lock and turned the key. Gina was not the unlucky victim of a mindless prankster but of a cold-blooded killer, her death premeditated, the place carefully chosen. By someone who knew that Gina suffered from claustrophobia. Whoever had locked the door had calculated that Gina would jump. Wanted her dead.
It was hard to envisage one of the Japanese tourists oiling the lock and removing the key. But someone had, so the only other visitors to the castle, the Frenchman and the American, must be prime suspects. And if Hiram J Spinks had indeed been that American…
The old walls with their gun ports now seemed menacing and hostile. In a shaken and thoughtful mood, I made my way back to the entrance and the custodian’s hut.
Halfway across the bridge, I stopped for a moment and traced a huge question mark in the grey film of moisture clinging to the smooth metal surface of the handrail. The custodian had said that the American had left after only twenty minutes. Time enough to lock the tower door, but certainly not enough for the releasing agent to penetrate the rust of years. Of course, it was just possible that the red-coated Japanese woman might have been responsible. She had been wandering about on her own. But it seemed that the time factor for the releasing agent to work also cleared her, as she had arrived either with the rest of the Japanese, or later than I had. That was something to check with the custodian.
As I rounded the corner, the departing coach revved its engine, its rear lights brightening, then dimming as it drove off into the mist. The door of the hut opened and the custodian emerged carrying a board with the words CASTLE CLOSED TODAY in double size white letters.
‘The police’ll be here shortly, miss.’ He blocked off the castle access with the board. ‘They’ll be wanting a statement from you, so if you’d care to wait inside…’
He shut the door against the fog and motioned me to one of the two chairs, sitting down heavily on the other while Dave busied himself with kettle and teapot. For a long, long moment he sat slumped in his chair, the silence oppressive. The rattle of teaspoon against thick china mugs sounded unnaturally loud.
He raised his head to look at me. ‘I should never have left that key in the lock, but my full strength couldn’t move it, so I thought it was quite safe…’ His voice trailed off and he gazed wearily into space, seeing not the thin walls of the little hut but worn red sandstone and those fingers clutching desperately at their last chance of life.
Dave raised his eyes interrogatively at me as he deposited a steaming mug of poisonous tarry brew on the ledge beside the custodian’s elbow. The sight of the peat-brown liquid instantly extinguished my longing for a good restorative cup of tea. I shook my head.
‘Cheer up, George. Don’t blame yourself.’ Dave patted his colleague’s shoulder consolingly. ‘It was just a terrible accident. Nobody’s fault.’
Dave’s well meant sympathy foundered and sank like a stone. In the heavy silence that followed his remark, the faint shriek of a sea bird was a disturbing reminder of Gina’s last cry.
I cleared my throat. ‘Nobody’s fault, you said? I think the police might come to an entirely different conclusion.’
George’s hand shook violently, sending a brown tidal wave of tea over a pile of pristine guidebooks and leaflets. Dave set down his mug with a crash and stared at me defensively.
‘Now, just a minute. I don’t think you can—’
‘No, no. I wasn’t pointing a finger at either of you. I didn’t mean that anyone here was to blame.’
They looked unconvinced.
I hurriedly extricated myself from the invidious position of accuser. ‘The lock had been recently oiled so that it would operate. That woman’s death was not an accident but murder.’
A second tidal wave of tea engulfed the guidebooks.
Some exhausting hours later, I drove back to the White Heather Hotel. Try as I might, I couldn’t shut out the awful images that forced themselves to the front of my mind. Those wild staring eyes. The frantically scrabbling fingers. Gina half-submerged in the surf, dead hand stretching out for the yellow canister bobbing just out of reach…
And I was no nearer to identifying the mysterious American. With much wrinkling of brow, George had trawled his memory but been unable to furnish any useful description. ‘Just an ordinary American chappie,’ was all he had been able to come up with.
After the first shock, he had seized on my startling theory of murder with the fervour of a drowning man clinging to an offered branch, a welcome escape from self-tormenting guilt. The grey-haired policeman who arrived to investigate the reported accident took a lot more convincing. There was much avuncular soothings and casting of knowing looks at his colleague over my head. It was only when I produced my identity card with its security rating that he grudgingly accepted that I was unlikely to be deranged by shock, and that there could just possibly be a grain of substance in my theory. Even then, I had to take him aside and tell him of Gina Lombardini’s connection with an international drug ring before he took me seriously enough to summon the Crime Squad and the forensic task force.
The police procedures dragged on for hours. The obligatory statements had to be taken in painstaking detail. The fire brigade arrived with ladders, ropes and other gear, and with practised ease, Gina, more photographed in death than in life, was stretchered off to the mortuary. Then I had to hang around while they dealt with the opening of the tower door. They had to take an axe to it in the end…
I’d hoped to persuade the scene of crime officer to let me have a look at any papers, if Gina’s shoulder bag was there. But there was no bag in the room. Only one of Gina’s designer sandals lying beneath the window, the strap gnawed by rodent teeth.
I was making good time back to the hotel when a long queue of cars at road works ahead forced me to a halt. I drummed my fingers on the wheel in frustration. The mist had at last thinned to a high ceiling of cloud, though the occasional grey pocket still loitered, reluctant to go. I eyed the dashboard clock impatiently. I was cutting it fine. It would be a black mark to arrive at the hotel after the meal had finished. But when the lights changed, only five cars made it through. I had crawled twenty yards nearer dinner.
The realisation struck me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Even a toffee or boiled sweet would be more than welcome. I rummaged in the glove compartment for some form of sustenance. As the red light changed to green, the car first in line leapt eagerly forward – and stalled. The lights changed back. I resigned myself to Mrs Mackenzie’s displeasure.
I resumed my foraging in the glove compartment. Tapes, map-reading light, assorted petrol vouchers, tin of sardines, couple of crumbling cat biscuits and a crumpled cellophane bag that had once (but no longer) contained toffees.
Red turned again to green. There was much revving of engines, much inching forward, a lot of tense anticipation and very little progress. A tussle of opinion between an advancing car and one that had jumped the lights from the other direction seemed to be giving rise to some interesting recriminations and heated exchanges. A lengthy delay was definitely on the cards.
I switched off the engine and eyed the tin of sardines, emergency supplies for Gorgonzola. She would be miffed if the emergency supply was needed, but when the cat’s away… I made a mental note to buy a replacement, tugged off the lid and tucked into the contents. I was licking my fingers appreciatively when the guilty thought intruded that this was the second of my little moral lapses today.
The first had been when I had sneaked off to Gina’s car. That was after the fire brigade had managed to break their way through the tower door. I’d made my way to where her car was standing forlornly in the car park. I knew I’d not have long to find any personal papers before the police turned their attentions to her mode of transport to the castle.
I had the lock picked in three seconds. The door swung open. A leather bag was lying on the passenger seat, where Gina, with her disorganised ways, had abandoned it in full view of any passing thief. A rapid search revealed only the same assortment of junk that for weeks I had been meaning to clear out of my own bag. Nothing in the glove compartment, or in the door pocket. Disappointed, I made to close the door.
Then, mindful that untidy people drop things on the floor, I peered under the front seats, but fished out only a tattered cigarette packet. I turned it over. Eureka! She had torn it open to use as an emergency notepad for a list of places and times. I stuffed it in my pocket and slipped away from the scene of the crime…
Peeeeeeep The insistent blaring of a horn from the car behind blasted into my thoughts. The vehicles ahead were passing the lights. I made it through, but the car behind didn’t. I didn’t dare look back. I suppose that counted as my third lapse from grace today.
It was as I had feared. Mrs Mackenzie did not take it well when I appeared in the dining room doorway just as the last guests were finishing off their desserts. After a moment’s pregnant silence, her eyes swivelled pointedly to a notice on the dining room wall. Guests are requested to inform the Management IN ADVANCE if they make other eating arrangements. For some moments she stared hard at the notice as if to refresh her memory, then marching over to the two tables with their place settings still intact, pounced on the cutlery and carried it off in the direction of the kitchen. Too craven to do more than mumble an abject apology to her retreating back, I fled upstairs to my room.
When I bent down to stroke her, Gorgonzola’s eyes narrowed. Her welcoming purr metamorphosed to something remarkably like a snarl as she detected the tasty whiff of sardines on my hand. Then, like Mrs Mackenzie, she stalked petulantly off to stand with swishing tail beside the red YOURS holdall. An understandable reaction, I decided charitably, when you’re starving and someone has blatantly helped herself to your meal.
I studied the tins in the holdall. What would make the tastiest peace offering? Salmon. That picture on the label looked so enticing. Gorgonzola’s mouth was already dripping in anticipation of the gourmet meal to come. An empty rumble from my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten for nearly twelve hours, apart from that little snack of sardines, of course. I gazed speculatively at her. Perhaps I could filch her food from under her very nose… No, this was not going to be my fourth moral lapse of the day.
After a few minutes of watching Gorgonzola wolfing the salmon, I felt my resolution weakening. I took myself firmly in hand. This would not do. An official of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs could hardly descend to eating cat food. Anyway, fat chance of being able to wrest what remained of the salmon from an outraged Gorgonzola’s tigerish jaws.
Like the mirage of cool blue water materialising before a thirst-crazed traveller lost in the desert, an alluring vision rose up before my hungry eyes. Delicious, crusty, soft-centred rolls and pats of butter. Mrs Mackenzie had meanly snatched the cutlery away, but perhaps she had not yet got round to removing the rolls from the table. I’d make a quick sortie into the dining room and spirit them away. As long as I was careful not to leave any tell-tale crumbs in my room…
I sauntered casually down the stairs, ready to change direction for the lounge if Mrs Mackenzie should appear. I poked my head round the door. The room was deserted. She was obviously still in the throes of tidying up, but could return at any moment. There, only a couple of yards away, lay the tempting basket of rolls and a small dish of foil-wrapped butters.
My mind ranging over some plausible excuses if challenged, I pondered the best method of retrieval – slow noiseless tiptoe, or fast headlong rush. I’d rely on speed. Five or six quick strides took me to the table. I snatched up three of the rolls and a handful of butters. Too late now to regret not bringing a bag to carry them away. I clutched my booty as best I could and beat a hasty retreat, just as the door from the kitchen began to open.
I had reached the turn of the stairs and was congratulating myself on my little victory, when I lost my precarious grip on the rolls. One slipped from my arms and bounced merrily on each step down to the foot of the stairs. It came to rest nestling cosily up against an outsize pair of yellow golfing shoes. My eyes travelled slowly upwards, past the black trousers, past the vivid yellow jersey, and came to rest on the face topped by the yellow and black golfing cap.
‘Mighty fine chip shot, ma’am.’ Hiram J Spinks raised an amused eyebrow and smiled, but his eyes were cold and calculating. He picked up the roll and held it out to me. ‘Guess you missed dinner?’ The questioning note in his voice was unmistakable.
I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach.
‘Er, yes,’ I said, mind racing. I knew with awful certainty what his next question was going to be.
‘You been someplace interesting I should see?’ The tone casual, the intent deadly.
It was a Catch-22 situation. If I said that I’d been at Tantallon, and he wasn’t aware of this, he would be on red alert. If I said I’d been somewhere else, and he had seen me at the castle…
I debated, dithered, took a chance. ‘I went shopping in Edinburgh. You know how it is when a woman gets the chance to browse among all those boutiques.’ I forced a laugh and took the roll from him. ‘I’m counting on you not to tell Mrs Mackenzie about this little foraging expedition of mine.’
He chuckled and winked conspiratorially, but a steel shutter had descended behind those chilly eyes.
Suddenly, I recalled Tantallon, the dipped headlights attempting to stab their way through the thick mist and reflecting on the leaves as I pressed myself against them, the hunched figure at the wheel. He had seen me – and recognised me. My presence there must have strengthened any lurking suspicions over the incident at Inchcolm. Looking into those cold eyes, I knew that if I hadn’t instinctively pressed myself against the dripping bushes to avoid that approaching car, if I had continued walking in the middle of the road, he would have crushed me under his wheels with no more compunction than he’d brush aside an offending worm-cast on the putting green. Just another terrible accident in the fog. Nobody really to blame…
And my lie about shopping in Edinburgh revealed that I had seen him at Tantallon, and didn’t want him to know.
I had made a fatal mistake.