If either of the MacSorleys caught his meaning, they showed no sign of it. Kieran lifted his arm, ostentatiously pushed back his sleeve, and consulted his watch, a thick, shiny model that probably calculated stock quotes as well as the time. “If you’re quite finished, Chief. . . .”
“Your father,” said Cameron, “served in the commandos with Lovelace.”
That took Kieran by surprise. His black eyes flashed. “Why yes, he did do.”
“Do you know how your father died?”
“In a live-fire accident at Achnacarry, during training. This isn’t something we put about, of course, a bit awkward, isn’t it?”
Cameron leaned forward just a bit, forcing Kieran to take a step backwards and bump up against Charlotte’s pouter-pigeon chest. “Did you know your father died the same night Glendessary House burned down?”
“Did he? Well, well, well. Like Greek myth, isn’t it, the man and his ancestral home are taken at the same time. Quite a story there, I’m sure. Is that why you’re working hand in glove with the press?” Kieran, obviously deciding the best defense was offense, pointed toward Jean.
Charlotte picked up on her cue. “Considering what’s happened in your own life, Chief Inspector, I’d think you’d prefer staying as far from the press as possible. But with your commendations, well, no doubt you have a very bright future ahead of you. A little publicity, however vulgar, goes a long way to helping one achieve his ambitions.”
That was hitting below the belt, Jean thought indignantly. But Cameron merely lowered his head and in his best—his worst—stern voice asked, “Have you any further information to share about Lovelace’s death? Any thought of who might have murdered him?”
“I should think it was perfectly obvious,” said Charlotte. “I tried to warn Vanessa, as Rick was beyond reason—imagine hiring a criminal as a security guard! But no, Walsh got his hand into everything. One can only imagine what he discovered whilst poking about.”
It was hard, Jean thought, to guard the body of a man who rarely left his house. No wonder Toby had ended up as jack-of-all-trades. General dogsbody, as Neil had said about himself.
Neil’s father said condescendingly, “You understand, of course, Chief Inspector, that Walsh is trying to incriminate anyone around him, no matter how ludicrous the charge. But you’re locking him away good and proper, aren’t you? Good man. Well done. Now if you’ll excuse us.” Kieran seized Charlotte’s wrist and dragged her out the door. A moment later the outer door slammed shut.
Jean leaned back against the wall, the paneling hard and cold against her shoulder blades. Cameron stood like an ice sculpture in the middle of the room. She could almost hear the crash of melting icicles, the long sharp kind that occasionally stabbed an unwary passerby to the heart. Melting icicles that hinted at a white-hot anger inside his cold shell. But then, he didn’t waste that anger on just anyone. He saved it for the people who threatened him. That, too, she could sympathize with.
“So who’s scamming who here?” she asked. “Whose idea was it to play to Rick’s fantasies, George’s or Kieran’s?”
“I’m still betting on MacSorley. Although Lovelace was certainly not what we thought he was.”
“Who is?”
Cameron’s eyes turned toward her. He didn’t need to answer that one.
“So now you’ve hauled Toby away again. Both times because of the MacSorleys. First the brakes on the car, now the burglary. Can you say ‘scapegoat’?”
“I’m not disagreeing with you. But it’s his word against theirs.”
“And he has a record.” Jean shifted her laptop and the album to her other arm. “I guess Toby wore gloves at George’s house? He’d have some fingerprints there already, but surely not on everything.”
“I reckon so.” Cameron gestured toward the plywood-covered billiard table in the main room. “We’ve got one pair in evidence, although we picked those up before Walsh went out to Corpach.”
Following his pointing fingertip, she walked out into the cooler air of the outer room. Other than the low hum of power, the room was silent. On the table cardboard trays held neatly labeled boxes and bags, including a plastic-wrapped pair of canvas gloves. “There are probably twenty pairs of garden gloves like this lying around.”
“Oh aye,” said Cameron from just behind her shoulder. His arm edged through her peripheral vision and his fingertips patted the plastic bag, making a tiny crinkling sound. “But these have got fibers from Lovelace’s tweed suit and a couple of hairs from his head. As well as muckle pollen and bits of garden twine, although that’s not saying a great deal. They were found in the shrubbery just outwith the back door.”
“The murderer wore these when. . . .” A chill tightened Jean’s shoulder blades, and not because Cameron was standing so close to her. She extended her own hand for comparison. It was smaller than Cameron’s, but not much smaller than the gloves. “They seem kind of little for Toby, don’t they?”
“That they do, but they’d fit well enough if need be.” His hand reached into a box and pulled out a bag containing a thick stick, indented slightly in the middle and stained with mud on one end. “This was used in the garden to prop up a plant. See how it’s been pressed in? It’s the stick that turned the garrote, most likely.”
“Oh.” Such an insignificant stick to take someone’s life.
“The twine ligature—well, you’re not after seeing that, I reckon.”
“No, thank you,” Jean said emphatically. “I saw it in use.”
“Aye.” Cameron made a sigh out of the word, so that his breath stirred the hairs on the back of Jean’s neck.
With a shiver of something that she saw no point in acknowledging, she stepped away toward a row of larger bags. Each held a folded piece of MacLyon tartan. “What’s in here?”
“Clothes.”
“The kilts Toby and Rick were wearing at the time of the murder, right? Vanessa’s kilted skirt. And Neil’s and Fiona’s clothes too, just to be fair.”
“Just to be fair.” Cameron tilted one bag toward her, so she could see the knife-edge pleats and buckled leather straps of one of the kilts. “Fiona’s telling me each man’s kilt and her and Vanessa’s skirts were custom-made. Must have cost MacLyon thousands. No surprise he’s the only man here with more than just the one.”
“A properly-made kilt isn’t cheap,” Jean agreed. She’d priced them at the Texas Scottish Festival more than once, but could never convince Brad it would be worth the investment—even though, to his credit, he hadn’t been given to cracks about guys in skirts.
“The football fans have taken to buying women’s tartan skirts at Marks and Spencer. Works well enough when following the team.”
“If not as classy.”
Cameron’s forefinger lifted the bag’s tag with its careful listing of the chain of evidence. “Ordinarily we’d have collected bits and pieces of the Lodge members’ clothing as well, but since MacLyon saw them off before we arrived, they had every opportunity to destroy anything relevant.”
“Not that they had anything relevant to destroy.”
“No.” He let the tag fall soundlessly back against the plastic.
“You never collected anything of mine, either, except fingerprints.”
“Oh aye. Bit of an oversight there, I’m thinking.” His voice was even drier than usual.
“You never suspected me at all, did you? It was only Sawyer who did.”
“I’ll not be revealing trade secrets, Miss Fairbairn.” With the least hint of a smile, Cameron took a couple of steps toward the smaller room. “I’ve got more reports and interviews to read through before MacLyon’s command performance the night.”
Jean took the hint. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Rick said something about suitable clothing, I’d better go find out just what he has in mind for me. I see your outfit’s already been delivered.” She gestured at the kilt hanging from the rack. “That looks like an Argyll jacket, not a Prince Charlie coatee. Is Rick going
semi-formal?”
“I’ve no idea how MacLyon’s dressing himself. That’s my own kilt and jacket. I had one of the lads bring it down from Inverness. The kilt-hire places rarely get the fitting just right. It’s subtle, but it makes a difference.”
Jean stared. Cameron? A Gaelic fashionista? But if he had any expression on his face at all, it was yet another variation of Don’t Tread on Me. Don’t worry, she wanted to tell him, she had as much intention of treading on him as she had of letting him tread on her. Neither of them, though, had to state the obvious.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
According to the clock in the entrance hall, it was two p.m. From the kitchen end of the house came mingled female voices, Fiona’s overridden by Charlotte’s and both punctuated by Vanessa’s questioning inflections that were not questions at all. Delectable aromas filled the air.
Jean’s stomach was growling, but she figured it would be better to go to ground than brave the fray. She hurried up the stairs and unlocked the door to her room. Just as she was closing it, Clarinda came trotting down the hall, meowing peremptorily. “You, too?” Jean asked her. The cat slipped inside, leaped up on the bed, and started sniffing at the swath of MacLyon tartan that had magically appeared there since the morning.
The tartan sash was laid across the white blouse and black skirt that had been hanging in her wardrobe. A neatly-printed note read, “Please wear these clothes. Dinner is at seven. A lunch is on your desk. F.”
Jean crumpled the paper and pitched it toward the waste basket, then had to walk across the room and pick it up. Good servants were supposed to do go through your things and make decisions about your meals, weren’t they? As far as Jean was concerned, that was a good reason for being a member of the proletariat.
She opened the drapes, sat down at the desk, and lifted a starched white dish cloth from a tray. A ham sandwich sprinkled with cress, potato chips, two morsels of shortbread, and a bottle of Highland Spring mineral water. Okay, so Fiona had made a good decision about her meal. She picked up a sandwich-quarter and bit, wondering if Cameron were having any lunch. He had to live on something more than coffee—he wasn’t as wispy-thin as Rick. Or as tall and slender as Neil. Not that his body shape mattered, she told herself firmly.
The day had turned into a beauty, the sky a fathomless blue, the mountains’ harsh edges tempered by sunlight into Art Nouveau designs. Below the window, on the lawn beside the courtyard, Kieran was smoking and Neil was tuning his pipes, interspersing skillful runs of notes with the occasional squawk. By Kieran’s insistent gestures Jean assumed he was offering advice. By the angle of Neil’s shoulder she assumed he was rejecting it.
Clarinda leaped onto the desk, almost upsetting the tray. Laughing, Jean lifted the cat back down—she was one heavy animal—and bought her off with a bit of ham. Clarinda’s sharp teeth snatched it up without biting the hand that fed her.
Once the plates were stacked back beneath their towel and Clarinda had settled down for a nap at the foot of the bed, Jean got out her notebook. She could get an article from the gold coin. She could get one from Archie’s ghost. She could get one from the commando school. Whether she got anything out of George’s murder, which tied all the other stories together but which was outside Great Scot’s jurisdiction, was something she’d have to discuss less with Miranda than with her own scruples.
From outside came the bravura strains of “Scotland the Brave.” Instead of standing and saluting, Jean picked up the photograph album. The faded photos were stuck onto thick black paper pages with glue that had become brittle over the years and left little amber particles on her fingers. Each photo was annotated by a hand-printed label.
Among all the fresh, young faces she recognized George’s and Archie’s. Several pictures showed them kidding around, grinning. Seeing the men young and vital emphasized the tragedy of their deaths, both of which had been premature. That was the horror of a ghost, the what-might-have-been of its life.
The last page of the album had come partly loose from the binding. It looked as though George had repaired it recently, the glue was still flexible. . . . No. Wait. This page was heavier than the rest, two sheets of the black paper stuck together. No wonder it had pulled loose. The question was, why would George glue two pages together?
Jean inspected the double page in the light of the desk lamp. The glue behind the photos on its front and back was also more recent than the crumbling glue of the other pages. And, she thought, carefully rubbing the paper between thumb and forefinger, this page was a bit thicker than any two of the others put together. Was something hidden between them?
She rummaged through her bag and pulled out her miniature Swiss Army knife. Carefully she worked the blade between the two leaves of paper, just far enough to slice them apart. She peered into the gap. Good God. Something white was nestled inside.
Her adrenalin surge was as strong as when she’d found George dead, like an electric charge exploding in her chest. Once again her idle curiosity had turned up the unexpected, although this time it wasn’t the question, it was . . . George had told Ogilvy all the answers were in this album. He had not meant that metaphorically.
Her lip caught between her teeth, as though that somehow steadied her hand, Jean slit the pages far enough apart to work tweezers between them. There! She had it!
She pulled a sheet of white parchment paper from the book and spread it out beneath the lamp. At the top, in beautiful eighteenth-century script, was written, “The Testament of George Albert Lovelace. At the end of a long life, conscience oft times comes to war with expedience. . . .”
“Good God,” Jean said aloud. She leaped up, found the press kit Rick had given her, and dumped out the documents. Being copies, she couldn’t tell whether they’d been written on the same paper with the same ink. But the page from the album had the same handwriting as one of the copied letters. And of the bogus registry entry, too, allowing for a curlicue here and there.
She read quickly through George’s testament. Names, places, dates. How he had confessed his guilt to Kieran. How Kieran had manipulated him into forging the documents and including them in his perfectly honest work for Rick. How George, caught in a cleft stick, had “made a decision.” Cameron himself couldn’t have set down a statement this meticulous. The only data that weren’t there was the full story of Archie’s death.
Had George written this out and hidden it in the album on general principles? Or had he had some intimation of—well, not his death, necessarily, but trouble to come? Like an invitation to meet someone at Glendessary House during the Lodge meeting?
Exultant and impatient both—this was a major breakthrough, but it still didn’t provide the all-important name—Jean tucked the new page into the press kit with the others. Closing that in the album, she headed for the door. No one was in the corridor or on the staircase. When she burst into the billiards room only one youngish guy was still there, staring vacantly at a computer screen. She didn’t stop to exchange pleasantries or make excuses but went straight for the back room.
Cameron was right where he’d said he’d be, sitting behind the desk, papers spread out before him. He looked questioningly over the top of his glasses when Jean pelted in.
She extended the album toward him. “Look here. George’s confession. What do you want to bet this is what Charlotte had Toby searching for? It was right in front of him the entire time. And of us, too. I picked up this album myself that day in Corpach. It was on George’s coffee table. He got it out before he came to Edinburgh to see me, probably to hide the confession.”
Cameron looked over the book and the papers, quickly but thoroughly. She could almost see the flow charts and subject outlines scrolling down his face. “This shops Kieran MacSorley right and proper, doesn’t it?” he said at last, with that same quick, dry grin she’d glimpsed once before.
“It’s still George’s word against Kieran’s. And it doesn’t name the killer.”
“Oh aye, but still, well d
one, Miss Fairbairn.”
“You would have found it yourself eventually,” she conceded.
“Perhaps.” He shouted, “Shaw!” toward the outer room. When the younger man appeared, Cameron ordered, “Bag and label this paper. Get it and the album to the labs in Inverness. Request a complete work-up—fingerprints, paper, ink, the lot. Compare it to the MacLyon documents.”
“Yes sir.”
“Phone D.S. Sawyer and tell him to give over the search of Lovelace’s attic. Tell him to meet up with D.C. Gunn in Fort William and have another go at Walsh, then come back here.”
“Yes, sir.” Shaw carried the album and the papers away.
Cameron considered the photos in the press kit, then closed it and laid it on the desk. Taking off his glasses, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Headache?” Jean asked.
“No more than usual. I’m thinking it’s not my eyes . . .” he held up his glasses, “. . . but my brain. Takes a lot more effort nowadays to get through the same amount of work.”
“I know what you mean. Sometimes you have to fight your way through the neuron jungle with a machete.” She didn’t need to introduce the subject of burn-out. They were already on the same page, close to being in the same paragraph. Just as long as she didn’t get personal. “I don’t think George came out here Tuesday intending to stand up in front of the Lodge and blow the whistle. That’s cutting straight to the chase. If he wanted to do that, he wouldn’t have involved me.”
“I’m thinking he came to meet his killer, who lured him here on some pretext or another.”
“Pretty bold, with the house full of people.”
“And every one of them a suspect, eh?”
“Well, yeah,” said Jean. “So how many of the Lodge members thought Rick’s pretensions were a great game, and how many swallowed the whole story?”
“Some of the latter are now claiming to be amongst the former.”
“No kidding. But you’ve decided none of them could be the killer.”
The Secret Portrait (A Jean Fairbairn/Alasdair Cameron mystery Book 1) Page 29