The Burning Glass (2 page)

“Just because you connected him up with the
job at Protect and Survive,” retorted Jean, “doesn’t mean I owe you
the gory details of our love, er, like-life.”

“No gore on this assignment.” Miranda handed
down her decree. “In any event, if you’d not been involved in two
criminal cases you’d not have met Alasdair, would you now? And
don’t go saying that’s a mixed blessing. You’ve got roses in your
cheeks you’ve not had for years.”

No use rationalizing that the roses in her
cheeks owed more to the heat or the excesses of the Fringe Festival
than to her new relationship. Jean reached for a letter opener and
slit open the thick, beige envelope, revealing a thick, beige note
card. Like the address on the envelope, the note was handwritten in
a careless scrawl that implied the writer was too successful to
bother with mundane issues like legibility.

“Mrs. Councillor Angus Rutherford is inviting
me to tea,” Jean said, deciphering the missive. “Glebe House,
Stanelaw, three p.m. on Saturday, 23 August. RSVP . . . Whoa.”
Frowning, she grabbed the newspaper and flipped quickly to page
four.

Stanelaw councillor goes missing
.

Angus Rutherford was last seen on Thursday,
21 August, leaving the Parapluie Noire Hotel in Brussels for a
flight to Edinburgh. He had attended a European Union workshop on
“Countryside Resources and the Tourism Dilemma.” It was from the
Stanelaw Museum that the famous Ferniebank Clarsach, a medieval
folk harp, was stolen on Sunday 17 August. Then, Rutherford said .
. .

Miranda plucked the invitation from her hand.
“Ah, Minty Rutherford’s afternoon tea. Cucumber sandwiches, lemon
curd, and Montrose cakes to die for.”

Jean turned the newspaper toward her.

“Oh my. Well, that’s easy enough to explain.
The good gray Angus, embarrassed at losing the one notable artifact
to the town tourist board’s name, decided to stay on and drown his
sorrows in the fleshpots of the Continent. Stanelaw, even Kelso—as
you Yanks say, they’re podunk. The boondocks. Never mind Minty and
her cooking school.”

Cooking school? Jean envisioned boxes of
Haggis Helper. “The letter’s postmarked day before yesterday. The
same day Angus disappeared. Minty—Mrs. Councillor Rutherford must
be worried about her husband. Maybe Alasdair can . . . No. He’s not
a policeman, not any more.”

“The Rutherfords’ marriage might not be any
more, either. Angus has been getting a bit restive, I’m hearing,
though I’m hardly a close friend. You can ask Minty, if you
like.”

“Or even if I don’t like?”

Miranda handed over the note and turned a
mock severe look on Jean.

“Yes, yes, I know. Let my conscience, my
curiosity, and my courtesy be my guide.” Jean tucked the card into
the envelope. “I’ll see what Mrs. Councillor Rutherford volunteers
to tell me. If I meet her. With Stanelaw having a mini crime wave,
she may cancel the tea. I wonder how she knew I was coming? Oh.
Elementary, my dear. Because I’ve got an interview with the woman
who just bought Ferniebank. Karen, Kara—something like
that—Macquarrie.”

“Ciara Macquarrie. She’s made a good fist of
her Mystic Scotland tour company. We’ll be linking to her site from
our own, like as not, though I’m after vetting her spiel
beforehand. When you have your interview—”

“See if she’s telling her clients that
Cairnpapple Neolithic Site is a landing pad for flying saucers.
Alasdair’s and my ghosts being all the woo-woo you’ve got the
patience for.”

“You’re not writing about Scotland if you’re
not writing about ghosts,” Miranda returned. “Stanelaw Council,
with or without Angus, is sure to have given Macquarrie public
funds or tax breaks in addition to planning permission for
renovating Ferniebank, and they’d not be doing that if she had no
head for business.”

“Speaking of ‘countryside resources and the
tourism dilemma,’ ” murmured Jean.

“Dilemma it is. Macquarrie’s planning a
conference center in the castle and New Age spa on the site of the
chapel and holy well. I reckon she’s the excuse for the tea, not to
rain on your own parade.”

“Rain away. I’m only a mild-mannered
travel-and-history writer, after all.”

“That you are.” Miranda didn’t descend to
making any cracks about rhinestone detectives. She picked up a
Ferniebank leaflet from Jean’s desk and held it to the light, so
that the pen-and-ink drawings seemed particularly dark and
dour.

The drawings probably catch the spirit of the
place, Jean thought. As castles went, Ferniebank was nondescript.
Not massive and imposing like Edinburgh or Stirling, not winsomely
personable like Cawdor or Craigievar, not elegant like Floors or
Culzean, it was a slab-sided, bare-bones Borders tower house. Few
famous people had ever visited, and none of them had done anything
noteworthy there. Supposedly Mary, Queen of Scots, had dropped by,
but then, supposedly George Washington had slept in half the beds
of colonial America. No, Ferniebank’s claim to fame was its chapel
and healing well.

Miranda, as usual, was on the scent. “When
you’re writing about Ferniebank Chapel and all, play up the
connection with Rosslyn Chapel. That’s become quite the tourist
attraction after the book and that film, what are they,
The
Michelangelo Cipher?
”

“They’re a load of baloney, if you ask me,
although, oddly enough, no one ever does, fiction being much more
appealing than fact. It always has been. Some of the legends
popularized by that book have been around for centuries, not that a
legend is necessarily fiction.”

“There’s your job description in a
nutshell.”

“Exploring the debatable shore where fantasy
and reality intersect?”

“An area,” Miranda said, “that could do with
being a demilitarized zone. As though it’s not bad enough censoring
the novel, some folk have rioted over the film.”

“Too many myth-mongers have big chips on
their shoulders,” agreed Jean, “especially when it comes to selling
a product. And a belief system can be a heck of a product.”

“There you are, then.” Miranda cast the
leaflet onto the desk like bread upon water. “I’m expecting a
multi-part article on the facts, fictions, and fancies of
Ferniebank, as well as anything else you’d care to add in: The
Rutherford connection. The quest for the clarsach. The castle
ghost. A white lady, is it?”

“A gray lady. There’s always a white lady or
a gray lady or a green lady. Me, I’m holding out for a purple
polka-dotted gentleman.”

Miranda laughed. “Obliging of Alasdair to
caretake the place himself the fortnight, instead of assigning it
to someone else. But that’s his privilege as chief of security for
P and S, I reckon.”

“He trolled through the properties they
manage until he found one that was private but fodder for
Great
Scot
. Plus, Michael and Rebecca Campbell-Reid are spending the
month in Stanelaw. Alasdair couldn’t have known Ferniebank was
going to interest his crime-solving side, but then, not only can
the man see ghosts. I swear he’s got ESP.”

“No one’s needing ESP to see that
Ferniebank’s privacy is gone for good,” said Miranda. “Well then.
Duncan’s arriving at six for an early dinner and the show. Best get
cracking.”

“Cracking your whip over me, you mean? Yep, I
need to get going. And get something to eat. I’ll need more than
butterflies in my stomach.”

“One can’t live on love, no.”

“Love? It’s way too early to go there,
Miranda.” Jean raised her hands, in a gesture partly “I surrender”
and partly “back off, unexploded ordnance.”

With one of her patented wise smiles, Miranda
backed off. She had never been married, let alone divorced, while
both Jean and Alasdair had been there, done that, and bore the
scars. Her long-time relationship with silverback lawyer Duncan
Kerr had a lot to say for it—their parallel lives regularly
intersected and then parted again, as though in the ordered steps
of a minuet. What Jean was dancing with Alasdair was a traditional
country reel, with lots of stamping, hand-offs, ducks, and twirls,
all leading up to some seriously heavy breathing. As for leading up
to love-cum-commitment, well, the best-laid plans of mice and men
gang aft agley . . . Time to get off the rodent kick.

She swept the newspaper, the invitation, and
several printouts referencing Ferniebank’s long history into a
folder and thrust the leaflet in after them. A glossy booklet with
four-color photos was in the works, she was sure of that.

A siren sounded outside the window. Gavin’s
telephone bleated and he answered. A moment later the phone in
Miranda’s office beeped. She took a step toward the door, then
back, her smile widening into a grin like a salute.
Damn the
torpedos! Full speed ahead!
But all she said was, “I’ll RSVP to
Minty on your behalf. Give my regards to the Campbell-Reids, and
thank Michael for the article on the amen glass. Kiss Alasdair for
me. And don’t go borrowing trouble, not about him, not about your
articles, not about”—the glistening pink nail on her forefinger
tapped the folder in Jean’s hands—“the castle, the clarsach, or
either of the Rutherfords. Cheerio.” She clicked off down the hall
and into her office.

Jean shut her window, hoisted her bag,
squared her shoulders, and headed for the front door. Trouble had
recently been finding her. She didn’t need to beg, borrow, or steal
it.

Just as she set her hand on the knob of the
outer door, Gavin’s phone emitted another double bleat. “
Great
Scot
Magazine,” he answered. “Oh aye, she’s just away, one sec.
Jean?”

Thwarted in her getaway, Jean mouthed, “Who
is it?”

“Chap named Keith Bell,” Gavin returned with
a shrug.

Jean hadn’t the foggiest idea who Keith Bell
was—and couldn’t exactly ask if the man’s middle name was
“trouble”—but talking to strangers was part of her job description.
She stepped back across the reception area and took the telephone
from Gavin’s hand. “Jean Fairbairn.”

“Hello,” said a deep but soft male voice.
“This is Keith Bell.”

“Hello,” Jean returned, and when nothing more
was forthcoming, “Is there something I can do for you, Mr.
Bell?”

“Er, ah, well, you don’t know me.”

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“I’m an architect. With Cruickshank and
Associates, Glasgow.” Full stop.

“Yes?” Jean prompted. He might work in
Glasgow, but his accent was flat as a hamburger bun, his vowels
pointing listlessly toward his origins on the western side of the
Atlantic.

“I’m, ah, um, I’m designing the conference
center conversion and new healing center at Ferniebank.”

Ah! “You’re working with Ms. Macquarrie,
then?”

“Yes, I am.” A clock chimed on his end of the
line, counting out twelve strokes.

It was midnight that was the witching hour,
Jean thought, not noon. Bell can’t have turned into a frog. She’d
have heard him croaking. She prodded him again. “How can I
help?”

“You’re scheduled for an interview with Ciara
tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes.”

“Today’s Friday.”

“So it is.” Jean’s foot started tapping the
floor, and not from any innate sense of rhythm.

Gavin leaned over his keyboard, but his ears
flicked back toward her like a cat’s.

“I hear you’re staying at the caretaker’s
cottage at the site.”

“At Ferniebank, yes.”

“I’m gonna be there this afternoon,” said
Bell, “if you’d like to ask me some questions, too.”

“I’d like to do that, yes,” Jean said, noting
that he wasn’t promising to actually answer those questions. “I
won’t be there until five or so, though.”

“That’s okay. I’ve got to take some pictures
and measurements and stuff. But I wanted to check with you first,
you know, since you’re the temporary caretaker.”

“I’m not the caretaker, I’m visiting. The
actual caretaker should be arriving there just about now. Opening
time. He’s, er, he’s . . .” This time she piled up against that
full stop.
He’s what? Friend? Companion? Significant other?
“Security chief for Protect and Survive. Just filling in for the
rest of the month.”

“The boss himself? No kidding. I bet he’s
having fits finding another caretaker for Ferniebank after what
happened to the last one.”

Jean didn’t like the sound of that, although
if anything sinister had happened there—recently, not historically,
something sinister was always happening historically—then Alasdair
would have told her. Wouldn’t he? “What happened to the last
caretaker?”

“Oh wow, you haven’t heard? It was on the
eleventh, Monday before last. The local cop noticed that the place
was still open past closing time, so went to check. And there was
the old guy, the caretaker, stone cold dead in the dungeon.”

“Oh,” Jean said faintly. “Any suspicion of
foul play?”

Gavin turned around, leaning his chin on his
fist and his elbow on his desk.

“Naw. The inquest ruled he died of a heart
attack.”

“In the dungeon?”

Bell was speaking quite fluently now, with
volume and intonation. All he needed was an echo chamber for
effect. “Ciara thinks he was checking the place out before he
locked up. He felt the pangs while he was in the dungeon and was
too weak to climb the ladder.”

“So he died there, all alone.” Jean’s
imagination could be a bit too vivid, especially with a story that
had two phobias for the price of one, her dread of enclosed spaces
and her dread of the dark. Alasdair hadn’t told her about the man’s
death because it didn’t concern her. Or because he knew it would
spook her. He couldn’t help being protective, he was trained to
protect. What she had to train herself to do was to stop, well,
borrowing trouble.