Murder in the highlands, p.1
Murder in the Highlands, page 1
MURDER IN THE HIGHLANDS
DEBBIE YOUNG
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Acknowledgments
More from Debbie Young
About the Author
Poison & Pens
About Boldwood Books
Bjorn Larsson, this one’s for you
With much love from Sophie and Hector
In the afternoon, a customer spent an hour wandering around the shop. He finally came to the counter and said, ‘I never buy second-hand books. You don’t know who else has touched them, or where they’ve been.’
SHAUN BYTHELL, PROPRIETOR OF THE BOOKSHOP IN WIGTOWN, IN THE DIARY OF A BOOKSELLER
1
ON THE WRONG TRACK
‘Don’t do it, Sophie!’ cried Carol, clasping her hands as if in prayer.
I set a bar of chocolate on the shop counter and reached into my handbag for my purse.
‘But it’s the smallest one in the shop,’ I protested, handing her a £1 coin. ‘And I’ll share it with Hector when I get to work. Whatever’s left of it by then, anyway.’
Lately I’d got into the bad habit of treating myself each morning to some chocolate from the village shop on my way to Hector’s House, the bookshop where I ran the tearoom. Carol’s admonishing remark pricked my conscience.
‘I’m not talking about the chocolate, you daftie.’ She scanned the barcode on the chocolate wrapper and pressed the button to open the till. After dropping my coin into the cash drawer, she pressed my change into my open palm, and when I curled my fingers over it, she wrapped both her hands around mine and held them there.
‘I mean your elopement,’ she continued. ‘Running away with Hector to get married is a great mistake. You’ll hurt your parents, your friends, and your neighbours, and you’ll find out all too late that you’ve hurt yourself too. Take my advice, give that Greta Garbo a miss.’
She meant Gretna Green, of course, the historic village just north of the border, famous as the wedding destination of eloping couples. There was the tinkle of broken glass from the stockroom at the back of the shop, where Carol’s new boyfriend Ted was unpacking the day’s deliveries from their wholesaler. Theirs was a mid-life romance, and they’d been dating only since Valentine’s Day.
Carol glanced down the aisle in his direction. ‘You okay, love?’
An affirmative grunt was his reply, followed by the sound of footsteps on the stairs to the flat above the shop. He’d either gone to find a plaster for the damage he’d done to himself with whatever he’d broken or to make himself a restorative cup of tea. Ted was a sturdy chap, in his fifties – like Carol – and clumsy. His presence as a part-time voluntary shop assistant was possibly a mixed blessing, but he did supply excellent fresh bread every day from his home-based bakery.
Before I could respond to Carol’s advice, the Reverend Murray, who had been lingering by the R to S shelves deliberating between Rich Tea biscuits and shortbread, came to join us, a packet of each in his hands.
‘Good morning, Sophie.’ His expression was unusually serious. ‘I must say I’m disappointed to hear you prefer a civil ceremony to a church wedding, especially when you have our beautiful parish church of St Bride’s at your disposal, with all your friends and neighbours nearby.’ He set the biscuits down on the counter. ‘Would you be so kind as to put these on my account, please, Carol?’
Carol pulled the old-fashioned ledger out from under the counter and flipped it open at the M section. The vicar must have known that Carol’s disastrous elopement when she was a young woman had coloured her advice to me. But her situation then was entirely different from mine now. I’d been in a stable relationship with Hector for a year, whereas hers had been a rash, unguarded decision to run away with a man she barely knew.
Besides which, I had no intention of getting married for a very long time, not even to Hector. After all, I was only twenty-six. I was in no rush, and nor was he.
‘Why is everyone convinced Hector and I are eloping to Gretna Green?’ I tried not to sound as cross as I felt. ‘All we’re doing is taking a short holiday in Scotland to visit my parents. He’s never spent any time with them. Their only previous encounter was at Great-auntie May’s funeral.’
Carol shook her head mournfully.
‘Ah, dear old May Sayers.’ May had been a good friend to Carol and her parents, especially during her mother’s final, protracted illness. ‘That’s another reason you should have your wedding in the village. You’d be able to leave your bouquet on May’s grave at the end of the day. I’d leave mine on my parents’ grave if anyone ever asked me to marry them.’ She gazed wistfully towards the stockroom.
‘Not forgetting the colour and joy that our choir and bell ringers can add to your special day,’ added the vicar, ever loyal to anyone who took part in the communal life of the church. ‘And, after all, what better place can there be for a wedding than a church called St Bride’s? I wonder which hymns you would choose for yours?’
I began to consider which would best suit the voices of our village choir, whose strongest attribute was their willingness. Then I clapped my hand to my face to bring myself to my senses, astonished at how easily these two village stalwarts were leading me astray.
‘Listen, we’re really not planning on getting married,’ I declared. ‘Either here or at Gretna Green, or anywhere else along the way.’ I slipped my bar of chocolate into my pocket. ‘We’re just visiting my parents. I’ve hardly seen my parents since I moved to Wendlebury. It’s high time they got to know Hector, and for him to get to know them too.’
Carol finished recording the vicar’s brace of biscuit packets, closed the accounts book, and replaced it on its shelf below the counter. As she returned her attention to me, she brightened.
‘Ah, I see. You’re going to get your parents’ approval before you get married.’ She smiled as she scanned the barcodes on the vicar’s biscuits to remove them from stock. ‘Call me old-fashioned, but I think that’s an excellent idea. I only wish—’
She stopped short of elaborating on her own experience. The vicar chipped in to spare her embarrassment.
‘Who wouldn’t approve of their daughter marrying a decent, honest, hard-working type like Hector Munro?’ He beamed. ‘And vice versa, my dear. Your match would certainly have my blessing.
I bit my lip.
‘I appreciate your endorsement, Vicar, but it’s just a holiday. Hector’s not had a proper break all year, and he’s never been to Scotland. But we’re heading for Inverness, not Gretna Green.’
I chose not to reveal that we’d pass very close to Gretna on the way, keen to curtail the ever-active village rumour mill before things got completely out of hand.
After bidding them both goodbye, I left the shop and headed up the High Street to the bookshop, too distracted to remember the chocolate in my pocket until I was almost there.
The pair’s comments had made me realise there was another subconscious reason for our trip to Scotland that I hadn’t acknowledged even to myself. I wanted Hector to understand my affection for Inverness and the Highlands, where I’d spent my formative teenage years, and for him and my parents to get to know each other. But I also needed to reassure myself that, away from our mutual comfort zone, Hector was a keeper.
2
SECOND BEST
‘Who’s Maggie Burton?’ I asked Hector, as we sat in the tearoom during a quiet spell later that morning, deliberating over applications for temporary staff to run Hector’s House while we were away. I held up a hand-written letter on mauve deckle-edged notepaper. It was an old-fashioned brand my Auntie May had favoured for correspondence when she wasn’t abroad on her travel-writing expeditions. Most of my letters from her had been penned on crisp, fine, pale-blue airletter stationery, and boasted a fine array of picturesque stamps from around the world. I’d kept them all.
Hector groaned, covering his face with his hands. ‘Oh, please, not Maggie Burton!’ He peeked at me through his fingers. ‘You know, the lady who wanted the blue book.’
I poured us each another cup of tea. ‘Oh yes, I remember!’ I grimaced in sympathy.
Maggie Burton was a relative newcomer to the village, having recently moved into a sixties bungalow set back in an old orchard just off the main road. She had made her first visit to the shop during the week that I was away in Greece.
Her book requests had since become legendary at Hector’s House for their obscurity, and Hector had been known to
Then, as with all the books we found for her, she’d held it, sniffed it, glanced at the back cover without reading the blurb, and turned her watery grey eyes on me in appeal. ‘But do you think I’ll enjoy it?’
The thought of Maggie Burton manning the trade counter, even for the single week that Hector and I would be in Scotland, was too alarming for us to take her application seriously.
‘Can you imagine? I can picture her asking every customer who comes to the trade counter to buy a book “But do you think you’ll enjoy it?”’
‘Ha!’ Hector got up to fetch a cookie jar from the tearoom counter, unscrewing the lid on his way back to our table and offering me a chocolate biscuit before taking one himself.
‘Perhaps I should create a new position for her: Sales Prevention Officer. Who else have we got?’
I picked up the other envelope, a plain white one addressed in careful block capitals, and slit it open with the knife beside my tea plate. Carefully I removed the sheet of paper it contained.
‘Oh, it’s from Ted!’
‘Really? I thought he was fully employed, in between his baking and helping Carol?’
Ted’s small but enthusiastic round of local retail deliveries took up the early part of his day, and Carol’s shop the rest of it, not to mention the actual baking.
‘We’d better not let him loose in the tearoom,’ I said, remembering his accident in Carol’s stockroom earlier. ‘He’d wreck the place on his first day.’
I felt very protective of the tearoom. In the year since Hector had employed me, I’d been steadily building up the financial contribution it made to the bookshop, which needed every extra income stream we could think of to keep it in profit. Even though the business belonged entirely to Hector, I’d have hated Ted to undo my hard work. Hector took the letter from me and read it in silence.
‘To be fair, he’s got a lovely way with people, despite his shyness. I can see him holding the fort at the trade counter well enough. After all, you can’t easily break a book or do any damage with one. Plus, he’s physically fit and strong. He’d easily lift any heavy deliveries, and he’s tall enough to reach the top shelves without a ladder.’
‘Then I think the decision is a no-brainer, provided he can finish his bread deliveries before our opening time. Bakers usually start and finish early, don’t they? Like milkmen. So, what happens next? Will you talk to him about it or do you want me to? I can nab him in the village shop on my way home if you like.’
Hector gave a wry grin.
‘Yes, it’s probably better if you handle the next stage of the recruitment process. You know my usual form from when I recruited you last year, Sophie.’
I had to smile.
‘What, you mean get the candidate tiddly, then sleep with them a few months down the line?’
When I’d applied, Hector had been distilling hooch to slip into the tea of favourite customers, describing it as his ‘special cream’. I was thankful I’d persuaded him to put a stop to that this summer before it landed him in trouble.
He reached across the table to take my hands and gave them a tender squeeze.
‘Play your cards right, sweetheart, and you could be on course for a promotion.’
I pulled a hand free to cuff his head affectionately before starting to clear the paperwork away. As his only employee, I didn’t see how promotion could be possible, even though Hector acknowledged the business had benefited from my marketing instincts and ideas. When I’d started working at Hector’s House, the tearoom had just been a service to customers of the bookshop. I’d turned it into a destination in its own right. Yet after twelve months, I was still working the same hours and earning the same wages. Perhaps when we came back from Scotland, I should press him for a pay rise. I’d think about it.
‘So, if Ted runs the bookshop while we’re away, where does that leave the tearoom?’ I tried to keep my voice neutral. ‘Without the tearoom, he’ll sell far fewer books.’
Hector blinked hard twice, as if rebooting his thought process.
‘How about Mrs Wetherley?’ She was the lady who provided our home-baked cakes, scones and biscuits. A recently retired food-technology teacher, she regarded her service to us as a way of financing what was now her hobby of baking. It also relieved her of the need to either eat all her produce herself or to hold enough tea parties and coffee mornings for friends and relations to eat it for her.
Hector frowned. ‘I’m not sure she’d want to be in the shop nine till five. She might get bored and rather be baking.’
I bit back a retort about whether I might ever crave more action as I manned the tearoom all day.
‘Maybe if you said she could bake on the premises, so she’s not having to go home and bake in the evenings to replenish stock. That might even be an advantage, wafting delicious baking aromas around the shop, along with the scent of fresh coffee.’
Hector gazed at me for a moment before his face relaxed into a smile.
‘That’s an excellent idea, Sophie. I’m not sure there’s room to make it work on a long-term basis, as there’s not much room to move behind the counter, and the cooker is quite small, but she might make it work just for the week we’re away. I’ll phone her tonight and ask her. Well done.’ He slapped his thighs. ‘So that’s all sorted then. Assuming Ted and Mrs Wetherley say yes, anyway.’
I tidied away our cups and returned the cookie jar to its usual place on the tearoom counter, feeling glum that I could be so easily replaced. What’s more, Mrs Wetherley was a much better baker than me.
3
PACKING UP OUR TROUBLES
As I sat on Hector’s bed, watching him fill his battered backpack for our departure the next morning, I realised I’d been putting off describing my parents for fear of, well, putting him off.
‘Dad says Mum lost her spark after Suzy died.’
Hector was rolling seven pairs of socks into seven neat balls and stuffing them into the bottom of the backpack, eyes narrowed in concentration.
‘Who’s Suzy?’
I leaned back against the headboard, drew my knees up and looped my arms around them.
‘Mum’s best friend. Mum’s late best friend. After growing up virtually in each other’s pockets in their home village in Kent, and going through their entire school education together, they went to different universities and never lived close to each other again. But they stayed in touch, and every year or so, they’d get together at Suzy’s or at ours and make up for lost time. They were quite different in lots of ways. Suzy was a scientific boffin type, while Mum studied languages. Suzy was a night owl, always wanting to be out after dark stargazing, while Mum’s a lark, the sort who’d happily go for a run before breakfast or an early-morning dip, but be spark out by 9 p.m. Suzy couldn’t have cared less about her looks, while Mum has always taken pride in her appearance.’
