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132 pages

English

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Act It Out's historic re-enactments from the life of Mary Queen of Scots are not all that they seem. Sites closely associated with that tragic queen are a cover for the distribution of drugs in central Scotland. Revenue & Customs undercover agent D J Smith and her sniffer cat Gorgonzola join one of the tours, but she begins to suspect that some of her companions - an eerily self-convinced reincarnation of Mary Queen of Scots, a fanatical bagpipe player, a couple of sex-obsessed newlyweds - are bad actors and that in reality, they are couriers in the pay of the drug organisation. When the organisation suspects that it has been infiltrated, suspense builds as the re-enactments in historic Holyrood Palace, the fortified tower on Loch Leven island, and the ruined St Andrews Castle provide an excellent opportunity for murder... The reader as a time traveller is present at dramatic events in the life of Mary Queen of Scots, at the same time enjoying the suspense of a modern murder mystery in which a cat detective plays a vital part. Acting Suspiciously is a cosy crime novel featuring the sixth undercover mission for DJ Smith and Gorgonzola, a feisty cat with attitude.

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Publié par	eBook Versions
Date de parution	27 octobre 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781843964865
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

This 2017 ebook edition published by
East Bay Publications, East Lothian, Scotland.

Copyright © 2014, 2017 Helen and Morna Mulgray
All rights reserved

Helen and Morna Mulgray have asserted their
right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988 to be identified as the authors
of this work

Authors website
www.the-mulgray-twinsonline.co.uk

ISBN 978-1-84396-486-5

This ebook is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be copied, lent,
resold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the author s
prior consent in any form without
similar conditions being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.

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ACTING
SUSPICIOUSLY

Another D J Smith
and Gorgonzola mission

The Mulgray Twins

EAST BAY PUBLICATIONS
Contents

Cover
Copyright Credits
Other titles in the D J Smith and Gorgonzola series
Acknowledgements

Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Other titles in the
D J Smith and Gorgonzola
series available as ebooks

No Suspicious Circumstances

Under Suspicion

Suspects All!

Who Would Suspect

No. 1 Suspect
Many thanks to

Norman Bissett, poet and artist, for his fine thumbnail sketch for the cover of Sherlock Gorgonzola in action.
Alanna Knight MBE for drawing our attention to Antonia Fraser s fascinating biography of Mary Queen of Scots with its contemporary accounts of events in that tragic queen s life, published initially by Weidenfeld Nicholson Ltd and more recently in paperback by Phoenix, imprint of Orion Books Ltd.
Irvine Morrison of Inwood Garden Carberry, for using his extensive knowledge of historic Carberry hill to lead us in a muddy reconnoitre in search of that perfect spot needed for the plot. And for volunteering to delve into the interior of his Mercedes to check that what we had written was in fact feasible.
Harry McNulty, Master Piper, a fund of knowledge about the mysteries of the Highland bagpipe and the skill necessary to play them. We take no responsibility for the view of some of the characters in this book that the sound of Scottish bagpipes is painfully discordant and something to be endured!
Jim and Joan Flett for allowing us to use their photo of their delightful Papillon, Tutyak Day Dreamer (Danny) who features as Gorgonzola s sparring partner, Hermione Fielding s little darling, Mephistopheles (Meffy).
The Society of Authors, Literary Representative of the Estate of Alfred Noyes for their kind permission to quote three lines from his poem Edinburgh .
We are very grateful to Historic Scotland for allowing us to use for our front cover the view the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots would have had from a window at Lochleven Castle.
Chapter One

Geoff Grantham, undercover agent for Her Majesty s Revenue Customs, stood in the shadows, eyes scanning for the slightest movement, ears taking in the sounds of the night – the whisper of the wind ruffling the needles of the imposing two-hundred-year-old Scots pine tree that towered over the grey-stone shooting lodge, the squawk of a roosting bird disturbed by some predator, the gurgle of clear brown water tumbling over the stones in the burn in its haste to reach the sea. Overhead, a full moon was sailing through the cloud layers as if it too had no time to lose. Geoff Grantham himself was in no rush. He would take as long as it took.
Satisfied at last that he was alone, he moved across the courtyard to the stables where the van was garaged, his rubber soles silent on the flagstones. The mortise locks on the wooden door were no barrier to his pick-tools and in a few seconds he was inside with the door closed securely behind him. Only then did he risk switching on his torch to play it over the white Act It Out minibuses spray-painted on their sides with characters famous in Scottish history, and next to them, a sleek black Mercedes. Grantham consulted his watch. A rigorous search of the minibuses for a secret compartment to transport drugs shouldn t take more than an hour. Yes, there d be time.
Three quarters of an hour later, he found it. Big enough to take a large consignment of drugs, the space had been so skilfully built into the bodywork that he d almost missed it, been just about to give up, in fact. He smiled to himself. Job done. His controller Gerry Burnside would be pleased with this contribution to Operation Red Grouse. He glanced at his watch again. There d just be time to cover up all signs of his search and get back to his room. Wouldn t do at all if anyone noticed he was missing.
Half a minute after the garage door closed behind him, the motion-activated CCTV camera switched itself off.
Chapter Two

Edinburgh, October

In the next couple of minutes, in two minutes and forty seconds to be precise, the door facing me would open… It didn t. The briefing had been scheduled for ten o clock, but it was now nine minutes past ten and the door facing me was still firmly closed.
I m DJ Smith, undercover agent for Her Majesty s Revenue Customs, waiting in my controller s outer office to be briefed on the next dangerous mission, waiting to learn the direction my life would take for the next few weeks or months. It s always a time of heightened tension. Drugs worth millions of pounds are involved, so the risk of injury or death is high, but to me the adrenalin rush of undercover work is addictive.
Impatient to find out what Gerry Burnside had in mind for me this time, I shifted restlessly on the hard leather seat and glanced once again at the large digital clock on the wall. Punctual to perfection himself, he demanded the same punctuality from others – to the extent that on the occasion when I had arrived a mere half a minute late, he had looked pointedly at his watch in silent rebuke.
Tension building – nothing short of an emergency, such as an agent in jeopardy, could have caused this delay – I jumped up, paced across to the window… back to the chair… across to the window. The HMRC office is situated on the second floor of one of the elegant nineteenth-century Georgian houses in Edinburgh s New Town. Biting my lip, I stood looking over the autumn brown and gold of the trees in Queen Street Gardens, over the grey slate roofs of other townhouses, to an equally grey Firth of Forth and beyond to the distant dark smudge of the Fife coast.
At last the door behind me opened. I swung round. The dark-haired man with rimless glasses who beckoned me into his office didn t fit the popular conception of an undercover agent – none of us did. That was the whole point. Even Gorgonzola, my talented drug-detecting sniffer cat, attracted no attention to herself. A pedigree Red Persian by breeding, her patchy coat gave her a scruffy appearance that fitted perfectly with her undercover role. Gerry Burnside motioned me to a seat, his sombre expression confirming my fear that he had indeed been dealing with an emergency.
Dispensing with the usual preliminary chat, he handed me a newspaper. Page seven.
He walked over to the window and stood looking down at the russet leaves scattered on the pavements and gathered in little mounds against the railings of Queen Street Gardens. The loud rustle of newsprint as I thumbed through the pages, somehow made his silence more unnerving.
I folded the paper open at page seven with its typically tabloid headline

COUNTRY HOUSE DEATH HORROR

and skimmed through the graphic eyewitness account of how, yesterday evening, at a country house near Edinburgh, Geoff Grantham playing the part of Polonius had died tragically during a private performance of Hamlet . In the scene in which Hamlet kills the eavesdropping Polonius by thrusting his sword through the wall tapestry, the actor was fatally stabbed. Something had gone terribly wrong.
Interviewed, one of the shocked house-guests gave this account. Hamlet shouted, “How now! A rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!” We heard choking groans and what we thought was stage blood seeped through the curtain. Then, just as in the play, Polonius s body toppled out and Hamlet dragged the body off stage. The first we realized that something awful had happened was when from the next room we heard a scream. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! He s dead. I ve killed him!”
The newspaper report ended with the statement that police were investigating how a non-theatrical sword had found its way among the props hired from a theatrical supplier.
I re-read the account, more slowly this time, and after a moment broke the silence. I take it that this is part of my briefing?
With a sigh, Gerry turned away from the window and sat down at his desk. Geoff Grantham was working undercover for us in a drug investigation into a company called Act It Out. Heard of it?
I shook my head.
He held up a small brochure. It s an outfit specializing in small-group tours to castles, palaces, and stately homes. Their unique selling point is the dramatic re-enactment of an historical event tailored to each place they visit. What is of interest to us, is…? He raised his eyebrows in enquiry.
He was well aware that I hated his irritating insistence on Exercising the Brain as he called it, a method of forcing his listener to make an in-depth analysis of a problem. I usually react by volunteering an exasperatingly obtuse answer that forces him to rephrase his question. But on this occasion, when the death of a fello