Maggie

M. C. Beaton
is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, several Regency romance series and a stand-alone murder mystery,
The Skeleton in the Closet
– all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit
www.agatharaisin.com
for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter:
@mc_beaton
.

Titles by M. C. Beaton

The Poor Relation
Lady Fortescue Steps Out · Miss Tonks Turns to Crime · Mrs Budley Falls from Grace
Sir Philip’s Folly · Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue · Back in Society

A House for the Season
The Miser of Mayfair
·
Plain Jane
·
The Wicked Godmother
Rake’s Progress
·
The Adventuress
·
Rainbird’s Revenge

The Six Sisters
Minerva
·
The Taming of Annabelle
·
Deirdre and Desire
Daphne
·
Diana the Huntress
·
Frederica in Fashion

Edwardian Murder Mysteries
Snobbery with Violence
·
Hasty Death
·
Sick of Shadows
Our Lady of Pain

The Travelling Matchmaker
Emily Goes to Exeter
·
Belinda Goes to Bath
·
Penelope Goes to Portsmouth
Beatrice Goes to Brighton
·
Deborah Goes to Dover
·
Yvonne Goes to York

Agatha Raisin
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
·
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener
·
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage
·
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
·
Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham
Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam
·
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate
·
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance
·
Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon
Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor
Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye
Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison
·
Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride
Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body
·
Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns
Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers · Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble

Hamish Macbeth
Death of a Gossip
·
Death of a Cad
·
Death of an Outsider
Death of a Perfect Wife
·
Death of a Hussy
·
Death of a Snob
Death of a Prankster
·
Death of a Glutton
·
Death of a Travelling Man
Death of a Charming Man
·
Death of a Nag
·
Death of a Macho Man
Death of a Dentist
·
Death of a Scriptwriter
·
Death of an Addict
A Highland Christmas
·
Death of a Dustman
·
Death of a Celebrity
Death of a Village
·
Death of a Poison Pen
·
Death of a Bore
Death of a Dreamer
·
Death of a Maid
·
Death of a Gentle Lady
Death of a Witch
·
Death of a Valentine
·
Death of a Sweep
Death of a Kingfisher · Death of Yesterday

The Skeleton in the Closet

Also available
The Agatha Raisin Companion

Thin curtains of rain swept over the low hills of the Black Isle towards the shallow waters of the Beauly Firth. A great gust of damp wind struck against Maggie Fraser’s cheek as she hurried homeward. The silver birch trees on her left tossed and swayed as the wind whistled through them. With a great roar like some beast heading for its lair, the wind hurtled across the road and dived into the dark, green, piney depths of the deer forest on her right. All was silent again.

A yellow shaft of sunlight struck through the clouds and shone down on the curve of the road ahead, illuminating the white walls of Maggie’s father’s shop. And then the trailing curtains of rain hid it from sight.

Maggie quickened her step. She must reach home before her father, or he would demand to know where she had been. And if he found she had been wasting the afternoon at the library in Beauly she would receive a beating, for Mr. John Fraser had an unhealthy disrespect for education.

Although Fraser was a local name and John Fraser had implied he was returning to the area of his birth to set up shop, no one could remember him as a boy. It was known he had come from Skye twelve years ago where he had been crofting. It was known his wife was dead and that he treated his daughter, Maggie, disgracefully. But very little else was known about him and certainly nothing was known about his origins. He had opened up a grocery store by converting
a small croft about halfway between Beauly and Inverness. The shop stood at a bend on the road which ran between Beauly and Inverness, but everyone prophesied failure. For who would travel miles from Beauly, already well-served with shops, to buy their groceries? And it was unthinkable that anyone would be mad enough to travel from Inverness to shop at a dingy little store which did not even carry any specialty goods.

But John Fraser had prospered. He not only sold his goods cheaper than anywhere else, but he catered to the great hordes of cyclists who descended on the Highlands of Scotland every summer. Cycling was all the rage and cyclists always seemed to want to buy groceries as soon as they were out of sight of the nearest town.

Education was something sinister and strange to John Fraser. He had made sure that Maggie spent only long enough at school to be able to keep the shop accounts, and so, as soon as she could write with a fair hand and add up columns of figures, he had promptly put an end to her schooling when she was twelve years old.

Maggie was now eighteen and despite six years of drudgery and ill-treatment, she had grown into a real Highland beauty with jet-black hair and large brown eyes flecked with gold like peaty Highland pools shining in the sun. Her skin was very white and fine and she had a good figure, although it was not often visible because of the layers of old clothes she wore to keep herself warm.

There had been various attempts to knock some sense into John Fraser’s head with regard to Maggie’s education. But no one really tried very hard because John Fraser could be quite frightening, and, anyway, Maggie was only a girl, and everyone knew education was wasted on mere girls whose sole function in life was to marry and beget children.

Maggie pulled her shawl over her head as the rain poured down. How long the road seemed! The one afternoon a
week when the shop closed early was her only time of freedom. Her father went off somewhere every Wednesday afternoon, returning late and drunk. Maggie never knew where he went and she could not imagine him at some inn, propping up the bar amid the cheerful clatter of glasses and conversation of the local people, for he was a withdrawn, angry man.

Mrs. Fraser had died when Maggie was eight and when the Frasers were still living on the Isle of Skye. Maggie remembered her as a bitter woman with a red nose and pale grey eyes, with a thin body wrapped in an old tartan shawl.

One day she had been found dead of a heart attack and Maggie had spent long, miserable days and nights tortured with guilt. For she had found she could not feel one bit of sorrow or loss. It was shortly after his wife’s death that John Fraser had announced they were moving to the mainland. Where he got the money from was a mystery. But Maggie was allowed to wear shoes for the first time in her life. The excitement of the journey was soon dimmed by her father’s hectoring bad temper. Without Mrs. Fraser as a butt, Maggie had realized gloomily, she would now have to bear the full brunt of her father’s spleenish bad temper.

The shop was finally reached. Maggie took the heavy iron key which she kept tied on a string around her waist and cautiously opened the door.

Silence.

She heaved a sigh of relief. The shop was dim and smelled of pepper and bacon and cheese. Pale yellow light came in through the thin blind over the shop door.

Maggie went into the small kitchen at the back of the shop, opened the iron lid of the stove and threw in some pine cones and torn newspapers and lit the fire. The rain, heavy now, drummed on the tin roof of the kitchen which was a makeshift extension to the small building.

She pushed open the back door and leaned against the
jamb, There was no garden to speak of, only a scrubby area of wild lupins, broom, tussocky grass and old cardboard boxes.

Maggie remembered the book she had been reading that afternoon. She did not borrow books from the library and take them home, knowing her father would burn them, but rather contented herself with a half day a week’s orgy of reading.

Although Maggie still thought in Gaelic, she had learned to read and speak English very well, her voice soft and lilting.

The story Maggie had been reading that afternoon had been about a poor girl who had been courted by a handsome lord. But she had spurned his advances in favour of those of her country swain. It had all been very disappointing because Maggie had quite fallen in love with the handsome lord who was a terrible rake, but he had been killed in the Boer War, atoning his sins by dying for Queen and Country.

Suddenly all the fear of what her father would be like on his return struck her, and she began to shiver. When she was much younger, Maggie had firmly believed in the fairies and had left little gifts of milk and oatcakes for them, creeping out in the middle of the night when her father was asleep, and laying her small offerings by the kitchen door, and silently begging the wee folk to take her father away. But the next day, the oatcakes and milk would be gone but John Fraser would be very much present. It was only when Maggie found a very fat hedgehog wandering away from the empty milk saucer one morning that she realized it had not been the fairies who had been enjoying her gifts.