Bareback

by John Burke

  When she had set out, Rutherford chose a vantage point on the Town Hall steps to watch the grand opening of the proceedings. Their killer was most likely somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Something in the ritual might give him away.

  Or her. For all her apparent remorse and the tearful confession of her own stupidity in trusting Sandy Craig, Rutherford was not yet ready to absolve Hannah Ferguson from some plan with Craig to get rid of her husband in what, to a couple of blundering amateurs, might seem the easy way. Most murders were committed like that: hastily, clumsily, never expecting to get caught.

  *

  The house was in a drab terrace behind the barracks, fronted by a narrow flagged area in which a colony of weeds was taking over.

  ‘Detective Inspector Gunn from Midlothian and Merse CID.’

  The sight of the warrant card provoked an instinctively hostile glare. But Rutherford, damn him, had been right. Craig eyed her up and down, and his glare turned smoothly into a leer.

  ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’

  The hall was no more than a narrow rectangle with stairs leading up on the right, and a door opening from the left into a cramped sitting-room. Three assiduously polished silver cups on the mantelpiece contrasted with the shabbiness of two sagging armchairs and a sofa with a threadbare cover.

  Craig had caught her glancing at the cups.

  ‘Sporting trophies,’ he boomed. ‘Souvenirs of happier days.’

  Yes, she could imagine that in these seedy surroundings he might yearn for happier days in Hannah’s care. At least his eyes would have been less bleary, and she would have insisted on his wearing a tie instead of slopping around with a frayed open collar.

  ‘Mr Craig.’ She would try Rutherford’s bull-at-a-gate tactic. ‘Mrs Hannah Ferguson has lodged a complaint with us that you stole her motor car from outside the Eastmarch Grange hotel on the night of Friday the eighteenth of June.’

  ‘She’s made a complaint? Bloody nerve.’

  He waved her towards a chair, but Lesley remained standing. ‘Is it or is it not true that you took her blue Metro without her permission from outside that hotel on that date?’

  ‘Went for me like a bloody wild cat. A wonder I wasn’t murdered. I tell you, she owed me one.’ His tone slid into a pretence of abject pleading. ‘I didn’t steal her car, officer, it wasn’t like that. Honest. Just borrowed it, that’s all.’

  ‘And then ditched it round the corner.’

  ‘Well, I did come home first.’

  ‘And then went out again – to get rid of it?’

  ‘No parking in this street for more than thirty minutes. So unless you want a ticket, you’d better keep this interview short.’

  ‘I’ve left my driver outside.’ That should make it clear that she was not alone and unprotected. ‘So we can talk freely,’ she added.

  He eyed her warily. She could see he was calculating the best way of dealing with her: mock humble, man-of-the-world, or a pretence of out-and-out frankness? He plumped for a mixture of injured innocence and an invitation to laugh at the whole thing. ‘Did she tell you why we were at that hotel in the first place?’

  ‘She did indeed.’

  ‘I must have been a bit of a sucker. Thinking we might make a go of it, after all.’

  ‘By getting rid of Archie Ferguson?’

  ‘He wanted rid of her. That I can tell you. We agreed I’d provide him with evidence –’

  ‘Mr Ferguson agreed with you?’

  ‘Not in so many words. Not one to commit himself, our Archie. But he knew what I had in mind, all right. I thought it would be fun, anyway. A weekend with Hannah. We always got on all right, really. Especially . . . well, you know, eh?’ The lift of his eyebrow suggested that he knew himself to be irresistible.

  ‘And Mrs Ferguson knew exactly what the weekend was about?’

  ‘Well . . .’ When Nick Torrance’s gaze had strayed across her breasts, Lesley had felt an ache low down in the stomach. Craig’s insolent stare produced a quite different feeling there. ‘I was working towards it, and she half understood. You know how it is.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Tell me.’

  He looked pleased at the invitation. ‘She could be very bossy, could Hannah. But you only had to tell her how wonderful she was and she believed you, because she was sure she deserved it.’

  ‘And when you’d finished telling her all that –’

  ‘Well, you know what women are.’ He risked a crude wink. ‘Present company excepted, officer. Soften her up a bit, then break the details bit by bit. I’d already hinted about using the chambermaid as a witness, only . . . well, that went wrong, didn’t it? Even then, if I could have got her to listen for five minutes, I’d have got round her.’

  Lesley snapped: ‘When did you hear about Mr Ferguson’s death?’

  ‘Oh, that. Poor old Archie. Heard it on the radio.’ His brashness could not easily adjust to any genuine regret. ‘Now, if only I’d known that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have needed to go to all the expense of that weekend, would I?’

  ‘According to Mrs Ferguson, the expense was hers. You not only took her car, but left her to pay the bill.’

  Craig snickered. ‘Really got myself into a spot of bother, eh?’

  Lesley chose this moment to sit down and take out her notebook. ‘When you spoke of getting rid of Archie Ferguson, did you have anything quite so final as his death in mind? It would solve your financial and other problems so easily.’

  ‘Just a minute, just a minute. What d’you think I am?’

  Lesley restrained herself from answering this. ‘When you heard the news, you didn’t think of contacting Mrs Ferguson?’

  ‘You see me as the type to go rushing off to offer condolences?’

  No. Lie low for some weeks, waiting to move in. That could have been how they had planned it. Keep up the façade.

  ‘Let me get it quite clear. You took Mrs Ferguson’s car, and you say you drove it straight here, then went out again to dump it. Why not simply dump it on your way in?’

  The front door clicked open and slammed shut. A plump girl with dyed red hair broken by a swathe of brown roots tossed her handbag inaccurately towards the nearest armchair. ‘If you think I’ve quit one poxy hotel to take on a job at a poxier one, then you can . . .’ She stared at Lesley. ‘And who the hell is this?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Gunn. Come to take me away.’

  ‘Caught up with him at last?’ She looked more favourably at Lesley. ‘What is it?’

  Obviously the owner of the ear-ring they had found in the Metro. It was that kind of ear-ring. This was probably not the most tactful moment to ask whether the girl remembered losing it.

  ‘Rape, abduction of under-age girls, importing pornographic videos,’ Craig was bragging. ‘The lot. Officer, this is Shirleen. She can testify to my dreadful habits.’

  ‘That car you nicked, is that it?’ said Shirleen.

  ‘That car we nicked, sweetie.’ He appealed to the DCI. ‘Makes her an accessory to the fact, right? Or is it after the fact?’

  Mr Furlong had said that the girl had been fired immediately. He had said nothing about whether she was allowed to stay the night, since there were no buses, or whether she lived close enough to walk home. Now Lesley realised that Craig on impulse must have brought her with him from the hotel.

  It was unlikely that he could have taken her along to Black Knowe, murdered Archie Ferguson, and then brought them both to Berwick. Unless this was an even more audacious cover-up.

  She said: ‘That’s why you came here before driving out again to ditch the car?’

  ‘Had to bring my little poppet to the front door, didn’t I?’

  ‘And you didn’t go any further that night?’

  Craig looked at Shirleen, hinting that she was the one to answer this. Grudgingly she said: ‘No, he didn’t go out. We stayed in.’

  Craig smirked. ‘I’ll say we did. And most of next day.’

&
nbsp; ‘Bastard.’

  She said it in a tone of voice less dramatic than Hannah’s, but with her own stab of venom. It hadn’t taken her long to regret falling into Sandy Craig’s clutches.

  As Lesley closed her notebook, Craig beamed suggestively at her legs. ‘That’s it, then?’

  ‘I think we may ask you to come to Kilstane for a full interview. Beginning with the matter of Mrs Ferguson’s stolen car.’

  ‘Look, I’ve told you. It wasn’t stolen. Just borrowed. Are you telling me she wants to start proceedings?’

  ‘I can’t answer for Mrs Ferguson.’ It was not quite true. Lesley knew Hannah was most unlikely to go public on this matter.

  ‘Stupid cow.’

  *

  The Bareback Lass and her Callant had been commanded to present themselves at the Tolbooth this Thursday evening at six of the clock and there partake of the loving cup which betokened the opening of the Ride-outs.

  Crowds had been flowing into the marketplace from the narrow tributaries of side streets. A television cameraman had set himself close to the statue, and a reporter was asking a councillor a string of questions which he did not seem to be enjoying. Committee members were drawn up on the Tolbooth balcony to either side of the Provost in full regalia. Dr Hamilton stared out over the crowd with a stateliness his colleagues tried vainly to emulate. Only Professor Makepeace looked as if he might be mouthing a silent prayer for a sudden downpour, or the arrival of mounted police to accuse the revellers of causing an obstruction and holding pagan beliefs liable to lead to a breach of the peace.

  The only policemen were in fact a uniformed sergeant and two constables at opposite sides of the marketplace. One constable moved into action when a coachload of trippers tried to edge into the square. Its engine throbbed noisily as passengers began to scramble out and push their way into the ring of spectators.

  A clattering of hoofs along High Street was accompanied by the sound of children cheering. A posse of riders trotted into the square, escorting Sir Nicholas Torrance and Fiona Robson.

  The Lass was radiant in a green jerkin and russet breeches. Her hair flowed freely in the breeze, controlled only by the languorous movements of her head. She did not smile into the crowd but proudly above them. It would have taken a fine figure of a man to be worthy of her. Sir Nicholas was a fine figure of a man.

  A hush fell on the crowd. The town flag was brought out beside the statue – the very flag which everyone knew had flown above the gate of the town to defy any English attempt at invasion. The standard bearer raised it reverently. Fiona leaned from her horse, took the hem in her right hand, and raised it to her lips to kiss it. When it was taken from her, two buxom girls in kilts and red blouses tied four ribbons to the staff.

  Six young men emerged on to the balcony and squeezed through the Committee until they were pressed against the rail. Their leader held a faded sheet of music up for all to see, and there was a sprinkling of applause as they began singing.

  To DCI Rutherford the sound was barbaric; but he noticed that Sir Nicholas was transfixed, staring at the singers in what might have been awe – which the performance scarcely justified.

  Over the heads of children in a place of honour at the front of the crowd, Hannah Ferguson eyed the Lass with unconcealed scorn.

  On the balcony, the Provost unrolled yet another scroll and began declaiming further commands to the Baillies, Birliemen, and Masters of the Trades and Craft Corporations in phrases which had a noble ring but were incomprehensible to anyone a few yards away. When he had finished, the leader of the riding escort raised his hard hat in the shape of a sixteenth-century morion, and conducted three cheers. As the echoes bounced off the clock tower, Fiona with graceful timing held out her hand to her Callant. Torrance bent to kiss it, looking slightly uneasy on his horse.

  The crowd cheered lustily until Fiona dismounted, and one of her attendants led her horse away.

  There would be a Ride-out now, races tomorrow, and a formal beating of the bounds in which she would be allowed to take part only as one of a group of townswomen, with no special privileges. Being symbolically far away on the English border, she would now cease to exist in any special character until the great day when she reappeared riding bareback from Grey Gyle, pursued by the Englishman but arriving in time to meet her Callant and for them to go into the cairn to seal their troth.

  The owner of Torrance’s mount waited impatiently for his mare to be returned so that they could join the Ride-out. Sir Nicholas slid gratefully to the ground, thanked the young man, and stood back as riders swirled into formation in the marketplace. There was a gale of shouting, laughter, and jockeying for position. The police urged the crowd to open up an exit from the south-eastern corner of the marketplace. It began emptying as swiftly as if somebody had lifted a drain cover. The leader of the riders let out a wild whoop as a signal for the Ride-out to begin, urging his mare to head for the bridge and the knowes and rigs beyond, followed by exuberant sons of local farmers and screechy young women with black felt hats and meaty bottoms.

  They cantered along the street and paused to regroup at the foot of the long hill out of town. Their goal after a circuit of the Hanging Tree was the Roadhead Inn. Rutherford wondered whether on the day itself a series of portaloos would be installed at strategic points along the route.

  *

  Nick turned to suggest to Fiona that she should join him for a stoup of their own in the Tam o’ Shanter, but without a word she moved a few steps away.

  ‘Nae, Sir Nicholas.’ The Convenor had appeared at his elbow. ‘That’s nae correct.’

  Nick ought to have remembered that there should now be no public communication between himself and the Lass until the final day of the ceremonies. As in some outlandish marriage custom, after the public display of loyalty and affection they were supposed not to meet or talk again until the day when she came riding back into his arms . . . in the cairn.

  Were they really going to have a tryst in that place with such grisly recent contents? Nick felt queasy at the notion; yet it was his own decision that the ritual should be honoured.

  Fiona herself did not lack a willing escort. At this moment she was being squired toward the door of the Tam o’ Shanter by Jeremy Makepeace. What was forbidden to the Callant seemed to be quite in order for the English interloper. Until the day of reckoning.

  While he had been inviting Fiona into the pub, something had begun singing fretfully at the back of Nick’s mind: echoes of a melody which had soared from the Tolbooth balcony. ‘Dr Hamilton, that version of The Song we heard a short while back . . .’

  ‘There is only one version of The Song,’ said Hamilton magisterially.

  ‘When it was performed at the Pipers’ Ball, there were some interesting differences from the version we’ve just heard.’

  ‘Och, at the ball there were a few who’d had a dram too much.’

  ‘There’s more to it than that. You did once say I might be interested in seeing the original manuscript. Since we are here, might I have a glance at it now?’

  Hamilton waited for some inner guidance, then conceded: ‘It will not yet ha’ been locked away. If ye’ll come upstairs with me, I’ll show it ye.’

  They went up into the council chamber, where a few of the Committee were sharing out rations of whisky. For their own sakes Nick hoped it was Ian MacKenzie’s innocuous blend rather than the Convenor’s special bottling.

  With due solemnity the stained, creased page of music was laid on the table before him. Hamilton watched for some sign of approval, even of awestruck veneration.

  Now the sounds in Nick’s head grew clearer. The memory of what had been sung in Black Knowe clashed for a while with what had been sung here on the balcony. Then the themes separated like the contrapuncti of a fugue floating out in a final resolution.

  ‘Dr Hamilton, I’d like to ask you for the privilege of taking this home to study it.’

  He was sure he was heading for a refusal. The Convenor’s w
hole face became steeped in a shadow of unease. Perhaps in his view it was blasphemous for any newcomer even to lay hands on this venerated relic.

  ‘Sir Nicholas, it’s a priceless document.’

  ‘Of which I’ll take great care.’

  As he had taken care of the quaich? Hamilton’s eyes widened eloquently. ‘To allow it off these premises –’

  ‘I’ll offer myself up as a human sacrifice at next year’s Ridings if any ill befalls it.’

  Dr Hamilton was unlikely to take this seriously; but he could not quite bring himself to continue thwarting a man of such consequence. ‘Very well, Sir Nicholas,’ he said reluctantly. ‘And I know we should all appreciate any fresh musicological theories you draw from this noble old chorus of ours.’

  Nick walked out with the sheet in its leather-lined envelope.

  Eager to settle himself at the piano which had arrived in the latest delivery of furniture and archives, he picked out the top line from the crabbed handwriting on the staff. Notes fell easily enough beneath his fingers; but their placing on the page was wrong. The bar lines didn’t fit. Something began ticking in the depths of memory. He slid off the piano stool and began digging through the boxes of CDs and TEAC reels still only half emptied. There was one tape a friend had made a few years back on Lewis, which he knew had to be relevant. Harry had been anxious to preserve a few authentic examples of Hebridean song before it disappeared completely into the four-square predictability of modern pseudo-folksong plugged on radio and television.

  He had just slotted the reel into place and wound the free end of the tape on to the blank spool when Fiona slid in as if it had scarcely been necessary even to open the door.

  ‘Sir Nicholas’ – would she sound so respectful when he ravished her within the cairn? – ‘I have been thinking about our music.’

  ‘Our music?’

  ‘We seem to be in harmony. On so many things. I feel there are things we might record together. You know more about it than I do. You arrange the songs I know, and make so much more of them. And I will sing. And you will tell me how it is done.’