He stopped at the corner of the building, scrutinizing the tarped tables and chairs, separating the known from the unknown. He had no reason to linger, no proof anything was amiss. Nothing but his copper’s sixth sense, and that had never betrayed him. Yet, he delayed his journey to the bed-and-breakfast and peered into the darkness.
A slight movement at the rear of the patio and a scrape of iron against flagstone drew his attention. He took a step forward, his hand on the corner of the building, and felt in his pocket for his mobile.
A heartbeat of silence flooded the space before the scrape multiplied into a crash and shout. A mass of black moved at the far end of the tables, separated into two blobs and merged again into its original single shape. A scream, quickly silenced, and a yell soared above the clatter.
McLaren stepped past the first table grouping and stared ahead. He could just discern the black lump against the dark. “What’s going on? Do you need help?”
Shuffling footsteps and another scrape of iron answered his question.
He moved into the middle of the eating area, his concern outweighing his caution. It was a public place, and while not exactly drowning in passersby, it was an open area surrounded by residences. Nothing untoward would happen there, would it? He drew his phone from his pocket, undecided whether to call for help. Maybe the woman had merely fallen.
“Are you hurt? If you can tell me where you are—”
The indistinguishable shape rushed at him, hitting his right side and pushing him into a table. A hint of floral perfume floated over to him, confirming his suspicion of the one person’s gender. He grabbed at the tarp but it slid with him onto the ground. Cursing, he threw it to one side and struggled to his feet. The form rounded the corner of the building and merged with the dark.
He called out, not caring if he were disturbing the quiet or waking people. He leaned against the table as he debated about ringing 999 or running after the miscreants. But he realized he’d dropped his mobile in his fall, so he stopped and palmed the area where he’d been. He lost precious seconds in the search but located the phone beneath the tarp heap.
He shoved the phone into his pocket and raced to the corner. The street extended into the murkiness with no indication of movement or sound. The sporadic dots of light that broke the darkness at regular intervals did nothing to reveal who’d lurked in the patio. He considered walking back down the street in hopes of locating them but realized it’d be a futile quest. They could’ve ducked into any of the dozens of buildings, hidden in the alleys or behind parked cars.
On his way back to the patio he paused under a streetlamp. His police training whispering that he needed to look through the scene, so he opened the torchlight app and made his way to the patio. At the rear, where he calculated the people had hidden, he angled the beam at the ground and stooped, walking slowly, looking for anything that seemed out of place. A piece of silver winked at him and he grabbed it as he straightened up. It wasn’t until he looked at it closer in the full light of the torch app that he realized he held a clan crest badge. It was a two-inch long pewter brooch. A buckled belt encircled an arm that was shown in profile. He stared, disbelieving. It was the symbol of the clan Skene.
****
Back in his room, McLaren read the motto engraved on the belt. Vertutis regia merces. A palace the reward of bravery. He laid the brooch on his lap, feeling the strange coincidence. Yes, he was in Scotland, where clan accessories were as common as pasta in Italy. But he’d seen the badge on Liza, and she’d gone missing. Had Liza been the second figure, dragged away by someone after she’d screamed?
He tossed the jewelry piece onto his bed. It caught the light and stared at him. The pin was bent and free of the clasp, and hung open. Had it come free in the struggle? He knew he was fanciful at times; Jamie never tired of reminding him. Besides, what would Liza be doing a half dozen blocks from his bed-and-breakfast? She didn’t know where he was staying and her abductor, if there was one, would hardly plant her on McLaren’s doorstep. What would be the purpose of the kidnapping, then?
Unless it was to frame him for her murder.
The idea stunned him. Why’d he think of that? He had no evidence she’d been abducted or that she was in danger. For all he knew, she was at a friend’s or relatives to recuperate from Hurd’s death. She had no reason to let him know where she was; they weren’t mates.
But she would’ve let him know. She’d agreed to ring him up every day to inform him how she was feeling. Her promise couldn’t have been merely to get shed of him, could it? And she did know where he was staying. He’d given her the name of the bed-and-breakfast, insisting she could come over to talk to him in person.
Great, he thought, massaging his forehead. She also had his mobile number. It was on the business card he gave her. Her abductor, if there was one, could’ve been heading for the Saltire Guest House to dump her on the doorstep after all.
But she’d accepted his offer of help so sincerely. She hadn’t impressed him as the type to say something without meaning it. The joke about swearing on the poems had been just that; he’d felt the sincerity beneath the words.
Realizing he could do nothing about it at the present, he leafed through the book he bought at Blackwell’s. The Trossachs and the Braes of Balquhidder held his attention not only because his clan came from that area but also because it was magnificent country. Lochs, heather, moors, and brooks trickling out of rocky hillsides aside, he couldn’t deny the ancestral ties. A call, actually. Perhaps the invitation from his grandfather had stirred the nearly dead embers. Perhaps he merely was approaching that age when history and ties became more important. But he’d be a git to go home without seeing some of the area. He might not ever get back.
He found himself singing the old Scottish ballad Braes of Balquhidder under his breath. He’d never sung it before, either solo or with his folk group, and the song choice surprised him.
Will ye go, lassie, go,
to the braes o’ Balquhidder
Where the blueberries grow,
’mang the bonnie bloomin’ heather;
Where the deer and the ram,
lightly bounding together,
Sport ’he lang summer day
’mang the braes o’ Balquhidder?
~*~
Will ye go, lassie, go,
To the braes o’ Balquhidder!
Where the blueberries grow,
’Mang the bonnie bloomin’ heather?
~*~
I will twine thee a bower
by the clear silver fountain
an’ I’ll cover it o’er
wi’ the flowers o’ the mountain;
I will range through the wilds,
an’ the deep glens sae dreary
an’ return wi’ their spoils
to the bower o’ my dearie.
~*~
When the rude wintry win’
idly raves round our dwellin’,
an’ the roar o’ the linn
on the night-breeze is swellin’
sae merrily we’ll sing
as the storm rattles o’er us,
till the dear shieling rings
wi’ our light liltin’ chorus.
~*~
Now the summer is in prime
wi’ the flowers richly bloomin’
an’ the wild mountain thyme
a’ the moorlands perfumin’;
To our dear native scenes
let us journey together
where glad innocence reigns
’mang the braes of Balquhidder.
When he finished the last verse, he sat for a moment, letting the sound fade with the image of his grandfather. He held his breath, afraid to break the spell. The clock on the bedside table ticked into the quiet and pulled him away from the heather-clad hills. He jotted ‘village of Balquhidder’ at the top of his list.
McLaren next wrote down the Boar’s Rock, the local hill serving as the Clan’s rallying point and war cry
. And of course the Braes. Maybe Ben Ledi, too, he thought, his gaze wandering south of Balquhidder and his finger sliding slowly down the map. Hadn’t he read something about a beer festival around there?
There was. But it was held at the end of August.
He glanced at the rest of the book and added a few more places to his list, then closed his notebook. The itinerary was long enough: varied and manageable.
But he didn’t know how to manage his own feelings. He lay in bed, the room light fixtures off and the darkness hugging his emotional bruises. He mentally went back to the scene at his grandfather’s door. The older man was getting up in years. Had he forgotten that he had extended the invitation? Was senility catching him?
McLaren considered the possibility of each question. It was impossible to answer. He didn’t know the man. Perhaps he was making too much of the whole thing, creating a mystery where nothing existed.
McLaren rolled onto his side and stared at the moon, which sat in the bare branches of a rowan tree. He wasn’t one to take much stock in fables and omens, but noticing the tree seemed fortuitous. The ancients called the rowan the whispering tree, believing it held secrets. A grove of rowans sheltered the mausoleum of MacLaren chiefs near the clan village. Was he exaggerating the importance of his grandfather’s feud, his ancestral village and this tree in Edinburgh?
Should he try one more time to bridge the gulf between them? He was going to Balquhidder anyway; why not extend his hand?
He rubbed his head, attempting to stifle the ache building at his temples. Of course he’d been too young to remember, but his mother had told him that part of the family history often enough. Like a bedtime story. Except she’d made it plain it was no fairytale. She and his father had gone to the aid of a distant McLaren relation, buying the ancient house and land to keep the man solvent. And keeping the estate in McLaren hands. Neill had been more than furious at their departure from Scotland: he had cursed and disowned them, yelling that they had thrown his every good deed in his face. McLaren grew up with an English accent, English friends, English middle class attitude, and English outlook on life. But he acquired knowledge about Clan McLaren on his own, in secret. And he consciously broke from the three centuries of McLaren owned brewery to go into the police for his career.
He got up, downed two aspirin with a swallow of water, and went to the window. Moonlight angled through the pane and pooled at his feet, as though throwing him into a spotlight. He sighed heavily, recalling the reaction that decision caused. His mother had been proud and a bit apprehensive, loving his need to help others yet worrying about his life. His sister didn’t much care; she concentrated on establishing herself as an artist and getting married. His father had offered no advice other than every man had to choose his own way, even if it meant hurting hearts. As he had, in turn, done to his father when they’d left Scotland. So McLaren grew to manhood with a sense of needing to protect others who were abandoned and trodden upon, who felt the pain of injustice, as he did through his grandfather’s condemnation of his abandonment of the family business and his desire to remain in England.
McLaren’s career choice had more consequences than just the threat of being harmed by criminals. Going into the police meant he broke the link in the McLaren ownership tradition, forcing his grandfather to consider someone else to inherit the business after McLaren’s uncle dies. He also realized that he, his mother, and father were seen as traitors in his grandfather’s eyes. But he gave up years ago expecting his grandfather to be different from whom he was. So why couldn’t grandfather accept McLaren for his self?
His mobile rang, startlingly loud in the quiet room. He glanced at the display panel. The name Liza Skene shone in large letters.
He answered the call immediately, hardly daring to breathe or wonder where she’d been. “Hello? Liza? Are you all right? Where have you been?”
A male voice muttered something unintelligible before the line went dead.
McLaren stared at the phone, then replaced it against his ear. “Hello? Liza? Are you okay?”
Silence filled his ear and he yelled into the mouthpiece. “LIZA?”
He listened for a dozen seconds before accepting no one was on the other end. He cursed Liza, the phone company, and his general state of affairs before tossing the phone onto the bedside cabinet. He would’ve written it off as a wrong number except that Liza had called.
Or had she?
Did someone have her phone? If so, who? Why hadn’t Liza spoken to him just then? If she was too sick or injured to speak, why hadn’t the other person talked to him just now?
He got into bed, staring out the window until he fell asleep, and abandoned himself to dreams of rowan trees, underground passages, and missing women.
****
The next morning McLaren finished breakfast and wandered into the entryway. Jean was speaking on the phone in the back room, her voice muffled by the closed door but still understandable. In the hall, early sunlight streamed through the glass transom and threw a yellow rectangle onto the linoleum floor. A guest book topped a small wooden stand just inside the double doors and he leafed through the book as he waited for Jean to finish with her phone call. He’d decided during his meal to check out even though he had the room until tomorrow. He could return to Edinburgh after his day in Balquhidder, the village being approximately an hour’s drive away, but his itinerary took him farther north, to Rannoch Moor, Ben Nevis, and Fort Augustus. It would be daft to drive back to Edinburgh just for one night.
The conversation droned on and McLaren idly glanced at some of the signatures in the book, curious to see the array of cities and countries of her guests. Many people were from Scotland, with English and Welsh addresses running a close second. Altrincham, Sale, Caddington, York, Norwich, Aberystwyth, Buxton. McLaren stared at the town name, then at the signature.
Charlie Harvester.
The light in the room seemed to dim and the floor slanted up to meet him. It had to be the same Charlie Harvester, the nemesis from his police days. Harvester lived in Buxton. There couldn’t be two of them.
His curiosity up, McLaren flipped through several more pages, the dates becoming older. Harvester’s name appeared three more times, each date approximately five or six months apart. The penned comment after each entry implied more than a casual lodging; it suggested friendship.
McLaren closed the book. Jean’s voice gave no indication of the conversation ending soon, so he tiptoed into the guest lounge.
The blue-and-white color scheme prevalent to the other public areas of the bed-and-breakfast continued in the lounge. But the far wall held McLaren’s attention. It seemed to be wallpapered in framed photographs. He slowly walked its length, staring at the pictures.
They were a mixture of black-and-white and color, of various sizes. He gave them a cursory look, wondering what he was trying to prove, when he stopped abruptly before an 8x10 inch group shot. Charlie Harvester’s face grinned at him from the confines of the wooden frame.
McLaren stared at the face, unwilling to believe he looked at the man who’d been responsible for his leaving the police. But it was he. Harvester had his left arm draped over Jean’s shoulder. They were on a picnic, the basket of food beside them, the blanket spread on the ground. Harvester’s jeans were rolled up mid-calf length, his feet bare. Jean wore shorts and an off-shoulder T-shirt. Hardly the attire if the two were not friends.
He was about to move on to the other photos when he looked at the third person in the snap. The man was smaller and younger, probably in his late teens, with dark hair and a mustache. And a tattooed chin.
Chapter Eight
McLaren hurried from the room as Jean ended her phone conversation. She walked into the hallway and smiled as she saw McLaren moving toward the staircase. “You about to leave for the day? Have something nice planned?” Her voice sounded light and friendly.
“I’m about to go out, yes. I will be leaving tomorrow, as originally planned when the booking was
made.” He smiled, hoping he looked sincere.
“I was hoping you’d stay on a bit. Edinburgh’s so lovely decorated for Christmas, with the white lights strung across the High Street and all. Maybe do a bit of your shopping. So many things that you can’t get in Derbyshire.”
“It’s a temptation.” McLaren nodded, envisioning the area at night. Strands of white lights seemed to float in the darkness; lighted decorations and red ribbons adorned street lamps. The snow and crisp wind added to the festive feeling and, if he would admit it, it tempted him to stay for the holiday. “I’ve got other business, though, and will be leaving, however much I’d like to extend my trip.”
“I do hope you found everything fine…with your business here and with the room. Nothing wrong with either, is there?” Jean glanced up the flight of stairs, as though she could see up to the landing.
“No.” McLaren paused, the lie hard to swallow. The room itself wasn’t that bad, but the bathroom was ridiculously cramped. A small radiator opposite the toilet took up several precious inches of space, forcing him to lean over the toilet to reach the sink. Since the curtains in the bedroom couldn’t be closed fully, he dressed in the shower cubicle. He’d decided if he ever wrote a travel book he’d title it Dressing in a Shower Stall and other Traveling Challenges. That just about summed up his whole Edinburgh experience. So he lied, wanting to avoid confrontation. “I’ll be concluding my business here by this evening, and I want to do a bit of sightseeing farther north before I head back home.”
“Well, I’m sorry you won’t be staying on, but I do hope you enjoyed your stay here in the city.”
“It’s a trip I’ll not soon forget.”
“Your first time here?”
“In Edinburgh, yes.”
“Well, now that you know where I am, I hope you’ll not be a stranger. I’ve enjoyed having you as a guest.”
“Thank you. If I come back, I’ll look you up.” He climbed the stairs, but he couldn’t shake the curious feeling that she was watching him.
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