Murder at the Castle

by M. B. Shaw

  ‘You’ll laugh,’ said Kathy, thinking on her feet. She couldn’t tell him about the note, but she realised she was going to have to say something, provide some explanation of how she knew that name – how it had come up.

  ‘I won’t,’ said Jock, with more emphasis than he’d intended. ‘Tell me where you heard the name Mary?’

  ‘In a dream,’ said Kathy.

  ‘A dream?’

  ‘I told you you’d laugh. But it’s been a few dreams, actually. I don’t know, I just… I keep hearing that name. Forget I said anything.’

  ‘No, no,’ he said, pulling her close, his face suddenly a study in profound emotion. ‘That’s all right. You really heard Mary’s name in a dream?’

  ‘Mmm-hmm,’ said Kathy, burrowing her face into his chest to conceal her guilt.

  ‘That’s…’ He choked up. ‘I don’t know what to say. Mary was my daughter.’

  Kathy sat up. ‘You have another daughter?’

  ‘Had,’ Jock spoke quietly. ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Kathy, her heart swelling with tenderness and feeling more guilty than ever for bringing this up, especially in such a duplicitous way.

  ‘My first wife, Alice, had Mary the year after we got married. She died in her sleep one night. We never knew why. She was eight months old.’

  ‘Oh, Jock!’ Kathy flung her arms around his neck. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Oh, now, now, it’s all right,’ he said gruffly, his usual British reserve reasserting itself in the face of her tears and emotion. ‘It was dreadful at the time, of course. It broke Alice and me completely. But that was many years ago.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Kathy, with feeling. ‘It’s obvious that you’re still grieving.’

  He looked at her lovingly. ‘No, dearest. Not really. All that “time heals” guff turns out to be true in the end. I was just surprised to hear you mention her name, that’s all, after all these years. A dream.’ He shook his head in astonishment. ‘Remarkable.’

  * * *

  Later that day, Kathy and Iris took a walk together through the castle grounds.

  ‘Don’t you find it amazing how quickly the weather can change here?’ Kathy asked Iris, pulling her waxed Barbour jacket more tightly around her skimpy cotton dress and shivering as she peered into the misty woods. Bending down, she let Sam Sam and Milo off their leashes. ‘I swear to God it is twenty degrees colder than it was a week ago.’

  ‘I’m used to it,’ said Iris, who was well insulated in a pair of corduroy trousers, boots and an oversized mohair sweater with appliquéd felt hearts sewn onto the sleeves. ‘But I agree, autumn does seem to be upon us all of a sudden.’

  The two women were taking a break from their sitting together. Although still early days, Iris was modestly pleased with the progress she was making on the portrait, but for whatever reason, this morning’s session had felt like an effort. After more than two hours holding the same pose, Kathy was getting antsy, and Iris was struggling to think of further responses to questions about wedding flowers, winter menus, the pros and cons of fake snow, and whether or not it would be ‘too much’ for Kathy to have her dogs as bridesmaids: ‘I saw it at a wedding in Ojai once and it was soooo darling!’

  So when Kathy suggested a walking tour of the estate, Iris jumped at the chance. Other than the castle itself and its surrounding gardens, she’d seen next to nothing of the vast swathes of land owned by the barons of Pitfeldy for countless generations. She was curious to explore more of this wild, untamed kingdom for which a young American socialite had traded in her glamorous Manhattan life, not to mention a perfectly serviceable husband.

  But the more they walked, the more Iris began to understand the trade. The MacKinnon estate truly was a kingdom. They’d only been going twenty minutes and already they’d passed an impressive, sprawling stable block, complete with a menagerie and acres of well-kept paddocks. Past the stables was a walled kitchen garden that looked like something out of a Victorian children’s book, all climbing roses and wisteria-covered gates, through which rows of sweet peas and artichokes and raspberries beckoned invitingly. A lone, stooped old gardener was tending the beds. Kathy pointed out his cottage as they approached the entrance to ‘the woods’, in reality more than a hundred acres of ancient pine forest.

  ‘Jock told me old Mr Bertram’s lived there since before Rory and Emma were born,’ Kathy told Iris. ‘It’s pretty basic, apparently, but Bertram likes it. Waaay down the end of that track, more than a mile away, is Angus’s place.’

  ‘Sounds remote,’ said Iris.

  ‘Oh God, it is. Kathy frowned. ‘They call that a cottage too – Keeper’s Cottage – but I’d say it’s more of a lodge. It has, like, four bedrooms and a good-sized yard. It’s quite cute, actually, as long as you don’t mind being out in the sticks. But what I really wanted to show you is the bothy.’

  ‘The bothy,’ Iris mused. ‘Isn’t that the ruin you wanted to turn into a visitors’ centre for the castle?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Kathy, as they ventured deeper into the woods. ‘You’re going to die when you see it – this priceless piece of “heritage” that I’m ruining with my evil plans for keeping this estate afloat. It’s a pile of stones, I swear to God. Even Jock doesn’t want me to convert it. Oh, I forgot to tell you!’ She grasped Iris’s hand. ‘I asked him about Mary.’

  ‘When?’ Iris asked, surprised.

  ‘This morning. In bed.’

  ‘So you told him about the notes? That’s great, Kathy, I’m so pleased.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Kathy shook her head. ‘I didn’t tell him anything. I feel kinda bad, but I actually said the name Mary came to me in a dream.’

  Iris laughed loudly. ‘And he bought that?’

  ‘I think he did,’ Kathy said, looking away. ‘Anyway, it turns out Mary was the name of his baby daughter who died. Like, years ago. Isn’t that crazy?’

  ‘Wow,’ said Iris, digesting this information while Kathy’s little dogs raced off happily in front of them, sniffing and exploring, chasing after birds and the occasional rabbit or red squirrel that dared to cross their path. ‘So, you never knew about this baby before today?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Kathy. ‘I knew he’d been married before, prior to Fiona, and that they’d divorced when Jock was still young. But he never mentioned a daughter.’

  ‘Don’t you find that strange?’ Iris probed, slowing her own pace, taking in the soft sensation of dropped pine needles like an eiderdown under her feet, and the rich, resinous smell of the trees. The combination of the dark, towering trunks and the cold tendrils of mist snaking around them gave the whole place a distinctly Tolkien-like, fantasy feel. But the thing she noticed most was the quiet. There was something deep and peaceful and transcendent about it, like an ancient church in the early morning.

  ‘Not really.’ Kathy shrugged. ‘It was so long ago.’

  True, Iris thought. But having a child who’d died was the sort of thing most people would expect to know about the person they were about to marry. Wasn’t it? Long ago or not, it was the sort of tragic life event that defined a person. Too big not to mention, Iris would have thought. Unless one had a specific reason to hide it.

  ‘Why do you think the note writer mentioned Mary to you?’

  Kathy shrugged again. ‘No idea,’ said Kathy, shivering. ‘I mean, whoever it is, they’re trying to drive a wedge between me and Jock. Or to get me to leave. Or both. Maybe they figured I’d be mad he hadn’t told me? Or maybe they’re trying to insinuate he had something to do with his own baby’s death? Which is gross, obviously, and bullshit, and exactly why I’m choosing not to show him these stupid-ass letters.’ A distinct note of anger had crept into her tone. ‘Frankly, I don’t give a shit what their twisted motive is. I just want to know who they are.’

  Right at that moment a magnificent stag leaped out from the trees in front of them, less than ten yards from where she and Iris were standing.

&n
bsp; ‘Jesus!’ Kathy gasped, instinctively gripping Iris’s arm. The animal stopped, turning his head and displaying an impressive but dangerous-looking set of antlers as he picked up scents on the breeze.

  ‘Stand still,’ whispered Iris. While the two women watched, entranced, three young does approached behind him, elegant and ethereal with their prancing gait and sleek brown heads, flecked with white at the sides of their noses, waiting like handmaids for their master’s signal. Just then the two dogs, who’d been sniffing around a badger’s sett a few yards back, suddenly caught on to the presence of the deer and a deafening cacophony of barking ensued. With a pounding of hooves, the skittish animals scattered, melting back into the forest as swiftly and mysteriously as they’d emerged from it. Meanwhile, Sam Sam and Milo ran around for a bit in futile circles of excitement, two delusional, testosterone-fuelled balls of fluff. One kick from the stag’s hindquarters, and they’d have been dispatched to the next world in an instant, yet they clearly viewed themselves as the predators in the situation.

  ‘Good boys!’ Kathy praised them lavishly as they returned, tails wagging, to her side. ‘Did you protect Mommy from that big ole deer, hmm? Were you very brave?’

  ‘You really love them, don’t you?’ said Iris, who was getting used to the dreadful baby voice Kathy always used around her pets and now found it approximately 3 per cent less annoying.

  ‘I do,’ said Kathy. Reaching up to undo her bun, she shook her head and released a cascade of golden-blonde hair. With her flushed cheeks and glowing, make-up-free complexion, she could have stepped straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. She can be calculating, thought Iris, but when she forgets herself, it’s as if she doesn’t really realise just how beautiful she is. She knows she’s attractive. But she doesn’t get the magnitude. She tried to imagine how Jock must have felt when he first saw her. Jolted back to life, to youth, to happiness. Drawn inexorably to Kathy’s wild radiance like a moth to the light. Poor Fiona MacKinnon couldn’t have stood a chance.

  ‘Here we are,’ Kathy panted, scrambling up to the crest of the hill, where the tree-line ended and the moors began. ‘This… is the bothy.’

  Iris cast her artist’s eye over what was, indeed, a complete ruin: four crumbling walls and a collapsed roof, little more than a giant pile of ancient, grey, weathered stone. It was idyllic, though, in an overgrown, Rapunzel’s tower sort of way: a tangled confluence of man-made beauty and the abundant loveliness of nature. Briar roses and honeysuckle forced their way through cracks in the centuries-old structure, reclaiming it for themselves, and several generations of rabbits appeared to have dug their burrows in what must once have been the building’s ground floor.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Kathy.

  ‘Gorgeous,’ said Iris. ‘Unexpected. A little spooky, I suppose.’

  ‘A little? It’s a wreck. A wasted, rat-infested wreck.’

  ‘I bet it’s spectacular at night,’ said Iris. ‘Under the stars.’

  ‘The stars are spectacular,’ Kathy allowed. ‘But this place? With a little vision it could be amazing. You could have a visitor’s centre here, maybe a little gift shop at that end.’ She gestured around her. ‘And it wouldn’t cost much to smarten up the path we just took, let people walk down through the woods to access the castle from this side, rather than use the main gates and inconvenience the village. But, of course, heaven forbid that anyone would actually try to make any improvements around here.’

  Stepping through the rubble to what once would have been a window, Kathy looked out over the moor. ‘Most of the estate, well over a thousand acres, is moorland,’ she told Iris. ‘We can’t touch that; it’s all protected.’

  ‘Stunning,’ Iris sighed. ‘Desolate, but stunning.’

  ‘I call it “the killing fields” because Jock still hosts shoots up there,’ said Kathy, screwing up her pretty face in disapproval. ‘It’s so barbaric.’

  ‘You’re not a fan of blood sports, I take it?’ asked Iris, who was starting to wonder if there was anything at all about rural Scottish life that would meet with the future Lady Pitfeldy’s approval.

  ‘Of course not!’ said Kathy, appalled. ‘What civilised person is?’

  ‘Well, I think in rural communities…’

  ‘Jock promised me he’d stop the stalking parties,’ Kathy interrupted her. Clearly, she wasn’t interested in hearing the other side of the argument. ‘And hunting’s no longer allowed on our land, thank God. But Angus threw a fit about not being able to “control” the rabbits, and Jock caved.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Iris, non-committally. She was firmly with Angus on this one. Rabbits were a menace. She dreaded to think of the havoc they might wreak on Mr Bertram’s perfect rows of radishes.

  ‘I hear the shots sometimes when I’m out walking,’ said Kathy, pouting as she turned and began picking her way back out across the fallen stones. ‘I think about those poor little innocent bunnies and it just makes me so sad.’

  ‘OW!’ With a shriek of pain, she suddenly dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, clutching her foot. ‘My ankle,’ she hissed, through gritted teeth. ‘God damn it.’

  ‘What happened?’ said Iris, squatting beside her.

  ‘I don’t know. I tripped, I guess. Fuck.’

  ‘Let me see. Is it broken?’

  ‘It might be.’ Kathy frowned. ‘It hurts like crap.’

  Gently Iris examined the joint, feeling gingerly around the bone with her fingers. ‘I suspect it’s a sprain,’ she said at last, watching the swelling grow before her eyes. ‘But you can’t walk on it, can you?’

  ‘No way.’ Kathy shook her head.

  ‘And I’m not sure I can carry you all the way back to the castle. Not if we want to get back there before nightfall, anyway. We’d better call for help.’

  ‘Jock’s gone to Edinburgh for the night,’ said Kathy. ‘But Mrs Gregory and the cook should both be back at the house.’

  Pulling her mobile out of her trouser pocket, Iris rang the castle landline. After about a hundred rings, Mrs Gregory picked up. When Iris explained that she and Kathy were up at the bothy, she could feel the housekeeper’s disapproval vibrate down the line. But grudgingly she promised to dispatch Angus to come and rescue them in the Land Rover.

  ‘Angus is on his way,’ said Iris, taking off her sweater and draping it over Kathy’s bare legs, despite the latter’s protests. ‘Try to keep the leg still till he gets here.’

  A frenzied yelping from Milo and Sam Sam distracted both of them. About twenty feet away, on the far side of the bothy, both dogs were scrabbling away frantically at the bare earth.

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’ Kathy sounded concerned.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Iris. ‘They’re probably hunting a rat.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Kathy sounded scandalised. ‘My babies don’t “hunt” innocent creatures.’

  ‘Of course they do,’ Iris laughed. ‘They’re dogs. What do you think they were chasing those squirrels for earlier, on the castle lawn? So they can invite them back for tea and biscuits?’

  ‘Would you mind putting them back on their leashes?’ Kathy asked Iris plaintively. ‘I’d feel better if they stayed with me until Angus arrives.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Iris. Taking the matching baby-pink dog leads from Kathy’s coat pocket, she picked her way back across the rubble to where the dogs were alternately digging and barking, their excitement growing. It must be quite some rat.

  As she came up behind them, she saw to her horror that one of them – Milo, the bigger one – already had something clenched between its jaws. So much for their pacifist nature. Oh God, please don’t let it be still alive, she thought. She wasn’t sure she had the stomach for finishing off a half-dead rodent.

  ‘Milo!’ she called, clapping her hands reluctantly against her thighs as she fumbled for the clasp on the end of the lead. To her surprise, the little dog immediately turned and trotted obediently in her direction, followed by his even smaller brother.
Both dogs had something in their mouths, Iris could see now.

  ‘Drop,’ she commanded firmly, clipping on the leads. Sam Sam duly released the surprisingly long bone he’d been carrying. But Milo was more resistant, turning his head away from Iris as she grabbed hold of his collar.

  ‘Milo. Drop!’ she said again.

  With a resentful look, the little dog opened his mouth.

  ‘Oh good God,’ Iris gasped.

  There on the ground, glistening wet on a bed of pine needles, moss and broken stone, was a perfectly preserved jawbone, complete with a full set of teeth.

  Human teeth.

  Chapter Six

  Angus laid Kathy down in the back seat of the Land Rover, elevating her ankle to make it as comfortable as possible.

  ‘I’ll get you some ice back at the castle,’ he said, his face still the same shade of ashen white it had been since Iris first showed him the jawbone.

  ‘It’s definitely human,’ she’d said grimly, turning the gleaming white object gently over in her hands as she squatted next to Kathy. ‘My guess is that the other bone is too. What do you think?’

  She held them out for Angus to examine, but he stepped back, visibly repulsed by the remains and managing only a muttered, ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Milo and Sam Sam found them,’ added Kathy, temporarily distracted from her pain by the gruesome but fascinating discovery. ‘I suppose we ought to call the police.’

  ‘Aye.’ Angus nodded, shooing the dogs into the back of the car.

  ‘Do you have a bag or something I can put these in?’ asked Iris.

  Wordlessly, Angus handed her an old Lidl shopping bag. Iris couldn’t quite decide whether he was just being the strong and silent type, or whether it was squeamishness at the sight of human remains that had rendered him tongue-tied. Either way he said almost nothing on the drive back to the castle.

  ‘That’s Rory’s car,’ Kathy said indignantly as they pulled up next to a gleaming, midnight-blue Aston Martin. ‘What’s he doing here? We weren’t expecting him. Jock’s not even at home tonight.’