Holy Terror in the Hebrides (13 page)

Once safely inside my door, I found that, most unexpectedly, an odd shyness had taken possession of me. Did I really have the nerve to try to call Alan at his conference?

Well, why not? The worst that could happen was that he’d be out and I’d have to leave a message. I’m not much good at languages, but surely most people in a cosmopolitan city like Brussels would speak English. Although why we should expect them to, when we make no attempt to learn their language . . . what arrogance! Anyway, assuming it was an hour later in Belgium, which I thought was about right, Alan ought to be just getting back from dinner himself.

The operator in the hotel in Brussels, once I had remembered its name and obtained its number, spoke better English than I do. So much for my American prejudices.

“I believe Chief Constable Nesbitt is out at the moment, madam, but I will ring his room.”

There was a frustrating interval before the operator spoke again.

“There is no answer, madam. I have checked the conference schedule, and he would be chairing a dinner meeting just now. May I take a message?”

“Oh. Well. No, it’s nothing important, really.”

“I’m sure he’ll want to know who rang.”

“Um—you can tell him Dorothy called, but I’ll try to call back.”

“Thank you, madam. According to the schedule, he has a full day until six o’clock tomorrow, but of course I have no way of knowing his plans for the evening.”

“Of course not. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone bleakly, and thought about Alan’s plans for tomorrow evening. At a glittering hotel in a big city. Dinner, dancing—could he dance? We’d never done that. A concert, perhaps. While I would be sitting around wondering who might be a murderer.

Why couldn’t he ever stay close to the phone?

Now that was unfair. He wasn’t out carousing tonight; he was working. What could he do, anyway? He couldn’t solve my problem for me, and, in any case, I could hardly give him details over the phone. In fact, there was no point at all in talking to him.

That made me feel even lonelier.

I wandered around my tiny domain, looked at an old copy of
Country Life
someone had left in the living room, and wished, uncharacteristically, that the owners of the cottage had seen fit to equip it with a television. Oh, well, the reception would probably be awful in this remote part of the world. They might at least have had the forethought to provide a decent selection of reading material. I wondered whatever had possessed me to come to a place like this, anyway, all by myself, with nothing to do, no one to talk to, not even a cat . . .

Oh, for heaven’s sake! And what would a cat have done for the last two days while I had myself locked out like a simpleton? In a thoroughly bad temper I double-locked the doors, turned out the lights, and went to bed.

In the morning, as is the way of mornings, things looked better. True, the weather was deteriorating, if the gathering clouds were any indication, but it wasn’t yet threatening; the wind was no more than one might expect on any autumn day. Perhaps the ferry would be running today, and the police would get here early, and they would decide Bob’s death was an unfortunate accident, and the Chicago contingent could get off the island and on their way home. Perhaps I’d hear from Tom and Lynn. Perhaps Alan would call.

Well, no, he wouldn’t, would he?—since I hadn’t given his hotel my phone number. I debated calling them again and decided against it. Probably the same operator wouldn’t be on duty, but after refusing to leave a message last night, I certainly didn’t want to seem like—no, I wouldn’t call.

But I could call Jane. I should, in fact. Why hadn’t I thought of that last night?

Because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, that was why. Self-pity has the most devastating effect on common sense.

Jane answered on the first ring.

“I got your letter, Jane, and the key. Thanks so much for all your trouble. I’m settled in, and I love the cottage, it’s tiny and cute and—”

“Are you all right?”

“What do you mean? Of course I’m all right. For heaven’s sake, it was only an accident! I’m sure it was an accident. Why does everybody think, every time I’m incidentally involved, it has to be a murder?”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line.

“Oh,” I said in a subdued tone. “What were you talking about?”

“Never mind what I was talking about. What are you?”

“Nothing that matters. I mean, it does, of course, but surely not much to me. Someone I didn’t know died—fell off the cliff in Fingal’s Cave—and I saw it happen. And it had to have been an accident. Anything else is—let’s start over. Why did you want to know if I was all right?”

“Weather. Mother and father of all storms headed straight for you. Hatches battened?”

“Well, I think the cottage is reasonably weather-tight. The roof seems to be sound, and so on.”

“Hmmm.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re worried about. The weather’s perfectly ordinary. It’ll probably rain later on, but what else is new? This is the UK. Let me give you my phone number, just in case.” I recited it to her. “How are the cats?”

“As usual. Sure you’re going to be ready for the storm?”

She made it sound like a full-fledged typhoon. “Of course. Look, this line isn’t very good and I need to make another call. I’ll call you again tomorrow.”

I hung up before she could worry some more. That was unlike Jane; there must be something on her mind.

I had deliberately downplayed the weather forecast to my worried friend, but I’d better play it straight with the Andersons. They were planning to arrive in a couple of days, after all, and they needed to know what they were getting into.

“. . . please leave a message at the tone.”

Of all the infuriating devices the twentieth century has spawned, the answering machine must be one of the worst. When I make a call, it’s because I want to talk to somebody, and to be greeted by that somebody’s mechanized voice is maddening. And I invariably spend the first few seconds casting imprecations at the machine instead of composing my own message, so that I then waste some of my allotted time stammering.

“Umm . . . this is Dorothy, and—oh, for goodness sake, I hope you’re not on your way to Scotland! Because I’m calling to tell you not to come. I mean—not right away. Because there’s a storm coming, and you might not be able to get here anyway. Oh, I can’t talk on one of these things, just call me if you get this before you leave London.”

I left the number and hung up, and immediately felt a pang of guilt because I hadn’t inquired after Tom. I had assumed they’d already left for the trip north, but it was really too soon for that. What if Tom had had a relapse, and was in the hospital? Or—worse?

I called back.

“Lynn, do call me right away, will you? Sorry to bother you twice, but I wasn’t very coherent before. I hope everything’s all right.”

That wasn’t much better than the first message. Thoroughly annoyed with myself, I burned some toast on the unfamiliar grill, overcooked the oatmeal to a sodden mass, and threw it all away in a fine temper. Unlike the great chefs (or so their reputation has it), I can’t cook when I’m in a snit.

I was certainly having a good time all by myself, wasn’t I?

There was, I reminded myself, a cafe in the village. Presumably they served breakfast. If not, one of the shops might run to scones. I prudently put on my raincoat, picked up my purse (making sure the key was in it), and stalked off.

I
HAD A
very good breakfast, at a very reasonable price, at the little cafe with the imposing name of Martyr’s Bay Restaurant, and left feeling more like myself. It is humbling to realize how much one’s emotions are ruled by the state of one’s stomach.

It was a glorious day, for anyone who doesn’t absolutely require sunshine. After more than a year of living in England, I’ve learned to appreciate weather in many of its less placid varieties. Today was decidedly chilly, and the wind had picked up a bit, sending the clouds scudding. I was blown up the road rather briskly myself, glad my bright little tam was close-fitting. A wide-brimmed hat would have sailed to Loch Lomond by noon.

I got back to my cottage in record time, bowled along by the wind, but I was too exhilarated to go inside. This was Scotland the way I had expected it to be, and I wasn’t going to waste time moping indoors or pondering horrors. I went on up the road; it had looked like a private drive once you got past my house, but I decided that it might not be, and, in any case, I wasn’t going to do any harm. Iona seemed the sort of place where, so long as you shut the gates behind you and kept out of people’s crops, nobody would pay much attention to you.

There wasn’t anything very exciting along the road, which had disintegrated into a track, except one rather odd-looking three-gabled house on the right. Still, I hadn’t explored this part of the island; I might find a shortcut to the Abbey.

When I came to the gate of the house, I stopped in surprise. The signpost in front referred to the Bishop’s House, but there was also a small notice board with the shield of the Episcopal Church, the name St. Columba’s Chapel, and a listing of service times. The place was evidently a church, and of my own kind at that. I boldly opened the gate and went up to the door. There was a faded sign saying that the church was always open for prayer, so I lifted the latch and went in.

I was in a little hallway with doors to either side and one straight ahead. Voices and cooking smells came from somewhere, but no humans were in sight, so I walked through and opened the door in front of me.

I found myself in a minute chapel, a dollhouse of a chapel. Made of stone and virtually unadorned, it could probably, in a pinch, seat a dozen people on its hard, upright wooden chairs. Scotland’s prevailing Calvinism was apparent even here; there was an austerity that spoke of sternly puritan influences.

But the kneelers were padded, and I sank to my knees in gratitude. Here was rest and peace. I could pray for Bob, and those who mourned him, for Jake, for my other unhappy countrymen at the hotel, and, indeed, for myself, my worries and fears.

Some time later the door behind me opened quietly, and someone came in. I stood to go, bowed to the altar, and turned to find an elderly, rather stooped, but kindly-looking man in thick glasses and a clerical collar.

“Good morning. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

His accent was English; I figured he hadn’t been on Iona long. “Good morning. You didn’t; I was just about to leave anyway. You’re the rector here?”

“The vicar, yes. And you’d be the American lady staying in Dove Cottage. Our neighbor, in fact.”

The hat again! “Dorothy Martin.” I shook his hand. “I’m doing a little exploring today. Is there a way to the Abbey from here?”

“Yes, indeed, follow the footpath to the gate on your left, and it’s straight up. You will remember to shut the gates, won’t you? The Abbey grazes sheep in that field.”

“I’ll remember, and thank you, Father . . . ?”

“Pym, and “Mister” will be splendid. We’re quite low church here. And now, if you will excuse me, I must see if anything can be done about patching our leak before the next storm does some real damage.”

He looked ruefully over the tops of his glasses at the ceiling of the little church where, I noticed for the first time, a large damp spot was spreading.

“I’ll leave you to it, then. Good luck!”

The wind was perhaps even stronger when I left the shelter of the little church, but no rain had yet made its appearance, so I decided to go on up. I had given the Abbey short shrift so far, and it was, after all, the principal tourist attraction on Iona.

I enjoyed the brief walk. I have always lived in towns, and the charm of a country footpath is still new to me. Especially to an American, used to our rather paranoid views about private property, the idea that these public rights-of-way had existed for centuries and could not, by law, be closed off or destroyed had a great deal of appeal. Scottish law might be different, but I knew that in some parts of England a footpath couldn’t be fenced off or otherwise barricaded unless the landowner could prove that no one had used it for the last hundred years! What a delightful thought.

So I closed the gates carefully behind me, avoided the hazards of a field full of sheep as best I might, and duly arrived at the Abbey.

It was, I admitted, an imposing structure. A great deal of it was modern rebuilding, but the side I was approaching was medieval, at least as to the walls; all of the roofs had fallen in over time and were rebuilt in the twentieth century. Here at the back of the church the sense of the ancient, the feeling of worship carried on for nearly fifteen hundred years, was far stronger for me than inside the building. I lingered for a bit, touching the moss and lichens on the stone walls and dreaming about monks long dead. I even leaned against the old stone wall, in part for shelter from the wind, but in part, I admitted to myself, to try to absorb some of the past I love so much.

Unfortunately, as I leaned I looked out over the Sound of Iona, and watched the little ferry from Mull arrive at the jetty. So it was running again, and that meant . . . I watched as a car drove off the boat.

A police car.

With a resentful sigh, I turned around and headed for the road and the Iona Hotel.

The first person I met in the hall was Jake. “There’s good news and bad news,” he said with a trace of a twinkle back in his voice.

“Okay, I’ll bite.” He seemed to have gotten over his embarrassment about telling me his life story.

“The good news, I guess, is that the cops are on their way, so we’ll get that business out of the way pretty soon.”

“Yes, I saw them drive off the ferry; that’s why I’m here. And the bad news?”

“The bad news is that a storm is also on its way.”

“Oh?” I tried my best to look surprised. “A bad one?”

Jake looked at me closely. “Yeah, well, I guess you knew that already, too, huh?”

“Well—I had heard a weather forecast, but I’m honestly not sure I believe it. I mean, look at the weather now. A little windy, and it’s going to rain, but nothing out of the ordinary.”