Shadows of Death (8 page)

When Alan came to find me, he took one look at the pair of us and held out his hand. ‘Mr Norquist will stay here for a bit, but I’ve organized transport back to the boat landing for us,’ he said. ‘Not deluxe, but it’ll keep you from getting much wetter.’

‘I couldn’t get any wetter if you threw me in the sea,’ I croaked. ‘I thought you said we were supposed to have good weather all week.’

‘The weather chaps lied. And you’re coming down with a cold. Come along, wench. There’s a thermos of coffee in the boat, and Baikie insisted I take his flask of whisky. I know you prefer bourbon, but for medicinal purposes one form of alcohol is as good as another.’

‘Any Scotsman would boil you in oil for classifying good single-malt as medicine, but I’ll take a dose with pleasure.’ He handed me the flask, which I put in my back pocket as I followed Alan to the vehicle he’d found somewhere, a sort of golf-cart thing with a canvas awning over the top. It afforded little protection against the rain and none at all against the wind, but at least it kept our feet out of the mud. Watson sat on the seat next to me, seized with occasional spasms of hard shivering. We were both feeling exceedingly sorry for ourselves.

The boat wasn’t much warmer, but at least the cabin was out of the wind. I dried myself and Watson as best I could with a rough blanket I found in one of the bench seats. Neither of us was very dry when I’d finished, and the blanket was a whole lot muddier. We’d have to buy a replacement.

‘You said something about coffee?’ I called up to Alan at the helm. The boat was bobbing about a good deal, but I was too cold and achy to worry about seasickness.

‘In one of the cupboards in the galley,’ he called back. ‘There are only plastic cups, sorry, but there are sugar packets somewhere.’

‘I’ll pour you a cup, too, shall I?’

‘Too windy up here to drink it. I’ll be fine until we get to dry land.’

He didn’t sound fine. He sounded tired and cross, but there was nothing I could do about it. I poured myself a half-cup of coffee, laced it with plenty of sugar and the Scotch, and took a cautious sip of the pseudo hot toddy.

It wasn’t actually too bad. The smoky taste of the whisky went rather oddly with the sweetened coffee, but it was hot, and my sense of taste was diminishing as my sinuses filled. I don’t really like Scotch, much preferring good old American corn likker, but any port in a storm …

And speaking of ports, I wondered where we were, but I felt too sluggish to go up and look, and had the sense not to call up and ask. ‘Are we there yet?’ is an extremely annoying utterance, even when it comes from an adult, and it’s virtually impossible to keep the whine out of one’s voice when uttering it. I curled up on the deck, my back against the bench and Watson planted firmly at my stomach to keep me from rolling, and tried to nap.

But the coffee, or my aching sinuses, or something, kept me from settling. It didn’t help when Watson resettled himself with his tail in my face. And the boards of the deck weren’t designed as a mattress. I gave up, shoved Watson away, and managed to get up off the floor (not my best act, ever since my knee surgery) and back to the bench.

I tried to think, though my head seemed to be stuffed full of cotton, hay and rags, as ’Enry ’Iggins claimed was the case with all women.

What had Alan and the others talked about, there in the tent? How had they reacted to the discovery of Carter’s watch?

If it
was
Carter’s watch. I had seen it for only a brief second last night at the meeting. Was it only last night? It felt like a week ago.

But if it was his, what was the significance? Well, it proved he’d been on the island. But his dead body proved that beyond any need of verification. The watch didn’t prove, necessarily, that he’d been in Duncan Andersen’s pasture. A watch is readily removable, and might not even be missed by the owner for a while. Although a big, heavy Rolex, not only weighty but very expensive, and a status symbol, moreover …

I gave it up. When we got back to Stromness, Alan and I would talk it over. And I hoped that would be soon, because the motion of the boat was becoming increasingly erratic, and my stomach was beginning to vie with my stuffy nose and achy muscles for attention.

‘Dorothy!’ Alan’s call was loud and urgent. ‘Wake up and put on your life jacket!’

‘Alan! Are we in trouble?’ I tried to stave off panic.

‘Not yet, but it’s rough out here, and this is an unfamiliar craft. Find a life jacket and put it on, and then bring me one.’

I was absurdly reminded of the routine safety announcement on an airplane. ‘Put your own oxygen mask on first and then assist others.’ Inappropriate humour, I told myself firmly, is the beginning of hysteria.

I looked around frantically, having no idea where to find a life jacket. It was no more than a few seconds, I suppose, before I saw the prominent sign. Life jackets, flares, life preservers, a raft, a boat hook, all were neatly together at one end of the cabin. I put on a jacket, with some difficulty, and then staggered up with Alan’s, nearly falling on the wet steps.

‘Here,’ said Alan. ‘Take the wheel a minute while I get into this thing.’

‘I don’t know a thing about steering a boat! And I can’t see through the wind and rain!’

‘Just keep it steady. We’re all right for a few seconds.’

Almost as soon as he had taken his hands off the wheel, he had his jacket on and was prying my hands off. ‘No need for the death-like grip, darling,’ he said with the hint of a smile. ‘But do you think you could bear to stay up here for a few minutes? We’re quite close to Tingwall, but as you say, the visibility’s a bit tricky, and I could use a second pair of eyes.’

Well, that terrified me almost as much as taking the wheel, but I took a firm grip of the rail, made sure my lifejacket was securely fastened, and tried to see my way through the driving rain.

Oh, how I wished I had a hat, one of those lovely broad-brimmed rain hats. Of all the days for a dedicated hat-wearer to go out without one! But I put my hand to my brow as a visor and peered.

Alan had cut the engine back to dead slow, which left us pretty well at the mercy of the wind and waves. On the other hand, any faster would have been extremely risky in the limited visibility. Everything looked grey to me, but some of it began to seem thicker, somehow, more solid.

‘Alan, there’s a boat ahead, just on the left. Port, I mean!’

‘I see it. Can you see any lights anywhere?’

‘No-o – yes! A green light! The green light at the end of the pier!’ I was getting light-headed and irrelevant again.

‘Thank you, F. Scott. Where, exactly? I don’t see it.’

I sobered. ‘Just ahead and slightly to the right – starboard. At about not quite one o’clock. I can’t tell how far away.’

‘All right. I see it. You can relax, love. We’re here.’

I could barely stagger out of the boat, and for a few awful moments I was sure I was going to be sick right there on the pier, but Alan took my elbow in a firm grip and said, ‘There now, you’re going to be fine,’ and somehow I was, not fine exactly, but functional. Watson seemed relieved to be back on land, too.

‘You might want to leave your life jacket in the boat,’ he said gently. ‘All the gear belongs to the hire firm.’

‘Oh, I suppose we should stow them back where they belong,’ I said feebly. ‘And there’s a blanket – it’s all muddy—’

‘Tomorrow will do for that. I’ll ring them up. Right now we both need some hot soup and a hot bath as soon as we can get them.’ Alan returned my life jacket to the boat while I watched Watson, and then we all climbed into the car, which was going to need a thorough cleaning before we turned it in.

The drive back to Stromness was a nightmare, but after several eternities we arrived, had our baths, and sat down at the table in our jammies and robes in front of bowls of steaming chicken noodle soup, courtesy of Campbell.

‘Good Scots name, that,’ said Alan, pointing at the familiar red and white can.

‘Mm,’ I agreed wordlessly. My throat was getting sorer by the moment, and anyway I was busy absorbing the soup.

‘You’re feeling dreadful, aren’t you?’

I nodded and put down my spoon. ‘I think,’ I croaked, ‘that I’ll have some tea and go to bed.’ Not that I have anything against chicken soup, but the universal remedy in my childhood had always been sweet, milky tea.

‘I’ll make the tea.’ He got up to suit the action to the word. ‘Where did I see the pot … oh, there. Nothing like an unfamiliar kitchen to sharpen one’s powers of observation. Do you want to know what Baikie and the rest said about the watch?’

‘As long as I don’t have to talk,’ I whispered.

Alan put the kettle on to heat and found the tea bags. ‘The reaction was mixed. Larsen and Fairweather agreed that the watch was almost certainly Carter’s. Norquist said it was too dirty to draw any conclusion about it, and was all for cleaning it up then and there, which of course Baikie wouldn’t allow. He, Baikie, did tell me privately that there was no watch found on Carter’s body.’ He assembled milk, sugar and cups on a tray and rummaged in the cupboards for biscuits. ‘The varied conclusions drawn, though, were most interesting. Baikie, who is somewhat inclined to treat Carter’s death as a murder case, thought his watch – if it is his watch – being found so far from the body strengthened that view. He didn’t say so, but I was a policeman too long not to see it in his manner.’

The kettle whistled. Alan filled the pot and brought the tray to the table. ‘The others could see it, too, and they united in opposition. It was a bit funny, actually. They expressed themselves differently, of course. Larsen and Fairweather were trying diplomatically to suggest that the project would suffer greatly from any adverse publicity, in addition to the financial blow of their principal donor’s death. Norquist, predictably, fulminated. I’m having a very hard time trying to like that man.’ He poured the tea, with plenty of milk and sugar in mine.

I sipped gratefully, cleared my throat, and essayed a question. ‘What’s Baikie going to do?’

‘He didn’t confide in me. In his place the first thing I’d do would be to confine Andersen to quarters. He’s the obvious suspect, though there are a good many questions about the whole situation. But he hated Carter, he has a filthy temper and considerable strength, and he was presumably here last night.’

‘Do we know that?’

‘No,’ Alan admitted. ‘But where else would he be? He doesn’t seem the gad-about type. Besides, he has livestock to tend.’

‘I don’t know. Getting himself polluted in a pub somewhere, maybe. Alan, I can’t think. My head’s booming like a drum. I’m going to bed.’

I found a couple of elderly cold tablets in my traveling bag, swallowed them, and drifted off into deep if somewhat uncomfortable sleep for the best part of the next twenty-four hours.

M
y method for dealing with a minor respiratory illness has been the same for at least forty years. At the first sign of a sore throat or stuffy nose, I take myself to bed. The theory is that, given rest and fluids, the body will heal itself. I have to admit that it doesn’t always work, but this time it did. When I woke on Wednesday afternoon, I was hungry, able to breathe, and more or less in my right mind. I got out of bed and wandered into the sitting room.

‘Ah,’ said Alan, who was sitting with newspapers on his lap and a cup at his elbow. ‘It’s the Sleeping Beauty.’

I looked down at my crumpled nightgown and ran a hand through my unkempt hair and over my unwashed face. ‘Sarcasm is the tool of the devil. Is there anything to eat?’

‘You’re feeling better.’

‘Much. And I’m starving.’

‘How’s the throat?’

‘Better. I’m not quite ready to address Parliament or sing
Madame Butterfly
, but I think I’m up to some comfort food.’

‘Good. If you want to get cleaned up a bit, I’ll have some scrambled eggs ready when you are.’

Dear man! He didn’t quite wrinkle up his nose, but I was aware that I badly needed a shower.

I felt nearly normal when I had showered. I poked my head out of the bathroom. ‘What’s the weather like? Sunshine, I can see, but what about the temperature?’

‘Probably a little chilly for a pampered American,’ he called back from the kitchen. ‘I suggest layers. And hurry up. The eggs are almost done.’

I hurried. Cold eggs are an abomination unto the Lord.

One of Alan’s many virtues is that he can cook. He was a widower for many years and learned to fend for himself. It’s true that scrambled eggs aren’t terribly taxing, but they can be awful if badly made. These were soft and creamy, perfect for a touchy throat, and he’d served them with a bit of smoked salmon that melted in the mouth.

‘Wherever did you find this? I wouldn’t have thought the co-op would run to this standard of luxury fare.’ Stromness boasts two grocery stores, one (called a co-op for reasons I could not discern) a mini-supermarket with a good selection of most necessities, the other the glorified convenience store. Neither seemed a likely source.

‘Andrew gave me a brochure when he took us out to dinner. He smokes the stuff himself. May catch it himself, for all I know. Yesterday when you were dead to the world I decided to visit his shop in the village. You’d like it, by the way. It’s tiny, but full of mirrors that make it look a lot bigger. The window sign giving hours of operation reads: “9.48 to 5.53 weekdays, Sundays 1.53 to 5.57”.’

I chuckled as Alan went on. ‘So I bought some of the salmon. I also bought …’ He performed a bit of legerdemain and brought from behind his back the most beautiful wine goblet I’d ever seen. It was made of pottery, beautifully shaped with a pattern incised in the clay, and finished in a lustrous black glaze. It was breath-taking.

‘My word! It looks like a chalice! Andrew made this?’

‘And a whole set like it. I bought eight. I hope you don’t mind, but I couldn’t resist.’

‘Mind! They’re gorgeous. I had no idea he did this sort of thing. One thinks of pottery as rather more … I don’t know … earthy, I guess.’

‘My dear, he does every sort of thing. You cannot imagine. The man’s not only a genius, he’s an incredibly prolific genius. You must come with me, and I think you’d like to visit the pottery, as well. The woman in charge of the shop says there’s a far greater variety out there.’