‘KNOCKANDO’:
Hats off to her: Mrs Euphemia De Belleforte was rocking the whole Cougar-auditioning-for-a-reality-TV-show-where-she-gets-to-seduce-middle-aged-police-officers thing. Flashing heaps of quivering cleavage as she fluttered her eyelashes at Sergeant Moore. ‘Oh yes, dear,dear, Reggie. He was such a card...’
Out on the balcony, Roberta leaned forward and boinked her forehead off the wooden handrail, once for every repetition: ‘“Salt of the earth.”’Boink. ‘“A real character.”’Boink. ‘“Such a card.”’Boink.
There was an embarrassed sounding ‘Ahem.’ And when she peeled open one eye, there was PC McKinnon, looking at her as if she’d done something weird and/or terrible.
‘What doyouwant?’
He pulled a face at Sergeant Moore. ‘Is she OK?’
‘Not entirely sure how to answer that one, Mikey.’
Roberta straightened up. ‘Every single bloody one of them.’ She hauled in a deep breath and bellowed it out into the cavernous lobby: ‘“SALT OF THE EARTH!”’ The echoesdidn’t last long – swallowed up by the stuffed animals, oil paintings, and tapestries.
McKinnon grimaced. ‘Maybe her blood sugar’s low? Been a while since lunch, and carrot pâté with turnip compote and venison gel doesn’t exactly fill you up, does it?’
She slapped her hand down on the rail. ‘It’s like they’ve all rehearsed their statements! How can one man, onemassive dickof a man, be universally loved by all these...’ She screwed her face up. ‘Torytwats?’
‘Erm...’
Roberta turned and jabbed PC McKinnon with a finger. ‘You told me he screwed everyone over!’
‘I said, “probably not his friends”, though.’ Backing away, hands up. Surrendering.
‘Aaaaargh!’
Sergeant Moore stared at the pointy metal antlers. ‘Maybe Mikey’s right? You don’t crap in your own nest, do you.’
The wee loon nodded. ‘Nope. You poop over the edge of it. Make sure it lands on somebody else. Someonebeneathyou.’
‘Very true, Mikey.’ He was obviously trying to sound reasonable, but it just came off as patronising. ‘And if he thought they all hated him, why would he invite them to his daughter’s wedding? You any idea how much this shindig must’ve cost?’
Pair of idiots. ‘He wasrubbing it in! It’s a power thing with old gits like him; “keep your enemies closer”.’ How could they not see that?
‘Didn’t work out too well, though, did it?’
‘Gah...’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘How many more of these scumbags have we got to interview?’
‘One more guest, nine members of staff.’
Roberta let her hands fall to her sides and sagged there for a bit. ‘Why does the universe hate me?’
McKinnon shuffled his trainers. ‘At least we’re doing something, right? We’retrying.’
‘And achieving bugger all!’ She gave the balustrade a kick. The statue a scowl. An oil painting the Vs. Then turned and marched away.
PC McKinnon and Sergeant Moore hurried after her, the wee loon doing his best to look keen and determined. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m sick of interviewing monkeys – time to go see the organ grinder!’
The door lay at the end of a slightly tatty wee corridor – the tartan carpet scuffed and faded, its walls in need of a fresh coat of paint and someone to fix that damp patch on the ceiling. Like the hotel laundry, it hadn’t merited a fancy whisky name. Instead a simple brass plaque with, ‘PRIVATERESIDENCE’ was screwed above a letterbox.
All very low key.
Roberta fiddled with Old Faithful, working its wandering underwire into a slightly less pokey position as Sergeant Moore raised his hand to knock.
‘I swear, if one more of these buggers says, “he was a real character”...’
