Priscilla wrenched off her engagement ring and threw it in his face. “The engagement is over.” She opened the car door and got out. “I’ll walk.”
Harold got out as well, seized her, and threw her down in the snow. He brandished the knife. “You are going to do exactly as you’re told, you frigid bitch.”
The next moment he was seized by the collar and jerked backwards. Hamish Macbeth stamped on his wrist. Harold let go of the knife. Hamish picked it up and threw it off into the trees.
“I am charging you with attempted rape,” said Hamish, “and with carrying a dangerous weapon. You—”
“Hamish,” pleaded Priscilla, “let it go. I can’t bear the scandal. I feel like an absolute fool. Please, Hamish.”
“Oh, all right,” said Hamish. Harold was still lying on the ground. He gave him a vicious kick in the ribs to relieve his feelings. “Go down to the road, Priscilla. You’ll find Charlie there. I’ll join you in a moment.”
He walked to Harold’s Range Rover and took the keys out of the ignition. “You can walk back to the hotel, you scunner,” he raged.
He put the keys in his pocket and strode back down the track.
Harold had to wait two hours before the Automobile Association, already overloaded with emergency calls, managed to get someone out to him. He was freezing because without his car keys, he had been unable to put on the car heater. By the time he had thought to phone the hotel manager and ask that someone should go up to his room and find his spare keys, Hamish had already been on to the hotel. He was told that his cases were packed and waiting for him in the hall and he was no longer welcome.
Hamish kept Priscilla at the police station until he heard that Harold had left. He then asked Charlie to take her back. Priscilla was badly shaken. She had told him that Harold had seemed so romantic. He had sent her roses and taken her out to the best restaurants in town. Hamish felt he was listening to a description of a psychopathic control freak. He had heard of cases where men like Harold would start off as loving and caring. But usually they waited until the woman was secure in marriage before they started making life a hell.
Would Priscilla ever realise that there was something up with her? He remembered when they were engaged, how her coldness had made him want to weep.
He was just settling comfortably in front of the television with Lugs and Sonsie beside him on the sofa when his mobile rang.
It was Fiona. “I’ll be with you in an hour. There’s a lot to discuss.”
Chapter Nine
“Come, come,” said Tom’s father, “at your time of life,
“There’s no longer excuse for thus playing the rake—
“It is time, boy, you should think of taking a wife”—
“Why so it is, father—whose wife shall I take?”
—Thomas More
By the time the inspector arrived, Hamish was fast asleep. Fiona had let herself in. She stood looking down at him and made to shake him awake. The cat’s eyes blazed with a yellow light and she let out a warning hiss.
“Macbeth!” Fiona shouted.
“What?” Hamish struggled awake and then got to his feet. “Sorry, ma’am. It’s been a long day.”
“Where’s Carter?”
“At the hotel.”
“Get him here!”
Charlie arrived in ten minutes’ time, glad to escape from a dinner with the Halburton-Smythe family. Priscilla was miserable and her parents looked wretched.
He shied like a large carthorse when he saw Fiona, but all she said coldly was, “Now you are here, Carter, we can get down to business.” She took her laptop out of its case and switched it on. “Here’s what I have found. Yes, Andrew and Greta Harrison were at this wife-swopping party. The people who indulge in that sort of thing! There was even a judge there.”
“Not your husband, I hope,” said Hamish.
“Don’t get cheeky with me, Sergeant. Now, how this sleazy party works is that they draw out slips of paper, and whoever’s name’s on it chooses a partner. It’s a great big place out at Morningside. That couple go off to one of the many bedrooms. But the one who was not chosen was Greta because there was one woman too many. What did she do then? Nobody knows. Her husband tried to swear she was waiting for him when he had finished his business. That was how he put it. But all the others, now terrified of scandal, and promised secrecy provided they were honest, all swore that Andrew had left alone. She could have driven to the hunting box, lured Gloria outside, and strangled her. She and Andrew may have been terrified that old Harrison would leave everything in his will to her.
“I am keeping quiet about this for the moment until we talk to her. That will be all. I will see you both here at nine in the morning.”
“How do you feel about her now?” Hamish asked Charlie.
“I don’t feel anything. In fact, it’s all like some sort of dream. Herself will be staying at the hotel. Maybe I should stay here.”
“Oh, you’ll be all right,” said Hamish. “She’s taken to calling you Carter and there was anything but lovelight in her eyes when she looked at you.”