The Blue Hackle (13 page)

“I reckon she’s phoning him or the son just
now,” said Alasdair. “The question is, who was Greg phoning—or who
phoned him?”

“The someone he intended to meet at the
church?” Jean guessed. “Although it might not have been anything
more than a computerized call advertising a holiday in
Australia.”

The hall door opened and Diana sailed into
the room. “Are you finished with the drinks trolley, Father?”

“Oh yes, yes, we are. Sorry, we got to
talking about the, erm . . .”

With a gracious smile directed at no one in
particular, she neatened the remaining cups and glasses and took up
a position behind the cart.

“Diana,” Alasdair said, his voice part
velvet, part grit. “Who was the man standing in the parking area,
looking up at the house, at six p.m. or thereabouts? The one
Pritchard saw off?”

Her hands on the push-rail contracted so
fiercely her knuckles glinted like pearls. But the only change in
her expression was a flutter of her lashes, as though someone had
shone a light into her eyes. Her voice preternaturally calm, she
replied, “I have no idea.”

Jean sensed Alasdair’s police-whiskers
stiffening. Diana had a very good idea where the man lived. She
knew—or felt, at least—that he was harmless.

His plump cheeks flushing, Fergie said only
too loudly, “It was Colin Urquhart, I expect. He daren’t show his
face to me, I’d see him off, and right smartly, too. Layabout. Toe
rag.”

“Now, now . . .” began Irvine.

Diana’s pink lips parted, revealing her set
teeth. “This is hardly the time or place . . .”

Fergie backed off, his hands raised in
surrender. No, whatever was staining the family linen, this was not
the place to air it out.

Jean looked at Alasdair.
Fergie,
angry?
Alasdair looked at Jean.
Diana, lying?

A series of thuds reverberated through the
house, and the doorbell whirred and then rang.

Jean compared Patrick Gilnockie to Alasdair
while the two men conferred in the entrance hall.

Gilnockie was substantially taller, somewhat
leaner, and so much paler of complexion and eye he seemed almost
colorless. Even his hair, cut above his high forehead in a
military-style short back and sides, was a neutral gray. His face
seemed to be carved of stone, not craggy but austere, a patrician
arch to his nose like the flying buttress of a medieval cathedral.
He listened to Alasdair’s accounts of events while peeling off his
black gloves, loosening his navy blue muffler, and turning his
level gaze to the two sheaths and one dirk hanging on a wall no
less stone-built than his expression.

Jean knew only too well that Alasdair’s stony
expression was a pose, a wall like old Dunasheen’s enceinte, not
only defending against invaders but also confining a molten core.
With Gilnockie, though, she suspected the stone was fathoms deep,
any magma pools at its root long since cooled.

Alasdair would say she was leaping to
conclusions. She preferred to think she was following her
intuitions.

“. . . and Irvine has gone home, asking us to
phone if Tina MacLeod needs looking after.” Alasdair took a
half-step back indicating the passing of the torch. He’d done his
bit. He was entitled to step down now, not that he’d exit the
picture, being expert advice and curious as a cat to boot.

Gilnockie nodded. “Thank you.”

The sound of recorded voices echoed from the
drawing room. From the other direction came the murmur of live
voices, Thomson chatting with Rab, and the clash of dishes as Nancy
cleared away dinner and anticipated the arrival of Portree, the
next shift in her scheduled feeding of the multitudes.

Fergie peered around the corner and caught
Jean’s eye, but couldn’t quite manage a smile. She sent one to him
instead. “It’s an invasion, isn’t it?”

“I suppose you’re accustomed to it.”

“You never get accustomed to it. Not if
you’re a bystander, anyway, and even the cops will burn out
eventually. Like Alasdair.”

Alasdair heard his name and looked around.
Spotting Fergie, he waved him over and made introductions.

“Anything I can do to help matters along . .
.” Fergie said, leaving the end of his sentence open to
interpretation.

“A map of the property would be right
helpful,” returned Gilnockie, his voice still hushed. “We’ll be
needing an incident room. A lumber room would work a treat, so long
as there’s electricity.”

“There’s the old kitchen, behind the new one.
It’s got a door into the courtyard, near the old laundries and
shops. Make it easier for the lot of you to come and go.”

And keep the lot of them out of the
house?
Jean queried silently.

“The telephone connection will hardly be up
to the needs of your computers,” Fergie added.

“No worries,” said Gilnockie. “If necessary
we can stop by the police house in Kinlochroy or even return to
Portree. I’ll have a word with my sergeant, start setting up so we
can begin taking statements and collecting evidence. Alasdair,
you’ll be showing me to the scene, eh?”

Alasdair took a full step back. “The local
constable is—”

“I’d appreciate your opinion. Round the back,
is it? I’ll not be a minute.” Replacing his gloves, Gilnockie
turned toward the door. “I’d be obliged if you’d set the constable
to guarding the knives,” he added, and the door shut with a
thump.

Fergie looked at the display of dirks, his
brows drawn down in puzzlement. Then his eyebrows shot up his
forehead, his mouth fell open, and he stopped breathing.

“You did not know the dirk had gone missing?”
Alasdair asked, more in the sense of fair play, Jean estimated,
than to gather information.

With an inhalation that was almost a moan,
Fergie turned his bulging eyes on Alasdair. “Greg was killed with a
knife, Sanjay was saying. Was it that one? The dirk belonging to my
father’s school friend?”

“No one knows that, not just yet,” Alasdair
said. “When did you last see it?”

“Several days ago. Several weeks ago. I don’t
know. There are so many things to keep track of, I’ve never had
time for a proper inventory. And you know how you see what you
expect to see.”

No kidding
. Jean waded in. “Fergie,
how come you have the second dirk, too?”

For a fraction he stared as though he didn’t
recognize her. “Ah, erm, the man was killed in the war and my dad
kept his dirk and his bonnet. He had no relations, or my father
couldn’t find them, or something to that effect . . .” He turned
back to Alasdair, his face taking on a grayish tint. “Am I a
suspect?”

Alasdair could have said, “No.” Instead, he
said, “It’s early days yet. Gilnockie’s a good cop. He’ll sort it.
And, as your security advisor, I’d suggest you not hanging valuable
or dangerous items just inside the front door, leastways, not
without bolting them to the wall like the other weaponry.”

“Ah,” said Fergie. “Quite right.”

A tattoo of footsteps and Scott Krum shot
around the corner. “You know something, Fergus, there’s a hell of a
lot of policemen milling around outside for an accidental death.
What aren’t you telling us?”

Fergie turned his ghastly complexion toward
Scott, stared at him, too, then managed to stammer, “The man was
murdered, Mr. Krum. The police are investigating.”

“Okaaaay.” Scott looked from Fergie to Jean
to Alasdair. Apparently finding nothing inspirational in their
faces either, he vanished down the hall.

“I’ll—the old kitchen—things stored away . .
.” Fergie headed toward the back hall, then, clumsily, spun around
and came back again, expression firmer but still whey-colored. “Was
it you who saw Urquhart hanging about, Jean?”

“I saw a man dressed in black looking up at
the house. Pritchard told him to go away, but Diana said he wasn’t
causing any harm.”

Fergie shook his head so vehemently his
ponytail swished back and forth, either disagreeing with Diana’s
opinion or shuddering that she’d have that particular one.

“Who is Colin Urquhart?” asked Alasdair.

“A loony. A nutter. He’s squatting in the old
keeper’s cottage at Keppoch Point lighthouse, studying the
wildlife, he claims. In November, he went berserk in the pub, broke
some bottles and glassware before Sanjay calmed him down. He’s
threatened me to my face, offered me a death threat, if you can
imagine.”

“A death threat?” Alasdair repeated.

“I caught him messing about the new church
and asked him to move on. He got right up my nose, said I’d best
have a care, men in his vicinity died nasty deaths. I looked about
for something to defend myself with, but he went on his way without
making good on his threat. Pritchard does his best, but Diana,
well—it’s not that she’s encouraging him, don’t get me wrong, it’s
that she has a kind heart.”

One half of Alasdair’s mouth quirked upward.
Aha
.

At least they now had the answer to one
imponderable, why Diana had lied about Urquhart. But, like most
answers, this one only created new questions. Jean hazarded,
“You’re trying to protect her from him, but she doesn’t understand,
and thinks you’re stifling her?”

“Yes. Odd how much more sympathetic to my own
parents I am now.” Fergie summoned a shaky smile. “She’s all I’ve
got. Dunasheen, well, the balance sheets, they’re a problem—who
knows how much longer I’ll have it, but Diana, now, I know I’ll be
walking her down the aisle sooner rather than later, and I can’t
really blame Urquhart for hanging about her, even as a child my
uncle called her Diana Ban, fair Diana, but damn it, he’s just not
. . .”

“He’s not good enough for her,” Alasdair
finished.

“No, he’s not good for her, full stop. Oh, I
know, nowadays we talk about psychological disorders and the like,
and the man’s been to war, I hear. And we’re told to do unto others
and show mercy. Still, he frightens me. I only wish he frightened
Diana as well, or, failing that, went away.” Fergie’s voice died
into a pained sigh.

So Diana had taken on a reclamation project.
Or perhaps the goddess of the hearth, the vestal virgin of
Dunasheen, the proper British rose, had allied herself with a
suspect character as a way of acting out. Jean’s inner bad girl was
tempted to pump a fist in the air. But her inner schoolmarm—much
the stronger of the two—pointed out that playing with matches could
burn more than a girl’s fingers.

Look who Jean herself had ended up with,
about the least suspect character in the British Isles.

Alasdair’s eye met hers, reserving judgment
and reminding her to do the same. To Fergie he said, “Gilnockie
will be taking a statement from Urquhart as well.”

“He’s a violent man,” insisted Fergie, and
then, grudgingly, “But just because I’ve taken against him doesn’t
mean he’s your murderer. Our murderer.”

P.C. Thomson came strolling around the corner
without his canine entourage. “Thank you for the grand meal,
Fergus. Am I needed on the beach, Mr. Cameron?”

“You’re needed here,” Alasdair answered.
“Have an eye for these dirks, see that no one messes them about
’til D.C.I. Gilnockie’s people come for them.”

“The dirks?” Thomson leaned forward to look.
“A blade’s turned up missing, has it? You’re not thinking . . .”
His dark eyes swiveled toward Fergie’s pasty face. With admirable
restraint, he said only, “Aye, sir,” and took up a stance beside
the massive chest. His firm nod was leavened by a satisfied tilt to
his mouth, evidence of the good dinner and now duty indoors.

Around the other corner came the Krums, Scott
and Heather looking right and left like Custer’s scouts scanning
the horizon. Scott turned a faux grin on Fergie, Alasdair, Jean,
and Thomson, but didn’t focus on any of them. “We’re pretty
jet-lagged. We’re going upstairs.”

Dakota grumbled, “We were just getting to the
part where the spaceships . . .”

“Read some of those books you brought along,”
said Heather. “We were this far from paying excess baggage
fees.”

“Good night, then,” said Fergie.

Jean tried, “If Dakota would like to stay
downstairs awhile longer, I’d be glad to sit with her. I like
science fiction, too.”
And we might find we have more than that
in common,
she concluded silently.

Dakota opened her mouth. Scott said, “No,
really, you don’t want to watch a movie with her, she asks
questions the entire time.”

“Good for her,” Jean said under her breath,
but the family was already on the staircase and climbing.

Heather said, as though footnoting a previous
statement, “It’s not as though there’s another hotel close by, just
a tacky little place or two in the village.”

“This isn’t a hotel,” Scott said. “Diana
corrected you on that already.”

Heather tossed her head. “Oh yeah, she made
quite an impression on you, didn’t she?”

Alasdair refrained from pointing out that
even if the Krums packed up and left tonight, they’d still have to
give statements to Gilnockie, and they disappeared around the curve
of the staircase.

Muttering beneath his breath, Fergie started
for the back hall, then less spun than floundered back around.
“Jean, Alasdair, I promised to show you the Fairy Flagon and, well,
there’s something else, something special for your article, but I’m
afraid it will have to wait until tomorrow.”

“No worries,” Alasdair told him, overriding
Jean’s, “What something else is that?”

Fergie vanished down the back hall while
Alasdair himself started off in the other direction, toward the
cloak room. Jean clung to his heels. “You might just as well get on
upstairs,” he told her.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,”
she replied. “I’ll see you to the path. Get some fresh air.”

“Right.”

No need to explain that despite the size of
the house, the tall ceilings and the large rooms, she was feeling a
bit claustrophobic. A grandfather clock beneath a back stairway
struck nine-thirty as they passed, its notes echoed in a syncopated
rhythm by other clocks scattered throughout the house. Surely there
had been enough hours since sunset and crisis to make up a complete
night, but almost twelve more hours of darkness lay ahead,
stretching out to infinity. At least they were past the solstice
and the nights were getting shorter.