‘Not much I can do here – thought I’d go and have a chat with, Wilson Farish.’ He held onto his keys and hesitated. ‘Do you want to come?’ she asked.
Finally he shook his head, didn’t fancy hobbling down that lane again. ‘Watch her – she’s an eager beast,’ he warned, as he dropped the keys into her extended palm.
‘That makes two of us,’ she replied with a wicked grin. Why is it men always sexualise their cars? A car was a car as far as Briony Tyler was concerned, a mode of transport, a machine designed to get people from A to B, nothing more. Dunbar watched her walk away. Stop staring at her arse, he cautioned silently, only to catch his daughter watching him with a wry and knowing smile on her face. He snapped around to contemplate his latest victim again – and to spare his blushes.
***
Wheezing deeply with each step Wilson Farish progressed down his hallway with the hesitant purpose of a chameleon stalking its prey. Every movement of his walking frame and subsequent footstep was carefully choreographed to ensure frame and foot were planted firmly enough, so that he could safely shift his balance and take the next step.
‘Age plays wicked games on us, Inspector,’ he said between deep breaths as he finally led her into his sitting room. ‘With some it’s dementia, others physical torments, and in truly tragic cases – both! At least I still have my wits and would not swap them to be rid of my infirmity. At the centre I attend there are residents who regard their own kin as complete strangers – so sad. Not for them, they’re oblivious, but their poor loved ones –’ He shook his head and gestured for her to sit, then swung the frame to one side, before using the winged back of his remotely adjustable armchair for balance as he made for his walking cane.
‘Allow me,’ Tyler said.
‘Thank you, but this is all the exercise I get. Please – sit.’ Having retrieved his stick, wheezing deeply with each step, he shuffled even more slowly around to his chair carefully positioned himself and finally flopped down onto it. ‘There!’ He tapped at his fire grate with his stick. ‘The frame gets too hot beside the fire, as I discovered when my carer once moved it to serve my lunch. Poor lass, it gave her quite a nasty burn. Now! You’re here about Archie.’
‘You’ll have heard about his discovery up at Braur Glen?’
‘I’ve heard of little else for the past twenty-odd years give or take a few – that is, Archie’s search for Obag’s Holm. And for that I blame myself.’
‘Because?’
‘For getting him interested in genealogy in the first place.’ he explained with a weary sigh.
‘I thought his granny did that.’
Farish shook his head. ‘She sparked it by filling his head with all that nonsense about Morag or, as folklore knows her, Obag. But it was I that steered him towards an academic approach. I saw genealogy as a means of getting him reading and writing – and of learning the joy of research and of how knowledge empowers us. What with their distant link to that family tree, I thought it might ignite his enthusiasm for learning – and boy-oh-boy did it ever!’
‘So he’s not quite the autodidact he claims to be?’
Farish chortled and it made him cough. ‘To be fair – since Archie completed his modest education, he must be given due credit for what he has achieved. Firstly, in working very hard to improve on what I had taught him, and secondly, for his persistence and like many of his kind, he has a phenomenal capacity for retention of facts and certain details but only if they are of specific interest to him.’
‘His kind?’
‘Yes, as I say, quite an accomplishment considering he was a boy of limited educational ability when we first met. In truth – he talks of nothing else because he knows nothing else. Steer the conversation off that topic and you’ll encounter the real Archie.’
‘Limited?’
‘Yes, Archie is chronically dyslexic and in my lay-capacity as a former educator; I’d venture Aspergers Syndrome, or at least in the spectrum. Not that his folks or Dr Petrie ever picked up on it. Petrie was old school, a potions and poultices, pills and wee dram type of GP. If the remedy couldn’t be found via those tried and tested methods, I’m afraid you were very much in the hands of The Almighty. Big in the Kirk was Petrie – as was Archie’s grandpa.’ Farish chortled. ‘They were known as the Holy Trinity hereabouts, Fraser English, Doc Petrie and the pastor.’
‘It would explain his obsessive-compulsive traits.’
‘Everything in its place – even where there is no space! Ach! Quite so.’ He gazed into the distance for a moment as if reminiscing. ‘That said – it has served him well in his quest, his obsession with chronology, with tidiness, neatness and order. It made keeping track of facts, dates and details much easier.’
‘How did he come to receive one-to-one schooling?’
‘Bullying!’ he paused for thought for a moment. ‘Illegitimate, you see. His young, pretty and precocious mother was the talk of the village when I arrived.’
‘What was she like?’
Farish hesitated but only briefly. ‘She’d skedaddled before I came on the scene, never to return.’ He leaned forward in his seat conspiratorially and lowered his voice. ‘According to gossip, his father was either an Irish tinker who plied his trade on the black top or a travelling salesman. But – it pays not to take heed of tittle-tattle, in my experience.’
‘Black top?’ She queried, as she scribbled notes furiously.
‘Resurfacing roads,’ he explained, then hesitated again while she wrote it down. ‘But it was no Cathy and Heathcliff romance if so – ach no, a scandalous tryst at the time I gather, all rather sordid and the outcome quite predictable.’
She looked up. ‘Sorry about this, I have to –’
‘I imagine so, Inspector.’ He waited for her to stop writing before continuing. ‘Now her parents would have everyone believe she fell pregnant to a rakish farm supplies salesman who then did the dirty on their innocent daughter, and that it was he who turned her pretty head and stole her away leaving them to raise wee Archie. But! She was no innocent – jail bait by all accounts. That tinker was wise to run. Jail is where he’d have gone. Aye – the dirty was done, nae question about that, but by whom remains a great mystery.’ Farish paused again to allow Tyler time to get it all down.
She nodded her appreciation.
‘Archie was raised by his grandma, her own wee Pinocchio, her toy child who she tried to breath normal life into but, just like Geppetto, she couldn’t. Being considered something of a simpleton on account of the difficulties we’ve just discussed, Archie was slow in school and bullied on account of his mammy. However, there was something endearing about his absence of awareness.’ Farish glazed over for a moment. ‘Aye, a wee cherub of a boy he was, with a melancholic smile even when he was happy. I felt sorry for him – for them all – and so offered to tutor him in my spare time in return for room and board.’
‘You lived with them?’
‘Aye, I was new to the primary school and to the area, and what with his mother gone – they had a room going spare. It was an arrangement that suited all – especially wee Archie. He hated school – we became very close. His grandma was quite jealous.’
‘So English isn’t really his – ?’
‘Nobody knows his father’s name and Archie doesn’t want to know,’ Farish cut in anticipating the next question. ‘Prefers the delusion he’s born of ancestors who were once feared and mighty clansmen hereabouts and on the Humes side, great lairds too but granny’s ancestors’ fortune was lost a long time ago – twice in fact! Aye, one of them invested in that disastrous Darien Scheme of the late sixteenth – early seventeenth centuries.’
‘Panama?’ Tyler interrupted, still writing it all down.
He nodded. ‘Aye, according to Archie, so it’ll be reet! It also supports his theory as to why the Humes clan became so greedy for Morag’s land. Then, having not learned their lesson, another of their line went belly-up in what was probably the first ever international financ
ial crisis in eighteen seventy-three.’ Farish chortled again and shook his head. ‘Had misfortune not visited them, who knows – Archie might well have inherited land and titles.’ Farish coughed violently, almost choked but recovered himself. ‘Excuse me, my lungs are nearly as useless as my legs. How wee Archie would have revelled in that role.’
***
When pressed, Eugene reluctantly speculated on a few months max for the length of time the man’s head had been buried but would go no further. For anything more definitive Dunbar would have to wait for the results of the forensic pathologist’s findings. Two unlucky constables from Galashiels pulled nightshift sentry duty at the site to protect the scene until Dunbar could mobilise the manpower to conduct an extensive fingertip search and the machinery to excavate the whole site. That would have Watt and Molineux cursing over their morning coffee at HQ.
Professor Geary had kindly offered them the use of the university’s equipment, which meant that Zoe and Shaggy would also have to remain behind with her. With nothing further to be done on site until dawn, they all retired to Greenlaw where Dunbar was delighted to be reunited with his car – in exactly the same condition as he had left it.
‘Thanks, that was fun,’ Tyler said with a wicked glint in her eye.
‘Farish?’
‘Odd, cooperative, a veritable mine of information.’
‘How odd?’
‘Enjoyed it too much and his responses felt – rehearsed – almost.’
‘Something to hide?’
Tyler shrugged, ‘Haven’t we all? Maybe it was just a conversation he’d been expecting to have for years.’
Dunbar held out his hand and Tyler gave him his car keys. ‘Because?’
‘Archie’s a fruitcake!’ She turned and walked away. ‘Oh, and the oversteer – such a rush when you pop it into sport mode and power-glide through bends, isn’t it?’ she added when she stopped at her bedroom door.
Dunbar leaned around the door frame and looked back. Tyler winked then held him in her steady gaze. He met it and waited. He was a master at this game. She would crack first. She did not, just disappeared into her own room. She was winding him up, he told himself. No way had she thrashed it. She drives a Fiat 500, how did she know about the oversteer in sport mode? Watching Top Gear – aye, that was it. Did he leave it in sport mode? Unlikely, he rarely used it. He looked back again. Her door was closed. Bitch!
***
The quartet hogged the crackling log fire, a pleasant moment of informality, any professional and personal tensions at truce. A striking contrast to her Earth-Mother lover and best described as sober Nordic chic, Holmquist had arrived in good time to join them for dinner, after which they repaired to the cosy saloon for drinks. She assured them that her lab elves were burning the midnight oil to get those DNA comparisons and should have the eagerly awaited results some time the following day.
The two academics held hands and Dunbar inwardly chided himself for feeling uncomfortable. Tyler positioned herself between him and the adoring couple, her back to the three locals who propped up the bar and cast the occasional disapproving glances their way. And it didn’t escape the wary DCI’s notice. Was it down to the presence of coppers or lesbians in their local – or both? Dunbar could not decide.
Professor Geary returned to their dinner table topic. ‘Archie’s passionate about local history, but like many a genealogy buff, has a blinkered, revisionist’s view of context and events. He tries to shape facts to his own theories on his family’s part in the story.’
‘He even wrote to Chanel Four’s Time Team.’ Holmquist added
‘Thank goodness they ignored him. His passion and habit of putting himself front and centre of the story can be quite off putting.’
‘Didn’t put you off.’
‘We eventually managed to corroborate details of his research, together with the artefacts he unearthed, the evidence proved compelling.’
Suddenly Dunbar’s phone chimed. ‘Sorry.’ He plucked it from his pocket, rolled his eyes, shrugged apologetically and answered. ‘Hi!’ he listened for a moment. ‘Actually, in a pub in Greenlaw with three real bonny women.’
‘You can’t fool me, darling. So, I presume you’re paying for their company,’ Elspeth responded drily.
He cringed. His companions grinned. ‘No! Two of them are professors and the other, my new DI who has more letters after her name than she has in it.’
Tyler blushed but received approving nods tinged by surprise from the two academics.
‘Shan’t be home this weekend, booked on a red eye to Dallas, short notice – sorry.’
‘Same ol’ same ol’ hey!?’
‘Yes, I’ll call you when I get there – don’t get those ladies drunk so as to take advantage like you did of me.’ Dunbar opened his mouth to protest, only to be cut off. ‘Ciao sweetie, mwaa’ – mwaa’.’ He laid his phone on the table and eyed them blankly.
‘You must have a strong relationship,’ Holmquist observed.
‘Orrr’ – she doesn’t really give a shit what I get up to,’ he retorted, then shrugged. ‘Elspeth’s one of those supremely confident types – it wouldn’t have fazed her if I’d said I had Miss World sitting in my lap nibbling my ear lobe.’ His three companions did not seem to know how to react. ‘Sorry, Professor, you were saying?’
‘Oh, yes well – Archie seems determined to reinvent his Reivers as free spirited ne’er-do-wells rather than murderers, mercenaries, turncoats and thieves,’ Shelagh Geary explained, lifting her glass of Merlot. ‘If I were more liberally inclined – and – allowing for the turbulence of the era, I might temper my opinion to that of unconscionable opportunists.’
Allyson Holmquist smirked as she spotted Dunbar raise an eyebrow at Shelagh Geary’s statement. ‘Awash with contradictions,’ the forensic anthropologist cut in, smiling at her partner warmly, ‘that’s our Shelagh – it’s one of the things I love about her.’
‘Awww,’ Tyler responded.
‘Sounds like they should have gone into politics,’ Dunbar offered with a wry smile.
Allyson Holmquist laughed politely as Shelagh Geary nodded her agreement. ‘Some probably did.’ Geary agreed. ‘However, no matter how passionately one believes in a thing, dramatic and absolute theorising is redundant unless supported by immutable facts. Despite his denials, Archie’s vision of the Scottish Lowlands is no less romantic than was Sir Walter Scott’s eulogising of the Scottish Highlands. I choose the classicist’s approach.’
‘I blame religion,’ Dunbar joked.
‘Had its part to play, but religion per se isn’t really to blame, Chief Inspector –’
‘Alec!’
‘Alec,’ she repeated before continuing. ‘It’s what has been done in the name of religion that is so repugnant.’
‘True,’ Holmquist added, ‘and you can deny religion all you like but you cannot deny humankinds’ religious impulses.’
‘So are you believers?’ Dunbar asked.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ Holmquist hooted, squeezing her partner’s hand.
‘So the women bishops and church weddings aren’t an issue with you two?’ Dunbar asked.
Was he being provocative? Tyler wondered. Or was he just jealous? If so. Of what? – Geary? Holmquist was certainly very striking and elegant with that sexily cerebral thing going on. A little older than Dunbar but Tyler could not think of many blokes who would pass up on the chance if they thought they were in with one. Or was it the closeness, the togetherness of the two academics? Elspeth might have only been teasing, but Tyler thought she had sensed a distinct distance between them and not just the obvious physical one.
Professor Geary stiffened and got her hand squeezed again. ‘Of course it’s an issue – from an equality point of view but not at a personal level. Allyson and I do not need our civil partnership blessed or even recognised by a priest, but see no reason why our commitment to each other, should not enjoy the benefits married heterosexual couples enjoy. And for those
gays and lesbians of faith it’s a very big issue, and one we are pledged to support.’
‘Hear, hear!’ Tyler responded, as Dunbar raised his glass to them. ‘Of all the Reiver Clans, what set the Morag’s apart from the others?’ Tyler asked changing the subject.
‘Glad you asked, Briony. Archie’s convinced the answer has its roots in the unrecorded pre-history of Scotland, but cites the first century A.D. after the Emperor Hadrian’s forces ventured into what is now Scotland, as proof. It isn’t what you’d call a cogent exposition.’
‘Ah yes, he got on a roll about that – the Igni or Ignus that became Inglis?’
‘According to Archie, however, Inglis is actually an ancient Berwickshire name that appeared around the time of Norman expansionism into northern Britain and….’
‘He covered that in quite a lot of detail too,’ Dunbar muttered.
‘Yes, I imagine he would. As for Morag’s Clan, I don’t subscribe to his Pictish theory. Archie’s evidence, if you can call it that, is gossamer thin.’
‘So – were they pagans?’ Tyler asked.
‘Aye, well, that’s all part of the myth, you understand – and one Morag is said to have promoted to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. They didn’t even fear God’s wrath. That alone would set them apart from the other clans!’
‘A risky strategy in Oliver Cromwell’s Britain, I’d have thought,’ Dunbar observed.
‘Extremely –it would also explain the puritan fervour of the men sent to eradicate them. No, I’m inclined to think their lineage was probably born of a bastard son of an Inglis noble – illegitimacy was, still is commonplace enough. Archie’s Pictish theory is fanciful and based mainly on hearsay and the Clan’s homespun legend.’
‘It’s all very interesting but – we can’t get bogged down by the history, I’ve got –’
‘There’s no escaping the historic resonance of events at Braur Glen. Together with their reiving neighbours Morag’s clan helped shape this region and the people in it,’ Geary cut in, ‘with a surname like Dunbar you of all people must –’
A Deviant Breed (DCI Alec Dunbar series) Page 8