Chapter Thirteen

 

 

The bedside clock read one-fifteen a.m. From downstairs, the kitchen, probably, came a murmur of voices. Jean recognized Pen’s and James’s. The third, a man’s lower timbre, she didn’t. Unless it was Clyde’s. It sure wasn’t Grinsell tracking his victims into their domestic sanctuary.

They weren’t so much arguing as having an urgent discussion—well, it would have to be urgent to go on so late—and she couldn’t make out any words. Maybe one of them had exclaimed and either that or the shushing by the others had awakened her. Maybe one of them had let a door slam.

Whatever. She was awake now, so she threw on her robe and tiptoed in her wool socks into the bathroom. It was only after she flushed that she realized the sound would alert the talkers below that someone was up and about. Not that she had any intention of slipping down the stairs and eavesdropping on them. They had every right to be worried about the events of the, by now, day before.

The house fell into a silence deep and cold as the grave . . . In the daylight she’d have laughed at herself. Now, she turned up the collar of the robe so that it protected the nape of her neck.

She didn’t have to make her usual check to see if Alasdair was breathing. She could hear his slow, deep breaths from across the room. Good. He’d need all his strength tomorrow, biting his tongue until Grinsell, Darling, and Crawford gave up and went away—hopefully not without sharing a preliminary pathology report on the body.

If they were able to go away.

Lifting the curtain aside, she looked out at the harbor. The thinning mist shimmered in the few remaining lights of the village. The black shape of the police boat was marked with small lights, too, revealing that it now rode high behind the breakwaters in the company of several smaller craft. She made out the shape of the ferry, farther down the street—it floated at the top of the concrete ramp rather than the bottom. But the Ecclestons had no customers in the middle of the night.

The soft blanket of perception sank onto her shoulders. The hair on her nape lifted like antennae, collar or no collar. Faint but unmistakable women’s voices ebbed and flowed. Jean padded across the room to the window overlooking the priory.

The walls and arches seemed to be draped in gauze. She couldn’t tell whether those brief flickers of movement were strands of mist wafting through the ruins or the ghosts of the early nuns—whether Hilda’s or much later ones—singing the night offices as they had in life. The scene was eerie, yes. Uncanny. And not at all threatening. Father, son, and holy ghost. Mother, daughter, and holy spirit. Profane time, that plodded forward minute by minute, day by day, and sacred time, that circled rather than passed.

The embrace of the sanctified eternal died away, leaving her with the gooseflesh and cold feet of the present. She hurried back to the bed and tucked herself under the weight of the duvet, against Alasdair’s warm, living flesh. He stirred, mumbled something, and fell back asleep.

After a while the chanting died away. After a longer while Jean dozed again, and dreamed fitfully of cabbages and kings, of swords and dragons, of ships on the sea and a morning in Texas after an ice storm, the Gallowglass van spinning its wheels on the frozen street but gaining no traction.

I know the feeling, she thought in an instant of lucidity, and then slipped into a deep and blessedly dreamless sleep. She woke up to find the room illuminated by a watery light and Alasdair, fully dressed, sitting on the side of the bed. “It’s going on for eight, lass. I’ve never known you to miss breakfast.”

“Good heavens, no.” Buoyed by the aromas of coffee and sausages wafting from the kitchen, Jean washed and dressed and was ready to go in record time. On the stairs she told Alasdair about the inscription in the booklet, and about hearing their hosts in conference in the wee hours of the morning.

He nodded. “Saying ‘where the bodies are buried’ likely means nothing, aye. And yet the Flemings and Clyde were acquainted with Thomas Seaton before he died, weren’t they not?”

“Sure, but . . .”

“Pen might could have overheard us talking about the missing chanter.”

“That made you sit up and take notice. Why shouldn’t it have the same effect on her, especially since, as you said yourself, she knew Tom?”

“If she and James and the other man were simply discussing the matter, why be doing it so late at night?”

“James didn’t get home until late. He had to clean up the pub and do the accounts and whatever.” Alasdair turned his best—or worst—cool, level, and skeptical gaze on her. She shook her head. “I know, I know, everybody’s a suspect, no matter how likeable. I get the message.”

He raised his hands. I come in peace. Back off, already.

“Sorry,” Jean told him, just as Pen herself bustled out of the dining room. “Good morning. Please, come through.”

The table was lavishly equipped, from cream pitchers to toast racks to dishes of jelly and marmalade. Before Jean had time to comment to Alasdair how poor Pen looked pale and deflated, the woman herself had returned with plates of steaming eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled tomatoes and baked beans.

James followed, a teapot in one hand and a coffee pot in the other. “Good morning to you,” he said through his moustache, which seemed to have wilted since last night.

Hugh walked in the door and sank with a groan into a chair. “So this is morning, eh?”

James poured him a cup of tea. “Thanks for playing so late last night. Didn’t think I’d ever get folk to pack up and leave so I could close. Too much to be talking about.”

“Thanks for keeping me properly lubricated with the brown ale,” Hugh returned. “And that detective, Grinsell. He was knocking back the whisky, kept glowering at me as though I was off-key.”

“Seems to be his usual expression,” said James.

So, Jean thought, music did not have charms to soothe the savage beast. Or was that breast? She’d have to look it up.

Alasdair passed the toast and the subject. “We’ve always reckoned you’d rather be playing than sleeping, Hugh.”

“Oh aye,” Hugh returned. “I’d rather be teaching as well. No rest for the weary, with the concert the night.”

Pen produced another plate of food, then covered the teapot with a cozy cleverly knitted in the shape of a cat. “Did you make that?” Jean asked.

“That I did.”

“Did you knit the shawl Elaine was wearing last night? That’s a beautiful dusky purple color, sort of a heather in the twilight shade.”

“Yes, I worked that up as well. The yarn’s spun from local sheep’s fleece and colored with vegetable dyes, brilliant to work with.” Pen’s wistful smile bloomed and faded. “Is everything all right for you?”

Jean, Alasdair, and Hugh all managed affirmative mumbles around mouths of food, and waited until James and Pen vanished—him to the kitchen, her down the back hall—before leaning into the center of the table like conspirators in a secret conclave. “What were the townsfolk talking about in the pub?” asked Alasdair. “The discovery of the body and Grinsell’s rudeness, aye, but what else?”

“A Canadian chap named Thomas Seaton or Tom was mentioned more than once. Seems he cut quite the dashing figure in the early days of Gallowglass, then up and vanished after rowing with Wat. Is he the dead fellow?”

Revived by several healthy swigs of coffee, Jean detailed the state of the cold case.

“Any idea why Tom—Thomas Seaton—and Wat were arguing?” Alasdair used his knife to mash egg, sausage, and beans onto the back of his fork, a technique Jean had yet to perfect. She still ate like an American, her fork in her right hand.

“Some were saying Wat was jealous of the lad because Elaine was fond of him. Others were saying Wat was jealous of his musical skills—Wat never could work out how to play the pipes, though he was a brilliant fiddler and guitarist, the best going.” Hugh’s cheeks were rosier now that he’d had two cups of tea. “The chanter’s gone missing, has it? I’ll have myself a wee keek round the school. Could be it’s hidden in plain sight.”

“Grand idea,” Alasdair told him. “It’s in too bad a shape to blend in, though it could be tucked away in a corner, right enough.”

“As for Wat and Elaine and this Tom, I’m not at all surprised the way it all happened.”

“There’s a classic triangle for you,” said Jean. “Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot.”

Pen walked back by the door carrying a load of sheets. That’s odd, Jean thought, Pen said yesterday Michael and Rebecca’s room was all ready.

“I first met Wat Lauder when I was busking on the streets of Glasgow, hadn’t two pennies to rub together. He heard me playing outside a club late one night, found work for me, even offered me the next vacant slot that came up in Gallowglass.”

“He appreciated good music.”

“And he believed in teaching the young ones, which I was by way of being, once upon a time.” Hugh’s face went lopsided in a wry smile, probably wondering where the gray hair had come from. That clock keeps right on ticking . . . “In the event, I soon had my own band to look after and never did more than fill in with Gallowglass. But I’ve known Wat and Elaine since the days they had the young musicians in their home here on Farnaby, before they put Wat’s royalties into building the school.”

Alasdair ever-so-gently directed the witness. “You’re not surprised at the romantic triangle?”

“Wat was a grand musician, but a tyrant at home, especially in his cups—and he was more often than not in his cups. Told Elaine his music came first, that she was biding with him only so long as she did her duty by him—and that meant setting aside any thought of having herself a career. He was her career, he’d say. Not that unusual an opinion in the seventies, mind you, but times they were a-changing.”

“And thank goodness for that,” Jean said.

“He was gentler with Maggie, thought she was by way of being the grandest lass ever spawned—leastways, he did do long as she was Dad’s wee girl. Once she was into her teens, though, it all fell apart. She and Wat spent years at sixes and sevens, barely speaking. Ironic, that, if he’s not her father at all.”

“Where were you hearing that?” Alasdair asked.

Hugh frowned. “Folk were making a meal of it in the pub, but I’m not so sure who first said it.”

“Crawford told Grinsell what Maggie said at the grave. If it’s true, it might be common knowledge here on Farnaby, at least among people old enough to have known Tom.” With a conciliatory smile at Alasdair, Jean paralleled her fork and her knife on the plate. “Ironic that Elaine would fall for another musician, not, say, an accountant. Although I suppose the pool of available men was pretty restricted here on Farnaby. So Wat was an overbearing bully, huh? What a way for Maggie to grow up. No wonder she never married.”

“There’s more to it than that.” Alasdair considered the bottom of his teacup, but apparently could read nothing there.

“Yeah, she was looking for love in all the low places, or whatever the song is.”

“Wat,” Alasdair said to Hugh. “You were saying he was jealous, and had a row with Tom. Was he by way of being a violent man? Could he have killed Tom if he found he was Elaine’s lover?”

“He had a temper, aye, and was not above throwing things about, but whilst he’d bellow and threaten, I never saw him skelping anyone. Elaine, now, she eventually started giving as good as she got, called his bluff a time or two by demanding trial separations and time away at Cambridge for revising and researching and the like. She had her career after all.”

“She was no damsel in distress, then.”

“No, never mind Wat treating her as one, even encouraging her admirers. They’d be sitting round the kitchen table in the evenings, playing at Arthur and Guinevere with the young folk as the knights paying her court. Wat was after showing her off as a prized possession, offering her for looking but not for touching.”

“Very medieval,” Jean said. “Courtly love, chivalry, hypocrisy, the whole thing.”

“She gave us nicknames—I was Alan a Dale, wandering minstrel. And aye, that’s properly from Robin Hood, not Arthur, but it was all a bit of fun, not scholarly work.” Hugh buttered another piece of toast. “We’d have lovely sessions, with Elaine on the piano and the rest of us sawing away. Or we’d all go picnicking at Merlin’s Tower, on the headland just there, calling it ‘Castle Faralot.’ ”

“Fara—” Alasdair started to ask, then answered his own question. “Ah. Farnaby. Camelot.”

Jean didn’t need to point out another irony, that the one person who knew the complete, unexpurgated story of Thomas Seaton—and maybe the truth about the forty-year-old murder—was now under a physiological evil spell. She was trapped as irrevocably in her own mind as Merlin had been trapped by his young lover and fellow enchanter in a cave or rock or tree, depending on which legend you liked best. The historical Merlin or Myrddin, the last druid, was another story.

The door creaked and they all jumped, not that they were guilty of doing anything that everyone else on the island wasn’t doing. Hildy pushed through, her pink nose checking out the lingering odors of the meal.

Hugh held a crumb of bacon out to her and she nipped it from his fingertip. “Is she not a fine wee moggie?”

“You’re a pushover for cats, aren’t you, Hugh?” Jean piled her napkin beside her plate and scooted her chair back.

“Oh no,” Hugh replied with a twinkle. “Take ’em or leave ’em, that’s my motto.”

“Right.” Alasdair stood up and looked out into the garden, now innocent of last night’s dramatic—well, perhaps not a rescue. More of a diversion. “Grinsell’s no doubt planning on interviewing Pen. Soon. The body’s needing examining in Berwick, and the weather . . .”

Jean peered around his shoulder to see a thin, watery sunlight casting thin, watery shadows. “What about the weather?”

“We’re in for a proper sea fret.” James walked into the room and plunked a tray onto the table.

“A haar,” explained Alasdair.

Hugh added, “Thick fog,” and dodged James, who was clashing plates and cups onto the tray.

“Are Clyde and Lance going to be able to get the ferry across to the mainland and back?” Jean asked.

“Hard to say.” Clattering like Clyde’s old pickup, James whisked his burden across the hall and into the kitchen.

“I don’t know whether I’m less enthused about Michael and Rebecca not making it here today or more enthused about a new wave of reporters not making it.”

“I’d not like to be staging the concert without Michael’s pipes,” Hugh said. “I’ve been singing his praises to Hector and the piping students. We’ll see, eh?”

“In the meantime,” said Alasdair, “let’s be hoping Grinsell’s well on his way to Berwick before the island’s shut down.”

And we’re marooned here, Jean concluded. At least they wouldn’t be marooned with a murderer. He—or she—was forty years gone.