“Oh, we can serve ourselves the main, Martha, thank you,” Douglas insisted as she lifted a first, large, covered platter from the top shelf of the trolley. Luckily, there was plenty of space between Caitlin and me for her to deposit her offerings on the table without having to stretch.
Once she was gone, Douglas had us rearrange the serving dishes before lifting off the covers, taking the lead by revealing a dish of steaming, buttery, parsley-festooned baby potatoes. Jessica exposed lightly steamed fresh spring greens, probably from a glasshouse tucked away somewhere, Caitlin got the carrots, and I hit the jackpot with the quietly sizzling thick salmon steaks, fresh from the grill, laid out with lemon wedges between them on the large platter. I picked up the long-handled serving spoon and fork and neatly deposited one of those on Caitlin’s plate for her, adding some lemon before replacing the implements with the handles facing toward Jessica, who served herself before turning them back to Douglas, who in turn placed them for me.
We repeated the same, formal dance with the sides, except that the other dishes were small enough to pick up and pass along. Caitlin, when offered each dish in turn before anyone else, took the lead I’d offered her and helped herself to potatoes, then the vegetables, before passing each dish on to Jessica. Douglas watched all these transactions with benign satisfaction. I don’t think most of Jessica’s student friends followed the old ‘pass to the right’ and ‘don’t start eating until everyone’s ready’ rules. I cut myself a first mouthful of salmon steak and managed to reduce a moan of pure pleasure to a polite little ‘mmm’ sound before it got out. It was meltingly perfect, as were the potatoes, with the sharp, slight bitterness of the steamed, seasoned greens complementing the subtle, refreshing flavour of the salmon flesh perfectly. Martha was an artist in the kitchen, and generous in her estimation of people’s appetites. It didn’t take any of us long to demolish our portions and, thankfully, further conversation was the last thing on anyone’s mind for a while. The vocal silence was broken only by comments on how much better wild salmon tasted than farmed, and how delicious everything was, and how good the greens were this year, and things like that.
Martha’s next appearance and disappearance left us with a coffee set, a cheese board and an amazing selection of both sweet and savoury petit fours on the table. I eyed those regretfully. There wasn’t a chance in hell I could touch any more of her culinary offerings just then. Jessica poured coffee for everyone. I waited until they’d all added cream and sugar to theirs and some dainty morsels on their side plates before finally allowing myself to try a hot swallow of mine before getting to business. It was disappointingly dilute, nowhere near enough flavour. Both of the Kerrs confirmed Abby’s presence at the house on Tuesday evening. Douglas was clearly very fond of the girl who he knew better than most of the other students. That detail cleared up, and it was time to move on to the matter that interested me.
“I gather you had a bit of excitement with some treasure hunting earlier in the year?” I aimed my opening question at Jessica, who sipped at her coffee demurely and replaced her cup in its saucer before answering me.
“Yes, that’s right. Uncle told me you’d been asking about that.” She eyed me with the kind of chill disfavour I’d often received before, when ‘poking’ into people’s ‘private business.’ “I received a call shortly after the New Year from a gentleman in Inverness, a Mr Raymond Boyd, who wished to discuss an old document he’d stumbled across with me. A letter dating from the mid-eighteenth century.” She nibbled at a bite of cheese laid on a tiny cracker. “I agreed to go and see him because, as you may well have guessed, that’s precisely the kind of thing that would arouse my academic curiosity.” I nodded agreeably. She sipped at her coffee again before continuing, “He and his friend, his detectoring partner, met with me in a café in town and showed me a printed copy of the document in question.” A slight frown creased her brow, “I’m embarrassed to say I couldn’t make head or tail of it. It was a crossed letter; do you know about those, Inspector?”
Yes, as it happened, I did.
“I believe they were much resorted to by transportees and emigrants during certain periods. With writing materials being hard to obtain, the pages were usually written in very small lettering, both from left to right and from top to bottom.” She looked mildly surprised that I knew anything at all about them. “I gather it was often quite difficult for those who wished to send news home to find a ‘literate’ person to assist them.” There had been some amazing variations in spelling around in those days too, and the letters were often composed in a mixture of Old Scots and English, with occasional bits of Latin thrown in.
“The early postal system revived the technique again later,” Douglas put in, “by people who needed to save on costs. But those are generally much clearer than the older ones stuffed in the archives.”
“Yes,” Jessica agreed. “And to make matters even more difficult, in the case of the one Mr Boyd and Mr Peters showed me, they had concluded that a ciphering technique had been employed in the writing of it.” Jessica eyed me indecisively, before saying, “I do not consider myself to be anyone’s fool, Inspector, and they showed me enough of their workings to persuade me that they may have stumbled across something worth looking into. They had many pages of blown up, highlighted sections of that letter, and when I checked them all against the cypher key they had worked out, every single one of them made sense.”
“That sounds both exciting and intriguing,” I encouraged her. “And what had they managed to discover?”
She shook her head ruefully. “Not enough, apparently. The name ‘Ogilvie’ and the words ‘from the Ogilvie tower’, ‘French funds’, ‘restoration’, ‘rightful king’, ‘Louis d’or, ‘delivery’ ‘buried’ ‘Inverness estate’… fragments of phrases, not a coherent whole. They speculated that a second cypher had been inserted, which they had still been unable to crack.”
Well, that wasn’t impossible, I supposed, but it seemed far more likely that some parts of the document could be made to form words and phrases like that, using many coding systems. You could just find one that suited your purpose and work backwards from there, couldn’t you?
“And so you decided to ask your Uncle if they could bring their equipment and check the area around the old tower, just in case they really were onto something?”
“Precisely,” she agreed. “Just in case. I didn’t see any harm in it and if there was something buried there, well,” a little artless shrug, “being a key player in a discovery of real historical value would certainly have had a beneficial influence on my future career prospects.”
“It was all very exciting,” Douglas added cheerfully, “a bit of a lark, and we didn’t really expect to find anything. I even had a couple of goes with their detector thingies myself. It was rather fun, but the weather was too frightful for me to stay out long and I soon left them to it.” I couldn’t help but smile a little at the picture of Douglas Kerr, heavily wrapped up, playing detectorist and having ‘a bit of a lark.’
“But then they asked if they could try again, in other parts of the estate?” I prompted him.
“Yes, they were terribly keen, I must say. But I didn’t want them wandering round unsupervised. After all, they weren’t personal friends of ours, or even friends of friends. I told them they could arrange it with Jessica, ‘if and when’ she could spare the time to accompany them.”
“And I gave up three more afternoons of my spare time to oblige them,” Jessica said, as if feeling some need to justify herself. “But after their last visit, in mid-February, I was rather tired of it all and told them they should only contact me again when they had the whole document deciphered properly.” Yes, she seemed a bit annoyed, just remembering that conversation. “I made it clear that I would be more than happy to assist them further, once I received an email with it all laid out clearly, and with a specific location in which to search. Going over the entire estate properly would have taken years. Which may be fine for enth
usiasts like they were, but I have better things to do.” That sounded both totally sincere and very reasonable to me.
“But then, one of them stopped by the camp last Thursday looking for you. Did they manage to talk with you then?”
“No, they didn’t.” She really seemed very irritated about that unannounced visit. “And they didn’t call at the house either, or Martha would have sent them packing and told me about it. I’d started blocking their calls and ignoring their texts, because I’d made myself quite clear. Until they sent me the findings I’d asked for, we had nothing further to say to each other. They had made quite a nuisance of themselves since their last visit.” No, she had not wanted to see or speak to them, I was happy to take that as fact. I, myself, on the other hand, was very eager to do so after hearing all of this. The rest of my coffee was barely warm by then, so I had another drink of water instead. My phone buzzed as I put my glass down.
“Excuse me please,” I apologised as I took it from my inside breast pocket, where I’d put it when giving up my coat. It was Davie Baird calling. “I need to take this, sorry.” I hit the answer button, and Davie’s voice greeted me cheerfully.
“Hey, Conall, just to let you know we got here okay and found your spot easily enough. Are you still at the house?”
“Yes, Mr Baird, I’m still here. Just finishing up. I’ll be out to see you in a little while.” I put my phone away and apologised again. “Just the forensics team I called for, letting me know they’ve arrived,” I explained. “Young Becky told us she’d heard a noise out past the kitchen yard when she went out to the bins on Tuesday evening. Sergeant Murray and I went to see if there was any sign that someone had been lurking around out there.”
Jessica blinked anxiously. “And there was?”
I nodded. “A recent, clear footprint where there shouldn’t be any. Mr Baird’s people can soon tell us if there’s anything else there to be found.” I took another sip of my water, “It’s best to call in the experts for such searches.”
“You think whoever attacked Mr Ramsay was here that night? Outside the house?” she asked, looking rather pale.
“It’s a possibility that we need to pursue, Miss Kerr,” I told her. “It may turn out to be nothing, but we just don’t know yet.”
“Good Lord!” Douglas breathed. “I don’t like the sound of that at all.”
“What route would someone take, hypothetically, to walk from the Ramsay farm to here?” Caitlin asked them. Good question. Douglas rubbed at his chin, considering it carefully.
“Well, not straight up and across. There’s rather a mess of brambles and thick growth between here and there, walking in a straight line.” An idea occurred to him, and he turned to his niece. “Jessica dear, would you fetch the blue folder of estate plans and a pencil for us, please? It’s in the second right-hand desk drawer.”
She nodded, rose, and went to fetch them. I stood too, and began to clear a good space, moving everything down towards the bottom of the table. Caitlin came to join me, at Douglas’s other shoulder as Jessica walked back through.
“Thank you, dear.” Douglas untwisted the string tie that held the folder closed and pulled out a bundle of roughly A4 sized papers, folded as thickly as OS maps. “Plan number two, I think,” he hazarded as he fanned them out. They were all neatly numbered. He picked the chosen plan out, and I passed the rest of them and the empty folder over to Caitlin to put out of the way. Once we had the plan fully opened out, with the left half of it hanging off the end of the table, Douglas pointed with his pencil at various points. “The house, the Ramsay farm, the field where the camp is.” He glanced up at me. “You can see the estate cottages, the tracks and the gates in the park fence all marked alright?”
“Yes, they’re very clear,” I assured him. He turned back to the plan.
“So, here, about two hundred yards east of the burn, that’s where the patch of uncleared land I mentioned lies, covering an area roughly like this.” He pencilled in a long oval running from north to south about a third of the distance from the boundary to the house. “I doubt anyone wishing to move quickly and furtively would attempt to go through any of that.”
“It’s all up and down the sides of a natural ridge,” Jessica added, “about twelve feet high or so and quite wide. We get most of the fruit for Martha’s blackberry jam from there, but nobody ever tries to push their way in past the edges. You’d get ripped to shreds.”
“Now,” Douglas continued, “anyone cutting around to the south of the ridge could take the track along the top end of the orchard here,” he drew in a large circle to mark out the orchard, “and then through the gate in the fence and into the park.” His pencil followed the route. “If they wanted to avoid passing near the camp, they could get up to the main entrance and out by going this way instead. Their best move then would be to head north for the woods above here by passing through this gap. Not much chance of being heard or spotted like that.”
The pencilled marks showed a clear corridor up past the west side of the house, making it easy to see the value of his reasoning. “They wouldn’t need to come so close to the house though,” I noted. “I’d have kept a bit further west myself, where there was less chance of being detected.”
“It’d be easy enough to wander off course a bit in the dark,” Caitlin remarked. “Especially if you weren’t entirely familiar with the place. Maybe a good look at the positioning of any lighted windows would help you get your bearings right again?” She made a good point. I fished my phone out again.
“May I?” I asked, and Douglas got up and moved away so I could position myself to take a good clear picture of the part of the plan that we needed. I checked it, a good, clean shot. I bounced a copy over to Caitlin and turned to face Douglas. “Thank you very much for all your help, Mr Kerr, and for the wonderful lunch, but I’m afraid we really must get on now.”
“Yes, of course, Inspector. You’re most welcome, our pleasure; we wouldn’t dream of keeping you. Only…” an anxious glance at his niece, “is there any reason for us to be especially concerned, do you think?”
Especially? No, not that, but until we had apprehended whoever had killed Gareth Ramsay, I would hope that everyone in the immediate area was taking some extra precautions.
“I would advise a few, sensible measures, Sir. Make sure everyone knows that they should not wander about on their own, most especially after dark. I’ll have a patrol car make regular passes along the road, keeping an eye out.” His anxious look deepened as I spoke, and I did not think that was a bad thing, all things considered. “Remember that everything we just discussed is mere speculation at this point but, if the murderer did use your property as a means of reaching their goal, then we have no way of knowing yet whether they mean to try to do so again. If you want to pull in some of your farmhands to watch the two entrances onto the road as well, for extra peace of mind, then, by all means, do so.” It certainly wouldn’t do any harm and should help calm their nerves a little, I thought.
“Yes, very sensible. Thank you, Inspector, I will have it seen to.” Caitlin added her thanks to mine, and we left to get our coats back and go and see Davie Baird.
“No, that’s our lot here,” Davie told us glumly, upon being asked if he had managed to find anything else near, or under our little group of trees, “and we were lucky to get it too. If they’d just kept a bit further out from under the cover, there’d ha’ been nothing left to find by today. I mean, just look at this ground, will you?”
I did. It was the same morass of muddy, flat puddles and sparse, short growth we’d been through before lunch. At least Davie had two of his boys with him, I’d been pleased to see, not just the one he’d promised us.
“Can you get anything from the print?” I asked.
“Aye, well the size o’ course, and once we run those treads through the system, we’ll have a good idea of the make and model of the boot or trainer that made it, although that might be more of a short list than a single match,
depending.”
“Right.” I’d been expecting no more than that, but Davie Baird had more tricks up his sleeve than I knew of; he kept surprising me. I pulled my phone out and showed him the route we wanted to check. He nodded and called to his lads to grab a couple more packs of gear from their van before turning back to me.
“You and Caitlin just keep your eyes peeled and shout if you see anything, alright? We’ll spread out between the park fence and here and head on down.” His boys came over, packs slung on shoulders, and we got positioned. I called DC Walker as I carefully scanned the ground ahead and to either side of me, keeping to Davie’s slow pacing on my right,
“How are you and Mills getting on?” I asked her. “Have you finished at the copse yet?”
“Almost done, Sir,” she answered, a little breathlessly. “We were going to call you soon. We have definite signs of disturbance here and a couple of partial footprints so far.” I hoped that they were extremely bloody careful moving about up there. “We’re being very careful not to go too close to any of those areas, Sir,” she assured me, “and we still have the lower end to check over.”
“Alright, then. Just make sure you don’t get careless. We’re heading down towards the burn below you with Davie Baird and his team now. We might be awhile getting there, so just hang tight where you are if you finish up before we get to you.” Davie’s hand flew up, and he called out a halt as his two lads backtracked a bit to jog over to him.
“How did you get on with your last interview?” I asked DC Walker, “Anything interesting?” I moved back a bit myself and walked in their direction, Caitlin catching up with me before I reached them.
“I’m afraid not, Sir. The lad was in town from Sunday night to Wednesday morning, on his days off. And he hadn’t seen anything unusual or any strangers around before then. Not very punctual that one; we were beginning to think he wouldn’t show at all by the time he finally turned up.” I could picture the looks they must both have given him when he walked in.
Dark of Night Page 15
