Murder Most Scottish

by Blake Banner

  Len returned with a slab of Stilton, a bottle of Highland Park single malt and two shot glasses. He winked at me. “I’ll leave yiz the bottle, save mah legs havin’ ta keep runnin’ back an’ forth!”

  He left again and Dehan poured while I helped myself to some cheese. While I cut, I asked Pam, “Who was his lover? Was she a Gordon too?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’ think so...”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know...”

  “And you? Are you from one of the clans?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she said, “I mean, you’d think he’d have been concerned about interbreeding. I mean, I know clan is not the same as family. It’s not exactly genetic, but even so, it’s got to be healthy to mix, at least with other clans, don’t you think?”

  She had been sipping steadily at her G&T on an empty stomach, and suddenly she looked as though gin might be mixing with all the emotions Dehan was stirring up, and going to her head. But something in what she’d said made me curious.

  I frowned. “Did he have plans to marry again?”

  She stood suddenly. “I don’t know. Look, I had better go. I think I need to lie down.” She smiled at Dehan and gripped her arm. “Thank you. See you at dinner.” And she walked out on unsteady legs. Dehan got up and moved around to sit facing me in the chair Pam had just vacated. She was quiet for a moment, looking out the window. I saw her narrow her eyes, I heard a car start up and move away up the hill, and then Dehan looked at me and made a face.

  “You touched a nerve, partner.”

  I nodded. “This is damn fine whiskey and damn fine cheese.”

  She nodded. “Agreed.” She cut a slice and sat eating it. Then she drained her glass. “Man, that is good.” She refilled us both and pointed at me. “You have a theory, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “I have a theory that we are on our honeymoon and outside our jurisdiction.”

  She started a little singsong, like a school kid, with a silly grin on her face, holding her glass. “You have a theory, you have a theory.”

  “Shut up, Dehan.”

  “Not till you tell me your theory.”

  I drained my shot and cut more cheese while she refilled it. Finally I smiled.

  “Fine, but it is only preliminary, OK?”

  “Cool…”

  I took a deep breath.

  SEVEN

  An hour later I asked Len to get us a cab to take us up to the castle and he told us Bobby had a car he sometimes used as an unofficial taxi service, there being no actual taxis on the island. We paid up, he went to make a call and we went to wait outside. There was a wooden bench beside a couple of troughs brimming over with flowers and we sat there, feeling sleepy in the afternoon sun. It was probably only in the high sixties or low seventies, but the humidity was high and it made the afternoon sultry and sleepy. Dehan rested her head on my shoulder and as I yawned, I noticed two people outside the post office.

  It was Dr. Cameron and his wife, Sally, standing beside a new Volvo having what was turning from a heated conversation in harsh whispers to an out and out row. Suddenly she turned away from him, moved to the back of her car and opened the trunk, obscuring him from my view. Then she marched into the grocery store beside the post office and I heard him shout, “Don’t you walk away from me when I’m talking to you!”

  He came into view moving toward the door just as Sally emerged again, carrying two boxes, one on top of another, loaded with groceries. He spoke to her savagely, but too quiet to hear what he was saying. She ignored him and put the stuff in the trunk, then turned and went back into the shop. He went after her and I wondered whether I should go over and make sure she was OK. But a few seconds later, she reemerged carrying four plastic bags filled with more groceries, and him still trailing behind her, still speaking savagely, but now stabbing the air with his finger for emphasis, even though she couldn’t see him.

  She dumped the stuff in the trunk and closed it, then turned to face him. She cut him dead and spoke loud enough for me to hear.

  “Leave me alone, Ian! Maybe ten, maybe eleven, maybe tomorrow. The answer is, I don’t know! Do you understand that? Can you understand that? I-don’t-know! Now leave me alone!”

  She walked around the car to the driver’s side and opened the door. He went after her at a run, pulling at her shoulder, speaking louder now, “Ye can’t do this! It’s wrong, fer God’s sake! Sally!”

  She spun and her face was flushed. She half yelled at him, “Leave me alone, Ian! Or so help me God, I’ll…”

  She didn’t finish telling him what she’d do. She climbed in the car and drove away at speed, toward the castle. He shouted after her, but she couldn’t have heard him. After that, he turned and stormed into the post office, slamming the door behind him.

  A moment later an old Ford Mondeo rolled up and a man in his fifties with a face like a granite cliff and eyes like a couple of icebergs climbed out and looked at me. “Yous the Americans gone up’t Castle?”

  I said, “Yup,” and gave Dehan a shake.

  She sat up yawning and we climbed in the back, where she crawled under my arm and said, “Wake me when we get there.”

  I saw him glance in the mirror as he slammed the door.

  “I’ll no take ye past the gate.”

  I frowned. “Why not?”

  He pulled away and we moved at a sedate twenty miles an hour up through the woods. I saw his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Tha’ there castle, friend? By rights tha’ should be mine. But tha’ bastard—excuse mah language in front o’ yer missus—tha’ bastard Gordon stole it from uz.”

  I was surprised. “Charles Gordon stole that castle from you?”

  “Ay, tha’ he dud.”

  “I thought his father bought it.”

  He nodded, still watching me in the glass as we moved slowly through the tunnel of whispering pines. “Aye, he dud. But while his son were away in America, I…” He tapped his chest with his finger. “I was here, helpin’ the old man fix the place. An’ he says ta’ me, ‘Bobby, yer moore like a bairn to me than my own boy,’ so he did. I were wi’ him every day, workin’ talkin’ plannin’, dreaming! He were an American, but his blood was Scottish, more’n many I ken. An’ he promised me tha’ castle. He said, ‘Bobby, when I die, thus castle is fer thee. Fer thee’s more mah bairn than mah own kith and blood.’ God is mah witness. So I’ll no go into those grounds until ut’s to claim it as mah own, see?”

  I made a face and nodded. “I understand, the gate will be fine.” I thought for a moment and then said, “So you must be Robert Armstrong.”

  “Aye.”

  “I believe the old man had a great deal of affection for you and your family. You are related to the Gordon clan, is that right?”

  “Aye, tha’s correct. On mah mother’s side. Mah father, God rest his soul, was an Armstrong, James Armstrong. A good man till he died. An’ after he died, we had a fierce struggle t’ survive…” He nodded toward the castle that had just come into view across the flat expanse of grassland. “Until Old Man Gordon come along, an’ promised to take care of uz. Then we had hope, so we did, fer a while. Till his bastard son come back from America.”

  I scratched my chin. “Did you ever consider contesting the will?”

  “Nah. ‘S’what my gerl-friend says to uz. ‘Bobby, why din’ya contest the will? Yiz would’a got something!’ But how would I know aboot contesting a will? I ask you! Ah know aboot building, an’ gardening, workin’ the land, honest labor! Ah don’t know about lawyers and their feckin’ lies.”

  “I can see why you’re mad.”

  He glanced in the mirror again and an expression you could only describe as evil cunning seemed to crawl over his face. “But mah gerl-friend, Lizzie, see? Now, she’s workin’ as a secatery fer a firm o’ lawyers over on the mainland, and she knows aboot wills. So maybe the old bastard might get a surprise yet, so he might!”

  He came to a halt outside the gates. I
woke Dehan and we climbed out. I paid Bobby Armstrong his money while she yawned and stretched, and he turned around and drove away, toward the woodlands. The sky behind the castle had turned dark with cloud, and I found I was perspiring under my jacket. I grabbed Dehan and we started to walk down the long drive toward the great pile of stone and the storm which was brewing behind it. I said, “I need a shower and an hour’s sleep. How about you?”

  “Nope. I need an hour’s sleep and a shower.”

  “That dovetails nicely, then.”

  As we approached, to the right of the great tower and a little bit beyond it I spotted Sally Cameron’s Volvo parked beside the kitchen orchard, outside what I now realized were the steps that led down to the kitchen. When we reached the main entrance, I had a thought and said to Dehan, “You go on up. There’s something I have to do. I’ll join you in a minute.”

  She gave me a sleepy frown. “What are you up to, Stone?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe nothing. I’ll be up in five minutes.”

  She climbed the steps and pushed through the door while I went around the side of the tower, where Sally Cameron’s Volvo was parked. Just beyond the steps that led down to the kitchen, there was a door that seemed to be a storeroom of some sort. I descended the stairs, tapped on the door and opened it.

  I found myself in a large, old-fashioned kitchen, with a heavy oak table in the middle, an ancient iron range and cupboards that might have looked new in the 1920s. There were also a number of people there, and they were all staring at me with startled faces.

  There was Brown, the butler, dressed as though he belonged with the cupboards, there were two pretty young girls in maids’ uniforms, one a red-head and the other with very black hair and very blue eyes, and there was a woman in her fifties dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt that claimed to be from UCLA. She had been rolling pastry on the table and had stopped in mid-roll to scowl at me.

  It was the butler who spoke. “Good afternoon, sir. Would you be lost at all?”

  I smiled. “No. I thought I recognized Mrs. Cameron’s car.”

  He nodded. “Aye, she’s only after delivering the groceries.”

  The cute maids grinned at each other and started giggling. The red-head looked at me with a dangerous smile and said, “Och, aye, and noo she’s delivering som’at else!”

  Cook scowled at her and snapped, “Peggy! Mind yer tongue!”

  Peggy had no intention of minding either her tongue or her business. Her white cheeks flushed red, she stared at Cook with bright, insolent green eyes and said, “Am I lying? Is it a lie? Is she no upstairs delivering som’at else?”

  I decided I liked Peggy, but Cook clearly didn’t agree. She stared at the butler with furious ‘do-something-about-this-child’ eyes and said, “Mr. Brown!”

  Mr. Brown made a face of reproof at the girls and snapped, “You two! Off with yous. Go and polish the silver fer tonight, and keep your mouths shut!”

  They flounced off prettily and within seconds started giggling again. I said, “I’m sorry, I seem to have…”

  “Och, not at all, sir. Mrs. Cameron is upstairs, sir, um… delivering… uh… attending to…”

  I raised my eyebrows and smiled. “Perhaps the verb is unimportant,” I said. “I’ll settle for the location.”

  He smiled a little sickly and muttered, “Mr. Gordon, Sr., sir. A private matter…”

  “Of course, well, it wasn’t anything vital. Perhaps I’ll catch her later.”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  I left the way I had come and made my way up to our room deep in thought. When I went in, Dehan had thrown the covers off and was lying under a single sheet, fast asleep. The window was open, but it was still close and warm. I went into the bathroom, stripped and had a long shower, hot, cold, hot, and then cold again. By the time I had dried myself off, the food and whiskey-induced fogginess had cleared. I pulled on a pair of jeans and sat by the window for a while, looking out at the gardens and thinking.

  It was almost forty years ago, but to this small group of people it was like it had happened yesterday. All the passions, the relationships, the motives… They were all as alive and real today as they had been back then. And Dehan had sensed it, that was why she hadn’t been able to leave it alone. And it was why I felt the same.

  Eventually I pulled on some socks and boots and a shirt and made my way down again to the drawing room. There was nobody there, so I crossed the room and tried the library door. It was open.

  The room was large. Maybe forty or fifty feet square with dark bookshelves rising fourteen or fifteen feet to the ceiling. The windows were leaded and the light that came through them was dappled by leaves. There were a couple of writing desks and a nest of chesterfields around a cold fireplace. A long, dark map table occupied the middle of the floor.

  It took me about ten minutes to locate the big leather-bound books that held the old newspapers. Ten minutes after that, I began to find the articles reporting Old Man Gordon’s death. There were a number of photographs. He had been a very handsome man, with intense, penetrating eyes. It’s hard to tell from a photograph, but I thought he had the eyes of a fanatic. Some of the articles gave potted biographies and I noted with a mixture of irony and interest that the old man’s wife, Gordon Sr.’s mother, had not been Scottish.

  There were a couple of grainy pictures of the crime scene, too. I wasn’t surprised to find that there was no handkerchief on the floor. You don’t lock yourself in a room to blow your own brains out, and then cover your hand to avoid GSR.

  Henry Green had been right. The old man had been murdered. By whom was not so hard to answer. The pool of suspects was pretty small, though the obvious candidates were not necessarily the right ones. How was the real challenge.

  How do you get into a locked room, shoot somebody in the head, plant their prints on the weapon and then leave, without unlocking the door or the windows, and with no secret passages?

  I read carefully through all the reports but they didn’t add anything new to what I already had. In fact, I had a bit more than the reports had. I had at least one motive nobody seemed to know about.

  I got up and made my way back to the drawing room. Charles Jr. was there having coffee with the major. They looked surprised when I came in. Charles smiled.

  “Ah, you’ve been exploring the library. Splendid! It really doesn’t get enough use. Did you find anything you liked? Have some coffee.”

  I told him I would and sat in a chair by the fireplace. Outside, the light had dimmed and the breeze was turning into a blustery wind. He rang the bell for Brown and I said, “I was looking at the newspapers, the articles on your grandfather’s death. I hope you don’t mind.”

  He laughed. “Our pet mystery. No, not at all. I doubt it will ever be resolved. If it is even a mystery at all. I suspect he’d just gone completely batty and shot himself.”

  I shrugged. “You may be right, but if it had been my case, I wouldn’t have closed it. I think Henry was right to be uncomfortable. The absence of gunshot residue on his hand is very troubling. It is not possible to discharge a weapon, especially in a closed room like that, and not get GSR on your hand. The angle of the shot, also, is really, to be honest, not possible.”

  They were both staring at me fixedly. Finally, Charles said, “Good lord, you’re quite serious.”

  The major muttered, “My word…”

  I laughed. “By all means, tell me to butt out. I’m supposed to be on honeymoon, and this isn’t even my continent, let alone my jurisdiction, but I guess it’s just professional habit. If I were back home, I’d be telling my inspector that this was a homicide that should be reopened.”

  Charles Jr. stammered for a moment, then said, “Well what do you suggest I should do? The case was closed and the coroner ruled it a suicide. I’m not sure one can just…”

  The door opened and Brown came in with more coffee on a tray. He poured me a cup and handed it to me, then withdrew.

  I sipped. “That’
s your call, Charles. Maybe it’s something you should discuss with your family. There’s probably nothing you can do without fresh evidence anyway. I’ll tell you what, though: would you object to my having a look at the room where it happened? I have to admit, this is like a red cloak to a bull for me. I can see as clear as day that it could not have been suicide, but I’ll be damned if I can see how it was done.” He stared at me and I raised a hand. “Forgive me if I am insensitive.”

  “No! No, no! Not at all! I wasn’t even born at the time. Um, I’m not sure how Daddy would feel, or Mummy for that matter, but I suppose they needn’t know, need they?”

  He grinned at the major who beamed and said, “Top hole!”

  EIGHT

  At just before four o’clock, Dehan had woken up to find I was not there.

  She rose, went to the bathroom and showered, then pulled on some jeans and a sweatshirt and went downstairs. She found the entrance hall empty and silent and went to the drawing room expecting to find everybody having afternoon tea. But the drawing room was empty too, though the French windows were open and a breeze that was turning into a blustery wind carried snatches of loud conversation across the lawn to her. She stepped over and looked out.

  She saw Bee sitting at a white, wrought iron table on the terrace some thirty or forty feet away. Her dress was flapping in the rising wind and she held her hat down on her head with her left hand. She was looking up at Pamela, who was standing, leaning forward slightly, with her back to Dehan, her fists clenched by her side. Dehan had been about to step out, but something about their demeanor made her pause and withdraw a little back into the drawing room.

  Bee was saying, “My dear Pamela, if he upsets you so much, why don’t you simply divorce him?”

  Pam’s voice was shrill and Dehan wondered if she had continued drinking after she’d left them at the pub. She spat her words at Bee like venom. “And leave him all for you? You’d like that, wouldn’t you!”

  Bee’s laugh was a shrill hoot. “Oh, Pam! You must be drunk! What utter nonsense! After all these years? Don’t be so absurd!”