Loch of the Dead

by Loch of the Dead (retail) (epub)

  Mrs Glenister appeared with a doctor’s bag and heard McGray’s request. ‘Shall I tell Boyde and Calcraft to go with the inspectors?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Koloman. ‘Tell Smeaton to send the carriage behind us. And look after Natalja.’

  ‘I want to go!’ Natalja protested, but Mr Koloman pushed her firmly into Mrs Glenister’s arms. ‘Sorry, dear, you have seen enough. Where are they? On your usual path?’ Again she nodded. ‘Good. Try to calm down. Glenister, give her something for the nerves.’

  ‘Come here, miss,’ the bony woman said, leading the girl in. Her motherly tone was entirely at odds with her sour face.

  The lanterns came soon enough. Boyde was lighting them as he approached. I took one and was about to ask where the man Calcraft was when Nine-Nails took my arm. ‘Ye sure yer coming? Ye look a wee bit drunk.’

  ‘I am perfectly fit!’ I squealed, although I could hear the stubbornness of the slightly inebriated.

  ‘Come on,’ Uncle urged, seizing a lantern and leading the way. ‘We are wasting time.’

  Mr and Mrs Koloman joined him and we strode briskly across the back gardens, which were as sumptuous as those at the front. The servants had lit torches at every corner of the intricate yew patterns, casting golden light all around, but as soon as we entered the woods, on the eastern side of the manor, our lanterns became the only source of light.

  I offered my arm to Mrs Koloman, but as we advanced over the uneven footpath, stumbling on stones and roots and branches, it was rather her leading me.

  We followed the resolute leaders, Maurice and Mr Koloman, McGray right at their heels, and Boyde came behind us. Our beams of light flickered across the forest, letting us see the countless trees, as thick and straight as Greek columns.

  Then we heard her. Deep, desperate grunts tore the air, travelling fast through the otherwise deserted woods.

  Mr Koloman quickened his pace. He was a very fit man – we all struggled to keep up – but he was also the most anxious, even more so than his wife.

  ‘There!’ he cried, shedding light ahead. The first thing I saw was a blur of dark red on very pale skin, and my heart skipped a beat at the thought of blood. Mr Koloman must have guessed the same, for he went silent. After a few agonizing strides we realized it was Veronika’s dark-red dress. But that would be poor consolation.

  The girl was prostrated on the ground, howling. With one hand she pressed her abdomen, while the other was held by a very distressed Miss Fletcher.

  ‘My darling!’ Mr Koloman shouted. He flung himself on his knees just as his daughter let out a piercing, guttural scream. Mrs Koloman also knelt beside her, gasping, but then opened the leather case, in full command of herself.

  ‘This dandy also studied some medicine,’ McGray said, pushing me forward.

  ‘Are you wounded?’ I asked, bending down, but she did not look it. She was simply in excruciating pain, rocking from side to side, her teeth bared as she growled. I gently lifted her pale hand from her stomach but found no obvious sign of injury.

  ‘Has this happened to her before?’ I asked the parents. The poor girl was in no state to talk.

  ‘Never,’ Mrs Koloman said at once, taking Veronika’s hand to kiss.

  ‘It might be poison,’ I said. At once I remembered the poor nurse I’d seen die of strychnine poisoning, not that long ago.

  Mrs Koloman was already rummaging through her instruments. She pulled out a small vial labelled as laudanum. ‘Be brave, my dear,’ she muttered. ‘This will help with the pain.’

  ‘You cannot give her that!’ I protested. ‘We have no idea what she might have ingested; if you give her yet more narcotics –’

  ‘She’s my daughter!’ the woman barked at me. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  I tried to snatch the vial but Miss Fletcher held my arm. She was unnervingly strong. ‘She said she knows what she is doing!’

  ‘I will not see my girl like this,’ mumbled Mrs Koloman.

  I would have objected further, but then we heard Boyde let out a scared yelp. I looked up and saw, black against the silver beam of McGray’s lantern, the figure of a man suspended in mid-air.

  I felt a nasty chill as I stood up. The man’s body was upside-down, and I had to blink a few times before I realized what had happened: his feet had been tied to a thick rope and he’d been hung up like a sacrificed chicken. Even his arms had been tied behind his back, like cooks do with the wings of poultry.

  Veronika’s cries of pain in the background made the image all the more unsettling. McGray, usually as hard as nails, was aghast.

  I walked round the body, recognizing the tattered navy jacket, and then I saw the lifeless face of –

  ‘Constable McEwan,’ Boyde said with a dry mouth.

  ‘So this is that poor sod,’ said Nine-Nails. This was the first time he had seen the man.

  ‘Good Lord,’ I murmured, feeling a sudden nausea. McEwan’s head looked simply horrendous: there was a wide gash right across his throat, the blood still liquid, trickling sluggishly. It was a straight, clean cut, done with the precision and confidence of a surgeon.

  Above the gash the skin was pale, almost sickly grey; below, his face looked blushed. It made me think of the dark dregs of wine, settled and caked in the bottom of a glass. McEwan had bled almost to the last drop. I pointed my lantern to the ground, expecting to see a mighty pool of gore.

  There was none.

  ‘He must have been killed elsewhere and then hung here,’ I said, my mind already working. Nine-Nails had a much more ominous expression.

  ‘Blood baths,’ he mouthed when our eyes met, and I felt yet another chill.

  The rattle of hooves startled me. I looked back and saw the carriage approach. Smeaton, the very thin, very short driver, halted a mere yard from the Kolomans. He was about to jump down, but Mr Koloman raised a hand.

  ‘No! Take her back at once.’

  Uncle Maurice and Miss Fletcher lifted the screaming girl. Again she was pressing her abdomen with both hands, the pain only slightly relieved by the laudanum.

  I noticed tears in her eyes as she looked pleadingly at my uncle.

  ‘Stop!’ McGray roared right then, but not at us. I saw him dart into the black forest at full speed. I ran after him, completely sober by now.

  I pointed my lantern as steadily as possible, for McGray was shaking his lamp manically as he rushed ahead. I followed his shadow until he halted abruptly in a small clearing. I nearly collided with him as he looked down, shedding light on the bed of dry pine needles.

  ‘What was it?’ I asked.

  ‘A wee light. There’s someone here. Some–’

  He ran again, this time to the left, towards the loch. We moved downhill as we approached the shore, my momentum keeping me on my feet as I thrust myself forwards. I clashed against a tree, saw stars, and then moved on. McGray had run uninterrupted to the edge of the forest. The pine trees gave way to a narrow shore, barely a couple of yards of mud, reeds and pebbles. The water pulsed in between the rounded rocks with an incongruous calmness.

  And then I saw it – barely a glint in the distance, hovering over the water, halfway between us and the dark, thorny shadows that were the islands.

  McGray shouted again, and then pointed his gun and shot twice.

  The light went out then, and under the advancing clouds the loch became a blotch of darkness.

  I swallowed, struggling to catch my breath. My words came out as a laboured murmur. ‘Did you hit that?’

  McGray shook his head. ‘Cannae tell.’

  15

  McGray shot one last time for good measure, and then we both looked around for marks in the ground.

  ‘It looks like someone pushed a small boat ashore here,’ I said, lighting the muddy bank. The marks were deep and clear, but the waters, though calm, would soon erase them.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ said McGray, his eyes now fixed on the gloomy island. ‘The Nellys family ‘n’ the auld man live over there.’


  ‘Do you think they might have done this?’ I asked.

  McGray laughed. ‘Nae, I was thinking they might be in danger, but yer perverse thoughts for once seem logical.’

  We realized we could do no more with only the light of lanterns, so we walked back, to McEwan’s grisly corpse. Everyone except Boyde had gone. The young man – I saw he could not be more than nineteen – was shaking, and for some reason he would not look us in the eye. ‘The master said they couldn’t wait. They’ll send the carriage back as soon as Miss Veronika gets to the house.’

  ‘Good,’ said McGray. ‘We cannae leave the corpse here, dangling like a joint o’ ham.’

  I sighed and forced myself to look at the hanging body. It was not the most dreadful thing I’d ever seen but still a most unwelcome sight. Every detail spoke of a neat job: the constable’s face was clean, only a few specks of red on the collar of his already grubby shirt, and the knots around his feet and wrists were expertly tied. The rope had been thrown over the lower branches of the nearest fir; I followed it down with the light and saw it had been secured to the base of that same tree.

  ‘Ye’d need a very good arm to do that,’ said Nine-Nails, for even the lower branches were at least fifteen feet high. He stepped closer and examined the rope around the wrists. He arched an eyebrow, in the way he usually does when taking a mental note.

  I did not have a chance to ask what he was thinking; the carriage arrived then and Uncle Maurice stepped down. His face was covered in perspiration.

  ‘Did she get back all right?’ I asked.

  He kicked dead branches as he spoke. ‘If you can call that all right. The mother locked herself in the girl’s room and almost threw me out of the house. The father snarled at me to come and “help” you’ – he cast a baleful stare at the body – ‘with that’.

  The knot looked terribly tight, but McGray had only to pull the rope’s end and it immediately came undone. The body fell a couple of feet before Nine-Nails seized the cord again, and when the corpse bounced it spilled droplets of blood all around.

  I wiped it from my face with stoic resignation but Uncle Maurice, a novice to this sort of ordeal, squealed like a child.

  Nine-Nails laughed. ‘Och, he’s worse than ye, Frey! Is he the queen bee in yer hive?’

  ‘Excuse me, I may hunt, but I am not in the habit of smearing human blood all over my finery.’

  McGray was about to give him some of his wit but I interjected. ‘Uncle, do not, do not argue with him. The last thing we need right now is a battle of buffoonery.’

  We lowered the body very carefully. McGray looked for something to wrap around the still-oozing neck, but all he found was his tartan waistcoat (hardly a loss to the world). Once wrapped, we placed the body in the carriage, and in order to make room for us, Nine-Nails had to prop the corpse up as if it were sitting.

  ‘I’d rather walk,’ said Uncle. ‘That is not a travel companion I relish.’

  ‘D’ye really want to walk?’ McGray snapped. ‘With the chance of a bloody murderer on the loose?’

  Uncle grunted, pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and jumped in. Though only a few minutes long, that eerie ride would give me recurrent nightmares for years to come.

  ‘The wine cellar?’ Uncle protested.

  ‘I cannot think of another room,’ I said as we watched Boyde and McGray carry Constable McEwan down the stone steps. ‘We need to keep the body from rotting until it can be examined; other than the food stores this is the coolest spot in the house.’

  I cleared a wide table used to decant wine and they placed the corpse there. Uncle went to the racks and grabbed a few bottles.

  ‘Before the foul humours hit these,’ he said, and then quit the room.

  ‘Leave us, laddie,’ Nine-Nails told Boyde, who was all too glad to get away.

  McGray sat on top of a wine barrel. ‘What can ye tell me from that?’

  We’d need a proper forensic man to do a thorough examination, but I did a very quick inspection nonetheless. As I ran a finger along the mush of sliced muscle I remembered why I had not finished my degree in medicine.

  ‘I cannot tell the exact time of death, but it was very recently. No rigor mortis yet, and’ – I felt his armpit – ‘he is even warm in spots. It must have happened while we had dinner . . . or even more recently, while Mr Koloman told us that story.’ I had a quick look under the man’s shirt and trousers. He stank of ale. ‘No other injury or signs of violence.’

  McGray did not look happy. ‘What now? If we were in Edinburgh, I’d send a few peelers to look around, and another few to make sure nobody left this house.’

  ‘If we were in Edinburgh, we’d have Dr Reed to examine the body while we investigated.’ I rubbed my face as the gargantuan task took full shape in my head. ‘And the person who’d be investigating a local murder is the very man who has been killed.’

  ‘How fuckin’ selfish.’

  ‘We need to question everyone in the manor; we need to make sure everyone can be accounted for at the time of the death –’

  ‘And that boat we saw. We need to check those islands.’

  I snorted. ‘There is so much to do and only you and I to do it. We need to call for reinforcements, perhaps send a telegram either from Poolewe or Kin . . . Kinloo . . .’

  ‘Kinlochewe. Both are at least three or four hours away. We’d lose half a day or more just going there ‘n’ back.’

  I thought about it. ‘Indeed. I suppose I could ask my uncle to do that for us. In fact, I will ask him to leave before dawn. If the telegram gets sent tomorrow morning, we might have officers here the day after.’

  McGray stroked his stubble. ‘Aye, do that. But we cannae rest on our laurels. We need to secure the house ‘n’ make sure any suspects stay within our grasp.’

  I sensed the tone in his voice. ‘Do you have someone in mind already?’

  ‘Aye. See.’ He went to the corpse, which lay on one side, and pointed at the rope around McEwan’s wrists. ‘That’s very neat, Frey. And the knot around the tree was a sailor’s knot; that’s why it kept the body firmly in place but was also very easy to undo.’

  ‘A sailor’s . . .’ I arched an eyebrow. ‘Dominik?’

  ‘Aye. Him or Calcraft. Dominik left the table early ‘n’ I’ve not seen Calcraft since he brought in all that luggage.’

  I nodded. ‘I do not like that Dominik. Not one bit.’

  ‘Come on, let’s gather everyone together and the alibis will emerge. And if Dominik ‘n’ Calcraft cannae give us one, I’ll have them locked up until the peelers arrive.’

  I shook my head. ‘The Kolomans are not going to like that.’

  ‘Sod them. Unlike yer pretty uncle, I’m nae here to pluck up flowers.’

  ‘No,’ I said, rather gloomily. ‘We both know why you came here.’

  16

  The long drawing room filled quickly. We watched the entire household arrive one by one, each servant introduced by Mr Koloman. They were all bleary-eyed, all nervous.

  As I waited, I stared out of the window. The horizon should still be deep blue in a perpetual dusk, but by now thick clouds had covered it all and the only feature I could make out was the shore of the islands, where the thin layer of mist over the water seemed to glow. In my mind I pictured a lonely, silent killer, running across the desolate immensity of the Highlands – and in the meantime all I could do was wait for a band of scared servants to line up so we could ask them useless questions.

  We already knew some of the staff: the young and brawny Boyde, formally introduced as a footman but who seemed to help with anything that required strength, including the gardening; the small and scrawny Smeaton, who drove the carriage and was in charge of the horses and stables; the thin and dry Mrs Glenister, who acted as Mrs Koloman’s chambermaid but seemed to be everyone’s despotic mother; and of course Miss Fletcher, who was the head of the staff – the Kolomans, quite unusually, had no butler.

  There were only a few new
faces: the fantastically wide Mrs Plunket, who was in charge of the kitchens; a teenage girl called Tamlyn, who was chambermaid for the Miss Kolomans; and a young scullery maid called Ellie, who could barely keep herself awake. Mr Koloman, quite strangely for a man of his stature, kept no valet. Their staff, it appeared, was quite lean. And they all spoke with the same soft, almost plain acquired accent, as if educated in the same school.

  Once I had taken note of their names (on very fine paper provided by Mr Koloman) they all lined up in front of the red sofas and chairs, which were reserved for the family. The only family member present, however, was Mr Koloman: his wife was still tending to their daughter, Natalja was apparently too distressed to leave her bedroom, and McGray deemed Benjamin had had too much for one day (Nine-Nails had simply knocked at his door, made sure he was all right and then let him sleep). Everyone knew there was no trace of Dominik or Calcraft but nobody seemed willing to mention it out loud.

  Mr Koloman requested to be the one who announced the murder, and he did so with the tact and frankness of a good landlord. There were gasps, cries of distress, and Ellie, merely twelve years old, even burst into tears.

  ‘Inspectors Frey and McGray here will be doing everything they can to keep us safe and find the culprit. For that, I need you all to cooperate and answer their every question.’ There were more gasps and Mr Koloman raised both hands. ‘None of you is under suspicion, of course. Answer truthfully and you shall be all right.’

  ‘We will question you individually,’ I began. ‘Firstly, I would like to talk to –’

  We heard a shrill, out-of-tune song. The discordant voices grew louder and then the drawing-room door burst open. The singing resumed, brasher and clearer. It was Dominik and Calcraft.

  They were both drunk, staggering and holding on to each other as they swayed about the room.

  ‘Why, a family reunion!’ cried Dominik, his words slurred. ‘Shouldda told me!’