Free Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder by Catriona McPherson Page A

on either side of a flagged path. It had a coach house at one flank and a high orchard wall at the other and was as charming as it was unexpected: a village house, my mother would have called it (never suspecting that when she did so in those ringing tones of hers she always offended the owners, who heard the echo of ‘a village child’ for which read apple thief, ‘a village family’ where laundrymaids and jobbing gardeners might be found, and ‘a village affair’ by which she meant any feud or scandal she deemed beneath her notice which was nonetheless too significant to be ignored).
    A maid who had clearly been told to expect me – ‘advised of my arrival’ as she put it – let me in and showed me into a morning room at the back of the house with a french window open onto the garden. I just had time to note the pale carpet and silk-covered walls, the elegant gilded furniture and delicate watercolours, but I had no chance for my customary snooping before the door opened again and someone strode into the room. A young woman, a woman, an elderly woman, I thought in quick succession as she came towards me and held out her hand, for the initial impression of vigour was seen off by the matronly cut of her coat and skirt and the confident rake of her hat (an angle like that only comes, if it comes at all, with maturity), and the coat and skirt and hat (and brooch and pearls) in their turn could not disguise the iron grey hair, lined skin and thickened wrists of quite advanced age. She wore startlingly red lipstick and had painted very thick black eyebrows onto her head; her nails too were red and black – red from paint and black from gardening. I knew the type. She was not, after all, an elderly woman: she was a game old girl.
    ‘Mrs Gilver,’ she said, giving me a wide grin and showing strong yellow teeth which were not flattered by the lipstick, neither the shade of it nor the fact that a great deal of it was on them. ‘Fiona Haddo. Bella Aitken told me about you. Thank you for coming and do sit down.’
    She rang for coffee and then eased herself into an armchair and regarded me.
    ‘It’s about Mirren.’
    I nodded. The nightmare was going strong.
    ‘I’m Googie’s grandmother, you see.’ I said nothing and my face must have been blank because she hurried to explain. ‘Dugald. Googie was his little sister’s best attempt and it stuck. Hilda – my daughter – hates it.’
    I could not help my eyebrow rising at her daughter’s name. Hilda Haddo was a dreadful curse to visit upon a child.
    ‘Oh, I know,’ said her mother, getting the point of the raised brow. She was clearly an old girl of great perception and I would need to disport myself more cautiously. ‘But she was a Hilda. If you’d only seen her the day she was born – glaring up at me with that look on her face telling me the whole thing was an outrage. A Teutonic battle-maid if ever I’d seen one. Anyway, she’s Hilda Hepburn now which isn’t so bad. Unless one counts it as bad that I married off my daughter to a draper’s boy. Sounds like a music-hall song, doesn’t it?’ She laughed again. ‘But Robert Junior – Robin, as the family have always called him – is a dear man, with pots of money, and Hilda has been very happy. Until now, of course. Until now.’
    ‘The boy must be distraught,’ I said. ‘I can quite imagine his mother suffering along with him.’
    ‘Hm,’ said Fiona Haddo, but did not elaborate.
    ‘Was he terribly fond of her?’
    ‘Googie adored her,’ said Mrs Haddo. ‘To see them together was almost enough to make one believe in love’s young dream again. Even a cynical old trout like me could grow quite misty. So it’s almost beyond belief that . . .’ She gave me a shrewd look. ‘How much do you know?’
    ‘Well,’ I said, carefully, ‘I’ve heard a great deal but all from one source. Another perspective would perhaps be illuminating.’ Fiona Haddo gave a twisted smile in acknowledgement of