Highland Fling Episode 79

“And was he working on these, what do you call them? Masers?” Mirabelle asked. “Well, almost. Something called a laser, apparently. Similar theory – different application. This is our man. Something happened between them. He tied Eleanor up. And he probably took the stones. In her case.”

Mirabelle’s mind raced. “But then why would Eleanor protect him?

“I mean, she could have given us a description. She could have told us who he was.”

“A bloody traitor is who he is,” snapped Eddie.

“We can worry about the motive later. “I’ve put out an alert. So far, Eleanor hasn’t said anything that would help us narrow down where the man might have gone.

“She’s insisting that she isn’t – what was it now? – a ‘snitch’.”

Eddie lit a cigarette. “We’ll see about that. But as far as I can reckon it, she left here on foot yesterday late in the afternoon and made to meet this chap either at the cottage or somewhere on the way.

“She had the stones with her. Yes, she had sold some down south, but Dr Dunn was to be the recipient of whatever was left.

“She was supplying him – had been supplying him, most likely, for the last two or three years, on behalf of the Soviets.”

“But I thought she left on the spur of the moment,” Mirabelle said.

“She only realised the seriousness of the situation when Jinx died.

“She knew they were trying to kill her after that.

“Up till then, presumably, she was hoping to just wait it out and trust that Nina’s death wouldn’t be pinned on her, which was a fair assumption.

“I mean, none of us suspected her – not me or you, Alan.”

Eddie took an elegant draw from his cigarette. “One way or another, she summoned the doctor. On the spur of the moment, it seems.

“Visiting his aunt, my foot. I don’t know if they were lovers, of course...”

Mcgregor cleared his throat. “Poor Bruce,” he said under his breath.

“One way or another,” Eddie continued, “Eleanor thought she could count on the guy’s help. Maybe she thought they were going to run away together.

“Maybe she thought if she delivered the alexandrite, the Russians would allow her some kind of reprieve.

“But Dr Dunn was having none of it. “He didn’t turn her in to his comrades and, thankfully, he didn’t kill her either, but he took the alexandrite – in the leather briefcase – and left her behind.”

“So he’s out there,” Mirabelle said. “But he knows she’ll be found, right?

“And he couldn’t possibly trust her to stick to her views, about snitching. I mean, he can’t go back to St Andrews.”

Eddie shook his head. “No.” He rolled his hand to encourage Mirabelle to continue the line of her logic.

“That’s why you mentioned Burgess and Maclean.

“You’re worried he’s going to defect, taking the alexandrite. Because that’s his only way out now.”

“Him and his research,” Eddie said. “Don’t forget that. We’re so focused on bloody Oxford, I mean, it’s my own fault.” “Oxford?”

“Never you mind.” He stubbed out his cigarette.

“I have all ports being watched. Airports, too. The navy is on alert.

“But Dunn will know that, besides which we have a long coastline – in that respect the odds are in his favour.

“So my question for you two is: How’s he going to get out?

“Can we narrow his window of opportunity?

“Can we mine your cousin for local knowledge?

“Or is there anything else here?” He gestured around the room. “And what is the best way to get something out of Eleanor? You know her.”

Mirabelle pushed back the mahogany carver she’d been sitting on and walked to the window.

“There is one thing you’ve missed,” she said.

“The maid must have had an escape route. She couldn’t expect to get away with killing Eleanor.

“So how was she going to get out? Maybe these two things are related.”

A phone call to the hospital ascertained that Elizabeth was making no more sense than she had earlier, so, to Mrs Gillies’s chagrin, they cut through the kitchen and up to the servants’ quarters, into the tidy room where the girl had slept.

They knew they had to be careful now. Mirabelle laid her hand on Mcgregor’s arm. It was too easy to destroy evidence. To miss things. He was only a policeman and wasn’t used to this kind of search.

Elizabeth had been furnished with a convincing amount of possessions as cover – clothes from a selection of shops in Inverness and books from the local library on the bedside.

There was something meditative, Mirabelle thought, about a fingertip search. It had rhythm.

Mcgregor took a seat in the comfortable chair. “All right,” he said, “show me how you do it.”

They started in one corner and fanned out, touching the walls, checking for loose floorboards or wainscoting, for anything secreted underneath the furniture, in any crevice.

Mirabelle ran her fingers along the seams of Elizabeth’s clothes.

Eddie took the library books apart and, when he found nothing, searched the bed and opened the tiny sash and case window to see if there was anything secreted in the rope space.

Mrs Gillies, meanwhile, hovered uncomfortably at the door.

“What exactly are you looking for?” she asked after about 20 minutes.

“We don’t know, Mrs Gillies,” Mirabelle said. “But you mustn’t come in.”

Gillies sighed as Eddie carefully emptied Elizabeth’s workbasket on to the table.

A jumble of threads and a few cards studded with pins and needles. Mirabelle sank down next to him.

“It’s too new,” she said, indicating the pristine lining paper at the bottom of the box.

“Bad practice. The rest is very convincing.”

I have all ports being watched. Airports, too. The navy is on alert

Copyright © Sara Sheridan 2020, extracted from Highland Fling, published by Constable, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, at £8.99.