Death of a Gentle Lady

slips.
    Even the wastepaper basket had been emptied out on the floor. His eye was caught by a crumpled sheet of pink paper. He picked it up and smoothed it out. It was a letter. He glanced down at the signature. Margaret Gentle! She had written, ‘Dear Mark, You can come and stay if you like, but I am going to change my will. I am leaving everything equally to Sarah and Andrew. You have only yourself to blame by thinking you could blackmail me.’
    So he knew about her plans to change the will before he even went there, thought Hamish. Had he decided he needed an alibi because he had something more sinister in mind than blackmail? I’ll never know now, he decided. He carefully wiped the front door in case he had left any fingerprints.
    He wondered what to do. If he phoned the police and waited for them, he would be in grave trouble for arriving on their territory without telling them. Strathbane would be furious. Blair would make the most of it.
    The woman who had buzzed him in had not seen him. His flaming red hair was covered in a black wool cap, which he had put on when he had walked from the Docklands Light Railway station.
    His footprints would be all over the place. But if he wiped the floor, he would be destroying evidence. Mark Gentle had known his killer. The bottle and glass seemed to tell Hamish that he had poured himself a drink with his back to his visitor when he had been struck down. He wished he had not called out ‘Police!’
    He sighed. He would have to do his duty. There was no getting away with it. He remembered seeing a surveillance camera over the door. The only lie he would tell was that he had found the door unlocked.

    Hamish was grilled by the Metropolitan Police for two days, periodically being questioned when he wasn’t actually being shouted at. Orders had come down from Strathbane that he was, on his return, to stay at his police station, suspended from duties, until a disciplinary hearing.
    The surveillance camera over the door turned out to be empty of tape. At first it was thought that the murderer might have removed it, but it was found to be only cheapness on the part of the landlords.
    Hamish did not tell anyone that Jimmy Anderson had known what he was doing, considering that one of them in deep trouble was enough.
    It was at the end of Hamish’s second day in London that the atmosphere suddenly thawed. It was actually said that the Met thought he had done good work and were prepared to forgive and forget. He was told that on his return, he should go back to his normal duties. There was to be no disciplinary hearing.
    He was just leaving Scotland Yard when a familiar voice said, ‘Hamish!’
    He turned round. Anna Krokovsky stood there, smiling at him. ‘We go for dinner,’ she said.
    ‘I’m rushing off to the airport to try to catch the plane,’ said Hamish.
    ‘Nonsense. You owe me dinner after all I have been doing for you.’
    ‘Oh, that’s why …You spoke up on my behalf.’
    ‘Of course I did. The fools. It would have taken them ages to find that body. There is a good Italian restaurant near here.’
    Hamish gave in. It was turning out to be an expensive trip. In the short time between bouts of questioning, he had had to run out and buy a clean shirt and underwear. He had been lodged in a police flat with a large boozy constable who had a vehement hatred of the Scots and said so at great length.
    ‘Why are you still here?’ he asked Anna when they were seated in the restaurant.
    ‘I am nearly finished. I leave for Russia next week.’
    ‘Why did you go to the trouble of having Irena’s body flown home?’
    ‘That was on the instructions of Grigori Antonov, her former protector. Strangely enough, he still seemed to retain an affection for her. Odd. He could have bought any pretty female he wanted. Now, from your investigations, it seems that Mark found out something about Mrs Gentle that she did not want known.’
    ‘There was that “bastard in every family” remark,’ said Hamish. ‘Could it be that Mrs Gentle had had at one time an illegitimate child?’
    ‘They are still searching the records.’
    ‘The footprints in the flat were size seven,’ said Hamish, ‘or so they told me. That surprises me because I’m convinced our murderer is still in the north. How long had he been dead?’
    ‘A week. But you came down, planning to be here only for the day.’
    They ordered their food.
    ‘I did not for a moment think I would find another dead