The Blue Hackle (31 page)

“I should hope so,” said Heather. “They cost
as much as designer pumps.”

Rab’s black and white beard bristled like the
southbound end of a northbound badger. His eyes glinted in the
shadow of his tweed cap. His silence rejecting Scott and Heather’s
familiarities, he hooked the dogs’ leashes to their collars and
continued on down the driveway.

“Why did the police take everybody’s shoes?”
asked Dakota.

Alasdair, who had so far borne out her
estimation of his speaking habits, answered. “There were footprints
near the scene of the crime, prints of shoes with treads. The
boffins—the laboratory technicians—are after making a match. And
matching the mud and other matter at the scene with matter caught
in the treads of someone’s shoes.”

“The problem is, everyone wears shoes with
treads these days.”
Like Brenda and her comfortable
sneakers
, Jean added to herself. “There must have been a dozen
pairs of wellies in the cloak room, just for a start.”

“Too much information,” Heather said again,
despite Alasdair’s circumspect “matter.” “Come on people, let’s get
dressed for whatever’s going on tonight. I hope they have more of
that wassail. That was good.”

“It sure was,” said Scott, leaping on a point
of agreement. “Let’s ask for the recipe.”

The two adults swept Dakota across the gravel
and into the porch. The door opened, emitting a burst of light, and
shut again. In the darkness, the dogs woofed perfunctorily at the
gate constable. The phone in Alasdair’s pocket rang, and the light
of the display cast a greenish, alien glow on his face. “Hullo,
Hugh.”

This time he angled the phone toward Jean, so
she could hear Hugh’s voice. No thanks to the tiny audio circuits
that it came across clear as a bell, if only half as loud—he made
his living as much with his voice as his musical instruments. “I’ve
got two minutes before the taxi arrives. Three, if it’s slowed down
by the crowds on the High Street. But I’ve heard from my fiddler
friend in Townsville, a quick message before going off to a New
Year’s barbie on the beach whilst I’m freezing my nose hairs here
in Auld Reekie and Darkie.”

“Any good gossip about Greg MacLeod?” Jean
asked with a grin.

“She did not know him personally, but knew of
him. Quite the smooth talker, she’s saying, and a clever
businessman, with many a scheme, resorts, apartment buildings,
suburb development, a souvenir business, your art gallery and
museum of religion.”

Alasdair waded in. “Rebecca’s saying he sold
an ancient inscription to the Bible History Research Society, all
the time working a deal to display it in his own museum. Eating
your cake and having it as well, sounds to be.”

“That’s Greg,” said Hugh, “or so she’s
saying. Always selling up the last venture and starting in again,
looking out the main chance. Mind you, he’s never known for
churchgoing, or New Age piety, or even holding séances, nothing of
the sort. It’s that with war, fire, flood, economic troubles,
nowadays there’s muckle money in religion.”

“Hence a Museum of Religion and an
antiquities gallery under one roof.” The side of Jean’s face next
to Alasdair’s was almost warm. The other side was so cold she felt
the gold studs like tiny icicles in her earlobes.

“Hope that helps,” Hugh said. “Time to go
singing for my supper.”

“You’d sing for nothing,” Jean told him.
“Thanks, it does help. Happy New Year!”

“’Til Saturday,” stated Hugh. “I’ll not be
missing out Alasdair’s stag party.”

Alasdair twitched, a stag party not being on
his list of priorities. But before he could remonstrate, the
connection went silent. He tucked the phone away.

Jean leaned away from him, feeling the chill
fall on her face. “I really wish we’d gotten to know Greg. He
sounds like quite a character.”

“He was after the main chance, was he? So are
the Krums. And Pritchard.”

“An old manor house,” said Jean, “filled with
precious objects religious, secular, no one knows what, the owners
in difficult financial straits, and a shady manager. Quite a
setup.”

Alasdair looked up at the glowing windows.
“What was Greg wanting that someone killed him to stop him getting
it? What was Tina knowing that made her risk her life escaping? Was
she thinking the murderer nearby, and coming for her next?”

The light streaming from the library window
wavered as Diana leaned in close to the Christmas tree. Its tiny
red and green lights winked on, casting a hard-edged gleam into
Alasdair’s eyes.

Jean could sense his thought cycling like an
electric current:
Every time I think we’ve moved the
investigation away from Fergie it circles back round again.

The lingering sweetness in her mouth went
sour.

Alasdair considered his image in the tall
mirror. Jean considered him and his heather-blue tie, charcoal
jacket, and tall socks with red flashes, all setting off the red
and green Cameron kilt—not quite the red and green of Christmas,
but then, tartan was appropriate for all seasons. “There may be
something about a man in a uniform,” she said, “but there’s really
something about a man in a kilt.”

“Kilts have been uniforms. See my dad and
Fergus Mor.” He thrust the tiny traditional dagger, the
sgian
dubh
, into the top of his sock, and double-checked the clasp on
his kilt pin. “You had no call giving me an engagement gift.”

She fluttered her left hand toward him. “You
gave me a diamond ring. Besides, I couldn’t resist that pin.” A
silver dragon with a sapphire eye, it was just small enough not to
be gaudy, otherwise he’d never wear it.

“Bonny Jean.” He took her hand, raised it to
his lips, and kissed it. Above the gleam of the diamond, heat
lightning flickered in the depths of his own sapphire eyes, ones
more changeable than the dragon’s. “That’s a lovely frock you’re
wearing.”

“Thank you, dear.” Still holding his hand,
Jean checked her mirrored self. Okay, she paled in magnificence
next to him, the way a peahen paled next to a peacock. But still,
the deep-crimson dress Miranda had talked her into buying looked
good with her fair skin and auburn hair, and the necklace of chunky
stones and twisted wires seemed both antique and contemporary. She
might even hold her own next to Diana and Heather.

Her dress for the wedding waited in the
wardrobe, sheathed in plastic and anticipation. It was a lovelier
frock than her first wedding dress, which had been so stark a white
she hadn’t been a blushing bride but a blanched one. She should
have taken that as an omen.

As for whether she’d be wearing her
second-time-around dress on schedule, she could use an omen, a
sign, a portent—if she had a magic eight-ball she’d consult that
too. At least she’d see Alasdair in his kilt tonight, even if they
had to delay—not cancel, delay—the formalities and the celebration
following.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Alasdair, his
fingers tightening on hers.

“I’m not going to start charging you for them
now,” she replied.

“Worrying about the wedding, eh?”

“I don’t want a furtive ceremony and hushed
voices. I don’t want to honeymoon under a cloud. We’ve done a lot
of compromising, but I don’t want to compromise with this. Although
we may have no choice.”

“You’re sounding like Nancy and her ‘we canna
sort things to suit ourselves,’ not Bonny Jean the stubborn.”

“Stubborn,
moi?
Look who’s talking,”
she retorted, and the little clock on the mantel struck
five-forty-five.

With a smile and a last firm squeeze of her
hand, Alasdair picked up her best beaded evening bag, just big
enough for a pen and notepad, and draped it over her shoulder.
“That’s us away, then.”

Having exhausted himself stalking and killing
the two hackles, Dougie now slept soundly on the French gilt chair.
“All he needs is a couple of footmen in white wigs delivering
catnip,” Jean said.

Alasdair’s iron rod of an arm urged her out
of the room and into the hall, where she eyed Seonaid’s tapestry.
“Is it possible to deliberately choose ghosthood over going into
the west, or the night, or wherever souls go? Given my druthers,
I’d rather fade out and rest in peace than spend eternity searching
for something I never attained in life.”

“Is it possible to choose—ghosthood, hah—for
someone else, by not letting them go?”

“You’re thinking of Tormod and Seonaid?
Although you’d think once Tormod was gone, Seonaid would go,
too.”

“Habit.” Alasdair tucked the room key into
his sporran and they strolled off down the corridor.

“With all that Fergie and Diana have had to
deal with, they might prefer us being fashionably late,” Jean told
him.

“I’m after having a proper chin-wag before
the Krums arrive on the scene,” he returned.

“Well, yes, like how you weren’t far wrong
guessing that Greg was after one of the crusader tombstones, when
he was after something called a Crusader Coffer.” Jean paused at
the tripping stane, and not only because she was now wearing shoes
with dizzyingly tall one-inch heels. What she felt, though, wasn’t
dizziness, just the delicate prickle, the cold press of something
that was only abnormal, she supposed, because so few people were
sensitive to it.

“You haven’t heard the Green Lady, Seonaid,
wailing or anything, have you?” she asked.

“Warning of disaster? If she was carrying on
about Tina’s falling from the window, I did not hear.” With a
barely perceptible shudder, Alasdair walked on down the steps, his
elbow angled in Jean’s direction should she trip over her own feet
or feel the need to make a formal entrance on his arm. She confined
herself to a light pat on the sleeve of his jacket.

They were walking through the entrance hall
and its aroma of cooking food and a hint of smoke when Gilnockie
and Young rounded the corner from the back hall. “Good evening,”
Gilnockie said. Young exposed several teeth, then looked their
finery up and down and folded her arms across her nondescript
coat.

Jean and Alasdair rendered appropriate
greetings, which included not commenting on how Gilnockie seemed
grayer, graver, and more cadaverous than ever, as though he’d eaten
nothing but ashes since his arrival at Dunasheen. “Hogmanay’s under
way, then,” he said. “Lord Dunasheen’s been kind enough to ask us
to join in the festivities . . .”

“Used to be,” muttered Young, “the lairds
would be inviting their tenants.”

“. . . but with the lab boffins in Inverness
missing out their holiday, we’re after doing no less. We’re away to
Portree just now for a teleconference. And we’re hoping to
interview Tina MacLeod.”

“She’s still in Portree, then,” Alasdair
said.

“Aye, the concussion’s not so bad, the broken
bone’s a simple fracture, and there are no internal injuries. She’s
regained consciousness, though she’s not yet coherent.”

“Have you spoken with any of her and Greg’s
relations in Australia?”

“It’s the morning of New Year’s Day there, no
one’s answering the telephone. We’ll have another go as soon as may
be.”

“Don’t worry about tomorrow,” said Jean.
“It’s already tomorrow in Australia.”

Young turned a blank stare in her direction,
then jerked back, blinking, at the electronic strains of “Take a
Chance on Me.” Grabbing for her phone, she retreated several steps
closer to the door and mumbled her half of a conversation.

“The chap in the photo,” Gilnockie went on,
“looks like being Greg MacLeod’s father, right enough. Lord
Dunasheen did not know that, or so he’s saying.”

The corners of Alasdair’s mouth tightened.
But it was Gilnockie’s job to be skeptical.

“We’ve not yet worked out the ramifications,”
Gilnockie went on, “though I doubt there are some.”

I suspect there are some
, Jean
translated automatically, even though she was the only outlander
present. “I can see Kenneth senior throwing the shrimps onto the
barbie and telling his sons about Scotland, land of their
forefathers. Between his ancestors and his business, Greg had
plenty of motivation to come here.”

“He did that.” Gilnockie went on, “Lord
Dunasheen tells me this Sunday is your wedding day. May I be
offering you both my best wishes for a long, happy life
together?”

“Thank you,” said Alasdair, echoed by Jean.
No need to repulse the man’s courtesy by adding provisos.

“Cheers.” Young snapped her phone shut and
scowled down at her feet, turned somewhat pigeon-toed on the tile
floor. “Portree’s reporting that Pritchard’s alibi is solid. He
spent the day in a pub with a woman, and didn’t come away ’til
four, after the murder.”

Oh. Damn
. Jean had actually started to
hope Pritchard was the guilty party. She didn’t want it to be a
member of the household, for Fergie’s sake. Or Scott or Heather,
for Dakota’s sake. Or Colin, for Diana’s sake. At least they had a
stranger who could still qualify.

Alasdair said nothing. His face showed no
expression. Beside the pleats of his kilt, his hands shut, opened,
and shut again.

Gilnockie went, if possible, even more
colorless. But he recovered his voice first. “Well then, I’ll
relieve Thomson of sitting with Pritchard. His report was right
helpful, by the way. W.P.C. McCrummin and P.C. Nicolson are going
round to the area B&Bs, looking out the chap from the shop in
Kinlochroy.”

“Here’s hoping he turns out to be the chap
hanging about the night of the murder,” Alasdair said. “We’re
having an interview of sorts with Fergie just now. If there’s
anything . . .”

I think you should know
, Jean finished
for him.

“. . . I’ll be in touch,” Alasdair finished
for himself.

Young fell into a walk toward the door.
“They’ll have brought the car round.”