by Blake Banner
She looked away. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
“I’ll tell you.” I shrugged again. “There’s not a lot to tell. There’s no great secret, Dehan. I just don’t want to talk about it on the first day of our honeymoon.”
“I get it.”
We drove on for another three or four hours, had lunch in a country pub and finally reached Gills, at the northernmost part of Scotland, at three o’clock that afternoon. Gills turned out to be not so much a town as a loose collection of houses gathered around an intersection. There was no post office, town hall or local store or pub that I could see. So we wound down a narrow road between rugged, green hills toward a gunmetal gray sea, highlighted with liquid silver, that stretched out cold and deadly toward the Arctic.
We stopped on a concrete quay outside a quaint cottage with chimneys at either end that claimed to be the Ferry Terminal and climbed out to stand gazing at the misty horizon. I pointed out to sea, where large clouds were building in the far north. “Only four hundred miles, Dehan, and you’re in Iceland.”
She gave a small, involuntary shudder. “That’s like from New York to Cleveland.” She glanced up at me. “Isn’t Iceland in the Arctic Circle?”
“Just outside, but you get the midnight sun there in June, and twenty-four hours of darkness in December. Here, in this part of Scotland, it gets dark about midnight, and starts getting light at about two thirty.”
“I guess we went north, huh, Stone?”
I smiled. “We’ve still a way to go.”
We crossed the bare concrete and pushed through the door into the ferry terminal. There was a man in a heavy white sweater behind a melamine counter. He looked like he’d once tried to shave but busted the razor and gave up on a hopeless task. There was the blackened, withered remains of a roll-up hanging from the corner of his mouth. He watched us come in with expressionless, pale eyes and waited for us to talk.
I essayed a smile against my better judgment and said, “We’d like to cross to Gordon’s Swona…”
He interrupted me and said something that sounded like, “Tharteh eet poonds fer th’car, suxteen fer the missus an’ suxteen fer yersen.”
I narrowed my eyes, pretty sure I’d understood, nodded and said, “That’s fine.”
He rang it up on his register, with small flakes of ash falling from his dead cigarette. Then he looked at me slow and steady and there was evil humor in his eyes. “Suventeh poonds.”
I glanced at the register to make sure I’d understood and handed over two fifties. He took his time getting my change and handing it back. Then he leered. “Uz et the Gordon Castle yir aweetah?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Yir ferry’ll moor within the hoor, gang t’thend of yon peer an’ll nay be long.”
I nodded again. “Thanks.”
As I turned and opened the door, he added, “Ut was plowetrery thus mornin’ and a haar in from th’east thus afternoon. Tull be mochie afore the gloaming, fer-sure, an’ nay doot there’ll be a fair gailleann by t’morrah.”
Dehan blinked furiously at him. I nodded one last time, thanked him and returned to the car.
“What was that, Stone? Was that English?”
“With a liberal dose of Scots Gaelic. I think he said there’d be a storm tomorrow.”
“You understood him?”
I didn’t answer, instead I fired up the car. Fortunately the signs were in plain English and I drove to the loading point where I figured the ferry would dock, then stopped and thought for a moment.
I turned to her. “Tull be mochie afore the gloaming. It will be muggy before dusk. An’ nay doot there’ll be a fair gailleann by t’morrah. And no doubt there will be a fair gale, or storm, by tomorrow. Weather here is pretty unpredictable.”
She stared at me for a long moment without expression. Then she said with a hint of disapproval, “You’re a remarkable man, Stone.”
The sea was flat and almost milky in consistency. The crossing took an hour and was unremarkable, except that the views from the deck, of the Isle of Stroma to the west and Okney to the north, were extraordinary. There was a desolation about the beauty of the place that was not quite like anywhere else. At one point Dehan shook her head, squinting into the sea breeze, fingering her long hair from her face. “I never imagined England like this…”
I laughed. “Don’t let them hear you say that. This is not England. Scotland is a country in its own right. In some ways it is closer to Scandinavia than it is to England.”
She frowned and shook her head. “It’s so… remote!”
“Yup. And you have brought us to the most remote part, of the remote part.”
She took hold of my arm and squeezed it. “Good. No inspector, no Mo, no distractions, no cold cases for two long, wonderful weeks.”
We stood like that for a while, enjoying the strange, peaceful desolation. It had turned warm and close, and Dehan ran her fingers over her brow. Then she gave a small laugh. “He was right!”
I smiled at her. “Hm?”
“The guy at the terminal. He said it would turn muggy in the afternoon…”
I did a fair imitation of his brogue. “Tull be mochie afore the gloaming, an’ nay doot there’ll be a fair gailleann by t’morrah.”
She looked up into my face. “So we’ll have a storm tomorrow? That means breakfast in bed and hot toddies in front of the fire.”
“I’m not complaining. Bring it on.”
We sighted Gordon’s Swona twenty minutes later. It was a wedge-shaped island that rose dramatically out of the sea mist. The narrow end consisted of high cliffs and a relatively flat tableland towering some hundred and fifty or two hundred feet above the waves, and then sloping gently for about a mile and a half, or a little more, toward broad, rolling grasslands and white, sandy beaches. On the tableland, at the top of the cliffs, a spectacular castle stood silhouetted in the coppery, afternoon light.
As we stood staring, the note of the engines changed and we began to slow, churning the water and nosing toward the beach where we could now see a small port with a long pier that had been built out of wood and concrete. Eventually, after some careful maneuvering, we eased to a halt, the apron ramp was dropped with a huge, metallic clang that threatened to take off the end of the dock, and, amid a lot of shifting, drifting and grinding, we rolled out of the cargo hold and onto the concrete pier.
And then we stood by the car and watched as the ramp was raised, clattering and clanking, to its closed position. The ferry reversed away from the dock, turned, lumbering, and slowly took off north, toward the distant shadow of Orkney on the horizon.
Behind us, in the south, the mainland was no longer visible, but before us the road wound through gentle hills of green pasture, meadow flowers and heather, where sheep and goats ruminated and watched us with saurian eyes, to a broad forest, perhaps a mile away, that climbed the slopes for perhaps another half mile toward the hazy silhouette of castle on the hill. All around us, the air was rich with the smells of aromatic grasses and herbs—maybe lavender, rosemary and thyme. It seemed very still. The only sounds were the lapping of the small waves on the shore and the lazy buzz of bees among the grass and flowers.
Ahead, about halfway up the slope, half a mile from the castle, we could just make out a small village among the woods by the road. It seemed to consist mainly of stone cottages and tall chimney stacks poking up among the trees.
I glanced at my watch. It was six o’clock, and though the light was definitely coppery and there was a feel of evening to the sultry air, the sun was still a good four hours or more from setting.
I smiled at Dehan. “Let’s go.”
It was a fifteen minute drive, because though the speed limit on the island was 25 MPH, the road wended and wove in big loops, and in many parts was rough and pitted. When we passed through the village, we saw that it consisted of a village green, a handful of houses, a two-story post office and a picturesque pub called the Gordon Arms; and a moment later we were in th
e woods again, winding our way up the steep hill through tall pine trees that cast an eerie green light, until at last we broke out of the forest and onto the broad, flat, grassy tableland. There the road went straight, and ahead of us, tall and ancient, stood the castle, brooding, lowering over the dark expanse of the North Atlantic toward the Arctic Circle, and the heavy, dark clouds that were gathering there.
As we drew closer, we could see that Castle Gordon was encircled by an ancient, stone wall, perhaps eight feet high. But in many places that wall had crumbled over time, and where it had collapsed, leaving great gaps in the masonry, it had been replaced with hedges and trees, giving the vague impression that nature was slowly winning in a war of attrition against Man.
The road entered the grounds of the castle through a large, iron gate that stood open, and from the gate onward the road became the driveway. On either side of that drive there were well-tended lawns, formal gardens, and to the left a large topiary maze.
A butler in traditional dress and a page were waiting for us at the foot of the stone steps that led up to the main door. When we pulled up, the butler opened the door for Dehan and welcomed us to Gordon’s Soma while the page took my keys to open the trunk, unload our luggage and park the car. While he did that, I stood back and had a good look at the building. You could have described it as a horrific mixture of styles thrown together with a total disregard for esthetics or proportion, a monstrous affront to architecture and a grotesque stone pile. You could very well have described it like that, if you’d had no soul.
On the right hand side, at the front, there was a massive, square, four story solid stone tower with castellations at the top and narrow, gabled windows on the second, third and fourth floors. On the ground floor, a leaded bay window overlooked yellow and red rosebushes, while dense ivy swarmed up the wall as far as the second floor.
The central body of the building was granite, with a gabled portico supported on ancient stone pillars, and a gabled slate roof with tall chimneypots. To my uneducated eye, it looked as though the tower was Victorian mock Elizabethan, where the main body was maybe two hundred years older, maybe 17th century. On the far left there was another wing in paler stone, running at right angles to the house. It was only three stories high, with small, narrow windows and battlements up top. That, I guessed, was what was left of the original castle. The overall effect was that of a messy jumble of rocks and styles, but somehow it came together and became a beautiful, ancient work of art.
“You coming?”
Dehan was standing on the granite steps smiling at me. The butler was at the door, holding it open, as though there was nothing else in the world he needed to be doing right then. The sun was bright and the scent of the roses was strong on the air. For a moment it was a perfect, timeless scene. I smiled, said, “I’m coming,” and stepped toward her, and as we climbed the steps together, a cloud moved across the sun, casting a deep shadow over the castle, and a clammy, muggy breeze touched my skin.
We stepped through the door, and the butler said, “Welcome to Castle Gordon.”
TWO
We stepped into a vaulted, Gothic entrance hall. The floor was tiled in a black and white checkerboard pattern, and a magnificent stone staircase rose directly in front of us, and then split in two to ascend, right and left, to a galleried first floor landing. Immediately on our right was a reception desk and coming out from behind it as we entered was a man in his early thirties in chinos and a blazer, with blond hair swept back from a face that was intelligent, but too kind to be handsome.
He held out a large, soft hand and smiled as we approached. “Mr. and Mrs. Stone, I imagine. How splendid that you could join us. We have a full house this summer.”
There was no trace of an accent and I figured he had been educated at an English boarding school. We shook hands and he added, as though we had asked, “Charles Gordon. My father insists on calling me Junior, because he is also Charles. So we call him Senior. He’s an American, you know. Now!” He gave each of us a broad grin and held out his arms like he was about to hug us. “I imagine you will want to freshen up after a long journey. Brown will show you to your room and we’ll be having cocktails in the drawing room…” He gestured across the hall to a set of walnut doors. “At seven. Then you’ll be able to meet our other charming guests. We’ll be going in to dine at about half seven or eight.”
Dehan frowned. “Half seven?” Then she grinned. “What’s that, three thirty?”
Charles laughed.
I said, “Seven thirty, smart ass. Thank you, Charles, that sounds perfect. I’ve heard you have an exceptional range of whiskeys.”
“Second to none, old chap, and I’ll guide you through them with great pleasure. I’ve put you in the tower, in the honeymoon suite. I trust you’ll find it comfortable.”
The honeymoon suite was everything you’d expect from a Hollywood rendition of a Scottish castle. There was a gigantic mahogany four poster bed with drapes, there were gabled, leaded windows overlooking the formal gardens, a stone fireplace big enough to house a small family and vast, bare wooden rafters overhead. The walls were oak paneled and on the bedside table there was a silver bucket filled with ice, holding a bottle of Bollinger and two Edinburgh crystal glasses.
Once Brown had put our cases on the bed and left, Dehan stood looking around with a big smile all over the right side of her face. “Oh man,” she said. “Stone.”
I took off my jacket and she crossed the room to poke her head into the bathroom. “There is a free standing tub, with clawed feet and gold taps.” She turned and winked at me. “Open the champagne, big guy, we’re going to have a bath, Scottish castle style…”
* * *
An hour later, we joined the other guests in the drawing room.
The Gordon Castle was a boutique hotel. There was no pool, no bar and no dining room in the usual sense of the word. More than staying at an hotel, it was like staying with a rich friend at his country manor. Instead of several hundred anonymous guests milling around a vast building in Florida, here we had just a handful of fellow guests who had cocktails in the drawing room, and lunched and dined with the family in the ancestral dining room. It was different, and it had sounded like exactly what Dehan and I needed.
The drawing room was big. The floors were wood, strewn with what looked like genuine Persian rugs, and to the right of the door as you went in, there was a huge, granite fireplace. Right now there were several large logs burning in it. An eclectic collection of sofas and armchairs, standard lamps and occasional tables were scattered around the room in an apparently random fashion that somehow managed to be homely and comfortable. Against the far wall, an elaborate credenza held an extensive collection of bottles, hand cut decanters and glasses. To the left of it, French windows stood open onto a stone terrace with steps down onto the lawns and the gardens.
There were a number of people standing and sitting, and they all turned to watch us come in. For a moment they looked like a bizarre frozen tableau from an early play by Agatha Christie: Charles Gordon was standing by the drinks, dressed in a tuxedo, holding a cocktail shaker. On the crimson and gold sofa directly in front of the fire was a woman who was still attractive in her mid fifties. She had short, black hair and wore a long evening dress of deep blue satin, with a string of pearls around her neck. She had very red lipstick and regarded Dehan with wary eyes.
In an aquamarine armchair with wooden legs, also beside the fire, was another woman, blonde, perhaps in her early sixties. She wore a low cut white satin dress with a gash up to her thigh, exposing a leg that looked thirty years younger than she did.
A third woman stood by the French windows, smoking. She was younger than the other two, perhaps thirty. Her dress was mauve and the gash, up to her hip, exposed a leg you had to try hard not to look at. She had hair that was wild, curly and red, tied back in a mauve satin bow. Her face should have been pretty, but a spray of freckles and mischievous blue eyes made it more captivating than that.
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br /> Besides Charles, there were two other men in the room. One was standing beside the redhead. He was tall and strongly built, wearing what looked like an off the peg Italian suit. He had black hair and sullen eyes, which he was using to undress Dehan. I figured he was in his thirties.
The other was standing by the fire. Like Charles, he was wearing an evening suit and a bow tie. He was probably in his late fifties and had that stiff, brisk air that the British military brass all seem to acquire by osmosis.
They all smiled with varying degrees of sincerity, and Charles said in a loud voice, “Ah! You’re here! Well done! Now, what will you have? Major, care to make the introductions?”
Before the major could get started, Dehan said, “Any whiskey you recommend, straight up. Stone will have the same.”
The blonde in the aquamarine chair, with the low cut white dress, turned out to be our hostess, Charles Jr.’s mother. She smiled at me without moving, raised an eyebrow and sipped her drink, then said, “How do you do, John?”
I caught something in her voice which I filed away under irrelevant gossip that might later be useful, and asked her how she did. Then the major gestured toward the woman on the sofa in the blue dress.
“Lady Jane Butterworth, Detective John Stone and his wife, Detective Carmen Stone.”
She ignored Dehan but leaned forward and offered me her hand to kiss. “I don’t use my title, I’m a committed socialist, you know,” she said breathlessly, then laughed. “I hope you won’t arrest me! Call me Bee, may I call you Stone? Such a strong name.”
I told her I wouldn’t and she could and the major led us on to the couple at the French windows. “Dr. and Sally Cameron, very old friends of the family! Ian has his surgery opposite the pub in the village. Very handy, eh, Ian? And Sally owns the grocery store and runs the post office. Everyone does a bit of everything on Gordon’s Swoma, hay?”
The major laughed and the doctor looked at him with distaste. Sally stepped forward and kissed Dehan on the cheek while I shook the doctor’s hand. I had seen friendlier eyes on great white sharks. We all asked each other how we did, and then the major laughed like he was telling a hilarious story and said, “And I am Major Reggie Hook, old friend of Charlie’s, been coming here for years, ay, Charles?”