The Blue Hackle (32 page)

“Half a tick,” Gilnockie told her, and as she
opened the door, “Alasdair, I’m thinking this is not a good way to
end a career, leaving a case open.”

“It’s early days yet, Patrick.”

Yeah, it was still early. This could drag on
for a long time. And Gilnockie, if anyone, knew how cases were more
likely to be solved sooner rather than later, cold case dramas
notwithstanding.

“Aye,” said Gilnockie. “
Nil
desperandum
.”

Don’t despair. That was the message of the
evening. The cold draft from the open door rippled Alasdair’s kilt
and fluttered Jean’s dress. She stepped backward. Gilnockie made
for the door. “Good night, then,” he called.

“Good night,” Alasdair and Jean both
returned, and hurried on into the slightly warmer air of the
hallway. The front door shut behind them.

In front of them, Nancy Finlay stood outside
the half-closed door of the library, her dishtowel jerking over a
picture frame.

Alasdair’s subtle expulsion of breath wasn’t
quite a “hah!” but close. Nancy was eavesdropping. Without any
embarrassment, though, she looked around, said, “Good evening to
you,” and headed toward the kitchen.

Alasdair sent a scowl after her. Jean shook
her head and shrugged—Miranda would say that eavesdropping was
staff prerogative. From the narrow space between the library door
and its jamb issued what Nancy had overheard, a strain of baroque
music, violins soaring nervously.

And Fergie’s voice, with an odd blustery
resonance. “. . . insurance alone, if we opened every day. And we’d
need extra help, more facilities, more paperwork—planning
permission, licensing inspections—when we’ve barely got time to
deal with woodworm, dry rot, damp rot. The drains. Ice buildup in
the gutters. We’re running as hard as we can to stay in the same
place.”

“But simply selling the landscape’s become a
cliché. And, considering the climate, an uphill job. We’re obliged
to position ourselves as a destination for luxury short breaks, or
a stop on diaspora tours, the descendants of emigrants
rediscovering their roots.” Diana’s voice was cool and calm as the
surface of Loch Ness, mirror-flat while a primitive form glided by
below.

“Greg MacLeod was on a diaspora tour, looking
out his ancestors.”

“He was on a buying trip as well, don’t
forget that.”

“How could I?” asked Fergie. “Lionel’s saying
there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but I can’t agree. What
sort of clientele will we attract now, I ask you?”

“And yet you’ve arranged for Jean to write
about the Crusader Coffer and your related . . .” One beat, two,
and Diana settled on, “. . . theories. What sort of clientele will
you attract with those? I do so wish you’d wait until the police
investigation has been finished. Circumstances are quite awkward
enough without—”

“We’ve come too far to stop now,” Fergie
interrupted.

Alasdair raised his hand to knock on the
door, then, no doubt realizing how clumsy their sudden appearance
would be, took several catfooted steps back down the hall. He
beckoned to Jean, but she hesitated—there was eavesdropping, and
then there was research. Besides this was the answer to more than
what Diana and Fergie had been quibbling about on the staircase
yesterday.

“We should organize concerts, then,” said
Diana, “in addition to weddings, dinners, receptions. Living
history, study tours, boat rides and wildlife tours on the loch.
Craft or cooking weekends.”

“More facilities,” repeated Fergie. “Extra
help. Rab and Nancy aren’t growing younger. Neither am I, come to
that.”

“Colin could help.”

“Diana, please, I can’t deal with Colin
Urquhart, not just now.”

“If you’d been willing to deal with him
earlier . . . but no, we’re not speaking of him, are we?” Diana’s
voice grew choppy. “You’ve dismissed taking out another loan to
make the tenants’ cottages over into holiday homes—no, no, you’re
quite right, we’d have only seasonal income from those. I could put
it about that we’re willing to lend objects to corporations who’ll
sponsor repairs. Many new companies build their images on heritage
of some sort or another.”

“Can you see Seonaid’s portrait hanging in a
bank in Tokyo?”

“Yes, Father, I can. Better there than on an
auction block.” Diana continued, “There’s Pritchard’s idea of
selling off one square foot plots of land. We could advertise in
the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Buy a bit of the Auld
Sod, call yourself a laird or lady, that sort of thing. We’d
essentially be selling deckle-edged, hand-lettered certificates of
purchase, suitable for framing.”

Something creaked, probably a chair as Fergie
sat down in it. He made a strangled sound that evolved into
laughter. “Can you see an Aussie buying enough for a campsite? Or a
Yank wanting to be buried standing up in his one square foot? Can
you see a Canuck turning up with a shovel and digging up the sod to
take home?”

“Have we a choice?” Diana asked, her words
positively white-capped.

Jean could see one of her own countrymen
wandering around with a GPS unit and little pegs to mark out his
claim, dressed in a polyester kilt and “Braveheart” T-shirt.

Behind her, Alasdair whispered not, “You were
right, we should have turned up fashionably late,” but, “You and
your flapping ears.”

“Like your ears are folded over politely?”
Jean whispered back. “This is a murder case, isn’t it?”

“It’s not—”

“—something you want happening to your
friends. I know, I get the message.”

In a cascade of chimes,
less-than-synchronized clocks struck all through the house. Six
o’clock. They were no longer early. Jean barely had enough time to
leap backward before the library door flew open and Diana shot out
into the hall, the color in her compressed lips dull, the color in
her cheeks high.

She didn’t seem to notice that Jean and
Alasdair were just standing there, rather than walking toward her.
Neither did she notice Alasdair’s suffused expression, which, Jean
was sure, her own face replicated. “Good evening. Please go on in,
Father’s expecting you. I’ll bring the drinks round soon as I’ve
changed.”

“Thank you,” Jean said.

“Very kind of you,” said Alasdair, and with a
roll of his eyes—okay, she deserved that—he bowed Jean into the
room and made sure the door was shut behind them.

Flames crackled in the fireplace. The
Christmas tree’s glitter was doubled in the window behind it. The
doors between library and drawing room stood open, providing a
vista appropriate to
Country Life
or a travelogue on the
stately homes of Britain.

Just to complete the picture, Fergie, too,
was wearing a kilt, a garment that flattered any type of male
physique, from bean pole to walrus. A man in a kilt stood tall and
walked with a certain strut.

Although when Fergie set an empty glass on
the side table and rose to his feet, he didn’t strut but stood to
attention. A stiff smile was plastered on his face, which was
colored even more brightly than Diana’s. Jean wasn’t surprised to
catch a whiff of whisky. Why taking a wee dram to brace yourself up
was called Dutch courage, she didn’t know—it could just as well be
called Scotch courage. She hoped Fergie had had only the one glass,
that no more than his smile was plastered.

“Here we are, then,” he said.

“Aye,” returned Alasdair.

The shrill music of the violins swooped like
songbirds trapped beneath a high ceiling. Fergie stepped over to
the CD player nestled between skull-shaped bookends and put the
piece out of its misery, producing a silence so deep his slight
wheeze seemed loud.

Jean said, “I’m afraid our cat got into the
hatbox you left for us and tore up the hackles on the bonnets. I’m
so sorry, I know they were heirlooms.”

“Hackles? Oh, yes, the old bonnets. Not to
worry, Jean, I’d not seen them for years. It was just that one of
them belonged to my father’s friend Kenneth MacLeod, and Inspector
Gilnockie’s saying it was his knife killed Greg. That Greg was
likely his son. I wondered why that name sounded so familiar. It
was you who took down the photo in the dining room, then?”

“Aye, that was us,” Alasdair answered. “The
frame’s in the sideboard.”

“Good. I mean, good it was you. Rab was
thinking Pritchard had made off with it, or Scott Krum. The frame’s
an antique in its own right, a century older than the photo.”

“Was it Pritchard who looked up both Krum and
Greg MacLeod on the Internet?”

“I expect so,” Fergie said. “Seems a bit
ill-mannered, but then, Lionel’s looking out for Dunasheen’s
well-being.”

“And for his own as well?” asked
Alasdair.

Fergie’s gaze dropped to the stack of CDs. He
chose one and inserted it in the player. “Lionel Pritchard’s not
the most congenial of colleagues, I’ll grant you that. I’m not at
all pleased with the way he looks at Diana. No surprise she
mistrusts him. But he’s willing to work here, his accounts are
accurate to the last decimal point, and nothing’s gone
missing.”

“That you know of,” said Jean.

“Well, yes. I gather Pritchard’s your prime
suspect for the murder?”

“Not anymore,” Alasdair said. “He’s been
cleared.”

“I suppose I’m relieved to hear that.”
Absently, Fergie patted one of the skull bookends. “I don’t rightly
know how I feel, to tell truth. I’d rather have Pritchard turn out
to be a villain than anyone else I can name. Even Colin Urquhart,
for Diana’s sake.”

“I know how you feel. But it’s going to come
down to motive, what Greg wanted and what someone else didn’t want
him to have . . .” Jean looked over at Alasdair.

He was eyeing the cabinet holding the Fairy
Flagon. “Was Greg after buying the Flagon? Or was he interested
only in the Crusader Coffer?”

Fergie didn’t ask how Alasdair knew about the
latter. He didn’t answer either question. He said, “Time to get the
show on the road, you Yanks would say,” and punched the “play”
button. The Chieftains begin to sing a jolly Christmas ditty, “The
St. Stephen’s Day Murders.”

“I’m thinking it’s time to open the show,
aye.” Alasdair drew his camera from his sporran.

Jean pulled out her notepad, found a fresh
page, and smiled with that surge of glee she always felt when the
gates to something strange and perhaps wonderful swung open before
her.

Fergie tweaked the linen runner on a waiting
table, then turned a key in the lock of the cabinet door and, with
a flourish, threw it open.

We meet at last, thought Jean, and leaned in
for a better look.

Fergie lifted the alabaster cup from its
cavity as carefully as he’d have lifted baby Diana from her cradle.
He set it on one end of the table, leaving room for a second
object, and stood back. His starched smile broke into a beam that
eased the grooves in his face. “You’ve seen it before, have you,
Alasdair?”

“A long time ago, as a wee lad.” Alasdair,
too, tilted forward.

The lotus-shaped cup stood less than nine
inches tall. Its smooth milk-and-honey flanks, glowing as if it
contained an internal light, traced one sinuous curve from lip to
stem to base. The handles on either side rose up and out like
stylized wings. Tiny, blocky scratches imbedded with traces of
black ink marred the surface sheen of one side of the bowl. Jean
guessed they were hieroglyphs, but she couldn’t see more than that
with her naked eye. Or even with her glasses-enhanced eye. “That’s
a work of art, all right. It’s been in your family how long?”

“My uncle invited an expert from the Museum
of Antiquities in Edinburgh to have a look at it. He pronounced it
an Egyptian artifact, perhaps brought here by a crusader. Or at the
latest, by Norman the Red’s father, a Cameron Highlander who fought
Napoleon at Alexandria. Norman himself wrote of it.” Fergie
chuckled. “My uncle dismissed the expert’s opinion, saying he knew
for a fact the Flagon was given to Rory MacLeod by fairies. And the
expert said, ‘Then I shall accept your superior knowledge.’ A
diplomatic reply, if ever there was one.”

Yeah
, Jean thought, writing as fast as
she could. “Did the expert decipher the inscription?”

“It’s an ancient Egyptian prayer for the
dead, the equivalent of ‘rest in peace.’”

“Rory MacLeod?” asked Alasdair. “The chap who
leaped from the old castle?”

“More likely his father, the old laird. The
legendary Rory was the younger son, who made the mistake of falling
for his older brother’s wife. Falling literally, I’m afraid. Family
orthodoxy has it that the Flagon belonged to the MacLeods at the
old castle, the ones my own ancestors turfed out. Unless it is
Napoleonic-era, in which case it’s been a MacDonald relic all
along. No matter.”

“What matters is whether Greg MacLeod wanted
it.” Alasdair took a photo, considered his work in the camera’s
display, took another.

“He was not uninterested in it, though he
never had the chance to look at it or the Coffer. No need taking
photos of the Flagon, Alasdair, I’ll give Jean a publicity still.
Amazing antiquity, isn’t it now? It evokes the alabaster jar
carried by the woman in the Bible, the one who poured ointment over
Jesus’s head and he said she was preparing him for burial.”

It would evoke that passage, Jean told
herself, even if it had been made in Alexandria five minutes before
a Scottish soldier went souvenir-shopping.

“Anointing him for burial.” Fergie’s beam
radiated upward, making his eyes gleam. “That’s incredibly apt.
It’s amazing the way things work out, eh? Makes you wonder whether
there’s some force causing coincidences.”

Alasdair looked around at Jean. She met his
gaze with a slight shake of her head. She had no idea what was
coming, just that they were launching into uncharted and debatable
territory.