The Burning Glass

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  “That it is,” he stated, as much to himself as to her. He squeezed her arm, her shoulder now being unavailable, and bent his forehead to hers—yeah, she was buttoned up, but cheery she wasn’t. Before any ruptures could occur in his carefully glaciated expression, before any fissures could break her pretense of calm, a wave of officialdom burst through the front door and down the hall.

  Kallinikos and Freeman swept Dougie’s litter box and assorted cleaning implements into the bedroom and started setting up recording devices in the closet. The squint, Jean thought, was actually going to be used for its original purpose. It might have been listed in the fine print on the P and S survey, but if not for Dougie, a vital part of the investigative team . . . Here came the little creature himself, whiskers smug, borne in state in Freeman’s arms. “That’s a grand wee moggie,” Freeman told him, flirting with oxymoron, and set Dougie down on the bed.

  Outside the window, the shadow of the castle was elongating over the river and toward the east. What the bloody hell was I thinking?

  Delaney stood in the living room, holding out her backpack. “The fake documents are inside, at the top.”

  “Thanks.” She hung the bag from her shoulder, not that she could feel it through the armor. She couldn’t feel much of anything, other than a tickle of sweat. Somewhere her pulse was beating. She could hear it in her head like the flood and retreat of the sea.

  Kallinikos reported, “She’s left Glebe House. I’ve got Binns amongst the trees by the layby, if she stops there and walks in the back way.”

  The die was cast, the Rubicon crossed, the bridges burned. Half of Lothian and Borders seemed to be gathered in the living room. But when Jean stepped outside, not a soul was in sight. The incident room was closed tight. The gate was temptingly ajar. She caught a quick movement behind the roof parapet—what, were they going to rappel down the side of the building like marines? A crow launched itself into space and with a cawed remark flapped away.

  A dog barked. A cow mooed. The sky shone, clear and peaceful. She looked behind her to see in Alasdair’s eyes a storm brewing, the indigo horizon of a blue norther. Then he shut the door.

  Feeling like a turtle, Jean walked down the steps of the flat, across the gravel, and into the front door of the castle. From the shadow of the entrance she heard a car approaching and slowing. Through the open doorway she saw a Range Rover turn in through the gateway. She glanced at her watch. Trust Minty to be bang on time.

  Jean inhaled the musty air, exhaled her fears, and told herself, Showtime.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The Range Rover rolled to a stop. Minty stepped out, gracefully, her leather boots—not quite dominatrix-style, but close—barely pressing down on the gravel. She’d removed her apron and added a tweed jacket and her leather handbag, but otherwise looked as informally formal as she had earlier.

  Then a second car drove into the courtyard. A patrol car. Logan. Of course he would still trust Minty. As Jean faded back into the shadows of the Laigh Hall—the far side of the Laigh Hall, behind the boxes—she sensed rather than heard a stir of consternation from the hidden troops.

  Logan followed Minty into the Hall and braced himself by the door, his expression that of an executioner testing his rope. Minty herself took several steps closer to the Wallace collection and turned her cool, composed gaze upon Jean. “Here we are, then. Like the shoemaker’s children going without footwear, so the policeman’s doxy creates a blackmail scheme.”

  “We cannot have that,” Logan said.

  Jean tried what she hoped was a knowing smile. “Has it occurred to you, Constable, that it’s hard to create a blackmail scheme out of thin air? Minty has things to hide. That’s why she’s here.”

  “She’s here as a public-spirited citizen reporting a crime,” he replied. “You’d best be coming with me, quietly, now. Inspector Delaney’ll be keen on hearing this story.”

  Minty stood draped in shadow like a Roman in a toga. Like a queen in ermine. Good move, figuring out a way of getting rid of Jean long enough to destroy the threatening papers. Minty probably played nothing more than bridge, but still, she was a heck of a gambler.

  Jean had to play the hand she held. She pulled her backpack around to the front and reached inside. “You’ll recognize Wallace’s drawing and handwriting.”

  A tiny burst of static caused Minty to glance behind her. Logan plucked his radio from his shoulder. Distantly, Delaney’s voice said, “Valerie Trotter’s done a runner. Stop her at her cottage.”

  “Valerie Trotter,” repeated Minty, the name edged with venom.

  “Sir,” Logan protested, “I—”

  “Now, Logan. She’s got to be stopped!”

  “Aye, sir.” Logan hurried toward the door. “Come away, Minty, we’ll deal with this later.”

  With a glance at Jean that was more calculated than cool, Minty walked across the Hall and into the entrance chamber. Jean stood immobile, not looking at the blank door and the bit of paneling covering the squint. Good move, Delaney. I bet that was Alasdair’s idea, bluff the bluffer.

  The sound of Logan’s car roared and then died away. The front door shut, a key turned in the lock, and Minty walked back into the Hall.

  Okay. Jean tried to settle the sudden shrill titter of her nerves. Minty was taking an even bigger chance now. If she intended to eliminate Jean as yet another pesky annoyance, Logan would know she’d been here. Of course, he’d cut her enough slack to wrap Edinburgh Castle. Minty’s eyes burned beneath their heavily draped lids. Good, she was getting frustrated. Bad, she was getting frustrated. “Where are these no doubt fictitious documents?”

  Stepping forward, Jean laid the sketch and the envelope on top of the box containing Wallace’s other papers. “If you’re so sure they’re fictitious, why are you here?”

  “I looked through Wallace’s papers and saw no drawing and certainly no, ah, testament.”

  “The drawing was inside a book, The Harp Key. The confession . . .” Jean’s brain lurched. “It was inside that case for cufflinks and stuff. In a false bottom.”

  Minty looked down at the box as though it concealed animals with sharp teeth and nervous dispositions. Then she bent toward it, right hand extended, her handbag sliding down her left arm to her left hand. After another long pause, during which she could easily have counted the thumps of Jean’s heart, she stood up holding the drawing and the envelope. A whisper of movement trickled down the main staircase and she looked sharply upwards.

  “Birds, bats,” said Jean. “Alasdair says there are both in the rafters.”

  “You’re not frightened, here, alone?”

  The woman was a fencer as well as a gambler. Fencers, now, they used blunted swords. “Wallace lived here alone. Gerald lived here alone. They got along just fine.”

  “They were eccentrics. Especially Gerald, in the fine old British tradition.”

  “Traditional but embarrassing. A shame Wallace’s enthusiasms got out of hand, and attracted Ciara. Who knows better than I do what a weirdo she is? She was the last straw, I bet. After all you’d done for the community, she barged in with plans that would have attracted the wrong element. And raised questions about the jewelry.”

  Minty didn’t move, didn’t blink.

  “You didn’t know about the jewelry, did you, until Angus came home with it? It bought you your cooking school, something you deserved after all your hard work. But Wallace and Ciara, they made trouble for you. A shame you got Angus instead of Ciara. That was Noel’s fault, wasn’t it? These people are so distressingly incompetent.”

  “Yes, they are.” Minty’s alabaster complexion was flushing an unbecoming shade of magenta. She scrutinized the drawing of Valerie holding the chest and flipped it over to consider the inventory. A tiny nod, the briefest bob of her head, told Jean that Val’s listing of the jewelry had been spot-on.

  “You’ll go after Valerie next, won’t you? You should have eliminated her years ago, but she went away. And now she’
s back, insulting you, humiliating you. She deserves a dose of foxglove.”

  “Yes.” Minty wadded the drawing and threw it down. She weighed the envelope, set it on the box, then looked up at Jean. Her eyes were glowing coals. “You want your money, is that it?”

  Jean stepped back. If she had learned anything from Alasdair, it was to beware drilling beneath an ice cap. Deeply buried under Minty’s layers of frost and polish was, indeed, a molten core.

  Jean balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to dodge. “You had the castle renovated and opened. You took the jewelry. Like James III at Roxburgh, you’ve been blown up by your own cannon. Is that why you didn’t want Isabel’s burning-glass, because it’s a mirror and if you look into it you’ll see who’s really to blame?”

  “Very clever,” said Minty between clenched teeth. Her right hand inched toward the open top of her handbag.

  “Or should I draw the comparison with another monarch? Did you look at Valerie Trotter, did you hear Angus and Wallace talking about her, did you see them sending her and Derek gifts?” Breathe, Jean told herself, and bent her knees. “Did you ever say, in the words of Elizabeth about her cousin Mary, ‘she is lighter of a healthy son, but I am barren stock’?”

  “Damn you to hell.”

  Not many people, Jean thought, could say that without plastering several exclamation points onto the end.

  Minty’s manicured fingers plunged into her bag. From it she whipped out a knife, a carving knife, a long pointed blade gleaming in the uncertain light as though with witchfire. Throwing the bag down, she leaped.

  Jean leaped as well, not particularly anxious to see if Blackhall’s vest would turn six inches of doubtless high-quality and well-honed steel. Emitting a deliberate scream—okay! now!—she dodged to the side and toward the door.

  Instead of coming straight for her, Minty spun around to block the door. Her face, Jean noted with part of her mind, was perfectly calm except for the eruption in her eyes. The other part of Jean’s mind was palpitating, looking for an escape route—footsteps thundered down the staircase and blows smashed against the front door . . .

  Minty lunged toward her, knife raised.

  Jean sprang for the staircase, slipped on the dusty, uneven treads, told herself that at least she was wearing athletic shoes—Minty’s boots must be slowing her down. Amazing how fast she could get her muscles to flex despite the extra weight of the armor, with a deadly weapon in a conscienceless hand just behind her.

  She had passed the second floor and was heading for the third before she realized she hadn’t met any police heading down. Great, wonderful, glorious, they’d come down the main staircase and she was heading up the secondary one.

  Shouts echoed through the building, Alasdair’s voice lifted in something incomprehensible. For all she knew it was the Cameron war cry.

  Not the cap house, she couldn’t let herself get trapped in the cap house, with no way out but the parapet. Jean catapulted into a shadowed room on the dark side of the building, twelve panes of wavy window glass admitting only a ghostly gray light. Isabel’s room.

  Door. Shut the door.

  She spun, seized the knob, pushed. Twine was holding the door open. Knotted twine.

  Where was Minty? Had she lost track of her quarry in the upper reaches of the building, confused by echoes? No such luck. The floorboards of the hall were groaning to stealthy steps. The woman wasn’t breathing heavily. She didn’t seem to be breathing at all.

  Jean ripped off her backpack, tore open the zipper, dumped everything onto the floor. Her phone went spinning away, its read-out bright as a candle flame. The box, glass lens, glass mirror. She rapped it against the cold, sooty hearth of the fireplace and it broke in her hand, cutting the mound at the base of her thumb with a pain that felt like searing heat. Blood welled, ran down to her wrist, caught in the fibers of Alasdair’s sweater.

  With the shard of glass she slashed at the twine. It gave. The door started to slide shut, as though pushed by invisible hands. She threw her weight against it and slammed it just as Minty hit the other side, first with a solid thump and then with repeated blows.

  A bolt. There was a bolt. In a desperate spasm of strength, Jean freed the rusty metal rod and jammed it into the catch. She leaped backward so fast she tripped over her bag and crashed down onto her rump, jarring every bone in her body.

  A knife blade worked its way between the panels of the door and moved back and forth like a metal tongue. Light. A rosy light was growing in the room, and the air was heavy, crushing her against the planks of the floor.

  Footsteps. Voices. A scream of anguish, short and sharp. Jean could hear it vibrating in her ears, on and on, even after the leaden air no longer carried the sound. She heard the clump of heavy feet, blows against the door, a breath gasping in terror that wasn’t her breath at all. She saw red flame spurt suddenly on the hearth and long skirts whisking past her face, and smoke rising, gray, and dense.

  Male voices shouted. The door held. The flame died down. The air lifted. And the skirts, the bodice, the little cap, the oval face with its large eyes, all thinned into mist and evaporated.

  Jean sat on the floor alone, but not in silence. Again she heard blows against the door, this time not mailed fists but bare hands. A familiar voice called her name, “Jean! Jean!”

  She crawled to her feet, tottered to the door, and released the bolt.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Large, cool hands seized her. Strong arms pressed her against a chest, broad and firm. “We’ve got her,” Alasdair said into her ear, and above her head, loudly, “Bring the medical kit.”

  She was trembling, shudders of hot then cold then hot running from crown to toe. Still she managed to look past the crevasses in Alasdair’s face to the corridor, where the darkness was now stitched with the lightning bolts of flashlight beams.

  Linklater and Blackhall held Minty between them, stiff as stone. One strand of hair dangled down beside her face, its skin gone so pale it was faintly green. Her eyes stared ahead, not at Jean but past her, as though she watched the foundations of Ferniebank crack and crumble and the sheer sides collapse. Then Delaney, wheezing, holding the knife, stepped forward and intoned, “Araminta Rutherford, I arrest you . . .” And she was gone.

  “Only you,” said Alasdair, his breath warm against Jean’s ear, “would use historical metaphors to push someone over the edge.”

  “I didn’t,” she croaked, and tried again. “Elizabeth said Mary was lighter of a fair son, but Derek’s just not . . .” Kallinikos wrapped her hand in gauze, his touch gentle, his expression offering no comments. Her hands were red from blood and from the rusty bolt. Caught red-handed.

  She wobbled, but Alasdair held her steady. Kallinikos collected her things and put them back in her bag, then considered the shards of sepia glass littering the floor. “Is that the burning-glass?”

  “Yes. No. It was,” said Jean. “That’s seven years bad luck, isn’t it?”

  “No,” Alasdair stated.

  Kallinikos gingerly collected the bits into the cardboard box, tucked it, too, into her bag, then hung the bag over her shoulder. Between them, the men got Jean back down the spiral staircase, whose steps had contracted and lumpified in the last—how long had it been since she ran up them, fear lending not only wings but stabilizers to her feet?

  Delaney waited in the Laigh Hall, holding the crumpled sketch and envelope. Logan stood at his side, his obsidian chips of eyes darting right and left, saying, “Minty’s the killer? How . . . Well now, I’m supposing she’s properly a Maitland, not a Rutherford at all.”

  Delaney’s stubby fingers shooed Logan away. His thick glasses turned toward Jean and Alasdair. His chest swelled. “Well, now.”

  From far above fell a ripple of harp strings, a descending arpeggio, as though the harper was tuning his instrument—or playing a farewell. Jean and Alasdair glanced so sharply up they almost knocked heads. But the notes faded into infinity. And Jean thought, the har
p. The harp key.

  The only heaviness she felt was that of the bulletproof camisole, the only chill that of the air in the Laigh Hall. Delaney’s voice, rising and falling like one of Logan’s bees, rabbited on about Minty—not exactly a confession, charges, enough to be going on with.

  Jean seized her scuttling thought and hung on for dear life. “The harp is the key,” she said, interrupting Delaney. “Harp marks the spot.”

  He stopped in mid-phrase, mouth hanging open. Poor little lady, his expression said, we’ve asked too much of her, she needs tea and cold compresses.

  Alasdair, though . . . His brows began their roller coaster imitation.

  “Get this thing off of me.” Handing Delaney her bag, Jean pulled the sweater over her head and gave it to Alasdair. Kallinikos stepped forward and helped him remove the vest, leaving her standing in a slightly damp T-shirt that should by rights have been chilled but which she suspected was steaming in the cool air. Retrieving her backpack, she fished out a hairbrush and dumped the bag on the floor. “Open the door to the dungeon. Give me that torch.”

  Alasdair pulled open the trap. Kallinikos handed over his flashlight. Jean shone the light into the pit. Dust, dirt, stones—nothing had changed. Nothing except her own perceptions, broken into shards like the glass but more easily reassembled. “We thought the harp jewelry was long gone. We thought the piece of the inscription engraved with the harp was long gone. But Wallace noticed that the inscription is in a reddish sandstone, not the local gray whinstone.”

  “And so,” said Alasdair, “he got himself into the dungeon with a piece of the inscription for comparison and a magnifying glass, the better to see the contrast.”

  “Because of something Gerald said, probably. As an amateur archaeologist, he would never neglect a dungeon.”

  Delaney folded his arms and with a beseeching roll of his eyes asked, “What the hell are you on about now?”

  “Exhibit P,” Alasdair told him. “The genuine Exhibit P, not what Minty was thinking it was. Likely not what Ciara’s thinking it is. Third time’s the charm.”