The Blue Hackle (40 page)

“I looked out because I heard a thump,
probably the garden gate swinging shut. But Kenneth said he wasn’t
the first person through. He said someone was ahead of him.
Colin.”

“He was saying he saw Colin at the crusader
stones. That it was Colin walking ahead of him is by way of being
circumstantial, leastways ’til we’ve talked to Colin.”

Fergie smeared butter and strawberry jam, red
as blood, onto his toast. Instead of coming into sharper focus he
seemed to be blearing out. “Colin. My daughter’s likely in love
with a murderer.”

“Not necessarily,” said Alasdair.

“The Krums will be giving Dunasheen a low
rating on Internet travel sites.”

Jean said, “Not necessarily.”

“Scott Krum’s not interested in the Coffer,
said that sort of thing’s too controversial. But—” Fergie set one
of his chins, “—controversy sells, I learned that working in public
relations. Someone else will buy it.”

“Jean’s friend Rebecca,” Alasdair articulated
slowly, “was just telling us someone’s bought an inscription
mentioning Pontius Pilate.”

“Have they, now?”

Jean’s turn. “Was it Norman who said there
was an inscription here at Dunasheen with Pontius Pilate’s name on
it?”

“Yes, yes, he did, just a quick reference in
passing. If it’s still here, though, we’ve yet to turn it up. The
inscription, not the reference.”

Alasdair said, “We’re thinking it’s the same
inscription. It was Greg selling it. By cheating.”

“Cheating” was close enough. “He might have
smeared the inscription with dirt and pollen and so forth from an
archaeological excavation of the right period. He might have
intended to do the same with the inscription on the Coffer. As it
is, though, even simple tests, well . . .” Jean’s voice ran down.
She drained her coffee, which now left an acid taste in her throat,
milk or no milk.

“Greg had the Pilate inscription? You mean
Tormod took it to Australia with him?” Fergie looked from face to
face, butter knife upraised.

“Apparently so, aye,” said Alasdair. “As a
souvenir, or a sample of his work—we’ll never be knowing for sure.
Just as we’ll never be knowing for sure whether those bones turned
up by the chapel are his.”

“Tormod’s bones? The ones by the chapel?”

Having run more than a few academic committee
meetings, Jean quickly herded this particular cat back onto
topic—in another minute Fergie would be sitting on the garden wall
yowling. “The carvings that Tormod were making in the chapel, so
fine the master mason was jealous. The ones that Nancy called
pernickety. They weren’t, by any chance, a sequence depicting the
last hours of Jesus Christ? The stations of the cross, they’d say
in a Catholic church. The sort of church Norman was trying to evoke
but that people in this area would have called ‘papish.’”

Fergie hadn’t yet blinked. “Well now, that’s
right impressive, your deducing that.”

“Greg’s inscription called Pilate a
procurator. A genuine one found in 1961 called him a prefect. If
Greg’s inscription was carved by Tormod for Norman’s folly, it
would be in the old style.”

Fergie’s stare moved from Jean to Alasdair.
With a sickly grimace—tag-teaming the man was the equivalent of
using a kitten as a kickball—Alasdair explained, “This sort of
historical puzzle’s her field.”

“Oh yeah, if I had a family crest the motto
would be ‘what if.’” Without waiting for further commentary, Jean
plunged on. “What if Norman planned a set of stations of the cross
but then cancelled it, either bowing to local feeling or not
wanting Tormod’s work in his chapel after the scandal surrounding
Seonaig? Tormod carried away a small piece of the first station,
where Jesus is condemned to death by Pilate. A piece of the last
station, a miniature sarcophagus, ended up in the cellar. You
recognized it for what it was, a symbol of the empty tomb and the
Resurrection.”

“Yes. I recognized it. I just never connected
the dots, did I?” Fergie’s knife clinked against the plate. His
first chin sagged over his second. “There’s so much evidence for
alien visitation, I was hoping I’d found the truth of the matter is
all. Hoping I’d found proof.”

“Right.” Alasdair’s chair squealed over the
tile and he snapped to his feet. Briefly he rested his hand on
Fergie’s shoulder—
steady on
. “This is us, then, away to
Portree—there are pieces of the murder investigation still
missing.”

“Yes. That has to take precedence.” Fergie
looked up, attempting a brave smile even though his eyes were so
dull they might have been painted on his glasses. “And your
wedding’s the day after tomorrow.”

“Yes, it is.” Jean bent to give Fergie a
quick hug while Alasdair poured the last of the coffee into a clean
mug. His other hand pulled the phone from his pocket and thumbed a
number. “Thomson, we’ll be passing the police house in a quarter of
an hour . . . Ah, good man. Cheers.”

“He’s got Kenneth ready to go?” Jean asked,
then reeled back from the door as it opened, almost hitting her in
the face.

Every hair on Nancy’s head was lacquered into
submission, and her red lips were indented into her seamed cheeks
like puncture wounds. She’d dispatch a mouse without compunction,
but a human being? Alasdair had once said something about killers
of his acquaintance. Jean now had a few killers in her album of
acquaintances, too, and not one of them had worn
identification.

Darting a glance around the kitchen, Nancy
demanded, “The coffee pot’s all right for you, is it? The toaster?
Ah, Fergus. Good morning.”

Stiffly, Fergie sat up. “Bacon, please Nancy.
Sausage, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans. The lot. I’ll have a
word with the Krums. Yesterday they expected pastries.”

Alasdair and Jean escaped into the hall, Jean
telling herself everyone to his own way of dealing with stress. If
bacon fat worked, fine. Right now she herself would have fallen
gleefully on a chocolate cake, preferably with vanilla-bean ice
cream.

In the entrance hall, the Krums were exiting
the staircase, followed by a rumpled Nicolson. He fell on the
proffered cup of coffee like a dog on a bone. “Cheers, sir. Very
kind of you.”

Either Heather was flushed or had applied too
much blusher, while Scott was almost as disheveled as Nicolson,
with the addition of a distinct hound-dog droop. “Morning,” he
said.

Heather kept on walking, with no more than a
perfunctory, “Hi.”

Dakota looked up from struggling with the
zipper on her pink hoodie sweatshirt, dark eyes lusterless with
sleep. “Are you gonna be around this morning?”

“We’re away to have a word with Mrs. MacLeod
in Portree,” Alasdair replied.

“Oh. Okay. When you get back—”

“Dakota,” called Heather, “Come on.
Breakfast. Maybe they’ll have some real cereal today, not that
porridge stuff.”

“I could sure use a double espresso,” Scott
said, “but I guess Nancy’s battery acid will do.”

“Talk to you later,” Dakota told Jean, and
trotted off after her parents, if not without a backward look
utterly devoid of drowsiness.

Jean watched her little disciple disappear
around the corner. What did Dakota want from her that she could
possibly provide?—well, other than solving the murder and clearing
the air. That was still in her and Alasdair’s grasp.

The two dogs burst through the entrance hall
toward the front door, nails clattering on the tiles like sleet on
a window, Rab in cursing, heavy-footed pursuit. Jean dodged up the
stairs.

January first. New Year’s Day. Ne’er
Day
. The year was under way. The first day of the rest of her
life, of everyone’s lives, begun with business left from the
old.

“Jean?” called Alasdair from around the curve
of the steps, and she picked up her feet and her pace as well.

Thomson was just slamming the driver’s-side
door of his boxy vehicle when Alasdair braked beside it. In the
passenger seat, pulling the seat belt around his shoulders, sat
Kenneth MacLeod. The younger Kenneth MacLeod, who had inherited
more than he wanted from the past he disdained.

“So much for letting him drive himself.” Jean
hunkered down in her seat, waiting for the car’s heating system to
stop blowing frigid air.

“One suspect on walkabout is quite enough.”
Returning Thomson’s salute, Alasdair accelerated through the
deserted streets of Kinlochroy. The village looked even plainer in
the anemic light, which was filtered not through leaden clouds that
threatened serious snowfall but through a fragile icy haze.

The road wound over hill and down dale, also
deserted except for sheep peering incuriously, jaws moving, at the
passersby. The cars seemed to be moving in a bubble surrounded by
mist, one that opened over road signs, sheep, the occasional farm
and frequent ruined houses, then swept on, leaving sheep and ruins
to fade into nothingness.

Even after they came to the intersection at
Dunvegan—the original Dunvegan—and turned onto the two lanes of the
main road, drifts of snow filled hollows and lay against boulders,
making the harsh moorland look as though it had been dusted with
powdered sugar. Rough terrain, this. Jean wondered how many years
of backbreaking labor it had taken to create Dunasheen’s garden
acres.

“Maybe,” she thought aloud, “I heard
Kenneth’s steps in the garden while I was walking with Dakota. Just
because I saw Pritchard watching Diana doesn’t mean it was
him.”

Alasdair gazed straight ahead, hands steady
on the steering wheel. “Could Kenneth have kept ahead of you, not
knowing the gardens?”

“Good question.” A lot of good questions
bumped and caromed like billiard balls across the table of her
mind, but she didn’t try taking any other shots.

Before long their bubble of visibility
included more houses, small businesses, and finally the
semicircular sweep of Portree’s waterfront, lined with houses
painted in bright colors. The gray water of the harbor heaved up
and wallowed down and every now and then belched a whitecap. Jean
knew the feeling—that was the way her stomach had felt listening to
Fergie construct his dream-castle on custard.

Among the buildings climbing the slope behind
the waterfront stood the small hospital. What the building lacked
in geographic distinction—no turrets, no crow-stepped gables, no
stag’s antlers over its entrance—it no doubt made up for with mod
cons like plumbing and electrical systems.

Jean and Alasdair walked into the
antiseptic-tinged interior to find Gilnockie waiting by the
reception desk. With his washed-out complexion and austere
features, Jean couldn’t help but envision a vampire being released
after successfully completing a blood-addiction program.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” Alasdair returned, and
quickly acquainted Gilnockie with the latest developments,
including the incident of the American antiques dealer in the
nighttime. “Kenneth had a strong motive to go killing Greg, and
looks to be he had the opportunity, but he’s only got the weapon if
Greg had it with him—Jean’s thought of that angle.”

Jean met Gilnockie’s grave nod of
acknowledgment with a cramped smile.

“’Til we find Colin . . . Ah, here’s Thomson
and Mr. MacLeod.”

Gilnockie greeted Thomson and introduced
himself to Kenneth, who seemed no less worn this morning than he
had last night, square face drooping into a trapezoid and steps
dragging.

“Mrs. MacLeod’s just this way.” Gilnockie
conducted Kenneth, Jean, and Alasdair, Thomson just behind, along a
corridor into a room that could have served as a dictionary
definition of clean and neat. To the right of the door, Sergeant
Young sat with her legs twined, ankles locked, hands clasped,
narrow face with its insectivore eyes revealing no expression.

Only one of the room’s two beds was occupied.
Tina was propped against pillows, her arm and shoulder in a sling.
Without makeup, she looked neither older nor younger, just more
vulnerable. The skin beneath her eyes was tissue-thin and faintly
purple, the bones of her face seemed delicate as a bird’s, her
brassy curls lay muted and limp. Her pale lips moved, emitting a
wisp of sound. “Ken.”

“Teen,” he returned, his voice no stronger
than hers.

“You followed us.” If Tina noticed the others
clustered near the doorway, she gave no sign.

Ken sank down on a plastic chair beside the
bed. “Yeah, I followed you.”

A quizzical look passed over her features.
“How’d you get here?”

“Airlines, Teen. Kuala Lumpur, London,
Inverness. A hire car.”

She closed her eyes, and for a moment Jean
thought she’d fallen asleep. Then her lashes fluttered and her lips
moved again. “I’m sorry, Ken.”

“So’m I.” He looked down at his hands spread
on his knees, knuckles like knots.

“Why work so hard, day after day? Why deny
yourself some pleasure in life? You’ve been pinching every penny
when there’s no need.”

“No good throwing out things that might be
useful. No good buying new things when the old work just as well.
That’s why we’ve got no need to scrimp and save. No need to take
Greg’s charity.”

Beside Jean, Alasdair shifted his weight.
There was the discussion-cum-argument that served as Ken and Tina’s
refrain, just as the conflict between faith and fact was their
own.

Ken said, “Greg had glamour. Greg had
conversation. Greg made money fast and spent it faster. I’m a cane
cocky. But Teen, I’m your husband. Dunvegan’s your home.”

She didn’t reply.

“What were you going to do, after—after you
and Greg got home again?”

“Thought maybe I’d go to Brisbane or Sydney,
somewhere I could be someone else.”

“You’ve bushed the marriage, then? You want a
divorce?”