Bitter End Part 8

'What sort of people are the Menzies family?' she asked, absently opening the glove compartment and helping herself to a stick of the chewing gum Buchanan habitually kept in there to guard against thirst on a long journey.

'Have you dealt with them before?'

'Not personally. They were Dad's clients till Dennis took over the conveyancing, but I understand they're quite well respected.' He accepted the offer of some gum without comment. 'Old money. They were big landowners in Aberdeenshire at one time but death duties. .h.i.t them hard and they ended up, back in the fifties, opening their Victorian pile to the public. They started brewing their own ale, more or less as an added attraction to the house, but the business took off and it eventually restored their fortunes. Dennis has been dealing with Niall Menzies, son 53. of the current head of the family. Apparently, the old man is in his late eighties now and doesn't have much to do with business.'

'What age is the son?'

Buchanan smiled, not looking at her. 'Dennis has him down as about fifty-five. Too old for you to try turning his head, I'm afraid, Fizz.'

Fizz didn't lower herself to answer that one, considering it a childish jibe and almost wholly unmerited, since the thought had no more than crossed her mind. Besides, the older they were, the easier they fell for her 'motherless child' approach.

'Where are we eating?' she said, noting that the turnoff for Chirnside was approaching. 'I rather liked that place we went to on Sat.u.r.day.'

Buchanan put on a reasonable face which usually meant he was going to try to talk her out of it. 'Or,' he murmured, 'we could grab a bar meal at the Waterloo in Chirnside. That would save a bit of time and maybe let us get home at a respectable hour.'

'You have something you want to do this evening?'

'Nothing special, but I--'

'Neither have I,' Fizz told him sweetly. 'What time is it now? Nearly seven. Not a good time to be dropping in on people, I'd have thought. They'll all be eating, won't they?

Of course, we could kill an hour or so in the pub before we go, have a few drinks. I'm easy. Thy will be done.'

Buchanan, no doubt considering how much she could drink in an hour, said that he quite fancied the Chirnside Hall after all and presently pulled in to the car park with a tolerably good grace. In point of fact, Buchanan didn't really mind buying Fizz

a decent meal. She was, after all, giving up her evening for

him -even if her motivation for doing so was nosiness

rather than solidarity -and besides, he was never totally

convinced that she ate properly. 54. He was pretty sure she didn't have a lot of money. She'd been living for two years now on her student grant, plus what she earned from holiday jobs and such part-time work as Buchanan could find for her to do without appearing too charitable. She had a thing about accepting charity in any form other than food and drink -and those she cadged shamelessly from anyone at all. No doubt that little habit was one she'd picked up during the lean years even leaner than at the present time -when she had lived virtually from hand to mouth. Or maybe she believed that she gave fair exchange for the food by being engaging company which, indeed, she was, when she wanted to be.

Other times she'd drive you to drink. Most times, actually.

When they were seated, he said to her, 'Bear in mind, Fizz, that Lawrence Gra.s.sick is a regular customer in this place. He would be absolutely livid to think we'd been gossiping about him with the staff so, this time, can we just enjoy our meal and leave?'

'Absolutely, Kemo Sabe.' She twinkled at him flirtatiously, but with an air of facetiousness that precluded his taking her seriously, and returned to her perusal of the menu.

He said, 'No, look at me, Fizz. I really mean it.'

'Like I said -absolutely. I wonder if I should have the monkfish. What are you having?'

Buchanan gave up and applied his attention to choosing his dinner but he was not too engrossed to miss the fact that her smile to the approaching waiter not only acknowledged the fact that she remembered him but was also a blatant invitation to him to chat: an invitation which he was not slow to accept.

'Good evening, miss. Good evening, sir. Very nice to see you back again.'

'Couldn't resist it,' she a.s.sured him with a girlish giggle.

'It's so nice and cosy in here on a rainy evening -and such an exciting part of the country. Any more exploding houses recently?' 55. 'No, I'm afraid not, miss,' said the waiter, grinning. 'But there have been--'

'I think . . .' Buchanan said, and then added innocently, 'Oh sorry. I interrupted you.'

'Not at all, sir. My apologies, sir. Are you ready to order?'

Buchanan admitted that, in fact, he was, and did so.

As soon as the waiter had swanned out of earshot he turned on Fizz with a glare. 'What did I just say?' he demanded angrily. 'Did I just ask you not to start on about the explosion or am I losing my mind?'

'You suggested it might not be a good idea to start cross-examining people in case Gra.s.sick got to hear of it,'

she returned, with a childlike expression of wounded innocence, 'but you said nothing about allowing the staff to talk about the accident of their own free will.'

'That's semantics, Fizz. You know d.a.m.n well what I meant!'

'Yes I do,' she agreed pacifically, b.u.t.tering a bread roll.

'But the crux is: could I be quoted? There's no way the waiter could tell Gra.s.sick that I'd been asking questions, or even that I'd shown any undue interest. All I did -both

just now and last Sat.u.r.day -was make polite conversation, as any visitor would. What's wrong with that?'

Buchanan wasn't in a mood to argue with her but he made up his mind that he'd take d.a.m.n good care she didn't get the chance to resume her polite conversation. He was already beginning to regret allowing her to help him deal with this business. She had always been difficult to keep on a leash and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if she broke loose this time he'd end up, once again, in considerably deeper s.h.i.t than he'd started out in.

At the end of the meal, while the waiter was helping Fizz with her coat, Buchanan heard him say, 'I hope we'll see you again soon, miss. We can't promise you another exploding house but I hear the last one might turn out not to be an accident.' 56. 'Good heavens,' said Fizz, ignoring Buchanan's hand on her arm. 'An insurance fraud, do you mean?'

'Maybe. That's how the local gossip goes, anyway.

There's an insurance investigator -Mr Cambridge -staying

here at the hotel for a few days, so there could be some truth in the rumours.' He registered Buchanan's suggestion of impatience and backed off, trousering his tip. 'Thank you very much, sir. Goodnight, miss.'

Buchanan would have loved to stay and chat. The mention of an insurance investigator was a tempting bait but he was determined to play this case by the book and do nothing to give Lawrence Gra.s.sick cause for complaint.

There was no need, in this instance, to gossip with the staff: he could phone this Mr Cambridge tomorrow and ask for a meeting. As Vanessa Gra.s.sick's legal representative, he had a right to know whether the insurance investigation was a routine one or not and, if Cambridge had serious doubts about the cause of the explosion, maybe he would be willing to swap findings.

Fizz was too furious for words and shook his hand from her arm as soon as they had pa.s.sed out of the dining room. In the lobby she turned on him like a bonsai Ghengis Gra.s.sick, keeping her voice low only because there were people in the open-plan c.o.c.ktail bar a few feet away.

'I don't believe you just did that,' she hissed, choking with frustration. 'You didn't even need to question the guy!

All you had to do was stand there and let him run! We could have heard all the gossip from him instead of dragging it out of the neighbours like we were drawing teeth.

Dammit! You just irritate the h.e.l.l out of me, Buchanan, you know that? I can't count the times you've

Slowly it dawned on her what she -and Buchanan -had

just heard through her whispered insults: the voice of the barman saying clearly, 'Mr Cambridge? A telephone call for you, sir.'

As they watched, a blond, good-looking chap rose from 57. a stool at the bar and walked to the end of the counter to take the phone from the barman.

Fizz looked up at Buchanan's face, her expression that of Stephenson glimpsing the potentiality of steam. 'Now that' she murmured, 'was a gift from G.o.d, Buchanan.

Don't tell me you're going to take a rain-check.'

Buchanan was far from it. There was a world of difference between gossiping with the staff and running into the insurance investigator in person. He took Fizz's arm and led her over to the two stools next to the one temporarily vacated by Mr Cambridge.

Fizz perked up instantly, probably at the prospect of her second gin and tonic of the evening, and let him see that his reluctance to converse with the waiter was a thing of the past. She removed her coat and fluffed up her already rumbustious ringlets.

'Okay, compadre, how do we play it? Are we innocent pa.s.sers-by who've not particularly curious about the fire, or reporters from the Berwick Herald, or--'

'No lies, Fizz,' Buchanan said sternly, holding down her wrist so that she couldn't take her first sip of G&T till she listened. 'Not about our ident.i.ty: not about anything. This chap could save us a lot of ha.s.sle. With a bit of luck he may be able to put my mind at rest and save me from having to alienate Gra.s.sick any more than I already have done.'