Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea

by Nancy Atherton

  Damian’s eyes narrowed. “What have you noticed?”

  “There’s a little island off to the west of Erinskil,” said Cassie. “It’s called Cieran’s Chapel.”

  “We know it,” I said, nodding.

  Cassie leaned forward. “We were up on the coastal path the night before last, looking at the stars, when we saw a light out there—several lights, in fact. They were no more than faint flickers, but we thought it odd.”

  I shot a triumphant glance at Damian. “I told you there was a light.”

  “You saw one, too?” said Cassie.

  “Yes,” I said, “but I only saw one brief flash.”

  “What time did you see your lights, Cassie?” Damian asked.

  “Between eleven-thirty and midnight,” Cassie informed him. “That’s why it struck us as odd. On our first night here, Mrs. Muggoch had told us an absurd tale about a monk’s ghost haunting the Chapel. She seemed to believe it, but we didn’t. Still, we couldn’t imagine why anyone would be out there at such a late hour.”

  Damian peered at Cassie with a curious intensity. “Did you mention the lights to Mrs. Muggoch?”

  “Certainly not,” she said. “Peter and I don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. And after a good night’s sleep, it dawned on us that the same might be true for whoever was on Cieran’s Chapel.”

  “Cassie thinks it must have been drug smugglers,” said Peter, “dropping off a load or picking one up. And I agree with her.”

  “Drug smugglers!” I exclaimed. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We’re perfectly serious,” said Peter. “The Western Isles are a hotbed for drug smuggling. I’ve read stories about it in all the newspapers. Dealers drop shipments off in remote locations, and locals take the shipments to the mainland for distribution. You have to admit that Cieran’s Chapel would be a useful transit point.”

  “Quite useful,” Damian murmured.

  I looked from one face to another in disbelief. “You think the locals are involved?”

  “I’m afraid we do,” said Cassie. “No outsider could use the Chapel without their full knowledge and cooperation.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but closed it again. I didn’t want to believe that the illicit drug trade had sullied Sir Percy’s little corner of paradise, but it might be true. I recalled the revelation I’d had the night before and realized with a sinking heart that my newborn suspicions dovetailed rather neatly with Cassie’s.

  Aunt Dimity’s words came back to me so clearly that I could almost see them written in the air: If you want to keep people from visiting a place, you scare them off. Erinskil was all but inaccessible to casual visitors, and the few tourists who found their way to the island could theoretically be kept away from Cieran’s Chapel by the spooky mythology the islanders had built up around Brother Cieran. It was entirely possible that the islanders’ antitourism campaign had been designed to protect their drug-trafficking operation.

  “You needn’t look so shocked, Lori,” said Peter. “Smuggling is a traditional source of revenue in the islands. Drugs are simply the latest—and most lucrative—cargo.”

  “But they don’t need drug money,” I said feebly. “Percy told us that the islanders are part of a tweed-making cooperative.They make a good living selling high-quality tweed.”

  “Tweed?” Peter said incredulously. He and Cassie exchanged glances, got to their feet, and slung their day packs over their shoulders. “Come with us, Lori. There are a few things we’d like to show you.”

  Twelve

  Damian and I scrambled after Peter and Cassie as they climbed the boulder-strewn hill above the overlook. It wasn’t a long climb, but the hill was steep, and I was overheated by the time we reached the crest. I paused to unsnap and unzip my rain jacket, then jogged to catch up with the others. They’d made their way across the rounded summit and stood just below the hilltop, looking east.

  The hill’s inland slope didn’t end in precipitous cliffs but fell gently to the wide valley below in a series of broad, deep terraces. On the highest terrace, commanding a sweeping view of Erinskil’s sheep-dotted fields, lay the monastery’s skeletal remains.

  “There’s not much left,” said Peter, gazing down at the ruins. “But Mrs. Muggoch told us that there wasn’t much there in the first place. It was never a wealthy priory, like Lindesfarne in Northumberland. It didn’t last long enough to become well endowed and powerful. It was an outpost that failed.”

  Wandering sheep acted as the ruins’ groundskeepers, cropping the grass as neatly and far more quietly than any lawnmower. The short grass made it easy to see the layout of the little community, outlined in crumbling stone. Six nave pillars and a few paving slabs were all that remained of the church, and the cloister was marked by the stumps of broken arches.

  A dark stream cut a trough in the turf as it tumbled downhill from a spring some twenty yards south of the monastery, and the terraces below might once have been divided into garden plots. The monks, it seemed to me, had chosen their site wisely. It offered them fresh water, arable land, and protection from the winter gales that blew in from the west. It had not, however, saved them from the Vikings.

  I looked to my left and saw the distant specks of Stoneywell’s tidy houses gleaming white in the morning sun. The marauding Norsemen had swept through the village like flames. They’d poured into the valley to plunder the farms, then moved up the terraced hillside to slaughter the monks, loot the monastery of its humble treasures, and burn it to the ground. From the Vikings’ point of view, it had been a good day.

  “The monks must have seen what was coming,” I said, half to myself. “Why didn’t they run and hide?”

  “We’ll never know,” said Damian. “The answers to some questions are buried too deeply in the past. We can never resurrect them.”

  “On the other hand,” Peter piped up, “some answers are buried mere inches beneath the surface. It takes only a bit of scratching to uncover them. I’ll show you. Come along.”

  We zigzagged down the slope to the highest terrace, then headed for its southernmost edge, stopping on the way to look into the ruined church. The cracked and pitted paving slabs led to an oblong block of stone that lay near the church’s east end, the spot where the altar had stood.

  The block of stone appeared to be a memorial tablet, similar to the one marking the old laird’s grave on Cieran’s Chapel, but far older. The passage of time had long since erased the name of the man who’d been buried there, but the tablet’s incised decoration could still be discerned—a diamond-patterned border, bold in its simplicity.

  “Only the head of the order would have been buried so near the altar,” Peter commented, nodding at the tablet.

  “Poor man,” I said. “I wonder if he screams along with his fellow monks?”

  “Screaming monks?” Peter’s face came alive with interest. “Mrs. Muggoch hasn’t mentioned a word to us about screaming monks. Are you making it up?”

  “No, but Sir Percy might have been,” Damian answered dryly. “He likes to embellish legends.”

  I smiled, then turned to Peter. “Sir Percy told us that if you stand inside the monastery ruins on certain nights, when the moon and stars are just so, you can hear the screams of the massacred monks.”

  “Fantastic,” said Peter, gazing eagerly at the tablet. “I wonder if Mrs. Muggoch can give me the proper coordinates for the moon and stars?”

  “Peter,” Cassie scolded, “you’re being revoltingly insensitive, and you’re allowing yourself to be distracted. Shall we move on?”

  We moved on, jumping over the tumbling stream and walking to the edge of the terrace, where a half-buried boulder served as a convenient bench. When we’d taken our seats, Peter pointed toward a cluster of farm buildings not far from the foot of the hill. A long, graveled drive connected them to the road that crossed the valley from north to south.

  “MacAllen’s croft,” he said. “Look at it through your binoculars and tell me what you
see.”

  I raised the binoculars to my eyes and focused them on the farmhouse. After a short time, I moved on to the outbuildings, the pens, and the walled fields. I could tell by Damian’s movements that he was subjecting the croft to an examination that was far more minute than mine. Finally I lowered the binoculars.

  “It’s a farm,” I said. “Or, as they say in Scotland, a croft. It has a farmhouse and farm buildings and farmyards filled with sheep, which qualify as farm animals.” I shrugged. “It’s a farm.”

  Damian, who had yet to lower his binoculars, said thoughtfully, “It’s rather a nice farm, though.”

  “Exactly.” Peter nodded enthusiastically, as though Damian were his star pupil.

  “Look again, Lori,” Cassie said, taking note of my perplexity. “The MacAllens have a satellite dish. They’ve roofed their house with costly tiles and fitted it with insulated windows. They’ve added at least six rooms to the original four-room structure.”

  “The sheep interest me,” said Damian.

  “They should,” said Peter, unable to restrain himself. “Those are North Ronaldsay sheep. They’re an endangered breed. At last count there were fewer than three hundred ewes on the mainland.”

  “How on earth do you know that?” I asked, staring at him.

  “I rang an informative lady at the Cotswold Farm Park,” he answered. “Miss Henson is an expert on endangered domestic animals. I described Mr. MacAllen’s sheep to her, and she told me all about them. The rest of Erinskil’s sheep are fine animals that produce high-quality wool, but they’re not rare. Mr. MacAllen is an ovine connoisseur.”

  “I still don’t understand what you and Cassie are getting at,” I said, peering down at the sheep with my binoculars. “Mr. MacAllen’s croft is in good shape, and he owns some unusual sheep. So what?”

  “The croft isn’t in good shape, Lori,” said Cassie. “It’s flawless. We’ve seen it up close. There’s not a fleck of peeling paint or a tile out of place. The MacAllens have central heating. They have a sauna and a hot tub. Those aren’t the sorts of things you find on your average farm.”

  “But they’re not completely unexpected,” I objected. “If you live on an island, you have to make your own fun.”

  “If MacAllen’s croft were the exception, I’d agree with you,” said Cassie.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” said Peter, through cupped hands, “I hope you’ve enjoyed Exhibit A. Please follow me to Exhibits B through . . . F, would you say, Cassie?”

  “Possibly G,” said Cassie. “We have been rather busy.”

  “We have,” said Peter, grinning.

  Peter left the half-buried boulder and headed south again, descending from the terrace until he reached a faint trail that wound up and down the sides of the adjoining hills. I was certain that the trail had been made by and for sheep rather than human beings, but Peter was as sure-footed as a mountain goat. As I clambered after him, I sent a silent word of thanks to Rob and Will for keeping me in fairly good condition. The hours I’d spent chasing cricket balls for them had not been entirely wasted.

  Peter motioned for us to join him on a slight promontory that jutted out over the valley, and he pointed down to a cluster of long, tin-roofed structures behind another complex of farm buildings.

  “The shearing sheds,” he said, “are managed by the Mackinnon brothers, Neil and Norman. The Mackinnons travel with their wives and children to Australia and New Zealand every year to participate in sheepshearing competitions. They’ve won quite a few.”

  “Family holidays Down Under are not cheap,” Cassie pointed out, “nor is the equipment they use to shear Erinskil’s sheep. It’s mod cons all the way for the Mackinnon brothers. On we go.”

  “Wait a minute.” I spoke up in order to catch my breath before we tackled the sheep track again, but also because a memory had stirred. “I saw a woman hanging laundry on a line when the boys and I flew over the island with Sir Percy. If everything’s so up-to-date on Erinskil, why wasn’t she using an automatic clothes dryer?”

  “That would be Siobhan Ferguson,” said Peter. “Mick Ferguson’s daughter-in-law. She doesn’t like gadgets. She owns a tumble dryer, Lori, but she uses it only when the weather forces her to.” He hopped back onto the sheep track. “Let us proceed.”

  The next leg of the tour took us all the way to the Sleeping Dragon, the spiky ridge Sir Percy had pointed out to me from the helicopter. I managed to keep up with Peter for a while, but his long strides ate up ground much faster than my short ones, and I was soon lagging behind. Cassie chose to hang back with me, and Damian, of course, was never more than a few feet away from me. I rapidly developed a deep antipathy toward both of them. It was, I felt, cruel, inconsiderate, and possibly unnatural of them to hold a casual conversation when all I could do was pant and puff.

  “How did you find out so much about the islanders?” Damian asked the young woman. “You’ve been here less than a week, and they’re reputed to be extremely tight-lipped.”

  “It’s Peter.” Cassie gazed at Peter’s distant back and smiled. “Peter could chat up a stone statue. Everyone—simply everyone—talks to him. It’s because he’s so enthusiastic, so authentically sincere. He’s truly interested in every subject under the sun—sheepshearing, family history, everything.”

  “Why isn’t he at university?” Damian asked.

  Cassie laughed and I gave a gasping chuckle as we attacked the Sleeping Dragon’s nearly vertical northern flank. We knew something Damian didn’t.

  “Peter took his degree when he was seventeen,” Cassie kindly explained. “He took three, in fact, in natural history, anthropology, and business management.”

  “What business does he intend to manage?” asked Damian.

  “The family business,” Cassie replied. “Peter will inherit the Hailesham estate when his grandfather dies. He intends to keep it intact for his children and his grandchildren.”

  “Britain’s future is in good hands, it seems,” said Damian, nodding.

  “Peter’s a smarty-pants,” I agreed, between huffs.

  Peter was waiting for us when we finally clambered to the top of the spiky ridge. I insisted on a ten-minute break and gulped a bottle of water before following him to the ridge’s inland tip and the best view of the island I’d seen since I’d flown over it. The small lake shone like quicksilver below us, the windmill farm whirred away to our right, and the castle looked like a toy fort atop its headland far to the north.

  Peter immediately made it clear that he hadn’t brought Damian and me there to enjoy the scenery. His pointing finger moved from one croft to the next, up and down the valley, as he reeled off the information he and Cassie had gathered about each of them.

  One crofting family coddled a collection of rare orchids in a custom-built greenhouse. Another raised champion sheepdogs. A third made an exquisite single-malt whiskey that was available only on Erinskil. All of the croft buildings had been expanded and improved, using the finest materials, and each was extraordinarily well maintained.

  When he’d finished his litany, Peter turned with a sweep of his arm toward the windmill farm.

  “I’ve visited all of the islands in the Inner and Outer Hebrides,” he said, “and I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “Sir Percy told us that the islanders installed the original system twenty years ago,” I said.

  “It seems a curious thing to do, don’t you think?” said Peter. “Why would the islanders spend a fortune to generate power for their own use, yet invest not one penny in improving the harbor? The lake, by the way, isn’t a lake,” he added, peering downward. “It’s a man-made reservoir that supplies the islanders with fresh water.” He gave me a sidelong glance and turned to pick his way back along the ridge. “One more stop and our tour is finished.”

  I looked at my watch and saw to my dismay that it was already past noon.

  “Is it a long way?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as pathetic as I felt.

 
“Yes,” said Peter, over his shoulder, “but there’s a marvelous picnic spot at the end of it.”

  The promise of lunch was the only thing that got me through the last and by far the longest leg of the tour. When we arrived at the spot Peter had in mind—a shallow cave that overlooked the village—he spread a groundsheet for us and I laid out the many delectable treats Cook had prepared. For the next hour or so, I didn’t know the meaning of the word “moderation.”

  The day packs were much lighter by the time we finished. We even polished off the caviar.

  Thirteen

  I’ve seldom enjoyed a meal more. The fact that we were sitting down was a huge plus, but the pleasant company, the beautiful setting, the exquisite weather, and the superior quality of the food helped a lot, too. Even so, I couldn’t keep myself from casting a suspicious glance at the sky every now and then.The previous day’s deluge was still fresh in my memory. I didn’t relish the thought of being ambushed by another one.

  “It’s not like that, Lori,” Peter said after I’d craned my neck a half dozen times. “The weather doesn’t follow a schedule on Erinskil. Rain comes when it will.”

  “It doesn’t look as if it will anytime soon,” said Cassie, scanning the cloud-free horizon. “Our luck with the weather seems to be holding.”

  While Damian and I packed away the picnic things, Cassie unpacked her maps and field guides and scattered them on the groundsheet—for verisimilitude, I assumed. When the stage was set, we sat four abreast among the thrift and quivering sea grasses at the mouth of the cave and looked down at the village. I expected Peter to ask us to raise our binoculars again, but instead he took his story out to sea.

  “As you know,” he began, “Cassie and I came to Erinskil on the interisland ferry. It’s a long trip from the mainland, because the ferry stops at other islands on the way. Cassie and I had plenty of time to explore.”

  “When we went down to the hold,” Cassie continued, “we discovered that shipments bound for Erinskil were packed in containers that were different from the others. We wondered why until we arrived in the harbor and watched the crane swing Erinskil’s cargo onto the jetty.”