Murder at the Castle

by M. B. Shaw

  ‘In that case, I think I’ll head back down to the house,’ said Haley. ‘Will you join me?’

  ‘I’ve some things I need to attend to on the estate this morning,’ said Angus, his eye still half drawn to the technicians as they eased yet another fragment of bone from its resting place. ‘Is it OK if I give you a statement a bit later?’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Haley. ‘I’m in no rush. I’ll talk to the baron first.’

  * * *

  ‘It’s more than an inconvenience, detective inspector,’ Jock snapped, his extravagantly bushy grey eyebrows knitting above his beetroot-red complexion. ‘It’s a bloody outrage. Littering my estate with Christ knows how many cars and men and hideous orange tape, closing down my shoot, for God’s sake, and all because of a few old bones that, for all we know, have been buried up there for hundreds of years? Preposterous.’

  DI Haley shot him a withering look. The two men were in the castle’s formal drawing room, a space so extravagantly outsized that Haley could hear the echo of his own voice when he spoke.

  ‘When were you personally last up at the bothy, sir?’

  ‘What’s the matter with you, man?’ snapped Jock. ‘Did you not hear a word I just said?’

  ‘Oh, I haird it,’ said Haley. ‘I just don’t have time for it. Human remains were discovered yesterday, Lord MacKinnon. On your land. Not “a few old bones”. Two human beings, two women, buried in one of your outbuildings. I’m not sure you appreciate quite how serious that is.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Jock muttered. ‘You haven’t the faintest idea how old those bones are. They’ve probably been there since long before this was my land.’

  ‘That may be,’ said Haley. ‘But we don’t know that for sure. What we do know is that whoever they were, they didn’ae bury themselves. So until we know otherwise, at a minimum, we’re looking at an illegal interment, and quite possibly at murder. You wouldn’t want to be seen to be obstructing a murder inquiry now, would you, baron?’

  The two men glared at each other, but Jock said nothing further.

  ‘So I’ll ask you again. When were you last up at the bothy?’ Haley repeated.

  ‘Last week,’ said Jock, turning his back on him to pour himself two fingers of whisky, without offering any to his ‘guest’. ‘The structure itself is condemned, so I don’t go inside very often. But the woodland around it makes up part of my shoot, as I told you. I walk there regularly, as do my guests.’

  ‘Who else has access, other than you and your friends?’

  ‘No one, officially,’ said Jock. ‘Although I daresay village boys are up there from time to time, poaching or playing silly buggers.’

  ‘Has poaching been a problem at Pitfeldy?’ Haley asked.

  ‘No more than anywhere else,’ grunted Jock. ‘My old gillie, Edwin, used to take a tougher line on it.’

  ‘But you don’t?’

  ‘Not really.’ Jock sipped his Laphroaig, supremely bored. ‘As long as they’re not significantly depleting the shoot, I don’t have the energy or resources to bother with them. It’s not cheap, you know, running an estate of this size. One has to prioritise.’

  Just then, Rory MacKinnon stuck his handsome head around the door. At first glance it was hard to tell whom he was less pleased to see – his father or DI Haley. In the end, though, Jock got the worst of it.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ he announced bluntly to his father.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ drawled Jock.

  ‘You’re heading back to London already, Mr MacKinnon?’ Haley raised an eyebrow. ‘That was an awfully long drive for a one-night stay.’

  ‘I fly,’ Rory said, pityingly. ‘Although if you must know, I’m going to Edinburgh first to visit my mother. I’d rather she hear about all this bodies business from me. She’ll only worry if she hears gossip or reads about it in the papers. She still feels an incredibly close connection to the castle, you see. It was her home for thirty years, after all. Until my father decided to transfer the dregs of his remaining blood flow from his brain to his cock and install that American scrubber in Mummy’s place.’

  ‘Out!’ Jock sprang to his feet and half lunged, half staggered towards his son. ‘Get out of my house!’

  For a moment, Haley thought he was going to have to step between the two of them, but, somewhat to his surprise, Rory backed down immediately, leaving the room with no more than a muttered ‘my pleasure’ as a passing shot.

  ‘I understand Ms Miller had been considering converting the bothy into some sort of visitors’ centre,’ said Haley, after Rory had gone. ‘As part of her plans for opening up the castle as a commercial enterprise. But that you opposed the idea. Is that true?’

  Jock put his head in his hands, struggling to control his temper. ‘Kathy’s going to be mistress here once we marry. She has every right to make suggestions. But developing ancient buildings is a sensitive issue. A lot of local people were unhappy with the visitors’ centre idea. So yes, I asked her to drop it, at least until after the wedding.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Haley mused. ‘Strange that she was up at the bothy yesterday, then, with Ms Grey. D’you have any idea why she went?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ Haley made a note, ‘I’ll ask her myself.’

  ‘I warn you, detective inspector,’ Jock hissed, ‘I won’t be harassed, and I won’t have my family harassed either. So I suggest you have your lackeys dig up whatever it is they’re digging up, take our statements and then piss off out of our lives. If you don’t, I can make things very unpleasant for you, I assure you. The chief constable happens to be a close friend.’

  Haley stood up slowly. ‘I would nae threaten me, if I were you, baron. That’s no a good look for a man with two dead bodies in his back garden. I’ll see myself out.’

  * * *

  Stepping from the cold street into the warm fug of the Fisherman’s Arms, Iris quickly removed her coat, scarf and beanie and hunted around for a place to sit. The pub was unusually busy tonight, partly because the abrupt drop in temperature had driven people back indoors, but also, Iris suspected, partly fuelled by a collective desire to indulge in a spot of gossip. After all, it wasn’t every day that a dead body was found buried up at the local estate. Never mind two.

  She was curious to hear what the locals were saying about yesterday’s gruesome discovery. She’d been thinking about the bones all night herself, and the human story that must lie behind them, but that nobody yet knew.

  She’d also been thinking about Kathy’s poison-pen letters, and whether there might be any link between them and the bodies. Probably not, given that the notes all seemed to be focused on Jock – you don’t know who you’re marrying, ask him about Mary, etc. But there had also been the warning pinned to her windscreen – Hands off our history – which Kathy had assumed was a reference to her plans to convert the old bothy. Was it really a coincidence that the very building which certain people were determined should be left alone at all costs should turn out to have two women buried beneath it?

  So who had opposed Kathy’s plan to develop the bothy? The writer of the windscreen note, presumably. The local headmaster, John Donnelly. Jock and Rory; it was a rare point of agreement between them. Angus Brae…

  ‘Hello again.’

  A heavy hand on her shoulder made Iris jump. Jamie Ingall, looking as handsome as ever in a thick Shetland sweater and baggy jeans, took the seat next to her at the bar.

  ‘Given up on your boxes, then?’

  ‘Boxes?’

  ‘Unpacking. You were up to your eyeballs the other day, remember?’

  ‘Oh. Yes,’ Iris stammered. Suddenly their encounter at the kitchen window felt like weeks ago.

  ‘Can I buy you a beer?’ he asked, raising his own half-full glass, while simultaneously pushing his dark curls out of his eyes.

  ‘Sure,’ said Iris. ‘Thanks.’

  Only when the frothing pint of amber liquid arrived did she remember that she hated beer, which
she’d always thought both looked and tasted like dirty dishwater, but it was too late now.

  ‘Is it true you were there?’ Jamie asked. ‘When the dogs dug up the bones?’

  Iris nodded, sipping her revolting drink with forced enthusiasm.

  ‘Kathy and I were taking a break from her portrait and she offered to walk me around the estate.’

  ‘It was the bothy, wasn’t it? Where they found the skull?’

  ‘Jawbone,’ Iris corrected. ‘But yes. In the bothy.’

  ‘And it was definitely human?’

  Iris nodded with a shiver. ‘It had human teeth.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Jamie, impressed.

  ‘It wasn’t “cool”,’ Iris admonished him, feeling her age suddenly. ‘It was horrible. To think that someone’s lain buried up there for years.’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ he acknowledged. ‘Horrible, but kind of cool too. I mean, how often do you find dead bodies just lyin’ about under an old outhouse, you know what I mean?’

  Iris reflected that she had seemed to find them considerably more frequently than other people, particularly over the course of the last year, but she kept the thought to herself. Despite his bluntness, or perhaps because of it, she found herself enjoying Jamie’s company. Maybe it was a function of his youth, but nothing seemed to be taboo for him. She admired the way he ploughed through moral nuances without overthinking everything the way she did. He reminded her of a boat bouncing cheerfully through the waves, buoyant and determined.

  ‘You know they’re saying there were two of them?’ Jamie went on.

  ‘So I heard,’ said Iris.

  ‘Two women.’ He sipped his beer contemplatively, watching Iris’s expression, and the way her compelling, wide-set eyes gave little away.

  Leaning forward, he lowered his voice to a stage whisper. ‘D’you reckon they might have been old mistresses of Jock’s?’

  Iris frowned. ‘That seems highly unlikely. Why, is that what people are saying?’

  Jamie nodded knowingly. ‘Aye. That, or maybe one of ’em’s his first wife, Alice. The one who ran off and was never seen again.’

  Alice, Iris thought. She must have been Mary’s mother.

  ‘What do you mean, “never seen again”?’ she asked. ‘That’s not really true, is it?’

  Jamie shrugged. ‘Who knows. Whatever went down happened before I was born. All I do know is, it’s shrouded in mystery. Woooooo,’ he added melodramatically, doing a little ‘spooky’ movement with his hands.

  Iris laughed despite herself. ‘You do realise this isn’t an episode of Scooby Doo?’

  Jamie drained the rest of his pint cheerfully. ‘It’s as close as Pitfeldy’s gonna get, though, so you have to let us have our fun. Have dinner with me.’

  The last part was such a non sequitur, it took Iris a few seconds to register what he’d said.

  ‘You may as well,’ he pressed her, sensing hesitation. ‘There’s no much else to do in Pitfeldy of an evening, other than hang around in here and talk about herring quotas.’

  ‘Not wildly appealing,’ Iris agreed.

  ‘And you’re obviously no enjoying that beer.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Iris admitted guiltily.

  ‘It’s a date, then?’ said Jamie.

  Iris looked at him curiously, matching his bluntness with her own. ‘Don’t you think I’m a bit old for you?’

  He leaned back, his eyes locking playfully with hers.

  ‘No.’

  Grabbing a pen from behind the bar, he scrawled down his number on a napkin and handed it to her. ‘Look, it’s only dinner. But I’ll leave it up to you. I’d like to get to know you a wee bit better, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Iris, slipping the napkin into her handbag as he returned to his friends.

  * * *

  Later, tucked up in bed, Iris reflected on what a strange few days it had been. Kathy’s latest note. Learning about Mary, and now about her mother, Alice. Discovering the bodies. Being asked out for dinner by a fisher—boy. Iris’s instincts told her that dinner with Jamie Ingall would probably be harmless fun. Then again, the last time Iris had trusted her romantic instincts things had not gone well. In fact, it would be fair to say they’d gone catastrophically, apocalyptically badly. Time to exercise a little caution, perhaps? To steer clear of boys, and bodies, and focus on her work? Then again, she reflected, she’d only got the commission to paint Kathy Miller’s portrait in the first place because of her involvement in the Wetherby murder case. And because Kathy needed her help with these threatening notes. She’d been so distracted today, she’d completely forgotten to do any more research into the watermarked envelopes.

  Each new subject was a mystery. As a portrait artist, Iris had learned that long ago. Perhaps unravelling the mystery of Kathy Miller would help some of the other pieces fall into place? Perhaps.

  She fell asleep dreaming of envelopes and bones and handsome trawlermen.

  Chapter Eight

  Professor Martha Lane walked between the two tables, each with their carefully arranged collection of bones, pointing out the salient points of her examination to DI Haley.

  ‘So. What we have here are two partial skeletons,’ she began in her soft, southern American accent, making sure to go slowly so that the policeman could keep up and ask questions if he needed. ‘Both are female.’

  ‘That’s definite, is it?’ asked Haley.

  ‘Yes. With the first skeleton, you can determine the sex from the recovered pelvic bones here.’

  Haley watched closely as Edinburgh University’s top forensic pathologist gently prodded the bright, white bones with a gloved finger. He only knew of Professor Lane by reputation, and had been pleasantly surprised by her helpful, non-patronising demeanour, both in person now and yesterday, when they’d spoken on the phone and he’d begged her to squeeze him into her schedule. In DI Haley’s experience, academics tended to have a low opinion of the average policeman’s intelligence. But Professor Lane had welcomed him into her lab on Nightingale Way, near the University Library, with an open mind and what appeared to be a genuine eagerness to help him identify the Pitfeldy remains.

  ‘With the second set of remains, the pelvis is missing,’ Professor Lane continued. ‘However, we can still infer gender from the skull. This smoothness and gracility here?’ Again her finger gently traced a line across the relevant bone fragment. ‘You wouldn’t find that in a male.’

  ‘Any idea how old they were when they died?’ Haley asked, making a mental note to look up ‘gracility’ on his phone later.

  ‘I can give you a range,’ the professor replied cautiously. ‘But no more than that. We look for factors such as changes in pubic symphysis or medial clavicular epiphysis.’

  ‘Course you do,’ muttered Haley.

  Martha Lane grinned. ‘What I mean is, I can’t be exact about it. But both were grown women, no younger than twenty, say. And neither made old bones. Twenty to forty, if I had to guess.’

  ‘OK,’ said Haley. It wasn’t the smallest of windows, but he’d take what he could get. ‘Cause of death?’ he asked nervously, more in hope than expectation. Dave Gaffney had as good as told him that it would be practically impossible to determine how the women died, given the degree of ‘animal interference’, as he put it, that had occurred since they’d been in the ground. But again, Professor Lane surprised him.

  ‘With the second set of remains, I can’t say, I’m afraid. From the bones alone it could have been disease, or accident, although obviously given where they were found…’

  ‘Yeah,’ Haley said grimly. ‘I think we can safely rule out disease. Unless they buried themselves.’

  ‘Well, quite,’ agreed Martha. ‘But there’s nothing conclusive, or even strongly suggestive, in the remains. But this young lady,’ she pointed to the second table, ‘died from a blunt-force trauma to the head.’

  Haley grinned. ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely. That indent to
the skull there? That’s what killed her. No question.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Haley.

  ‘Not for her,’ quipped Professor Lane.

  ‘Well, no,’ he agreed. ‘So now for the million-dollar question. When do you think they were buried? Am I looking at a murder inquiry or a case for the history books?’

  Martha Lane sighed. ‘That’s where it gets really tricky, I’m afraid,’ she said. Taking off her gloves, she placed them on a table at the far side of the room before turning back to face him. ‘I’ll need to see soil samples from the burial site.’

  ‘I’ll get you those.’

  ‘This bothy was partially exposed, you say?’

  ‘Mostly exposed,’ said Haley. ‘No roof to speak of.’

  ‘Then weather data would also be helpful.’

  ‘Sure. No problem.’

  ‘There are so many things that can affect skeletal age determinations, you see,’ she explained. ‘Even with all the data in the world, it’s a grey area. Not like carbon dating a tree. I can give you a balance of probabilities, based on what you’ve given me. But at the end of the day that’s all it would be. An educated guess.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Haley. ‘And I hate to push, but if I got you those samples and the other information this afternoon, do you think you might have a wee guess for me by tonight?’

  * * *

  Encouraged, Stuart Haley left Professor Lane’s lab and headed down the hill towards New Town and his old haunt, the Red Lion just off Charlotte Square. A dark, cosy pub with a big open fire in the bar and no pretensions to be ‘gastro’ anything, it was a perfect spot to while away the afternoon, pondering the case while he waited for the American pathologist’s verdict.

  He ordered a fortifying plate of smoked sausage and mash, and a lemonade to wash it down with. Gone were the days when he could think clearly after a lunchtime pint. Now the mere whiff of booze in the middle of the day was likely to send him straight to sleep, yet another depressing symptom of middle age. After calling back to the station to make sure the soil samples were on their way to Dr Lane’s lab, he pulled out his tablet, and began searching idly through articles on Pitfeldy Castle and the MacKinnon family while he ate. As ever, the web yielded a variety of results, some more interesting than others. There were turgid academic papers about the history of the castle and the ancient Celtic tribes that lived along the Moray coast. Then there were newspaper snippets about ‘Baron’ Jock MacKinnon’s various divorces, some dutifully factual, others more salacious and gossipy. A search of public records revealed that Jock had been married twice – first to Alice Ponsonby, then to Fiona Harris for three decades starting in the eighties. In a few months’ time, he was to tie the knot for a third time with Kathy Miller, the pretty American socialite whom Haley had only just met, but whose name had been mud in and around Pitfeldy for some time now.