Murder on the Moor

by C. S. Challinor

  “It might have locked itself after the last person went out,” Estelle suggested, studying it. “Though I don’t see how …”

  Rex gathered up the towels on the rack and furiously mopped up the tiled floor. If people couldn’t be relied upon to take care of his property, he simply wouldn’t invite them again.

  “Perhaps you have a ghost,” Estelle teased. “The Ghost of Glen-eagle Lodge! But I wouldn’t go telling Shona Allerdice about it. She’ll have that journalist researching the story and then you’ll get no peace.” She cast a cautious glance behind her. “That woman will do anything for a bit of publicity. All that nonsense last night about a sea monster in their loch! I couldn’t keep my face straight.”

  “Aye, and another one in Loch Lown, if Beardsley is to be believed.” Rex straightened up from his floor-mopping and confronted anew the rather startling apparition of Estelle Farquharson. The clay mask was beginning to crack into tiny fissures. It was a wonder she managed to talk at all. “A first cousin to the Loch Ness Monster!” he scoffed.

  “Well, it’s good for business, don’t you see? The Loch Lochy Hotel is a dreadful place. Cuthbert had indigestion on the two occasions we had dinner there. The venison tastes like shoe leather, and the grouse! And don’t get me started on the décor! It’s so pseudo. Not real deer heads at all. Fakes! The place is going under, and so Mr. and Mrs. Allerdice are banking on this whole Lizzie business to save them.”

  “I think you may be right, and you know how gullible people are. Och, well, I’ll let you get on with your beauty preparations, Estelle. The floor is just aboot dry now, and you’ll find clean towels in the airing cupboard.”

  Wellingtons in his hand, he picked his way across the landing to fetch a pair of socks from the master bedroom.

  “Rex, old man!” an Etonian drawl called out as he started down the stairs. “Come and see this!”

  By now, Rex just wanted his breakfast. He swore never again to invite anybody to the lodge. It seemed the only people you wanted to actually turn up, didn’t—like the McCallum brothers—and the rest just couldn’t be got rid of! To top it all, the voice calling him belonged to Cuthbert, and he had little patience for people of his sort. But what could he do? Half-heartedly he strolled into the main guest bedroom where Mr. Farquharson was beckoning him over to the window. The rain had slowed to a jaded drizzle, almost ready to give up, but not quite.

  “What is it?” Rex asked his guest, whose jowls were positively quivering in excitement.

  Cuthbert pointed to the far side of the loch. Three quarters of a mile away, Rex could perceive a dark blur in the ripples.

  “Here, look through these binoculars. They’re Estelle’s. She uses them for bird-watching.”

  Rex had difficulty adjusting the focus. Finally, he made out a longish shape undulating just beneath the surface of the water. It had a sleek head and a thin body or tail.

  Rob Roy Beardsley burst into the room. “Is it Bessie? I was at the loch taking photographs when I saw you at the window with the binoculars. Can I borrow them a minute?”

  “It’s hard to see through the mist and drizzle,” Rex said, handing them over to the journalist. “The subject looks wavy. It could be some flotsam and jetsam from the rainstorm that got washed up on the islet. Perhaps a tree trunk.”

  “It appears to be moving,” Beardsley said, peering through the glasses. “Mind if I take your row boat out on the loch?”

  “Be my guest. The oars are kept in the stable.”

  “I saw some Wellingtons in the hallway that might fit. The banks of the loch will be like a mire after all this rain …”

  “In my bedroom. I just took them off.” Rex glanced at Beardsley’s feet. He was a much smaller man than himself. “You’ll be walking around inside them.”

  “I’ll manage with extra socks. Ta very much.”

  “Just don’t get swallowed up by the monster.”

  “I’ll go with you, Rob,” Cuthbert said. “I have my galoshes. I’ll take the rifle just in case, Rex, if I may.”

  With great reluctance, Rex retrieved it from the bedroom with the defective radiator. Equipped with footwear and protection, the two guests took off, as gleeful as two schoolboys on an outing to the zoo. Shaking his head in wry amusement, Rex traipsed after them down the stairs. He knocked at the library door and entered when he heard no response. Alistair sat in an armchair watching the news in the same clothes he had worn the day before. The bottle of Glenlivet stood empty on a side table.

  “Och, you look like death warmed up,” Rex remarked. The gray stubble on his friend’s chin and the dark circles beneath his eyes aged him ten years. “Have you been up all night?”

  “The police have a suspect for the Melissa Bates murder. They won’t say who it is yet.”

  “That’s grand news!”

  “Leads have been pouring in. Crime officers have been working at the scene collecting samples from the bog.”

  Rex nodded pensively. “I’ve taken many a hike across Rannoch Moor. It’s surprising how much flora and fauna exist in such a godforsaken place. I have a collection of wild flowers and bog myrtle somewhere. Helen tends to prefer more scenic routes, preferably close to a tea and souvenir shop.” He smiled at the fond memories of their hikes together. It was truly fortuitous that they had long walks in common. It was one of the things that had inspired him to purchase a property in the heart of the Highlands.

  “Rannoch Moor is not a very touristy place,” Alistair agreed.

  “So then,” Rex said. “Sounds like the police have got off to a good start. Have you had breakfast?”

  Alistair pulled a face. “I feel a bit hung over, to tell the truth. You must think me a terrible house guest. I should not impose any further on your hospitality.”

  “Och, nonsense. Please stay. At least, as long as the Farquharsons do. I could do with the moral support.”

  “Fair enough. What’s the ‘old boy’ up to this morning?”

  “He took his hunting rifle out on the loch with Rob Roy Beardsley. They’re out chasing Bessie.”

  “What a pair of loons. We should take a video of them and stick it on YouTube.”

  “Rob Roy’s got a verra sophisticated camera. Who knows? Maybe there really is a sea monster out there and he’ll make a name for himself.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him to doctor the pictures.” Alistair turned his gaze back to the television screen, which showed bleak moorland beneath a tearful sky.

  “Did you get through to Chief Inspector Dalgerry?” Rex asked.

  “I left about six messages. Nobody will tell me anything beyond what’s reported on the news. The sergeant just said they were ‘interviewing’ a person of interest who had been seen in the area where a green van was spotted.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “If you say so. He did divulge that the man in question is not Collins.”

  Hence the long face, Rex thought. His friend was convinced Collins was the murderer of the young moor victims.

  Helen stuck her head around the door. “There you are, Rex. Your breakfast’s waiting. Alistair, come and at least have a cup of tea.”

  Alistair heaved himself out of the armchair and the men joined Helen in the kitchen, where various used pans and skillets stood on the shiny red Aga.

  “Looks like you fed an army,” Rex remarked. “Where are they all?”

  “Down by the loch.”

  Rex took his tea and bacon sandwich into the garden and walked down the wet flagstone path to the loch that was edged with bright yellow gorse bushes. The rain had stopped for the moment. A stunned group stood huddled on the muddy bank, their eyes fixed on the wooden boat as Rob Roy and Cuthbert rowed feverishly through the mist toward them. Surely they had not actually had a close encounter with Bessie?

  “Will she be all right?” Shona cried out.

  “She’s not breathing,” the journalist called back. “Call an ambulance!”

  “An ambulance?” Rex asked in sur
prise. Did you transport sea monsters in ambulances? “What’s wrong with her?”

  Hamish Allerdice turned to face him. “It looks like your ex-girlfriend drowned in the loch.”

  “Moira?” Was this some kind of joke?

  “She’s in the boat. I’m verra sorry for your loss. We thought it was a sighting of Bessie, but it turned out to be …”

  Rex waded into the water, straining to see. In the bottom of the boat lay the naked form of Moira wrapped in a tarpaulin, her limbs stiff and blue, her hair entangled with weeds, eyes staring and glassy. There could be no doubt she was dead.

  Drowned, in his loch.

  “I’m sorry, Rex,” Cuthbert said, hopping out of the boat and securing the line to a rusty stake in the rocks. “Rob Roy performed CPR. I’d say she’s been dead for hours.”

  The two men lifted the dripping body from the boat, careful to keep the tarpaulin in place around her torso. Slimy reeds clung to her pale arms and streaming dark hair. Shona emitted a horrified gasp and turned away from the body. Flora draped an arm around her mother’s heaving shoulders. The rest of the group offered Rex their condolences.

  Helen ran down to the bank. “Moira!” she exclaimed upon seeing the corpse. “What happened? What was she doing in the loch? Did she go for a swim?”

  “In this weather?” Estelle said with a dismissive humph, restored to normality in a tartan skirt and a chunky ivory wool sweater. Rid of her clay mask and curlers, she looked almost human. “She’d have had to be out of her mind.”

  Rex and Helen exchanged a look. Moira had attempted suicide in the spring following her return from Iraq when she had gone to Florida to try to reconcile with Rex, who was visiting his son. The doctor at the hospital where she’d been admitted had said she was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of her bombing experience in Baghdad.

  It appeared she had not fully recovered …

  “The only reason she didn’t sink,” Rob Roy explained as he and Cuthbert made toward the house with the body, “was that she got caught up in the reeds.”

  “Why would she have gone swimming, Rex?” Shona pleaded. “Is this something you would have expected of her?”

  “She announced she was going to have a bath, remember?” Estelle told the group following the pallbearers. “That’s why we asked to use your bathroom, Rex.”

  “That would explain why she had no clothes on,” Hamish remarked, barely able to disguise his prurient interest. “But how did she end up in the loch?”

  “If it were me, I’d go for a swim first,” Shona pointed out with a shudder. “Then I’d have a bath to warm up. Doing it the other way round makes no sense.”

  Rex had to agree that nothing about Moira’s apparent drowning made sense so far.

  “When’s the ambulance getting here?” Alistair asked, wiping the rain from his eyes. “Should we bring her into the house?”

  “Let’s take her into the stable,” Cuthbert suggested. “All right with you, old man?” he asked Rex.

  Rex nodded. He felt slightly superstitious about dead bodies in the house. In any case, the ambulance would be here soon. Rob Roy and Cuthbert conveyed Moira to the stable, where Rex instructed them to set her down on the trundle bed.

  Donnie, who had just risen and was straightening his clothes, stared at her as at a ghost. “Is she deed?” he asked in heavily accented Scottish.

  “Aye, Donnie, she is. She’s at peace.” His sister took his hand. “Come away, now. I’ll make you some breakfast. May I, Helen?”

  “Of course. Make yourselves at home. There’s some porridge in the pan and scrambled eggs. You just need to put some bread in the toaster.”

  On a certain level Rex found it peculiar that people should be discussing breakfast when a young woman lay dead before them. Moira was only thirty-seven. It had been a while since he’d had any deep feelings for her, but now as he gazed upon her chilled face he felt unutterably sorry.

  “I suppose we should all stay until the police get here,” Hamish murmured. “I’ll call the hotel and tell them there’s been an emergency.”

  “The police will want to ask everybody what they saw,” Shona said morbidly. “Won’t we have something to tell the guests tonight!”

  Rex could tell Mrs. Allerdice was trying to put on a brave face, but she was visibly shaken.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Estelle remarked. “I was quite merry last night from all the wine and sherry. As soon as my head touched the pillow, I slept like a lamb.”

  Or a sheep, Rex thought uncharitably. Oh, why had Moira come to Gleneagle Lodge? Why had any of them come?

  “I recall she went upstairs to take her bath before the rest of us retired,” Estelle added. “And that’s all I’ll be able to tell the police.”

  “Moira was right fond of baths,” Rex reminisced.

  Helen took his arm and led him away. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “Donnie left first,” Beardsley corrected Estelle. “To go to the stable.”

  The group reconvened by the horse stalls where Rex had found the ladder.

  “I tried the bathroom in the middle of the night,” Shona said. “And couldn’t get in.”

  “Flora and Hamish couldn’t either,” Rex confirmed. “I think Moira may have drowned in the bath. That would account for all the water on the floor. The excess water suggests someone drowned her.”

  “On purpose?” Shona asked, shocked.

  “Is there any other way?” her husband asked impatiently.

  “But the door was locked from the inside,” Cuthbert said, scratching his ear. “I tried this morning. I didn’t hear a peep.”

  “Seems no one did,” Rex said, pacing the small storage area. “Someone lifted her through the window and then dumped her in the loch, maybe to make it look like an accident. The killer must have used the boat and pushed the body over the side, but instead of sinking, she was washed up on the wee island.”

  “Who could have done such a thing?” Shona asked, pulling at the cowl neck of her sweater.

  “It had to have been someone at the house,” her husband replied, eying the group standing in the stable.

  “Not necessarily,” Alistair pointed out. “It could have been a burglar who surprised her in the bath.”

  Rex held up his hand for silence. A detail had just occurred to him. “Someone emptied the bath, unless the plug got dislodged in the struggle and drained by itself. Unlikely, therefore, Moira drowned herself. She went up for her bath just before midnight,” he restated. “The women cleared up. Then everybody got ready for bed.” He would have to think about this somewhere quiet. “Rob Roy was helping me move the furniture back.”

  “But what about the locked door?” Estelle insisted. “How did the person get in?”

  “Through the bathroom window, presumably—using the ladder from the stable. I don’t think the window was locked.”

  “That would support my burglar theory,” Alistair said.

  “If someone used the ladder, how did they get it without waking Donnie?” Helen asked. “Or did they take it before? Perhaps we should ask him if he remembers hearing anyone enter in the night.”

  “Donnie sleeps like a log,” Hamish Allerdice told her. “He’d no hear much with the rain falling hard on this tile roof.”

  “He did not hear me this morning,” Rex confirmed.

  “Can we be sure it wasn’t a suicide?” Estelle Farquharson asked practically.

  “It would be easier to explain to my guests,” Shona jumped in. “A murder might scare them away.”

  “Moira packed enough clothes to stay for a few days,” Helen pointed out. “I don’t think she would have gone to the trouble if she had planned to take her own life.”

  “Perhaps she was jealous when she saw you and Rex together,” Estelle suggested. “You make such a happy couple.”

  Did Estelle Farquharson always have to say what was on her mind? Rex wondered with irritation. “Most people are incapable of drownin
g themselves twice,” he retorted.

  “What happens now, old sport?” Cuthbert asked.

  Rex rubbed at his eyes. He wished he could wake up again with none of this having happened. If wishes were fishes … “Let’s all go back to the house and wait for the authorities there.”

  “I’ll make some more coffee,” Helen offered.

  “Cuthbert,” he said before Mr. Farquharson could leave. “Do you recall if Moira locked the bathroom door after you finished speaking with her?”

  “I waited to make sure she did. Anyone could have walked in on her in her bath. And,” he added sotto voce, jerking his head at Hamish, “I was worried that old goat might come back and bother her.”

  When the others had gone, Rex performed a quick examination of Moira’s body to check for contusions and other signs of violence to her body. He found bruising on her right side and scratches on the top of her hand. Catching up with Estelle, he asked to borrow her Nikon and returned to take photographs of the corpse.

  That done, he carefully recovered the body with the tarpaulin and closed the door to the stable. With a fluttery feeling in his stomach, he crossed the courtyard and entered the house. He wished the police would get here. Looking into a murder was different when you knew the victim well. He felt confused. He was pretty sure Moira had not drowned herself, but how could he be certain? She had tried suicide before. Perhaps he was denying the possibility because he would feel responsible if that were the case.

  It was possible she had drowned accidentally. But what were the chances of that? She had not been drunk when she went up the stairs and had sounded in control when accosted by Hamish at the bathroom door and afterward, when she spoke to Cuthbert. Rex realized with a small shock that that was the last time he had heard her voice and would ever hear it again.

  Perhaps she had taken pills before she got in the bath, maybe a sleep aid, and the combination of alcohol, medication, and warm water had caused her to fall asleep and slip under the surface … Then someone had found her and panicked, and thrown her in the loch. An unlikely scenario.