“What it’s too late for is another who’s in charge here territorial skirmish. There’s no territory to skirmish over.”
“No, there’s not. Just the property to protect.” His tone was cool and distant as a snow-tipped mountain on the edge of sight, but a flash in his eyes hinted at possible avalanches, the sort that could be triggered by a loud noise. Or the wrong noise.
Jean opened her mouth for a snappy retort, but found she had nothing. She reminded herself that she was inside his battlements now. Sapping his foundations would bring down her castle, too. Just the property to protect. Just a relationship to survive.
Jean waited until she sensed the set of his shoulders slowly loosening, armor thinning, ice melting. Still, his earlier pucker of skepticism had pleated into outright suspicion—at Zoe and her inscribed rock, she hoped, not at her. She tried, “I didn’t have any ulterior motives for wading in. If you can call a couple of sentences wading in. You know what they say, though, about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
“Oh aye. And there’s a fly that needs catching. Young Miss Brimberry knows more than she’s letting on, I reckon.”
“About Wallace? You’d be better off questioning Derek. He’s the soft underbelly . . . I know, I know, there’s no case, there’s no mandate to question either of them.” She waited, but the figure beside her said nothing. “What is it about Wallace’s death that’s got your antennae twitching, anyway?”
“What had them twitching before Zoe’s testimony, not to mention her exhibit?” He held up the carved stone. “I phoned Wallace the day before he died. He was going on about being chuffed with the sale and the renovations, how it was time for him to retire. Again. The stairs kept him fit, with his dicky heart and all, but his knees were too dodgy for the ladder to the pit prison. All he’d ever do was shine the light of the torch about. The rubbish that collected there, he’d have someone from the town clear it away.”
Jean felt her own antennae sitting up and taking notice. “But Logan found him in the dungeon. Did he fall in? Or was he pushed?”
“There was not a mark on his body. The postmortem found that his heart gave out.”
“Heart gave out. Not a mark on his body. Same with Helen Elliot. There’s an echo here, and not a pleasant one.”
“That there is.”
“Maybe Wallace had some compelling reason to get himself down into the pit prison, and it was too much for him. Although if he was used to doing the stairs, that doesn’t seem likely.” Jean looked accusingly at the blank, even secretive face of the castle. “Did you see what looked like the glass from his flashlight down there, as though he dropped it?”
“I’ll be fetching that up. No reason, I suppose, but still . . .” Alasdair stopped.
“But still?”
“The answerphone on the desk. I was setting it up with my own particulars, and found the last part of a conversation saved. I’m thinking Wallace set the machine to record, to preserve the evidence.”
Jean’s antennae became positively stiff with interest. “Evidence?”
“A man’s hushed voice telling him that meddling with things that didn’t concern him might be dangerous. To remember he was an old man, and on his own. To remember what happened to Helen. Wallace replied with a version of ‘do your worst’ and the other party rang off.”
“Whew. I don’t blame you for being suspicious. Was that a friendly warning? A hostile threat? Or a bad joke? What ‘things’ were they were talking about? And what about Helen, anyway? Just that she died alone, if not mysteriously?” Jean shook her head. “If Wallace was anything like us, a call like that would be the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
“Oh aye,” Alasdair agreed. “According to the date and time stamp—and that’s set accurately—the recording was made the morning of the day he died. Of natural causes.”
“There are ways of killing people that don’t leave a mark, or much of one, anyway, but if the medical examiner thinks everything is routine, he’s not going to look for those, is he?”
“Got it in one.”
“Or are we just sensitized to murder cases, and building one, maybe two, out of nothing here? I mean, we’d have to have a killer with a motive, and means, and opportunity.”
“Motive, that’s the sticking point,” Alasdair replied, without gagging on her repeated “we.” He tilted his head to look up at the battlements, blunted teeth against the pale sky.
Jean followed his gaze. That high window, that would be Isabel’s. “So Zoe sneaked that inscription out past Wallace the day he died. I’d have second thoughts about keeping it, too, after that. What I wonder is why she took it to begin with.”
“A good question. We’ve got too many good questions.”
“So what else is new?” She took the bit of stone from Alasdair’s hand and held it up to the collision of light and shadow. At first it seemed warm from his clasp, then chilled. She thought of Ciara Macquarrie strolling around as though—well, she did own the place, from leaky roof to shattered inscriptions. Was she independently wealthy? The one thing Alasdair had ever said about her was that he was not paying her alimony, not that any alimony a policeman could provide would buy more than a doll’s house.
“Ciara’s right,” Jean said. “This is a piece from a gravestone. Hic jacet is Latin for ‘here lies,’ as in ‘here is buried,’ not ‘here someone isn’t telling the truth.’ Hic jacet someone. Not Wallace.”
That elicited a fissure of a smile. “It’s from Isabel’s grave. A second bit of that inscription was found in Wallace’s pocket, the ac, fittingly enough.”
“In his pocket?”
Alasdair made a tight gesture that from anyone else would have been a flail of frustration. “Gary Delaney at Lothian and Borders Police sent me the report of the inquest, it being a matter of public record and all. The ruling was that Wallace was elderly, he had a heart condition, he died. Slam the file. Close the case. I’m guessing the inquest on Helen Elliot ruled the same.”
“But the answering machine tape is evidence that Wallace’s case shouldn’t be closed. And there’s a connection between the two deaths, sort of.”
“I left a message on Delaney’s voice mail soon as I found the recording, but he didn’t ring me back. Why should he have done?”
That was a rhetorical question, but Jean answered anyway. “Because it’s not your case. Any more than the theft of the clarsach is your case.”
“And because I’m a civilian now.”
A glimmer of light rose above Jean’s eastern horizon. That was it. Despite protesting he had no regrets, Alasdair was feeling left out, unwanted. His status emergency was a lot more complex than Derek’s. So was his reaction. “Alasdair, you didn’t quit your job for me. You didn’t even quit it because of me, not really. I’m just the catalyst.”
He looked at her incredulously, his eyes glinting doubly blue and doubly chill in the lamplight. “Eh? What are you on about?”
He thought she’d changed the subject, and for once couldn’t keep up with her. Or refused to try. No need to pick at scabs, after all. Jean called a truce by gesturing toward the castle. “You were going to lock up, weren’t you? It’s past dinner time, and when I get hungry I get irritable.”
Despite that opening, all he said was, “Aye. Time to be locking the doors,” and marched back up the steps. The harsh yellow light framed by the arched entrance winked out, leaving only the queasy blue-tinted light caught by the ancient walls, and a wash of silver on the sky above—clouds were moving in, seeing off the last rosy gleam of sunset and veiling the stars and moon. The delectable odor of peat smoke was coming from the farm across the road. Jean imagined Roddy offering Zoe tea and bannocks, and she rejecting them for a Coke and a bag of crisps.
With a reverberating thud the thick, wooden, iron-ribbed door slammed shut. A jingle, like ice cubes in a bucket, must be Alasdair wielding a ring of keys.
Skeleton keys? Jean imagined particles of bone
, chalky fingertips, turned in the keyholes of walled-up doors. The facade of the castle looked even darker and more dour, with only the two dim squares of light in the lower corner, the front windows of the flat, to indicate that the place was not a natural cliff face. She thought of all the shadowed rooms behind those thick walls, and wondered to what sort of step the floorboards creaked.
Walking rather than marching, Alasdair locked the door of the shop, too, then returned to her side.
“The kids were going to find their way up and down those staircases with no more than a penlight?” Jean asked. “And let themselves be locked in?”
“They were playing at goths and vampires, I reckon, the way Ciara plays at auras and ley lines. Might explain the fossilized condom I cleared away from an upper room.”
“Gross! That’s hardly the sort of place I’d choose for a romantic encounter.” She could sense Alasdair’s wry gaze on the side of her face. “You know what I mean. Cold stones, old wooden floors, splinters, whatever.”
“I’m not thinking romance had anything to do with it.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t those kids. They’re so young. Sixteen, do you think? I was a lot younger than that when I was sixteen.”
“As was I.”
She could imagine all sorts of creepy-crawlies, but not Alasdair as a child. “Were they eavesdropping on us? I’m not even sure what I said.”
“Nothing incriminating,” he returned. He didn’t go so far as to stretch, but his carapace had obviously cracked a bit. A good thing he didn’t realize what the thickness of that shell revealed about the vulnerable creature inside.
Jean said, “I guess the kids could have let themselves down from a window.”
“After they replaced the inscribed stone. Assuming Zoe was not lying about bringing it back. I should have had Derek turn his pockets out as well.”
“What does he have in his pocketses, precious?” Jean murmured, evoking Tolkien to drive back the dark.
Alasdair emitted a dusty chuckle. From the heights of the castle came not the harsh calls of crows but the cooing of pigeons, liquid warbles blending with the sough of the wind.
Jean decided to take the switch in ornithological commentary as a good omen. “You can show me the chapel tomorrow. Now it’s time to get, er, cooking.”
He rose to the bait with a thin smile. “The gate needs closing. Then I’ll cook our dinner.”
“No need, I’ve actually worked out some recipes.”
Headlights raked the side of the keep like flares bursting over a battlefield. A car turned in through the gateway, a tall boxy car that was probably a Range Rover. Where, Jean asked herself, had she just seen a Range Rover? And as its lights silhouetted her and Alasdair like soon-to-be highway hamburger, she remembered. In the driveway at Glebe House.
Chapter Nine
In the moment before the car stopped, Jean envisioned their faces screwed into grimaces at the sudden light, caught in the act. Then the headlights went out and she blinked.
When she could see again, she saw Minty Rutherford stepping out onto the gravel, graceful as a mink in the dim illumination of the car’s dome lamp. Now her tweed jacket was draped over her shoulders, revealing a string of pearls looped down the front of her sweater. She pushed the door to, extinguishing the light, and turned toward Jean and Alasdair with her hand extended. “Good evening, Mr. Cameron, Miss Fairbairn. Araminta Rutherford. Minty, to be as casual as most folk feel they have a right to be these days. Welcome to Stanelaw.”
“Thank you,” said Alasdair, and shook her hand.
Jean always found Miranda’s designer clothes to be entertaining. Minty’s impeccable tailoring, though, made her feel like a peasant clinging to the back of the turnip truck. Even the woman’s neutral shades—clothing, skin, hair, all in tints of brown and cream—held their own in the unflattering fluorescent glow of the yard light, while Jean knew her own complexion was glowing like fungus.
Fashion inadequacy was her problem, not Minty’s. “Good to be here,” Jean said, baring her teeth in what she hoped was a pleasant smile. Changing the stone flake to her left hand, she grasped the paragon’s smooth, dry fingers, which only perfunctorily returned her grasp and then wafted away.
“What have you got there?” Minty asked.
“A bit of inscribed rock,” answered Jean.
“We found it in the castle just a few moments ago,” Alasdair added, his words signaling Jean not to spill the entire story.
Minty reached for the stone. “Could it be part of the inscription on Isabel Sinclair’s grave? That’s been vandalized repeatedly over the years.”
Having no rational excuse not to, Jean handed over the stone.
“The style of the letters is sixteenth century,” said Minty, holding the artifact at pearl level.
“You’re well informed,” Alasdair told her.
“Thank you. My husband, Angus, and I are antiquarians. He’s responsible for setting up the town museum, as you probably already know, Mr. Cameron.”
Whether he knew that or not, Alasdair nodded sagely.
“Angus was hoping the excavations some years ago would turn up the missing bit of the inscription, a carving of the clarsach, but, sadly, no.” Minty handed the stone back.
Jean glanced suspiciously at it, but if Minty had anything up her sleeve, it was more likely to be an extra ace or two than a counterfeit shard of gravestone. She stuffed the stone flake into the pocket of her jacket, where its weight pulled her off-balance. “You’ve seen pictures of the original inscription?”
“Yes, there are drawings in the museum made by Angus’s great-grandfather Gerald. Along with, I’m sorry to say, a copy of Gerald’s epic poem on the subject of Isabel and Ferniebank, written in the style of James Hogg’s‘The Queen’s Wake.’ ” Minty slipped her jacket off her shoulders and put it on. The scent of what had to be Chanel No. 5 tickled Jean’s nostrils and was gone. “Your colleague Miss Capaldi tells me you’ll be joining us for luncheon tomorrow.”
“Lunch?” Jean knew that small black holes infested her brain, but she didn’t think the time of the invitation had fallen into one.
“Then Miss Capaldi hasn’t informed you yet. I’ve taken the liberty of planning a small luncheon instead of tea, hoping you and the other guests will be kind enough to taste some of my new creations that are bringing traditional recipes into the present day.”
“Oh. No problem.” Jean glanced at Alasdair, who shrugged slightly in response. The castle opened at noon, but unless a three-ring circus arrived on the doorstep, he could handle it alone.
“Dr. Campbell-Reid will be coming as well.”
Rebecca and Michael were both PhDs of long-enough standing that neither of them bothered answering to the honorific any more, but Jean assumed that in the ladies-luncheon context, Minty meant Rebecca. “I’m looking forward to, er, hearing about the new development in the area.”
“All of which has brought negative developments as well, I’m afraid.” Minty’s deprecating smile was just a bit fixed, but her voice, low and mellow as a cello, didn’t waver. Neither did her dark eyes beneath their heavy lids.
Alasdair said, “We’re very sorry to hear of Mr. Wallace Rutherford’s death.”
“And the theft of the Ferniebank Clarsach,” added Jean.
“These unfortunate happenstances do seem to come in waves.”
Happenstance? Jean asked herself. Or even coincidence?
Alasdair leaped boldly onto another item on the Stanelaw blotter, one that might imply criminal action. “Have you had any news of your husband?”
“He’ll be returning straightaway,” Minty replied, her lashes dropping over those cavernous eyes.
Jean darted a glance toward Alasdair, meeting his glance at her in mid-air. Did that mean Minty had heard from Angus? If not, why was she giving an estimated time of reappearance? There might be something to Miranda’s rumor about the marriage being in trouble.
After a long pause, Jean did the right
thing and said, “Please come in.” She didn’t actually gesture toward the flat—Minty might see her crossed fingers.
“Thank you, no, I shan’t intrude upon your evening. I wanted merely to bring you a light supper.” Opening the back of the Rover, Minty produced a wicker picnic hamper the size of an ottoman. She handed off the basket like Queen Victoria sitting down, not bothering to look behind her for a receiver.
Jean and Alasdair both lunged. Jean came up with the handles of the basket. It was heavier than she’d expected, and she almost fumbled it. From inside came the clatter of crockery, hopefully still intact.
“Very kind of you.” Alasdair relieved Jean of her burden and set it down at his feet.
“Thanks,” Jean added, to him as much as to Minty. She shook out her right arm, wondering whether it was now an inch longer.
Minty shut the back of the car and looked around. “It’s getting on for nine o’clock, isn’t it? I’d expected the gates to be closed by now.”
“We were delayed,” Alasdair told her, and when she waited for further explanation, went on, “Two local youths hadn’t yet left the premises.”
“Zoe Brimberry, I expect. Only yesterday she was wearing hair ribbons and pinafores, and now she looks to be the worst sort of guttersnipe. No respect for her elders at all, and telling the most outlandish tales. And Derek Trotter—he’s a bad influence on her. No surprise there, his mother Valerie, well, we all wished her and her child well when she left the area. Pity that she saw fit to return after all these years. As the twig is bent, I’m afraid, as the twig is bent.”
Jean thought of Valerie Trotter attempting twig-bending by cell phone outside the pub, and decided that for all her demands, little Linda Campbell-Reid was a parenting pushover.
“Zoe’s sister Shannon, now, is less intent on playing the toerag, but still . . . Well, poor Noel and Polly, they’re doing their best.”
Minty was fishing for the identity of the youths, wasn’t she? Alasdair parried. “Good job the gate wasn’t closed or you’d not have gotten in.”
“I’ve got a key.”
The Burning Glass Page 8
