Rebecca considered the rows of names and figures. The pathologist had estimated Sheila’s time of death as between 7:15 and 9:15. And yet, if Mackenzie’s assumption that someone from the dig had killed her was correct, every suspect was in some way accounted for after 8:15—except for Michael, but he hadn’t done it. Add that to Jerry’s assertion that Sheila had been alive at 7:45… . Rebecca frowned. Half an hour. It might have happened in half an hour, as Devlin and Mackenzie had no doubt already noticed.
She put the pad in the drawer. Her packet of birth-control pills lay on the edge of the dressing table, where she always left them at night so Michael could bring her one in the morning… . Oh no. This morning they’d started fighting before they were even out of bed. Rebecca seized the packet and counted. Sure enough, the one for today was still nested in its plastic bubble. With one convulsive movement she punched it out and swallowed it, but her throat had gone so dry she almost choked. Birth is the flip side of death, after all—damn it all, something else to worry about.
Michael came in the door, his hair shining around his face, his chest and shoulders glistening above clean blue jeans. Odd how he wasn’t at all appealing. “I missed taking my pill this morning,” she told him.
His expression did a slow double take into a sickly grin. “A few hours’ll no be makin’ that big a difference.”
“The things aren’t a hundred per cent reliable as it is, Michael. A fact we’ve been conveniently ignoring.”
“There’re only three days left in the packet. Dinna worry yoursel’.” His hands squeezed her shoulders. Gravely they regarded each other’s images in the mirror. His eyes were faceted so intricately with thought and emotion that she didn’t know which surface to consider first. It wasn’t that his emotional cannon were loaded and run out; she’d coped with that before, either by direct assault or by subterfuge. This was something more complex than defensiveness.
His hands fell. He finished dressing and went toward the kitchen. Rebecca dropped her face onto her clenched fists.
She sat there a long time, watching the thoughts crash and collide in her mind, but could find no pattern in them.
1
Chapter Nineteen
Rebecca felt foolish locking the doors behind her, but to assume the cottage was somehow beyond the territorial boundaries of the murderer would have been even more foolish. In a subdued knot, the students and their not-so-intrepid leaders trooped up the driveway, the cloud hovering above their heads almost visible.
The evening was painted in watercolor shades of green and gray. Rebecca squinted suspiciously at the priory, but it maintained its bland silence—as did the sentries dotted along the street, whose expressions now betrayed internal musings on the virtues of beer.
Michael lingered in the lobby, inflating his pipes, while everyone else homed in on the bar. From the reception desk, Bridget commented to Rebecca, “Michael looks right posh in his sweater.”
“Thanks to you,” Rebecca returned. “He was very grateful.” She’d only remembered to give him back the mended sweater this evening. His punctilious courtesy had almost hurt.
“Your sweater’s in my basket,” Bridget went on. “Winnie’s already cleaned it. I’ll get it to you the morn’s morn.”
“Thank you. No rush. I’m just glad I could help the cat.” Rebecca went on into the bar, avoiding the questioning glances of various strangers. Tourists and reporters, she guessed. Fortunately the Bairds didn’t have room for more than a few guests; most of the ambulance-chasers were staying in Galashiels or Newton St. Boswells.
Rebecca made her announcement to Laurence more diffidently than she’d have liked. Banging a spoon on a glass, Laurence transmitted the news. Congratulations poured in, leaving Rebecca blushing and bemused. Getting her degree wasn’t what she’d imagined. She could no longer use it as a carrot or a crutch.
Laurence gave her a glass of Laphroaig, then drew a pint of ale for Michael and a lager for Mark. Mark began tuning his guitar, his fingertips cajoling trills from the strings like water laughing down the burn.
Tony and Elaine sat in a corner booth indulging in English slang and gin. “… po-faced berk Mackenzie,” said Elaine, her expression indicating it that wasn’t a compliment.
“Gormless,” Tony agreed.
“And there’s Dr. High and Mighty Kleinfelter. He’s a proper wally.”
“So you shopped him. Well done.” They nodded over their glasses.
Dennis slid into their booth, smiling affably despite their blank stares. Adele accepted a glass of apple juice from Nora and sat down alone. Rebecca and Hilary headed toward the corner between the fireplace and the end of the bar. The cats reposed on the hearth in patrician splendor, rising above the indignities of the morning, although not so far they wouldn’t accept Hilary’s offer of tidbits saved from the dinner table. Rebecca pulled a chair around so that she could feel the warmth of the fire and still see the rest of the room. Making sure her back was to the wall, she thought, as if someone might attack her here in the pub. But still a spot between her shoulder blades itched just beyond her reach.
Guinevere leaped up into her lap. How gracious I am, said her smug expression, to have allowed you to serve me this morning. Rebecca smiled. She stroked the purring bundle of fur and sipped her whiskey. Mellow was unobtainable, but at least she could relax a little.
A weedy young man sat down next to Adele and greeted her with an ingratiating grin. At one moment Grant Johnston and two of his colleagues were leaning decoratively on the bar, at the next they were escorting the curious man back to his own seat.
That was Bob Jenkins, the reporter for the Sunburn, whom Sheila had called just before her death. Called about finding gold, he’d testified at the inquest. That he hadn’t yet publicized the presence of gold at Rudesburn, and set off a rush of prospectors, Rebecca attributed less to his common sense than to Mackenzie’s judicious blend of promises and threats.
Michael came down the hall playing an emphatic “Scotland the Brave.” He followed that with “Tranent Muir” and a verse or two of “Johnnie Cope”, making a trio of defiance. Mark enthusiastically strummed accompaniment. Someone else strolled in from the lobby, and Rebecca blinked. No, she wasn’t imagining that hatchet face.
Simon Mackenzie joined Adele at her table and ordered lemonade. His raptorial gaze made a slow circuit of the room, considering each face. When he met Rebecca’s eyes, he bowed over his glass. She lifted hers in return.
Michael stopped to catch his breath. Mark broke into “Dixie”. The smooth amber whiskey slipped down Rebecca’s throat, filling her senses with sunlight and smoke. Everyone was in the bar, she mused. This would be a good opportunity to search bedrooms. Except the police had already done that, were maybe doing it again even as she thought about it, would no doubt continue doing it on into the future.
The future. Rebecca fantasized Devlin and Mackenzie apprehending Sheila’s killer. But the central role in that scenario had yet to be cast. She hadn’t killed the woman. Neither had Michael. Or Hilary. Or Mark—she trusted her instincts enough to make that judgment. And she’d already discounted the townspeople. Unless further evidence presented itself, the list of suspects was down to five names.
Guinevere opened her eyes and glanced up with that peculiarly feline gleam that indicates profound skepticism. Rebecca continued stroking the animal’s head until those accusing eyes closed.
“Dixie” ended with a flourish. Mark took a pull at his beer and began something classical. Michael leaned against the bar, cradling his pipes against his chest. Mackenzie made circles of condensation on the table with his glass.
For a moment Rebecca toyed with the classic mystery in which all the suspects were guilty. Some of these people, she thought, had known each other before the dig, but most were segregated geographically, economically, and intellectually. No. Any conspiracies were small ones.
Dennis. Rebecca was beginning to wonder how much of the young man’s clumsiness was a front fo
r some kind of secret agenda. She shifted uneasily and received a set of claws in her knee.
Elaine. She’d attacked Jerry this afternoon when he’d insulted her. God only knew Sheila had been proficient at insults. But had Elaine known of Sheila’s plan to find the relic heart and the treasure?
Tony. He must have known something of Sheila’s plan. And Sheila hadn’t hesitated to play men off against each other; perhaps she’d been playing conspiracies as well.
Jerry. His bluster could well have teeth. He’d lied about being with Sheila right before her death, trying to salve his ego. What else had he lied about—the mistake in the computer record? The question was not so much whether Jerry’s academic skullduggery fit into Sheila’s murder as how far it did. The matchbook with the number of the British Museum on it was a minor point. So was the call to Jenkins. But they added up.
Adele, Rebecca thought. What about Adele?
“There is a ghost in the priory,” Adele was insisting. “I’ve spoken with her. Anne Douglas. She was murdered.”
“Oh aye?” Mackenzie said softly.
“An unhappy soul lingers for many reasons. Guilt, or to guard something, or to get revenge. In Anne’s case, it could be all three. She’s still in the priory because the soul persists in—haunts—the locale in which its strongest emotions were played out.”
“Not everyone can sense a lingering soul.”
“You have to open yourself to the resonances. Or else the resonances grow so strong even the unbeliever is taken unaware.”
“Like Miss Fitzgerald, not long before she was killed?”
“Quite,” said Adele. She smiled serenely into her glass. Mackenzie looked at her as if she were sliced, stained, and flattened on a slide beneath a microscope, but she seemed unaware of his scrutiny.
Mark caressed his guitar, annotating Battlefield Band’s “Peace and Plenty” with subtle grace notes. The evocative melody filled the room. Rebecca indulged in another fantasy—a wedding, and she and Michael dancing to those delicate notes, wounds healed, commitments made… .
The music stopped. Mark acknowledged his applause with a shy grin. Michael advanced to center stage, and together they played “Amazing Grace.”
Hilary scooted her chair a little closer to Rebecca’s. “It’s scary how much sense Adele makes sometimes.”
“If she wants to explain the whatever-it-is at the priory as some poor tortured ghost,” Rebecca replied, “let her. They don’t kill people for witchcraft any more.”
Hilary looked puzzled.
“One of the classic accusations of witchcraft was ‘summoning spirits’,” Rebecca explained. “Seeing ghosts would have put you into real hot water in Anne’s day.”
“You said you and Michael saw ghosts last winter.”
“Heard them, smelled them, felt them—seeing was only a part of it. Something about Celtic blood, I guess; your receiver is tuned to ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night.”
“My ancestors came from all over, and I hear those bumps coming from the priory just as much as you do.” Hilary eyed her glass of wine and found it uninhabited by any ghoulies. She drank. “If anyone haunts the priory, you’d think Sheila would. But maybe she’s glad it’s all over. Having to keep up so much pretense must have been exhausting.”
That itch on Rebecca’s back became a slow crawl, like worms beneath her skin. Guinevere stirred in her sleep, her eyes slits of gold. The song finished and Mark put down his guitar and headed for the bar.
Mackenzie left Adele with a murmured farewell and slid in beside Elaine, facing Tony and Dennis. All three looked at him with varying grades of misgiving. He made some comment about the weather.
Hilary said, so quietly Rebecca hardly heard her, “I bet Sheila was sexually abused as a child. I learned in counseling that the trauma, the loss of self-esteem, drives some people out of control. Kind of like alcoholism. Thank God I didn’t get hit that way.”
Whatever Rebecca had been thinking was expelled from her mind like air from her lungs at a blow to the stomach. Mark, Hilary, Sheila, Tony, Marjory, and maybe even Anne; all of us, walking wounded in the sexual wars. There was a common strand that knit it all together—without explaining a thing.
A movement beyond Hilary’s back was Mark, approaching their table carrying a fresh pint of lager. He stopped so suddenly at Hilary’s words the beer slopped over the rim of the mug and ran onto his hand. His brows arched and his eyes widened, flooded with comprehension and yet hating to comprehend. Rebecca ducked the question in his face. He turned back to the bar and wiped his hand and mug with Laurence’s dish towel.
The fire died down, filling Rebecca’s and Hilary’s corner with shadow. Mark walked more heavily across the creaking wooden floor than necessary and sat down next to them, his expression muffled by gloom. Hilary sipped at her wine, not looking at him.
Michael was playing Runrig’s “Pride of the Summer”. “She was the pride of the summer that year, she was my sweetheart, my lady.” His eyes peered around the thicket of drones, cautious, almost wistful, and yet characteristically stubborn. “Like a heartbeat, lonely and strong.”
Lonely and strong? We’ve tried that. Rebecca looked into her empty glass and thought, That’s something I can remedy. Gently she removed Guinevere from her lap, went to the bar, and refilled her whiskey.
Behind the bar was a poster advertising the Borders Festival, the old Lammas Fair, beginning on August 3rd, Michael’s thirtieth birthday. No matter whether anything else was settled or not, she’d told him, on that day they would decide… . Baloney. Everything had to be settled, or no decision was possible. Her ghosts, and his, and all those other ghosts figurative and literal thronging the priory, had to be put to rest.
It was like her and Michael’s sweaters. While his mother was knitting them, she had seen only one stitch at a time. But now all the separate strands, the seemingly unrelated knits, purls, cables, skipped stitches, together formed one overall pattern. Rebecca had to find that pattern even if a happy ending for her and Michael wasn’t a part of it.
The last strains of the song faded and died. Michael went to the lobby to put his pipes away. Now that the show was over, several tourists and reporters left, trailed by the extra constables. Dennis collected the keys and wandered off, muttering something about working on the computer records.
“Be my guest,” Elaine told him. Picking up another gin and tonic she walked out, too, leaving Tony and Mackenzie eyeing each other across the booth.
Mackenzie, Rebecca thought, hadn’t questioned either Elaine or Jerry closely enough about the discrepancy of the penny. But then, the dig’s academic problems weren’t his. Fudging results caused only professional deaths, not human ones. Rebecca could lose everything here… . Her swallow of whiskey went down the wrong way, stinging her windpipe, and she coughed. She went back to the table where Mark and Hilary were intent on their respective drinks and dropped into her seat.
Adele said goodnight and left. Tony slipped out behind her. With a resigned shrug, Mackenzie joined the others at the bar. Michael returned and accepted another ale. Rebecca recognized the look in his eye; it was the same one she had. Attack the issues, force them if necessary, but never give up. He, too, seemed prepared to sacrifice their relationship to get to the truth.
Without asking Mackenzie’s leave, Michael started telling the leaders of the Rudesburn Development Group—Grant and the Bairds—about Jerry’s possible sins. Laurence’s face contorted with horror, Nora turned chalk-white and Grant sputtered his ale.
“Sorry I didna tell you sooner,” Michael concluded, “especially when you kept that rumor aboot the Bruce’s heart quiet, like I asked. But we didna ken if Jerry’s business was just a rumor. You hired the man in good faith, after all.”
Laurence pulled nervously on his beard. “You were between a rock and hard place, were you? No harm done. We’ll watch him right and proper now.”
Grant said, “Assumin’ yo
u let him go, Chief Inspector.”
“More lemonade, please,” Mackenzie replied. Nora refilled his glass.
“I hope no harm done,” Mark muttered. “So that’s what that bit about the penny was all about. I thought y’all knew more than you were letting on.”
“Poor Jerry,” said Hilary. “No one’s even missed him tonight.”
Rebecca finished her second glass of whiskey. No wonder the voices around her were bursting in slow satin bubbles against her senses. Even without the heat of the fire her cheeks were warm. The remaining strangers in the room left, their figures swimming through the shadows like jellyfish in an underwater nature special. Bridget came down the hall from the lobby and joined Nora behind the bar. There was a whispered colloquy, and Bridget’s eyes bulged. “The hell he was!” she exclaimed.
Returning the cats’ curious glances, Mackenzie pulled out the vacant chair at the corner table. “May I join you? I was hoping, Dr. Reid, that you could tell me something about this relic Dr. Kleinfelter is so keen on finding. All I know about Robert the Bruce is that he skelped the Sassenach at Bannockburn.”
“The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are really Michael’s field, but I can tell you enough to be going on with.” Rebecca spoke slowly, trying to compensate for the slight thickening of her tongue. “Robert died in 1329 at the age of 55. He’d been excommunicated for killing one of his rivals in a church and had always intended to atone for that, buy some grace, you might say, by making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But what with all the war and mayhem, he never got around to it. So on his deathbed he directed that his heart be cut out and his right-hand man take it on the pilgrimage instead.”
“Ah,” Mackenzie said. “James Douglas has almost as many myths told about him as Bruce.”
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