The Blue Hackle (23 page)

“Was there any question about the bairn’s
paternity?” Alasdair asked.

“None,” answered Fergie. “Norman acknowledged
him as his son and heir. Short of doing a DNA test, and that would
involve digging up Seonaid . . .”

“Is she in the churchyard in Kinlochroy?”
Jean asked.

“Why yes, where else would she be?” replied
Fergie.

“Was Greg asking you about all this?”
Alasdair went on.

“He mentioned his MacLeod ancestry is all. It
was Tina going on about Tormod and Greg’s—well, she said
‘obsession’ with Dunasheen, but that’s a wife.” Fergie gazed again
at Emma’s painted features. “Greg was in too much of a hurry just
then. We agreed to have us a chin-wag that evening is all, and off
he went, down the stairs just as I went into my office, out the
front door and away.”

Out the
. . . Jean jolted into an
upright and locked position. “You heard him go out the front door?
But we saw him leaving the house through the courtyard gate.”

“Oh aye.” Alasdair leaned forward.

“That’s right, you saw him at the courtyard
gate.” Fergie’s features pursed in pursuit of memory. “No, I didn’t
hear the door open and shut at all. I heard Greg walking down the
stairs, then saw him going through the kitchen yard and into the
back garden gate. But he couldn’t have gone through the garden,
could he, not and met up with you on the castle path.”

Jean’s memory bubbled up like a mud pit and
belched what Fergie had said the day before. “That’s why you said
it was odd he’d gone that way. And you said he’d stayed in his room
just long enough to get his hat. But he wasn’t wearing a hat.”

“He wasn’t?” Fergie grimaced in bewilderment.
“The man I saw was wearing one of those slouch hats with the wide
brim, the sort you associate with Australians. I thought it was
Greg, but then, I only saw his back, the hat and a heavy
anorak.”

“Anoraks are usually nylon, aren’t they?
Waterproofed. Sort of shiny,” Jean murmured, even as all three sets
of eyes widened and batted stares back and forth.

It was Alasdair who put the vital question
into words. “If that was not Greg crossing the yard, then who was
it?”

“And did Dakota Krum see the same man when
she and her family were driving up the driveway? He would have had
just enough time to run up from the beach, I bet—if that was the
murderer, which isn’t a given. I should have asked her to define
‘hat,’ but I saw Colin Urquhart wearing a hood, a sweatshirt
beneath a coat, probably not an anorak. And then we saw him with
his bonnet, and, well . . .” The images winged across Jean’s mind
and winked out. “Damn.”

“Eh?” asked Fergie, his eyes growing
positively bulbous with alarm. “Urquhart?”

“We met up with him by the old church just
before noon,” Alasdair said. “Thomson’s saying he’s the sole
survivor of a bomb in Iraq. Could be that’s what he was telling
you, Fergie, about men in his vicinity dying nasty deaths.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. That’s why he’s—poor
chap, he could play the Phantom of the Opera without makeup.”
Fergie sagged, then sat up again. “I’m sorry the man’s not right in
the head, but still, what he said is a threat of sorts. He’s a
suspect, isn’t he, Alasdair?”

“Aye.” Alasdair pushed back from the table.
“Sounds to be our list of suspects is longer than we’ve been
thinking. I’d best report to Gilnockie. “

Our. We
. And he didn’t mean Jean, who
popped up beside him. Despite the spicy sting of the soup in her
throat and its warm glow in her stomach, a nap was the last thing
on her mind. Forward momentum, she exhorted herself, knowing by
Alasdair’s keen expression he needed no exhortation.

Leaving Fergie staring out the window with
the same expression as his ancestors searching the horizon for a
Viking sail, Alasdair paced down the hall and pushed open the door
to the old kitchen.

Jean shut the door as he cut through the
technological and conversational buzz and caught Gilnockie’s eye.
With a jerk of his head, he summoned his colleague to a brief
conference beside the fireplace and the bulletin board, which now
displayed not only the grim sequence of photos but notes and a list
of names. Did that list already include the person—just because
Fergie said “he” didn’t mean it was a man—with the hat?

Dakota, wilted as a flower without water, sat
between her parents and facing Sergeant Young. This time there was
no accommodating cushion and cup of tea, although Scott’s
thunderous and Heather’s sarcastic expressions suggested a cup of
hemlock would do the trick. Young made notations on a pad of paper,
her curled lip repelling both thunder and sarcasm.

Figuring it was better to claim a spot than
ask for it, especially since Gilnockie seemed to accept her as an
extension of Alasdair—his left hand, not his right—Jean pulled a
plastic chair into the conversational perimeter, and sat down just
as Gilnockie resumed his seat at the table. Alasdair circled like a
plane looking for a landing strip, pulled another chair forward,
and settled down beside Jean.

“Mr. Krum,” said Gilnockie. “Do you own any
hats?”

Scott stared. “Hats? Yeah, I’ve got a
stocking cap, and some gimme caps . . .”

“What?” demanded Young.

“Baseball caps with company logos,” Scott
explained.

Heather rolled her eyes, perhaps at both
Young’s question and Scott’s low-class headgear.

“Is that all?” asked Gilnockie.

“I might have an old cowboy hat someone gave
me. I don’t know. They’re all in the hall closet back home.
Why?”

Heather adjusted the cuticle of a fingernail
long and shiny as a talon. “I have a sun hat and one of those
Scarlett O’Hara things I wore at a wedding. Tacky, but what can you
do, the bride calls the shots.”

Gilnockie asked Dakota, “The man you saw at
the garden gate last night. What sort of hat was he wearing?”

“Kind of like Indiana Jones’s hat, except
with a wider, you know . . .” Dakota’s limp fingers circled her
head.

“Brim,” said Heather. “And I guess the ghost
had a hat too, huh?”

“No,” Dakota said, her voice dropping to a
whisper. “The ghost wasn’t wearing a hat.”

Scott shifted forward in his chair, as though
ready to launch himself across the table. Young’s body tensed even
further. But all Scott said was, “Inspector Gilnockie, I have to
apologize for taking up your time with this ghost business. She’s a
very imaginative child. We’re working with her to get that under
control.”

Heather snorted. Jean wanted to knock her
head against Scott’s, all the better to adjust their attitudes.
Don’t patronize her. Be glad you have a creative child.

She had no idea what Dakota was thinking. The
child fled, slipping from her chair, making tracks for the door,
and plunking herself down on the step just inside.

“If you’re finished with us . . .” Heather
began.

“Not quite.” Gilnockie reached into the
breast pocket of his coat, pulled out a plastic bag holding a small
white square, and set it on the table.

“It’s a business card,” said Scott.

Gilnockie turned it over.

Heather asked, “So?”

“You’ve not seen this before, then?”

Both Scott and Heather shook their heads,
Heather adding, “Well, there’s a dish of them in the room, but
without any clues on the back. I guess that note is a clue?”

“Thank you very much,” said Gilnockie. “If we
need anything else, we’ll contact you. I hope your business with
Lord Dunasheen goes satisfactorily.”

“Fat chance, now,” Scott muttered, but he
bared his teeth in a facsimile of a smile. “Thanks.”

“We’re leaving Saturday morning,” Heather
stated. “We have to get back to Glasgow for our flight home. The
kid’s got to go to school. I have a business to run.”

Gilnockie’s smile was genuine. “I hope you’ll
not be obliged to change your plans, Mrs. Krum.”

Great
, Jean thought. There was another
complication. What if Tina and the Krums couldn’t vacate their
rooms on Saturday morning, even though Michael and Rebecca,
Miranda, and Hugh were all scheduled to arrive Saturday afternoon?
At least Alasdair’s mother was staying with friends in the village.
Not that a wedding, and a second wedding at that, took precedence
over murder.

Expelling a long breath, Jean appealed to the
ceiling for patience—as quickly as possible!—and settled back in
her chair for the next round.

Gilnockie waited until the nuclear—as in
fissionable—family Krum had left the room and Young started
drumming her pen on the table. Finally, he restored the bag to his
pocket and said, “Well now. The forensics boffins are having a go
at the knife, thanks to you for recovering it, Miss Fairbairn.”

“Dakota saw it before I did.”

Young looked at Jean as though suddenly
noticing she was there. Her belligerent gaze moved on to Alasdair,
who met it both imperturbably and implacably, and then back to her
notebook.

“No matter,” said Gilnockie. “A preliminary
blood test’s indicating that the regimental dirk is the murder
weapon, though other tests are showing only indecipherable
fingerprints. No surprise there, it was a cold, dreich afternoon,
and folk were wearing gloves.”

“If the murderer was wearing gloves, then
there’s blood on them,” said Alasdair.

“Oh aye, there is that. We’ve found multiple
prints on the other dirk and both sheaths—Mrs. Finlay’s quite
right, she’s not had the time to clean them.” Gilnockie looked up
at the ceiling, either collecting his thoughts or, like Jean,
appealing to the Almighty. “Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Krum has a proper
alibi, and Mr. Krum already had some knowledge of these parts,
though he’s saying he’s never heard of Greg MacLeod.”

Young’s lips went from a curl to a clamp.
“They’re not shy of a bob or two,” she said under her breath,
letting the implications—avarice, underhanded dealings—dangle
provocatively.

“Aye,” Gilnockie said, without grasping the
bait. “At the time of the murder, Lionel Pritchard was driving back
from a day out in Portree. Or so he’s saying. I’m having someone
there retrace his steps. Perhaps he’s negotiating with dealers such
as Krum and MacLeod on his own, but we’ve got no evidence of
that.”

“Just yet,” said Young.

“Rab Finlay returned here from the pub before
the MacLeods arrived, and he and Mrs. Finlay set to preparing the
evening meal. Their telly was tuned to a film, and they heard
nothing ’til Lord Dunasheen gave the alarm.”

Then how, Jean asked herself, did Nancy know
about Greg and Tormod . . . oh. Nancy had ever-so-helpfully kept
Tina company over breakfast.

“What of the note on the business card?”
asked Alasdair.

“As yet no one’s admitted to recognizing it.
Nor has it any useful prints.” Gilnockie actually steepled his
fingers a la Sherlock Holmes. His austere face fit the part. If you
melted his ice, you’d get a puddle of fresh water.

“Tina MacLeod.” The name squeezed from
Young’s mouth like toothpaste from a tube.

“We’ll be questioning her again, now that
we’ve got ourselves another possible suspect, Lord Dunasheen’s
stranger. Who might could have been Mr. Krum, although if the young
lass saw the same man outside the gate, then it wasn’t him at all
but someone from the village, like as not, though we’ll be keeping
our options open.”

Jean didn’t offer any thoughts on Australian
mafiosos and the sign of the Red Kangaroo. “Tina said Greg didn’t
have any enemies. For what that’s worth.”

Fortunately, no one told her what that was
worth.

“Lord Dunasheen has no alibi for the time of
the murder,” said Gilnockie, and quickly, to Alasdair, “I’m taking
into account what Miss Fairbairn here noticed, that he was not
breathing hard when she told him of the incident. We’ve not spoken
with Miss MacDonald yet. However . . . ah. Bang on time.”

The door opened and Sanjay Thomson ushered
Colin Urquhart, now wearing a tattered pair of sneakers, down the
steps.

Young turned to another page. “Killed the man
in a fit of madness, likely doesn’t even remember doing it. And
dropped the knife on his way back to the light—”

“Presumption of innocence,” Gilnockie
interrupted, his voice firm but quiet.

Alasdair said, “There’s motive even in
madness, Sergeant,” and leaned back as Thomson pulled up a chair
for Colin and then retired to the door.

With Diana in charge, Colin, and Thomson,
too, had no doubt been properly fed. Whether it was the distraction
of his digestive process, Thomson’s presence, or both, Colin’s thin
shoulders beneath the nylon patches of an oversized military
sweater were now more slumped than braced. But those blue eyes—or
eye, rather—still looked with exaggerated caution from face to
face.

“How can I help with your investigation,
Inspector Gilnockie?” Colin’s voice was deeper than Jean expected,
emanating from his throat as though from a deep well. An ancient
sacred well, perhaps, where petitioners even today left scraps of
cloth along with their prayers.

“Where were you yesterday afternoon between
three and four o’clock?” Gilnockie asked.

“I wasn’t killing Aussie visitors,” Colin
replied, and, to Young, “If I had done, I’d have taken the knife to
Keppoch Point and chucked it over the cliff into the sea, not left
it lying about the old graveyard.”

Young’s mouth went so tight she looked like a
centenarian with no teeth. Trying to do the right thing and make no
further remarks, no doubt. Jean knew the feeling.

“Where were you when the visitor was killed,
then?” asked Gilnockie.

“At the lighthouse. Watching the birds.
Reading a book. I don’t know.”

“On your own?”

Colin’s contorted face was neither smiling
nor frowning. He peered down at his hands, with their long fingers
and the veins blue through the pale skin seeming too delicate to
lift a weapon, never mind use it. “On my own.”