Alasdair eased through the gateway and onto the road, which was free of newspeople—they were probably still staking out Ciara’s wild goose in Kelso.
“Good morning, Jean,” Michael said. “I’m hearing amazing things about the investigation.”
“You are? Who’s your mole?”
“He’s closer than you think. Alasdair. He’s just asked Rebecca if there’s room at the inn for Ciara as well as Keith.”
Jean glanced at Alasdair. “Ciara? The B&B?”
“I reckon she’s still in danger at Glebe House,” he said, “whether Minty’s arrested or not.”
Roddy Elliot paced across his farmyard, his dogs at his heels, his hands clenched at his sides, top-heavy, like a battering ram with feet. Who dares meddle with me, demanded his posture, in the immortal words of the motto of Scotland. Alasdair put the pedal to the metal.
Envisioning Minty injecting Ciara’s toothpaste with foxglove, Jean turned back to the phone. “You can put Keith and Ciara in the same room, if you have to.”
“That’s the lay of the land, is it? And I use the word ‘lay’ advisedly,” Michael added with a chuckle. “In the meantime, I’ve got news from the museum.”
Stanelaw Museum? Had there been another break-in? Perhaps Angus’s ghost was angry, unlike his living personality. . . . Oh! “About that scrap of paper in the secret compartment of the harp?”
“Aye,” Michael said. “The documents boffins had it out over the weekend, but no joy. Or very little, in any event.”
“It’s not a sliver of Mary Stuart’s laundry list?”
“Not so they could tell. It’s not words at all, but a strip off the edge of a sketch, part of a grid, a bit of an arc, and what’s likely a drip of ink. The entire drawing might have been a bairn’s game.”
“Or a map?” asked Jean. Alasdair looked over at her.
“If the paper and ink weren’t authentic sixteenth-century, I’d say it was meant to be a power pylon. As it is, it’s anyone’s guess. Coming just now,” Michael shouted away from the phone, and told Jean, “I’m obliged to play the good host. You and Alasdair, you’re owing us a full explanation soon as may be.”
“We’re just hoping we’ll have explanations to make. Thanks.” Snapping her phone shut, she told Alasdair, “The paper inside the harp, it’s the edge of a grid pattern and an ink blot. Make of it what you will.”
“Angus made nothing of it, or he’d have had it out.”
“Therefore, a scrap of paper wasn’t what he was looking for.”
The slate roofs of Glebe House rose from the trees, glistening like a freshly cleaned classroom blackboard. Minty probably sent peons up ladders with brushes and buckets of suds. Alasdair slowed and stopped behind a patrol car. Two more sat in the cooking school driveway, and a civilian, plainclothes, car was parked in front of the house. Kallinikos directed traffic, waving two officers around to the side of the Euro-barn and another to the back of the house.
“Well,” said Alasdair as he set the brake, “we’ll certainly be taking her by surprise.”
Jean wasn’t sure she’d want to take Minty by surprise, but then, everyone’s options were growing more limited by the minute. She climbed out of the car and walked across the road a wary two paces behind Alasdair.
Chapter Thirty-two
Kallinikos waved a file folder toward the cooking school in the manner of a bugler sounding the charge. “Delaney’s just taken W.P.C. Blackhall inside. Mrs. Rutherford’s been there for half an hour.”
“I guess there’s no chance of catching her with the eye of newt or toe of frog,” said Jean, earning a half-snort from Alasdair and nothing from Kallinikos. Which was just what that comment deserved. If ever she was going to play the silent partner, now was the time.
The interior of the building smelled less aromatic than she remembered, as though an arctic wind had swept away any nourishing scents. Today the granite and steel work surfaces were layered with dishes and food. Everything, green peppers, yellow-white cheese, terra-cotta bowls, a bottle of ruby-red wine, shone beneath the overhead lights as though it had been waxed and polished.
Minty stood beside the sink, wiping her hands on a towel. She was clad in a “Cookery at the Glebe” apron over a simple pair of slacks and a starched blouse with the sleeves rolled up, exposing wiry forearms.
Delaney sat in a chair beside a small table, the equivalent of a student’s desk. Blackhall handed a sheet of paper to Kallinikos. He drew another sheet from his file folder and compared what looked to Jean like blots but which she knew were fingerprints.
Kallinikos angled the sheet toward Alasdair. Alasdair nodded affirmatively. Kallinikos laid the papers in front of Delaney, who eyed them, nodded, and sat back. “Well now, Minty. Let’s be having us a wee blether.”
Jean stayed by the door, out of the line of fire. A blether, he said. A chat. Because if he charged her and hauled her in to the police station and sat her down with a solicitor, she’d have to be warned that whatever she said could be used against her—and if she didn’t say anything then, she’d better not come up with a story later. But during a social visit, where she could walk away at any time, anything went. Maybe Delaney had learned his lesson about premature arrest from Ciara and Keith.
“Please be brief, Inspector,” said Minty. “Polly Brimberry rang to say she couldn’t assist me this morning, so I’m preparing for the one p.m. class on my own.”
“You’re teaching a class,” Delaney asked, “when your husband’s laid out in an Edinburgh morgue?”
“Holding to one’s commitments is a sign of character.” In the strong lights her upswept hair looked like a warrior’s helmet, almost but not quite as impenetrable as her marble-lidded eyes. She had been expressionless all along, but this morning appeared to have dunked her entire face in anesthetic.
Minty started peeling and slicing a glistening purple eggplant. The blade of her knife flashed as it rose and fell, a tiny guillotine. “Have you a reason for presenting me with a search warrant in lieu of a sympathy card?”
“Angus didn’t die of natural causes. He was poisoned.”
“So I’ve been told.” Her gaze downcast, Minty went on slicing and dicing.
“You were seen after the dinner on Saturday pouring liquid from a glass bottle into a cup of coffee. The bottle was found in the dustbin behind the Granite Cross. It contains traces of digit, erm, of foxglove poison. It has your fingerprints on it.”
Minty waved those fingers toward a rack holding so many small glass bottles and their multi-colored ingredients it resembled a stained-glass window without the backlight. “I’ve been preparing my own spices and herbs for many years, and selling them to much finer places than the Granite Cross.”
Check, Jean thought. Delaney shifted uncomfortably. Alasdair stood in his knight-effigy pose, motionless. Kallinikos wrote in his notebook. Blackhall sucked contemplatively on her lower lip.
“You were seen,” Delaney repeated, “pouring poison into a cup of coffee. Perhaps you intended that cup for Ciara Macquarrie.”
“Sadly, there are people who are jealous of me and my accomplishments, and who would enjoy stirring up trouble for me.” Minty arranged the eggplant slices on a platter and set it aside. With the flat of her knife she crushed several cloves of garlic, the sudden, pungent burst drawing a grimace from Delaney.
“Minty,” he said. “Mrs. Rutherford. You are suspected of murder.”
“On what grounds, Inspector?”
“On the grounds that you wanted to rid yourself of Ciara Macquarrie and her queer ideas. You wanted to cover up the origins of the jewelry that bought you this building. You wanted to have the running of Ferniebank to yourself.”
Even at the supposedly off-the-wall word “jewelry,” Minty didn’t react. She’d probably spent the last twenty-four hours going over every possible scenario. Why else would she have tried to destroy some of Gerald’s papers? “How very interesting, Inspector. How very creative of you and your colleagues.�
�� With a twist of her wrists, Minty wrenched open a jar and poured tomatoes, red and lumpy, into a saucepan.
“You were shredding documents in the museum.”
“Every museum de-accessions some of its holdings.”
“You were seen poisoning the coffee.” Delaney’s forehead broke out in a sweat. Alasdair inspected the floor in front of his toes. Kallinikos inspected the ceiling.
“Who is this supposed witness?” asked Minty. “Have him or her face me in a court of law, and we shall see which of us the jury believes.”
Checkmate, Jean thought. A mature, elegant, well-connected woman accused by a fifteen-year-old boy. Even if they cleaned Derek up, smoothed his hair, camouflaged him in a suit, and gave him elocution and deportment lessons, they couldn’t keep him from being the son of a woman who had good reason to resent Minty. Even if Valerie got up and told the story of the jewelry, what proof did they . . . Proof. Something scuttled like a cockroach through the back of Jean’s mind, but as soon as she turned the light of thought on it, it was gone.
“Mrs. Rutherford,” said Delaney, heaving himself to his feet. “I expect—”
“What do you expect, Inspector Delaney? Protestations of innocence? Really, now. You and I both have better ways of occupying our time.” Her stance behind the counter was neither aggressive nor defensive, just firm with a self-righteousness that made Roddy look positively profane.
Profanity was what Delaney muttered beneath his breath. “Don’t leave the area,” he called, and was halfway to the door before Minty replied, “Whyever should I do that?”
Jean allowed herself to be swept along in the official wake, and popped out into the open beside Blackhall’s rear guard. It was still Monday morning in the real world, birds caroling, clouds sailing, flowers bobbing and weaving in the breeze. The rolling, almost feminine hills of the Borders drowsed in the gold-tinted light of oncoming autumn, all passion spent.
Delaney went on swearing, audibly this time. “Damn the woman.”
Another police car pulled up in front of the house. From it emerged Ciara, rumpled, smudged, puffy, but unbowed. She strolled over to the group gathered by the road and greeted them with a smile of transcendent tolerance. “What’s this? A Lothian and Borders conference? And here’s me, thinking the entire force was guarding Keith and me back in Kelso, hardened criminals that we are.”
“You’ll have your apology,” Delaney growled.
“No worries, Inspector. You’re only doing your job. Poor Angus, done to death at the very moment of our triumph. Who’s your prime suspect now?”
With a firm hand on the small of her back, Kallinikos edged Ciara toward Blackhall, who in turn pointed her toward the guest cottage with a murmur of, “I’m sure you’re wanting a wash and brush-up at the B&B, Ciara.”
“Oh aye, Annie, a bubble bath would go down a treat. And tea, and perhaps a sausage or two, and bacon and tomato, and toast with lashings of butter and marmalade. Those nice Campbell-Reids at the Reiver’s Rest, they’re cooking breakfast for Keith and me even though it’s going on for elevenses. Is Minty at work? She is? Then I’ll just pack my tents and steal away from Glebe House.” Ciara glanced around. “Very good of you, Alasdair, for arranging my transfer.”
“You’re welcome,” he returned, his voice so dry dust swirled across his features.
In spite of herself Jean had to smile at the retreating pair, the policewoman encased in her uniform and Ciara, the strolling piñata, still chatting away. Michael and Rebecca wouldn’t mind cooking an extra meal if it meant getting the news headlines and op-ed columns as well, even though neither would be completely up to date.
Which reminded her, she needed to check in with Miranda and Hugh. And she needed to—well, Ciara might be content to just let things happen, but Alasdair wasn’t. And she wasn’t either.
Delaney’s scowl was so fierce his jowls quivered. Even Kallinikos’s classic features eroded into a frown. Nothing for it, Jean told herself, and voiced the obvious. “Now what?”
“We keep on looking out evidence,” said Kallinikos.
“I’ll find us another stream of evidence,” Delaney said, “if I have to taste everything in her kitchen myself. Nik, turn the place over. If there’s one petal of foxglove in that house—or in that school, come to that . . .”
“You could find yourself a bed of foxgloves in her garden,” said Alasdair, “and she’d not turn a hair. She’ll not incriminate herself so easily, not that one.”
Kallinikos looked from Delaney to Alasdair and back. Setting his jaw, he walked off to gather his troops. Delaney looked down at the inoffensive herbaceous border as though he’d like to deploy herbicide and flame-throwers. In grim silence, Alasdair started toward the car.
Jean looked back at the glass doors of the school, at the gleam of light beyond. A whiff of garlic sauteed in butter hung in the air, supplemented by the merest trace of rosemary. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Mary, Queen of Scots, with her fine Italian hand. Was Minty cooking some sort of Italian eggplant flavored with red wine? Supposedly the alcohol in heated wine burned away, though Jean had eaten some dishes that seemed just as high a proof cooked as raw. The proof’s in the pudding.
“Jean?” Alasdair called.
Proof. This time she stomped the cockroach of a thought before it got away. Now if she could just analyze the resulting blob of gunk, an antenna twitching here, a leg flexing there.
She climbed into the car, buckled up, and let Alasdair make a U-turn back toward Ferniebank before she spoke. “Valerie said that the day Wallace died he told Ciara something cryptic about having proof. And he told Roddy and Minty, too.”
“Oh aye.Val’s thinking it’s proof of Ciara’s fancies, the map to the relics or to America or both. I’m not sure Ciara herself knows quite what’s she talking about.”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is what Val and Ciara thought Wallace meant. And what matters even more is what Roddy and Minty—especially Minty—thought he meant.”
“Roddy might have thought Wallace meant a map or such. It wasn’t ’til he heard of Ciara’s book deal, though, that he made his move, such as it was. Minty, now, Minty—”
“Got rid of Wallace that very day. But she didn’t know about the book deal yet, did she? What if she put her own spin on what he said?”
Alasdair’s eyebrows tightened. “‘I’ve got the proof, and you’ll be sorry when it comes out.’ Was that the word according to Derek?”
“It is, yes. Well, assuming Derek makes a good witness, but—”
“That’s not the problem now. Not,” Alasdair added, “that I’m seeing where all this is going to solve the problem of proving Minty’s the poisoner.”
“Well . . .” Jean watched the trees pass, and the farm—no Roddy now—and the wall of the castle, and didn’t speak again until Freeman admitted them to the courtyard and Alasdair stopped the car.
He propped his arm on the seat and turned toward her, in full cat at mousehole mode. “Well?”
Jean took first a deep breath and then the plunge. “Minty sent Logan to pick up the drawing of the dig. She probably just told him to pick up Wallace’s drawings, because he picked up both of them. He thought the one of the inscription was more important, because it had just been vandalized. The other sketch of the dig was inside that book about the history of the clarsach. No matter whether Minty packed Wallace’s things or just watched Polly do it, she didn’t see that one.”
“Or she’d have taken it as well. And what the drawings have in common is the wee cist. The treasure chest.” Alasdair’s eyebrows reached for his hairline. “What if Minty’s thinking—”
“That what Wallace meant was proof of them finding and taking the jewelry. His conscience bothered him. So did Angus’s—that’s why they helped Val. But Minty, center of her own universe, killed Wallace before he could give this proof to Ciara or to anyone else. I think Val’s right. Roddy’s talk about poison and murder inspired Minty to go from word to deed.”
<
br /> “Then when Ciara became a threat—a greater threat—because of her book, Minty did it again. At the pub this time round, ensuring the maximum number of suspects in the event this death was seen as suspicious.”
“What do you want to bet Angus hied himself back out here right after the dinner because, with the book deal, Wallace’s so-called ‘proof’ reared its ugly head again. Maybe Minty even sent Angus out here with orders to find Exhibit P.”
“He meant to turn over Wallace’s things again, I reckon. They were in the lumber room.” Alasdair’s brows knotted again. “What’s this got to do with getting more evidence?”
“What if we could get Minty to commit another crime, this time in front of half the policemen in Roxburghshire? Even if she never actually confessed to the earlier murders, wouldn’t that shore up Delaney’s case? Wouldn’t that make Derek into a lot more credible witness?” There. She’d articulated that much. Now for the rest.
Alasdair stared at her as though the mouse he was waiting for had turned out to be an orange. “Jean, you’re not thinking . . .”
She climbed out of the car, almost tripping over her own feet. Her emotional paralysis of the past few years had waned too far. Her entire body felt like a numbed limb when the feeling returns, all prickles and electrical zaps. If Brad had been a dampening field, Alasdair was a live wire. What was she thinking, and why was she thinking it? But she knew the answer to both.
She led Alasdair to one of the park benches beneath the eaves of the trees and sat down. The wood felt cool and the sun, filtered through the leaves, felt warm. From here she could see both castle and chapel, one wracked, the other ruined. A hint of smoke hung on the wind.
“Jean?”
For some strange reason she was short of breath. “When Delaney asked Val if she was blackmailing Minty, she said, ‘I’m never that stupid.’ She’s right, who’d be stupid enough to try blackmail on Minty?”
The Burning Glass Page 33
