Holy Terror in the Hebrides (15 page)

“I wanted to talk to you. It’s warmer if you keep walking.”

He trudged steadily on and I was forced to follow or be left behind.

“What about?

“Aaron. Unless you’re tired of hearing my sob stories.”

“Of course not!” That put a whole different spin on it. I couldn’t try to question Jake when he needed a listener. There are limits to even my nosiness. “I just didn’t want to refer to it myself, if it was going to make you unhappy. I could see you wanted to drop the subject yesterday.”

“Yeah. I don’t talk about it much, but you’re an easy lady to talk to, you know?”

I just smiled, and we proceeded in amiable silence. We had left the Abbey grounds and were heading up the road, north toward the end of the island.

“How far is it?”

“The hill’s over there, but we have to go almost beyond it to where there’s a path. It’s probably no more than—oh, say, half a mile to the top. You tired?”

“Not yet. This part’s easy.”

The wind was blowing steadily from our left, but it didn’t impede our progress much. In fact, it was rather exhilarating.

“My word, look over there!” I pointed to the farm we were passing. “Isn’t that Janet in front of the house, arguing with that farmer?”

It was certainly Janet, and “arguing” was a mild term for her conversation. She was shouting, her arms waving in the face of the man I assumed was a farmer. He looked rather bewildered, and didn’t seem to be saying much. The house was set well back from the road, so we couldn’t hear what Janet was saying, only the angry tone of her voice, though the wind flung us a word now and again.

“You’re lying!” was one intriguing little snatch we caught, and

“I’ll find out . . . sorry you ever . . .”

We passed out of earshot.

“Now what on earth was that all about?” I demanded.

Jake shrugged. “She has a temper, and she hates the Scots.”

“Then why did she come to Scotland?”

He shrugged again and we plodded on.

“So tell me about Aaron,” I said after a few minutes, hoping I wasn’t rushing Jake.

“It would have been his birthday,” he said slowly, helping me over a cattle grid. “Today. He would have been sixteen. I was gonna get him a car. I had it all planned out. Driving lessons, and then I’d show him the fine points—city driving, expressway driving, how to spot the crazies—and then I’d turn him loose. Can’t keep them babies forever, y’know.”

I wanted to hug him, or offer him some of the consolation my own faith offered, but all he wanted right then was to talk about it, poor man. I wondered who’d been around to help him mourn when the boy died. No wife, no daughter, a son-in-law who wanted no part of his child—it must have been terribly lonely.

“Jake, how did it happen? A blood transfusion?”

“I don’t know.”

I thought he was going to leave it at that, but after a long pause he went on.

“He never even told me he had it. The city clinic will give anybody over twelve the test. The first I knew about it, he was dead. He left a note . . .”

He couldn’t continue, so we toiled on in silence.

We had passed a couple of farms before Jake pointed out a gate on the left.

“This is the one. Are you still game?”

“We’ve come this far. I admit I’m loath to leave Iona without getting to the top of Dun I. It’s one of the required things, isn’t it?”

There was no path from here. We ambled across a field where sheep were grazing placidly. They were annoyed at our invasion, but not especially frightened. I suppose even sheep, stupid as they are, can get used to tourists.

The field was marshy, and the walking sticks were a boon. “I’m going to have to scrape pounds of mud off these when we get back,” I commented, grabbing Jake’s arm to keep from sinking ankle-deep in one deceptive patch of grassy mud.

“Better that than having to pull each other out.”

“Easier, too. I can just picture . . .” I giggled, and I was glad to see Jake smile again.

The going got really rough when we left the field. There was a sort of track leading up the mountain, as I was beginning to think of it. I’m sure the young and fit would have found the climb a mere stroll, but I was panting after five minutes, and my knees were complaining bitterly. I tried not to think of Jake’s heart condition.

We made it, though. We were both flat beat, but we stood for a triumphant moment at the summit, leaning into the wind that up here was almost strong enough to knock us down, before Jake dropped to a large rock and I collapsed next to him.

“That was a damn-fool thing to do,” he said presently.

“Yes.” I stretched contentedly. “I’m glad we did it. Are you going to put a stone on the cairn?”

“You better believe it. Later.”

“Yes.”

We sat there, the wind blowing right through us, and let our lungs and hearts get back to normal. I looked at the cairn, the pile of small stones built up over the years by climbers who had wanted to commemorate their accomplishment. It was close to the pointed stone column that marked the highest point on the island and also, I had been told, served as a triangulation point for mapmakers and others interested in such esoteric stuff.

“You can see Staffa.” Jake pointed.

“So you can. It looks kind of like a ship from here, doesn’t it? That would be the bow, there on the left, where it rises.”

“D’you mind looking at it?”

“Not from here. I might get a little queasy if I had to go back in the cave.”

“You really didn’t see anything? I thought you were being kind of cagey with that cop.”

Uh-oh. If Jake realized I’d left something out, maybe the others had, too. I laughed, and hoped the laughter sounded more genuine to Jake than it did to me. “I just resented being treated like a suspect. I’ve actually been involved in a couple of murder cases in Sherebury, where I live—happened on to them, innocent bystander sort of thing—and the police there know me pretty well. Well, you’ll have gathered that. I guess I’ve gotten used to being treated with a little more respect. Gotten spoiled, in other words. Besides, it was obviously an accident—or just possibly suicide, although I don’t think so. He fell, he didn’t jump. And what does it matter which it was? Except for the state of his soul, and that’s between him and God, anyway.”

“Umm.”

It was an equivocal sort of noise, and I remembered that Jake didn’t believe in God, but he said no more, so perhaps I’d diverted him.

We sat for a few minutes more and listened to the howl of the wind. I watched the boats in the Sound. I could see none that were going anywhere; a few sailboats and launches were riding at anchor, tossed madly by the waves that were rising by the minute.

“Shall we go down?” I said finally. “I’m freezing, and starving, and that rain’s coming, sure as Christmas.”

“Right.” Jake heaved himself to his feet, helped me up, and after we had each found a stone we liked and ceremoniously balanced it atop the cairn, we stood, leaning into the wind, looking down at the island.

“Jake!” I said suddenly. “I’ve been watching the Sound for a good fifteen minutes now. Doesn’t the ferry make a round-trip every twenty or so?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

“Well, I haven’t seen it. Nothing’s moving down there. Look, it isn’t crossing, and I can’t see it at either jetty.”

He put his hand up to his eyes and squinted. “You’re right. Maybe we should go find out what’s up, huh?” We slipped and slid our way back down to the road, and hurried as fast as we could to the jetty.

No one was there. No one was waiting for the ferry, or mending nets. There were no wagons ready for tourists. The nerve center of the village was deserted.

Jake was the one who spotted the piece of paper. Hand-written in pencil, it was attached to a piling, and was flapping madly in the wind. “Notice,” it read. “Iona ferry out of order. Back in service soon.”

“What does that mean?” asked Jake blankly. “‘Soon.’ When’s soon?”

“What I think it means,” I said grimly, “is that you’re going to miss your plane on Saturday. I was going to invite you to lunch, but maybe you’d better go up and tell the others.”

I made it home just before the rain started pelting down. The blue-black sky made it look like early evening, though it was just past noon. I decided I would put a stew in a slow oven to cook for dinner before I fixed myself a little lunch. Then I could consider my problem.

So when I’d eaten some mulligatawny soup and cleaned up the kitchen, I sat down with my pad in front of me. All right, start with the victim. That was always Hercule Poirot’s approach, and who am I to question the masters? What did I remember about Bob Williams, alive and dead?

Actually, he wasn’t a very memorable person. I had rather disliked him, but not passionately; he didn’t have a strong enough personality to inspire any sort of passion in anybody, it seemed to me. And that was apparently the way his fellow travelers viewed him, too. Most of them found him a nuisance, and ineffectual, but well-meaning enough. Grace had expressed some respect for his work, as had Teresa. I didn’t recall that Janet or Chris had said a word about him.

Very well, then, what had I noticed about his state of mind? Had he appeared suicidal? Shamefully, I brightened at the thought.

Certainly he had been moody the day he’d died. He’d spent at least part of the day alone; I’d seen him walking at the north end of the island without another soul in sight, and later on the boat he’d sat by himself. But people, I reluctantly admitted, can be solitary without planning to kill themselves.

No, I was forced to agree with the Chicagoans, who were certain he hadn’t killed himself.

Wait a minute! If one of them had killed him, wouldn’t the murderer, at any rate, be pushing the suicide theory? Since nobody was doing that, didn’t that mean that I could relax and forget about murder?

Unless, of course, whoever it was had decided to let me take the blame. I had been alone with the man, after all. Although, if that tantalizing flicker of something at the entrance to the cave had been anything more than my imagination, it might have been someone who could vindicate me. Or, of course, it might have been the murderer, who would have no interest in testifying on my behalf.

That was thinking negatively again. It wasn’t murder, I reminded myself. That’s the hypothesis du jour. Stick to it and stop chasing stray ideas.

Definitely, I needed a cat. Cats excel at reminding humans of the realities of life. They do not let their people go off on tangents. Imagined horrors always take a backseat to the needs of cats.

I got up to stir the stew, and heard a sound at the back door that I thought wasn’t the wind.

It was probably the savory smell of the stew that had brought Stan to my kitchen door, standing up on his hind legs and tapping with his front paws, demanding admittance.

“Well! Might have known you’d turn up too late to be useful. Where were you when I needed you?”

Stan replied by twining himself around my ankles and walking pointedly over to the stove.

“It isn’t ready yet. And the leftover soup is pretty spicy. But I have some cheese I’d be glad to share.”

I ended up having some myself, with oatcakes, and giving Stan a little of the soup he insisted he wanted (and finished, to the last drop). He also wanted my shortbread (he had hopped up to the counter and discovered the box), but I finally drew the line. “Look here, old boy, neither of us needs all that butter and sugar. You go chase some mice or rabbits or whatever, work off some of your lunch, and maybe by teatime I’ll relent.”

I had to shove him out the door, but he had cheered me considerably, even if he hadn’t aided my mental processes. I decided it was time for an afternoon nap. I was becoming addicted to them, something about all the fresh air, I told myself. When I woke, since I was apparently stuck on this island with the Chicago crew, I really would work out a systematic approach to clearing them all of murder.

I
WAS AWAKENED
by a howl of wind so loud and angry that it penetrated closed windows, and rain that struck the house like hailstones. I rushed, disheveled and disoriented, to close the kitchen window, and when I stubbed my toe on an inconvenient footstool and tried to turn on the lights, I discovered that the electricity had gone out.

It wasn’t entirely dark, but very nearly. I peered at my watch and finally made out the time to be almost five, much later than I had intended to sleep. Oh, dear, what was going to happen to my dinner in an electric oven?

The thought made me hungry, and I was also thirsty; a cup of tea would be very welcome.

The teakettle was electric.

Glumly, I drank a glass of water, nibbled on a piece of the shortbread I had intended to share with Stan, and considered my options.

I had no idea whether my electrical problem was only mine. It could be spread over the whole island, if something had happened to the underwater cable that carried the supply from Mull. One glance out the window had assured me that lights could have been burning in every other building on Iona, and I wouldn’t have seen them; the rain resembled Niagara Falls and cut off visibility completely.

Nor could I estimate how long it might be before my service was restored, though certainly it would have to wait until the rain had stopped. No repairman in his senses would work on electric lines with this much water in the air, or at any rate, he wouldn’t work on them long.

What a grim thought! What I needed was a bit of cheer. Like a phone call from Alan.

He ought to have called by now, surely. If it was six in Belgium, he must be back at the hotel.

Maybe they’d forgotten to give him the message. Or—well, I was past caring whether he thought I was being a pest. I badly needed to hear Alan’s voice. After I’d talked to him I’d call the Iona Hotel and find out if they had any way to cook and could accommodate me for dinner. I picked up the phone.

It was dead.

It was at that moment that I felt the first stab of real fear.

I was alone and isolated, in the middle of a storm on a small and vulnerable island, an island that, perhaps, harbored a murderer.