The Secret Portrait (A Jean Fairbairn/Alasdair Cameron mystery Book 1)

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  She picked it up and switched it on. Miranda, with another inspiration? “Hello?”

  “Is that Jean Fairbairn?” The voice was female.

  Jean didn’t recognize it. “Yes.”

  “Stay clear of George Lovelace. He’s trouble.”

  “What? Who is this?”

  “Whatever he’s asking of you, leave it. . . .” The voice stopped abruptly. Was that another voice, a man’s, faint in the background?

  Dead air filled Jean’s ear. Punching the Talk switch produced only a high-pitched dial tone. She tried bouncing the call back, but the phone rang and rang without anyone answering. It was probably in a public call box, a glass cubicle on a busy street or lonely red-painted booth on a back road.

  Frowning, she switched off the phone and put it down. While the mysterious voice had an American accent, the syntax was British. Miranda could do a devastating American accent, even though her normal speech patterns were Brit frothed with Scots, but the voice on the phone hadn’t been hers. It hadn’t been Rebecca Campbell-Reid’s, either. And even though Jean was beginning to feel like the victim of a practical joke, neither Miranda nor Rebecca was inclined to play them.

  The voice belonged to a stranger. A stranger who knew a lot more about Jean’s work than she should have. Maybe it was a friend of Lovelace’s playing a joke on him. Or maybe it was his—enemy was a strong word, rival, maybe?—either warning Jean to keep her out of trouble or warning her off, to keep her from causing trouble. Of the two Jean voted for the latter, on the grounds that anonymous phone calls usually had the welfare of the caller in mind, not the recipient.

  “What am I getting myself into here?” she asked Dougie. “What is George Lovelace getting me into? And, for heaven’s sakes, why?”

  Dougie stretched, strolled back into the bedroom, hopped up on the bed, and curled himself into a snug ball, leaving Jean to her notes and a long list of questions she had every intention of getting answered. Because unlike many imponderables of life, the universe, and everything, these questions did have answers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jean looked up at the three bronze commandos. They looked out over the Western Highlands, stoically square-jawed. The stone panel below their boots was inscribed: United We Conquer. In memory of the officers and men of the commandos who died in the Second World War 1939-1945. This country was their training ground. Wreaths of red paper poppies stacked against the base of the memorial rustled in the wind.

  A beautiful if harsh training ground it was, Jean thought. To the southwest the dark snow-streaked hump of Ben Nevis resembled a huge terrestrial whale breaching the surface of the land, earth rolling away in waves from its flanks. All around rose smaller mountains, shaggy below, craggy above. Clouds sailed through an achingly blue sky, dragging shadows across the hills. A rosy glow in the sunlight hinted of summer, but the frosty wind felt like a slap across her face. Thanks, I needed that.

  The landscape lacked only a soundtrack, an emotional Celtic folk-rock piece or a movie score by John Williams or Howard Shore, something that would complement the sensation Jean felt in her chest. Either her heart was expanding with a desire she wasn’t prepared to analyze, or her lungs were expanding with oxygen. It was about time she escaped the noise, litter, and jostling crowds of the city, all the bits and pieces of input she’d trained herself to let roll off her nervous system even as she worried she was missing something.

  A cloud blotted the sunlight. Above the monument an eagle tipped his wings, dived, and a moment later flew up from the bracken gripping a small, wriggling creature in his talons. Telling herself yet again not to read omens from happenstance, Jean walked past an area set aside for memorials to individual commandos and climbed into her rental car.

  This morning Miranda had reacted predictably to Jean’s update from the Museum and her account of the cryptic phone call. “Oooh, nothing like a bit of gold to bring out the villains! Hard to credit Mr. Lovelace might be up to something, though, him being such a nice old gentleman and all.”

  Jean’s enthusiasm was tempered with caution—it was her body that wasn’t wanted on the scene, not Miranda’s. Lovelace was up to something, nice old gentlemen being as likely as anyone else to have a secret agenda.

  She pulled her cell phone out of her bag and hit redial. She’d tried Lovelace’s number from Callander, where the gentle green hills of the Lowlands gave way to the stony mountains of the Highlands. She’d tried again from Fort William, the town tucked between the beetling brow of Ben Nevis and the deep waters of Loch Linnhe. This call didn’t produce an answer—or an answering machine—either. So much for contacting Lovelace before she talked with Rick MacLyon. She’d just have to go on out to Glendessary House and try again afterwards.

  Dodging a behemoth of a tour bus, Jean turned her car away from the main road and toward Loch Arkaig. The road was a scruffy ribbon of tarmac draped around hills, through patches of trees, and over the Caledonian Canal. Every hundred yards or so it expanded into a passing place and then narrowed again to one lane. Jean expected it to eventually tie itself into a knot, but no, she arrived at Achnacarry, a scattering of houses and shops outside the gates of Achnacarry Castle, without passing herself along the way.

  A sign pointed to the Clan Cameron Museum. In 1745 the Lochiel, the chief of the clan, had gone to warn Bonnie Prince Charlie off and ended up fighting for him, both goaded and charmed by the silver-tongued Prince. Lochiel had died in exile, his castle burned and his people brutalized. The newer castle had served as commando headquarters during the war. Lovelace no doubt knew it well.

  Jean drove on across a bridge, slowing to look at the shining blue-gray waters of Loch Lochy rippling away to the northeastern horizon. Then, just past the white-painted houses that were Bunarkaig and Clunes, the road turned abruptly left and plunged into the Dark Mile. Ancient gnarled beeches, black of trunk and loden green of leaf, rose from a tangled undergrowth of bushes and bracken, casting the road into darkness as sinister as that of a narrow Edinburgh alley called a wynd.

  Jean imagined one of Tolkien’s tree-creatures striding along through the forest, or one of his Ringwraiths on its black horse galloping along the road, hoof beats echoing like iron striking an anvil. What she saw in the speck of light at the end of the tree-lined tunnel was no mythical creature, but another car coming straight at her. Fast.

  She dived into a semi-circle of gravel wedged unforgivingly against a stone wall, overgrown but hardly padded with yellowish moss. Something small, low to the ground, and glittering with chrome blew by without pausing. A wave of muddy water splatted against the car window. “Thank you very much,” she said to the shape dwindling in the rear view mirror. Her tires whispered through shoals of damp, dead leaves as she started up again.

  Emerging from the depth of the shadow, the road crossed a stone bridge over the foam-flecked tumble and splash of a waterfall. Then the trees parted and Loch Arkaig stretched away to the west, its water glimmering blue, then silver, then gray, then blue again as wind and sun teased its surface. The rocky hills above were cut with ravines and stubbled with midnight green heather and gorse that from this distance looked deceptively smooth, like brushed velvet. Somewhere in those rugged green and brown hills, George Lovelace had turned up the Louis d’Or. Not that he’d been searching for the coin—or so he claimed. Whatever, Jean knew better than to underestimate the power of luck.

  The road wandered over humps and around boulders, at times nestled in trees, at others strung precariously above the loch. The occasional house sat back from the road, where the steep slopes begrudged enough flat space to fit something larger than a bread box. A concrete pier ran out into the water, a sleek little powerboat tied to its side. The boulders beside the road gave way to a brand-new stone wall and a set of wrought-iron gates. A polished brass plaque on one pillar read Glendessary House.

  The driveway beyond the open gates angled away so acutely Jean drove on by. She’d turn around and come back, very slowly. . . . The nex
t passing-place was occupied by an old, well-used Ford. Still, the road actually had a gravel shoulder, not just a gully camouflaged by weeds.

  She backed and filled, at one point coming so close to the other car she was afraid she was going to knock off its side mirror. No owner came rushing up from the loch, though, fishing pole on his shoulder, to glare accusingly at her. Assuming the owner of an old banger would be overly protective anyway. . . .

  A bit of an old banger. Jean stopped, staring down at the Ford’s rear bumper. Through the odd splotch of mud she could make out two stickers, one for the RSPB, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the other for the British Legion, the veteran’s association. This wasn’t Lovelace’s car, was it?

  She inched forward far enough to get a good look at a small faded sticker in the corner of the windshield. It was a parking permit for the University of Leicester. On the front seat lay a pair of binoculars and a copy of Great Scot’s current issue. It was Lovelace’s car, then. But if he was visiting Glendessary House, why park out here? If he was watching birds, why leave his binoculars on the seat?

  The man was a conundrum wrapped within an enigma, all right. She drove on, trying without success to convince herself that finding his car here was just an innocent little coincidence.

  The post on each side of the iron gates was crowned with a sculpted bear holding a shield, an oddly familiar design that played keep-away with Jean’s memory. The asphalt drive led into another alley of trees, this time limber young ones. The road hairpinned left, then right, working its way up the slope. Jean drove into a paved courtyard and braked, her jaw dropping in something between awe and a guffaw.

  When Miranda said Glendessary House was an old hunting lodge, Jean had known better than to picture a shack. To the wealthy Victorians who turned the Highlands into their own private preserves, a hunting lodge meant a mansion. And this was a mansion, sired by money out of pretension.

  A row of tall, arched windows overlooked a columned veranda. Above a second row of smaller square windows rose a frenzy of dormers, crenellations, gables, Tudor-twist chimneys, and round towers like the rooks of a chess set. Except for the antennas tucked in beside several vertical elements, the structure looked very much as it must have when it was first built—massive instead of dignified, faintly contemptuous of its rural surroundings, not quite comfortable in its own stone.

  Jean knew that the original house had been damaged in a fire during the war. But only by looking closely could she see where fresh new stone had been used to repair and rebuild. MacLyon had the wealth to back up a perfectionist streak, then. Or, Jean thought, his perfectionism had earned the wealth. You didn’t make a fortune in software without crossing every t and dotting every com.

  She parked the car on the opposite side of the courtyard from a small tourist bus, gathered up her bag and her laptop, and headed for the house. The bus driver, a newspaper spread open before him, didn’t return her inquisitive look.

  Mmmm, this air smelled not of diesel but of Highland perfume—peat smoke. All the scene lacked was . . . Jean grinned. The sound of bagpipes echoed down the wind. The front door, a massive wooden affair braced with iron, opened well before she stepped onto the veranda. Of course. The gate, the walls, the trees themselves were probably festooned with video cameras.

  A tall woman with fiery red hair and the exquisite bone structure of a model stood in the doorway. “Ah,” she said, her voice flat. “It’s you, then, is it?”

  Tempted as she was to ask, “Have we met?” Jean instead said politely, “Hello, I’m Jean Fairbairn, with Great Scot magazine. Miranda Capaldi made an appointment for me with Mr. MacLyon for three. I’m a little early.”

  “Oh aye, that you are. We’re seeing to a private party just now. But come through, we can accommodate you even so. I’m Fiona Robertson, Rick’s housekeeper.”

  “Thanks. Nice to meet you.” Jean stepped through the door with a searching sideways and upwards glance.

  Gone were the days when the housekeeper was identifiable by her apron, sensible shoes, hair net—and middle-age. With her stylish tartan skirt and ruffled blouse, the thirty-something Fiona could have been the mistress of the house, except her accent was about as American as haggis. And despite that moment of what seemed like wary recognition, her hazel eyes were now aloof. . . . Oh. A black band ran from the black circle of the pupil in Fiona’s left eye, stopping where hazel gave way to white. One narrow segment of her iris was missing, making it look as though her pupil was bleeding.

  Gone, too, were the days when such an anomaly would have branded Fiona a witch. Or was it an anomaly? Could she have been injured? If her eyesight were poor, that would explain why she’d greeted Jean so familiarly. She’d mistaken her for a friend.

  Fiona strode off across the tiled entrance hall, her soft-soled shoes making no more noise than Dougie’s paws. Jean lagged behind. The massive wooden staircase was a handsomely executed copy, she decided. The rifles and shotguns ranged up the paneled walls were by law inoperable reproductions. The huge rack of antlers was probably only too genuine.

  A grandfather clock whirred and struck twice. Outside the piper played on, the music supplemented by the murmur of voices inside the house. The private party, no doubt. Maybe that’s where Lovelace was. Jean’s mouth watered at the tantalizing odor of baking scones.

  “Wait here, please.” Fiona waved her through a door and into a sitting room furnished with leather chairs and couches that were contemporary but not blatantly anachronistic. “Would you care for tea?”

  “Yes, I’d enjoy some tea, thank you.”

  Fiona shut the door without saying whether she was actually offering tea or just taking a survey. Shrugging, Jean looked around.

  With its paneling and multi-colored tartan carpet—in the MacLyon pattern or sett, probably, bought and paid for like the Capaldi crest—the room was conventionally masculine. Was she really smelling a subtle tobacco and whiskey scent, absorbed into the stone of the building during long Victorian evenings, or simply imagining something that ought to be there?

  A full length oil portrait hung over the fireplace. It depicted a man dressed in the full glorious excess of kilt, plaid, brooch, velvet jacket, fur sporran, belt buckle, knee socks, and high-laced leather shoes, posed with his shoulders thrown back and his hand grasping a silver-trimmed dirk. His slight build and anemic complexion were so smothered in folds of cloth and bits of polished metal Jean had to look twice to make out his face. It was MacLyon. She recognized him from the photo on the Popcom Technologies website. His highly-developed frontal lobes made him resemble a Star Trek alien.

  Next to the huge painting hung two smaller ones, copies of portraits of Bonnie Prince Charlie in full flush of youth and charisma. There was no copy of the portrait of Charlie in old age, bloated and sagging, his eyes haunted by what-might-have-beens that alcohol and rage had never eradicated.

  Were those footsteps in the hall? Jean glanced toward the door. It was as blank-faced as Fiona. Outside the house the pipes played, their music blending with the wind in the chimney to create a lament that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up and sway.

  Sternly quelling her shiver, Jean turned to an etching that hung all alone in an expanse of paneling. It was a copy of the famous illustration of Jenny Cameron, who had led her clansmen to Charlie’s aid the day he raised his flag at Glenfinnan. Or was this the original? The carved and gilded frame was new, but Jean could see that the ink was faded to sepia and the paper was yellowed and slightly foxed. In other words, old.

  She saw no portrait of Flora MacDonald, whose daring escape with Charlie had spawned a romantic virus that had yet to be cured. Her traditional female role had made her a heroine even in London, while Jenny’s fifteen minutes of military glory had led to her being accused of both unwomanliness and promiscuity, almost a contradiction in terms. But then, eighteenth-century propagandists hadn’t had the benefit of feminist revisionism.

  Another shiver started
at the nape of Jean’s neck. This time she couldn’t stop it, and it rippled down her body. The room was icy, the air itself oddly heavy. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she glanced at the electric fire—the space heater—on the hearth, tempted to turn it on. She’d left her coat in the car. . . . She knew she wasn’t sensing the temperature. Her doom had come upon her.

  The sounds of the bagpipes stopped abruptly, leaving a reverberation in the air. Then, an instant later, they started up again with a quickly suppressed squawk and grew louder. Title or no title, with his own piper MacLyon was living in ducal style. Jean pulled aside the brocade drapes at the window. Ah, sunlight. And the piper himself, done up in a relatively modest jacket, kilt, and dark socks, pacing past the front of the house. Of course he was playing outside—a piper playing inside anything smaller than an aircraft hanger would implode your eardrums.

  With a last glance at the alluring swing and sway of the man’s kilt, Jean turned warily back into the room. Her limbs bristled with pins and needles, teased with icy fairy fingernails, and yet the gooseflesh was less on her limbs than in her senses. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked. . . . She was only sensing a ghost. Ghosts weren’t wicked. Most of them were only images, and couldn’t interact with the living.

  She supposed if you bought an old castle, the household spook would come with it. What had happened here, to leave scraps of leftover emotion floating around like milkweed? While Scotland swarmed with stories of paranormal drummers and pipers who presaged death and disaster, Glendessary’s piper seemed quite corporeal. This ghost was something—someone—else.

  If it were strong enough, it would appear to her. If it were strong enough, it would appear to anyone, but that was unusual. Most of the time even Jean only sensed ghosts rather than saw them. Not that she’d cultivated her sixth sense any more than she’d cultivated her height or her brown eyes. It was just there.

  The ghost, though, was not. Its presence in Jean’s nerves faded and then went out like a candle snuffed, leaving a whiff of psychic smoke. She exhaled loudly. Good. It was gone. No matter how many ghosts she’d sensed in her life, she’d never get used to them. Material reality could be disconcerting enough.