Rum Affair

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Then the fog came down, and it was afternoon when we crept into the anchorage of Loch Scresort, in the island of Rum.

  Rum is an island of the Inner Hebrides, now wholly owned by the Scottish Nature Conservancy, who conduct experiments there. It is a mountainous, pear-shaped island, about eight miles across, and the only buildings of interest, including wardens’ houses, post office, farm, school and school teacher’s house, are placed at intervals round a wide bay, which is the only anchorage the island possesses.

  Set in a park inland from the bay is Kinloch Castle, in which the Nature Conservancy and other scientists like Kenneth live and have their laboratories, some inside the house, and some in the grounds. Apart from the scientists’ wing, the house remains fully furnished as it was when it was built as a shooting lodge seventy years ago.

  The Warden’s house was the Cruising Club’s checkpoint. A confrontation with Michael Twiss was our primary objective. And Kenneth Holmes, Johnson had decided, should be our decoy. Kenneth, whom Michael did not yet know to be here. As Dolly felt her way into the bay, I said again, to Johnson: “But will he be safe? How can you protect him?”

  And Johnson, staring into the thick white atmosphere, said: “I shall be behind him, wherever he goes. Don’t worry. We haven’t rescued him from his old-fashioned chivalry, you and I, to throw him into the bun-mixing machinery now. There’s Symphonetta.”

  It was, too, with her black stern and tall spars like a phantom, far on our right. She had come in, I judged with my new expertise, in the last half-hour: her sails were neatly stowed, but two of the boys were still working on deck. I waved as we passed and someone – Shaw? Roberts? – waved back. Beyond that, there was a squat shape identifiable as Binkie, with no sign of the Buchanans on board; and then, what we all were straining to see – Ogden’s Seawolf, with Michael Twiss, we assumed, still on board.

  We slid up beside her and executed, without fuss, the complicated manoeuvre of anchoring. Kenneth stood without moving, binoculars to his eyes. He was just saying: “No one there. They’ll be on shore, too,” when a voice at sea level remarked: “Ahoy, Dolly! I’ve got a passenger of yours. Did you know?” And looking down, we saw Seawolf’s little pram, with Cecil Ogden in it, alone.

  Beside us, Lenny materialised with the companionway, and Johnson’s most unctuous voice said: “Does that mean you’re carrying our Mr Twiss? Oh, good show. We wondered rather where he could be . . . Do come aboard.”

  But Ogden’s head vibrated gently under its pixie cap. “You’ll want to get ashore to check in. The rest are all there. They’re dead set on exploring the Castle, but the lights are off. I’ve just come back for my torch.”

  It was a wonder, I thought, that he had one that worked. Then I saw a number of objects packed under the dinghy bench: an old Tilley lamp, a coil of wire, and a hand brush and dustpan among them, with more under the tarpaulin behind. He had also two big milk churns full of water, and a bloodstained parcel of venison. The Nature Conservancy, clearly, was sustaining Seawolf on the next leg of her journey.

  I don’t know whether Ogden noticed our amusement, or cared. He had had a good deal to drink but not quite as much, I thought, as usual. On his long, knuckle bone face was an expression of irony, and his eyes were half-closed against the smoke of his drooping filter tip as he looked up. “Twiss is on shore with Victoria, if you want him. I don’t mind keeping him, if you don’t. I gather there was a bit of a tizzy.”

  “Not yet,” said Kenneth, his voice deep. “But there’s going to be.”

  “Dr Holmes.” Johnson made the introduction and added, in face of the open curiosity on Ogden’s face: “It’s a matter of dispute between Mr Twiss and Dr Holmes.”

  I was grateful for that, but Ogden was hardly likely to believe it having chased Stanley Hennessy and me, at Michael’s urgent request, all the way to South Rona; and knowing that Michael and I had fallen out already over Kenneth. I wondered if Ogden suspected that Michael was responsible for shooting poor Hennessy’s ear, and if that was why Seawolf had left so promptly, with Michael aboard.

  But whatever Ogden thought about us, he showed no more interest, having remembered, clearly, his leaking parcel and other acquisitions to unload on board. He pushed off busily as Johnson stepped into Dolly’s dory, and with Rupert at the helm and Kenneth and myself sitting aft, we made for the shore. Then, with leisure to look about, I saw that the fog filling this big sea loch was lifting, and that for the first time I was looking at the low woodland, the piled, shingly beach and the grotesque mountains of Rum.

  The bay was shallow. Under the school teacher’s window the red deer were grazing, their rumps seaweed yellow and umber. They looked up as we slid to the slipway, and I could see their long, soft spread ears like a hare’s, and the large eyes, under their light padded arcs. Then they sprang off, but gently, with a flash of pink and yellow and green from the tags in their ears. For this was an island which culled its deer and also preserved them; and where no grass was unstudied. “Where,” said Johnson, who had been pursuing this train of thought mildly all the way over from Dolly, “only man can be vile, verminous and unsound genetically, and still never be shot.”

  The walk to the Warden’s house lay along the southern arc of the shore. Rupert was ahead, hurrying to enter Dolly’s time of arrival. Kenneth, Johnson and I followed at leisure, and I thought I knew why. It was to allow Rupert to reach the rest of the party and to spread the news that Kenneth was with us. Rupert was baiting the trap. Kenneth here was walking doggedly into it.

  In steamy fingers, the sea mist was lifting. Speaking personally, I could never have built a house on that island. It was volcanic, said Kenneth, but the volcanoes were extinct, which merely meant a lot of peaks and depressing black rocks and heather. The shooting lodge people in their day had planted shore woods of birch and sycamore and Scotch pine and larch, with half-naked foxgloves and wild blue delphiniums growing under; but I shouldn’t have bothered. If you want sport, you can get sport in the sun.

  Kenneth told us as well, as we walked, how a hundred and fifty years before all but one family had been cleared out to America, so that Rum could become a single sheep farm. Soon after that, it had been sold as the deer forest it had been until recently. I wondered what happened to the four hundred who went, and if their great-great-granddaughters had maybe heard me sing in Carnegie Hall and assumed that I had come the easy way, from a long line of gentry.

  It was at the main jetty, a big curving pier lined with red oil drums of rubbish, that we discovered Victoria. Tied up at the jetty was the big Conservancy launch, the Sioras, and her dinghy in two neat shades of green, the tarpaulin turned back. Ogden had mentioned, back there, that the thrice weekly ferry from the mainland was due in later that day. And beside the Sioras, Seawolf’s dinghy was moored, with Victoria just climbing into it.

  Johnson hailed her, with less than his usual tact. “Hallo! Your lord and master back on shore again?”

  Her long, swinging hair hid her face as she prepared to cast off, but her exceptionally clear voice was angry. “If you mean Cecil Ogden, he’s gone up to Kinloch Castle with his torch.” And she sat down, slamming the rowlocks into their holes.

  Johnson said, in that mild tone we had all learned to distrust: “The Warden’s a good chap, Victoria. I shouldn’t worry. The odd handout is part of his job.”

  Victoria had an oar in her grip. “I wish they wouldn’t. Once Cecil put it all to good use, but he’s getting lazier and lazier. Soon he’ll just be a scavenger.” The bitterness in her voice silenced him. She looked at us then, defiantly, and said: “Where’s Lenny?”

  “On Dolly. Fishing off the stern with a murderer,” said Johnson. “But at your service, as ever. Something wrong?”

  “Battery,” said Victoria abruptly. Lenny was a genius with electricity, I had learned, and generous with his help. I did not understand Victoria’s tone until Johnson said: “My, my!” with irony. “And I was about to congratulate you on having the brightest l
ights in Portree.” And as Victoria for some reason flushed an unbecoming beetroot, he added: “Hence the walkout?”

  Victoria was still scarlet. I could see Kenneth couldn’t understand either. “It isn’t a walkout,” she muttered. “Not yet. I’m just going back on board Seawolf.”

  And taking the dinghy, of course. It might not be a walkout, but it was an effective declaration of independence. Except that, wrapped up in his eccentric preoccupations, Ogden would hardly notice the worm had revolved. And could always cadge a lift, I supposed, in Symphonetta’s dory, or Binkie’s, or ours. He would have to, for I saw, as the mist continued to lift, that in fact ours were the only four yachts, barring the Sioras, in the loch.

  We left Victoria, and resumed the rough, stony path round the bay. We saw no one. The path passed an oil store, became a bridge over a rushing stream joining the sea on our right, and passed a lime kiln, as old as the Castle. A midge stung, a needle prick, and another; and suddenly there were voices, and we all drew breath and relaxed, for there was only a small tented encampment on the shore, and a smudge fire, and two lads in hooded anoraks bent over it, preferring suffocation to midges. They had come perhaps with the last ferry, and were going back later that night, having tramped the two permitted nature trails and defeated the midges. On the sodden hills, half-invaded by mist, I had noticed one or two others, but these had rifles. It was, Johnson said, the season for culling the deer.

  There was another house, and on the shore, more deer grazing on seaweed; and then on our left a pair of white gates, with a barking big boxer behind them. Johnson opened the gate – and I did not wish to go in at all.

  Inside the Warden’s house, we found Rupert, rocking relaxed by the fireside, having signed Dolly in. Also there, to my sorrow, was Hennessy. But there was no Michael Twiss, and no Buchanans: they had all gone, with Ogden, to visit the Castle.

  For a moment, socially inescapable, there was general talk, and I asked about the tame deer by the shore, and why the shearwaters had given the name of Troll’s Hill to one of the peaks. Kenneth, greeting his friends, fell quickly silent. He wanted to reach Michael, and fast.

  So did I, but I could see from Hennessy’s slightly glazed stare that we should be lucky to escape trouble first. I couldn’t blame him. After all his efforts to help, he must think that Johnson and I had made a fool of him. He had been fired on, rebuked by the Navy and then bundled back to his boat, without even the consolation prize of my company. And now I turned up with my engineer firmly in tow. Hennessy said now, glaring at Johnson: “I see Glasscock signed you in. By your orders, I suppose?”

  Johnson’s formidable black eyebrows topped the bifocals. “It was a test of initiative, actually. He did it all by himself,” he said. “Why?”

  Hennessy’s voice rose. “You don’t deny you were motoring?”

  Johnson kept his voice reasonable. “We used the engine, certainly, as you did, to South Rona and back. At Portree, we changed over to sail. Why, didn’t you?”

  Now, as Hennessy turned his head, I saw for the first time the great square of bandage taped over his ear. Instead of a well-built, good-looking man with crisp yellow hair and a tan, he looked like Bugs Bunny. He said, very distinctly: “Who knows when you switched your bloody tin topsail off, or if you switched it off at all until you got to Loch Scresort? I know my three louts sail as if they were farmers, but I’m damned if anyone could have caught up as quickly as that. Unless—” His voice was scathing. “Unless your new recruit is an Americas Cup man on the side? Is that it, Mr Holmes? Were you showing the Lysander some of Dolly’s sailing techniques when she exploded?”

  Outside, distantly, one of the guns banged, and somewhere in the house, a baby started to yell. The men’s voices were not loud, but the temper in them was plain. Kenneth said quickly: “I don’t think this is the place to argue. I’m going up to the Castle. Coming, Johnson?”

  There was a movement to the door, but Hennessy, behind us, took his time. “What about Madame Rossi?” he said railingly. “Isn’t she going with you? You didn’t get shot up as I did escorting her to a heavy date with somebody else. How naïve can you get?” He had just enough self-conceit to keep his voice down. “You watch it, boy. You get the old carcass damaged and bang, you can’t see her for dust.”

  He was drunk, of course. By now, thank heaven, we were all almost out of the door. “And you know what you pay for the privilege?” Hell’s bells, he was going on. I stopped, to let him catch up. “You know what I paid this little singing bird for the privilege of having my ear half shot off?”

  Jealousy is always difficult to handle. Sober, he would realise he was killing any chance of kindness from me in the future. Drunk, he was going to make me look venal instead of practical, in Kenneth Holmes’ eyes.

  Which is why, at that moment, I tripped Hennessy up just a little, so that he banged his ear against the Chief Warden’s doorpost. Then, as he stopped with a squeal, I said very quietly: “When I have an understanding, I do not go back on it.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Kenneth and Johnson, I saw, were now walking on. Rupert was indoors, talking still. Hand to ear, Hennessy said, his eyes watering: “And what about the great Dr Holmes?”

  “He doesn’t need me any more.” I was not forlorn: I said it as a matter of fact. I think perhaps up to then all Stanley Hennessy’s women had been of the weeping variety. He hesitated, and then, turning, lifted my manicured hand to his lips and kissed it. “Do we start then afresh, Tina?”

  He talked sometimes like a poor television serial. Outside his business he had trouble, I guessed, in aligning his ego and id: It does not greatly matter, when you have baguette diamonds to give.

  I slipped my hand inside his and drew him along the rhododendron path to the Big House. “We start afresh.”

  But it was still the same damned old problem: how to get rid of Hennessy and Kenneth and Johnson, and find Michael Twiss. For, thinking over all I knew of Michael, if he really wanted to harm Kenneth or me, it would take a great deal to stop him. And of all of us, I thought I was best fitted to try.

  The broad avenue striking inland through the trees from the Warden’s house to the parkland surrounding Kinloch Castle does not take long to walk. There is a bridge to cross, over the river which generates the Castle’s own private electricity; and then, across billiard-green lawns, one sees the red sandstone arcades and the castellated tower of the Big House itself, equipped, furnished and wholly deserted: frozen at the height of its effectiveness, when a man desiring to relax, and his wife and friends with him, bought an empty island and stocked it with beasts and built on it a modest palace like Blenheim, in which to live for a month yearly, killing trout and red deer.

  The scientists’ wing, formerly occupied by Kenneth, had been empty since his departure, and the caretaker was on holiday. Within, statuesque in the growing darkness, was the intact sepulchre of an Edwardian dream. And in that dream, somewhere, along with the others – the respectful, pattering footsteps of Bob and Nancy Buchanan; the derisive, ill-kept sneakers of Ogden – was a figure that did not walk at all, but stood silently waiting. Michael was there. Michael was there, and had chosen his place.

  The caretaker’s entrance was on the north side. Opening it with the Warden’s key, Johnson stood aside while Kenneth, Hennessy and I filed in. Rupert had not yet appeared. As I entered, Hennessy’s grasp on my arm, I saw the small, puzzled glance Kenneth gave me, and passing, without looking, I brushed Kenneth’s hand. His fingers moved in recognition, then dropped as we walked on inside.

  After the misty brightness outside, we were now lost in shadows. Footsteps echoing, we walked in silence through servants’ quarters, along high-ceilinged corridors, their walls lined by bells rung long ago, when service was what it should be. There were signs of occasional life; a big kitchen stacked with chairs had been made into a cinema; there were ashes in the grate of a small sitting room, tidily furnished, and a few toys.

  Doors opened and shut. Johnson
spoke very little, and the rest of us not at all. In a sudden warren of small rooms opening off to one side there was a glimpse of impressive period earthenware in a blue and white pattern: what would Seawolf choose for tribute from here? Then the public apartments appeared.

  Walking through in the half-dark, linked to Hennessy, I was listening in the quiet above the thud of my heart. My nerves taut, I was listening for the first sign: the stir of a curtain, the creak of a floorboard below the thick carpet, a shot, even, which would finish this cold, nasty silence.

  Somewhere in the house Ogden was wandering, and the Buchanans, talking naturally, flashing their torches on some particular treasure. The lighting fuse board had failed us, said Johnson, but the power was intact. Here, with the tall windows giving on to the misty twilight outside, there was light enough still to see the mighty shapes of the dining room, the massive fireplace, the alcove cupboards for glasses and napery. Round the shining table, the chairs were almost too heavy to move. They came, Kenneth said, from the owner’s steam yacht, the Rhouma, which had brought back most of the V. & A. standard bric-a-brac lying around us. Then we walked through an imposing arched doorway and into the main hall, which was two storeys high.

  This, too, seemed empty. Saffron-coloured light fell, on our left, from a double row of Gothic oriel windows filling one entire wall, their glass stained with acorns and flowers. This wall gave on to the central lawns at the front, and contained the front door.