The Blue Hackle (30 page)

“Entire industries have been built on
guesswork, inference, and extrapolation,” said Jean, without giving
the Bible History Research Society as an example.

Thomson ranged up beside them, not one crumb
marring either his chin or his uniform, and Alasdair repeated the
explanation, concluding with the same caution.

“A pity,” Thomson said, “that Greg MacLeod
never knew of this.”

“I’d not be so sure of that,” said Alasdair,
and, before Thomson could ask him what he meant, went on, “What
have you learned asking round the village? Any strangers
about?”

Folding her arms over her embroidered
flowers, Brenda settled in to examine this evidence, too.

Thomson began, “Lachie at the Co-op’s saying
a man with an accent—Londoner, most likely—stopped in yesterday,
buying some bits and pieces as though for a picnic, though it’s
hardly picnicking weather. Yon hikers, now, they’re young,
warm-blooded, but this man was not so young.”

“A picnic,” said Alasdair.

Jean knew he was seeing a bag of potato chips
beneath a pew in the chapel, and the lock to the vestry door
picked. “Did Lachie say whether the man was wearing a hat?”

“No, why should he, most men hereabouts are
wearing hats.”

Not Alasdair. The perpetual motion of his
brain kept his head warm. “A toe rag, perhaps? A vagrant,
unemployed or not quite right in the head? Or a native son who’s
been working away, making a visit to the home ground? No
matter—he’s a potential witness to the murder.”

“Or the murderer himself,” said Jean, without
delving into the difficulties of motivation.

“I’ll be keeping a lookout,” Thomson said,
and went on, “Most folk hereabouts are gey predictable. Lionel
Pritchard, now, he’s in the pub most every day, same as Rab Finlay.
But not yesterday. He’s stated he was in Portree.”

“Is he well liked in these parts?” asked
Alasdair.

“He’s not disliked, save when he’s giving in
to the incomer’s curse, telling us we should be conducting our
business the way his folk do in England. He and Rab, like chalk and
cheese.”

“Let me guess,” said Jean. “Pritchard thinks
everything should change and Rab keeps talking about how things
were better in the old days.”

“They were, in a way. Then, entire families
were supported by the estate. Now most of the young men, like Rab’s
own brother-in-law, are obliged to work away. Fergus is the odd man
out, coming instead of going, eh? Still, Rab’s loyal to the
MacDonalds, and he and Pritchard work for them, so there are times
they make common cause.”

Brenda called, “Cheerie-bye!” Thomson turned
to wave at the older ladies, who’d gathered their shopping bags and
were heading out into the night.

“Common cause, like the day Rab, Pritchard,
and a couple of pensioners started fighting with Colin?” Alasdair
asked.

“They didna aim at fighting,” Thomson
replied. “Colin stopped by the pub to buy himself a bottle of
whisky, and the pensioners took notice of him. They were going on
about their own war, and, for once, how things were worse then.
Pritchard’s not got much use for Colin, thinks he’s got his own
chance with Diana.” He snorted a demurral. “And Rab, he’s thinking
Colin’s not right in the head, and is causing trouble for the
family. They joined in the ragging, and Colin, well, he’s thinking
the best defense is offense, eh?”

“Puir lad, Colin,” said Brenda. “Diana’s got
a good heart to take that one on. Although he’s got something to
offer, I’m sure.”

Jean wasn’t going to touch that line. “Is
Fergie the only person in town not to know the, ah, full extent of
their relationship?”

“I’m thinking so,” Thomson said. “He’s a fine
man, Fergus, no airs and graces, none of this incomer rubbish like
Pritchard, and he’s doing his best for Dunasheen, but . . . well,
dinna go taking this wrong, but he’s got his own ways of thinking
and doing, and there’s times he’s seeing what wants seeing, and
there’s times he’s seeing only what he’s wishing to see, if you
follow my meaning.”

Alasdair followed his meaning just fine, Jean
estimated. So did she. “And Diana?”

“She’s here shopping from time to time,
giving the school prizes, having a blether at the pub,” said
Brenda. “Lovely girl, Diana. A bit posh for us plain folk, but
polite to a fault.”

Now the hikers started collecting their gear.
With no customers, Brenda would want to close early, it being New
Year’s Eve. As quick on the uptake as ever, Thomson pressed on.
“Mr. and Mrs. MacLeod likely drove straight through the town
without stopping yesterday. No one’s seen them at all. The
Americans, the Krums, they stopped here.”

“Here,” said Brenda, pointing at the floor.
“The father bought a book and a sweetie for the lass whilst the
mother, well, I thought at first the drains were giving off a bad
smell, then decided that’s just her way.”

“Yes,” Jean said, “that’s just her way.”

“Yesterday,” said Thomson, “they spent an
hour or more in the pub—I was by way of seeing them myself when I
stopped in. The father went away, and then the mother. The two
Morrison lads saw Scott walking to and fro with his phone. Mairi
Macaulay met the mother, Heather, outside the Co-op, thinks Heather
was asking her if she’d seen Scott, but Mairi couldna quite
understand the woman’s lingo, and Heather couldna understand
Mairi’s, so they both gave it up as a bad job.”

“Bottom line,” said Alasdair, “is that both
the parents were out and about at the time of the murder. And
Dunasheen’s gates were standing open then.”

“Oh aye. They’re always open. I didna know
they would shut, to tell the truth, but Pritchard, he put his back
into it. Closing the gates to the barbarians.”

Jean reminded herself that she might be a
journalist, but she was no barbarian. Her relief at Dakota’s story
about the pub being confirmed was tempered by her guilt for pumping
the child to begin with.

Thomson went on, “The Krums are in the pub
just now, after walking up the lane beyond old Calum’s cottage for
the lass to have a look at the sheep, and then back round to the
harbor. They stopped in at the Co-op to buy sweets and day-old
bread to feed the gulls.”

Who needed a Protect and Survive surveillance
system in Kinlochroy?

“Cheerie-bye!” Brenda called to the hikers,
and, as the door shut behind them, “You’ll be excusing me please,
Mr. Cameron, Miss Fairbairn, the lass is needing help with the
clearing up.”

Behind the counter, the lass started from her
reverie and reached for a dish cloth.

“I’d best be away to the castle,” Thomson
said, his dark eyes with their bright gaze targeting first Alasdair
and then Jean. He touched his forefinger to the side of his nose.
“Fergus is asking me to play the first foot. I’ll be seeing you at
the bells, then, carrying my lump of coal, my tin of shortbread,
and my bottle of whisky—Fergus has already given me them, just to
make sure.”

The bells of midnight. The cusp, the turning
point. How many events were marked by bells—death, marriage, or no
more than the passing of the hours? Jean’s gaze fell on a framed
print hanging on the wall, Dunasheen in the sunshine, its towers
and gables rising above a lawn covered with daffodils. Spring would
come, no matter what else happened. “We’ll see you then.”

“Thank you, constable,” said Alasdair, and as
Thomson walked away settling his hat on his head, “It’s time we
were getting back as well, Jean. Fergie’s expecting us in the
library at six.”

“Yeah, the whole artifact and article thing
is one of the reasons we’re here. Exploiting history is why
everyone’s here, in a way.” Jean didn’t mention their own bottom
line—speaking of the devil of wedding cancellation might make it
appear.

Alasdair called to Brenda, “Thank you
kindly.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Jean added, and
braced herself for the cold and the dark outside.

Despite the dark and cold, warmth emanated
from the buildings, probably the psychological effect of all the
lighted windows. Night had erased the Cuillins and muted the gleam
of the sea. But Dunasheen Castle glittered bravely, even
stubbornly, behind its wall and beyond its naked trees.

Leaning close together, Jean and Alasdair
walked across the street and looked through the front window of the
pub. Yes, the Krums occupied the settle closest to the fireplace,
Scott gazing into an empty beer glass as though into a crystal
ball, Dakota wrapped around a paperback, Heather writing with a
thick pen in a small book.

If any reporters had taken refuge there, they
were gone now. A few locals sat at tables or stood at the bar,
while the publican minded his post between a fence of knobby beer
spigots and a wall of bottles and glasses. A pop song played in the
background and leaked out onto the sidewalk, making less of an
impact on the silence than the everlasting murmur of the sea.

Alasdair and Jean turned away from one of the
town’s sanctuaries and walked toward another, the white-painted
church at the end of the street. Its windows were dark arrowheads
in its pale flanks, and the array of monuments behind its
surrounding wall looked in the gloom like a thicket of stone. The
peaked roof of a small building rose to one side. “Fergie’s family
mausoleum.” Alasdair’s breath seeped in a sparkling cloud toward
the graves and vanished.

“I guess Norman the Red and Seonaid are lying
side by side. Seonaid’s physical remains, at least. And their son,
and his son, and so on down to Fergus Mor and his brother the
laird, primly and properly arranged for eternity. Or for Judgment
Day, whichever comes first.” Jean caught Alasdair’s quick gleam,
but he didn’t dispute her theology.

A door slammed, and voices echoed down the
tunnel of the street. One of them spoke with a familiar accent, its
flatness emphasized by its underlying whine. “. . . I deserve it,
that’s why,” Heather was saying. “Journaling relieves stress.
What’s a good pen and a nice book, to relieve stress?”

Scott probably had an answer to that, but he
didn’t vocalize it. He and Heather, Dakota at their heels, passed
within several yards of Alasdair and Jean.

Alasdair called, “Hullo there.”

The three shapes spun around. “Whoa,” said
Scott with a forced laugh. “I thought for a minute we were hearing
voices from beyond the grave.”

“Sorry,” Alasdair told them. “You’re away to
the house, then?”

“Yeah. The whole Hogmanay thing gets going at
seven, Fergus said.”

They walked away en masse, Heather adding,
“About time. So far just about the only entertainment is the whole
C.S.I.: Dunasheen
thing.”

“Entertaining?” demanded Scott. “There’s a
guy dead . . .”

“Too much information for the k-i-d,” Heather
retorted, as though Dakota couldn’t spell. “You know what I mean.
Cut me some slack for a change, will you?”

Maybe Heather meant
We don’t know them, so
they don’t matter
. Jean caught Dakota’s eye and smiled
encouragingly. Dakota smiled back, then shrank into her muffler as
the group approached the gates, iron looping and swirling against
the lights of the house.

But the news vans had gone, leaving a
solitary constable on guard, his dark clothing shadowed so that his
yellow reflective jacket seemed to be disembodied.

Heather flashed a grin. Thumbs upraised and
forefingers pointed, she pretended to draw from the hip and fire
shots at him. His face went from bored to deliberately blank, and
he spun toward the gate. Everyone hurried through the narrow
opening so quickly Heather had to break into a jog to avoid being
left behind. “Thank you, constable,” Alasdair enunciated, and the
gate clanged shut.

The driveway ran into the deep shadow between
village and house. Jean directed her steps closer to Alasdair and
eyed the black bulk of the garden wall, of Pritchard’s cottage, of
the trees spaced across the lawn. Someone could easily be hiding
there, watching them. Just because the gates were shut didn’t mean
the estate wasn’t easily accessible.

A few paces further on, Dakota stopped dead.
“Wow! How did they do that?”

Oh.
Jean crawled up from the
primordial sludge of her doubt and dread to see stars strewn across
the sky, luminous freckles on the face of God. Some were hard
points of icy light, others were smudges. Groups of stars made
smears of radiance that faded near the glowing puddle of the
moon—and in the west, blotted by thin streamers of cloud.

“How did who do what?” asked Scott.

“Those are special effects, right? There
aren’t really that many stars.”

Definitely a city kid
, Jean thought.
“Yes, there are that many. You just can’t see them when there are a
lot of other lights. Street lights, lights of buildings.”

“Oh. Cool.” Her head tilted back, Dakota
wobbled along, her mother’s hand on her shoulder keeping her if not
on the straight and narrow, at least on the driveway.

Scott, too, looked upward, so that when a
black lab and a white terrier rushed toward him from the darkness
he almost fell over them. “Hey! Oh, hi, guys.”

Rab Finlay trotted along after the dogs.
“Bruce, Somerled, get back here you sons of . . . Hullo there. Just
walking the dogs.”

“Looks like they’re walking you,” said
Heather.

“They’re that eager to be off, slipped their
leashes whilst I tied my trainers—the polis took my wellies, much
good that’ll do them, and here’s me, heading for the nearest patch
of glaur and ice.” The dogs capered on across the lawn, “Somerled!
Bruce! No free run tonight, lads, there’s things doing at the
house, get back here with you!”

“I hear you, pal.” Scott bent his knee and
lifted his foot so that a pair of polished wingtips caught the
light. “I wasn’t anywhere near the place when the guy, you know,
but still they took my hiking boots, brand new ones. A heck of a
lot warmer than these.”