Cry of the Panther

by Jeff Gulvin

  He slowed up as the hotel came into view across the curving line of the bridge.

  ‘Shall I drop you off or check into the hotel first?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’ She thought for a moment, then asked, ‘How long till you have to go home?’

  ‘A few days, I guess.’

  The turning for Gaelloch was approaching. Imogen hesitated, then said, ‘I was going to take another trip into the hills with Keira. Would you like to come with me?’

  Connla looked sideways at her. ‘I’d love to.’

  She cooked dinner and opened a bottle of red wine. Connla stood, leaning against the sink and watched her. She had tied her hair back now—one long plait wound snake-like on top of her head. He had no idea what she was preparing. He didn’t ask, was merely content to watch the way she moved about the kitchen. She wasn’t in the least bit self-conscious under his gaze. She moved easily, almost gracefully, as if she was very much at peace with her body.

  ‘What’re you painting right now?’

  She looked sharply at him then and he thought he had said the wrong thing.

  ‘Redynvre.’ She hesitated and tugged her lip with her teeth. ‘At least I think that’s what it is.’

  ‘Sounds interesting. Can I see?’

  She looked at him again, panic in her eyes for a moment. He lifted a hand, palm upwards. ‘Hey, it’s OK. Forget it. I understand: artists and work in progress. It’s the same for me, only I use rolls of film.’

  She had never let anyone see her work in progress before, and her studio was the only room in the house she locked when people were staying.

  ‘Honest. It’s OK.’ Connla got up and smiled reassuringly.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind. You can see it, if you want to.’

  She led the way down the hall, not knowing why, but aware that it was all right to show him, this American she hardly knew, though the picture disturbed her more than any she had ever painted. The studio was still lit by the setting sun and she didn’t switch on any artificial light. The canvas was where she had left it, resting on her largest easel with a piece of muslin cloth draped over it. Her palette, uncleaned, lay alongside, with her brushes standing in a pot of turpentine that she should have emptied ages ago.

  For a moment they both stood there and Connla took in the starkness of the room—such a contrast to the rest of the house. There was nothing on the walls, just white board painted white again, no drapes, a large Velux window in the roof and two in either wall. No pictures, no furniture, not even a chair; the only concession to comfort was a portable CD player with twin speakers attached by straggling wires. A pile of CDs lay on the floor beside it. He could see Otis Redding and Van Morrison, Mozart and Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.

  Imogen stood at the easel, suddenly unsure of herself. Was this all right after all? No-one but no-one was allowed in here. Her aunt had built this studio and nobody had been allowed in then, save her as a little girl. Connla looked at her, the way she picked at her lips with her teeth, her eyes avoiding his, slanted towards the ground.

  ‘You don’t have to show me, you know. I really do understand.’

  ‘No. I want to.’ She did. What disturbed her was not the actual showing of the unfinished work so much as the why. Carefully, she folded back the muslin cloth, and Connla saw the outline of a mountain, the beginnings of the sky and a mass of black and grey rock. Imogen watched his face. He looked even-eyed, arms folded across his chest like an Indian.

  He scrutinized the picture. This was important to her and he didn’t know why. Clearly this room was private, so why had he been allowed in? And then he saw the image of a child in the rock. A shiver shook his flesh and he wasn’t sure why. For a moment he wondered if this was just some charade, that somehow she knew everything and had tricked him in here to expose him for the liar he was.

  He did not let it show on his face, but Imogen knew he had picked up the outline in the rock. He couldn’t possibly know the significance, but she wanted to make sure she wasn’t imagining it herself. ‘It’s nowhere near finished,’ she said carefully. ‘The stag will be in the foreground.’

  Connla glanced at the sketchbook lying open on the floor: the outline of the deer, the mountain, sky, and then the colours and tones listed. Notes to herself, things that only she would understand. He looked again at the painting, the mass of black rock and the image of the boy within it. ‘Thank you for showing me,’ he said quietly.

  Later, after dinner, they sat in the lounge on the twin couches before the unlit fire. The sun had gone and the wine had gone and Connla looked at his watch. ‘What time d’you want to leave in the morning?’

  ‘Early. I have to load Keira into the horsebox, and it’s a good hour’s drive to Loch Loynes.’

  ‘D’you mind if we take two cars? I may have to go straight to London afterwards.’ She looked beyond him into the darkness of the uncurtained window. ‘Two cars is fine,’ she said.

  Connla shifted to the edge of his seat. ‘I guess I’d better get moving then.’

  ‘Why don’t you stay here?’

  He stared at her.

  ‘I mean there’s no point in going to the hotel now. They probably won’t take your booking anyway; it’s almost eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Right.’ Connla looked at her for a moment, then prodded the sofa with his knuckles.

  ‘I’ve got a sleeping bag in the truck.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Right.’ He stood up, stretched, and yawned. ‘I’m beat.’

  ‘Today was a long day for you.’

  ‘I guess.’

  She stood up. ‘I’m really sorry about the plaster casts.’

  ‘Ah, don’t worry about it. I still saw what I saw. You got big cats in this country and they’re breeding. If that keeps happening your government will have to change its whole attitude to the environment. Gotta be a good thing in my book.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ll just get my gear. Thank you for a great evening, Imogen.’

  ‘Thank you for coming back.’

  He wanted to kiss her again, but he didn’t. He stepped past her and went out to his truck. When he came back she was still standing where he had left her, but the moment had passed.

  ‘Would you like a bath or anything?’ she asked. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have a shower.’

  ‘In the morning, if that’s OK. I’m beat right now.’

  ‘OK. I’ll have one then, too.’ She smiled and glanced at the sofa. ‘Will you be comfortable enough?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I’ve slept on all sorts of couches, believe me. And you oughta see my shack in Keystone. My bed makes this look like a four-poster.’

  She smiled. ‘I’d like to—see your shack, I mean.’

  ‘Well,’ Connla reached out and hooked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, ‘maybe one day you will.’

  She felt the fleeting warmth of his hand and she wanted to close her eyes and lay her cheek against it. But the touch was brief and then gone. She lifted a fist to her mouth in a yawn. ‘Now you’ve started me off.’

  ‘One question?’ he said. ‘You’ve only got the one horse.’

  She nodded. ‘I thought we’d walk and pack the gear on Keira.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  She moved to the door; he wanted her to stay and to kiss her again, but the space between them was awkward all at once. She paused, looking back, and smiled.

  ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘Yeah. You, too.’

  She closed the door and he sat down on the sofa.

  He lit a cigarette in the darkness, the only light now that the candle had withered into wax on the hearthstone. He listened to her moving about upstairs; in the bathroom briefly and then her bedroom, which he hadn’t seen but could sort of visualize from the footfalls above his head. He imagined her shimmying out of her dungarees, exposing brown legs and panties, sitting to take off her socks and shifting the shirt over her head.

  Imogen sat naked in front of the mirror and took the brush to
her hair, which was tangled now with sweat. She tugged at the roots, pulling her-head to one side, twisting her neck muscles so they stood out like rope against the skin. All the time she watched herself and her nipples puckered under her gaze as she imagined him downstairs. She hadn’t heard a sound since she’d come up, but she knew he wasn’t asleep; he was probably still sitting where she had left him. Why had she shown him the painting? She had no answer. He had seen the image of the boy in the rock, like some faded cave painting from an age long past, when men were but a memory of what they would become. He had seen it and had said nothing. Maybe he’d just hated the painting. Maybe he couldn’t see anything. Maybe he didn’t wish to ask because he already knew it was only a work in progress and no doubt he thought all would become clear in the end. Not that he would be around to see it. A few days, he had said, a few days and he would return to America, and something told her she would not see him again.

  She laid the brush down and rested both hands flat on her dressing table, staring at the dark almost brooding eyes that stared back at her from the mirror. So why was she up here with him downstairs? Why did she not just ask him to come up? Why not go down now and see him? Her breath grew short and a little pain began at one temple. She wanted to go down. At that moment she wanted to more than anything in the world. But it was as if she didn’t know how. She sat there with no clothes on, looking at her face in the glass, and then she got up and stood before the full-length mirror, half in shadow, the room lit only by the lamp on the other side of the bed. She stood side on, her hair obscuring one breast, smudged darkness at the top of her thighs. She knew she was imagining other eyes on her: his eyes, green eyes, the eyes of the cats he loved so much. Again she felt the urge to slip on a gown, step downstairs and see him. A few days and then everything would be back to normal. School would be starting and Patterson’s attentions, unfettered by the distance of summer, would be fixed on her once again. Life would go on and she would go on, alone as before. She stood up, reached for her gown and then she heard the sofa creak downstairs. Her hand fisted in mid-air and she climbed into bed.

  Connla lay on the sofa in his underpants, the sleeping bag unravelled but unused on the floor. He heard the creaking of floorboards above his head and thought, just for a second, that a door would open and he would hear footfalls on the stairs, the squeak of the bannister as her hand traced the length of it. But the sounds did not come and he rolled onto his side. And then he thought of the level of his deceit and guilt stuck like a hunk of unchewed bread in his throat.

  Twenty-Two

  THE POLICE CAR PULLED into the square in Tomintoul and parked behind an old VW pick-up truck. ‘Harry Cullen,’ Soames said, indicating the truck. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  Gray was driving; he was younger than his partner, with hair clipped to nothing above his ears.

  ‘Who’s Harry Cullen?’

  ‘He’s a poacher, amongst other things. Most people call him Bird Dog because he’s always had a pitbull and a falcon of some kind.’ Soames opened his door. ‘He’s crossed my path once or twice.’

  They walked into the bar and found Cullen seated, grey-faced, on a stool. Soames shook his head. ‘Well, well, Bird Dog. Fancy meeting you here.’

  Cullen squinted at him. ‘Fancy.’

  ‘Is the landlord about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Cullen jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Try the kitchen.’

  Soames made a face at his partner. ‘Malt-based hangovers are always the worst,’ he said, and pushed open the kitchen door.

  He came back a moment later with the landlord. ‘We haven’t got any male cleaners, Mr Soames.’ The landlord wiped his hands on a cloth.

  Cullen rested his chin on his fist and studied their conversation in the mirror behind the bar. Soames scratched his head. ‘Well somebody phoned us.’

  ‘What did he say exactly?’

  ‘He said he had just cleaned a guest room and found a pistol under the bed.’

  ‘A pistol?’ The landlord stared at him, eyes wide all at once.

  Gray nodded. ‘Aye, a pistol. We have to take it seriously, Mr Buchanan. There’s no such thing as a legally owned pistol any more. Possession can get you ten years.’ Buchanan rubbed a hand across his reddened features. He still wore the striped butcher’s apron he used when he was cooking the guests’ breakfasts.

  ‘Which room did he say?’

  ‘Number three.’

  Buchanan muttered something, then wandered behind the bar and picked up the register. He had only nine rooms, but still couldn’t remember who was in which. People came and went on a daily basis in the season. ‘It’s empty,’ he said. ‘There was somebody there last night, but he left first thing this morning.’

  Soames sniffed the aroma of frying bacon that had followed them from the kitchen.

  ‘What, no breakfast? I thought your fry-ups were folklore in these parts.’

  ‘Folklore they may be,’ Buchanan said, ‘but he was American. I don’t suppose he’d heard.’

  ‘We’d like to take a look at the room anyway, please.’ Gray held out his hand for a key.

  Cullen waited while they went upstairs. He could hear booted feet on the boards and strands of conversation. Room three was right over the bar. There were more booted feet, a muffled exclamation and then a smile stretched his sallow features. All at once his hangover receded.

  The three of them came down again, with Soames carrying a revolver by a ballpoint pen stuck up the barrel. Cullen knew it was loaded with six hollow point shells.

  ‘This is very serious,’ Soames was saying. ‘Do you have any idea where we can find him?’

  The landlord shook his head. ‘He never left an address.’

  ‘Not even one in America?’

  ‘No. I should’ve taken it, I know. But he paid me in cash and he was with Bird Dog, here.’

  ‘Bird Dog?’ Soames gazed across the bar. ‘Wherever there’s trouble there’s Bird Dog. Why is that, Harry, eh?’

  Cullen shifted on the stool and squinted at him. ‘Mr Soames. Does your wife know what you’re on about? Because I never do.’

  Soames stepped closer to him. ‘What were you doing with an American?’

  ‘If you must know, hunting leopards.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yon big cats. A sheep was killed over at Corgarff the other day. Even you must’ve seen the news. A leopard did it. A black one.’

  ‘You mean the beast of Elgin?’ Gray said.

  Cullen gave him a withering look. ‘No, I mean the beast of wherever else. Elgin’s a bus ride away.’

  ‘There’s no beast of anywhere,’ Soames said.

  ‘They’re just stories put about for the tourists.’

  ‘Are they indeed. Well, tell that to John McIntyre out at Cock Bridge. Tell it to me, Mr Soames. I saw this one with my own eyes. If you take a look in the back of my truck you’ll find my dog with his throat ripped open.’

  The policemen fell silent then, exchanging a brief glance. Cullen fished the keys from his pocket and tossed them to Soames. ‘It was a panther. That’s a black leopard to the uneducated. I saw it kill my dog. Go on, take a look.’ He scowled at them. ‘The American was a zoologist. His name’s McAdam. If you want to know, the SSPCA put him on to me.’

  ‘He was looking for these beasts then?’

  ‘Aye. He needed a guide; someone who knew the country.’

  ‘Was he armed?’

  Cullen sucked breath. ‘I don’t know. But I certainly was.’

  ‘With this?’ Soames held up the pistol.

  ‘With my rifle. I’ve got a licence, Mr Soames. You should know, you’ve asked to see it often enough.’

  ‘I thought you were living down in Perthshire.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Paid you, did he, this American?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Soames held up the
pistol. ‘After Dunblane, everything’s our business, Bird Dog. Did the American have this with him?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Did you see it on him?’

  ‘He didn’t wear a holster, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t be funny, Bird Dog. You know exactly what I mean.’

  Cullen shifted his shoulders. ‘I told you. I never saw a gun. But he’s a Yank and we were hunting leopard. Put it this way, I wouldn’t go without my rifle.’ Again he shrugged his shoulders and turned to face the optics. Soames inspected the gun once more. ‘The serial number’s been filed off.’

  ‘Well, of course it has. Pistols are illegal. You just said so yourself.’

  Soames sat on the stool next to Cullen while Gray called the find in on the radio.

  ‘What’s his first name?’

  Cullen shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Connor, Conroy or something.’

  ‘Connla,’ the landlord put in a little sheepishly. ‘There. I remember that much at least.’

  ‘Have you any idea where we can find him?’ Soames looked back at Cullen.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘OK. But don’t disappear. We might need to talk to you again.’

  ‘Now where have I heard that before?’ Cullen watched them go and let them get to the door before he called out, ‘When he came up here just now he’d been staying at the Kyle of Lochalsh.’ He touched his index finger to his forehead and looked back at the bar.

  Connla helped Imogen catch the horse and he slipped the rope bridle over her head while Imogen collected the pack frame from the stable. He rubbed an easy palm up and down the horse’s neck to quieten her, then led her to the horsebox and coaxed her inside with a carrot. Between them they hoisted the tow bar onto the ball joint on the Land-Rover and made sure the lights were working, then Imogen jumped behind the wheel and eased the rig away from the field. Connla closed and locked the gate, climbed into his own truck and followed her east along the Keppoch Road. He wished they were riding together, wished he was driving and she was sitting next to him with her hand on his thigh in that easy manner of lovers.

  He had to content himself with following her, though. He had used the bathroom after her this morning and had smelled her scented soaps as he lay back against the cold enamel, watching shafts of sunlight bouncing off Loch Gael. He loved bathrooms, at least those ones touched by feminine hands. Hers was spacious, with three massive rubber plants crowding it. Against one wall a rack full of ironed clothes and warm towels lay over the radiator. There were more plants on the window ledges, and some of her pictures—small ones—adorned the walls.