A Spell of Murder

by Kennedy Kerr

  ‘I’m fine, it’s just coming in to warm air after cold air. It’ll go in a minute.’ He coughed again, harder.

  ‘You will not. You’ll just make it worse.’ Harry frowned, putting his hand on Alf’s forehead. ‘Stay here and let Muriel fuss over you.’

  ‘What? While you’re off being an action hero? I don’t think so.’ Alf sniffed. ‘If people need medical attention, they’ll need me.’

  ‘The coastguard’s been called and the ambulance is on standby!’ Muriel interjected; she’d obviously made herself the unofficial head of the rescue operation. ‘It’s okay, Alf darlin’. We know yer a hero, but Harry’s right, aye. Stay in the warm. We dinnae want tae lose ye for another few months.’

  ‘Come on, Alf. Harry’s the James Bond of Lost Maidens Loch,’ Tilda teased. ‘Let him go and be a hero. I’ll stay with you if you want. I need to pick your brains about a herbal tincture, anyway.’ She winked at Temerity. ‘Go on, Tem. We’ll catch up with you later.’

  Alf sighed.

  ‘Fine, fine. I’ll stay here. But if you need me, call the café.’

  ‘No problem.’ Harry gave Alf a kiss on the cheek. ‘You shouldn’t have even come out. I told you.’

  ‘As if I’d be able to stay at home while all this was going on.’ Alf rolled his eyes.

  Temerity tapped Angus on the shoulder.

  ‘Temerity Love, reporting for search duty.’ She purred in an exaggerated sexy secretary voice. Angus turned round, a confused expression on his face.

  ‘Oh. Hello.’ He didn’t smile and Temerity felt her little joke – not even a joke, really, just a slightly amusing voice – deflate, leaving an uncomfortable silence between them. Oh, for… just, why do I bother? she thought. Patrick would have laughed uproariously.

  ‘I’ve come to help with the search?’ Temerity repeated, straight-faced, feeling mortified. It had just been a joke, but she’d temporarily forgotten that Angus Harley didn’t understand jokes, probably on account of his wolf heritage.

  ‘Right. Thanks. Well, you might as well walk around the loch to the Manor with me, if you’re up for it?’

  Temerity shrugged. ‘Fine.’

  ‘It’s a rough walk in parts, but we might be able to see something—’ he continued.

  ‘I’ll be fine. It’s not like I haven’t walked by the loch before,’ she snapped.

  Great. Another wordless walk with Humourless Harley, Temerity thought. She looked around for anyone else to invite along with them so that she would have someone to talk to, but most people had left already; Tilda and Alf sat at the counter, laughing about something with Muriel. Temerity had noted that when she and Tilda had walked in, a few eyes had turned their way, assessing her sister warily. Temerity wondered what they thought Tilda would do – summon a calm to the storm, or, perhaps more likely, they thought she had something to do with it in the first place. Though many villagers had nodded to Temerity – she made a point of being out and about in the village most days, chiefly because it drove her mad being cooped up in the shop – they had ignored Tilda. Some of them even made the old sign against the evil eye.

  I need to get Tilda out in society more, otherwise she’s going to moulder away with those old books, she thought. If Temerity was like Hebrides, who needed to fly in the wild, then Tilda was like the cats: content to stay in one place, asleep, until dinner time.

  Still, she was glad to see a pot of tea and some cake between Tilda, Muriel and Alf. Ah, come on. That’s just not fair, she thought, though she was happy that Tilda was socialising. Temerity would have vastly preferred a gossipy night in the café than tramping out in the rain with the monosyllabic Constable Harley. Typical that it takes three missing people on a stormy night to get Tilda out of the house.

  She considered making an excuse, but Angus Harley was holding the door to the café open, waiting for her.

  ‘Coming, coming,’ she muttered, following him out into the storm.

  12

  Temerity was irritated to admit that Angus was right. Walking the perimeter of the loch in a storm was not pleasant.

  The weather was still raging around them and Temerity realised that it didn’t matter that the Constable maintained his usual silence; she could hardly hear herself think in the din of the thunder, wind and rain, never mind follow a conversation with someone who probably just wanted to howl at the moon. She was glad that she’d pulled on her wellingtons at the last minute, because the ground around the loch had turned to deep, sticky mud that squelched when she walked and threatened to pull her boots off more than once.

  Angus had handed her a powerful police torch as they walked out of the village and the streetlights faded into blackness.

  ‘Keep it focused on the ground in front of you. You don’t want to fall over. Keep an eye on the loch, though. We might see the boat, or if it’s capsized, we’ve got to look for swimmers. Or bodies.’

  ‘Right.’ Temerity trod behind Angus, shining her light over the black loch water, looking for anything that seemed unusual. Every now and again, lightning lit up the whole loch. In those moments, the brightness gave the loch an unnerving silver clarity, like a black-and-white photo, stark and somehow unreal.

  They had been walking about half an hour when they came to a group of willows that formed a protective semicircle.

  ‘Stop here for a minute!’ Harley shouted above the wind. He beckoned her into the little natural shelter and took a silver flask out of the pocket of his overcoat. ‘Medicinal!’ he shouted, uncapping it and handing it to her. Gods. The Wolfman knows how to loosen up, she thought, reasonably taken aback. Maybe I’ve totally underestimated him. This whole time, he was desperate to get me alone under a tree and ply me with hard liquor.

  Temerity took a gulp and felt the whisky warm her stomach immediately.

  ‘Can’t get too cold,’ Harley commented; either the wind had died down a little, or the trees really were protecting them a little from the storm, because suddenly Temerity could hear him better.

  ‘It is chilly.’ She handed the flask back to him. ‘Thanks.’

  He took a gulp and shivered.

  ‘Horrible night to be lost on the water. I hope we find them.’ For once, Temerity appreciated his sincerity. It was a horrible night to be lost: the loch was unforgiving at the best of times. Its purple mists may have inspired thousands of tourists’ holiday pictures, but she knew the real dangers that lay in the water.

  Temerity stared out onto the water; above them, the searchlight of the coastguard helicopter beamed across the water, the choppy noise of the helicopter blades intensifying then falling away as it flew over the loch, searching.

  ‘There’s something about the loch. It… I don’t know. Every so often, it takes someone. A sacrifice, in a way,’ she said, remembering. She didn’t often allow herself to think too deeply about Patrick, the boy she had loved; the boy who she hadn’t been able to save. But here, in the storm, the loch beside her, it was impossible not to.

  Angus followed her gaze.

  ‘You lost someone?’ he asked softly.

  Temerity blinked back sudden tears.

  ‘How did you know?’ She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, trying to control herself. ‘Did the Inspector tell you?’

  ‘No. Just… it’s in your voice.’ He stood next to her, very still, and there was something in his steadfast presence that was comforting. This isn’t how this is supposed to go, she thought. It isn’t as funny if the Wolfman turns… nice, all of a sudden.

  ‘It was ten years ago. My… my boyfriend at the time. His name was Patrick Robison. Everyone loved him. He was on all the sports teams. Kind. Funny. He drowned. He’d been swimming, they said.’

  ‘Wasn’t he a good swimmer?’ Angus asked, handing her the silver flask again.

  ‘He was on the college swimming team. That’s what I never understood.’ Temerity didn’t want to remember it all again, but she couldn’t help it; something made her want to confide in him. ‘But it was my fault. I could hav
e saved him.’

  ‘How? Were you there?’ he frowned, taking the flask after her.

  ‘I saw him on the Saturday afternoon; we went for a walk, it was sunny.’ Temerity remembered every single detail of that day. The sun on Patrick’s hair, making it blonder than ever. The smell of sunscreen, the tang of the lemon in the crab sandwiches she’d made for them to eat. ‘I had to go home. I had this history project to finish. I left him there, he was reading. I even remember the title of the book.’

  ‘So, he decided to go swimming after you left?’ Angus concluded. ‘He probably got a cramp or something. It wasn’t your fault. I know you must have felt terrible, losing him. But victims of trauma, people experiencing grief, they often think that whatever happened was their fault. But it’s not.’ He put a hand on her arm.

  ‘You don’t understand. I saw it. I saw what was going to happen and I didn’t stop it.’ Temerity looked away; lightning lit the loch again, transforming it into that same strange between–place, like an illustration in an eerie fairy-tale storybook.

  ‘What do you mean, you saw? You saw him drown?’

  ‘No. I… had a vision when we were together that afternoon. It was the first time it had ever happened, so I didn’t know what it was. But I saw his body, dead in the water. I was kissing him, I closed my eyes and I had this sudden, vivid picture in front of my eyes. I opened my eyes and he was there. I thought it was a weird kind of daydream. And then, the next day, when I heard, I knew I’d seen it before it happened.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Are you being serious?’ he asked, finally.

  Temerity sighed heavily.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her eyes meeting his. ‘I wish I wasn’t, but I am. I can touch people and know things about them. I can touch objects and know where they’ve come from, where they’ve been. I couldn’t do it before that day and I don’t know why it started then and I don’t know how I do it, just that I can. And it kills me. Because every single time that I help someone, it reminds me that I didn’t help the person I loved. I know you find it difficult to believe, but you’ll excuse me if I don’t really care what you think.’

  The tears came again and Temerity closed her eyes, feeling them run warm down her cold cheeks. If he’d lived, she and Patrick might have built a life together. They might have moved away from Lost Maidens Loch; had a family, walked distant mountains, swum in jewel-like seas. They might have had a life of laughter. But she had lost him. So she stayed in Lost Maidens Loch, because that was where his bones were and would always be.

  She needed to walk. If she stood there any longer, looking out onto the loch, thinking about Patrick, she felt like she would break down altogether. Temerity strode off, out of the protection of the trees, shining her torch ahead of her on the boggy path. Angus ran after her.

  ‘Temerity, wait!’ He ran a few paces to catch her up. ‘Temerity. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to upset you.’

  She shone her light onto the water, looking for shapes in the gloom. She didn’t want to see anything; the memory of her vision of Patrick played at the edge of her mind. Face down in the water, cold, his skin greyish after a night in the water. He was still beautiful, but the thing that had made him Patrick was gone.

  ‘People in the village call me witch behind my back. They don’t believe until they need me,’ she said a little hysterically. Temerity breathed in the night air; the wind was dropping now. She wished she had never come out.

  ‘Are you a witch?’ he asked.

  ‘In a way. Tilda more than me. I just have vision, a type of clairvoyance. Psychometry. Our parents were occultists. Tilda’s taught herself more of what they knew than I have. She’s got their old books.’

  ‘Occultists, like… crystal balls?’ He looked genuinely ignorant of what she was talking about. ‘I’m sorry. This is all completely new to me. I was brought up to be rational about things. My mum was a geneticist. I didn’t know… people actually were… witches.’

  ‘I’m as rational as you are. It’s not an either/or situation,’ Temerity snapped, irritated again. She was still upset. Shut up about things you don’t understand, Wolfman. Angus couldn’t be more different to Patrick: humourless, plodding, serious, no social skills.

  ‘Right. Okay.’ His tone was neutral; she couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. They walked on in silence; Temerity saw they were approaching Dalcairney Manor and stopped, shining her torch ahead, onto the edge of the loch in front of the Laird’s home. It was a tall, imposing, grey stone Manor house with manicured gardens at the front, leading down to the loch side; Temerity remembered them being better tended than they were now.

  Angus stopped beside her and touched her arm.

  ‘I don’t really understand your visions, or witches… But I can see how painful it was, losing Patrick. I’m sorry,’ he said solemnly.

  ‘Thanks.’ She met his eyes and saw that he was genuine. Her heart softened a little.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m a bit… standoffish, sometimes,’ he said. Temerity was aware that his hand was still on her arm. She felt warmth coming from him and it surprised her. The warmth of friendliness and caring. ‘I find it hard to get to know people.’

  ‘Okay, well, thank you. I appreciate that,’ she repeated, not knowing what else to say. His touch was strangely healing, pushing the painful memories away. ‘But you don’t have to be standoffish with me.’

  He removed his hand from her arm.

  ‘I’ll try.’ He smiled. Temerity thought it was the first time she had seen his smile and it lit up his eyes very nicely. Now, come on, she castigated herself. Don’t get carried away, Temerity Love.

  Something moved on the water. She shone her torch onto it. A dark shape lay at the edge of the water.

  ‘I think we’ve found the boat,’ she said, pointing.

  13

  They ran alongside the loch as best they could for the few hundred metres there were left, but the mud pulled at their feet, slowing them down. Finally, they found their way onto the small private beach at the edge of the Manor’s gardens; Temerity thought that beach was an exaggeration, really, especially in the rain; it was a strip of sandy earth maybe twenty metres wide. The storm had made it as boggy as the pathway, but Angus held her arm as they negotiated their way to the edge of the water. Temerity shone her torch onto the side of the upturned boat; the Sutherland Boat Yard logo was bold against the stark white of the motor boat: a black stag’s head against a white background.

  The thing was, Temerity realised with a sense of defeat, as far as stags went, they were everywhere in Scotland. The proud stag on the moor was a pretty common image on everything from whisky bottles to the Headmistress’s hair clip to a local taxi firm and even this, Sutherland’s Boat Hire. It made her vision feel all the more useless.

  ‘Damn,’ Angus muttered and took his police radio from his belt. The crackle of interference rang out across the quiet loch, then after Angus made his short report, the Inspector’s metallic, amplified voice told them to stay put. In the distance, Temerity heard the returning helicopter.

  ‘What’s happening here?’ A man’s voice rang out in the darkness. ‘I saw your torches. You do know that this is private property?’

  Angus shone his torch towards the house and they watched a portly, balding man halfway down the long, gentle incline of stone steps that led from the house to the end of the garden.

  Temerity had met the Laird before, but only once, a long time ago. She had been a child then and the Laird had come to the shop to see her parents. Maybe they’d found him some rare decorative piece for the Manor: a Faberge egg, an original Lalique lamp. All adults had looked the same age to Temerity, then, but as he grew closer now, she estimated that he was perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties.

  Angus waved and held up his police badge.

  ‘Good evening, sir. I’m so sorry to trespass on private land, but we’re engaged in a search and rescue operation. I’m Constable Angus Harley. This is Temerity Love.
’

  The Laird, quite out of breath even though he had only been walking, stopped for a moment.

  ‘Search and rescue? Ah. I heard the helicopter. Who is it?’ He came to stand by them on the muddy sand.

  ‘Small motor boat there, sir.’ Angus shone his torch out to the boat. ‘And three tourists. The storm must have overwhelmed them.’

  The helicopter grew closer and lower over the water; the vibration from its blades created a choppy tide on the loch. Temerity put her hands over her ears. Down the road that led into the village, visible through the trees at the edge of the Laird’s estate, she saw blue lights flashing. An ambulance was on its way and what looked like the Inspector’s patrol car.

  ‘Right, let’s see what we can do!’ the Laird shouted over the noise. Angus’s radio crackled again and he brought it right against his ear to hear it properly.

  ‘It’s the Inspector. Says the helicopter has sighted the three guys. They’re down the loch from here, but they’ve managed to get out of the water. We need to take a boat down and get them, though, because the helicopter hasn’t got its rescue cage operational.’

  The Laird nodded.

  ‘Right you are, Constable. I’ve got a boat moored up just here. I’ll go with you.’

  ‘Errr… Right you are, sir. Temerity, can you stay and talk to the Inspector when he gets here?’

  Temerity didn’t think the Laird looked at all strong enough to be pulling half-soaked accident survivors into his dinghy or whatever it was, but Angus was in charge here.

  ‘No problem.’ She nodded and watched the Laird lead Angus down the small beach, uncovering a motor boat from under a tarpaulin and pulling it into the water. Almost as soon as they made it onto the loch, Angus’s torch showing the way, Kim Hyland’s car screeched to a halt on the gravelled drive to the right of the house. Temerity ran up to meet him.