‘IS EVERYTHING ALL right, Inspector?’ Torquil Strathtorran paused by their table.
With its trussed rafters and rough, whitewashed walls, the hostel’s refectory was plainly a converted milking byre, and the kitchen which could be glimpsed beyond the serving-hatch had started life as a dairy. The decor was severely plain. Trestle tables covered in butter-yellow oilcloth and backless wooden benches did not encourage post-prandial lingering; but in the soft gloaming light the view over the three stable-style half-doors was spectacular: a panorama of glittering silver sea and far-off humps of black islands between the cradling arms of hills that swept down in a natural harbour.
The food had been equally plain but good. Scotch broth followed by salmon steaks, with salad of a freshness rarely found in Scotland. After a day on the hoof, Winter ate like a starving wolf, and though it embarrassed Robb to have their host waiting on them, he was hungry enough to accept the arrangement.
Wpc Kenny had discovered cousins in common with Mary Grant, and had been invited to supper in the Glen Buie staff room.
‘Fine, sir. My lord, I mean,’ answered Robb, and sensed Winter’s wince.
‘No formality, please. Not when I’m doing my Willie-the-Waiter routine.’ Torquil’s easy voice was Eton-and-Oxford, with no attempt at protective camouflage. Robb wondered how much the current Earl of Strathtorran relished his threadbare inheritance.
‘My wife wondered what you’d like now? Pudding? Coffee, then?’
Robb nodded at Winter, and said, ‘Please. For both of us.’’
‘Instant, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s fine. It’s kind of you to put us up at short notice.’
‘Glad to help,’ said Torquil as if he meant it. ‘All a bit rough and ready, but at least you’ll have the annexe to yourselves. All our other rooms are being stripped for re-decoration.’
‘Suits me,’ said Robb heartily. ‘The less room for the media circus the better.’
Torquil nodded. ‘Lead story on tonight’s news – local news, that is. The armed siege at the Greenock supermarket is hogging the national headlines.’
‘Long may it last.’
‘I doubt there’ll be any great invasion of journalists anyway. There’s a big blow on its way down from Iceland, and the Spanish Lady may not sail tomorrow.’
‘Does that often happen?’
‘Often enough. Sometimes we’re cut off from the Tounie supermarket for a week at a time, and it’s a long way round by the coast road.’ He smiled and added, ‘It’s no big deal, really. We keep supplies of basics, and there’s always venison and salmon. No one goes hungry these days.’
‘Can you and Lady Strathtorran spare us a moment?’ asked Robb. ‘I’d like to hear your impressions of Beverley Tanner. I gather she didn’t tell you she’d been staying at Glen Buie Lodge?’
After a moment’s consideration, Torquil said, ‘No, she didn’t, but of course this is a small place. Word gets around. We thought she must have her own reasons for moving out, and it wasn’t difficult to guess what they were. She was so obviously a square peg in a round hole among Archie’s guests. So my wife and I thought if that was what she wanted, we’d play along. Janie saw more of her than I did. Darling!’ he called, and she appeared in the serving-hatch. ‘Leave all that and come and talk. Inspector Robb wants to know what you made of La Skinner.’
Janie joined them, wiping her hands on her apron. They were reddened and wrinkled, as if they spent too much time in hot water.
‘Quiet, competent, businesslike,’ she said, perching on the bench beside her husband. ‘Not shy-quiet, but deliberately keeping herself to herself. What we call a B-type. The As like lots of organised activities: climbing, sailing, barbecues, that kind of thing. They don’t feel they’re having a holiday unless they’re constantly occupied. The Bs are just the opposite. They like to wander lonely as a cloud, and feel they’re close to Nature.’ Her tone betrayed more than a trace of contempt. ‘They’re the ones who tell me how lucky we are to live here all year round, away from the rat-race.’
‘Well, we are, aren’t we?’ said her husband defensively.
‘Sometimes I wouldn’t mind a bit of rat-race if it meant less than 90 inches of rain a year.’
‘I’ll take you to the sun this winter, I promise,’ said Torquil, and she gave him a look that said I’ve heard that one before.
‘Did Beverley tell you how lucky you are?’
‘Oh, yes. Ad infinitum,’ said Janie rather wearily.
‘How did she spend her time?’
‘I gave her a packed lunch and a map, and she did various walks, checking out the local landmarks. She used to ring some friend or other in the evening and tell them what she’d seen, and what she planned to do next day. I warned her to stick to the paths, and to steer clear of the Glen Buie stalkers, who get stroppy about hikers, not that they’ve any right to drive them away.’
‘That doesn’t stop them,’ Torquil muttered.
Janie shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh, Kim would have told them where they got off if they’d tried it on her. She wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself, not like some of the poor foreigners. That old brute Sandy McNichol scared one couple this summer, just because they sat down to eat their sandwiches beside Loch a Bealach. They were terrified, and it wasn’t even during the deer-cull. I don’t believe Archie Hanbury has any idea what his stalkers get up to when his back is turned.’
‘Still, we’ve all got to rub along,’ said Torquil uncomfortably.
‘But if we don’t say anything, they think they can get away with it,’ she flashed at him. It was evidently a disagreement of long standing.
‘There’s no sense in antagonising our neighbours,’ insisted Torquil. ‘I don’t want a repeat of that stupid business with Ian last year.’
Robb searched his memory. ‘Was that when Sandy McNichol accused your brother of poaching deer?’
‘As if we haven’t more stags than we know what to do with!’ exclaimed Janie. ‘He just wanted an excuse to get at Ian.’
‘Why should he want to do that, Lady Strathtorran?’
Janie made an exasperated noise, and her husband fielded the question. ‘Let me explain: in my father’s time, before Ian and I came here, Sir Archie had a lease on the Strathtorran stalking as well as owning Glen Buie, so Sandy could go more or less where he pleased. He can’t get used to the fact that things are different now.’
‘I see. I shall want to speak to Mr McNeil in any case. Do you expect him home soon?’
Janie glanced at her watch, and said, ‘He’ll be in the pub now until closing time. After that – God knows. Some nights he takes his boat out...’
‘In a gale like this?’
‘He’s a grown man, Inspector,’ she snapped. ‘We can’t monitor his movements.’
Lady Priscilla had described her as a saint to put up with her brother-in-law’s ways, but Robb thought that compassion-fatigue was setting in fast.
‘We’ll look into the pub before closing time,’ he rumbled reassuringly. ‘I daresay you could do with a pint, eh, Jim?’
‘So long as it’s Coke.’
‘Filthy stuff.’ Robb grinned. ‘Right, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Beverley left here on Tuesday morning, to walk over to Glen Alderdale hostel via the Prince’s Rock?’
The Strathtorrans looked at one another and nodded.
‘We expected her back on Wednesday evening,’ said Janie. ‘When it was getting dark, my brother-in-law said he’d drive up through the Forestry, in case she’d been benighted. It’s a long hike – about fourteen miles.’
‘Was that your idea or his?’
‘His, I think. Yes. I’m sure it was. He went out to look for her, and drove right up to the top fence, but no sign. By the time he got back here, we had heard from the Glen Alderdale warden, Jamie Lomax, that Kim – sorry, Beverley – had decided to cut short her holiday, and wanted to cancel the rest of her booking with us.’
‘Were you surprised she’d changed her plans?’
‘Nothing our guests do surprises us,’ said Torquil ruefully. ‘Not any longer.’
Robb turned to Janie. ‘Did you speak to the warden yourself?’
‘Morag McIntyre, who helps me in the kitchen – she took the call. Jamie is a nice fellow, and ringing up to stop us getting supper ready for someone who wouldn’t show is just the kind of helpful thing he would do.’ She paused, then added, ‘Only he didn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
Janie said deliberately, ‘I saw him in the Tounie supermarket on Saturday, and thanked him for his message, and he asked what I was talking about. He’d never seen Kim at all. Whoever rang here that evening, it wasn’t Jamie.’
She gave a little shiver and, rising abruptly, began to clear the plates.
‘My job, darling,’ protested Torquil, and she gave him a look that said, Why the hell don’t you get on and do it, then? Robb had an uneasy sense of a quarrel simmering just below the surface, ready to burst out the moment they were alone.
He thanked them for supper and, followed rather reluctantly by Winter, went out into the dark, windy night.
*****
The Strathtorran Arms hardly deserved the name of public house, being no more than a bar and snug attached to the peninsula’s post office-cum-general store, but tonight, at least, the landlord Jock Taggart, gaunt and grey-faced as any lifer, was doing a roaring trade.
The car park was jammed. No hope of easing the borrowed Land Rover into that muddy morass of battered 4WDs, and both up and down the street vehicles cluttered the narrow pavement with cavalier disregard of parking regulations.
‘When in Rome,’ muttered Robb, bumping his offside wheels up to join the rest. Winter tried to lock his door, but every time he pushed it down, the button popped up again.
‘Leave it,’ said Robb. ‘No one would want it except for scrap.’
They pushed through the narrow porch, and encountered an inner wall of backs packed as tight and symmetrical as a rugger scrum. The fug of turf smoke, tobacco, and damp oiled wool was choking. Robb saw Winter’s nose wrinkle and suppressed the impulse to tell him he could get AIDS just by kissing the barman.
Why did he have this urge to tease the poor lad? Why couldn’t he accept that the political correctness that seemed wimpish and affected was, in fact, a perfectly genuine part of Winter’s personality?
He’s the New Man, and I’m just an out of date, unreconstructed, Male Chauvinist Pig, he thought ruefully. Even so, he drew the line at ordering the New Man a coke.
‘I’ll have a Guinness, thanks,’ he said, fishing a tenner from his wallet. ‘Get yourself whatever muck you fancy. Here, it’s on me. I’ll be over there.’
Shoving the note in Winter’s hand, he began to work his way towards the corner settle, where two whiskery old men were playing dominoes. Scraps of conversation as he squeezed past confirmed that Topics One, Two, and Three in the Strathtorran Arms that night were the police investigation into the death of Beverley Tanner. From the way people stared and dropped their voices, he knew that even in his old tweed jacket he was as conspicuous as if he had worn uniform. The classic response of a small community. He thought they had probably made the Vikings feel just as welcome.
Fishermen, crofters, ghillies, shepherds... As his eyes got used to the haze, he recognised other faces he had met that day. The big ponytailed ferryman, Ishy’s husband. The tight-jeaned blonde who manned the petrol pump. Squint-eyed Donny, the Glen Buie pony-boy, and away in the far inglenook sat Sandy McNichol, head stalker, with the cares of the world on his shoulders, according to his expression, and his big hands crooked about his dram.
Fergus was there, too, deep in talk. As his companion turned her head, Robb recognised the blonde topknot of Ashy Macleod. He felt briefly sorry for Nicky, whose millions would never rival Fergus’s effortless sex appeal.
Robb squeezed his bulk on to the unoccupied end of the settle, and Winter, following with the drinks, had no option but to prop his shoulders against the wall. He drained his coke quickly, said, ‘Be with you in a mo,’ and slid through the scrum towards the illuminated arrow.
Robb exchanged nods with the ancient men. ‘Busy, tonight.’
‘Aye, so it iss.’ Their rheumy eyes surveyed him briefly and returned to their game.
‘There’s nae boats will sail the nicht,’ observed a chatty voice in his left ear, and Robb turned.
‘Because of the gale?’
‘They’re forecasting a big blow. The fisher-lads will have time enough tae drown their sorrows, if they’ve the inclination and the cash. That daft bugger Ian McNeil may run his boat across the Gash, but then it won’t be fish he’s seeking.’ Small bright eyes twinkled at Robb from a ruddy, gnomic face topped with wiry white hair like an Old Testament prophet.
‘Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,
My ship must sail the faem.
The King’s daughter of Norroway,
‘Tis we must bring her hame!’ he declaimed.
‘Sir Patrick Spens,’ said Robb with an effort of memory.
‘You’re in the right of it, sir; only it’s no’ the King’s daughter he’s seeking but a lassie whose man is awa’ tae the oil-rigs. Frailty, thy name is Woman!’ He put out a brown hand, ridged with muscle. ‘Allow me tae name masel’: Hector Logie of Fas Buie, above the Sound of Gash, from where I’ve the best view in all the West Coast, tae ma way o’ thinking. And you, sir, will be Inspector Robb?’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Logie. Are you a fisherman yourself?’
‘Not in the way you’re meaning – no, sir.’ He chuckled and coughed. ‘I was dominie in the School House for nigh on thirty years, and I promised masel’ I’d retire here when the time came. It’s a grand place for a birdwatcher and naturalist.’
‘The deerstalking doesn’t bother you at this time of year?’
‘Och, no, no, not at all! There’s naught like a sporting landlord for presairving wildlife and keeping down vermin, and the fewer young folks wi’ rucksacks I see tramping the hills, the better I’m pleased,’ said Hector Logie with emphasis. ‘Torquil Strathtorran wi’ his wee signs and nature trails is like tae ruin one o’ our last remaining wildernesses. What good does it do tae draw in sich a rabble of towerists,’ he demanded, thrusting his face close to Robb’s. ‘What do they ken of nature? Yon puir lassie, now, kilt as she walked where she’d nae business tae be. If she’d stayed on the path she’d be alive this minute, but no. She had tae go tramping the heather and disturbing the deer, for all she’d been warned o’ the danger.’
Robb eyed him curiously, aware he had information to impart. ‘How do you know she left the path, Mr Logie?’
‘Man, I saw her do it. I was in ma wee hide, watching the osprey teach the young birds tae take fish.’
‘You mean on Loch a Bealach, where Lady Hanbury and her friend had their picnic?’
Hector Logie nodded. ‘The leddies frae the Lodge were down by the jetty, and they didn’t disturb ma birds at all. It was yon lassie who turned off the path and walked clean past the cliff where ma birds were feeding.’ His eyes sparked indignation.
‘Didn’t she go to the Prince’s Rock, then?’
‘I’m no’ saying she didna go there,’ said Logie cautiously, ‘but she didna go by the proper route that’s agreed between Sir Archibald and the laird. When she went out of ma sight, she was headed up Corrie Odhar towards Carn Beag.’
Robb turned this information over in his mind, visualising the topography. ‘Where Fergus and his party were stalking?’
‘Aye. She could have ruined their sport, but that wouldna worry her kind.’
Robb nodded. ‘You had binoculars?’
‘Leica 10 x 42,’ said the old schoolmaster complacently. ‘They’re small but unco powerful. At two hundred yards I can count the flies on a stag’s head.’
‘So you got a good look at her?’
‘Och, aye, good enough. I’d seen her about the place for the past week. A dark-haired lassie, bonny for all she’d a wheen paint on her face.’
‘Who else did you see that day? The ladies fishing –’
Logie snorted. ‘Is it fishing they call it? Swimming and frisking on the shore wi’ never a stitch tae cover their nakedness? Ye’d think they’d have more shame.’
You didn’t have to watch them through 10 x 42 lenses, thought Robb with an inward grin. Aloud he said, ‘I don’t suppose you could see the stalking party on Carn Beag, but could you tell where they were? Deer moving, and so on?’
He took Logie through the latter stages of Everard Cooper’s stalk, and was not surprised when the former dominie confirmed Maya’s impression of two rifle shots ten minutes apart.
‘I’m obliged to you, Mr Logie,’ he said at last. Some gleam in the bright eyes, some hint of secrets yet untold, prompted him to ask, ‘I don’t imagine you were in the same place the next day: last Wednesday, that was?’
‘Indeed I was,’ replied Logie promptly, ‘and I’ve pictures to prove it.’
He drew a number of talc strips from a bulging yellow wallet, and perched half-moon spectacles on his nose to peer at the date on each.
‘There you are, sir.’ He chose one set and slapped them on the table, stowing the rest away. ‘Taken last Wednesday between sunrise and sunset, and I’d have had more if the leddies of the Lodge hadna taken the boat, for without it I canna bring up ma heavy gear tae the hide.’
‘So you moved the boat,’ said Robb, light dawning.
‘I did, sir, just as soon as the leddies headed for home, for it’s a weary way for an old man tae carry sixty pounds weight of photographic gear. When they’d gone, I took the boat up the loch, and had it all stowed safe in ma hide before the stalkers came off the hill.’
He beamed at Robb and lifted his glass, but the latter’s brain was humming. Maya claimed to have found the body under the boat on Wednesday afternoon, but by Wednesday night, when the search party went up to the loch, the boat was back in its proper place at the jetty.
‘When did you return the boat to its mooring?’ he asked.
‘Ah, there’s the rub, sir. Someone else did that for me on Wednesday afternoon when I was busy wi’ ma birds. When I was ready tae leave the hide, it had gone frae the bank by the islands, and me wi’ ma tripod and three great cameras to carry! It was close on eight before I got them back tae where I had concealed ma vehicle, and while I was loading it in the moonlight I saw the Land Rovers go up the track frae Glen Buie Lodge, and guessed there was something amiss.’
‘You didn’t see who took the boat?’
‘Have a look at the prints, sir, and ye’ll have the answer tae that.’
Robb leaned forward and studied the photographs with care. The cameraman’s focus of interest had been the untidy heap of branches that formed the osprey’s nest, halfway up the cliff at the head of Loch a Bealach, and some three hundred yards from the water.
The first half-dozen pictures showed the almost-fledged nestlings perched on the lip of their eyrie, beaks agape, awaiting the approach of an adult. Subsequent shots showed the parent birds hovering, alighting, depositing fish in the greedy beaks, and soaring back over the loch for fresh supplies.
It was the background, though, that held Robb’s attention, for there on the shore, fuzzy yet unmistakable, was the green boat, with a figure sprawled beside it.
‘That must be Maya Forrester,’ he said, and Logie nodded.
‘She was there sunning hersel’ for half an hour, but she was ower distant tae disturb ma birds, so I paid little heed.’
‘Did you see her run away?’
‘No, sir. The young birds were near flying, and ma mind was on them.’ He brought out his yellow wallet and chose another set of pictures. ‘There’s the last I took that day – see what ye make of them. By then the light was going.’
Robb fanned them out on the table and obligingly the domino players shifted their game to give him room.
The same scene, from the same viewpoint, but now the shadows were longer and the colours muted, the loch no more than a glimmer of silver against the darkening sky. By the shoreline, the blurred shape of the boat was still visible, but now it was in the water, and amidships he could just make out a blob that might be an oarsman.
‘Do you know who that was?’ he said, pointing.
Logie shook a regretful head. ‘If I did, he’d get a piece o’ ma mind.’
‘I’d like to borrow these,’ said Robb. ‘I’ll give you a receipt. Maybe our boys in the lab can make something of them.’
Logie said with a touch of anxiety, ‘Ye’ll take good care o’ them now, sir? I’ve a bird magazine buys every picture I can get.’
‘I’ll bring them back myself,’ promised Rob. ‘Your house is called Fas Buie, you said?’
‘That’s right, sir. Overlooking the Sound. Anyone will point you there.’
‘Thanks.’ Robb stowed them carefully in his own wallet. ‘Is Ian McNeil here tonight?’
‘On your right, sir. Talking to – would it be your sergeant?’ With a touch of scorn Logie added, ‘They say what’s bred in the blood will come out in the bone, but in the case of Ian McNeil I take leave tae doubt it. Weel, as the Good Book tells us, Esau was a hairy man.’
‘And Jacob was a smooth one,’ responded Robb, who had served his time in Sunday School.
Logie’s eyes twinkled. ‘Verra true, sir. Verra true.’
Robb left him chuckling into his drink, and went to join Winter and the tall young man with the dusty ponytail, but when he tried to question him, the din of the juke-box made conversation impossible.
‘Can we go somewhere quieter?
McNeil spoke briefly to the landlord, and nodded. ‘Jock says we can use his parlour. This way.’
Scarcely were they settled in the bare little front room that had damp islands on the walls and smelled of must and lavender polish in roughly equal parts, than a tousled white head poked angrily round the door, like a hen surprised in the nesting-box.
‘Yon’s no’ the Public! Get on oot o’ it!’
‘It’s all right, Patsy. Jock said we could come in here. It’s the Police.’
‘I’ll gie them Pollis!’ squawked the head, withdrawing nevertheless, and McNeil grinned and gently closed the door.
‘Now what can I do for you gentlemen?’
Both tone and address were in marked contrast to his earlier demeanour. Robb wondered whom the New Age scruffiness was designed to impress, but said merely, ‘You’ll have heard we’re enquiring into the death of Beverley Tanner. Tell me, how well did you know her?’
‘Hardly at all, Inspector. In fact I met her for the first time about a fortnight ago, but of course I’ve known of her for several years, because she and my late wife once ran a catering business together.’
‘That would have been Gentlemen’s Relish?’
‘That’s right. My wife sold her share when we married, but I believe Beverley carried on for some time. It was quite a successful operation.’
‘Were you surprised when Beverley contacted you here?’
‘Frankly, yes. I’d understood from my wife that by the time they parted company, there was precious little friendship left between them.’
‘Why was that, sir?’
McNeil shrugged. ‘Oh, you know how these things go. People get across one another at work.’
‘Nevertheless, you agreed to meet Beverley?’
‘I couldn’t see any reason not to. Gentlemen’s Relish was water under the bridge as far as I was concerned, and I knew that Eliza and Beverley used to swap letters from time to time, so it would have been unfriendly to try to avoid her. She said she wanted to get in touch with various people who had been their clients – mostly Eliza’s friends – so I suggested we met for a coffee in Tounie on Sunday morning.’
‘Did it surprise you to find she was staying with the Hanburys?’
‘Well, yes and no. There’s not a lot of contact between us and the Hanburys, but I had heard rumblings about Nicky’s unsuitable girlfriend, so I wasn’t entirely unprepared.’
‘Can you give me the gist of your conversation, sir?’
‘Yes, of course.’ He thought for a moment, then said, ‘She turned up on the early boat, as promised, and I stood her a cup of what the Clachan calls coffee, and after beating about the bush for a bit, she told me what was bothering her – namely that she had a week of holiday still to run, and she didn’t want to upset Nicky or offend the Hanburys, but she didn’t think she could stand the atmosphere at the Lodge that long. She hadn’t realised what she was letting herself in for, couldn’t stand the killing, and so on. Did I think my sister-in-law would let her stay at the hostel for a week and get in some proper walking? That was what she enjoyed, and she’d been terribly disappointed to discover that most of the Glen Buie ground is off limits to ramblers at this time of year. Well, of course I said that would be fine.’
‘Of course?’
McNeil said impatiently, ‘Janie’s always glad of an extra booking, and I could just imagine Archie’s disgust when he found a rambler in his midst.’ The corners of his mouth drew down. ‘Would you believe it, I even felt sorry for her.’
‘When did that change?’
‘Not soon enough,’ said McNeil grimly. ‘All that rambler stuff was pure eyewash. What Beverley really wanted was to find out if our business was viable, and if not whether we could be persuaded to sell out. And since I wasn’t there to stop the rot, poor Janie simply played into her hands.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Fishing. The mackerel were runnng, and I was away in the boat for the first part of the week. When I got back just after midday on Tuesday, the only person in the house was old Morag – you’ve met Morag?’
They nodded.
‘She was keening away to the hoover, and saying what would become of Strathtorran if her ladyship quit? Well, I didn’t like the sound of that, so I sat Morag down with a cup of tea, and out it all came. High words between Janie and my brother, who never ever quarrel – “all on account of yon thrawn lassie.” Morag said Janie had pitched into Torquil, and told him she couldn’t face another winter here, she wanted out, she wasn’t prepared to go on slogging her guts out for nothing. The business was doomed, they were fools to think they could ever make it pay, they must sell up and get out before it destroyed them both. All the things my brother least wanted to hear. Morag said he was shaking like a leaf, and when Janie ran out of steam, he simply turned and went out without another word, while Janie jumped in the car and drove off “greeting sair,” as Morag put it. And she’s not a girl who cries easily, believe me.’
‘So you immediately deduced that Beverley had been getting at her?’ said Winter, hardly bothering to cover his scepticism.
McNeil gave him an angry glance. ‘I did indeed.’
‘So family feeling impelled you to go looking for her?’
‘Wouldn’t you have?’
Antagonism sparked between them.
Robb frowned at Winter and said peaceably, ‘I thought Lady Strathtorran said it was nearly dark before you went up into the forestry?’
‘She was talking about Wednesday,’ said McNeil after a moment’s hesitation.
‘So you went looking for Beverley on Tuesday as well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me about Tuesday.’
McNeil said reluctantly, ‘Morag told me Beverley had taken a packed lunch and was walking to Glen Alderdale via the Prince’s Rock. I thought if I took the steep path over the back of Ben Torran, I might catch up with her before she got to the Rock.’
‘Then what would you have done?’
‘Talked to her.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
‘I suppose you took your rifle?’ put in Winter.
‘I always do.’
‘Habit?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Go on,’ said Robb, irritated by their sparring. ‘Did you catch up with her?’
‘No. Either she was a faster walker than I imagined, or she branched off the path. I got to the Rock well before two, but she wasn’t there.’ He glanced from Robb to Winter and back. ‘Did she leave the path?’
‘Mr Logie saw her turn off and cross the hill towards Loch a Bealach, passing right beneath the cliff where he was taking photographs.’
‘Logie told you that? He’s got a nerve! What he means is that she stuck to the proper path marked on the map and refused to be deflected by the fact that he had moved the stones that mark it.’
‘Why should he do that, sir?’
‘Because the Prince’s Rock path passes too close to his damned nest, that’s why. We’ve had no end of trouble over it. My brother takes the view that history is history, and you shouldn’t alter the line of an authentic ancient path just because a rare raptor has decided to nest there.’
‘Mr Logie disagrees?’
‘Bloody old dog-in-the-manger. Of course he does. He is the self-appointed guardian and official photographer of the Strathtorran ospreys, and he would very much like to re-route the Prince’s Path round the back of Ben Torran, which is steeper and shorter and altogether less attractive.’
‘The way you walked up last Tuesday, in fact?’
‘Precisely. As I said, I keep the proper path marked with whitewashed stones, but whenever the coast is clear, Friend Logie turns the sign round to point in the other direction, and kicks my marked stones into the heather. As a result, we get furious complaints from hikers who go astray and miss the monument altogether. We find the activities of Mr Logie a confounded nuisance.’
Robb nodded, reflected, and then said, ‘All right, sir. We’ve got you as far as the Prince’s Rock. What did you do after that?’
‘I hung around for half an hour, hoping she’d turn up, but finally I decided I’d missed her and returned to base.’
‘By way of the Prince’s Path?’
A fractional hesitation, then McNeil said, ‘Well, no. I was in no hurry, so I walked round the head of the glen to Loch a Bealach, and back by the Devil’s Staircase.’
The same route Nicky had taken the following day, Robb reflected, pleased to find himself able to visualise the lie of the land from his study of the contour model. ‘Weren’t you afraid you might bump into one of the stalking parties from Glen Buie? With the wind where it was, you must have known they’d be on that beat.’
McNeil shook his head, smiling. ‘It was after five by the time I reached the loch. I knew they must be on their way home, if they weren’t back already. In fact, I’d seen Fergus’s vehicle go down the track with the stag in the trailer, and I knew the other party was ahead of me on the path.’
‘Could you see them?’
‘No, but I could hear Archie booming away like a foghorn.’
So you slunk along behind them like a wolf, keeping out of sight, thought Robb. No wonder the Hanburys find you an uneasy neighbour. Between half-past two and five o’clock left a lot of afternoon unaccounted for. Aloud he said, ‘It’s a pity you didn’t speak to any of them.’
‘Oh, but I did.’
‘With Sir Archibald?’
‘With Ashy. She must have stopped for a pee, because she was behind, hurrying to catch up. She came running down the path, so I told her not to worry, they were only just ahead. She gave me a bit of a wave, and went steaming on without stopping.’
‘Weren’t you afraid she’d tell Sir Archibald she’d seen you?’
McNeil grinned. ‘Ashy knows when to keep her mouth shut. There’s a lot of common sense under all that gush and chatter of hers. Now if she was to marry Nicky and take over Glen Buie forest, none of us would complain.’