by V Clifford
Beyond the hotel, at the end of the car park, behind a bank of laurel bushes, she could make out a long, low, wooden building. Once the guy retreated into the hotel, she edged along a row of silver birch trees that shielded her from the road. Once behind the laurel she could see that there was smoke coming from a chimney at the end of the building nearest to her. Possibly staff accommodation. It was shabby, and reminded her of huts at Port Seton, where she’d had family holidays as a child. The sort of cheap chalets you’d find in most holiday camps, where wind and water-tight didn’t matter so much when folks were out at the shows or the slot machines all day, and in the pub at night.
To get to the other end of the cabins she had to sneak behind them, which meant scrambling through a tightly planted conifer wood extending right up to the edge of the lake. There was no reprieve from scratching branches until she crawled free of them at the far end of the last cabin, the shoreline barely a metre away. The narrowest of gravel paths circumnavigated the building, but it was too risky to use it since smoke coming from the chimney was a sure sign of life. There were four doors at the front, each with a window looking out onto the laurels. Viv reflected, what with the dense conifers at the back and the laurels at the front, that the staff must suffer from SAD. Viv lived for big skies. The West Bow might be in the centre of a city but she had huge uninterrupted skies for one hundred and eighty degrees to the south, east and west.
Each section of the cabin roof had a metal flue sticking out. Probably a wood burner attached to each, but only one lit. She looked over to the island. It was enchanting, with mist suspended just above the lake and the ruins of the abbey creeping out over the top. She shivered, although there wasn’t a breath of wind in the cloudless watery blue sky. With the way the trees reflected on the edges of the water it looked as if she could step out onto it.
The sound of a door opening startled her and she crouched into the end wall of the cabin. She peeked round the corner and, to her surprise, saw the boatman stoop and lock the cabin door. With his key secured in an inside pocket he waddled through a man-made break in the hedge towards the main building. Within a minute or two she heard the sound of an engine objecting to being woken up. Her shoulders dropped, and she asked herself why she was getting het up about having a look around? She reminded herself that this kind of thing was small fry compared to some of things she’d tackled in the last year. Taking the risk she ran along the path in front of the cabin windows and doors, and checked through the gap in the hedge to make sure he really was on his way. With relief, she watched as he reversed the mud-spattered pick-up and took off towards the ticket office and ferry car park.
She immediately rummaged in her inside jacket pockets and found latex gloves and her picks. What she thought she’d gain by breaking into the boatman’s accommodation she’d no idea.
She blew into her cupped hands, trying to breathe life into fingers that were numb. The gloves took some persuasion to fit snugly but as soon as they did, it was an easy lock to pick. Nothing sophisticated for staff who wouldn’t be expected to have much in the way of possessions. But once she stepped over the threshold she was heartened. What little furniture he had was quality stuff and, judging by the residual smell of almonds, had been lovingly polished. It was also, given the boatman’s shabby demeanour, completely incongruous to see a couple of Victorian oil portraits hanging side by side above an equally incongruous nineteen-fifties fire surround. One was of a man in a grand military uniform, the other of a young woman in a cream silk dress with a lace bodice and one finger pointing towards the sky. Viv stared at the pointing finger knowing that it signified the woman’s death. She assumed the paintings meant that his family hadn’t always been simple boatmen.
There were two small rooms to the back, which could have been bedrooms, but only one had a bed, neatly made, with a threadbare but handmade quilt over the top. On either side of the bed stood a chest of drawers, both of deep mahogany with ornate brass handles, not cheap. The other room was used as a little library or study. She screwed up her eyes and scanned the shelves, trying to make out the titles, but the old, gilt spines were impossible to read in the gloomy half-light. Large picture books were mainly on natural history, flora and fauna. A small bureau stood beneath the window, facing out to the impenetrable wood, which blocked the light. A vintage typewriter, with a blank sheet of paper in its reel, sat begging to be used. She backed away from it before temptation to strike the keys got the better of her. A tall, narrow, wooden chest with slim drawers stood next to the door. No locks. She pulled open the first drawer and a sheet of paper with the familiar logo of the AA sat on top. She slid it out and checked the name. Edward B. Ponsonby. She whistled and looked at another couple of documents: one, public liability insurance for skippering a boat carrying passengers; another a demand for rent, both addressed to the same name. Now that was intriguing. So the grumpy boatman was a Byron Ponsonby. This shone a new light on the situation at the island. But what might be illuminated?
As she gently pushed the top drawer back she heard an odd shuffling noise − definitely something inside the house. There was nowhere for her to hide. She glanced at the fixing on the window. Not even she could squeeze through the six by twelve opening at the top, and the bottom pane was secured. She stood at the back of the door and held her breath. The noise ceased. She crept out into the sitting room but couldn’t see anything. Then sticking her head round the only door she hadn’t opened, the bathroom, she gasped. A pair of bulbous, yellowy green eyes stared out at her from a large cage fastened to the wall above the bath. An iguana, she guessed, but didn’t stick around to ask it. Why did people have pets that they couldn’t cuddle?
She left the front door as she’d found it, and edged back along the silver birches toward the road. She wondered about checking the back of the hotel, but thought she’d probably found their intimidator and broke into a jog, trying to shake off her adrenaline. A couple of cars slowed to avoid her on a bend. As she passed the car park for the ferry, she heard the purr of the boat’s engine as it idled at the jetty, so stopped to watch as a couple of guys in navy blue Historic Scotland uniforms loaded up the craft with wayward rolls of drainage pipe. A benign scene, were it not for her new found knowledge − that the skipper had a vested interest in the island. She stood, concealed by a hawthorn bush, and waited until the boat chugged out onto the lake before making her way to the ticket office.
It was still closed but a woman in the same uniform as the guys who’d loaded the boat, and thick woollen fingerless gloves, said, ‘The first crossing’s not ‘til ten.’
‘Oh right, sorry. I was here yesterday and left my umbrella. I wondered if the boatman had handed it in?’ The lie rolled smoothly from her tongue.
‘Not likely, Eddie’s . . . well, never mind. I’ll take a look inside if you give me a minute.’
The woman tinkered with a couple of LPG tanks, protected by a cage at the side of the building. Once satisfied that their fittings were secure, she turned to look at Viv. ‘Not exactly the ice-cream season yet, but the chiller has to be on just in case there’s a delivery.’
She unlocked the cabin door and they both stepped inside. It was warmer in the car park and Viv shivered.
The woman noticed and said, ‘You get used to it − at least it keeps the wind off.’
While the woman scouted around lifting boxes and poly bags, Viv tried to read what little paper there was lying on the desk.
The woman announced, ‘There’s no sign of an umbrella here. Sorry.’
‘Has he been here long?’
The woman’s eyebrows met in a quizzical response. ‘Who? Has who been here long?’
Viv tried to sound as if she didn’t care, and pointed to the ferry. ‘The ferryman? I just wondered how long anyone could do a job like that. You know being mostly cold and wet, never getting to know anyone. People come and go. Passing ships in the night.’ Viv was digging a hole that could be tricky to get out of. She should make a move.
> The woman was busying herself extracting coins from plastic bags, the float for the till, and also stared out at the receding ferry with its gentle wake. ‘Oh, Eddie’s one of those guys who likes solitude. It’s like dragging blood from a stone trying to get any conversation out of him. That’s what comes from living on your own for so long.’
Viv nodded her agreement and backed out of the door. ‘Thanks for looking for that brolly.’
She arrived back at the car within minutes. Molly, curled up on the driver’s seat, stood, wagged her tail, stretched a beautiful down-dog posture across to the passenger side. Viv opened the door and couldn’t decide who was happier to see the other. She squeezed herself in and Moll twirled back onto the passenger seat. Viv wondered about the implications of a real live Byron Ponsonby being on site, and the likelihood of him allowing anyone to disturb a family grave.
‘Not likely.’ Viv said aloud, and was rewarded with an enthusiastic sloppy lick from Moll.
Chapter Ten
During the return journey Viv’s thoughts skipped around. First in amazement at how quickly she’d made a judgement about the boatman. It was easy to pigeon-hole others based on how they look and what they do for a living. Although, the boatman had done nothing to make anyone think that he could have a connection to the grave, so by omission he had actively constructed that image himself, intentionally excluding his aristocratic background. In a way Viv understood why he would do that; people always struggled with the fact that she was a hairdresser with a PhD, and when she’d added journalism to the mix, they were even more confused. We like neat boxes and if someone doesn’t fit into one we’re left at sea, or worse, suspicious. What would people make of her latest escapades? Not that she could talk about those.
She reflected on her own need for solitude, and the fact that her escape to Doune was to recover from an operation. Not the kind that involved scalpels or anaesthesia; more adventurous than that. It began one wet afternoon in an Edinburgh supermarket, while she stood testing the avocados, pressing the top of each one carefully so as not to bruise it, and a voice interrupted her mission.
An English, educated voice, subtly disguising a mother tongue, said, ‘I think you’ll find that applying pressure renders them inedible.’
Viv, intrigued by an accent more suited to a royal court in the nineteen fifties than the veg isle, swivelled to see a tall, slim man in a beautifully tailored, charcoal grey suit.
She’d furrowed her brow and replied, ‘Like most things in life, if approached with tenderness no harm is done.’ She turned away, hoping that that would be the end of it. But after she had selected her avocados, he remained in her peripheral vision. It clicked that he wasn’t there to discuss fruit.
He continued using the accent that she was now convinced was not entirely natural to him, ‘Did you happen to notice . . .?’
She interrupted him. ‘The chap selling the Big Issue?’
The suited man raised his eyebrows. ‘Was that a guess? Or are you as good as they say you are?’
Viv raised her own eyebrows. She’d been recruited by a man with a ruddy face who’d always dressed in tweed. She’d never heard his name or from whom he took his orders; she could only guess. But he’d smiled like Santa Claus, which was enough to pique her interest. She’d loved the generic metaphor that was ‘The Home Office’, and wondered if this immaculately suited man was one of Ruddy’s. She also loved that ‘they’, always said ‘they’, as if everyone knew who ‘they’ were. Mac did it without even realising it.
She’d replied, ‘I’m sure your interest in avocados is being tested, so what more can I do for you?’
He blinked at her directness, and shot an indiscreet glance over his shoulder.
‘I wouldn’t have asked if there’d been a risk.’ She smiled, softening, guessing that he must be even newer to the job than she was. ‘Unless of course the avocados are . . .’ she lifted one from her basket, ‘bugged.’
‘We wondered if you might be free for dinner?’ He’d shot his cuffs like a member of the royal family.
‘His boots.’ She smiled.
The Suit took a second to click.
Viv had continued, ‘The boots were probably made in Eastern Europe, but my best guess would be Russia. Slightly too square on the toes. So last year. Not exactly sought as a Western fashion accessory, but designer in Eastern terms. Which would lead me to believe that we’re not dealing with any sort of sophisticated group. If they were, they’d have bought in bulk from Top Man.’
And that was how her last assignment had begun. She couldn’t think of an avocado without remembering that meeting. The Suit had turned out to be one of Ruddy’s men, but to his evident distaste, he’d been seconded, another of those homogeneous words, whose meaning relied on who was using it. The Suit, she’d discovered over dinner, had been given a sideways move, and consequently, taken a while to warm to Viv’s replacing him. He’d made the mistake of believing that her hairdressing career was the measure of her intelligence. Hadn’t he heard of Pearl Harbor?
But others on the team − ‘spooks’, the term made her think of ‘Casper the Friendly Ghost’ − must soon have put him right, because he’d so visibly changed his attitude to her, and their joint reconnaissance outings were deemed a success, even though for the final two days of their last project, Viv had ended up incarcerated in a container, along with twenty-six other girls, without food, water, or a bucket. She’d had better times, and now, only ten days later, the memory of the stench was not yet consigned to her reptilian brain, and still clung to her palate.
Mac, who had either led or instigated most of the projects that she’d worked on before, hadn’t been in on that assignment. Her debrief had been for one person’s ears only, so Mac knew nothing of what had gone on and although he hadn’t asked, she guessed he was itching to.
Viv’s usual way of recovering was to throw herself back into creative work, but on this occasion, with a bit of persuasion from Sal, she’d decided to try a bit of R&R. The week off had coincided with a forensic conference in Houston, which led to the offer of Sal’s cottage in Doune. But Viv was finding R&R much more challenging than investigating, so, although she loved to sit with her head in a good book, there was no question of doing that if she could be out in the field throwing in her tuppence-worth with Mac.
Once back at Sal’s cottage, Viv jumped into the shower, her mind busy with what she’d discovered. Breakfast was a slow, measured affair during which she made a commitment to a bowl of muesli. She stared out at the drive and wondered if by any chance someone up at the tower had seen or heard anything of last night’s commotion. Worth asking? She unhooked a jacket and slipped out through the tack room. There was a narrow, overgrown path leading off Sal’s drive, up a steep bank to the tower. She’d never been up this way and imagined that at some point the cottage had been home to a member of the household staff. She visualised some poor sod trudging between the tower and the cottage, leaving before sunrise and returning after sunset. Long days of pandering to the Laird. Once she reached the top of the hill she could see that the house was set in a courtyard created by high walls reaching out from a row of barns on one side, and the round end of the tower at the other. Part of the garden could be seen through an ornate fence, leaded into the top of a stone wall directly in front of the middle section of the house. There was access into the building by a few steps down and through a heavy studded wooden door. A tall gate set into the wall on the right-hand side was her only means of access, if she wasn’t to walk the whole perimeter of the property. The gate creaked and she stepped through it onto a precariously slippery, moss-covered flagstone. She pulled the gate behind her, minding the notice on it to beware of the rabbits. She assumed it meant to stop rabbits from getting in rather than getting out. There were still lots of lights on but no sign of anyone around.
The barns had been converted into an annexe for the house. She thought she saw movement in one of the downstairs windows but it could have been a
trick of the light as the sun occasionally crept out from behind heavy clouds. She knocked on the studded door but the noise echoed into a lifeless space. She wandered round to the back of the annexe and again thought she caught a movement, this time in the glasshouse at the far end of the garden. Was she losing her marbles? She stopped and scratched her head, staring into the spaces between last year’s vines. There was no one there. Another gate, on the far west wall, led to a vegetable garden, but there was nothing much happening there. Adjacent to the carefully manured raised beds lay a young orchard, small trees with tiny buds on them, but no one doing any work. Viv was about to make her way back to the entrance when she heard a fit of coughing on the other side of the wall. She called out ‘hello’ but no one answered. She marched back across the lawn, out through the gate she’d entered by, and round to what she guessed would be called the back of the house. This side had all the evidence of the workings of the house. A long lean-to up against the highest section of the garden wall held all sorts of machinery and at the far end she spotted a man in immaculate John Deere overalls leaning into the engine of a ride-on mower. She called out again, not wanting to alarm him, but still got no answer. Was he wilfully ignoring her? She trotted over and tapped him on the shoulder; he almost leapt out of his skin. Yanking out his micro-earphones, he looked as if he was about to give her what for when the sound of an engine on the drive made them both turn. A white transit van stopped, executed a smart turn, and shot back through the gates onto the main road.