Death of a Gentle Lady

gets a good defence lawyer,’ said Hamish, ‘he might easily get off. The evidence is only circumstantial. Was Irena blackmailing him?’
    ‘No, because, I suppose, she died before Mrs Gentle.’
    ‘Exactly, Jimmy. There’s no real leverage there for blackmail. A lot of folk threaten to kill people when they’re angry.’
    ‘Don’t rain on my parade, Hamish. We’ve got him. Go to sleep.’

    The morning dawned sunny and balmy with only thin traces of the previous night’s mist. Hamish decided to go back up to the castle. The family would be preparing to leave. He wanted to take another look in that nursery. He fed Sonsie and Lugs and forced himself not to phone Angela and ask her to look after them.
    When he arrived, they were all getting into their cars. ‘What is it now?’ asked Andrew.
    ‘I’m just going up to look at that nursery again.’
    ‘We don’t want to wait around for you. Here’s the key. Lock up when you leave. Here’s my card. Post the key to me.’
    Hamish went into the castle and climbed the stairs to the nursery. He carefully removed the tape from across the door, opened it, and went in.
    The room was in chaos. It looked as if it had been torn apart. Even teddy bears had been ripped open. The police had made a thorough search.
    He imagined Irena sitting by the fire, trying to keep warm. She must have been terrified of going back to her old life or she would not have put up with such treatment.
    There did not seem to be much point in his searching for anything now. He cleared some toys off a chair by the window and sat down to think. Why had she been carrying around that small, expensive tape recorder? What had first led her to think there might be someone worth blackmailing? Why had Mark’s been the only male voice on the tape?
    There was a crash from somewhere below. Hamish rose and left the room, darting for the stairs. He gained the last stretch of stairs leading to the hall, leaping down the stairs three at a time.
    He searched all over. A heavy pot was lying on its side on the stone flags of the hall. That must have been the crash he had heard.
    He ran outside and looked down the drive. No one was in sight.
    He made his way back into the castle and began to walk slowly up the stairs. He stopped dead before he reached the first landing. A wire was stretched across the second step. If he had not been leaping down the steps but taking them one at a time, he could have tumbled down and broken his neck on the stone flags of the hall below.
    He took out his phone and called Jimmy.
    Jimmy listened impatiently as Hamish told him how he had set himself up as bait and about the wire on the stairs.
    ‘I don’t want to know this,’ he groaned. ‘But wait there. I’ll be right over.’
    Hamish went outside. There was a small gravelled parking area in front of the castle. It did not seem to have been disturbed.
    He walked round the castle. At the side was the kitchen door. He tried it. It was locked. He examined the lock closely, but there did not seem to be any sign that someone had tried to pick it. He walked to the back. He could see where chunks of the cliff had fallen into the sea over the years, leaving the castle perilously close to the sea’s edge. There was no door at the back.
    He returned to the front and entered the castle again. He had finished searching the last room when he heard Jimmy arrive.
    Hamish went out to meet him. ‘I didn’t bring anyone with me,’ said Jimmy. ‘I just hope it was someone in the family leaving that wire there in case of burglars.’
    ‘Don’t be daft, Jimmy. Someone dropped that great pot in the hall, someone who knew I was upstairs and knew that I would come racing down. What we need are blueprints to this place. I could see no signs that anyone had come up to the front door or had left by that way. There must be another entrance. So far, I’ve searched everywhere and can’t find it. Might be something in the study.’
    ‘The case was all nicely tied up,’ said Jimmy.
    ‘Confessed, did he?’
    ‘No, he’s still protesting his innocence.’
    ‘So let’s look for blueprints.’
    They went into the study. ‘They might be rolled up somewhere,’ said Hamish.
    ‘There’s nothing in the bookshelves that I can see,’ said Jimmy.
    ‘Might be in a big bound book,’ suggested Hamish. ‘Like those on the bottom shelf.’
    Jimmy pulled out one and opened it. ‘Victorian photo album,’ he said. ‘Must have been quite a place in