‘You want to speak to Malky?’ I said. ‘Then you do it through his agent.’
CHAPTER 41
The amount of dirt I had on my dead cop, Callum Galbraith, I could have put under a contact lens without making my eye water. If even the redoubtable Fiona Faye Q.C. wouldn’t take on Isla’s case it was clear I had a lot of work to do. That’s why I couldn’t get out of my head the guarded yet highly intriguing comments of my client during our drink together in the Jinglin’ Geordie. With no other obvious line of enquiry, I decided that if I wanted to rake up some muck on the deceased his estranged brother would be as good a source as any.
According to information Andy had gathered at the funeral, Callum Galbraith’s brother, Fergus, had a farm or steading somewhere along the way between Fort William and Mallaig, a forty-five mile stretch of the most beautiful countryside anywhere in the world and better known to all as ‘The Road to the Isles’. I could have asked Isla Galbraith for directions but hadn’t dared in case she instructed me not to go. She’d made it very plain that on the subject of her brother-in-law she had nothing to say and yet it was her reluctance to speak of him, combined with his absence from Callum’s funeral, that made me think there might be a rich seam of dirt there ready to be mined by yours truly.
So I decided to look north, though not alone. If, as I hoped, I elicited some helpful information from Fergus Galbraith, I needed a witness to it. I didn’t want him going back on anything in court or saying that I’d pressurised him in some way. Zoë, I decided, would be the perfect travelling companion; she hailed from Oban and would have a better idea than me of the local geography. That was my story and I was sticking to it. Grace-Mary had given me a knowing wink when I’d made the announcement and Andy, at first slightly miffed, was placated by the fact he’d be given free rein on my court work while I was away.
The back of noon on that glorious Friday, we had rounded the top of Loch Linhe, climbed past Glenfinnan and were heading for Druimindarroch when I felt compelled to stop the car. ‘How about that for a view?’ I asked Zoë as she joined me to sit on a large roadside boulder, and together we gazed out at what seemed liked the whole of the Western seaboard opened up before us, from the white sands of Arisaig and Morar, across the water to the dusky Isles of Rhum and Eigg and, beyond, the deep indigo of the Cuillin mountains. If you can’t see the Cuillins for cloud you know it’s raining on Skye, and if you can then you know it’s going to rain. So the saying went at any rate, but on this fine day there wasn’t even the rumour of cloud or mist. The sea was a sheet of blue and a gentle, warm off-shore breeze brought with it the sweet smell of heather from the hills. I sat there enjoying being with Zoë, savouring the surroundings, basking in the sun and trying not to think of what might be happening at Linlithgow Sheriff Court. Andy, left in charge with all the court business, would either be in his element or flapping like a seagull in a force nine gale. I should have cared but I didn’t; not at all. Why did I bother? Toiling away in the industrial central belt of Scotland seemed a waste of precious time when a landscape of such breath-taking splendour was scarcely a hundred miles to the north.
‘God’s own country,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Zoë was prepared to concede. ‘It’s lovely when the sun shines, but take it from me, the rest of the time it’s a rainy, midgie-infested wilderness with nowhere to go and nobody doing anything except making whisky or drinking it.’ She said it like it was a bad thing.
All too soon it was time to cram myself behind the wheel again and set off once more on the quest. We had to be getting close. Along the route we’d stopped off at various outposts of civilization to ask the way to Fergus Galbraith’s place and had been told to look for a farm called Ardfern, supposedly situated at the foot of the hills to the east of Arisaig. Nearing the village we passed by one or two tracks leading off the main road and I was tempted to check them out until Zoë saw a sign for a hotel up ahead and suggested we make for there and continue our explorations after lunch.
The lounge bar of the Acarsaid Inn was a cosy pine-clad room with a couple of sofas either side of a fireplace in which there were no logs but an arrangement of dried wild flowers and grasses. There were some tables at a far window and, on the right as we came in the main door, a high counter behind which a barman was palely loitering, not to say swaying slightly. The window tables were taken so we sat up on bar stools. I fancied a pint. I asked for fizzy water. Perhaps I was thinking about Malky and Cathleen’s fateful lunch. Zoë ordered a glass of Chardonnay.
‘That’s the white one, isn’t it,’ said the barman studying a set of optics that held a choice of two different coloured wines. His every action seemed to be carried out in slow motion, every movement an effort.
When at last we’d been served our drinks, a large friendly woman with a matt black beehive hair-do came over. She introduced herself as Netta and handed us a couple of laminated menus. ‘I’ll be your waitress today,’ she said cheerily, before, in an instant, her happy expression changed to one of contempt. ‘In fact I’ll do bloody everything,’ she called over her shoulder at the barman, ‘because someone got pissed last night and couldnae bite his fingers today.’ She turned again to us, the smile restored to her plump, powdered face. ‘See anything nice on the menu?’
We both saw a lot nice on the menu and agreed that so close to the port of Mallaig it would be madness to order anything other than fish. As, with some anticipation, we awaited the arrival of lunch, the door opened and a large man came in, breathing hard, sweat dripping down his tanned brow. He stood for a moment catching his breath. A Border collie threaded between the thick, hairy legs that exited from a pair of khaki knee-length shorts and descended into knitted socks and scuffed hiking boots. The man sat down beside us, ordered a pint of heavy and downed it in two goes while his collie-dog wandered about, sniffing inquisitively with, as Zoë soon discovered, an extremely cold and wet nose.
‘Sorry about that, love,’ said the sweaty man, clicking his fingers and bringing the dog to heel. Without being asked, the barman placed another pint on the counter and the man rubbed a hand up the condensation on the glass and wiped it across his forehead. ‘He’s young and I’m old and knackered trying to keep up with him.’ He took a long pull from his drink. ‘On holiday? Picked a good time. Best spell of weather we’ve had in ages. Should have seen it a couple of weeks ago - pissing like a brewer’s mare it was.’
‘Language, Norrie,’ said the waitress emerging from behind the bar and setting knives and forks wrapped in red napkins on the counter in front of Zoë and me. As she did I noticed a bracelet on her right wrist. It was silver with charms of little fish and tiny filigree nets alternating around it. It looked familiar, though at the time I couldn’t think why.
‘As I was saying,’ said the big man after the waitress had disappeared again, ‘it’s been hotter than hell this past week or so.’ He took another mouthful of beer. ‘Needed that.’ He wiped froth from his top lip. ‘Been sweating like a boxer’s bawbag.’
‘Norrie!’ The waitress bellowed from out of sight.
‘So what brings you up to the Back of Keppoch?’ asked the man in the khaki shorts, unperturbed, his question directed at Zoë, eyes fixed on her sky-blue satin blouse. ‘Business or pleasure?’
‘Oh, just passing by and thought we’d look up an old friend,’ I butted in.
He didn’t look at me but gave Zoë a playful nudge with his elbow, ‘as the gynaecologist said to the actress, eh?’
‘Norrie!’ barked the waitress returning with two plates of fish and chips that would have fed a coach party.
‘Oh, wheesht woman. My mother’s dead, who gave you her job?’
Cocking an accusing eye at the man in the khaki shorts, the waitress beckoned to Zoë and me and led us from the bar over to one of the sofas by the fireplace.
‘You’re better over here out of the way,’ she said loudly, so that the man in the shorts could hear. She pulled over a nest of tables. ‘Norrie’s an acquired tast
e that most of the women around here have been fortunate enough never to acquire.’ She placed a small table in front of each of us and set out the knives, forks and napkins again.
Norrie scooped the last of his pint. ‘I’m a local character, that’s what I am.’ He rattled the base of his tumbler on the bar. ‘And a thirsty one.’
‘I’d bar him,’ said the waitress, paying him no heed. ‘If in a moment of weakness, I hadn’t been stupid enough to go and marry him.’
When we were leaving after lunch and on the way back to my car, we met the man in the khaki shorts again. He was standing beside a battered and dusty Jeep that looked as though it might have seen some action in Korea.
‘We’re looking for directions,’ I called to him.
‘To your friend’s place?’
‘Yeah. His name’s Fergus Galbraith. Owns a farm around here somewhere. I think it’s called Ardfern.’
The big man laughed. ‘A farm? Is that what he told you? Ardfern’s a croft and you’re a deal wide of the mark if you’ve travelled this far north.’ He came over, turned Zoë around by her shoulders, stood closely behind her and pointed back the way we’d come. ‘Go south five or six miles, take a left before the old kirk and it’s another mile and a half after the road ends.’
He whistled. The dog stopped sniffing the grass at the edge of the car park and was by his side in an instant. ‘That yours?’ The man came over and cast a critical eye at my hatchback with its sagging suspension and low slung exhaust. He kicked the tyres and shook his head. ‘You’d better come with me.’ He went over to the jeep, opened the passenger door and leaned the front seat forward.
‘Come on. Get in,’ he said.
Zoë pointed through the rear window at a policeman’s hat on the back parcel shelf.
‘Are we under arrest?’ she joked, looking at me, a wry smile on her lips.
‘What?’
‘The hat,’ Zoë said. ‘Are you the law around these here parts?’
He laughed. ‘Oh. Aye. That’s me. Norrie Baxter. The only law west of Fort William.’ I was practically shoved into the rear seat, the collie jumping in after me. The big man climbed in behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. ‘I’m retired. I keep the hat on the back ledge for when I go to town,’ he shouted over the roar of the engine. ‘Helps with the parking. The only policing I do nowadays is checking on the wildlife, making sure no-one’s nicking sea-eagle eggs, that kind of thing. Keeps me busy and stops the wife from having to kill me.’ He looked out at Zoë. ‘Don’t be shy.’ He patted the seat next to him. Zoë gave me a slightly worried look, climbed aboard and we were off.
After a mile or so I thought I’d see what more information I could extract. ‘If you know Fergus Galbraith, you might have known his brother, Callum,’ I put to my guide.
Norrie, as he insisted we call him, shook his head and mopped his brow with a rag from under the dashboard. ‘Can’t say I do.’
‘He’s a cop. Or was a cop. He’s dead now.’
‘Sorry to hear it. Don’t think Fergus ever mentioned him. ‘Course he’s a new boy in town. Hasn’t been here more than five years.Gets about a bit, though.’ He gave Zoë a sideways glance and a nudge of the elbow. ‘Quite a lad for the ladies. Fond of a drink an’ all.’
From which remark I couldn’t help but recall the three pints our driver had recently poured down his throat and hoped that we wouldn’t be waking up in hospital or, like Cathleen, not waking up at all.
‘Aye,’ Norrie said, accidentally groping Zoë’s knee for the umpteenth time as he clunked down a gear and threw the car into a hard left turn, ‘let me tell you, there’s not a single malt with which our Fergus is not intimately acquainted. The wife’s aye trying to catch him out with drams from all over, but so far without success. She’ll never do it now, of course. Not with him on the wagon.’
There was a dip in the road a mile or two after the Triagh golf course. At the bottom we took another sharp left onto a side road which quickly became a rough, pot-hole littered track.
‘Got a bit of a problem with the falling down water has our Fergus?’ I asked.
‘I wouldn’t like to say anything untoward about the lad. Him being your pal and all.’ Norrie glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. He reminded me of my dad. His in-built police antenna might be rusty but it was still functioning.
‘I’ve not seen him for a while,’ I said. ‘Still, half the battle’s recognising you’ve got a problem in the first place.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Norrie said. ‘And a fine lad is Fergus. If he puts his mind to something you know he’ll see it through to the finish.’ Norrie spun the wheel and we lurched around another corner. ‘Take the wife’s bracelet.’
Of course. The charm bracelet. Now I remembered. I’d seen something very like it on Isla Galbraith’s wrist.
‘Don’t know if you saw it.’ Norrie laughed and nudged Zoë again. ‘Fergus made that and what a palaver it was let me tell you. The fish weren’t a problem; it was all those tiny wee nets. Intricate work. Took him ages. But she wanted nets for Netta, and you know what you women are like when you get your heart set on something.’ He nudged Zoë once more and she just about managed a smile through tight lips. ‘Aye, Fergus promised he’d do them and was as good as his word.’
‘Is that what he does away up here – makes jewellery?’
Norrie gave me another suspicious glance, via the rear-view mirror. ‘Aye, that’s right. Does all sorts to order. Very popular. And not cheap either. Last I heard he was looking to buy a place abroad. Going to make his stuff here in the winter and sell it over there in the sunshine. Could be that’s where he is now. Might explain why I haven’t seen him for a while.’
We hit a bump. Any suspension the old jeep might once have had was completely shot and I felt like I’d been kicked up the back-side by one of Norrie’s hiking boots.
‘Feel that one did you?’ he laughed. ‘I’ve been telling Fergus for long enough to chuck down a lorry load of hard core.’ The Jeep careered on. I raised myself off the seat, bracing myself with rigid arms for the next jolt. Apart from our driver the only one who seemed to be enjoying the trip was the collie-dog, leaning across me, over the front seat, muzzle resting on Zoë’s shoulder, tongue lolling out of a wide grin,.
We climbed a short but steep incline and rounded a tight bend in the track. I hoped we were nearing our destination. The combination of a deep-fried lunch followed by a roller-coaster ride, not to mention frequent whiffs of dog-breath, was making me feel queasy. Another plummeting dip, a hairpin bend, the jeep skidded, spitting stones and came to a halt.
‘What’s this?’ Norrie sounded surprised. The dog pushed its muzzle further over Zoë’s shoulder, rubbing its wet nose along the side of her neck, all in the effort, or so it seemed, for a better look at the For Sale sign that was nailed to a locked five-bar gate.
CHAPTER 42
According to the For Sale sign, Fergus Galbraith’s croft was being marketed by a solicitor’s firm in Inverness, and so, armed with a hazy knowledge of Highland geography and some general directions from Norrie, we set off from Arisaig thinking Inverness to be a short jaunt to the east. One hundred bladder-bursting country miles and two and a half hours later we’d learned that just because a village is officially within the boundaries of Inverness-shire doesn’t mean it lies anywhere near the Capital of the Highlands.
It was dead on five o’clock by the time I parked the car and located the offices of Armstrong Liddell & Co. in a lane just off the main drag. There were four properties on display in the front window, three of which were ex-local authority houses in less salubrious parts of the city. Ardfern was advertised as a working croft, extending to 7.2 hectares on the Attadale Estate. The croft house, ‘would benefit from modernisation’, and garden were decrofted, whatever that meant, and it was offered for sale together with the outbuildings, ‘in need of refurbishment’, and the crofting lease of the surrounding fields.
We we
nt in and were met by a woman in a hurry to be on her way out.
‘The schedules are still at the printers,’ she said, in answer to my initial enquiry, simultaneously looking over my shoulder at the clock on the wall that confirmed she was now officially working unpaid overtime. ‘Should have them by Wednesday. Can I give you a call when they’re ready?’
‘I was actually interested in speaking to the owner direct,’ I told her.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That won’t be possible.’
Holding an arm out to her side, she walked forward in an attempt to shepherd me out of the door. I stayed put.
‘I’m sorry too,’ I said. ‘You see I’m a solicitor. My assistant and I, we’ve come a long way and would really like to speak to your boss.’
‘I’m the property manager.’
‘I can see that,’ I said, gazing down at the plastic plaque on her desk that gave her name and job description, just in case she forgot either one. Beside the plaque was a bundle of title deeds held together by a rubber band into which was stuck a scrap of paper with the word ‘Ardfern’ scribbled. ‘And I’m sure you manage them very well.’ All four of them, I nearly said, but I didn’t think it would have helped any. ‘Still, we have come a very long way—’
‘So you’ve said already.’ The receptionist took a set of keys from her pocket and jangled them meaningfully.
‘Nancy!’ a disembodied voice shouted from somewhere nearby. ‘You still there?’
The receptionist breathed in through gritted teeth.
‘Bring me those titles for that croft, will you?’ The voice came, from an upstairs room.
The receptionist held the keys up in front of my face and gave them another little shake. ‘Now, if you don’t mind—’
Relatively Guilty (Best Defence series Book 1) Page 17
