Murder Takes the High Road(59)

If I noticed their attention, I figured John had to be aware of it, but if so, it didn’t worry him. He seemed in a great mood, eating his dinner with apparent appreciation, talking and laughing with the Matsukados and Alison and Hamish. He clearly thought the murder mystery weekend concept was no weirder than the tour’s original concept.

Yvonne sat on my left, sighing in long sufferance over each course, and serving as a buffer between me and Ben. If that was deliberate on her part, she could rest easy. Not only had Ben nothing to say to me, he had nothing to say to anyone at the table. That was puzzling. I didn’t think his dour mood could be all disappointment in me. So why had he gone so dark and gloomy since that afternoon?

All of these interactions were odd and uncomfortable, but could not account for my feeling of unease.

A pair of maids moved unobtrusively around the table, pouring wine and dishing out soup as Alison explained how Vanessa’s “murder game” worked. At the start of each tour, Alison selected two likely members of the group as “facilitators.” These people were given a very loose script to follow which they could embellish as they liked. Before the facilitators mysteriously disappeared from the tour, they each chose another person to act as an accomplice. As reward for their efforts, the facilitators came directly to the island to spend extra time with Vanessa in her castle.

“I wish it had been us,” Bertie said wistfully to Edie, who nodded sadly.

“By the time the tour reaches the island, it’s usually mayhem.” Alison was still smiling, but she sounded more put-out than pleased.

“It seems rather cruel to me,” Yvonne said.

Elizabeth Ogilvie, Vanessa’s PA, made a kind of clucking with her tongue. It was a uniquely Scottish sound, and clearly a reprimand.

Unexpectedly, Vanessa laughed. While she was following the conversations flowing around her, she had said almost nothing during the meal, and I think most of us were a little intimidated about trying to engage her.

Anyway, if she found it funny, Alison did not. She turned red. “Of course it’s not cruel,” she snapped. “It’s fun. You’re mystery readers. You all loved being in a real-life mystery.”

“This wasn’t a so-called ‘real life’ mystery,” Yvonne pointed out. “It was a needless and unwanted distraction from the tour we paid for. The very expensive tour we paid for.”

“Mother,” Ben murmured into the awkward pause.

“Oh? Some guests enter more into the spirit of things.” Vanessa shrugged her slim shoulders. She was still smiling that mocking little smile at Yvonne.

That was what had changed. That was what was wrong.

Something had happened since Vanessa had greeted us that afternoon. Something had made her angry. Very angry. It was there in the brightness of her tawny eyes and the twin points of color in her pale face, and it was in her smile. Not the wide, beautiful smile she had greeted us with. I could imagine her smiling like this right before she hit Donald Kresley with a rock. It made the hair on the back of my neck prickle.

What could have rocked her poise? Not Yvonne’s carping. If the rest of us could put up with Yvonne’s complaints for three days, Vanessa was unlikely to have reached the breaking point in the half an hour before dinner.

It needn’t be anything to do with the tour. Maybe she’d had bad news from her publisher or agent or salmon farm manager. Maybe the cook was quitting. Judging by this dinner, that would truly be a tragedy.

Anyway, for the most part I thought Alison was right. As a whole, our tour group seemed delighted to have taken part in Vanessa’s game, even if they’d missed most of the innings.

“The person searching our room—the guy who pushed me down the stairs—that was all part of this too?” I leaned over to ask Alison.

She shook her head. “No. That wasn’t part of the game. I’m afraid someone did try to rob you.”

I glanced at John. He was smiling as he listened to Laurel, but he patted my knee in apparent reassurance beneath the cover of the linen-topped table. I felt an unexpected surge of, well, call it affection because I was afraid to call it by the word that jumped to mind. No matter how easy and natural it felt between us, I’d only known him a couple of days.

After all, I’d lived with Trevor for three years and still hadn’t really ever known him.

Then again, I’d never had that instant sense of recognition, of being simpatico with Trevor that I’d felt with John. Maybe that meant something. Or maybe I just wanted it to mean something.

Could it really happen like that? So easily, so naturally? I’d heard friends talk about falling in love at first sight. I had always believed they were confusing lust for love, and then the love had come later. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

Alison interrupted my thoughts, saying darkly, softly, “She basically ruined this tour’s game. Until now it’s always been so much fun.”

“Don’t take what she said to heart. I think we all enjoyed being part of an adventure.”

She gave me an exasperated look. “I don’t mean her.” She glanced dismissively in Yvonne’s direction. She mouthed, “Bittywiddy.”

Oh. Right. Daya, who had agreed to take part in the murder game and then abruptly changed her mind.

“Where is Daya?” I asked.

Yvonne, who had apparently been listening in the whole time, answered. “Roddy said she wasn’t feeling well after the ferry ride.”