A Rhanna Mystery

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Fergus was immediately on his knees beside his dog, gently lifting the big shaggy head up to his face, fondling and stroking it, whispering words of comfort into the floppy silken ears.

  Clodhopper was dusting himself down, glowering at both Fergus and his dog. ‘That beast o’ yours could have killed me,’ he said aggrievedly. ‘In fact I’ve a good mind to put a report in when I get back. A dog like that isn’t fit to be among decent people.’

  The crowd had thickened, and all at once it seemed to be on top of P.C. George McDuff. ‘The cratur’ never touched you,’ Tam acted as spokesman for everybody. ‘We were all here, we are all witnesses, every one.’

  There was a general murmur of agreement and much nodding of heads. Clodhopper looked at all the stony faces and took a step backwards.

  ‘Get on with it, McDuff,’ his chief growled at him. ‘Charge that man later. Right now I want you over here.’

  Kirsteen appeared just then, distraught-looking, making straight for Fergus to ask what had happened.

  ‘Fern’s dead,’ he said briefly, ‘and Heinz is hurt. We’ll have to get him over to Niall’s right away. Be careful how you handle him, his front paw seems to be giving him a lot o’ bother.’

  A strange expression flitted over Kirsteen’s face. Horrified as she was about Fern she knew that her feelings were nothing compared to those of her husband. He was suffering, she could tell that easily enough, it was all there, in the set of his jaw, the closed look in his black eyes.

  She knew him so well, and when he was deeply upset a mask came down, hiding his emotions, making him behave in a stilted fashion. It was his way of shielding himself from the world and the further hurt it might cause him. Well, this was one time she didn’t give a damn about all that! In these fraught moments she was more concerned with her own bewilderment to care very much about his.

  That morning he had left the house some time after Fern’s departure, and she had seen him, cutting across the fields, making for Portcull. She had known then that he had wanted to see Fern off on the steamer. Her last goodbyes hadn’t been enough for him, he had needed to give her a personal and private farewell and Kirsteen had fought long and hard with her pride before deciding to follow him.

  And now this, everything in confusion, Fern dead, Heinz hurt, a terrible taut atmosphere invading the peace of the harbour. This was neither the time nor the place for disputes between husbands and wives and taking a deep breath Kirsteen followed along behind the menfolk as gently they placed Heinz into the back seat of a readily available car. The dog was then transported to Slochmhor, where Niall diagnosed a strained ligament which was soon bandaged up.

  On the way home in Peter Menzies’ car, there was an awkward silence between Kirsteen and Fergus. But as soon as Heinz was comfortably settled on a blanket in front of the fire, with a cushion at his head, Kirsteen turned to Fergus and demanded, ‘What exactly did Fern mean to you? She implied things last night, about you and her, when I was away in Glasgow. I want to know the truth Fergus, and don’t turn away from me when I’m speaking, I need to see your eyes when you are giving me your answers.’

  ‘Nothing happened Kirsteen, you have my word on that.’

  ‘Nothing! Are you quite sure about that, Fergus?’

  He couldn’t hold her furious, blue gaze, his voice was barely audible when he said, ‘There was – an – attraction between us, I canny deny that. I was tempted, she was a beautiful lass, and young, so young. But though you weren’t here you were everywhere, Kirsteen, mo cridhe. I only had to look at your photographs to get the strength I needed. She’s dead, let the matter drop . . .’ He passed his hand over his eyes. ‘I – I need a bit o’ time to get over the shock of all this. Please don’t talk about it anymore.’

  ‘You need time?’ Her tones were bitter. ‘What about me? I feel such a fool, trusting you the way I did. In your mind you betrayed me and tarnished the love we had for each other. Fern is dead, nothing can bring her back, and I’m sorry such a young life has ended so tragically. But I trusted her too, she was like a daughter to me and – and I can’t find it in me yet to forgive her for using my home and my husband for her own ends.’

  She gazed at him, her blue eyes dark and big with emotion. ‘I must get away, Fergus, I feel very mixed up at the moment. It will do us both good to have a break from one another. It’s as well I’m going away with Phebie . . .’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The news of Fern’s death rocked the island and when Elspeth heard of it she fell to a storm of weeping. ‘Och, my poor, poor, lass,’ she cried in anguish, ‘why did she have to go and kill herself? I know what she did was wrong but she’d had a hard life and no proper mother to teach her. I could have helped her, she wasny really a bad lassie. If I could have been blessed with such a bonny daughter I wouldny have allowed her to run wild the way her own mother did.’

  ‘There, there, now, lass,’ Mac patted her shoulder and folded her into his big comforting embrace. ‘It’s a terrible tragedy just, but you were like a mother to her in the short wee while you knew her. Fern loved you for that and told me wi’ her own bonny lips that you were the best friend she ever had. I know how much women enjoy blethering wi’ one another but I’m here now and I’ll aye be here for as long as you want me.’

  ‘Och, Isaac, you know fine you’re everything to me,’ she muttered into his flowing white beard. ‘I don’t know what in the world I did before you came along.’

  She sneezed suddenly, making Mac jump, and after that they kissed and cuddled and cried just a bit for the lassie that might have been Elspeth’s – if only.

  The rest of the islanders expressed their feelings in a variety of different ways.

  ‘It canny be true!’ Kate cried. ‘She was so young and full o’ life, and her such a lovely lass too.’

  ‘Ay, well, I aye said she was heading for trouble o’ one sort or another,’ Behag declared emphatically. ‘For all her romantic looks and smooth talk, she was, in the end, no more than a common or garden thief. And who’s to say that the man they found in the cave died from an accident? She maybe murdered him for all we know, hoping to keep all the stolen jewels for herself.’

  ‘Ach, you would say that,’ Kate shook her head sadly. ‘The lass has paid sorely for what she did, and I for one canny rightly take in the fact that she’s gone.’

  ‘It’s Dodie I feel sorry for,’ Tam put in. ‘He minds me o’ thon poor, demented chiel, Quasimodo, in the Hunchback o’ Notre Dame, weeping for the lassie who would never be his, only in this case it was her, no’ him, that went and died.’

  ‘Never mind him, what about the rest o’ us?’ Todd said worriedly. ‘The police are going to be asking questions and I told Clodhopper the lassie was my niece, they’ll be saying that I obstructed the course o’ justice and will maybe clap me in jail!’

  ‘We all shielded her,’ Tam hazarded uncomfortably. ‘The tinks told us who she was and none o’ us said a word.’

  ‘Ach, it was the least we could do,’ Barra said reasonably. ‘We all thought her man was after her. Other decent folk would have done the same.’

  ‘Anyway, they canny arrest the whole island,’ Kate pointed out cheerfully.

  ‘No, but they could arrest one man,’ Todd’s ruddy face went pale at the idea. ‘You know what Clodhopper’s like once he gets his teeth into something.’

  But his fears were unfounded, he got off with a caution, as did Fergus. Heinz was given a second chance and Kate was right, they couldn’t arrest the whole island, though Clodhopper looked as if he might have liked a try at it if he could have had his way.

  An official verdict of accidental death in both cases was finally reached and the bodies of Fern and Johnny were released for burial beside their own people in Ireland.

  ‘May the good Lord rest their souls,’ the islanders told one another and rather thankfully turned their minds back to the normal events of everyday life now that winter was approaching and the home fires had to be kept burning.


  It was the longest two weeks that Fergus had ever spent. The shiny new phone in the hall, installed just before Kirsteen’s departure, seemed to mock him every time he had to pass it. The only calls he ever received were local, made regularly by family and friends, all of them anxious to alleviate the loneliness that they knew he was feeling.

  Bob, filled with admiration for Heinz’s bravery in tackling Clodhopper, arrived every other day with a large, juicy bone, making Gaffer remain outside in case he might steal both the bone and Heinz’s small moments of glory.

  Heinz graciously accepted these gastronomic testimonials to his courage, becoming so enamoured with himself that he soon began malingering in a very obvious way, holding up his injured paw for everyone to see, purporting enormous difficulty whenever he had to rouse himself from the fire to obey the calls of nature.

  Visitors played up to this amusing little game with many indulgent nods and smiles, and Bob too, once so filled with criticism about the dog’s abilities, also thought the whole thing very amusing, going so far as to inform the master of the house that only a creature with brains could dream up such tricks in order to hold onto his comforts for as long as he could.

  ‘Ach, he’d best bide where he is then,’ was Fergus’s terse verdict. ‘For all the good he does when he’s supposed to be working he might as well lie in that one spot for the rest o’ his days.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ Bob said quietly, drawing his hand across his nose as he was wont to do when he was annoyed. ‘But he wasny slow to defend you when the need arose, a beast like that would likely die for you if he had to.’

  ‘I know all that,’ Fergus returned gruffly, bending to pat Heinz on the head, wishing with all his heart that Kirsteen was home so that he could begin to feel that his life was worth living again.

  Phebie came home but Kirsteen didn’t come with her, saying that Aunt Minnie needed her and that she would be staying on in Glasgow for a week or so yet.

  But the weeks went on and she never appeared. Whenever Fergus talked to her on the phone she was cold and distant and told him she had to have a period of separation away from him. ‘I have to become independent again, Fergus,’ she said flatly, ‘I was too wrapped up in you to be able to function as an individual. I must have my own space for a while. You’re strong, you’ll manage alright without me, you did it before. In fact I’d go as far as to say that you were glad to have had the opportunity to be alone with Fern in the house. What a fool I was when I think o’ it, filled with concern for her when all the while you and she were having a high old time to yourselves.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that at all, I told her to leave, I wouldn’t do anything that would hurt you, mo cridhe,’ he said huskily.

  ‘That wasn’t the impression I got when Fern spoke to us the night she informed us she was leaving. When you followed her the next day it just confirmed everything I had suspected. Please don’t talk about it anymore. I’ll come home when I’m ready and not before. You’ll be fine, you have plenty o’ women at your beck and call, all o’ them only too anxious to see to your every need.’

  ‘You’re the only woman I want, you know that full well, you’ve always known how much I love you.’

  ‘I have to go,’ her voice faltered a little, ‘give my love to everyone, especially the wee ones, tell them I’m thinking about them and will write whenever I can.’

  Christmas came and went, gifts had been exchanged by post, but still Kirsteen clung to the excuse that Aunt Minnie’s dependence on her had become greater than ever and that she couldn’t possibly leave her for a while yet.

  December moved into January, snow dusted the hilltops, the bitter winds of winter howled over the land, and the sad, lost, lonely bleakness of that month seemed to settle over Fergus like a shroud. He dragged himself through the days, each one much the same as the last, empty, bare. He cursed everything that had ever led up to this critical period in his life. He cursed everyone, Aunt Minnie included.

  Then the grand old lady came personally to visit Fergus, head held high, her arrogant, hook-nosed face taut with pride, her blue eyes piercing into his as she said with dignity, ‘Will you come and fetch that wife o’ yours home? I canny stand another day o’ her mooning around looking as if she’s sickening for something. She hardly eats a thing, she’s become thin and wasted-looking, she’s pining away for you, my lad, but is too stubborn to admit it.’

  She paused for breath, then rushed on, ‘I want my house to myself again. I was aye used to my privacy and all this lass does is nag away at me, telling me to eat all the things I hate because they’re supposed to be good for me, to mind wrap up and keep warm, no’ to stay up too late because at my age I need my sleep. Nag, nag, nag, from morning till night, I canny stand it another minute!’

  Fergus looked at her. He let out a burst of laughter, and to her great surprise he pulled her to him and gave her a resounding kiss on the cheek. ‘Aunt Minnie! I love you!’ he roared. ‘You certainly don’t look like one but you’re the best tonic I’ve had in weeks and I’ll never be able to thank you enough.’

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ she said sourly, dusting herself down, cocking her head to look at him, a twinkle appearing in her eyes. ‘Tonight I will be staying with Phebie and Lachlan, tomorrow I will be leaving on the steamer and I want you to come wi’ me. Kirsteen thinks I’m biding wi’ one o’ my cronies and she’ll put up a fight when I appear home wi’ you beside me. Well, I don’t care how you take her away, drag her by the hair if you have to, tie her up and put her in a sack, but home wi’ you she’s going and that’s my last word on the subject.’

  Shona came to visit her father that evening, With her came Niall and the children, and they were all there in the kitchen, drinking tea, when the phone jangled from the hall.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Shona jumped up, ‘it might be Fiona, dying to tell me the latest symptoms of her pregnancy. She’s thrilled to bits and can hardly wait for the baby to be born.’

  She went out, the murmur of her voice drifting through to the kitchen. In a few minutes she was back, eyes big in her ashen face. ‘That was the police, phoning from Glasgow. A woman identified as Kirsteen was in a road accident. She died in hospital, all her things were in her bag, phone numbers, addresses. They tried calling Aunt Minnie but I told them she was here . . .’

  There was a crash, as Fergus got to his feet, knocking his chair over in his haste. ‘What do you mean – dead?’ he demanded harshly. ‘She’s coming home – tomorrow – I’m going with Aunt Minnie to collect her!’

  Niall too got to his feet, going straight to the cupboard to pour a stiff whisky which he bore quickly to Fergus. ‘Drink it, all of it,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll phone the hospital and try to find out a bit more, surely there must be a mistake . . .’

  ‘There’s no mistake,’ Shona spoke through white lips. ‘They want us to go there tomorrow – to – to identify the – body.’

  She shivered suddenly and the children, seeing all the stunned faces, began to cry, Ellie Dawn sobbing, ‘I want to see Gramma, when can I see her? She never came at Christmas.’

  Niall gathered his little daughter into his arms, leaving Shona to comfort the twins, Joe and Joy.

  ‘Go home.’ Fergus, over by the fire, his elbow on the mantelpiece, staring into the flames, didn’t turn as he spoke. ‘Take the bairns home, this is no place for them, it’s past their bedtime anyway.’

  ‘Niall can take them,’ Shona said in a shaky voice. ‘I’ll stay here with you, Father, you can’t be left alone at a time like this.’

  ‘I want to be alone.’ He spoke as if to himself, his dark head downbent, everything about him defeated and suddenly very tired. ‘Go home, Shona, please, mo cridhe,’ he pleaded softly. ‘I need to be by myself, try to understand . . .’

  His voice broke. Shona looked at Niall and gathering up their little ones they left the house, closing the door softly behind them.

  It was seven o’clock the following morning. All night
long Fergus had tossed and turned in a torment of grief and self loathing. It was all his fault! Kirsteen had left because of him and this was the result. She had been killed, in a road accident, she who had lived most of her life among the glens and the bens of the islands, more used to flocks of sheep or herds of cows blocking the way than she was to the hustle and bustle of noisy traffic.

  He couldn’t believe he would never see her again. He thought about all the wonderful years they had shared, his deep and tender love for her, their earlier passions blossoming into something deeper, more beautiful, as time slipped by.

  And he had ruined it all. Kirsteen was dead! His Kirsteen, gone, never to return . . .

  He got up and dressed and went over to the window. January! He had never liked it! Helen, his first wife, had died on a cold, clear, January morning, the snows of the previous night’s blizzard sparkling on the hills, the world all clean and new looking.

  ‘It’s funny – the way it’s always so calm after a storm.’

  The last words she had ever spoken came back to him as if it was yesterday; it was so long ago – yet still the month of January brought a bleakness to him that never seemed to diminish.

  The two women who had ever meant anything to him were gone from his life – and now it was time for him to go also. He looked up at the hills, silent, dour, shrouded in mist. That was where he had to go to find a solace that would last forever . . .

  Blinded by tears he turned and stumbled out of the room, down to the kitchen where it was cosy and peaceful, the cats sleepy and warm in their favourite place on top of the oven, Heinz snoring on the rug but opening one questioning eye as his master came into the room.

  ‘Go back to sleep, boy,’ Fergus said softly, stooping to fondle the dog’s silky ears. ‘No need for both o’ us to be out there. This journey is for me alone, you’ll be well looked after, I have no fear o’ that, everybody has a soft spot for you.’