The Merciless Dead

by John Burke

  *

  Rutherford reshuffled the notes that had been laid on his desk. They made a compelling pattern, if not a pretty one.

  ‘So he held on to that car for a while, then returned it,’ he muttered to himself. ‘But not until … just a minute, now … some time after young Drummond’s death. Just a coincidence? On top of Ferguson’s murder?’

  He reached for the phone. One person he could rely on. Always reliable, DI Gunn — oh, damn it, Lady Torrance — could possibly have been around when Jacques Hunter arrived at the Ross building from the airport. Would she remember the time of that arrival, and could she confirm it was on the very day of the Ferguson killing?

  Sir Nicholas Torrance said: ‘Sorry, my wife’s not here at the moment.’

  ‘Damn. Sorry, I should have remembered. She’ll be with the rest of them at the Ross shindig.’

  ‘As it happens, we weren’t invited.’

  ‘What, after all the work her ladyship put in for them?’

  ‘Quite so. But I’m wondering …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I’ve been away in Stirling for a few days, and she wasn’t here when I got back.’ He sounded angry. And worried. But then he hastened to add: ‘Probably gone into town for some shopping.’

  It came as an irrelevant echo into Rutherford’s mind. Going shopping. Like Mrs Nadine Ferguson?

  He said: ‘Sorry to have bothered you. I just wanted to check on a date and time she might have been able to help us with.’

  ‘Still picking her brains long after she’s been off the payroll?’

  AWPC had slipped into the room to drop a sheet of names for his attention. One part of him said briskly, ‘I won’t bother you again, Sir Nicholas,’ while another brought the list into focus. It contained the names of the young men and women rounded up from the trashing of Lockhart House. A couple of them had already appeared too frequently in the gossip columns, and the spoilt bastards would probably be amused rather than dismayed to find their names there again and on MySpace and You Tube bulletin boards. Let it wait. He knew in his bones that there was something more urgent to be attended to. But where did he begin?

  He tried the Ross Foundation number.

  It seemed that the only executive of any status on the premises was Simon Ogilvie. ‘Somebody’s got to look after the shop.’ Another echo: the same feeble joke as the last time. Rutherford could almost see Ogilvie’s petulant expression. In answer to Rutherford’s carefully phrased questions about the day of Jacques Hunter’s arrival in town, he was more offputting than ever. ‘I do not consider myself obliged to make guesses about other people’s movements.’ But as Rutherford weightily emphasized the duty of upright citizens to assist police in their inquiries, he grudgingly said Mr Hunter must have reached Queen Street quite late on the morning in question. He did at least remember something which displeased him. ‘I was not notified immediately of his arrival. If any of that is a matter of some consequence, Chief Inspector, it’s something you will have to take up with him when he returns.’

  Rutherford had only just rung off when there was a call from Nick Torrance.

  ‘Look, I’m a bit worried. Stupid, maybe. But I’ve tried to contact my wife on her mobile. It rang a couple of times, and then it was cut off. I’ve tried again, but no joy.’

  ‘It’s not like her? Going off without leaving a message?’

  ‘Not like her at all. Not that we go in for niggly timetables, that sort of thing, but … Look, it may be crazy, but I don’t like the feel of it. I think maybe she got some bee in her bonnet, and she’s flitted off to that damn place off her own bat. Chasing some notion of her own.’

  ‘Knowing her,’ said Rutherford, ‘I’d say she could have had one of her hunches and —’

  ‘Exactly.’ Torrance now sounded more worried than angry. ‘What the hell might be going on up there?’

  ‘I can’t go dashing off on hunches, hers or yours. Or my own. Can’t just grab a squad car to go belting off onto somebody else’s patch. But I have a nasty feeling that your good lady’s hunch could be in line with my own. I’m beginning to see a link between two deaths … two murders. I can get in touch with our colleagues in Wester Ross, but —’

  ‘I want to get there myself before it’s too late. Seems to me it’s time I invoked the old pals’ act and commandeered some transport. Loyalty of the Lowlanders — Jeddart’s here, that sort of thing. If Lesley’s been sticking her nose into trouble —’

  ‘I’m with you,’ said Rutherford. ‘If you’ve got room.’

  ‘Because she used to be ‘One of us’?’ said Nick Torrance, trying and failing to keep it light.

  ‘Always will be, as far as I’m concerned.’

  *

  Lesley’s eyes opened gradually. Their lashes seemed to be gummed down, and for a while she thought she must still be at home in bed. She wanted to grope for a handkerchief, but her arms were too sluggish to move. Her whole body wanted to relax back into its comfortable stupor.

  Then, dimly, she began to remember where she was, and who had trapped her here. Imprisoned …? But when she managed to lift a hand, she found that she had not even been tied down. She tried to mutter a question, but it came out as a croak.

  The face swimming into her vision was surely the remnant of a dream. Dark, floating in mid-air, surmounted by a huge halo of rainbow colours, it came in and out of focus, blurred and reshaping itself like the left-over of a nightmare monster; and then began slowly to solidify.

  ‘Splendid, Lady Torrance. You’ve woken in plenty of time for the main display.’

  The dark gleaming varnish of a totem pole head with its huge feathered headdress surely ought not to be capable of speech. Lesley ordered her own tongue to obey her. And as her eyes opened wider and took in the whole extent of Jacques Hunter’s regalia she heard herself saying: ‘The shirt. You’re wearing the ghost dance shirt.’

  ‘As it was destined I should.’

  She forced herself up into an uncomfortable huddle, propped against a wall.

  ‘You drugged me. How? What sort of crude —’

  ‘Nothing crude, I assure you. No date rape drugs, Lady Torrance. You’re aware that you’ve not been raped, of course.’

  ‘Am I supposed to offer you my most profound thanks?’ She was dismayed by the way the words were still coming out slurred.

  ‘You have just had a refreshing doze with the help of one of our most cherished medicine man’s prescriptions. You should feel honoured.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ mumbled Lesley. ‘What d’you hope to achieve by this pantomime? You and Morwenna Ross —’

  ‘I grant you that poor Morwenna has been suffering under some pathetic delusions. A few with understandable motives, but so paltry.’ He was grinning at her, inviting her to share some twisted joke. ‘For instance, your forebears, the Gunn family, behaved somewhat shabbily towards her own pathetic family. She would consider herself having every excuse for eliminating you from this world. But she found it even more rewarding to cling to the Ross fantasies. So much more dramatic.’

  Lesley was growing stronger. She couldn’t just crouch here and let his words roll imperiously over her. ‘You’re taking a very high-handed attitude to one of your colleagues.’

  ‘Colleague?’ He shrugged. ‘For as long as it suited me. Poor woman. She married into the Ross family in order to become somebody. Unfortunately the husband proved a disappointment. No sense of history, or romance. It suited her for him to die; and she was eager to believe that she had the gift, the sight, call it what you may, to have willed his death. She has all along wanted to become part of the Ross legend. Only now the silly creature is suspecting that the sentimental cause of the Rosses — all those beliefs she acquired so hungrily from old man Ross — were wrong. ‘The wrong Rosses,’ indeed. Which I have known all along.’

  ‘So what was your motive in working for them?’

  ‘My motive throughout has been to avenge the wrongs done to my ancestors. T
hat woman yearned to belong to the Rosses. I joined their company knowing it was my destiny to rise high in their ranks and then destroy them. What that stupid old man has never grasped is that his forebears were villains, not victims. He was pampered by Morwenna’s hysterical devotion. It’s been important to me to keep an eye on her, to know just how far she was committed, and to what.’

  ‘To make sure she didn’t snarl up your own plans.’

  ‘I knew you would understand. A pity that perhaps you have come close to understanding too much.’

  She was still dizzy enough, incautious enough, to let fly. ‘Such as the fact that you murdered Sholto Ferguson. In order to get your hands on that ghost dance shirt you’re wearing.’

  ‘As I’ve said, a pity you’re so accomplished a guesser.’

  ‘Was it necessary to murder the man? You couldn’t simply have made a business proposition and —’

  ‘Do business with scum like that? From the moment I saw it in that blurred picture sent over by Edinburgh office, I knew it was my duty to reclaim the shirt. I drove to his house straight from the airport. Asked him to hand over my inheritance. Demanded it. But he was a lout. Yes, he did have the impertinence to ask me to name a price. Haggle over something that rightly belonged to my people in the first place? I could not stand there and hear every aspect of our beliefs sneered at by a blasphemer like that.’

  ‘So you killed him. As simply as that.’

  ‘With the raven head of a totem pole,’ said Hunter with relish.

  ‘Surprised you didn’t scalp him,’ said Lesley recklessly.

  His eyes narrowed with cold amusement. She had been on the verge of asking why on earth he was telling her all this; but then realized she didn’t need to ask. From past experience she knew the pattern. Real villains always longed to tell their whole story. Thieves, burglars, forgers, financial fiddlers, and above all murderers: not denying their crime, but proud of it in every detail, needing to boast about it to somebody. First indignant protestations of innocence; then, when they cracked, it would all come pouring out.

  But this one was extreme. He hadn’t waited to be cracked. He was boasting shamelessly.

  She was fully awake now. Awake to the realization that he had told her so much because he didn’t intend her to live.

  ‘You can’t possibly think you’ll get away with it,’ she said.

  ‘I shall get away with all that really matters. I’ve been in training for a long time.’ There was utter conviction in his face. As an arrogant, aggressive businessman he could either have brought about the collapse of the firm he had worked his way into, or built up a reputation of infallibility. Sheer self-assurance had carried him through.

  Lesley pushed herself away from the wall and tottered to her feet.

  ‘And Luke Drummond?’ she challenged. ‘That was you as well?’

  ‘Unfortunate young man. Too inquisitive. ‘The wrong Rosses’ — I could not risk letting that come out too soon.’ Although Lesley was steady on her feet now, he was so haughtily upright that he seemed to grow even taller as she faced him. ‘The time for revealing the truth was for me to decide.’

  ‘Surely you realize that once this is over and I tell the authorities —’

  ‘When it is over,’ said Hunter silkily, ‘you will also have reached the end. And for me, it is no matter. Once our dream has come true nothing else matters.’

  Trying to look confident, she made a move towards the door. As she reached it, an Indian brave blocked her way.

  ‘Oh, no, you can’t leave yet,’ said Hunter. ‘Things have gone too far.’

  He and the newcomer had a brief argument in a tongue Lesley could not understand; but she could guess the brave might be objecting to being ordered to do guard duty indoors rather than joining his fellows in whatever was about to go on outside. But Hunter’s lordly disdain was intensifying by the moment. Nobody now would dare gainsay him.

  ‘I have a ceremony to perform. In front of the accursed James Fergus Ross, so that he sees himself shown up as the abomination he is. The older dispossessed have been drawn back here, travelling to their ancient homes within the bodies of their descendants. My people, too, are linked across the centuries and across oceans. What we do symbolically here will echo across the distant plains which we lost but can now restore to life.’ In the doorway he looked back at Lesley. ‘When we’ve done what has to be done, I might have considered coming back for you. It could be enjoyable to share confidences with a lady of your calibre. You have obviously worked out a great deal of what has led to this day. But you know just too much.’ He raised his right hand in a ceremonial farewell. ‘It’s unfortunate, but I don’t think I can set you free. Oh, and if you scream’ — he nodded towards the box in the middle of the room — ‘it will blend in perfectly with the screams Morwenna has already recorded. And when she presses her remote control, you will come out wreathed in fire and screaming very convincingly. Cheap melodrama, yes. But you will have cause to be proud of having contributed something.’

  He squared his shoulders and stepped out into the open air.

  *

  Television cameras reinstated east and west of the arena were covering performances following one another or overlapping. There was ecstatic clapping as a brawny red-haired visitor from Dunedin won a brief caber tossing bout. At the same time a team from Manitoba finished a lilting strathspey on the platform, leaving some appreciative feet tapping.

  Beth glanced round at the different groups and individuals. She had done her bit, summoning and organizing essential guests, and now it was all out of her hands. She felt drained and more and more dissatisfied. Jacques Hunter and Morwenna Ross had assumed command — though Beth was unsure which of them would make the final decisions at any crucial moment.

  James Fergus Ross sat in his buggy in a position of honour, his head like a bird’s peeking from side to side. But how much detail could he make out: and what did he make of it?

  Beth came back again and again to Morwenna’s profile, trying to read what lay behind that glaring, almost tragic expression. Morwenna must be forcing herself to believe she could overcome Jacques Hunter’s intrusive Indians, the heathen. Could fight off her doubts about the Rosses who for so long had so enchanted her. She could not give up on them, because what would be left? Like the devotee of any hero-worshipping sect, she had to twist the concept of them into the shape to which she had so unquestioningly devoted her love. Whatever falsehoods might have been thrust upon her, she was still blessed with the gift of the stigmata, assuring her that in the end her beliefs could not all be mistaken.

  She was holding what looked like a compact remote control for model aeroplanes. Every few minutes she glanced nervously at her watch, and then at the mock-up croft.

  Mrs Aird had been standing by the Cairn of Weeping Stones, too diffident to join the heart of the crowd. Then she trod unobtrusively forward, edging closer to Morwenna with a look not so much of contempt as dismissive pity, as if silently boasting that she had all those capabilities, the second sight, the inherited powers, which Morwenna craved to possess.

  As two young men from Nova Scotia who had just done a vigorous sword dance vacated the platform, Jacques Hunter strode into the centre of the arena.

  Randal Grant said, ‘Well, that shirt didn’t come from Marks and Sparks,’ and took three or four shots as Hunter came to a halt. ‘For the next annual report?’ he said to Beth.

  On the assumption that old James Fergus Ross, thought Beth, will have died by then?

  The sight of the headdress feathers and the regal stare which Hunter was offering the audience provoked sniggers from a group of Aussies who had got their hands on some cans of beer and were singing something which bore little resemblance to anything as evocative as the Skye Boat Song.

  Morwenna was staring at Hunter as if, Beth shuddered, to think him to death.

  A deep voice boomed suddenly across the arena. Hunter stood stock still, listening with obvious admiration to his own re
sonant voice. The pre-recorded commentary would have had to be his responsibility: he would have trusted nobody else.

  ‘We are here to re-create the life once known to our tribe. In the ceremony we have waited so many generations to perform we will rid this country and our lands across the sea of the alien parasites. The time of perpetual bliss is within our grasp. We shall be reunited with our friends in the other world, and there will be no more death or sickness or old age.’

  ‘Like those other Americans waiting for The Rapture,’ Randal murmured close to Beth’s ear. ‘Used to get the shivers from them in the States. Whole communities believing they’re due to be transported bodily to heaven any day now, leaving the rest of us behind in misery.’

  And ready, Beth wondered, to immolate themselves as other fanatics had done at Waco?

  She caught a glimpse of Morwenna, frozen in a trance, still clutching that little device in her hand and still staring obsessively at Hunter.

  ‘The earth will roll up like a blanket.’ The voice rolled through the air above the heads of the audience. ‘And with it will be taken all that is corrupt and selfish in this contaminated world. Then there will be seen the old-young earth of our ancestors, fresh and young again.’

  Six of the motionless Indians came to life and began to form a circle. Jacques Hunter’s voice faded, while the man himself strutted forward, an actor launched into his long-awaited star part.

  ‘It was a law of the Cherokee that anyone who sold land without the nation’s permission must be executed.’ The voice came, this time, not from the amplifiers but reverberating from Hunter’s own throat. ‘Our lands have been stolen, then sold on and sold yet again. The time has come for restitution.’

  He stationed himself in the centre of the group as the ghost dance began.