Death of a Gentle Lady

woman. But this is awfy. She started off being a slave driver. The only break we got was when you arrived and then she was back, following us around. When she got that phone call, she changed. She was just too happy to pay us the money and get out.’
    ‘No member of her family around?’
    ‘Not a soul. She was on her own when we were there. I tried at one point to speak to her, saying it was a shame you’d been stood up on your wedding day, and she said that it couldnae have happened to a nicer fellow, sneering, like. I could hardly believe my ears because everyone in Braikie thought she was some kind of a saint what with paying for the wedding and all.’
    ‘She didn’t say anything about the missing girl?’
    ‘Not a word. She still missing?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘She get on well wi’ Mrs Gentle?’
    ‘As far as I know,’ said Hamish abruptly.
    When he left, he realized that Ayesha, or whoever she was, might turn out to be the prime suspect.
    He drove back to the police station, where he filed a long report of the finding of the body and of his interviews with the two cleaners. When he finally got to bed with his cat at his side and his dog at his feet, he somehow became more and more convinced that his fiancée was dead.

    In the morning, Superintendent Daviot gave a press conference. Only a few of the local papers turned up. But as soon as he described the murder of Mrs Gentle and the missing Russian girl who had been using someone else’s passport, the news flew out around the country.
    Soon the press dug up the story of Hamish’s failed wedding, and Hamish fled the police station with flashes going off in his face to escape their questions. Earlier that morning, Jimmy had turned up with a forensic team who had gone over the luggage and then taken it away. Before leaving, Jimmy had said the family were travelling up to the castle.
    Hamish did not fear being hounded by Blair because Blair was jealous of him and would want the whole case to himself. He felt sure that if ‘Ayesha’ were safe somewhere, then someone in the Highlands must have seen her. She was too tall and beautiful to escape attention.
    When he reached Braikie, Jimmy phoned him. ‘Got the news over from Istanbul police,’ he said. ‘Your girl was called Irena Selakov from Moscow. Top hooker. Protector was a Russian businessman, runs a chain of restaurants in Moscow, name of Grigori Antonov. They were visiting Istanbul on business for a week when Irena did a bunk. Russian police so far uncooperative. Say of course they’ll help and then probably hope we’ll forget about it. But Grigori is definitely in Moscow.’
    Hamish thanked him and rang off. Most of that morning, he walked in and out of shops in Braikie, asking if anyone had seen Irena but meeting up with a blank wall everywhere, although everyone he spoke to was anxious to help, regarding him as a desperate lovelorn man, looking for his fiancée.
    He drove up to the castle. The coal-mine owner who had built it had wished to copy Balmoral on a very small scale for his summer holidays. It had stood empty for some time. Hamish wondered if anyone would buy it. Who on earth would want to live in such a wild, remote spot on the edge of the cliffs, particularly with the British coastline crumbling bit by bit each year?
    The rain had gone but the wind still blew and the air was full of the smell of salt. The castle door stood open. The forensic van stood outside. There was no proper fencing around the acreage belonging to the castle, only a crumbling dry-stone wall. But there were police on duty at the entrance to the drive leading up to the castle, and for the moment they were keeping the press at bay.
    Hamish struggled into the coverall blue plastic suit which was now regulation for policemen visiting a possible crime scene. He walked in and stood in the hall. He wondered if they had looked in the cellars yet. He could hear them moving about upstairs. He went into the kitchen. There was a rack inside the door holding keys. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, he selected one marked cellar and then searched around the hall until he saw the cellar door.
    He unlocked the door and groped around at the top of the stairs until he found a light switch. He went down into the cellar. Down here, he could hear the boom, boom, boom of the waves.
    There were a few racks of wine in dusty bottles. In the centre of the cellar was a wooden table which held a bottle and two glasses, one clean and one