The Murder Hole

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  Her dinner of venison casserole redolent with herbs had scoured her mouth of the taste of bilge, while the crème brulée and unleaded coffee had cleared out the flavor of diesel exhaust, leaving her palate available for further stimulation . . . Ah, yes. The malt whiskey conjured the tea-colored water of the River Spey and its surrounding hills with their fields of sun-ripened grain.

  Rolling the stinging fragrance around her mouth, she tried to situate herself in the present, to be there now. But a relaxed and meditative state was about as easy for her to attain as sainthood. She realized she was tapping her foot, stopped herself, and a moment later was tapping again. No, she wasn’t nervous. She was just very, very alert.

  On the surface of the bay below, the different boats rose and fell. The windows of the Water Horse barge were fitfully illuminated, as though by a firefly. Were the intermittent lights reflections, or was someone was still on board, one of Roger’s assistants detailed to burn the midnight oil in the never-ending quest for truth, justice, and the technological way—or however those sentiments had been expressed in the Omnium brochure.

  Jean had nothing against technology, within reason. But she couldn’t help but think that while Roger’s technology might extend the ordinary five senses, it was useless when it came to the odd—very odd—unquantifiable, unrepeatable, sixth sense, like her own ability to perceive the emotional emanations called ghosts.

  Maybe Nessie was a ghost. Maybe that’s why some people sensed her but couldn’t get photos of her. Jean could imagine Miranda’s reaction to her starting her series of articles with that sentiment. Better a straightforward, “Two great mysteries meet at Loch Ness. The Picts are the greatest puzzle of Scottish archaeology, like Nessie is the greatest puzzle of Scottish . . .” What? Biology? Psychology?

  The sound of a door opening and shutting derailed her train of thought. Two people came walking down the terrace. This couple did look alike, round of cheek and hip, considerably more comfortable with middle age than Jean was. But then, they’d had more time to get used to it. They wore plastic-rimmed glasses, jeans, loose shirts, and thick-soled, white athletic shoes that proclaimed them to be Jean’s fellow Americans. The massive shoes seemed to be the only things keeping them from floating away like helium balloons.

  “Hi!” said the woman. “We saw you from our window when you checked in.”

  Yes, Jean informed herself, windows were two-way. “Hello. I’m Jean Fairbairn.”

  “Dave and Patti Duckett,” said the man, “from Moline, Illinois. I work for John Deere and Patti runs a day care center. This is our first time across the pond. Where are you from?”

  “Originally Dallas, but I live in Edinburgh now. I work for Great Scot Magazine. History and travel and . . .” she insisted, “. . . innocuous stuff like that. I’m here to interview Iris Mackintosh and Roger Dempsey. Not at the same time, though.”

  Patti glanced at Dave, then back at Jean. “We saw that TV show last night. No love lost between those two, is there? Although we don’t know Dr. Dempsey personally.”

  “I only know his public face. And I haven’t met Iris at all yet. It was Kirsty who let me in.”

  “Isn’t she a pretty little thing?” asked Dave.

  “So nice to see a young girl without a ring in her nose or a tattoo,” Patti added.

  Beneath her clothes, thought Jean, Kirsty could well be tattooed with the map of Scotland, with a navel ring marking the site of Glasgow. If so, that was her own business.

  Dave went on, “She’s off with her boyfriend tonight. I saw them walking down the driveway.”

  “Cute couple,” said Patti. “He’s one of the boys from the boat, you know, Dempsey’s assistant.”

  “Oh?” Jean asked, but before she could get any more gossip, let alone pole-vault to any conclusions, the child Elvis shot around the corner of the house, careened across the terrace, and stopped dead in front of the three adults.

  “Hello there, sonny,” said Dave. “How old are you?”

  Elvis peered up at his inquisitors from beneath his sheaf of flaxen hair. “Six,” he allowed cautiously, like a witness wondering whether his testimony would be used against him.

  The cadaverous form of his father materialized from the twilight, Dracula-like, and ambled down the terrace. “Oh, hullo. Martin Hall. The lad’s Elvis. Ah, drinks.” Martin’s amble sped up fractionally, to a mosey. He picked up a bottle, then asked over his shoulder, “Here, have you seen a corkscrew?”

  “No, sorry,” Jean answered, although it was the darned elusive Iris who should be apologizing.

  Thwarted, Martin set down that bottle and chose another, a creamy liqueur with a screw-off top. He filled a small glass with it and a large one with what the locals called lemonade—citric-acid soda—adding, extravagantly, one ice cube from the bucket provided.

  “Ta!” Elvis clasped the fizzing glass with both hands and gulped. A moment later he produced a loud belch. Martin muttered some reprimand. Jean pretended she hadn’t heard. The Ducketts laughed.

  Elvis set his glass on the edge of the cart and ran off across the terrace. Martin sat down to nurse his liqueur. His thick glasses and distracted air confirmed Jean’s impression that he’d been forcibly removed from a library or lab and was going through withdrawal. She could have initiated a conversation by asking where Elvis’s mum was, but Martin, if not obviously strong, seemed to be the silent type. She commiserated with the need for silence, even though its corollary was sometimes loneliness.

  Dave and Patti, though, did not. After various dithers—“Is that Drambuie? How sweet it that? Is Lagavullin one of those smoky ones?”—they chose their respective poisons. Settling down between Martin and Jean, they started chatting about their travels, the loch, and how they’d picked up some Omnium brochures from the Water Horse boat and wasn’t underwater exploration the wave of the future—wave, get it, wave?

  Jean returned the conversational birdie with a few remarks about Dempsey’s theories and technical prowess. Martin offered that he, Elvis, and Noreen-the-wife had toured the Water Horse boat. While the lad had been right chuffed, Noreen, he added in tones so weary they approached contempt, had developed a migraine and was now having a lie-down.

  Tracy had been right about people tramping through all day long, Jean thought. Maybe Jonathan’s belligerence was evidence that he hadn’t appreciated being on show. Was he out with Kirsty tonight, or had she gone with Brendan?

  The sound of bagpipes, part swagger, part lament, drifted up from the Festival field. That was why armies marched with pipers—the sound carried for miles. Jean’s nervous system quivered with awe and delight and regret.

  Then the fine hair on the back of her neck stirred, ever so slightly, as though a chill breeze had blown across her skin. Her irritating hypersensitivity to the paranormal was picking up an allergen—a ghost, walking the gardens of Pitclachie House . . . No. The subliminal tickle was gone. It hadn’t been sweat. It hadn’t been the wind. It hadn’t even been a probing insect. Something perpendicular to reality—however she defined reality—had come within range of her senses and now was gone.

  She hadn’t realized how the sounds of music and voices had faded until they returned, harsh against her ears. No one on the terrace had skipped a beat any more than the drummers at the Festival. No one here shared her sensitivity to ghosts.

  Goosed to her feet, Jean stood up and paced down the flagstones into the twilight. She sensed nothing except the wind stirring the bushes clustered along the outer rim of the terrace. Leaves dipped, flowers nodded, tiny yellow broom petals whirled away and vanished. There might be a ghost here, but ghosts weren’t dangerous. Living people, they were dangerous.

  Beyond the grounds the dusk—the gloaming—lingered on, the light growing thinner and more delicate and, in that alchemy peculiar to these northern climates, more polished. The opposite bank of the loch drew a black horizontal line between the faint obsidian glow of the water and the Prussian blue of the sky, clear and taut as a
membrane . . . A solitary spark shot up from the field above the castle.

  “Look!” Elvis leaped up on the low wall surrounding the terrace. Martin followed, steadying him with a firm paternal hand.

  The spark burst into bright red and gold blossoms. Another spark, and another. Red and green and gold sprays of light reflected in the water of the loch. In the village, the band reached a crescendo, the high, clear skreel of the pipes punctuated twice by the muffled booms of the explosives, once as they went off and again when the crump echoed from the opposite shore. Nessie probably thought she was being depth-charged.

  Grinning, Jean ordered herself to turn down her emotional thermostat and enjoy her bit of a holiday. After all, if she’d been a set of pipes, her drone would be anxiety, but her melody would be anticipation.

  The adults oohed and aahed appreciatively, and Elvis laughed and clapped his hands. “Look at that one! Look at that!”

  Sparks drifted slowly down toward the bay, faint trails of luminescence, like fireflies. Then a sudden spurt of flame roiled up and out, larger and brighter than any spark. Jean’s heart lurched against her ribs. “What the . . ?”

  “Brilliant!” Elvis shouted.

  Dave Duckett exclaimed, voice shaking, “Oh my God!”

  A detonation rolled into the night, rattling the windows of the house. Bits of fire fell back to the surface of the bay, some winking out, others bobbing up and down. A flurry of movement came from the other boats, and a cry went up from the shore. Patti’s wail of dismay was much louder. The music squealed and, raggedly, stopped, but the shouts did not. A siren began to whine.

  “Oh,” said Elvis, his small face crumpling. “That wasn’t right.” Martin picked him up and carried him inside.

  Jean gasped for air. She shut her eyes and opened them. But still she could see that where the expedition boat had been anchored was now only black water, surrounded by burning debris. An accident. The explosion was an accident . . .

  Roger had received anonymous letters reminding him that the loch was dangerous, that men died there.

  Jean sank down on the wall and slumped forward, dully, heavily, as the dark, cold, peat-stained water seemed to close over her head and suck her down toward nightmare.

  Chapter Seven

  Without exchanging more than a polite murmur with the Ducketts, who looked shell-shocked—much like she did, no doubt—Jean slunk back to the cottage. Slowly, methodically, she prepared for bed, and slipped between the chilly duvet and a bed as hard and cold as a marble slab.

  And lay there. Behind her eyelids the boat exploded again and again, in real-time, in slow-motion, in animation. Each spark that extinguished itself in the unforgiving waters of the loch left a trail of questions like bright after-images across vision and memory alike. She knew she couldn’t answer any questions now. She knew she couldn’t even ask any. And yet the sparks swirled on and on . . .

  The noise of a shutting door jerked her out of a merciful doze.

  Had she forgotten, under the circumstances, to lock the outer door? And if so, who had just come into the house? Jean put slippers on her sock-clad feet and a robe over her flannel nightgown and listened at the bedroom door. Nothing. She called, “Hello?” Nothing. Turning on the hall lights, she stepped cautiously down the stairs. The front door was locked. Several yellow broom blossoms lay on the floor of the vestibule. She’d tracked those in herself, right?

  She’d been half-asleep when she heard the sound. She’d probably misinterpreted the slam of a car door or traffic noise from the road below.

  She trudged back upstairs and checked the bathroom and the mystery room across the hall from the bedroom, bracing herself in case its door flew open when she turned the knob. It, too, was still locked. Less puzzled than resentful, Jean left the hall light on, locked the bedroom door, and lay down on the bed. By sheer force of will she at last slipped into stupor . . .

  Again she spasmed into alertness. This time she heard not only a door shutting, but also footsteps and the creaking of the hall floor. Slowly she swiveled her head toward the bedroom door. The light-slit beneath it wavered and steadied, as though someone—something—had come out of the locked room and walked down the hall. The fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled like feelers on the pillowcase, and the air condensed around her shoulders, pressing her against the mattress. Resistance is futile.

  She lay quietly, every sense extended and shrinking at once. The rich aromas of coffee and pipe tobacco filled her nostrils and then dissipated. The steps stopped. Voices murmured, a man’s voice and a woman’s, rising and falling simultaneously, like dissonant chords. Then the woman screamed.

  Jean jerked in horror, then reminded herself: They’re ghosts. It’s a memory-video. I can’t do anything to change it.

  The scream either ended abruptly or attained such a high note Jean could no longer hear it. But she could feel it, a raw, chill bite in the air and along her nerves. What she heard was the crashing and thudding of a body falling down the stairs. And then silence, a silence so deep that her own breath, her own heartbeat, seemed to reverberate in the night.

  Nothing else happened. After a while she managed a long exhalation. She pulled the duvet up to her chin, thinking that if she lived to be a hundred and fifty, she would never get used to sensing ghosts. And now she’d sensed two at Pitclachie House. The first one, the one outside in the shrubbery, had been only a wisp of feeling, a trace of dismay and dread. This one, though, had real power, searing emotion, behind it. There had been if not a murder here, then a sudden and unexpected death.

  To say that Ambrose had spent so many years shut up in his study that even death couldn’t pry him out was to evade the real issue. His spirit was lingering here in the Lodge because it had some unsolved business. Was it too great a leap of extrapolation to think that business was the death of his wife?

  Had Eileen fallen down the stairs? By accident? On purpose? Had Ambrose hidden her body? Or had this particular scene happened long before her death? Who knew?

  Those questions found space on the already crowded carousel in Jean’s mind, and spun round and round until at last, in exhausted self-defense, she fell into a doze and stayed that way, drifting in and out of a restless sleep, until she woke suddenly to a ray of sun streaming through an inch-wide gap between the curtains.

  Birds were caroling. The clock showed eight a.m., hours past dawn. Groaning, Jean crawled from the bed and padded across the icy floorboards, her skin prickling with natural, not paranormal, gooseflesh.

  That must be why the Bouchards had moved into the main house. Not that they’d necessarily sensed or even scented the ghost. She’d met few other people cursed with an allergy as strong as hers, one of whom, through fate’s fiendish sense of humor, happened to be Alasdair Cameron. But the Bouchards could have felt uneasy. Plenty of people could feel a tickle in the nostrils without ever succumbing to the full explosive whiplash of a sneeze.

  Blowing a raspberry at the blank facade of the still-locked door, she went downstairs and straight to the kitchen, where she fired up the coffeepot and assembled cheese toast. Miranda was paying for her to eat breakfast in the main house, but neither fretful speculation nor greasy bacon would sit too well on her stomach just now.

  Hmmm. Her rear echelon. Miranda. Michael and Rebecca. Hugh Munro, who should have gotten into Drumnadrochit last night. Not that she needed to make any phone calls just yet. It wasn’t as though she’d had anything to do with the explosion.

  She imagined Roger standing on the dock and tearing at his hair, and Tracy saying “I told you so,” and Jonathan and Brendan . . . No one had been on the boat when it exploded, right? Those lights in the windows had been only reflections, hadn’t they?

  Please, Jean prayed to her thoroughly tarnished guardian angel, please let no one have been on that boat.

  The coffee pot hissed and steamed, emitting its delectable aroma. Instead of standing over it with her tongue hanging out, Jean shoved her toast into the toaster o
ven and turned toward the television set. And saw that the velvet curtain was drawn across the vestibule, where she had most emphatically not left it after her middle-of-the-night lock inspection.

  In three swift steps she crossed the room and threw the curtain open, revealing no more than sunlight shining through the transom over the door and the scattering of broom blossoms on the floor. Not that she’d expected to see anything. Ambrose’s ghost was repeating his actions in life, drawing the curtain not only to keep out drafts, but also to secure his inner sanctum, where he wrote his arcane books . . . The books. Something nagged at the corner of her eye. She turned slowly around.

  The DVDs were piled on the floor. Some of the tourist guides and popular histories were jammed tightly together, while gaps opened between others. Some were shoved all the way back into the shelf, others stuck out as far as its edge. A well-worn copy of Ambrose’s Pictish Antiquities was laid crosswise atop the other books, along with an equally worn copy of The Water-Horse of Loch Ness, the book that collected all his newspaper and magazine articles about the monster, but never mentioned his theory about Aleister Crowley’s role in its, er, creation.

  Last night Jean had gone straight upstairs. She hadn’t noticed, either then or when she came down to check the door, whether the shelves had been disarranged.

  Now she ran her fingertip along the uneven row of books, releasing not one mote of dust, then picked up Ambrose’s Antiquities and opened it to the photo inside the back flap. The man’s long lantern jaw and partly befuddled, partly lugubrious expression reminded her of classic horror writer H.P. Lovecraft—an appropriate resemblance, considering. Ambrose’s round spectacles, like two tiny magnifying glasses, and his severely parted and slicked-down hair also evoked in Jean’s mind implications of plutocrats as well as scholars. Well, he had both inherited and married wealth, although how long he’d kept it was up for discussion.

  As Michael Campbell-Reid had pointed out so graphically, Pictish Antiquities was Ambrose’s only archaeological publication, despite years of amateur digging. Or plundering, as the case may be. Its sober historical account was colored by off-the-wall theorizing. That the Picts re-used ancient Neolithic sites had been borne out by recent excavations. That they were performing magical ceremonies in them could never be proved—even though archaeologists’ routine explanation for any puzzling object or setting was “ritual use.” At least Ambrose was weirdly consistent, segueing from magical Picts to water monsters to Loch Ness: the Realm of the Beast, a title conspicuous by its absence. No surprise there.