Scots on the Rocks

by Mary Daheim

  “It’s all this fog,” Renie said. “Our minds have gone. Besides, I kind of enjoy a good riot. We haven’t had one at home since the WTO dustup, and I had to watch it on TV. It’s not the same.”

  “Sometimes you’re too weird even for me,” Judith muttered. “I’ll bet MacRae and Ogilvie are somewhere along the way, afoot or—” Loud sounds like gunshots interrupted her. “Now what?”

  The parade of putative avengers appeared to wonder the same thing. The chanting stopped abruptly, some drivers honked their horns, and the people on foot ebbed and flowed, with a few ducking for cover. A moment later, two more shots were fired. Several people ran, plunging off the road to seek safety.

  “Whoever’s firing that gun did us a favor,” Judith said, stepping gently on the gas pedal. “The crowd’s thinned out a bit so we can move.”

  “We can also get shot,” Renie pointed out. “Oh well.”

  The marchers had lost momentum, though at least forty people and a couple dozen cars were moving, albeit more slowly, along the road. Judith saw a trio of bicyclists, a skateboarder, and several pedestrians heading back toward the village. The cousins had gone about fifty yards when Judith spotted the signpost for Monk Road.

  “Maybe we should see what’s going on at Hollywood House first,” she said, “especially if MacRae and Ogilvie might be there ahead of us.”

  “On roller skates?” Renie remarked with a sidelong glance at Judith. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve hijacked their transportation.”

  “We borrowed it, remember?” Judith snapped. “Besides, it was your nutty idea.”

  “At least they’ve stopped shooting,” Renie said. “Hey—listen!”

  Judith heard the sound, a faint but angry cry of shrill voices. The car kept moving, following the diehard crowd, which had now reached the gates of Hollywood House where vehicular traffic stopped.

  “Damn!” Judith braked, trapped in a virtual blockade of the road. “We can’t turn around. We’re hemmed in on every side.” She stopped, letting the engine idle. “The gates must be locked,” she said, “but it sounds as if most of the noise is coming from closer to the house. The protesters or whatever you’d call them are scaling the walls.”

  “Shall we get out?” Renie asked.

  “I guess so,” Judith said, turning off the ignition, “if we want to—excuse the expression—see what’s happening.” The cousins got out of the car. “I hate to leave a police car in the middle of the road, but I don’t have any choice.” A whirring sound overhead made her look up. “My God!” she gasped. “It’s a chopper, and it’s practically on top of us!”

  “Cops, maybe?” Renie shouted as the helicopter came closer. “With this mist, the visibility must be worse than mine.”

  Most of the other onlookers were staring up, too. The copter’s rotors drowned out the voices of the marchers, who apparently had invaded the grounds of Hollywood House. After a final swoop the chopper gained altitude and flew away.

  The throng that had just preceded Judith and Renie was at the iron gates. A few persons were trying to climb up the sturdy bars, either to get a better view or to leap onto the driveway. Judith, being taller than Renie, could see some twenty or thirty people in front of the house. They’d resumed their chanting as soon as the helicopter had departed.

  “Guilty, guilty, guilty!” cried the crowd. “Jezebel, Jezebel, Jezebel!”

  Renie managed to squeeze between a man and a woman who were shouting themselves hoarse. “Blind person coming through!” she shouted, extending a hand behind her to Judith. “Cripple on my rear!” She lowered her voice a notch and turned to Judith. “Do I detect some good old-fashioned John Knox Presbyterianism running amok?”

  “What?” Judith responded. “I can’t hear you!” She stumbled and fell against a young man. “Oops! Sorry!”

  “That’s okay,” the young man said, turning around. “Mrs. Flynn!”

  “Barry!” Judith exclaimed. She noticed that Alison was next to him and offered a weak smile. “What’s happening?”

  “Protesters, just like a real city,” Barry said, leaning close to Judith so he could make himself heard. “Never seen the like. I dinna ken half these folk. Auld Jocko got the Highlands riled up, didn’t he?”

  “You mean these aren’t all villagers?” Judith asked in surprise.

  Barry nodded. “More strangers than locals.”

  “Do you agree with Jocko about Moira?” Judith inquired.

  He shrugged. “Better than watching the telly on a Monday night.”

  “We heard what sounded like shots,” Judith said.

  Barry nodded. “It was shots, all right, fired by that butler when some of the mob climbed over the wall. Didn’t do much good, though. Think he shot a duck.”

  The crowd suddenly grew silent, all eyes riveted on the front of Hollywood House. Judith stood on tiptoe to see what had captured their attention. A hazy figure on the second-floor balcony was outlined against the light that came from inside the open door.

  “What is it?” Renie asked. “I’m half blind and too short.”

  Before Judith could answer, a woman’s shrill voice split the swirling mist. “Why? Why? Why? I’m your friend, your neighbor! You know me! I’m innocent!”

  A chorus of damning denial erupted from the crowd. “Moira,” Judith said in Renie’s ear.

  “It doesn’t sound like her,” Renie said.

  “She’s distraught, wringing her hands, pulling at her hair.” Compassion welled up inside Judith’s breast. “She’s…unhinged.”

  Renie shook her head in disgust. “As my father would say, that’s ungood. It won’t help her with this bunch.”

  Moira was trying to speak again, but the angry mob wouldn’t shut up. A new chant was emerging, though Judith couldn’t make it out. It sounded to her like “Caravan,” which made no sense. On the balcony, Moira bowed her head and gripped the rail. The cries of the crowd swiftly changed to “Jump, whore, jump!”

  “Horrible!” Judith exclaimed. “Where are the police?”

  “Looking for their car?” Renie suggested.

  “Shut up.” More guilt overcame Judith. “What are they yelling besides ‘Jump’? ‘Caravan’? ‘Caveman’?”

  “Cameron,” Renie said. “Now they’re shouting ‘Butcher!’ They must think Moira and Patrick conspired to kill Harry Gibbs.”

  “I can’t hear you!” Judith cried as the noise grew to a fever pitch and the crowd pressed forward. “Let’s go before we get trampled!”

  “How?” Renie yelled. “We’re stuck! Where are Barry and Alison?”

  Judith couldn’t see them. She was being pushed closer to the gate, as if the mob intended to crush the iron bars with sheer force. Meanwhile, the driveway was becoming clogged with trespassers who had gone over the walls.

  Judith’s view of the house had been blocked for the last couple of minutes, but while struggling to keep her balance, she got a glimpse of Moira. The anguished widow looked as if she was weeping, her head in her hands, her hair streaming around her hunched shoulders.

  Suddenly the sound of sirens was heard over the crowd’s relentless roar. “Cops?” Judith mouthed to Renie, who listened and nodded.

  It occurred to Judith that the police might use tear gas or some other unpleasant means to disperse the mob. Somehow, she realized, there had to be a way to escape the crush of irate people. “Can you crawl?” she whispered to Renie, augmenting the question with hand motions.

  “Uh…” Renie peered down at the ground. “Maybe. But you can’t.”

  “If you move enough people, I can stay upright and follow you.”

  “Oh…” Renie looked aghast. But the sirens were very close. “Okay, here goes,” she said, digging into her purse and taking out a pair of small but very pointed nail scissors. “Stay close.” She squatted down, got to her knees, and began to crawl toward the road.

  As the shouts and jeers became punctured with sharp squeals of pain and hopping feet, Judith was able
to squeeze between Renie’s victims, who had been caught off guard by the unexpected jabs with the nail scissors. Mouthing apologies and stumbling awkwardly through the throng, Judith had broken into a sweat by the time she got to the road. Fortunately, the crowd was thinning out as two police vans came toward the entrance to Hollywood House.

  “I can’t get up!” Renie cried, sounding miserable. “About a hundred people stepped on me! I’m a wreck!”

  Judith gave her cousin a hand and helped her get to her feet. “You do look pretty ghastly,” she said, taking in Renie’s disheveled hair, which sported a couple of candy wrappers, a cigarette butt, and an unopened condom. “Let’s see if we can move our stolen police car.”

  The sedan was right where they’d left it, but it wasn’t empty. Judith spotted two figures in the front seat.

  “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Someone else is trying to steal it!”

  “No!” Renie gasped. “What’s this world coming to?”

  Wiping perspiration from her forehead, Judith moved purposefully through the gaggle of onlookers, some of whom had lost their steam as the police vans came to a stop nearby. Reaching the car, she looked inside and saw Alpin MacRae in the passenger seat. Recognizing Judith, he rolled down the window.

  “I can explain…” Judith began, starting to sweat again.

  “Of course,” MacRae said with a grim smile. “But not now. Thank God you were able to get here. We had to borrow bicycles from the village after we lost track of James Blackwell and heard about this mob. Would you like to get in?”

  “Oh yes!” Judith was confused by MacRae’s reaction but needed sanctuary, not explanations. She opened the back door and practically fell into the seat. Renie scrambled in next to her.

  “Are you all right?” MacRae asked after swiftly surveying the cousins.

  “Yes, yes,” Judith replied.

  “Speak for yourself,” Renie muttered, raking the detritus from her hair. “I’ve scraped my hands and knees. I’ll have bruises all over…”

  Her words were drowned out by a loudspeaker ordering the crowd to disperse.

  “Inverness sent a riot squad,” MacRae said. “This is an amazing turn of events, like a rock concert or a football game on a smaller scale.”

  “I never saw the like,” Ogilvie asserted, “except at a Dundee United match against Heart of Midlothian. Hearts is bloody vicious.”

  MacRae gave his subordinate a faintly patronizing glance. “Aye, lad, but this melee is a wee bit different. I don’t like it. I gather Jocko Morton has been stirring up the local folk.”

  “That’s so,” Judith said, watching as several riot squad police spilled onto the road and took up positions. A handful of younger people seemed confrontational, but most of the crowd began to break up. “Have you seen the banner on the village green?”

  Keeping his eyes on the situation that was beginning to ease, MacRae nodded. “We walk a fine line between free speech and inciting a riot.” He turned to Ogilvie. “Stay with the ladies. I’ll make sure everything’s under control.”

  As soon as MacRae got out of the car, Judith tapped Ogilvie’s shoulder. “Have you been to Grimloch since we found Chuckie?”

  “Aye.” Ogilvie’s expression was somber. “A horrible way to kill someone, poor laddie. Mr. Fordyce is offering a million-pound reward.”

  “Surely,” Judith said, “he has confidence in the police.”

  “He does,” Ogilvie assured her, “but he’s that upset over losing his only bairn.”

  “Do you think that whoever killed Chuckie also killed Harry?” Judith asked as Renie made faces and obscene gestures at the people who were staring at her in the police car.

  Ogilvie shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

  “No,” Judith agreed. She poked Renie. “Stop that! This is an official vehicle!”

  “These morons think I’m an official prisoner,” Renie declared. “They ought to be cheering me. Why aren’t they getting arrested?”

  “Only if they resist,” Ogilvie said. “They’re giving up, it seems.”

  “Glad you folks don’t play much hockey,” Renie murmured. “We colonials get kind of fractious at the ice rink.”

  MacRae, who had been conferring with a member of the riot squad, got back into the car. “We can leave,” he informed Ogilvie. “The driveway is clear and constables will be on duty. Mrs. Gibbs’s doctor is on his way. She had a fainting spell after her…ah…balcony appearance.”

  “No wonder,” Judith said. “From what I’ve heard, Moira’s a very emotional young woman. Of course she’s been through a great deal. Her health also seems precarious.”

  “Indeed,” MacRae said as Ogilvie drove slowly to avoid stragglers. “Mrs. Gibbs is the Poor Little Rich Girl personified. She—stop!”

  A man had flung himself on the car’s hood. He was facedown, his hands stretched out as if in supplication.

  “Don’t move!” MacRae ordered as he and Ogilvie got out of the car.

  “Was he pushed?” Judith said to Renie.

  “I don’t know. I still can’t see very well.”

  Only a couple of people were close by. Judith peered through the backseat window and recognized Barry and Alison. Quickly, she rolled the window down and called to them. “Did you see what happened?”

  They both shook their heads. “Too sudden,” Barry replied. “Have you been arrested?”

  “No.” Judith waved weakly and focused on the man who was being helped off of the hood. She still couldn’t see his face, but the dark raincoat looked familiar. At last he turned just enough so that Judith could see a bloody gash on his left cheek. When he dug into his pockets to pull out a handkerchief, he turned again.

  “It’s Will Fleming,” Judith said softly. “I guess he’s not missing after all.”

  A sheepish Will Fleming squeezed in next to Judith. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” he murmured, dabbing at the wound on his cheek with a white handkerchief. “Did the police rescue you, too?”

  MacRae spoke up before either of the cousins could answer. “It was the other way round,” he said, twisting in the front seat just enough to look at Will. “Did you get that cut from one of the crowd?”

  “I was gashed by a sharp branch while avoiding the mob at Hollywood House,” Will said. “I had to crawl through the shrubbery.”

  “Do you need a doctor?” MacRae asked. “Mrs. Gibbs has called in a Dr. Carmichael for her own problems.”

  “No,” Will replied. “Take me home. Marie must be frantic.”

  “Of course,” MacRae said, then addressed Ogilvie. “Monk Road, the Priory. We reversed for about three kilometers.”

  Judith was puzzled. “Why is Marie so upset?”

  “We’d been to a…sort of soiree earlier this evening,” Will responded. “After we left, we heard about poor Chuckie Fordyce. I told Marie I’d go to Grimloch to see Philip and Beth. I insisted that Marie take the car and go home. She’s just getting over flu. When I didn’t come home within an hour, she panicked, thinking perhaps that something had happened to me. We live in dangerous times.”

  The explanation was smooth. Too smooth, Judith thought. An hour wasn’t nearly long enough to make even the most anxious of wives call the cops.

  Will also needed explanations. “I don’t mean to pry,” he said, “but how do you two visitors to Grimloch happen to be riding in a police car?”

  MacRae broke in before Judith or Renie could reply. “A coincidence,” the DCI said. “They were stranded and needed a lift.”

  “Oh. Of course,” Will said, smiling politely at the cousins.

  It occurred to Judith that her fellow passengers were playing a game of evasion, if not outright deception. It was no wonder, she thought, that Renie was looking skeptical.

  “I thought perhaps,” Will said to MacRae as Ogilvie turned onto Monk Road, “they had to give a statement about finding Chuckie’s body.”

  “They do,” MacRae said easily. “This day has been tumult
uous. There’s been scant time for paperwork.”

  The driveway to the Flemings’ home was marked by two stone pillars and a discreet wooden sign identifying the property as the Priory. As the mist dissipated, Judith saw a large old house that probably had been built for a religious order. The two-story exterior was gray stone, though obvious additions had been made in various styles. The result was an architectural olio, but the overall effect fell short of being ugly.

  Will appeared to have been reading Judith’s mind. “Rather a hodgepodge,” he remarked in a self-effacing manner. “It has its charms, especially the garden. Marie is doing a wonderful job of restoring many original features that had been modernized.”

  Ogilvie stopped under a porte-cochere on the south side of the house. “Gothic style here,” Renie noted. “But nineteenth century, right? Monks didn’t drive much before the Reformation.”

  “A good eye,” Will said, unbuckling his seat belt.

  “One good eye,” Renie responded. “I’m a graphic designer.”

  “Ah.” Will smiled. “Perhaps you can visit during your stay at Grimloch.” He nodded to MacRae and Ogilvie. “Many thanks.”

  Ogilvie kept his foot on the brake as Will entered through an oak door. Judith tried to see if Marie was waiting for her husband, but the figure outlined by the inside light was male. As Will went in and quickly closed the door, Judith recognized Patrick Cameron in his leather jacket.

  MacRae turned to look at the cousins. “It’s almost nine. We do need that statement. Would you prefer doing that at Grimloch?”

  “I prefer a restaurant,” Renie said. “I can put my statement on a menu.”

  MacRae chuckled obligingly. “That could be arranged. It’s past our dinner hour, too.”

  “Speaking of missing husbands,” Judith said to Renie, “we haven’t heard from ours lately. We should call them from the restaurant.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Renie responded, “they’re fishing. You sound like my mother. She always worried herself to a frazzle when Dad didn’t get home when she expected him. I learned a lesson long ago that you never worry about fishermen. They can’t be bothered with any other activity or consideration as long as the fish are biting.”