The Burning Glass (25 page)

“He doesn’t seem to be very, well, quick on
the uptake.”

“Gary can see through a brick wall in time.
Or a stone wall.” Drying his hands, Alasdair returned to the
window. “I’ve made a proper dog’s dinner of my new job.”

“You’re not responsible for Angus dying on
the property.”

“I’m responsible for the inscription. And for
the two drawings as well.”

“Yeah, but . . .” What could she say? They
won’t fire you? So what? He might be thinking he’d compromised his
responsibilities by designating Ferniebank as a honeymoon cottage.
He might be thinking of resigning. How long before the stress
fractures in his face—in his psyche—widened and crumbled and he
collapsed into rubble, crushing Jean as he fell. She’d already been
winged by a falling gargoyle, when she told him about the lights in
the chapel.

She tried telling herself she wasn’t
responsible for him, for his psyche, for any part of his anatomy
physical, emotional, or symbolic. But the set of his shoulders as
he stood at the window, the angle of his head, the resonance of his
voice lingering in her ears—each minor aspect of his presence had
combined into more than the sum of his parts.

Maybe she wasn’t collateral damage just yet.
She tried, “And here we thought we’d be far from the madding
crowd.”

“The madding crowd’s away for the rest of the
night,” he replied, to the accompaniment of doors slamming and
engines revving. “What’s the time?”

“Too late for owl set and too early for lark
rise.”

That drew a scorched chuckle.

Jean picked up her laptop and the Ancient
Monuments book. “I’m taking these back to the bedroom. Oh, and that
bit of inscription, too.”

“I’ll bring that along presently.” He was
still staring out the window, she could only assume at the
constables who’d been left to watch the crime scene.

“Aren’t you coming to bed, Alasdair?”

“You’re not expecting me to sleep, are you?”
he said over his shoulder.

“I never said anything about sleeping.” Her
smile was about as suggestive as the teapot, and was downright
wobbly at the corners, but surely he’d pick up on the message. The
pressing of flesh to flesh, to close out the chill, because they
still had warm, living flesh to press. Because otherwise they’d
both lie awake during the bitter watches of the night. Because they
were a couple now.

He turned the rest of the way around. One of
his eyebrows creaked upwards. “Ah. Well then.”

“I’ll be waiting.” Jean headed down the hall,
telling herself to worry about tomorrow when tomorrow arrived.
Knowing that tomorrow was already breaking down the door.

Jean floundered upwards from the deep dark
pool of her dreams, a place where monsters glided, their silent
tentacles brushing her ankles. Where did that outboard motor come
from? She pried open an eye to see Dougie crouched at her shoulder,
directing his purrs into her ear. Beyond him the window curtains
glowed faintly. Either it was very early or it was very cloudy.

She rolled over, noting dispassionately that
she ached in every muscle, and peered past the mound of Alasdair’s
shoulder at the clock. Seven a.m., less than an hour past dawn.
They’d only slept for . . . No. Refusing to recognize how short the
night had been would keep it from taking its toll.

Alasdair was asleep, lips parted on a slow
breath that was almost a snore. His face in repose was so smooth,
as though air-brushed of its creases and knots, that she wanted
only one thing more than to kiss its every angle, and that was for
him to rest. She eased herself from the warm nest of the bed,
tiptoed first to the bathroom, and then to the kitchen.

Dougie was waiting. Automatically, Jean fed
him, then turned back toward the bed just as first one vehicle and
then another drove into the courtyard. Doors slammed and gravel
crunched in time with Dougie’s kibble-chomping. From the bedroom
came the sound of bare feet hitting the floor.

So much for a good lie-in, then. Tying the
sash of her robe, Jean checked out the caffeine situation. There
was Minty’s coffee, but Alasdair’s Scottish taste buds would prefer
tea for breakfast. She filled the kettle, set it on the stove, and
leaned blearily on the cabinet.

The inscription. Minty. Ciara. Angus.
Alasdair, morning and evening, fire and ice, austere in public and
in private—well, there hadn’t been any candlelight and roses in
last night’s encounter, just a desperate urgency to seize the
moment and each other, no preliminaries, no elaborations, and no
supernatural harp music, either, despite the clump of the bedposts
against the wall. Jean stretched, wincing. But physical healing was
easy.

The unwatched kettle began to boil with a
shriek that made her jerk to attention. She was staring at the
remaining eggs—soft-boiling required split-second timing, frying
required a delicate touch, poaching was messy, scrambling, she
could handle scrambling—when Alasdair appeared from the hallway,
walked straight to the window, and swept the curtain aside.

“Good morning,” Jean said.

He looked around. His face seemed out of
focus. Wrinkling her nose established that she really was wearing
her glasses—it was him, not her. Even as she looked, though, his
features firmed and steadied. It wasn’t seeing each other in the
nude that was revealing. It was seeing each other at moments like
this.

“Good morning.” He raised an arm, giving her
just enough room to tuck herself against his side, and held her
close.

She looked out the window into a hazy,
smeary, colorless morning. A constable was drooping at the top of
the path, a second one rendering aid and comfort in the shape of a
thermos flask and a package wrapped in waxed paper. Past them
walked a couple of coveralled technicians, hauling boxes and bags
down to the chapel.

“They’re starting in again now that it’s
daylight,” said Alasdair.

“Yeah.” Jean turned her head so she had a
view of his unshaven cheek. Some whiskers were golden-red, some
were silver.

“I’d better get to clearing away the lumber
room,” he said.

“Then I’d better get some food on the
table.”

Easing away from his arm—maybe they would
learn how to fit together, after all—Jean poured two mugs of tea
and set a skillet on the stove. Simultaneously they put together a
breakfast, its shortcomings concealed by marmalade and butter, and
outlined the situation, from the apparition of Isabel hotfooting it
for the castle—relevant, Jean thought, but Alasdair abstained—to
the curious incident of the car speeding away in the nighttime.

By the time they scooted back from the table,
another vehicle was arriving in the courtyard. Alasdair ascertained
that it did not contain either Inspector Delaney or Sergeant
Kallinikos. Still, he left Jean to wash the dishes while he washed
himself and dressed in his caretaker’s uniform, khakis and sweater.
He was out the door, keys in hand, before she’d dried the last
plate.

Now it was her turn to stand and look out the
window. Alasdair dragooned a constable and started him removing
things from the lumber room while he unlocked the front door of the
castle. Either Delaney had left instructions that Alasdair was to
be obeyed, or Alasdair’s habit of command swept the young man
along. Not that that particular constable was the officious one
from Hawick who’d given Alasdair such a hard time the night
before.

Jean showered, then returned to the bedroom,
where she arranged the covers around Dougie’s peacefully sleeping
form—must be nice—and dressed, gingerly, in jeans and a sweatshirt,
the better to carry boxes, search for secret passages, or do
whatever else sprang from Alasdair’s agile mind before it was time
to head into Stanelaw.

She had every intention of dragging him to
the Granite Cross with her this afternoon, interview with Ciara or
no interview with Ciara. Not only were beer and music good
restoratives, he could do some interviewing of his own, depending
on how many of the cast of characters showed up. As for making
statements, presumably at Logan’s office, well, she and Alasdair
would await Delaney’s pleasure—although interviewing Logan himself
was definitely on the agenda.

Jean pulled back the curtains from the
east-facing windows, admitting daylight but no sunshine. Opening
the one to the left of the fireplace, she leaned out and looked
toward the chapel. A human figure swathed in a protective bunny
suit was inspecting the terrace, now wrapped in blue and white
police tape. Would they pick up any traces of the criminal who
chipped out the inscription? Or were they even looking for clues
for that crime, eclipsed as it had been by a worse one?

She closed the window against the chill and
proceeded to search the bedroom. No, nothing else was missing, not
even the dirty laundry. The bit of inscription, her laptop, and the
heavy tome of the Ancient Monuments report all lay in the bottom of
the wardrobe beneath an extra pillow. It was probably overkill
hiding the book—there had to be other copies of that, even though,
with its academic slant, not many. Still, Jean told herself, she
should sit down and read it from cover to cover. What if Wallace
had picked out a coded message with pinpricks or invisible ink?

Right
. Wallace had a lot to answer
for, certainly, but there was no need to get carried away.

Now that sunlight, however thin, was shining
in the eastern window, Jean saw a pattern on the stones between the
two bedposts, a shadow-rectangle with a dot close to the upper
edge. Kneeling on the bed, she ran her fingertips across the dot.
There was a tiny, well-defined hole in the mortar between the
stones, big enough for the nail of a picture hanger. And the
whitewash was lightly scratched just where the corners of a picture
would have bumped.

So what had hung there? One of Wallace’s
drawings? Why else would it have been taken down? All the other
pictures in the flat were copies of “heritage” paintings like the
Mary, Queen of Scots, murder scenario in the living room. Just as
well that one wasn’t hanging over the bed.

Jean stepped back onto the floor. Dougie
opened an eye, looked at her with an expression that would have
made the queen’s
we are not amused
warm and inviting, and
went back to sleep with a soft sigh. “Sorry,” Jean told him.

She plugged her cell phone into its charger
and took advantage of cleaning out the litter box in the closet to
listen at the Laird’s Lug. The aperture channeled the sounds from
the Laigh Hall with startling clarity—the thumps and bumps of
objects landing on the wooden floor, Alasdair’s calm voice
directing, the constable interjecting “Aye, sir” every so often.
Both the task and the subordinate, Jean thought, should make
Alasdair feel a little more in control of the situation.

She herself had lost control thirty-six hours
before, when she pulled up in the courtyard to see Ciara emerging
from the castle. Now all she could do was hang on.

White-knuckled, figuratively speaking, Jean
stepped out of the front door to see the haziness starting to lift,
the mist resolving itself into lowering clouds that were neither
black nor white, just shades of gray. The leaves of the trees
shivered as though fingertips ran down their spines. The air was as
cool and moist against her skin as an earth-scented lotion.

Why was that constable pulling the gate shut?
Talk about locking the barn door after the horses had swum the
Channel and been served up with
pommes frites
. . . Oh. A
media van was parked on the road. There were probably two or three
others on the far side of the wall—they ran in packs, as Delaney
had pointed out. Yep, there was a transmission antenna, appearing
like a periscope over the jagged topping stones. If she hadn’t
taken up with Alasdair, she’d be waiting on the far side of the
wall with all the other reporters. . . . No. Recent crime wasn’t
her vocation. She’d never intended it to be her hobby, but here she
was.

Dogs barked from the farm, only to be quieted
by Roddy’s gruff bellow. A couple of reporters equipped with
cameras and microphones jogged past the gate, scenting blood, no
doubt. Well, Roddy could defend himself.

Jean stepped through the doorway of the
lumber room. It looked as she’d expected, with a concrete floor, a
barred window high on one cement-block wall, and a light bulb
protruding from the ceiling. Hints of paint and machine oil hung on
the still air. Plant-trimming and tidying equipment sat in one
corner, building-repair tools in another, fishing rods and related
equipment in a third. Wallace’s telescope, shrouded in plastic,
stood beside the door, along with two cardboard boxes surrounded by
scuffed dust. It would make a rough and ready incident room at
best, but Stanelaw’s miniature police station was just up the road,
and full facilities at Kelso not much further.

As for those boxes . . . Jean deciphered the
words written almost illegibly on the top one: “Miscellaneous
clothing. Oxfam.” Was that Minty’s writing, designating Wallace’s
clothes for charity?

“Begging your pardon,” said a male voice at
her back, and Jean jerked aside. It was the young constable, his
freckled face open and affable beneath his cap. Returning his smile
in kind, Jean stood by innocently while he picked up the clothing
box and carried it away.

Aha
. The one on the bottom was labeled
“Drawing materials and papers.” Her palms itching, Jean reached
forward and tugged at the taped-down flap.

“Caught in the act,” said Alasdair behind
her.

“It’s a fair cop, guv’nor.” She looked
around. “Don’t tell me you’re not wondering what’s in these boxes.
Maybe there are some more drawings.”

“Maybe so, but I cannot open them up without
permission of the owner. Or failing that, a warrant.”