Murder at the Castle

by M. B. Shaw

  How chivalrous, Rory thought bitterly. He couldn’t remember a single occasion when Jock had opened a door for his mother, or performed any other act of kindness, for that matter, big or small.

  He observed the change in Jock’s gait, how he moved now with the jerky stiffness of an old man. The old bastard would not live for ever. Perhaps not even for long. Sadly, barring an unexpected accident, the same could not be said for his gold-digging slut of a girlfriend.

  And there she was now, Kathy, unfurling her skinny legs from the car like a snake, coiling her viper’s arms around Jock’s neck and kissing him. Something seemed to have happened to her face. She looked as if she’d been punched, but sadly not by his dad, thought Rory, looking at the two of them pressing their noses together lovingly, Jock sliding a hand around the small of Kathy’s back before lowering it to stroke her pert backside. They didn’t know they were being watched – neither of them seemed to have noticed his car – so one had to presume that this sickening display of affection was genuine.

  ‘Don’t mind me.’ Slamming the boot shut, Rory crunched over the gravel to open his driver’s door.

  Releasing Kathy, Jock glared at his son and heir. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Picking up a few things,’ Rory said casually. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not staying. Not now the Wicked Witch of the West is back. Nice shiner, by the way,’ he added snidely to Kathy. ‘I won’t ask.’

  ‘Oh, grow up,’ snapped Jock. ‘And what “things” were you picking up?’

  ‘Things of Mother’s,’ Rory snapped back.

  Jock opened his mouth to speak again; as far as he was concerned there was nothing left at Pitfeldy Castle over which Fiona had the slightest claim, but Rory had already slammed his car door shut and started the engine, spinning his wheels so as deliberately to spray gravel in his father’s direction. Taking off at speed, he swerved dangerously close to Kathy, who had to flatten herself against the side of Jock’s car to avoid being hit as he drove away.

  ‘Moron,’ Jock muttered furiously, turning back to comfort his shaken fiancée. ‘Are you all right, darling?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ lied Kathy, smiling bravely. ‘Totally fine.’

  * * *

  ‘My darling.’ Fiona MacKinnon’s expression lifted as her son walked into the restaurant, an expensive American oyster bar just off Princes Street. Rory had grown into such a handsome man, mixing the best of Jock’s features, his height and bearing and his wide, patrician forehead, with traits from Fiona’s own family. The thick dark hair, heavy brows and moss-green eyes were all Harris characteristics. On top of his genetic blessings, Rory dressed beautifully, and carried himself like the rich, successful man he had become. People turned and looked when Rory MacKinnon entered a room. The pride Fiona felt in him was a great comfort to her, a glorious, unsullied phoenix risen from the ruined ashes of her marriage. She’d been looking forward to tonight’s dinner for a long time.

  ‘Ma.’ Striding over to the table, Rory embraced her warmly, enveloping her in a sweet fug of Floris aftershave. ‘You look lovely, as always. Shall we have some Pol Roger? I always think champagne goes marvellously with oysters, don’t you?’

  Mother and son sat and talked, about Rory’s latest case in which he’d triumphed at the high court, and about the latest Edinburgh society gossip. He dodged questions about his love life with his usual deft charm, and listened with genuine interest to all Fiona’s plans for improvements to her apartment and possibly travelling to Asia next spring with some of her friends from Bridge Club.

  Rory could sense his mother’s loneliness. Her longing to talk, and to have someone listen. He wasn’t a patient man by nature. But Fiona was perhaps the only person on earth whom he loved completely and unconditionally, and he made a point of waiting until she’d exhausted every topic she wanted to share with him before getting down to business.

  ‘So.’ He leaned back as another platter of succulent Ostrea edulis, the sweet European flat oysters making a comeback in Scottish waters, was set down in front of them. ‘I dropped in at the castle earlier. I got everything we needed while Dad was at the airport, picking up you know who.’

  ‘He drove to get her? Himself?’ Fiona’s brow furrowed.

  Rory kicked himself. He shouldn’t have added this last detail. It was insensitive.

  ‘Forget about him, Ma. He’s bewitched by her, but we knew that already. What matters is it gave me a window to rummage through the house on my own. For us. Which I did. I’ll show you everything back at the flat later.’

  ‘Did you go up to my old study?’ Fiona asked, toying anxiously with an empty oyster shell.

  ‘Of course,’ said Rory. ‘Did you know that’s where the dreadful Grey woman is having Kathy sit for her portrait?’ he added, knocking back a bitter gulp of champagne.

  ‘I like her, actually,’ said Fiona, unexpectedly.

  ‘Who? Iris Grey?’ Rory looked astonished.

  Fiona nodded. ‘And I’m sure that the choice of my study for the portrait would have been Kathy’s choice, not Iris’s.’

  ‘Have you met her, then?’ Rory frowned.

  ‘I have,’ said Fiona. ‘She came here, a couple of weeks ago, asking questions about the “Girls in the Wood”. That’s what they’re calling them, you know.’

  ‘Iris Grey came to your flat?’

  ‘There’s no need to sound so outraged, Rory. I invited her,’ said Fiona, laying a reassuring hand on his.

  ‘Well – what sort of questions?’ Rory blustered, thoroughly blindsided.

  ‘Let me think.’ Fiona leaned back calmly in her chair. ‘She wanted to know about my marriage to your father. About his affairs, and the Braes and, you know, what life was like on the estate at around the time those two women would have been killed.’

  ‘Ma, you never told me this.’ Rory put his head in his hands. ‘You must tell me these things. That woman, Iris – I don’t think you can trust her.’

  ‘Why not?’ Fiona asked guilelessly.

  ‘Because she’s a meddler. A professional meddler,’ said Rory. ‘She’s looking for trouble, always poking her nose in where it’s not wanted.’

  ‘You sound like your father,’ Fiona laughed.

  ‘And she’s thick as bloody thieves with Kathy. They’re always together, taking little walks,’ Rory added angrily, clearly expecting this nugget of information to change his mother’s mind.

  Instead, Fiona merely looked at him thoughtfully. As a general rule, she trusted Rory’s judgment. But on this occasion, she wondered if he were letting his emotions get the better of him.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry I didn’t mention it before,’ she said soothingly. ‘You’re right, I probably should have. But I don’t think you’re right about Iris Grey. She’s a portrait painter. Part of her job is getting to know her sitters.’

  ‘Even so…’ began Rory, but Fiona cut him off.

  ‘The fact that she spends time with Kathy and they take walks together doesn’t mean they’re close. Iris struck me as rather a serious person. Thoughtful. And, I would say, moral. If she’s “meddling”, I suspect she’s doing it for honourable reasons. She has nothing in common with your father’s… with that woman. More importantly,’ Fiona MacKinnon looked her son right in the eye, ‘I think she could be useful to us.’

  ‘Useful? I don’t see how,’ Rory said bluntly.

  Fiona smiled lovingly. Her darling boy was impressive in so many ways. But at times, though it pained her to say it, he lacked imagination.

  ‘Your father has secrets, Rory. Some of them we know, but can’t prove.’

  ‘Can’t prove yet,’ Rory corrected her.

  ‘But what if Iris Grey can prove them?’ Fiona’s eyes lit up. ‘Not for our sakes, but because she’s determined to learn the truth. What if Iris were to stumble upon things that even we don’t know about? Dark things from before my time, before you and Emma were born? Because there were other secrets, Rory. Other sins your father buried. I know there were.’


  Rory paused, surprised and intrigued by his mother’s passion.

  Was she right? Could Iris Grey end up being an asset rather than a liability, a help rather than a hindrance to their plans?

  At the end of the day, all Rory MacKinnon cared about was avenging his mother and destroying his father. It was that simple. Whether or not he liked Iris was irrelevant. Not if she could be manipulated to advance those ends. He would give the matter some thought.

  ‘It will all be OK, you know, Ma,’ he told Fiona lovingly, raising his glass to hers. ‘In the end. I’ll make sure of it.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, my darling,’ his mother replied proudly.

  He truly was the best son a woman could wish for.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Iris sat bolt upright in bed, eyes wide open. Her hands were gripping the bedspread so tightly her palms ached, and her heartbeat raced at a quite nausea-inducing rate.

  What a vile dream. She’d been in Venice, on a gondola, sprawled out on one of the tasselled velvet seats on a beautiful, cloudless day when the waters suddenly started to rise. Then one by one, faces, some alive and some dead and rotten, began bobbing up to the surface of the canal, including Dom Wetherby’s, decomposed and ghastly. Finally, there was Beatrice Contorini as she was in Father Antonio’s photograph, her eyes reproachful, arms stretched out to Iris for help, Save me, for God’s sake! But she didn’t, she couldn’t; instead, she watched helplessly as Beatrice sank back into the fetid water. After that she was back in the Venice apartment, and masked men were chasing her, grabbing her by the throat. She struggled, unable to breathe, as Kathy Miller’s screams rang in her ears… Iris!

  Even after she woke, it took a few moments for her pulse to calm and the reality of her surroundings to reassert themselves.

  I’m at home, in bed. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.

  To her left, the bedside clock said 6.04 a.m. It was still pitch-dark outside Murray House, but Iris could already hear clattering and the faint call of male voices from the docks. Pitfeldy’s fishing fleet set out early, even in the dark, cold depths of winter. She thought briefly about Jamie Ingall, before chasing the image of his handsome face away.

  Rolling over, she tried to get back to sleep but it was no use. The dream was still bothering her, its strands of meaning demanding to be untangled. It was the last parts that stuck with her the most: being unable to save Beatrice, or Kathy. Fighting for her own breath. So many threads of connection seemed to emanate from Venice – people, places, motives, coincidences – each one like a shaft of light, enticing yet intangible, impossible to grasp.

  Sod it. Heaving herself out of bed and the warm fug beneath the covers, Iris pulled on her sports bra and cold-weather running gear. She wasn’t going to get any more sleep now, so she might as well get out there and wake herself up properly.

  * * *

  ‘Aye, aye. Isn’t that your wee girlfriend?’ Jamie Ingall’s crewmate, Ross Ables, nudged him in the ribs as the two of them checked their nets. ‘I thought you said she was on holiday?’

  Jamie looked up. There, indeed, was the diminutive figure of Iris Grey, jogging down the steep cobbled hill towards the harbour, her face scrunched up against the bitter early morning wind.

  ‘She was,’ he mumbled, dropping his end of the net and hopping off the boat onto the jetty. ‘Just give me a minute, OK?’

  He’d been out on the boats almost solidly since their night together at Halloween, and he told himself that was the reason he hadn’t responded to Iris’s texts. Not that there had been that many of them. After a week of silence, she’d given up. Deep down though, Jamie knew there was more to it than that. The simple truth was he’d been afraid, frightened by how much he liked her.

  ‘Iris,’ he called out to her now.

  She looked up and stopped. Nervously, Jamie walked over.

  Behind him, unhelpfully, a few of the fishermen wolf-whistled and clapped, but their noise soon faded into the distance.

  ‘You’re back, then.’

  He smiled, but Iris’s expression remained blank.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  He shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. ‘Are you angry?’

  Iris shrugged.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ He smiled again, but she wasn’t letting him off the hook. ‘Look,’ he cleared his throat, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t ring you. I should have. I wanted to, but –’ He hesitated, unsure how to finish the sentence. ‘I’ve been out on the boats pretty much constantly. It’s been exhausting, and –’

  Iris held up a hand, cutting him off. ‘It’s all right. You don’t owe me an explanation.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said, reaching out and resting a rough, heavy hand on her shoulder. ‘Of course I do.’

  Iris shook her head. ‘I’ve been very busy myself.’

  ‘So I hear,’ said Jamie. ‘I gather your Italian trip was eventful.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Iris asked, frowning.

  ‘I might have checked your Facebook page once or twice,’ Jamie admitted sheepishly.

  ‘Yes, well.’ Iris blushed, perturbed by how much the touch of his hand jolted her, and by how physically attracted she still felt to him. ‘It’s not as if we were a couple or anything.’

  Jamie grimaced. ‘No. I know that. But even so, I… I’m sorry. That’s all. I’m sorry because I like you.’

  They stood there for a moment, eyes locked. Every rational bone in Iris’s body screamed at her to walk away. She had far more in common with Stuart Haley than she ever would with this unpredictable, unreliable boy. And yet perhaps that was why she was still so attracted to him. He was her opposite in every way.

  ‘Can I see you again? I’ll be back onshore again later in the week. I could buy you an apology dinner?’

  Iris bit her lip. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

  More shouts from the boat had Jamie looking back over his shoulder.

  ‘I’d better go. They’re waiting for me.’

  ‘OK,’ said Iris, doing her best to sound nonchalant.

  ‘Just – think about dinner, OK? I have missed you, Iris.’

  Walking back to his boat, Jamie felt a little lighter. That hadn’t gone perfectly. But he’d broken the ice at least. It was a start.

  * * *

  ‘Same again, headmaster?’

  John Donnelly nodded gratefully as the new, young barman at the Fisherman’s Arms drew him a fresh pint of bitter. He didn’t often stop by the pub on a Sunday lunchtime. Half the children from Pitfeldy School and their parents were usually crammed into the snug bar, and very few felt any compunction about collaring him to express their concerns or complaints during his precious hours off. Not that he minded, really. John Donnelly loved teaching, and he loved being part of the Pitfeldy community even more. Not married and with no children of his own, Donnelly’s vocation had become his life, and the modest local school he’d run for the past thirty or more years was, in effect, his world.

  It was a safe world, on the whole, wholesome and good. Within the four walls of the school, John Donnelly was, in his own humble way, a king. He liked to think of himself as a benign leader. Certainly, he believed, he had done more good than bad during his years at the helm of Pitfeldy School. But, of course, none of us are perfect. We all have our secrets. Our regrets. Our sources of shame. Headmaster Donnelly had done his best to move on from his own ‘mistakes’, as he liked to think of them.

  If only others could do the same, he thought now, feeling the pleasant smoothness of his beer being soured by a dirty look from across the bar. It was Hannah Drummond, a nice girl, generally, and one of his brightest former pupils, although, sadly, her erstwhile good opinion of him had been poisoned by her relationship with Angus Brae. The Brae family had long been a thorn in John Donnelly’s side, but since Angus’s attack at the Halloween party, the rift had become both more public and more serious. Perhaps coming to the pub had been a mistake after all?

  ‘Oh, h
ello, headmaster. I’m surprised to see you in here.’

  Charlotte Tillings, the local vet’s wife and a stalwart of Pitfeldy School’s PTA, appeared at Donnelly’s elbow like a friendly ghost.

  ‘Enjoying a quiet pint?’

  I was, thought Donnelly. But he put on his game face, as usual.

  ‘Hello, Charlotte. Yes, the weather’s so grim; I thought I’d treat myself to one of Brenda’s first-rate haggises. Are the children with you?’

  ‘No, thank God,’ Charlotte replied. ‘It’s just me and Harry today. The boys are both at rugby practice and Kira’s at a birthday party in Buckie.’

  She ordered some drinks and handed over a twenty to the barman, before carrying on.

  ‘Terrible about this girl, isn’t it? Have you seen the pictures?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ The headmaster frowned, momentarily thrown by the woman’s non sequitur. ‘What girl?’

  ‘The dead girl,’ explained Charlotte. ‘The one they dug up, up at the castle. Couple of months ago?’

  ‘Oh. Yes,’ said Donnelly, distractedly. ‘Awful business.’

  ‘Yeah, well, now they reckon they know who it was, don’t they?’ said Charlotte excitedly. ‘One of the bodies, anyway. That nice artist lady’s been all over the village this morning, handing out fliers, asking if anybody remembers seeing her. I don’t, personally. Mind you, it was over ten years ago, so you can hardly blame folk for forgetting a face.’

  Reaching into her coat pocket, oblivious to the headmaster’s ashen face, Charlotte Tillings pulled out a badly folded piece of paper, with a colour photograph above a printed question: Do you recognise this girl?

  ‘Here she is, look. Pretty, wasn’t she? And so young.’ She shook her head sadly.

  Silently, John Donnelly stared at the paper in his hand. The young, dark-haired girl, standing by the riverbank, her merry eyes almost dancing for the camera.