Moore straightened up, rubbing the small of his back. ‘You sure we can’t just—’
‘Positive.’ She marched out of the fridge. ‘Get yourself into dry clothes and we’ll start on the second half of your list.’
Because one thing was certain – there was something rotten in the heart of Skirivour and she was going to find outwhatif it killed her.
Or everyone else.
18
The tumble-drier warmth faded from her jeans, socks, and pants, as Roberta perched on the end of the bed in ‘AUCHENTOSHAN’. Not a double, this time, but two singles with matching tartan bedding. Like the pair of middle-aged biddies who scowled back at her every time she asked a question. Dorothy and Edith Gladstone.
No wonder her pants had gone cold – these two could suck the life out of a hedgehog at fifty paces.
Their hair was dyed an identical brassy blonde. Matching twinsets and pearls. Even their glasses were the same. One sitting in the armchair by the window, the other standing behind it with a hand on her doppelganger’s shoulder. It gave them a kind of ‘Hinge and Bracket, the early years’ look.
‘I see.’ Sergeant Moore wrote something in his notebook, looked at Dorothy, or was it Edith? ‘And what about you, Mrs Gladstone?’
‘It’sMiss, you imbecile.’ The one in the armchair stuck her chin out. ‘And my sister’s just been over this, weren’t you paying attention?’
The other Miss Gladstone – definitely Edith, she looked like an Edith – nodded. ‘It’s beyond the pale, it really is. We’ve been cooped up in here all morning and all yesterday too!’
‘Evencriminalsare allowed out to the exercise yard for an hour a day!’
‘We’re on the Scottish Penal Reform Association board, you know.’
Dorothy narrowed her eyes. ‘And we shall be writing averyscathing letter to your superiors about this.’
Of course they would.
Roberta hopped down from the bed and scuffed over to the tea-and-coffee-making facilities. Ooh, they hadn’t eaten their biscuits. More fool them.
She helped herself to a wee individually-wrapped lemon-and-white-chocolate shortbread finger. Spraying citrusy crumbs. ‘You haven’t got any custard creams stashed, have you?’
Both Miss Gladstones stuck their noses in the air, as if she’d never spoken.
Sergeant Moore tapped his notepad. ‘If we could get back to the topic of Sir Reginald Bradbury-Scott?’
‘Sucha tragedy.’ Edith dabbed at her eye with a lace handkerchief. ‘Good old Sir Reginald.’
Dorothy sat forward. ‘He was a real character, you know.’
A nod from her sister. ‘A real character.’
Not thisagain.
Roberta curled forward and banged her head off the sideboard, hard enough to make the wood boom. ‘Aaaaargh!’
‘Is she always this uncouth, or have you had her specially trained?’
‘TAMDHU’:
Edmund Blacklock was in his mid-fifties, trying to look early-twenties and not really managing it in chinos and a denim shirt that paunched out over his belt. The Michael-Portillo hair didn’t help.
His wife reallywasin her early-twenties, but somehow,some evil bastard had managed to convince her that ‘Princess Diana tribute act’ was a good look.
Edmund struck a Churchillian pose. At least he had the jowls for it. ‘There’s no doubt in my mind that Sir Reginald was thesaltof the earth. Isn’t that right, Letitia?’
She burst into rapturous applause. ‘Oh well said, Edmund, well said!’
