Chapter Fourteen

 

 

In the bedroom, Jean eyed the photo of Merlin’s Tower—Faralot, okay—as she switched on her phone. A text message from Rebecca appeared on the screen, sent not ten minutes earlier. We’ve crossed the border and are on track to catch the first ferry. Can’t wait to hear the latest.

“Yeah,” Jean said aloud, “I can’t, either.”

Alasdair considered the view out the back window. “Were the nuns chanting last night as well, or was I dreaming that?”

“Yes, they were. I was actually grateful for my paranormal allergy.”

“Right before I awoke I was dreaming about driving that one-track road out to Ardnamurchan Lighthouse when the car slipped into a rut and I sat there birling the wheels.”

“Funny, I dreamed something similar, the Gallowglass van going up an icy street. Spinning their wheels would have been better than slipping off the road and crashing into a gully.”

“I cannot quite see past Pen’s garden shed, but there looks to be a car in the priory car park. Maybe the same one that was birling its tires there last night, maybe another.”

Jean started toward the window, then did a smart aboutface when the phone in her hand warbled with “Hail to the Chief.” Speaking of the latest . . . “Good morning, Miranda.”

“Good morning to you, Jean. How are you getting on? Have you identified the mysterious body?” Miranda’s smoky tones were annotated by the chime of fine bone china. She no doubt sat in her tastefully appointed boudoir sipping custom-blended tea and nibbling on croissants that had been flown over from France in velvet-lined boxes.

“Well, maybe. So far the police haven’t even gotten it to Berwick, though. As for how I personally am getting on, I’m asking questions. What else is new?”

“I’m hoping I’ve got a few answers for you, as per Alasdair’s message from last night. Quite inspiring, how folk are up and about of a Saturday morning.”

Alasdair turned away from the window. “Miranda?”

Yep, she mouthed at him. Into the phone she said, “You mean, inspiring how people are willing to answer strange questions on a Saturday morning. I was going to settle down with the Internet and see what I could find, but . . .”

“No need. You’re in the field. I’m the rear-echelon support team, eh? And I’ve already done a fair bit of wandering about the Internet. But the actual folk involved are better at cutting to the chase.”

“Who have you talked to? Whom, I guess.”

“Maggie Lauder’s barrister, who defended her—successfully, as she kept pointing out—in the murder trial.”

If in time she arrived at the Pearly Gates, Jean thought, Miranda would be there waiting to introduce her to Saint Peter.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she waved Alasdair down beside her and tilted the phone so he could hear, too. “All right then, Miranda. We’re listening.”

“Good morning, Alasdair,” Miranda said, and, without waiting for a reply, “Maggie was tried for the murder of her lover, one Oliver Phillips. Quite the handsome young sprig of the landed gentry, judging by his photos—classic features, artfully tousled hair, expression of a man offering noblesse oblige to the local pig farmer.”

Jean could see him, nostrils dilated, eyes hooded, his confidence and refinement like a flower to a bee. So Maggie had been looking for love in high places rather than low. “Oliver Phillips?” she repeated. “Any relationship to the Oliver Montagu Phillips ancient and medieval manuscript library at Cambridge?”

A pause, and the sound of manicured fingertips on a keyboard. “Well done, Jean,” Miranda said. “Yes, he was the grandson. No surprise he went up to Cambridge himself, when his family donated such a tidy sum to buy and then house those manuscripts.”

“Elaine Lauder’s degree is from Cambridge, too. She spent weeks on end studying in the Phillips library. No surprise Maggie went there, too. Nice that getting into a prestigious university here in the UK is a matter of acing the tests, not being independently wealthy.”

“Was Maggie not reading archaeology?” asked Alasdair.

“Sure, but historical archaeology requires knowledge of the relevant written materials.”

“Furthermore,” said Miranda’s voice in the phone, “Maggie started out reading literature like her mum, only switched to archaeology in her second year.”

“And also in her second year . . .” Jean prompted.

“One lovely autumn day, a group of students went wildfowling—shooting ducks and geese. Before the day was out, Oliver was dead from a shotgun blast to the chest and head. That much for the pretty face, I’m afraid.”

Alasdair grimaced. Jean didn’t want to know what he remembered. All he said was, “It was no accident, then.”

“Maggie claimed it was. However, it was clear that the weapon had been fired within a foot of the lad’s anatomy. Aimed directly at him, in other words.”

“There was a group of students,” Jean said. “I assume no one actually saw the murd—er, accident, but did someone see Maggie threaten Oliver? I mean, why arrest her rather than anyone else?”

“She and Oliver had a terrible row just that morning. According to the others, he was accusing her of having someone else on the side, of playing him for a fool. But she was having none of that, telling him he had no claim on her. She was by way of being a free agent.”

She’d learned a few things from her mother, thought Jean. And she’d skipped a few lessons as well, like the one about being doomed to repeat history.

“At the time of Oliver’s death, the group had broken up to walk through a belt of woodland. Maggie was alone with him—or so she implied. The barrister made much of Maggie never having held a gun in her life, saying that it was Oliver’s fault for handing her a loaded gun, and that no matter how the gun was aimed, the firing was an accident.”

“Was it a shotgun with two barrels? Pulling two triggers instead of the one would hardly be an accident.” Alasdair was still playing devil’s advocate.

“Yes, it had two barrels, but only the one was fired. That helped her case with the jury. They agreed it was an unfortunate accident and since she’d already spent time detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure awaiting the trial, she’d paid for her carelessness.”

Jean waited for Alasdair to say something about Maggie being young and pretty to boot, but he didn’t. She gave Miranda another cue. “There were two local detectives who thought she’d gotten off, if you’ll pardon the expression, scot-free.”

“That there were. However, they weakened their own argument by making another arrest within the week, an older lad claiming he’d been nowhere near the scene of the crime.”

“Was it fingerprint evidence turned the trick?” asked Alasdair.

“There was a muddle of prints on the gun, nothing particularly helpful. No, what finally solved the case was breaking the lad’s alibi.”

“He was another student?”

“No. He was working as a bar man in the town. Maggie met him busking outside the university. Played a fine set of Irish small pipes, by all accounts. Turned out Oliver’s jealousy was well-placed.”

“A musician,” said Alasdair. “A piper.”

“Must be in her DNA,” Jean added.

“He was a handsome lad as well—a ginger-haired leprechaun. I expect there was more than a bit of class conflict between him and Oliver, over and beyond the competition for Maggie’s favors.”

“No kidding. Go on.”

“Once he’d been arrested, this fellow, Donal McCarthy, testified he’d followed along behind the shooting party, worried about Oliver’s possessiveness. He testified Oliver was cursing at Maggie and pushing her about with the gun. Donal was after taking the gun away and preventing any accidents. In the struggle, it went off. Exit Oliver.”

“Did the jury find manslaughter or murder?” Alasdair asked.

“The general feeling seemed to be that if Oliver’s death had truly been an accident, Donal should have stepped forward much earlier. If he was by way of defending Maggie in the woods, then why not in court, eh? He was found guilty of the full monty, murder, and the judge sent him down for life.”

“A perfect gentle knight would have stepped forward at her arrest,” agreed Jean.

“Oh aye. The judge was no doubt thinking Donal was more of a knave.”

“Maggie must have parsed her testimony very finely to avoid being charged with perjury,” said Alasdair.

“The barrister’s saying it was a fine a performance as she’d ever seen, aye.”

“Did she testify at Donal’s trial at all?”

“No, the Crown had sufficient evidence without her—and was not sure about putting a massively pregnant woman on the stand in any event.”

“The pregnancy raised the quality-of-mercy factor in her own trial,” Jean said.

Alasdair asked, “Which man was the father?”

“I’ve got no idea. Oliver, I’m supposing, though Donal’s being married makes no difference in the paternity sweepstakes.”

“Donal’s the father,” Jean stated, and to the angle of Alasdair’s eyebrow, “Maggie never ratted him out. Grassed him up. She was willing to take the blame and go to prison for him. Maybe she didn’t want to break up his marriage, though it was a little late to be worried about that.”

His other eyebrow arched up to join the first.

“Okay, so she believed Donal was the father.” Jean went on, “When the child, a little girl, was born, she gave her up for adoption, and the family who adopted her took her to the U.S. of A.”

Miranda laughed. “You’ve got yourself a crystal ball, have you now, Jean?”

“No more than eyes and ears,” explained Alasdair. “The child’s here on Farnaby just now, introducing herself to us as Maggie’s daughter. Tara Hogg, her name is.”

“Aye, that’s the lass. Getting a bit more than she bargained for, is she?”

“You don’t know the half of it. There’s a lot more going on than the stranger in the tomb.” Jean quickly summed up the episode of the policeman who barked in the nighttime, how he was one of the Cambridgeshire dissenters still picking bones with Maggie after all these years and showing every intention of hounding her family as well. “There was poor Tara hiding behind the shrub . . .” She stopped dead. Whoa.

“What?” asked Alasdair.

“The light caught the bandage on her hand. The one Niamh put on. Miranda, what was Donal’s last name? McCarthy?”

“Ah,” Alasdair said. “McCarthy, is it?”

“Aye,” said Miranda. “Donal McCarthy. Why?”

Alasdair and Jean spoke simultaneously, stopped, made “after you” noises. Finally, Jean managed to babble, “There’s a nurse working for Maggie—well, for her mother—suffering from dementia, it’s really sad—the nurse is named Niamh McCarthy—has a great voice. She was singing with Hugh last night.”

“Well, well, well.” That tone in Miranda’s voice always indicated plots thickening and headlines generating.

“There are plenty of people named McCarthy in the world,” Jean cautioned, even as her thumbs pricked. “Coincidences happen.”

“They do that, aye. If I went combing through Great Scot’s subscriber list, I’d be turning up who knows how many folk with the same names.”

“So you’re thinking Niamh working for Elaine’s a coincidence?” asked Alasdair.

“No more than you’re thinking it. Aye? Half a sec. Jean, Alasdair, Duncan’s arrived and is telling me it looks like being a fine day for golf. Nothing like chasing a wee white ball down eighteen rabbit holes.”

“The only things we’re going to be chasing here on Farnaby are wild geese in the fog.” Although a glance at the window showed Jean the same diluted sunlight she’d seen earlier. “Have a good game.”

“I shall, thank you. More inquiries later, I’m hoping.”

“There’s a lot to hope for.” Jean switched off the phone and sat slumped over it, her thoughts flapping like wild fowl scattering before a shotgun blast.