Human Face

by Aline Templeton

  He wasn’t commissioned to investigate that side, only to check that there were no suspicious circumstances. He’d read through the report filed by the local PC, Olivia Murray, and it seemed competent enough. He could see a couple of areas that definitely needed more probing but on the evidence as presented he would probably have reached the same conclusion as she had.

  The hotel was right on the shore, just along from the pier. It was an attractive building in the local style, white-harled with small square sash windows and tubs of flowers on either side of the door; there was a single-storey extension to one side with a pub sign, BLACK CUILLIN BAR. There had probably been an inn on this site for as long as there had been a township, serving the drove roads bringing sheep and cattle to market from the north-west of the island and now sympathetically extended to cater for the comparatively new-fangled passion for dicing with death on the mountains.

  There were a couple of small fishing boats tied up to the pier and he parked his car near a pile of lobster creels, which boded well for the meal he was looking forward to already. An elderly man in navy overalls and sea boots who was coiling ropes looked up as Kelso got out.

  ‘Grand day for you!’ he said.

  Kelso recognised the pure vowels and soft burr of a Gaelic speaker who’d had to go to school to learn to speak English, an accent which, he guessed, would be much rarer in the younger generations – sad, in its way.

  ‘It’s been a bonny drive up, with the views. I’ve been lucky.’

  The man’s rheumy blue eyes surveyed him narrowly. ‘Up from the south, then?’

  ‘That’s right. Staying at the hotel.’

  He nodded with satisfied certainty. ‘Aye, right. You’ll be from the polis, then.’

  Kelso winced. What had they done – taken out an advert? He’d been prepared for word to get round quickly – but before he’d even arrived? He nodded with a fixed smile, took out his luggage and went into the hotel.

  When he rang the bell at the little reception desk, a middle-aged woman with badly dyed dark hair and stark red lipstick appeared. She introduced herself as Fiona Ross – no Highland accent here – and booked him in, greeting him effusively. Then she peered rudely into his face.

  ‘Oh dear!’ she said. ‘Someone taken a knife to you, have they?’

  ‘No,’ he said coldly. ‘Is that my key?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll take you up myself.’ She led the way to the front of the first floor, keeping up a relentless flow of conversation about the weather and the drive from Edinburgh, but once she had pointed out that they’d given him the biggest room with a sofa and a table where he could work, she could contain herself no longer. ‘You’ll be here about the girl who disappeared, I suppose?’

  Kelso pointedly didn’t reply as he walked to the window with its view of the bay and across to the opposite shore, to what he guessed must be Balnasheil Lodge, where the missing woman had been working. When he turned he said dismissively, ‘Thank you. That’s fine.’

  She didn’t take the hint. ‘Now, if there’s anything at all you need, you just come straight to me. I’ll be delighted to help you in any way I can.’ There was no mistaking her eagerness; she actually licked her lips as she said that.

  He should have been prepared for this, but the reality of working in a small place hit him forcibly. Coming from the big city he’d forgotten that his arrival would provoke huge curiosity in a place this size and that any scrap of inside information would be seized on quicker than a dog would snatch a dropped sausage. Fiona Ross was right there at his feet with her mouth wide open expectantly.

  It was natural enough but there was something about her – her avid eyes, her loose, gossip’s mouth – that was particularly repellent.

  ‘Now, dinner’s from seven till nine,’ she went on, ‘but I could bring you up some tea and a scone now if you like. It’s no trouble.’

  ‘No, thank you. I’m all right.’

  She nodded. ‘The bar’s open at six.’ Then she said, with a little giggle, ‘You’re not really quite what I expected, you know. You don’t sound like a policeman. I do like dealing with a gentleman.’

  The snobbery set his teeth on edge. He didn’t reply, only walked across to the open door, holding the edge and moving it slightly to suggest that he was ready to close it.

  He wasn’t escaping as lightly as that, though. Fiona did move towards it but stopped just beside him and leant forward to say confidentially, ‘It’s difficult when you come to a wee place like this. People tend to close up, when it’s a stranger asking questions. So if there’s anything you need to know about Balnasheil, you just come and ask me. We came up from Lanarkshire twenty years ago and I know where all the bodies are buried.’

  He couldn’t resist. ‘Really?’ he said with apparent shock. ‘Bodies?’ and watched with reprehensible pleasure as her face turned an uncomfortable pink.

  ‘Oh – oh no,’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t mean real bodies. I just meant – well, there’s things people maybe wouldn’t want you to know.’

  He’d had more than enough of her and her snide little remarks. ‘Exaggeration really isn’t helpful, Mrs Ross,’ he said acidly and watched her shrink like a slug under a sprinkle of salt. ‘Perhaps you could tell me, though, if you knew the woman who left Balnasheil Lodge unexpectedly?’

  She wrestled for a moment with indignation but in the end couldn’t resist the pleasure of retailing gossip. ‘Oh yes! She was in the bar sometimes – though I never really had that much chance to talk to her.’ That was a reluctant admission, but she went on, ‘Probably who you want to speak to is Murdo John Macdonald. He often serves in the bar if we’re busy because Douglas – that’s my husband – does the cooking. And he’ll have noticed her – Murdo John always had quite an eye for the ladies. The strong silent type, you know – sometimes women go for that.’ She said it with a sidelong look.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ he said, deliberately obtuse. ‘Are you saying he had some sort of relationship with Ms Havel?’

  Fiona backed off. ‘No, no, I didn’t mean that, exactly. Just, well – oh anyway, he’s married now, to a girl who was waitressing here. But like I said, I saw Eva sometimes, having a drink up at the bar. Oh, very friendly, she always was, joining in the craic. We get a lot of climbers and hillwalkers around here, so there were plenty of young men around.’ She rolled her eyes graphically. ‘And, well, you know …’

  Kelso’s revulsion was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. ‘Are you saying she was promiscuous?’

  She gave a silly little titter. ‘Oh well, no, not exactly. But of course with her position over there—’ She jerked her head at the window, indicating the Lodge across the bay.

  ‘Which was?’

  She smirked. ‘Housekeeper. That’s what they said. But we all know what that meant.’

  He was getting very tired of playing games. ‘And what did it mean?’

  Fiona recoiled slightly, then gave him a hard stare. ‘Oh, I think we both know the sort of thing I’m talking about. Anyway, like I said, dinner’s from seven.’ She walked out, shutting the door perhaps just a little more firmly than was strictly necessary.

  He knew he had antagonised her and perhaps he should have controlled his disgust, but being forced to listen to her sly, slimy innuendos made him feel he was grubby too. Not waiting to unpack, he started to run a bath.

  She had given him a couple of interesting pointers, though: that Murdo John Macdonald needed looking at and that there were other men in the frame as well as the writer who’d been stood up. If Murdo John had a boat it might well explain Eva’s mysterious disappearance.

  This was going to be a steep learning curve. He was used to city policing where it hardly mattered how hard you went in but he’d have to be a lot more diplomatic here.

  Vicky Macdonald put her head round the door of their snug sitting room, where Murdo John was sitting reading the Oban Times. ‘Are you working tonight? Do you need supper early?’

  Murdo
John nodded. ‘Yes. I’m in six till nine. They’ve this policeman staying, and another couple of visitors, so Douglas will be in the kitchen till then.’

  ‘Is it tonight he’s coming?’ Vicky’s face brightened. ‘Maybe we’ll get some action at last. Daniel will be pleased – I’ll just give him a ring.’

  Murdo John said nothing, pointedly. As she went back to the kitchen, Vicky grimaced. The row they’d had over his stupid choice of words was the worst they’d ever had and though things had been patched up, theoretically at least, there was still an unhealed wound and anything to do with Eva Havel or Balnasheil Lodge was dangerous territory.

  It was good news that at last something was being done about Eva. She had started to feel almost sick with worry about her and she’d had a terrible nightmare the previous night, where somehow she was Eva, or perhaps Eva was her, and Adam Carnegie had been trying to strangle her – or perhaps it was Murdo John. It had been one of those dreams that colours your mood long after you have woken up and she’d found herself looking at her husband askance this morning. Was the dream trying to tell her something about their relationship? Was his controlling tendency threatening to strangle her independence?

  Or was she just possibly making far too much of it and should stop overreacting? She went to call Daniel.

  To her surprise, he seemed a little guarded about her plan to meet in the bar at half past six, hoping to bump into the Edinburgh inspector.

  ‘If we could just get in first and explain why we’re worried before he gets the official version from that constable who couldn’t have cared less, he might take it seriously,’ she urged. ‘Otherwise, you know, he’ll probably just rubber-stamp her verdict and head back south tomorrow.’

  Daniel did agree eventually but in view of his previous eagerness for action it was puzzling, and she was frowning as she started breading the fish ready to fry for Murdo John’s supper. That prompted her to wonder how poor Beatrice was coping with preparing for the supper that was to be served across the bay. She always left everything ready but she’d been complaining about the problem of getting it served up. The unacknowledged trouble was that with Beatrice’s bulk she couldn’t move swiftly, particularly if she was having to carry a loaded tray, and Adam, never noted for tolerating anything that impinged on his comfort, was getting seriously irritated.

  He didn’t, she’d noticed, take it out on Beatrice – from remarks that she had dropped occasionally Vicky had deduced that she was bankrolling much of the operation – but Harry seemed to have no such scruples. He didn’t seem to realise that he wasn’t going to make Beatrice less clumsy by making her nervous as well.

  Beatrice was hard to like but she did feel very sorry for her. A lot of her social problems stemmed from awkwardness; she could never have been attractive and she had developed a sort of shell to protect herself that often made her seem snobby and stand-offish, but she cared about the children the charity worked to rescue with all her heart. Vicky had seen her in tears more than once over some particularly tragic story that had come in and she was utterly dedicated to her work – her passion for it had even persuaded Vicky herself to donate. It was just a pity that she was equally dedicated to Adam Carnegie, who was exploiting her ruthlessly, but there was nothing Vicky could do about that.

  The big question was whether Harry was going to be making a long stay; if he was – well, she could see it coming. Adam would make her job conditional on her staying to serve up the evening meal as well. Her stomach churned at the thought of having to live in the atmosphere that seemed to get more toxic by the day but she wasn’t going to give in. She was going to agree, whatever it might do to her marriage.

  Livvy Murray stood peering into her wardrobe, then, not seeing what she was looking for, went across to rummage in the pile of clothes heaped on the chair in the corner of her bedroom.

  She’d considered quite carefully what she was going to put on. She wanted to spell out that she didn’t belong out here in the sticks but she’d left most of her smart-casual stuff at home in Glasgow – you didn’t need smart up here. She might be irritated that the DI from Edinburgh had been sent at all but she wasn’t going to be written off as one of the teuchters. So that merited her best jeans; she only hoped they weren’t in the wash. No, there they were, and only a bit crumpled.

  She’d a denim bomber jacket that was quite smart and then all she’d need was her Gap T-shirt, but that definitely wasn’t around. She could only hope it was in the dry pile downstairs, waiting for a day when she felt like ironing. Days like that didn’t come along often.

  Luck was with her and she plugged in the iron, laid a couple of dish towels on the kitchen table and ironed the T-shirt – well, probably ‘flattened’ was a better word. No need to bother about the back when she’d be wearing a jacket.

  If he’d come up as planned, he’d likely be in the pub for a drink after the journey, so if she wanted to catch him she ought to go now; it was six o’clock already. She changed quickly and put on a bit of slap. She was channelling professional, but on the other hand she didn’t want to look as if she’d gone native and adopted weather-beaten as her style of choice.

  When she was ready to go, she assessed herself in the badly lit mirror. Maybe she’d erred a wee bit on the tarty side but it was too late to remove it and start again.

  She shrugged. He’d just have to take her as he found her. He’d be away again before long, once he realised what a waste of his time this was.

  There was a cocktail bar just off the front hall and Kelso Strang looked in as he came downstairs before dinner. There were small dark wood tables with spindly legs on the patterned red carpet and there were framed etchings of what looked like Scottish castles on the walls; the style of the chairs upholstered in red nylon velvet owed something to Louis XIV – not in a good way – and an elderly couple were sitting at the table nearest the window. Fiona Ross was standing talking to them, a tray balanced on her hip.

  He’d had enough of that lady and he made a neat swerve left instead into the extension with the pub sign outside that he’d noticed when he arrived.

  The Black Cuillin was definitely catering for a very different clientele, with practical tile flooring and ropes, ice-axes and even climbing boots displayed by way of decoration. Here the framed pictures were enlarged Ordnance Survey maps and there was one impressive blown-up photo of the majestic ridge Kelso had seen on his way here. There were booths with benches round the walls and a couple of large round tables in the centre of the room.

  There was a handful of people in already, one group obviously just back from a day on the hills, with heavy socks folded down over the sort of huge, clumpy boots you would only choose to wear for severely practical reasons. There was a cheer and some raucous laughter as one of their number made his way back to the booth with beer glasses and a jug.

  Trained to observation, Kelso automatically flicked a glance round the room, registering that the man and woman sitting up at the bar had reacted as he came in. They had immediately looked away again and started talking animatedly, but his heart sank. Of course he’d been naive to think that the locals wouldn’t have spotted a good chance to get ahead in the gossip stakes. He could hardly walk back out, though, so he took a seat at the farther end of the bar, giving them a cool nod. ‘A pint of special,’ he said.

  The barman said, ‘Sir,’ and went to pull it. He was a big, dark-haired man with a beard and craggy features – Murdo John Macdonald, presumably, and he clearly wasn’t in a chatty mood. In fact, he didn’t seem the type to seek out the bright side of life, even at the best of times. Kelso was certainly planning to talk to him, but the public bar with the couple at the other end stealing sidelong glances at him wasn’t the place. He’d drink his pint quickly and get out.

  The woman was quite tall, young and attractive-looking with fair curly hair and clear blue eyes, set wide apart. She turned to smile at him. ‘You’re a visitor, are you?’

  He gave a brief smile in return. ‘Mmm
,’ he said, which could mean anything.

  She persisted. ‘Lovely weather today, anyway. I don’t think the forecast’s very good for tomorrow, though.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said again, as discouragingly as he could. She paused, but he suspected she knew exactly who he was and now was figuring out her next move.

  Just then the door opened and a young woman came in. She was quite small – not much more than five foot five – and small-boned. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket and her curly hair was hennaed a deep shade of red that was almost pink. Her make-up suggested she was planning a night clubbing, which seemed unlikely in a place like this. In the present company, she looked like a parrot in a flock of sparrows.

  She glanced round then to his dismay made straight for him. ‘DI Strang? I’m PC Murray – Livvy. Welcome to Balnasheil.’

  He didn’t seem grateful that she’d come to see him settled in, Livvy thought resentfully as she took an inventory of Kelso Strang while he bought her a drink.

  He wasn’t classically good-looking – his face was a little too long and his eyes were slightly hooded, but they were an interesting colour, a sort of brownish-green. He was well over six foot, too, and broad-shouldered with it; he looked as if he knew how to handle himself, the sort of guy you’d like to find yourself next to in the line if there was trouble brewing – even if it looked as if someone had glassed him. Maybe you needed to see what he’d done to the other fella.

  Yes, she’d have to admit he was attractive. He had nice hands, too, she noticed as he set down her drink on the table – Livvy had a bit of a thing about hands – with long slim fingers. And a wedding ring. That figured. How come the buff guys were always married or gay – or both?

  He’d look good if he was smiling but he seemed kind of stiff and buttoned-up. Probably this was what went for professional if you came from Edinburgh, but she felt as if she could have chipped ice cubes off him for her vodka and tonic to save Murdo John the trouble.