“He got as far as Spain where he found some convenient infidels, the Moors, to fight. Untypically, he let himself be drawn away from his followers and surrounded by the enemy. No way out. He threw the reliquary into the thick of the fray, shouting, ‘Forward, brave heart, as ever thou were wont to do, and Douglas will follow thee or die.’”
“He died, didn’t he?” Mark asked.
“One of his men picked up the reliquary and brought it back, supposedly to Melrose Abbey, although it could well be that Marjory Douglas brought it here to Rudesburn, fifty years later, as a safety measure. The English would have loved to have gotten their hands on Robert the Bruce’s heart.”
“Because it was magic?” Hilary asked.
“The medieval mind feared magic because it believed in it,” said Rebecca. “Like we fear and believe in science and technology.”
Hilary nodded. Mark looked at her and looked away again. He asked, “What did the reliquary look like?”
Out of the corner of her eye Rebecca caught a movement at the far end of the darkened hallway, in the lobby—a late-roaming reporter heading upstairs, or a constable taking a break, or her own addled senses playing tricks on her. “It was a silver and enamel casket on a chain. It might look somewhat like the Monymusk Reliquary, a bit of religious magic from the eighth century that held either a relic or a communion wafer. It was carried at Bannockburn and is still around.”
“And Henry VIII was after the Bruce’s heart?” Mackenzie said.
“Probably. He had a record as long as your arm for relic-bashing. He called it smashing superstition. Maybe he had some atavistic idea about taking the power of the relics for himself. He certainly wasn’t reluctant to take the treasuries for himself, the offerings made by pilgrims over the years.”
“He took Rudesburn’s treasure,” said Hilary thoughtfully, “but he might not have gotten the relic. That particular relic, that is—wasn’t there a whole pile of them here?”
“Oh yes. The religious houses were the Disneylands of their day, vying with each other to get the biggest attractions.”
“How does this tie in with Elliot?” Mark asked. “Assuming the skeleton is Elliot, which is a leap of faith. I do wonder how whoever it is came to be buried so haphazardly in the cellar of a convent.”
“I’d say it was a quick and dirty job, hiding an inconvenient body.” Mackenzie drained his lemonade. “I’ll have those records to you next week, Dr. Reid. You should find some evidence in them.”
“Thank you,” Rebecca told him. She wanted to shake him and demand, “You’re the expert! Get this case solved already!” But it wasn’t that simple.
The whiskey lingered warmly in the back of her throat, but her tongue was starting to burn. She got up to ask Nora for a glass of water. At the bar Michael was holding forth with his fellow countrymen. “You can have economic and political justice in the modern world wi’oot goin’ back to some mythical time that never existed. Rob Roy was a thug and Bonnie Prince Charlie a twit—so much for truth. We folk in the Celtic Fringe have to keep the romance alive, I suppose, but I wish we’d no muck it aboot wi’ politics.”
“Celtic Fringe,” repeated Mark from the table. “Scotland, Ireland, Wales, bits of Cornwall and Brittany, right?”
“Right,” Rebecca returned.
“Then I’m qualified. My ancestors were Welsh.”
“Can you see ghosts?” Hilary asked him.
“Depends on how you define ghosts.”
“Ah,” said Grant teasingly to Michael, “but you’re a Campbell, a race wi’oot the least bit of romance in their wee graspin’ hearts.”
Michael feigned indignation. “If I were graspin’, I’d no be makin’ a livin’ siftin’ dust and ashes, would I?”
“What about the Campbells of Cawdor? They supported Prince Charlie, romantically if not politically correct.” Rebecca negotiated the floor to the bar and clasped Michael’s arm. “But then, Castle Cawdor is seven miles from Culloden. Did they rush out and get themselves beaten to a pulp with the rest of Charlie’s Highlanders? Heck no, they pulled up the drawbridge and said, ‘Battle? What battle?’ Sensible to a fault, the Campbells.”
“Oh aye, it’s easier to talk a good romance than live one.”
Rebecca didn’t mistake the slight edge in Michael’s voice. But his arm beneath her hand was firm, not tense, not trying to throw off her touch. She got her water, and together they returned to the table. He seated her and leaned against the mantelpiece at Mackenzie’s shoulder. The cats stirred themselves to make figure eights around his ankles, imprinting him with their personal pheromones. She’d done more than a bit of that herself. Wherever she and Michael went from here, they’d always carry something of each other.
“Do you suppose, Chief Inspector,” Michael said, “that Sheila was a mistaken victim just like Guinevere here?”
“How do you mean?”
Michael grimaced exasperation. “We’ve been makin’ a lot of assumptions. Did someone try to kill Guinevere because of the seal? Is that someone the same one who killed Sheila? Did the person who killed Sheila also drag her body into the church and arrange it so nicely? Was Sheila really plottin’ to scarper wi’ the reliquary—or did someone think she was?”
The room was so silent that the sigh of the dying embers sounded like a train whistle. Laurence laid down the mug he was drying and leaned on the bar.
“Occam’s Razor,” Rebecca murmured. And louder, “Michael’s fond of saying the simplest explanation is the best one.”
“I daresay it is,” said Mackenzie, and added, not entirely without sarcasm, “You’ll have noticed, Dr. Campbell, that of all our suspects only you have no alibi after 8:15. Or before, for that matter.”
So he had noticed that hypothetical 7:45-8:15 window. Michael had, too, since he reacted only with another grimace. But Rebecca found it hard to believe that Mackenzie regarded Michael as more than a hypothetical suspect.
The Chief Inspector continued, “I’ll sleep on your comments. Thank you.”
You? Rebecca queried silently. Sleep? His hooded eyes didn’t look as if they were capable of more than a quick nap. Even then he would doze like the cats did, flinty crescents of perception gleaming between his lids.
The suggestion of sleep swept like a psychic avalanche across the group. One after the other everyone yawned. Bridget and Laurence trudged toward the office. Nora collected dirty glasses. Grant stood before Mackenzie, nodding at a low-voiced series of instructions. Mark took his guitar case in one hand and Hilary’s hand in the other. The firm and yet gentle way he pulled her down the corridor made Rebecca hold Michael back. “He overheard her say something about her … her problem,” she explained.
Michael winced.
Rebecca didn’t have time to turn away before Mark stopped in the lobby, tugged Hilary around to face him, and spoke.
Her entire body quivered, a ripple moving from crown to toe and back again. She answered, facing him, chin up, eyes direct.
He stood frozen. Only the guitar case hanging at his side trembled.
Hilary pulled her hand away and walked out the door like Mary, Queen of Scots must have walked to the scaffold, pride and pain in every move.
Mark took a step back, bumped against the banister, and sank onto the bottom tread of the stairs. The guitar case thunked down at his feet. His back bowed and his head swiveled back and forth in negation.
“Bluidy hell,” said Michael. “I wish we’d no seen that.”
“We’re on display,” Rebecca returned. “Every one of us… .”
“Damn and blast!” Laurence’s voice shattered the hush. He galloped into the bar, kilt flying. “Someone’s stolen the brooch again!”
Grant and Mackenzie jostled each other down the hall and almost trampled Mark as he leaped to his feet. Michael and Rebecca dashed into the office just after Laurence and the police, Mark behind them, Nora bringing up the rear. Bridget sprawled in the desk chair. “When did you last see it?” Mackenzie d
emanded.
“This mornin’ when Michael brought in the signet ring,” she answered. “I was in and oot of reception a’ day, but no in here.”
“The ring!” Michael exclaimed. “It’s no gone, is it?”
Rebecca’s head swam from too many alcoholic breaths concentrated in one small room. Mackenzie pushed Bridget aside and tried the door of the safe. It swung open. “Baird, don’t you ever lock up?”
Laurence bent and peered into the safe as warily as though it harbored a nest of cobras.” No, the ring’s not there. But nothing else is gone. See, here’s the penny… .” He sat down on the chair. “Tony Wright wanted to photograph the brooch and the ring. I left the safe unlocked, and told him to lock it when he was done. With all the reporters and the tourists coming back and forth, I never checked. I’m not even sure he did those photos. God, I’m an idiot, certifiable, ought to be locked up myself!”
“The safe was open about five,” offered Rebecca. “I came in here for a phone call.”
“Bridget or I watched the office all day,” Nora said. “I think. Except when everyone was running around looking for Lancelot, and during that argy-bargy about the news conference… .”
“And just a little while ago,” Rebecca said, remembering that subtle movement in the lobby during Mackenzie’s history lesson.
“Jenkins,” said Bridget. “He’s awful keen on a story aboot gold.”
“P.C. Johnston,” Mackenzie ordered, “alert the other constables that there’s been a theft. Two thefts. Knock up Jenkins and Wright. And everyone else, too.” He scowled.
His scowl was terrifying, like the Phantom of the Opera when he removed his mask. Rebecca shrank back and bumped into Michael’s chest. “Clean oot from under his nose,” he said in her ear. “I’m no surprised he’s right scunnered.”
Rebecca thought, no, Michael did not have a future in the diplomatic corps. With a snarl Mackenzie shoved them both aside, strode through the lobby and burst out the door. With a rush of feet, everyone followed.
The night was dark, the air suddenly chill after the warmth of the bar. The lights of the village glowed feebly, and the priory buildings were shadows across the dark furrow of the burn. Indistinct human forms milled around Jedburgh Street, either asking questions or refusing to answer them.
Grant stood on the sidewalk holding Hilary’s arm. “I didn’t take anything,” she protested. “I was just standing here.” In the light spilling from the door, her face was racked with emotion. Good timing, Grant, thought Rebecca. But he hadn’t realized he was kicking someone already down.
Mark pulled Hilary away. “Leave her alone.”
“Sorry!” said Grant, perplexed and indignant both.
Hilary stood in the circle of Mark’s arms, her face concealed in his shoulder, her fists clenched on his chest, her back stiff, permitting the embrace but not surrendering to it. Mark raised his face from the top of her head and spit out a mouthful of hair. His steely expression read, “Just let someone try to hurt her. Make my day.”
Flashbulbs popped, preserving for posterity an array of startled expressions. Police pounded into the cottage, ejecting Dennis and Adele and once again scouring the premises. Every window in the hotel lit up, flooding the street with light and plunging the priory even further into obscurity.
Elaine, a gaudy Japanese kimono clasped snugly across her breasts, peered out of the lobby door. She looked like an animal caught in the sudden glare of headlights, stunned and frightened. A gaggle of constables swept her aside and escorted Tony, looking oddly lopsided without his camera bags, and the stumbling, half-comatose figure of Jenkins toward a waiting police car.
The wind’s chill damp breath stirred Rebecca’s hair and tickled the nape of her neck. “Another night’s sleep shot all to hell,” she muttered.
Michael nodded, mouth tight, cheeks deeply creased, eyes cold.
If they lost only sleep, Rebecca thought, and not their lives, their fortunes, and their honor, they’d be lucky.
1
Chapter Twenty
A police car stopped in front of the hotel, its racing stripe of fluorescent orange a defiant gesture against the rain. Rebecca peered at it through the window of the shop. Jerry’s posture as he emerged from the car was similarly insolent. He went into the hotel with an imperious nod, as if the police officers were so many footmen attending his glass coach.
A second car, this one white with blue lettering, pulled up behind the first. Bob Jenkins and Tony climbed out of it and went inside together. If they hadn’t been colleagues before being swept away last night, they certainly were now, fellow survivors of Galashiels police station food and Simon Mackenzie’s frustration.
Mackenzie himself stood on the pavement in front of the hotel. His expression was granite-edged, his eyes narrowed, as he registered any changes that had occurred since last night—a new bud on one of the Johnston’s rose bushes, perhaps, or a paper cup lying in the gutter. Devlin eyed his superior as a soldier on a bomb squad would eye a suspicious package.
And then, Rebecca thought, there was Battlefield Band’s version of the battle of Sherriffmuir: “We both did fight, and both were beat, and both did run away.” Except she was willing to bet that running away wasn’t in Mackenzie’s vocabulary any more than it was in hers.
Winnie handed her a sack embellished with a potato wearing a kilt and labeled “MacSpuds”. “Here you go. Was that Dr. Kleinfelter?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it was.”
The two women exchanged a wary look. “He’ll no be foolish enough to try any more fiddlin’ wi’ the data, will he?”
“He might not see it as foolishness, but as career enhancement.” Rebecca hefted the sack of potatoes. Under her arm she tucked a box overflowing with sultana bran and Weetabix, MacVittie’s biscuits and milk. With the other she cradled a box filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, and cress, chicken, and stew meat. She thanked Winnie and headed out into the rain. She was getting used to walking in the rain. “Good morning, Chief Inspector.”
Mackenzie, with admirable restraint, didn’t snap back, “What’s good about it?” He instead returned her greeting, helped her carry the sack of potatoes and a box, and walked beside her across the street and down the driveway.
Emboldened, Rebecca asked, “Make any progress last night?”
“Only by process of elimination,” replied Mackenzie. “As you see, we had to let the lot of them go. Mr. Jenkins says he never saw the ring and the brooch, and he can prove he was in London when Miss Fitzgerald was murdered. Mr. Wright says he never photographed the artifacts—and judging by his exposed film, he didn’t. Neither he nor Dr. Kleinfelter can prove their innocence of the murder, but then, neither can we prove their guilt.”
“I know that verse already,” said Rebecca.
“I thought Dr. Campbell’s comments about our assumptions were very interesting. You and he make a good troubleshooting team, do you?”
Rebecca laughed ruefully. “As long as the trouble isn’t up close and personal.” She glanced across the burn toward the priory. Through the west door of the church she could see Adele cleaning pottery shards. Elaine, having nothing else to do, tapped away on the computer. If Dennis’s attentive attitude over her shoulder was any indication, nothing else would be filed inaccurately.
In the cloister Hilary stood respectfully by while several raincoated figures arranged a block and tackle above the skeleton. It and its matrix of earth were now encased in boards, the four sides of a packing crate fitted into grooves around it. Michael and Mark emerged from the trench, so smeared with mud Rebecca could tell them apart only by their body shapes. Both were grinning; they must have just embedded the all-important bottom of the box below the skeleton. Jerry would be livid at such a tricky operation performed successfully without him.
Michael assumed his habitual posture, hands in pockets, beside the slender, upright form of Dr. Graham. Rebecca half expected the old gentleman to pull out a swagger stick and poke Michael in the
chest with it—a fine mess you’ve made of the dig, boy—but despite Graham’s military bearing, his exchange with Michael appeared quite genial.
Rebecca unlocked the door of the cottage and ushered Mackenzie inside. “How much did Tony know about the relic heart?” she asked.
“Very little—or so he says. He pointed out that a mummified heart would bring little on the open market.”
“Notwithstanding who the heart belonged to?”
“I’m not sure he fully appreciates that point. Or else I don’t. It seems to me the relic would only be valuable for its publicity value, not like, say, gold coins and jewelry, that he or Miss Fitzgerald or even Dr. Kleinfelter could sell to a private collector.”
“Museums would bid frantically for the relic, but you couldn’t hold that kind of auction in secret. The government—the Crown—would claim it first and then parcel out compensation.”
“Exactly.” Mackenzie laid the box and bag down on the kitchen counter. “Mr. Wright knew Miss Fitzgerald was after historical artifacts to build her reputation. He stayed with her because he knew his reputation, and therefore the prices he could charge for his work, would be similarly strengthened. Another version of Dr. Kleinfelter’s story. Very straightforward.”
“Oh yes, it’s all very straightforward.” Rebecca put the meat and vegetables in the refrigerator. Mackenzie found a piece of leftover toast and picked it into crumbs, watching through the window while Mark and Michael eased Graham down into the trench. Rebecca visualized Graham asking the skeleton for its name, rank and serial number. “Why confide in me?” she asked.
Mackenzie looked around at her. “Confide?”
“Discuss the case with me. As much as I hate to agree with Jerry, he did have a point when he said you wouldn’t want people trampling your clues any more than an archeologist would.”
“Then I’d advise you and Dr. Campbell not to trample any clues.”
Even Mackenzie’s features were in code, revealing little. Maybe he was trying to tell her she and Michael were no longer suspects. Maybe he was warning them about playing detective. Yet he actually seemed to be asking them for help. “We won’t, assuming we find any clues at all,” she said.
Dust to Dust Page 27
