Last Writes (8 page)

‘Othello, The Moor,’ said the man from Farnessnes Island promptly. ‘Your national bard had that – how do you put it here? Sewn up?’

‘Stitched,’ murmured someone sotto voce.

‘And there’s always lust, too,’ persisted the young don.

‘Can’t exclude that,’ agreed Gustav Soderssonn, his smile still well to the fore. ‘First-class motive, lust.’

‘You can have lust for power, as well as women, can’t you?’ put in Alan Walkinshaw, looking round the all-male dinner table in a challenging fashion. ‘We don’t have too far to look for that, do we?’

Nobody mentioned Herr Hitler but the English literature don tactfully murmured
Macbeth
.

‘There’s the other sort of lust, Reynolds,’ put in Henry’s host, Toby Beddowes. ‘Don’t forget that.’

The criminologist looked up, pleased. ‘I have got everyone talking, haven’t I?’

‘Come on, Beddowes, what’s the other sort of lust?’ said someone else. ‘Tell us.’

‘The lust for killing,’ said the biologist.

‘Blood lust,’ remarked the young man thoughtfully. ‘Of course …’

There was an awkward little silence and then someone coughed and said, ‘There’s murder for elimination, too.’

‘We don’t have to look too far for that, either, do we?’ said Alan Walkinshaw.

‘East,’ said Toby Beddowes heavily.

‘You’re just talking about today, Beddowes,’ said the history man reprovingly. ‘I’d be counting Kings Henry Seven and Eight as masters of that art.’

Gustav Soderssonn leant forward and said, ‘Gentlemen, aren’t you forgetting that strange queen of yours, too? The one who was called after a drink. Or was it the other way round?’

‘Bloody Mary,’ said Malcolm Clifford, the large man with a patent interest in food and drink. ‘Vodka in tomato juice.’

‘With Worcestershire sauce and a dash of lemon,’ added Marcus Holtby, the chemist, pedantically. He was a man who seemed to need to have the last word.

‘Mary Tudor,’ sighed the history don. ‘A difficult woman.’

Gustav Soderssonn nodded. ‘That’s the girl. Didn’t like disobedience and acted accordingly.’

Henry Tyler looked from one face to another, searching to see if anyone would speak about modern parallels with
the current equivalent of an absolute monarch who daily ordered deaths with apparent impunity. ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary,’ he murmured, almost to himself.

‘There’s judicial killing, too,’ said another don. ‘Don’t they call that justifiable homicide?’

‘That’s only revenge wearing a different hat,’ countered the criminologist.

‘Don’t you mean a black cap?’ said Malcolm Clifford wittily.

‘Society’s revenge,’ said Peter Reynolds, ‘that’s what that is.’

‘Socrates,’ remarked the philosophy don in a detached way, ‘got murdered for asking awkward questions.’

‘That reminds me,’ said Henry’s left-hand neighbour, ‘where’s the port got to?’

The decanter was rapidly located and passed to the left.

The history don advanced another thought. ‘I suppose it’s only a subsection of gain but what about the Terror during the French Revolution? Murdering everyone in sight in order to subdue the population by fright?’

At the mention of France Henry Tyler, civil servant at the Foreign Office, let his attention wander. France was very high on the list of worries there. When he brought his attention back to the High Table the conversation had moved on to the regrettable lowering of examination standards in the Western world in general and the University of Calleshire in particular.

It was not long, though, before the talk was turned to the putative delights of emigrating to Farnessnes Island. ‘Complete intellectual freedom,’ insisted Gustav Soderssonn expansively, ‘and, of course, freedom from – well, anything
that might happen on the international front.’

‘Are you talking about physical safety?’ asked the young criminologist pertinently.

‘Of course, no one can guarantee anyone absolute safety these days …’

‘I should think not,’ put in the philosophy don.

‘But naturally a totally neutral island should escape – what shall we say? undue interference – from any countries at war with each other.’ Soderssonn looked round and said, ‘And I do mean “any” countries.’

‘What about your facilities?’ enquired Toby Beddowes, eyebrows raised.

‘I don’t think you will find us stinting in any way,’ said Soderssonn.

‘Who’s funding you?’ asked Beddowes, quite brusquely for him.

‘An international foundation,’ said Soderssonn smoothly.

‘And who’s funding them?’ enquired Beddowes.

‘Various philanthropists and trusts.’ Soderssonn waved a hand. ‘You know the sort of thing.’

‘I do indeed,’ said Beddowes darkly.

At this point the Master intervened with a diplomatic enquiry about the wildlife on Farnessnes Island and the talk turned to other things.

At the end of the evening Henry thanked his old friend, Toby Beddowes, and made his way to his sister’s house. It was late the following morning when he had a visit there from Detective Inspector Bewman of the Calleshire Constabulary.

The policeman did not beat about the bush. ‘I understand, sir, you work at the Foreign Office.’ It was a statement not
a question. ‘They have told me that you may be able to help us with our enquiries.’

Henry acknowledged that this might be so.

‘We are interested in all those who were dining at Almstone College last evening,’ began Bewman.

‘Ah …’ So was Henry but he did not say so.

‘And especially a small group who adjourned to the Senior Common Room afterwards and stayed up late.’

Henry said that he had not been one of them.

‘We know that,’ said the policeman calmly. He looked down at his notebook. ‘There were four of them. Alan Walkinshaw, a very well-known mathematician, Malcolm Clifford who’s a geologist and Marcus Holtby who I understand is a chemist.’

‘That’s right. The scientific sort – not your toothpaste and aspirin over the counter sort,’ amplified Henry.

‘And a Gustav Soderssonn, a guest who is also a scientist of some sort,’ said Bewman, letting a little silence develop.

Then when Henry said nothing he went on, ‘Apparently this gentleman spoke to them all about the advantages of emigrating to his part of the world at this particular moment in world history.’

‘Farnessnes Island,’ put in Henry.

‘Soderssonn was staying at the college overnight and apparently said to them all that he would be in the quadrangle the next morning if any of them wanted to come to see him and discuss the matter further.’

‘And did any of them?’ asked Henry with interest.

‘Two of them.’ Detective Inspector Bewman consulted his notebook. ‘And they are all in agreement up to this point. At least, the three of them are – Holtby, Clifford and Soderssonn.’

‘You have to start somewhere,’ said Henry.

‘Although, sir, I must say it seems to me to be rather a public spot for a quiet chat.’

‘On the contrary, Inspector,’ said Henry. ‘You’ve got absolute privacy there in that you can’t either be overheard or approached unobserved.’

‘That’s true. Anyway, after two of them had been to see him, Soderssonn said he made his way back to his own room and started to pack. He was due in Cambridge over the rest of the weekend.’

‘And?’ said Henry. What went on in Cambridge these days was someone else’s problem.

‘And that’s when he says he heard that Alan Walkinshaw had just been found dead in his rooms.’

‘Without ever coming to see him?’ deduced Henry swiftly.

‘That is so,’ said the policeman. ‘According to the college servant who went in there to see to the room after breakfast, Professor Walkinshaw was alive and well then but he asked not to be disturbed again as he was checking some proofs for his new book.’

‘And was he disturbed?’ asked Henry. ‘Or did natural causes overtake him?’

‘What overtook him was a heavy blunt object applied to the back of his head,’ said Bewman succinctly.

‘When?’

‘Ah, sir, now you’ve hit the nail on the head.’

A Foreign Office man to his fingertips, Henry let the inappropriate cliché pass.

‘It would seem,’ advanced Bewman cautiously, ‘that the foreign gentleman went out into the quadrangle about nine
o’clock this morning – or so he says – and sat on the seat between the fountain and that funny flower garden.’

‘The Linnean clock.’

‘Perhaps, sir, you’d be kind enough to spell that for me.’ As Henry spoke Bewman conscientiously copied the word into his notebook.

‘But Walkinshaw didn’t ever come to see him?’ said Henry.

‘That’s right, sir. Professor Holtby and Dr Clifford both came out to see this Mr Soderssonn but he says he waited by the fountain after they’d gone but the third man didn’t turn up – naturally he couldn’t on account of his being dead.’ He stopped and said, ‘He wasn’t dead naturally, of course, if you understand me, sir. It was a very savage attack and unprovoked as far as we can see.’

Henry sat back. ‘Gustav Soderssonn was trying to recruit him for his outfit on Farnessnes Island – the deceased was a world authority on the mathematics of trajectories.’

‘Really, sir? Well, this Mr Gustav Soderssonn says he was sitting out in the quadrangle from about nine o’clock onwards and that was before his scout saw Professor Walkinshaw alive and well in his room.’

‘And nobody else saw him out there then?’

‘Not that we know about, it being a Saturday. The porter says no one came into the college this morning except the staff. I’m told most of the young gentlemen don’t reckon to work at weekends and don’t get up betimes while those who do are usually out on the river from early on.’

‘Some of them don’t reckon to work at any time,’ murmured Henry.

‘And the staff were all working inside the college,’ said
the policeman, whose own weekend was going to be a busy one too.

‘Tell me, Inspector, is it a question of time being of the essence?’

He got an oblique answer. ‘Professor Holtby and Dr Clifford were both with the Master at the material time, that is after the scout had seen Professor Walkinshaw alive and well. They were discussing with the Master how their going to Farnessnes Island would affect their careers at – how did they put it? “At this particular juncture in world history”, I think was what they said.’

‘Good point,’ said Henry. ‘But didn’t they wonder why Walkinshaw wasn’t with them?’

‘No. He’d already told the pair of them that he might be a pacifist but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a patriot as well.’

‘Bully for him,’ said Henry absently, something from last night’s talk beginning to come back to him. What was it that that young criminologist had said about jealousy? He frowned and murmured, ‘If I can’t have what I want then I’ll make sure you can’t have it either.’

Inspector Bewman said, ‘Beg pardon, sir, I didn’t quite catch that.’

‘I think I might have been talking motive,’ said Henry.

The police inspector brightened. ‘I must say that any suggestion of a motive would be a help. The deceased didn’t appear to have any natural enemies.’

‘We’ve all got natural enemies, Inspector. I think what poor Walkinshaw had were some unnatural ones.’

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, indeed – whatever powers that are really behind
this scheme for Farnessnes Island staying neutral. A cock and bull story, if you ask me.’

Inspector Bewman said, ‘What I am asking you, sir, is how, if this visitor from that island was sitting out there when he says he was, he could have had anything to do with killing our Mr Walkinshaw and,’ the policeman drew breath and added what the Foreign Office would have called a rider, ‘if he wasn’t out there when he says he was how we are going to prove it.’

‘Let me get this straight, Inspector. Walkinshaw was done to death sometime after nine o’clock while Holtby and Clifford were with the Master and Soderssonn says he was sitting in the quad …’

‘That is correct, sir.’

Henry Tyler sat still, his gaze wandering through his sister’s sitting-room window and out into the garden. ‘Wait a minute, Inspector. Wait a minute. I’ve just had an idea.’

Inspector Bewman, wise man that he was, said nothing.

Henry got to his feet. ‘I’ll have to ring a friend first.’ He reached for his diary and then made for the telephone in the hall, lifting the receiver and tapping the bar. ‘Operator, can you get me this number?’

He called back to Bewman. ‘They’re ringing now.’ He turned back to the earpiece. ‘That you, Toby? Good, now listen carefully. This is important. Which flowers would have been open on your flower clock at nine o’clock this morning?’ Henry fell silent, then said, ‘You’re sure? Sorry, of course you’re sure. And at ten o’clock? Thank you and thank you for last night, too.’ There was a pause, then Henry said, ‘What’s that? Do it again sometime? That would be good.’

Henry restored the receiver to its cradle and went back into the sitting room.

‘Inspector, I suggest you invite Gustav Soderssonn to tell you exactly what flowers he saw open in the flower bed in front of him. He can’t have failed to notice which they were. After all, he’s a biologist when he’s not acting on behalf of a foreign power.’

‘Flowers, sir?’

‘Flowers. If he doesn’t mention the Californian poppy and
Helichrysum
being out when he got there then he got out there much later than he said he did.’

‘And so you mean he would have had time to kill Professor Walkinshaw while the others were safely with the Master,’ concluded Inspector Bewman intelligently.

‘Exactly.’

‘But why?’

‘Oh, that’s easy, Inspector. If Alan Walkinshaw wasn’t going to be one of them, then they had to make quite sure nobody else benefited from his research work. What he was working on is very important these days.’ Henry waved his hand. ‘His killing’s just a variation of what a young criminologist was saying last night. I must remember to tell young Peter Reynolds how right he was.’

‘He did what, Hamish?’ exploded Sheriff Rhuaraidh Macmillan in disbelief. His temper had not been improved by his having been roused from his quiet time in the afternoon by the unexpected arrival at his door of three breathless young men. ‘And why, may I ask?’

It wouldn’t have been right to call his quiet time actual sleep – he was sure he’d done no more than close his eyes in deep thought for a minute or two. And hadn’t he sat up straight enough – and as alert as ever – the very moment he heard the hall boy’s bagpipes warning him that men were approaching his house at Drummondreach? A man of law needed to be alert right enough in these troubled times for Scotland.

Hamish Urquhart stood first on one foot and then on the other. ‘It was only for a wager, Sheriff,’ he said uneasily.

‘Just a wee bet,’ supplemented his friend, Malcolm, one of old Alcaig’s sons.

‘Nothing but a good hen,’ chimed in the third man, Ian Macrae, Younger, of Cornton.

‘There’s no such thing as good hen,’ countered Sheriff Macmillan sternly. Had he still been a young man himself the sheriff would have been a great deal more sympathetic to their sorry tale of dares and wagers than he found himself now.

‘But …’ began Hamish Urquhart.

‘There’s a man dead, you tell me,’ he interrupted firmly. Loss of life and limb, common enough though it was in mid-sixteenth century Scotland, was still not something to be taken lightly by the law.

‘Missing, anyway,’ parried Hamish Urquhart.

‘But deid all the same,’ said Malcolm Alcaig flatly.

‘Must be,’ said Ian Macrae ineluctably. ‘There.’

‘Dead, then.’ Rhuaraidh Macmillan’s pardonable anger at the men was compounded by his having to accept that his dislike of wagers was yet another sign of his now being well and truly middle-aged. He liked the condition no more than did the next man but it was undeniable. And he had been made even more cross because the three men in front of him had just brought that uncomfortable realisation a little nearer.

‘Aye, then,’ conceded Hamish Urquhart. ‘Dead.’

‘From the hen?’ The sheriff now knew for certain what he had been beginning to suspect for some time: that middle-age was most surely upon him.

There was a shuffling of feet.

‘Just a simple bet, you say?’ he thundered to the three young loons now standing in front of him at his house at Drummondreach, outraged by their sorry tale. Besides,
like it or not, these days he needed his secure hour in the afternoon and resented being disturbed.

Hamish Urquhart hung his head.

‘Dead where?’ asked the sheriff bleakly. His writ ran throughout this part of Fearnshire and the deaths of all who died untimely there came within his jurisdiction. Those who died in their beds were outwith his remit: fever and old age had no need of the inquisition of Sheriff Rhuaraidh Macmillan.

Sudden death did.

Urquhart waved an arm and muttered ‘Away to the west.’

‘Stop havering, man,’ commanded the sheriff. ‘And tell me where.’

‘Cnoc Fyrish,’ answered Hamish Urquhart, jerking his shoulder in a more northerly direction.

‘Cnoc an Deilignidh,’ said Malcolm Alcaig.

‘Meann Chnoc,’ said Macrae of Cornton.

‘The Big Burn?’ asked the sheriff.

There was a pregnant silence.

‘Well?’ demanded the sheriff.

‘Not the Big Burn,’ admitted Hamish reluctantly.

‘Where if not the Big Burn?’

‘The Ugly Burn.’

‘Strath Glass, then,’ divined the sheriff. ‘So where in Strath Glass?’ he asked impatiently.

‘Near Novar,’ said Hamish Urquhart vaguely.

The sheriff said, suddenly struck by an unhappy thought, ‘Where exactly at Novar?’

Urquhart stirred uncomfortably. ‘The Black Rock.’

The sheriff said sharply, ‘Places don’t come more dangerous than the Black Rock at Novar.’

He meant it. The site was just a narrow fissure in the rock, high above the surrounding land and immeasurably deep. It was with good reason that that stretch of the River Glass at the bottom of the chasm was known as the Ugly Burn.

‘And you all know that,’ he said.

‘Aye,’ admitted Urquhart uneasily. ‘We ken’t that, right enough.’

‘That’s what made it such a good hen,’ said Ian Macrae naively. He quickly subsided into silence, though, when he caught sight of the sheriff’s basilisk expression.

‘This man that’s either dead or missing …’ began the sheriff sarcastically, motioning the hall boy to summon his clerk and get the little palfrey he used for rough terrain saddled.

‘Both,’ said Malcolm Alcaig, not a man noted for his intellect.

‘Who is he?’

‘Calum Farquharson of that ilk,’ supplied Malcolm Alcaig.

‘Ye’ll ken him, maybe?’ said Ian Macrae.

It wasn’t so much a question as a statement. The sheriff was famous as a seannachie: the genealogy of the Highlands had been bred in his bones. Besides, Calum Farquharson had been a troublemaker since childhood.

‘I know him fine,’ said Rhuaraidh Macmillan dryly. A blackavised giant of a man, was Calum Farquharson, given to boasting, and with not half enough brain to go with his brawn. ‘So what was the hen, then?’ he asked crisply.

‘The man was always so fu’ of hisself,’ put in Malcolm Alcaig obliquely. ‘Farquharson had no modesty at all.’

‘He thought he could do it,’ shrugged Hamish Urquhart.

‘Do what?’ asked the sheriff.

‘Clear it.’

‘Clear it?’ barked Rhuaraidh Macmillan. ‘The Black Rock? Was he mad? It must be all of fifteen foot across at the narrowest.’

‘Seventeen,’ said Malcolm Alcaig.

‘We measured it with a rope,’ said Ian Macrae ingenuously.

‘No man can clear that distance,’ said the sheriff, turning as the hall boy led his little steed out of the steading, accompanied by his clerk. He swung himself into the saddle and motioned the others to follow him. ‘And,’ he added sourly, ‘even Calum should have known that you can’t cross a chasm in two stages.’

‘Lachlan Leanaig bet him he couldn’t clear it,’ said Hamish, falling in behind the little steed. ‘That was the hen.’

‘And he couldna’,’ said Malcolm, looking round at the other two, ‘could he?’

‘No,’ said Hamish.

‘Yes,’ said Ian Macrae suddenly.

‘What!’ exclaimed Hamish.

‘He could,’ insisted Ian Macrae.

They all stared at him.

‘He could,’ insisted Ian Macrae, ‘but he didn’t,’ he added hastily. ‘Not then, anyway.’

‘But before?’ barked the sheriff. His clerk was already busy making a note.

‘Aye,’ said Ian Macrae. ‘He cleared it right enough before.’

‘Before what?’ demanded the sheriff.

‘Before the hen.’

‘He didn’t tell us that,’ said Hamish Urquhart, surprised. ‘When?’

‘Yesterday,’ said Ian insouciantly. ‘He cleared it all right yesterday.’

‘We didn’t know that, Macrae,’ said Hamish Urquhart, turning on his friend. ‘How did you?’

‘I was in the wood and I saw him,’ said Ian simply. ‘He didn’t see me, though.’

Hamish Urquhart stopped in his tracks and said indignantly, ‘Then it wasn’t a proper hen after all.’

‘Highland gentlemen don’t bet on certainties,’ agreed the sheriff dryly, looking down on them from his mount, and leaving aside for the time being the more germane question of whether Lachlan Leanaig had also known Calum Farquharson had cleared the distance the day before. That could come later. ‘So why didn’t he clear it again today?’

That silenced them all.

‘He had this pole …’ began Hamish Urquhart eventually.

‘But it slipped.’

‘It was bendy enough, all right,’ volunteered Malcolm.

‘We saw him test it before he made the leap.’

‘And long enough,’ offered Ian Macrae. ‘He knew that, anyway, from yesterday.’

‘And yet you watched him fall,’ concluded the sheriff balefully.

‘Och, we couldna’ do anything else,’ protested Hamish Urquhart. ‘There was no stopping him once he’d taken the hen.’

‘There was no stopping him once he started to fall,’ observed Ian Macrae, Younger, of Cornton.

The sheriff glared at him. Ian Macrae wasn’t any brighter than Calum Farquharson and that wasn’t saying much for either of them.

Malcolm Alcaig said, ‘And nobody knows how far it is to the bottom, do they?’

Nobody did know.

It was as deep as that.

‘It’s nothing but a wee cleft in the hill,’ muttered Hamish Urquhart rebelliously. ‘There’s no width to it at all.’

‘Maybe, but no one comes out alive at the foot of it,’ said the sheriff. ‘You all know that.’ The cleft ran for a good few hundred yards between the rocks: the length had been measured time and again, right enough. It was the depth that hadn’t.

‘We tried to get in from below with a flare,’ said Hamish Urquhart.

‘Afterwards,’ said Ian Macrae.

‘But it blew out,’ said Malcolm Alcaig, ‘like it always does.’

‘It was aye dark in there,’ shivered Ian Macrae. ‘You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.’

‘And you were frightened,’ finished the sheriff for them, digging his heels in to the palfrey’s sides to urge it on.

‘They say the Devil himself lives under the Black Rock,’ said Hamish.

‘I’ll have no talk of diablerie, you understand,’ said the sheriff firmly. ‘You can’t be blaming Himself for a bad hen.’ He looked round. ‘And where’s Lachlan Leanaig now?’

‘He’s away to the Cloutie Well with Farquharson’s coat,’
Hamish Urquhart told him. ‘The man took it off before he jumped and left it on the ground.’

‘He’ll no be needing it now anyway,’ remarked Ian Macrae.

‘A wishing well’ll do no good to a man already lying dead,’ said the sheriff. ‘You should know that. All of you,’ he added balefully, looking round at the sorry bunch before him. ‘Even you. And that includes Lachlan Leanaig.’

‘No harm in trying the Cloutie Well,’ muttered Hamish Urquhart obstinately. ‘No harm at all.’

‘This hen …’ began the sheriff on another tack, ‘Was it for merks?’

Hamish Urquhart shook his head. ‘No, no, Farquharson has no need of money.’

‘Not now, anyway,’ said Ian Macrae, Younger, of Cornton.

‘Not then, either,’ supplemented Malcolm Alcaig. ‘He’s got land enough and to spare.’

‘So …’ The sheriff was getting impatient, ‘what was the stake then?’

The young bloods shuffled their feet, looking anywhere save at the Sheriff of Fearnshire, and kept silent.

‘I’ll have the three of you put in irons in an instant …’ threatened Rhuaraidh Macmillan.

‘Four,’ said the incorrigible Ian Macrae of Cornton.

‘So that’s the way of it, is it?’ deduced the sheriff, unsurprised. ‘So what did Lachlan Leanaig bet Calum Farquharson, then?’ Lachlan Leanaig was a wild man, too, if ever there was one.

‘That Calum couldn’t clear the Black Rock,’ said Hamish.

‘And the stake?’ went on Sheriff Macmillan inexorably.

‘Och, it was only a woman,’ mumbled Hamish.

Sheriff Macmillan tightened his lips, prudently keeping his own counsel. It was only a woman ruling Scotland just now and there was not a lot to be said for her. And what there was, he thought to himself, was better not said aloud.

Malcolm Alcaig was more forthcoming. ‘Jemima from Balblair,’ he said.

‘Big Jemima,’ said Ian Macrae, waving an arm in the direction of the south-east. ‘Lachlan’s fancy woman, too.’

Rhuaraidh Macmillan made no answer to this, only partly because he had no breath left now with which to do so. Any doubt that the Sheriff of Fearnshire might have had about his growing older had definitely left him halfway up the climb to the top of the Black Rock. That had been very soon after the going had got too steep for his little mount and he had had to use his own two feet from then on.

But he kept silent partly, too, because from what he’d heard she who was known as Big Jemima from Balblair had much the same way with her as far as men were concerned as did Her Majesty at Holyrood. There had been the Queen’s wee mannie, David Rizzio, and then the Earl of Darnley and now James Bothwell … No good would seem to have come to them either.

‘Calum had got on the wrong side of Lachlan over Big Jemima,’ explained Hamish Urquhart. ‘Lachlan said he’d forget the whole stushie if Calum cleared the Black Rock.’

‘This hen,’ said the sheriff acidly, ‘when was it laid?’

‘The day before yesterday,’ replied Hamish Urquhart.

‘And where, may I ask, was Lachlan Leanaig yesterday when Calum was practising his leap?’ enquired the sheriff
when he had got enough of his breath back to speak.

There was a silence, broken by the ineffable Ian Macrae. ‘I saw him going down the path to Evanton. That was after I came out of the wood.’

‘Was it, indeed?’ said the sheriff slowly, motioning his clerk to write that down. No one in Edinburgh had been eager to write down what had happened to Rizzio and it seemed no one knew exactly what had happened to Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley at Kirk o’Field or, if they did, they weren’t keen to write that down either. But Rhuaraidh Macmillan was Sheriff of Fearnshire and he would cause to be written that which he found, and all of which he found. Not for him the mockery that had been the trial of the Earl of Bothwell, he who was now married to the woman who was Mary, Queen of Scots.

‘But I don’t know if he’d seen Calum clear it,’ offered Ian Macrae.

‘Had Leanaig seen you?’ asked the sheriff pertinently.

Ian Macrae shook his head. ‘No, no, I was still in the wood then.’

‘So you did see Calum leap and Lachlan might have done so, too,’ concluded the sheriff. ‘And neither of them knew you could have known anything.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Ian Macrae, nodding. ‘That’s the right of it.’

‘If Calum knew he could clear it and Lachlan knew Calum could clear it,’ objected Hamish Urquhart heatedly, ‘then I still say it wasn’t a proper hen at all.’

‘That,’ said the sheriff soberly, ‘is something I am taking in to avizandum.’

Hamish Urquhart looked at the sheriff blankly, while
Malcolm Alcaig poked his friend in the ribs and said, ‘It means he’s thinking.’

‘Taking matters into consideration,’ the sheriff translated for him as they reached the top of the Black Rock. What the sheriff was thinking about was a wager taken by a man – Calum Farquharson – who had already demonstrated that he could accomplish the feat concerned; and a wager made by a man – Lachlan Leanaig – who might very well already have known that it could be done. What the sheriff did know – had always known – was that two wrongs never did make a right.