The Secret Portrait (A Jean Fairbairn/Alasdair Cameron mystery Book 1)

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  “But a right softie still, I reckon,” Hugh said indulgently. “I should be asking you how it’s going. The papers are making a meal of it, your biography, Chief Inspector Cameron’s biography, the lot. Mostly they’re on to Rick, though, a wealthy nutter being like catnip to a cat and all.”

  Cameron’s escutcheon probably didn’t have a single blotch on it, not like hers. “The papers will be having an even bigger feast tomorrow,” Jean said. “Now the cook’s died in a car accident rushing away from the scene.”

  Hugh whistled amazement.

  “Also. Well . . .” Okay, so she was feeling obscurely guilty about Neil, even though she hadn’t led him on. Maybe she could still help him out.

  “Aye?” Hugh prompted.

  “I think I told you about the young guy here who plays the pipes.”

  “He’s good, is he?”

  Jean skipped any expressions such as “to die for.” “He sounds good to me. And he’s quite an admirer of yours.”

  “Any professional experience?”

  “He’s played with Gallowglass several times.”

  “He has? When?”

  “At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year. And in Dundee over Hogmanay, when you were here.”

  “Well now,” said Hugh, so cautiously Jean’s radar blipped. “Not to speak ill of your laddie, but Gallowglass’ van ran off the road in a snowstorm outside Aberdeen and knocked the lads about so badly they’ve not performed in public at all, let alone at the Festival, a year since.”

  “Oh. . . .” She didn’t add the four-letter word.

  “They’re planning a comeback, laid down some tracks at a couple of recording sessions—could have been over Hogmanay, right enough. Filled in with some studio musicians. Maybe that’s what your laddie meant to say.”

  Neil shrunk from a prince into a frog right before her eyes. No, my laddie meant to build up his resume.

  “If he’ll come to Glasgow in June,” Hugh, always kind-hearted, went on, “Billy and I’ll be playing at the Kilmarnock Club, I’d be glad to give him a listen.”

  “Thanks Hugh, that’s . . .” The phone beeped in her ear. Call waiting. “I’ve got to go. Scratch Dougie’s ears for me, please.”

  “Will do. I’d be telling you to have a care, but this Cameron chap looks to be the dependable sort. You’re in good hands.”

  “Thanks.” But the hands she’d been in were Neil’s. . . . She switched channels both mentally and on the phone. “Hello?”

  “Jean,” said Miranda’s whiskey-flavored voice. “You rang?”

  “Yes I did. The plot’s thickening.” Jean told her the story of Norman Hawley, from soup to nuts to what Vanessa had said about his paranoia. “I’m wondering if he had some reason to be wary of the police or whether it’s just that general police car in the rear view mirror feeling we all get.”

  “I’ll have a look into Hawley’s background. Where did the MacSorleys find him?”

  “La Brasserie in Inverness.”

  “Oh aye, good food and close to the Public Library in Farraline Park. You can feed your belly and your brain in one go.”

  “It’s near the Library?” Jean filed that factoid away for consideration. “Do you have anything for me?”

  “Of course I do. First of all, you’ve probably heard by now that Toby Walsh is a lag. A ticket-of-leave man. A paroled convict. Sent down for breaking and entering.”

  “Yes, Chief Inspector Cameron did tell me that.”

  “I hear from Toby’s mum that her father was in the commandos with George Lovelace. Killed in action in Sicily. George kept in touch with the family, sent them money when they fell on hard times, then offered to help Toby by finding him work.”

  “George being conscientious to a fault,” Jean said. Honorable, as Fiona said.

  “He felt that getting Toby away from his fellow neds would rehabilitate him. He had a point there.”

  “Toby seems well-meaning enough. Maybe that translates into easily led. But I sure can’t see him murdering George. Or messing with the brakes on the MacSorley’s car, although if Cameron says they’d been messed with. . . .” When did she start considering Cameron an unimpeachable source? “Toby’s lucky to be named ‘Walsh.’ That gave him an in with Rick.”

  “Sorry?” Miranda asked.

  “Rick and his Jacobite mania.”

  “Ah. You’ve not heard anything more about this Lodge of his, I gather.”

  “Only the odd hint or so. Rick’s going to make some announcement tomorrow, though.”

  “A press conference?”

  “Well, if you call one reporter, me, ‘press.’”

  “Oooh, an exclusive! Well done Jean!”

  “Thanks, but it’s Rick’s idea, not mine.”

  Murmuring dissent, Miranda went on, “Secondly, I’ve had a chat with Derek at The Sunburn. Miss Meg never gave him anything to go on. He’s thinking now she was winding him up and never intended any sort of exposé more interesting than that Rick eats peas with his knife.”

  “I wouldn’t say his table manners were as refined as some,” said Jean, “but I’m sure Meg could have come up with something better than that.”

  “But she was intimidated out of it, I’m thinking.”

  “I can see Kieran MacSorley sending the girl away in tears.”

  Jean could tell Miranda was nodding in agreement—she could hear jewelry jangling discreetly, as good-quality jewelry should do. “Speaking of Kieran,” Miranda went on, “did you know that his father Archie died in the war?”

  “Oh yes. A decorated war hero, Charlotte said.”

  “He was given some sort of compensation medal posthumously, aye, but he never had the chance for heroics. Remember the forty-five men who were killed at the commando school?”

  “Archie was killed here?”

  “That he was, during a live-fire exercise in nineteen forty-two. Left the family a ruined mansion and the land but little else, it appears. I’m surprised it took them almost sixty years to sell up to an American billionaire.”

  “Maybe they didn’t have one in their sights until now.” Jean drummed her fingers on her notebook. So Vanessa’s version of the sale was probably the right one. Kieran had been very clever to troll the Internet genealogy sites for someone who would buy his white elephant of a house and provide him with cash. “Miranda, do you have any idea what the terms of the sale were? Kieran’s acting like the foreman of the factory or the overseer of the plantation or something. Is he on a retainer?”

  “Good question. I’ll see what I can turn up.” A brief pause—Jean heard a keyboard clicking. “Thirdly. . . .”

  “You have something else?”

  “I take my work seriously,” said Miranda. “Thirdly, I’ve sussed out Rick MacLyon’s mother’s maiden name.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “It’s good for the entertainment value. He was born Rick Douglas, mind, and his mother’s name is Sobieski.”

  Jean grinned. “Cool! Same as Bonnie Prince Charlie’s mother! And those charming rascals the Sobieski-Stuarts with their book of ancient tartans! I’m beginning to see why the whole name thing is so important to him—he must think he’s a relative.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first person to set himself up a posh family tree.”

  “I bet there’s a Cameron branch in there somewhere, too, he’s got a real thing about the Camerons. . . . Genealogy. That’s one of the things he must have had George doing for him, digging around in the Highland Archive at the Inverness Public Library. Close to Norman’s restaurant.”

  “We’ve come full circle,” said Miranda.

  “I’m certainly dizzy,” Jean told her. “One more thing. The housekeeper, Fiona Robertson. Vanessa says she’s a widow, something about a soap opera.”

  “Is Robertson her married name?”

  “Hm. I don’t know. Can you find out?”

  “Oh aye,” Miranda said equably.

  “Fiona went to the University of Pennsylv
ania. Is there any chance she knew either Rick or Vanessa back in the States? You said Vanessa went to Wellesley, but what about Rick?”

  “Left school before he was ever granted a degree, if I’m remembering correctly. I’ll put Gavin onto it.”

  Jean wondered whether Gavin had realized what he was getting into when he’d signed on at Great Scot. She certainly hadn’t. She’d seen herself digging through ancient attics and pottering away among old books, like Lovelace had done before his date with a murderer. “I’m curious how Fiona got her job, too. Whether she’s another one of Kieran’s bright ideas or an independent force or what.”

  “We shall see.” Miranda laughed. “Jean, Duncan’s waiting at the door. He’s booked a table at The Witchery.”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to interfere with your love life.”

  “No worry, the man’s been trained properly. I’ll be in touch tomorrow, shall I? Have a good evening.”

  Jean had already missed her chance for an evening, however good or bad she’d never know. “Thanks. You too.” She switched off the phone and stared blankly around.

  For a moment she’d been in Miranda’s chic top-floor flat with Duncan, a distinguished silver-haired, silver-tongued, and silver-laden lawyer, bringing them glasses of champagne. Jean decided she should model her love life, if she ever got brave enough to go looking for one, on Miranda’s. Mutual respect and mutual space. Honesty. No games.

  No less-than-distinguished but undeniably charming young rascals. Laughing ruefully, she stood up and stretched. If she could forgive her own momentary temptation with Neil, then she could forgive his lie. His small lie. Inflating the resume ran in the family. At least he was breaking the mold by wanting to be a musician. She’d gotten him an audition with Hugh. Whatever happened after that, the situation was out of her hands. And she was out of Neil’s.

  Stowing her telephone in her bag, Jean tucked it away with the notebook and computer in a bottom drawer. Locking the barn door well after the horses had become dog food, in other words.

  At George Lovelace’s house, all the doors and cabinets had been left open, the searcher knowing the owner wouldn’t be coming back. Had that searcher been Toby? What he been looking for? Had he found it?

  Toby had been convicted of breaking and entering, that was fact. And Jean doubted if he’d come to her hotel room for a literary discussion. Maybe he’d intended to search it, too. Maybe he’d searched her car Tuesday night, when he’d brought her her coat. But for what? Her notes? The coin?

  Just because she wanted to give Toby the benefit of doubt just as much as she wanted to give it to Neil, didn’t mean Toby wasn’t guilty of everything from burgling to murder, as soon-to-be charged.

  She had stalled around long enough. It was time to do the info-dump on Chief Inspector Cameron—including her suspicions of Fiona—and get it over with. If he really were the dependable sort, if he really were an unimpeachable source, then he had to listen to her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Jean had to stop herself from sidling crabwise down the corridor, keeping her back to the wall and leaping past every doorway. Even at the best of times she would have found the shadowed nooks and crannies of the house sinister rather than picturesque. Now she thought fond thoughts of searchlights. But then, George had been murdered in broad daylight.

  There were times she wished she could switch off her imagination. This was one of them. But no, it was tied into her perceptions.

  She tiptoed down the back staircase and stopped at the bottom. Amplified theme music reverberated in the media room to her right. The speakers hidden in the stairwell emanated a female voice singing in Gaelic. From the open door of the billiard room came a haze of cigarette smoke and Kieran’s voice, dripping rancid oil. “. . . wife’s in shock. What are you after doing about that?”

  “I’m not a doctor, Mr. MacSorley,” returned Cameron’s measured tones. “It would be unethical for me to either diagnose or treat your wife.”

  “I do beg your pardon, Inspector, I’m hardly suggesting physical care. I’m asking you how you plan to go about doing your job. My wife was almost killed. She almost took the bullet for me.”

  “Oh, was there a gun fired?”

  Kieran’s voice rose. Obviously if he spoke more loudly, Cameron would understand him. “Here, Inspector, I realize you have many things on your mind just now. Allow me to explain. That lag Walsh set the trap for me, not my wife. He had the car in to be serviced yesterday. He bashed one of the brake lines so that the fluid would leak out—there’s a bloody great puddle of it in the driveway.”

  “We’re trying to determine how the puncture was made in the brake line. Running over a rock, perhaps. Any number of rocks about.”

  “I realize you weren’t there at the time, Inspector. Let me assure you that the crash was no accident.”

  “You watched it happen, then.” Cameron’s voice was so dry Jean expected to see a dust devil whirl out the door of the room. She shook her head in reluctant admiration.

  “I heard the squeal of brakes and an almighty splash. I ran to the road, helped my wife from our car, returned to the house, and phoned emergency services straightaway. Ghastly moment, made worse when I found that it was Norman’s car in the water. It’s been a very difficult day, Inspector, let me tell you. Very difficult. But we have to cope, don’t we?”

  It was a bit harder on Norman than on you, Jean thought.

  “Why, then,” asked Cameron, “did emergency services take down your call thirty minutes after my constable saw Hawley leave here?”

  Good point. The way Norman was driving he should have made it to the MacSorley’s house in five or six minutes, if that long.

  “I have no idea, Inspector. Probably the operator who took my call was somewhat—let me put this delicately. Slow. Dense. Many of these people are hired from job centers, after all.”

  Cameron said nothing.

  “Now Inspector,” Kieran went on, enunciating very clearly. “Please excuse my saying so, but if the police had pulled their fingers out to begin with—I beg your pardon, that was a bit rude, surely you’ll understand how upset I am over the situation—if the police had worked as efficiently as they might have done, this deliberate attack upon myself and my family would never have happened.”

  “Oh?” Cameron said, still dry, still cool.

  “Far be it from me to tell you how to go about your work, Inspector, but this lag Walsh should have set off alarm bells when you first arrived. He was George’s idea. The bleeding heart academic giving the poor yob a hand up. It’s these liberal politicians—they mean well, I’m sure, but let’s face the truth, they’re a plague on the land. And on the honest landowner. Why they’ve made it next to impossible to have a good day out shooting!”

  Jean didn’t disagree with Kieran about politicians of any hue being a plague, but she wouldn’t have cited his example.

  “Now look what’s happened, Inspector, George is dead, my wife was almost killed, and the cook I chose for Rick—an artist, I tell you—is cut down in his prime. I suppose I have poor Norman to thank that it wasn’t my wife or myself gone tumbling into the loch, although, mind, he hardly intended to throw himself in harm’s way.” Kieran clucked his tongue. “It goes to show who was the better judge of character, eh? George, for all his scholastic virtues, was quite ignorant of the world.”

  “How did you get on with Mr. Lovelace?” asked Cameron.

  “As I’ve informed that unfortunately ill-mannered sergeant of yours, we got on well enough, for two people of very different social backgrounds who had little in common.”

  “You have nothing against him, then?”

  “I never speak ill of the dead. Let bygones be bygones, I always say.”

  “What did you have against him when he was alive?”

  “The man was a dreadful old pedant, could bore a turnip to tears, but he knew his business. I believe it was your wee schoolboy constable who took that down already, but of course I may be mistak
en, being overwrought with my wife’s brush with death and all.”

  “You staffed the house for Mr. MacLyon, did you?”

  “I found Norman and George. Fiona, she made her own way here. It’s no fault of mine George brought in a yob like Walsh. A dangerous man, I’ve thought so all along. But I don’t make disparaging remarks about anyone.”

  “How did you meet Rick MacLyon?”

  “Through mutual friends, venture capitalists and the like. He was very pleased indeed, let me tell you, to find someone capable of helping with the restoration of this fine mansion.”

  Cameron didn’t offer an opinion on that. Jean could imagine his face, stone still, only the faintest twitch eroding the corners of his mouth. Thinking. Evaluating. Computing. Sensing.

  “Well then, Inspector,” demanded Kieran, “what are you going to do about this attack on me and my wife?”

  “I’m suggesting that you get on about your business and leave us to get on with the investigation.”

  After a long, ominous moment of silence, Kieran said effusively, “Of course, of course, no rest for hard workers such as ourselves, eh, Inspector? My member of parliament will be hearing from me, how good it is that my tax burden is going to pay the salary of such a fine representative of our law-enforcement services.”

  “This is the member of parliament who’s a plague on the land?” Cameron asked. “Good night, Mr. MacSorley. Oh, and it’s Chief Inspector.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, I do beg your pardon, Chief Inspector it is.”

  Jean peered around the corner to see Kieran burst out of the billiards room and stand in the corridor scowling, clenching and releasing his fists. Even though Jean had also been worked over by Cameron, whose silences were harsher than any rubber hose, she managed to contain her sympathy. None of the MacSorleys could tell a story straight if you gave them a plumb bob.

  Kieran headed not for the door but toward her listening post. Jean bounded up several steps, managed to make a pirouette without tripping herself up, and started back down again. Kieran burst around the corner like a bull on his way to a china shop, any china shop, just as long as it was filled with lots of breakables.