The Merciless Dead

by John Burke

  Each room had been adapted to accommodate a different aspect of Ferguson history. In the first were the inevitable sporting trophies, pride of place being given to a silver cup for some shooting achievement. Next door were photographs and maps of the original logging business in Newfoundland, and a display of Red Indian relics: totem birds, wooden deer masks, a prayer-stick trailing some bedraggled feathers, and a glass case of embroidered gloves and beadwork. ‘Trophies collected by my husband’s great-great-grandfather in the early settlement days,’ Mrs Ferguson contributed.

  Randal studied a section of totem pole, propped up in a window alcove with the raven head a dark silhouette against the sunlight. ‘That would make a nice study, but the detail would be lost with that light behind it. Is it all right if I shift it a little this way?’

  ‘By all means, Mr Grant. I leave it all to you.’ As he lifted the section of pole further into the room and set it against the inner wall, she gushed on: ‘My husband’s family was one of the first to get on good terms with the natives. Accepted as honorary chiefs, you know. At one time they did get involved together in whisky running from Canada into the United States.’ Her arch giggle was directed at Randal, not deigning to include Beth. ‘So naughty, but it helped the family fortunes!’

  A book of fading photographs lay open on an occasional table. While Randal was taking his picture, Beth bent over it, and gasped. ‘But that’s …’ She stopped herself in time.

  Mrs Ferguson looked at her sharply. ‘You know the site?’

  ‘No, no. It just reminded me of … no, I must be mistaken …’ She lied quickly. ‘I thought it was a sawmill where my grandfather used to work in Galloway.’

  ‘Most certainly not. A lot further away than Galloway. That’s near a logging site in Newfoundland. One of my husband’s few triumphs,’ she added with another laugh, this time with a sour edge to it. ‘Managed to snatch the concession from under my first husband’s nose. Jamie Ross, that is. Who never forgave him.’ She looked complacent, as if the fact of having had two conflicting husbands was an enviable attribute.

  As Randal replaced the totem pole, she changed tack and prattled happily about the family’s distinguished record with the other kind of Indians, confirmed by the next room dedicated to a slice of colonial history.

  ‘Distinguished colonial service,’ she declaimed. ‘It used to be in the Ferguson blood, of course.’ Used to be? Beth found it disconcerting that Nadine Ferguson’s tone veered so unpredictably between boasting and sneering. ‘Or going at things bull-headed, anyway. Not terribly good at conserving their gains.’ In front of a coloured print of a shikar party on a tiger hunt, dominated by a man who could well have been Ferguson’s father in topee and full uniform, framed on the wall above a tiger-skin rug, she said with a throwaway laugh whose would-be sophistication failed to conceal another sneer: ‘Some of his ancestors knew how to make money — and use it profitably.’ She picked up an ivory croquet mallet and made an awkward swing with it. ‘Such a splendid time they all had, until that dreadful Mutiny. Sholto loves to talk about it — almost as if he had been there himself.’ Probably, thought Beth, one of those families whose mortgaged estates had been redeemed by the loot they had acquired during the carnage.

  On a small lacquered table near the door a heavy gold bracelet and two glass bangles encircled an intricate figurine so small that one had to stoop to make out its contours. When Beth straightened up she saw the gleam in Randal’s eyes. The carving was of an athletic position from the Kama Sutra.

  ‘Exquisite, isn’t it?’ Nadine Ferguson put her hand on Randal’s shoulder so that she could bend closer over the entwined figures. ‘Do you know what a distinguished Indian visitor once told us about it? ‘This position requires great holiness and the assistance of two other ladies.’’ She took an inordinately long time to straighten up and take her weight off Randal.

  As if to symbolize the worldwide influence of the Fergusons, halfway along a picture gallery of somebody’s ancestors — it was difficult to see any consistent family likeness — was a massive trunk with huge brass locks and stickers from Africa, India, Canada, and the United States.

  At nearly every corner were pictures of Nadine in silver frames, accompanied by a fluffy dog. The largest, shorn of the dog, was a wedding photograph of herself in a white off-the-shoulder dress — a photograph which, thought Beth cattily, must have been touched up to make those shoulders look glowingly enticing — clinging to the arm of her second husband in full uniform with a couple of medals. A sequence of ornately gilded frames enshrined groups of more impressive medals, each on a red plush background. The wall behind was dominated by a large painting of the same man in full Highland rig at an Edinburgh Tattoo.

  ‘I think we ought to make a feature of that,’ said Mrs Ferguson. ‘He’ll be furious if we don’t get something of that kind in. At least he cuts a fine figure of a man, doesn’t he?’

  As Randal was setting up a flattering angle on the painting, she chattered on, making it clear that the arrangement of exhibits from room to room was entirely her own work. ‘Such confusion when I married him. Held so many important positions, but no sense of organization whatsoever. Like so many men.’ She smiled archly at Randal.

  They went on room by room, stopping at intervals to take in features which Randal suggested or Nadine Ferguson demanded. As he worked out a composition featuring a large gong shining in a mahogany frame on the first landing, Beth wondered frivolously if the man of the house sent a servant to strike it when requiring the services of his wife.

  Randal turned to her from time to time asking her technical opinion on an angle, and asking for items of equipment which she hoped she produced in the correct order. Mrs Ferguson glanced at each of her movements disparagingly. It was not, prayed Beth, that she suspected something phoney about this young assistant; rather that she would have preferred to have Randal to herself. In nearly every room she found an excuse to touch Randal’s arm to draw his attention to some item, laugh in what she undoubtedly considered an infectious manner, and sigh admiringly at his skill.

  Thinking it was time to make at least a polite contribution, Beth said: ‘This must all need a lot of upkeep.’

  Mrs Ferguson emitted something closer to a snort than a laugh. ‘Upkeep? Without adequate staff? You really have no idea. Nobody you can rely on nowadays.’ It was a feminine echo of Simon Ogilvie. ‘We’ve had to cut down. Not at all what I’ve been accustomed to. At the moment I’ve got only one useless gardener and an odd-job man, and a wretched woman for the indoors. And I have serious doubts about the honesty of all of them.’

  At the end, as they were leaving, she was all charm again. ‘Well, Mr Grant. Your magazine will be in touch with me about the date of this feature, I trust? And you will send me the pictures for my approval first?’

  ‘But of course, Mrs Ferguson. Leave it all to me.’

  ‘And if you find there’s anything that hasn’t quite worked out’ — her hand clasped his as they stood on the terrace — ‘don’t hesitate to come back. Preferably when my husband isn’t here to get argumentative.’ She produced another of her little giggles.

  *

  Back at Randal’s flat, he said: ‘Coming in for coffee?’

  ‘Provided you really mean coffee.’

  ‘For starters, anyway.’

  She found the kettle and made the coffee while he unloaded his gear.

  ‘Some interesting stuff in that place,’ he said, his head on one side, waiting for her answer.

  She knew which piece he meant to conjure up in her mind. And shamefully she would have liked to see an enlargement of that Kama Sutra figurine.

  ‘Obviously Mrs Ferguson would be happy to inflame your passions.’ And she found herself saying: ‘I thought perhaps you were going to make do with me. Hurl me on that couch and have your wicked way with me.’

  ‘Disappointed?’

  ‘When it came to it, you couldn’t really be bothered.’

  ‘Not until y
ou want it, too.’

  ‘You mean you prefer your victims to be in the mood for rape?’

  ‘In which case it’s not rape.’ He pushed some folders out of the way and put his coffee cup down on the bench. ‘Right. I’ll be sending you copies of what we collected today.’

  ‘So that I can put in a good word for you with the Foundation?’

  ‘Of course. And they’ll want to engage me for a huge fee. Isn’t that why I’ve been taking up your time?’

  ‘I’ll look forward to seeing them, anyway.’

  ‘And before you go …’ He finished his coffee, looked at her almost pleadingly. ‘Let me add you to today’s collection.’

  ‘If you’re hoping for a quick strip-tease —‘

  ‘I was thinking of taking a study of your face.’ He was reaching for a small camera.

  ‘My face?’

  ‘It’s so delightful.’

  ‘But nothing like one of those Indian masks?’

  He was clicking away as if taking a hasty set of seaside snapshots. ‘Nothing like.’

  At the door she said: ‘Are you going to take her up on that invitation to go back — when her husband’s not there, and I’m not there?’

  ‘Jealous already? A promising sign.’

  There was a flippancy in everything he said which made him easy to be with and yet more disturbing than Luke’s earnestness had ever been.

  8

  The road narrowed and a breeze across a ruffled lochan plucked at the side of the Espace. Luke Drummond was driving, and from where Lesley sat she could see from the angle of his head and an occasional glimpse of his eyes in the mirror that he was enjoying himself. Not that he was smiling or muttering a song to himself, but his earnest concentration and the occasional odd twitch of his left ear fitted in with the way she had already sized him up. He took his pleasures seriously, but to him they were nevertheless pleasures. Getting things right without fuss was a constant gratification. Unlike Simon Ogilvie, who enjoyed the fuss as much as getting things right. Ogilvie had insisted on sitting beside the driver, to spell out each petty detail of the route, tell him where to turn and not to turn — ‘I think we ought to go right at that crossroads coming up … stick to the bypass … do keep an eye on that soft verge’ — all of which Luke blandly ignored.

  Lesley was seated behind Ogilvie, with Morwenna on her right. Morwenna had not spoken at all during their first hour getting clear of the city and then the stretch of motorway and the A9 to Inverness. They stopped for brief lunch outside Tain, with Ogilvie supplying most of the conversation in the form of instructions about the care necessary on the twisting roads of Sutherland. Still Morwenna contributed nothing; but Lesley sensed an increased concentration in the woman beside her as they turned west across those lonely moorlands, broken by clumps of alder climbing the banks of shallow burns, and stands of birch and spruce. Her gaze was fixed for long minutes on the ghostly ridges and troughs of old lazybeds, as if gouged by fingernails out of the earth. Then she leaned forward and stared past Lesley at a drystone dyke around a fairly modern farmhouse. And this drew words out of her at last. ‘Stones from the wrecked homes of the persecuted.’ A few miles later, as they passed the outlines of an old croft with a collapsed lintel wrenched over like a dislocated shoulder, marked with a splash of bright white paint in the shape of a cross, she burst out even more bitterly: ‘Isn’t that just great? All smartened up by the local tourist board for the benefit of visitors with their cameras. Some guy even smart enough to add the laird’s mark, to tell the poor wretches who lived there it’s time to get the hell out, or else.’

  What was so different, then, Lesley wondered, between that preserved shred of a banished community and the plans the Rosses had for their own contrived memorial?

  The sky was darkening. Without warning, a sudden blast of hail scoured one side of the road, while the other stayed clear. Western skies shone a tranquil blue, with blackness to the east. And linking the two was a squared-off rainbow which Lesley would not have believed in if she had not actually seen it shimmering against that contradictory background.

  ‘The rowan tree by that heap of stones.’ Luke spoke over his shoulder, calm and explanatory. ‘They used to plant the rowans by their crofts to ward off evil spirits.’

  ‘Didn’t work against the factors, eh?’ said Ogilvie.

  Morwenna stared for a long minute at the back of his neck.

  The tree had been warped by the winds into a shape that to Lesley looked tortuously evil in itself. There was something weird about this whole landscape. They were here only on sufferance. There were things unseen, still waiting, shadows of something incorporeal, waiting for intruders to transgress. Then those true inhabitants would come to life again and deal out punishment. It was all more stark and disturbing than the historical and refurbishing discussions in Edinburgh. Lesley shuddered, and at once knew that Morwenna was aware of this.

  As if to deride, or maybe reassure her, Morwenna said in a schoolmistressy tone: ‘The cities have enough museums, you know. Just a jumble of unrelated material with no specific local or regional relevance. And they sure as hell don’t have the atmosphere. That’s what we’re here to preserve.’

  Whatever the traditions of this whole region might mean to her and old Jamie Ross, Lesley would have thought that many original inhabitants would in the end have been glad to get away from it.

  The car stopped suddenly, with a scrape of tyres on the gritty road surface.

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ Ogilvie’s voice was as petulant as an elderly woman’s bitching at a careless young nephew in the driving seat. ‘Drummond, how on earth did you get us into this?’

  A clump of rowan had masked the sharp corner until they were right on it. Then Luke had to stamp on the brakes to avoid running into a heap of timber piled across the road.

  ‘Somebody trying to tell us we’re not welcome,’ he observed.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ said Ogilvie again. ‘That’s illegal. Creating an obstruction. We have every right to use this route.’

  Luke opened his window and leaned out. Beyond his shoulder Lesley glimpsed a couple of figures picking their way across the spongy ground, looking back at the Espace and apparently laughing.

  Warily Luke backed a few yards until he had reached one of the narrow bulges laid out as passing places. After what became a jerky six-point turn, he drove back to a junction which they had passed half a mile back. While Ogilvie muttered some incomprehensible directions, Luke drove towards the rim of a small plantation of Scots pine. As the road slewed again to hug the edge of the plantation, a dark green truck with the lettering of The Reay Forestry Group on its sides emerged from one of the woodland rides, and slewed across the road in front of them. The driver leaned out and shouted: ‘Sorry, ye can no go any further. This is a private road.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ raged Ogilvie. ‘Let me out and I’ll make a few things clear.’

  ‘If I were you, sir —’

  ‘You’re not me, Drummond. Which is why, young man, I hold a top administrative position and you don’t.’

  Lesley glanced at Morwenna, who seemed uncertain whether to be amused or impatient.

  Ogilvie got out and strode towards the truck.

  ‘The other road is blocked, and it’s essential that we get to Achnachrain without any more nonsense.’

  The two men in the truck were grinning but not bothering to reply.

  ‘You’re causing just as much of an obstruction as that rubbish dumped on the highway over there.’ Lesley was mildly surprised at Ogilvie’s sudden switch to calm but self-righteously forceful speech. ‘Please move your vehicle and let us pass.’

  ‘I’ve already told you — this is a private road. Sorry.’ He was clearly not the slightest bit sorry.

  ‘According to my recently authenticated map, this is in fact part of the properties bought to form an integral part of the Ross All-Abilities Path through the wood.’ He took out a mobile phone. To Lesley it seemed
an incongruous possession for someone like Ogilvie, but he was flourishing it as if confident in it as a firearm. ‘I shall ring the police.’

  ‘They’ll take a gey long time to get here.’

  ‘Then we shall wait. And the longer it takes, the more serious the charge we shall lay.’

  It could be only an empty threat. Morwenna let out a faint sigh of exasperation and stared silently past Ogilvie.

  The driver of the truck glanced at her, tried a half-polite, half-dismissive nod, and sounded less certain than before. ‘You’ll no’ find much of a welcome if you do get to Achnachrain. I’d no’ be going further, if I were you.’

  ‘You are not me.’ Ogilvie seemed to be fond of this declaration. ‘We shall be going further, so before I need to take official steps’ — he brandished his mobile again — ‘perhaps you will move out of our way.’

  With grudging slowness the driver edged back on to the exit from the plantation. Ogilvie stumped back to the Espace and climbed back in with a self-satisfied smile, as if awaiting a round of applause.

  It was left to Luke to consult the map he had marked up before leaving, and find an old drove road lurching in the right direction. The wheels squelched through the soggy ground, but it was just navigable. Lesley wondered if there would be any other deliberate yet paltry obstructions in their way before they reached their destination, but there was no further sign of opposition until they were approaching a large three-storey building which looked out of proportion in that landscape. As a defensive castle it might have made sense; but it was not ancient enough for that, and boasted no battlements or gun-loops. There was a web of scaffolding at the east end, and a collapsed heap of scaffolding poles halfway along the frontage.