08 - The Highland Fling Murders
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Join Jessica on the QE2!
MURDER MOST FOUL
I used my foot to slide the box partially off the body, enough to see the face belonging to the foot and leg. Looking up at me was the round, ruddy face of Daisy-I didn’t know her last name—the young woman who had served us dinner the night before at Sutherland Castle.
My fist went to my mouth to stifle the anguished cry about to erupt. A pitchfork rose from Daisy’s chest. The handle had been broken off just above the metal tines. Brown dried blood surrounded each tooth.
I crouched lower. I hadn’t seen it at first glance. Carved into her throat was a small, bloody cross.
MURDER, SHE WROTE
THE HIGHLAND FLING
MURDERS
SIGNET
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For Laurie, Pamela, Billy, Marisa,
Alexander, Zachary, and Jacob.
Ah, youth!
And for my father, George Sutherland Bain,
who left Scotland to seek a better life
in America when the herring stopped running
in Wick, and who taught me
“Set a stoot hert to a stey brae.”
“The harder the task,
the more determination is needed.”
Chapter One
“Before Candlemas we went by East kinloss, and then we yoked a plewghe of paddokis (frogs or toads). The divill held the plewghe, and john Younge in Mebestone, our officer, did drwe the plewgke. Paddokis did draw the plewghe as oxen, quickens (twitch-grass) were somes (traces), a ram’s horn was a cowter; and a piece of ram’s horn was a sok (yoke). We went two several times about; and all we of the covin went still up and down with the plewghe praying to the divill for the fruit of that land, and that thistles and briers might grow there.”
“I thought they spoke English there, Mrs. F.,” Cabot Cove’s sheriff, and my good friend, Mort Metzger, said after reading what I’d handed him.
I laughed. “They do, Mort. But this was the way they spoke in sixteen twenty-two.”
Mort had just read part of a confession made in 1622 by Scotland’s most celebrated witch, isabell Gowdie. It was, she’d told her accusers, a special curse often used by her coven. George Sutherland, my Scottish friend and a chief inspector with Scotland Yard in London, had included it in a long letter to me, which I shared with my friends at Boston’s Logan Airport while waiting to board our British Airways flight to London.
“Gives me the chills,” said Alicia Richardson as she read George Sutherland’s description in his letter of how Isabell Gowdie had died—a pitchfork through her chest, pinning her-to the ground, her throat slashed with two strokes of a knife, creating a cross. According to George, a descendant of Isabell had settled in his hometown, Wick, Scotland, and had died in the same manner only twenty years ago.
“Lot of nonsense,” Sheriff Metzger muttered. “Sounds like your friend Sutherland is a mite queeuh.”
Alicia’s husband, Jed Richardson—Alicia was his third wife; she was twenty-six, Jed forty-seven—a former airline pilot, was now owner, operator, and only pilot for Jed’s Flying Service, operating out of Cabot Cove’s tiny single-strip airport. He said of his pretty, bubbly redheaded wife, “Alicia won’t sleep a wink while we’re there. She believes in ghosts.”
“I do not,” she said, waving his comment away with her hand. “Still-”
There were twelve of us from Cabot Cove about to embark on a trip to Great Britain.
Our plans to travel together had coalesced quickly. It started when my British publisher, Archibald Semple, persuaded me to come to England to promote my latest mystery novel there. His edition had just come out, and he felt it needed the sort of boost only the author can provide by appearing on radio and television, and giving interviews to print media. I agreed, of course, and called a friend, Susan Shevlin, owner of Cabot Cove’s best travel agency.
After planning and booking my trip, Susan suggested that she and her husband, Jim, who’d recently been elected mayor of Cabot Cove, accompany me to London. That started the ball rolling. Soon, through Susan’s efforts, nine others had signed on: Morton and Maureen Metzger; Dr. Seth- Hazlitt; the Richardsons; Peter and Roberta Walters, owners of Cabot Cove’s small and only radio station; Charlene Sassi of S
assi’s Bakery and Restaurant, and husband, Ken, the area’s best fishing guide; and, of course, Susan and Jim Shevlin.
But then the plot thickened, as they say.
When I told George Sutherland I was coming to England, he insisted I extend my trip to spend time at his family’s castle in Wick, Scotland, on the northernmost coast.
“I really can’t, George,” I replied. “I’m traveling with other people. Eleven of them.”
“Not a problem, Jessica,” he said. “The old family homestead has fourteen rooms. Since I seldom have a chance to get there, and because it costs a bloody fortune to maintain, it’s rented out as a hotel most of the year. There’s a staff, a fine kitchen and chef, the works. Bookings have been slow. There are only two couples booked in for the time you and your friends would be there. Please. You know I’ve been trying to entice you to Wick ever since we met. Say yes.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll check with the others and let you know how many can extend their trip.”
As it turned out, everyone decided to venture north with me to George’s castle on the tail end of my book-promotion tour.
The announcement that came through the lounge’s speakers sent a tingle of pleasure through me, as it always does. I’m an unabashed Anglophile, and that includes British Airways and its unrivaled service to London: :“British. Airways flight two-oh-seven, service to London, is now boarding at gate number four.”
“That’s us,” Seth Hazlitt said, slinging his carry-on bag over his shoulder.
We made our way to the gate, checked through, and settled in our seats in the spacious 747 aircraft. Had I been traveling alone, I would have been booked in first, or business class, compliments of the publisher. But with my friends seated in the back, it would have been insensitive, to say nothing of depriving me of the fun of being with them on a long flight. Spirits were high, conversation sprightly, and the trip went by quickly.
We landed precisely on time at Heathrow Airport, and passed through Customs. A long line of those wonderful, civilized black London taxis stood waiting just outside the luggage area. We picked up our luggage and put them on free trolleys available to arriving passengers. It took three cabs to accommodate us, each driven by polite, intelligent drivers who put cabbies everywhere else in the world to shame.
“You say this Athenaeum Hotel is a classy place?” Ken Sassi, the fishing guide, asked.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I stayed there the last time I was in London.”
“Thought you were partial to the Dorchester,” Charlene Sassi said.
“I was. I am. I love it. But the Athenaeum has a special—a special feeling to it. You’ll love it. Trust me.”
The twelve of us had no sooner stepped into the small, stylish lobby off Piccadilly, when Sally Bulloch burst from the elevator, saw me, closed the gap between us in a flash, and gave me a big hug. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “Good flight? They feed you good? My goodness, Jessica, you look splendid. A new book in the works? I picked up your latest. You’ll sign it, of course. These must be your friends—”
I burst out laughing. Sally Bulloch was so brimming over with energy and spirit that it tumbled out of her every waking minute. No wonder she’d become such a legend in London that the Athenaeum’s restaurant was named after her.
“Everyone,” I said, “this is Sally Bulloch, the executive manager.”
“Welcome,” she said, pretty face beaming. “Come on. The bar is open.” With that, she was on her way across the lobby in the direction of the Athenaeum’s famed watering hole, the Malt Whisky Bar, where seventy single-malt whiskeys are featured.
“Sally,” I said.
She stopped, turned, and cocked her head.
“I think we all need to get to our rooms first. Rain check?”
She laughed. “Absolutely.”
A few minutes later we were led to our rooms by nattily dressed young bellhops. The moment mine had departed, I kicked off my shoes, opened the drapes, and looked out over London. What a splendid city, I thought, one of my favorite places on this earth.
I unpacked, and was in the process of hanging my clothes in the closet when the phone rang. I picked up the closest of three in the suite. “Jessica Fletcher,” I said.
“Jessica. Archie Semple here.”
“Hello, Archie. How are you?”
“Splendid, now that you’ve arrived. I realized how negligent I’d been in not arranging transportation for you from the airport.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. I’m traveling with eleven good friends. I think I mentioned that to you last time we talked.”
“That’s right. You did. Bloody big group to have in tow.”
“Yes it is. But they understand I can’t spend much time with them while I’m promoting my book. Speaking of that, when do I start?”
“This evening. At dinner. An interview with the Times’s leading book critic. Delightful lady. Margaret Swales. You can call her Maggie.”
“Off to a running start, I see. Where and when?”
“I’ll swing by the Athenaeum at seven. Busy day tomorrow, too. Still planning to venture north to the land of the barbarians?”
“ ‘Land of the barbarians’? You mean Scotland?”
He let out with a hearty laugh, punctuated by a loud cough. He obviously still smoked his dreaded cigars.
“Why do you call Scotland barbaric?” I asked.
“Because of their bloody violent history. Bloody. The proper word. Grown men running around in skirts. Bloody bizarre, I say. Bloody foolish.”
I wasn’t in the mood to debate it, so simply said I’d be ready by seven.
The Cabot Cove contingent had agreed to meet in the Malt Whisky Bar in an hour. I showered and dressed for the evening before going downstairs to join them. I was the last arrival. By the time I got there, my friends were into serious tasting of the bar’s large single-malt scotch inventory.
“Look here, Mrs. F.,” Mort Metzger said, handing me a menu. “After you drink each scotch, you check it off on this list. Taste all seventy of ’em, they give you a free bottle.”
“You aren’t intending to do that, are you?”
“Not me. But maybe they’d let us do it as a group.”
“I don’t think that’s the purpose,” I said.
“Hi.”
Sally Bulloch pranced into the bar area, her blond hair bouncing in rhythm with her step. “Everything peachy?”
“Yes.” It was a chorus.
“Say, Ms. Bulloch, could I have a word with you?” Mort Metzger asked.
“In a minute,” she replied, moving to other tables ; she seemed to know everyone in the room.
“Are you going to ask her whether our group can taste all the scotches?” I asked Mort.
“Thought I would.”
“Don’t. It puts her in an awkward position.”
“Ayuh,” Seth Hazlitt chimed in. “Damn foolish idea anyway.”
“They’re giving a free bottle,” Mort said.
“And that’s not a reason to—”
Sally reappeared, ending the conversation between Mort and Seth. “You wanted to ask me something,” she said to Mort.
Mort glanced at me and Seth before saying, “Just wondered whether you could recommend a good restaurant for us. I know British food isn’t much, but—”
“British food is very good now, Mort,” I said.
Sally laughed. “It is in my restaurant. Why don’t you eat here? We’re featuring breast of Barbary duck with bubble and squeak tonight.”
“‘Bubble and squeak’?” Charlene Sassi, the group’s most knowledgeable cook, asked.
“A little cabbage, a little potato. You’ll love it.”
“Got anything simpler?” Mort asked.
“Chicken simple enough?”
“I figure,” he said.
“Are you eating with us, Jess?” radio station owner Peter Walters asked.
“Afraid not. I’m being interviewed by someone from the
London Times.”
“We’ll miss you,” Walters’s wife, Roberta, said.
“Why don’t we all meet back here after dinner,” Seth suggested.
“Fine idea,” I said. “I can’t promise, but I’ll try. Have to run and do a few things before I’m picked up. Have dinner here. The chef is wonderful. My favorite’s the charbroiled sea bass. See you later.”
Chapter Two
My British publisher, Archibald Semple, is a dear man with a bevy of bad personal traits. He’s quite obese, and defines slovenliness, tending to perspire in even the coolest of settings. His suits, expensive no doubt, look horribly cheap on him because of his corpulent frame, and he has a penchant for what the British often call “dickey bows,” large, floppy bow ties. His fingernails are always highly lacquered, something I find unattractive in men, and he attempts to cover a broad expanse of bald head by bringing up long, wet strands of hair from just above his left ear.
But it’s when dining with Archie Semple that one is called upon to keep a stiff upper lip. He consumes food with the zeal of a starving pack of wolves, much of it ending up on an assorbnent of ties that are, to be kind, dreadful.
Other than that, I love him dearly. He’s an astute and effective publisher, one who has taken each of my novels and turned them into best-sellers in Great Britain.
He picked me up in a limousine driven by a handsome young man in uniform. After preliminary and perfunctory greetings, we headed for Wilton’s on Jermyn Street, one of London’s finest restaurants. I’d had dinner there the last time I visited London; its chef has elevated what used to be pedestrian English food to fine cuisine.
.Margaret Swales was a birdlike older woman with an infectious laugh. She wore a garish purple dress adorned with heavy strands of jewelry, and a small purple pillbox hat from a bygone era. What was especially charming about her was her intense interest in my responses to her questions. She had many of them.