LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

your evening,” Thomson said.

      “Murder?” repeated Rab, the r’s rolling into the darkness like cannonballs down a staircase. “No guid will come of that.”

      Young Dakota Krum, thought Jean, would probably have added “duh.”

      She less than cleverly deduced that the other man was Dr. Irvine. But she could make out very little of him beyond a wizened form wrapped in a raincoat, with two bright eyes and a nose sharp as a hatchet beneath a floppy-brimmed hat.

      “What have we here?” he asked. “A corpse, is it? And an Aussie corpse at that, Rab’s telling me. You’re thinking it’s foul play? Well now, let’s have a look.” He knelt down, positioned his flashlight, and opened his bag.

      Again Jean stepped back, and this time stayed back and partially turned aside while Alasdair introduced himself, gave Irvine her name without designating her as partner, intended, or thorn in the side, and proceeded with as much chapter and verse as was available.

      “Well,” said Irvine, “the man’s dead, I’ll testify to that—and will, I expect—and I agree that a stab wound’s the likely cause. But under these conditions even the pathologist would be hard put to tell you more.”

      “Right.” Alasdair began issuing orders. “Fetch a tarpaulin to cover the body, if you please, Rab,” the even if you don’t please implicit in his tone. “Doctor, I’d be obliged if you’d take as many photos as possible, allowing for conditions.”

      “I’ve got no cam—” Irvine began.

      Alasdair pulled his own small camera from his pocket. “Here you are.”

      “Very good then.” The doctor trained his flashlight on the camera, assessing the buttons.

      “P.C. Thomson, stay with the doctor just now, please. A team from Portree’s on its way, but they’ll not be here soon. Sooner than Gilnockie and his team from Inverness, though, lest they come by helicopter, and in this murk… Well, in any event, we’re in for a long night.”

      Momentarily, Jean flashed back to Glendessary House, how she’d spent an eternity waiting for the police to come. Waiting for Alasdair to walk into her life, had she but known, and so forth.

      “Aye, sir.” Thomson peered into the heaving shadow that was the ocean. “There might be marks at the waterline, the scrape of a boat, footprints, or the like. I’ll have a keek, shall I?”

      “Good idea,” said Alasdair. “Well done.”

      Thomson grinned, then quickly reversed his expression back to somber.

      “Oh, and Thomson,” Alasdair added, “we’ve got no time for a lesson in public relations. Suffice it to say, the media will be following the police like the night the day. Mind how you go.”

      “The media,” repeated Thomson, and despite the dim light, Jean could swear he paled. “Aye, sir. Just the facts. Courteous but firm. No worries.” He started slowly off across the shingle, illuminating each step.

      Alasdair rubbed his hands together, perhaps less to warm them than in pleasure at finding a disciple. Turning away from the sea, he spotted Rab still contemplating the body, his breath a vapor of steam and beer. “Rab, the tarpaulin?”

      Wordlessly, grasping his flashlight in a gnarled hand, Rab turned back toward the castle. His profile in the gloom was that of a troll searching for a bridge to live under. But his little light went on across the footbridge without establishing residence and vanished over the hill.

      The flash of the camera seemed like an explosion. Jean stepped back even further and tucked the thermos up against her chest, but its exterior was no more than lukewarm. That’s why it was a thermos.

      If she felt cold, Alasdair was half-frozen. He’d been out here all this time. But then, he was Highland-born and bred, unfazed by chill. And he was a cop, unfazed by—or at least, undemonstrative at—sudden death.

      That she’d seen too much sudden death over the last year wasn’t his fault. Together they had dealt with criminals exploiting the romance of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the pseudo-science of the Loch Ness monster, the claims made by a bestselling novel about Scotland’s Rosslyn Chapel, and tales of witchcraft in colonial Virginia.

      The mist thickened into a mizzle, droplets gathering on Irvine’s and Alasdair’s shoulders to glint in the lights the way the diamond in her ring had glinted.

      She supposed Tina had a diamond ring, too. And a wedding band. Maybe she and Greg had matching ones, engraved like the ones waiting for Jean and Alasdair with their initials and the date of their wedding.

      To wed. To join. To espouse. To unite in a knot that could be cut abruptly asunder.

      An hour ago Greg had been laughing, complaining about his wife’s shopping, asking about a two-centuries-old murder and anticipating exploring the ancestral ground. Now he was a cold slab of meat lying on that ancestral ground, pawed over by hands that would infinitely rather be holding cups and glasses of holiday cheer.

      An hour ago Tina had been anticipating a drink and a Hogmanay party. Now she was alone and bereft, an entire planet between her and home.

      To fall in love was to risk everything.

      “Jean.”

      She jumped, jerked back to the scene, lights puny against a dark sky and a dark land joined by a dark sea, Alasdair’s voice in her ear and his presence at her shoulder.

      “Let’s you and me be getting ourselves back to the house,” he said.

      “Yeah,” she said. “It’s going to be a long night.”

      Chapter Five

      Jean paced up and down in front of the fireplace in the sitting room of the Bonnie Prince Charlie suite, the best in the house, Fergie had assured them.

      At least Charlie really had set foot on Skye, conducted by the intrepid Flora MacDonald. Who was probably no relation to Fergie—MacDonalds were thick on the ground here. But, with the other interesting ancestries turning up this evening, why not?

      Taken together, the suite’s rooms—living, bed, dressing, and bath complete with tub, shower, and toilet—had almost the square footage of Jean’s flat in Edinburgh. Since August she’d been sharing that space not just with her cat but with Alasdair. None of them had particularly sharp elbows, but still, independent spirits demanded room of their own. Hence their purchase of the recently vacated flat next door. Add the expense to that of combining the two dwellings into one, and neither Alasdair nor Jean had any grounds to criticize Fergie’s spending habits.

      He might be investing in his estate, but we’re investing in the state of our matrimony.

      Fergie and Diana hadn’t gone overboard fixing up this suite. While the fabrics were fresh and cheery and a brand-new clock radio sat by the bed, every surface and wall was decorated with the sort of flea-market stuff dealers called collectibles—vases and figurines, a peeling set of Walter Scott novels, stuffed birds, horse brasses, and wicker baskets.

      Likewise, the furniture was a miscellany gleaned from the recesses of the house. It ranged from a curlicued Georgian desk to a heavy Victorian wardrobe that—Jean had checked—did not open onto Narnia, to a single Louis some-teenth chair spun out of sugar and gilt that had been claimed by Dougie since neither of the humans dared sit on it.

      The little gray cat was now disguised as a tea cozy, paws and tail tucked, whiskers furled. His iridescent golden eyes watched Jean. Another criminal investigation?

      “Don’t ask,” Jean told him. She’d already answered Alasdair’s questions on the way back from the beach, despite nothing much having happened at the house in his absence. But then, like the non-barking dog in the Sherlock Holmes story, even absence was evidence.

      Feeling every year of her accumulated forty, Jean turned the back of her lap toward the electric fire whose three glowing bars were giving their all. The

Скачать книгу