by Blake Banner
“Indeed!” Charles approached with two glasses of whiskey and handed them to us. With an enthusiasm that had more to do with wishful thinking than truth, he added, “We are all old friends here. Aren’t we, Mummy?” Whatever Mummy was going to answer, he didn’t give her a chance. He plowed on, “I think you’ll like this single malt. It’s from the local distillery and a bit of a hidden treasure. We have superb water here.”
The thing continued in that vein for the next half hour. At first I worried that it would get on Dehan’s nerves. I knew well that her tolerance of BS and small talk was limited, at best, but when I glanced at her, talking to Charles, I saw her eyes were alive and she was smiling. I also noticed Ian Cameron watching her. I didn’t blame him. She was in a very simple, but very expensive black dress with no sleeves or shoulders, and a silver chain around her neck with a single amethyst. It all served to highlight her own beauty. I smiled, partly because she was mine, and partly because that very beauty hid the kick-ass, Bronx-bred bad attitude that was never very far below the surface.
Pamela stood, gave me a thin smile and joined Dehan and her son. She gave Dehan a frigid once over and said, “What an exquisite dress, but darling, are you in mourning? Who died?”
Dehan raised an eyebrow at her and smiled. “My tolerance for bullshit. It died a long time ago, but I’m still in mourning.”
Charles burst out laughing. Dehan caught my eye, winked and grinned.
Then the door opened and I noticed several things all at once. Dr. Cameron stiffened and his hostile face became even more hostile. His wife, whose side he had not left since we’d entered the room, also stiffened, but the expression on her face was anticipation, not hostility. Everybody else in the room went silent and stared, except Dehan, who caught my eye again with an unspoken question.
The man who entered the room was aware of the effect he had, and of his own magnificence. He was over six foot, but if he’d been four foot two he would not have looked any smaller. He had a powerful chest, a powerful jaw and a mane of silver hair swept back from a large forehead. His nose was aquiline and his pale blue eyes were cruel and ruthless. He was a man born to be king in a world that no longer needed kings.
Charles moved forward, “Ah, Father, there you are. May I present Detective Carmen Stone…”
Charles Gordon Sr. ignored his son and moved in on Dehan like a hungry wolf moving in on an injured baby gazelle. His voice was deep and resonant, with clear traces of his Boston roots. “Detective? I’ll wager most of the men you hunt down surrender willingly.”
I saw the doctor turn away. Dehan shook her head. “No, most of them need a couple of slaps and their hands cuffed.”
He laughed. “You make it sound so appealing.”
“Yeah? The reality is a little different, Mr. Gordon. This is my husband, Detective John Stone.”
He gave me the kind of look that all the women in the room were giving Dehan. There was enough acid in there right then to clean a ton of copper. He raised an eyebrow.
“Another detective? We had better all behave, then, hadn’t we? Though you are, of course, outside your jurisdiction.”
I stepped up and put my hand on Dehan’s elbow. “And on our honeymoon,” I added. “Thank you, by the way, for the champagne. We enjoyed it.”
“Don’t thank me.” He said it like he meant it. “Thank my son. And speaking of useless incompetence, Charles, am I not entitled to a drink in my own house?”
He pushed past me toward his son, who was hurrying to the drinks tray, and Pamela, Lady Jane and Sally Cameron all seemed to be sucked into his wake, like seagulls trailing after a Spanish galleon in full sail.
“What will you have, Father?”
“Let me see…” He didn’t so much say it as boom it. “Let me see! Shall I have something different to what I have every single night? Good lord, boy! Can you take the initiative on nothing? Not even a simple task like getting your father a drink?”
“Vodka martini it is! What a character!”
There was some simpering and giggling and I stepped out the French windows onto the terrace. The sun was low on the horizon and the evening light was turning a grainy copper. The shadows of the trees stretched long across the lawns and above, the blue was turning dark. There was a closeness to the air and you could almost taste the static electricity in the humid air.
Dehan came out after me and rested her ass on the ancient stone balustrade. She gave a small laugh. “We just stepped through the looking glass, but instead of winding up with Alice in Wonderland, we wound up in an Agatha Christie novel.”
I smiled. “You’re not far wrong.” I sipped, watching her. “I hope you’re not regretting it. We can move on if you want.”
“Are you kidding? I love it. I never saw a group of people hate each other so politely. Is this what Brits are really like, Stone? I thought it was just the movies.”
“Some. This small archipelago has a very complex society.”
She held my eye a moment, still smiling. “Let’s make a bet.”
“What kind of bet?”
“Who will the victim be, and who will the killer be. So far I don’t think it’s the butler.”
I laughed, then shrugged and gazed out at the slowly gathering dusk, which the Scots call the gloaming. “The victim is obvious,” I said, playing her game for a moment, but feeling oddly uncomfortable about it.
“The old man? CG Sr.?” I nodded and she nodded back. “I agree.”
“The murderer…” I shook my head. “I have some ideas, but we’re here on our honeymoon, and I don’t want to tempt the gods…”
I trailed off. It was as though the word had some hidden power of evocation. In the sky, over broken stone wall and the trees in the north, a great plume of green light shot up into the sky, flickered and spread out like a fan. Dehan saw my face and said, “What?”
I took her hand and pulled her to her feet, then turned her around. A violet arch swelled like a great dome from the horizon, then shimmered and seemed to break up and spread like mist. Next thing the sky had turned green, and long, vertical columns of light, like immensely tall ghosts, sprang up and wavered this way and that. From the center, a plume of red expanded and within it, light flashed and seemed to move around in some crazy kind of dance. Dehan had gone rigid, gripping my hand as though she were trying to crush the bones. The red plume swelled, rising above the green light until half the sky was awash with eerie, alien light, twisting and flickering like a gossamer curtain over a parallel world of Norse gods and daemons. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it began to fade.
She turned to face me. Her eyes were huge and bright. She tried to speak, but words cannot express the way you feel the first time you see the Northern Lights. So she expressed it to me a different way.
A footfall behind me made me turn. Dr. Ian Cameron stood framed in the doorway. He studied me a moment and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt. We’re going in to dinner, if you’d like to join us.”
Like the honeymoon suite, the dining room was exactly what you would have expected from a Hollywood production of Murder at Castle Gordon. The ceiling was high, the table was long, dark, highly polished and mahogany, and set with placemats because tablecloths are considered vulgar. Three large silver candelabras were set down the center, and a vast crystal chandelier made tiny rainbows of the candlelight above the table.
Charles Gordon Sr., naturally, sat at the head. Bee—Lady Jane—sat on his right and Sally Cameron on his left. I was next to Bee, with the major opposite me and Pamela on my right, with her son, Gordon Jr., on her right. Dehan was between the Major and Ian.
A door opened at the far end of the room and Brown, very dignified in tails, entered carrying a very large tray with a silver soup tureen. Behind him were two girls in uniform with white aprons. They each carried a silver ice bucket with a bottle of white wine in it. I caught Dehan’s eye and winked at her. While the butler was serving the soup, and the maids were pouring the wine, Gordon Sr. boom
ed down the table, “I am an American, Carmen.”
She glanced at him. “Boston born and bred, I’d say.”
He laughed like a caricature of Orson Wells at his most hammy. “See! She is a detective!”
“I just know my accents, Mr. Gordon. Here I’m not a detective. I am a newly wed bride.”
His face went sour. “How charming,” he said. “I am an American, but this island belonged to my ancestors, along with much of the coast, for at least a thousand years. It was my father who reclaimed it, back in 1980. He was obsessed with his Scottish roots. He used to wear a kilt, you know? I haven’t the legs for it.”
He sipped his wine and smiled at Sally. She looked away and Bee simpered. “Nonsense, Charles. You have a well turned leg!”
“How would you know, Bee?” It was Pamela.
Bee affected to think, with her finger on her cheek. “Well, I’m blessed if I know, darling! But am I wrong?”
Everybody laughed except Pamela.
I said, “Have you been here since the ’80s, Mr. Gordon?”
“Yes. Since my father, Richard Gordon, died.” He stared at me, as though challenging me to ask. I didn’t, so he went on, “He committed suicide in his study, almost forty years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Pamela replied, breaking a hot bread roll. “Not everybody thought it was suicide.”
He snapped, “That’s quite enough of that, Pamela!”
She ignored him and went on, “Some people thought it was murder.”
THREE
By the end of the soup, Gordon Sr., Bee and Sally had fallen into conversation with each other. I couldn’t help feeling grateful. Ian and Pam maintained their characteristic sullen silence throughout, and Dehan, the major and I fell into conversation about the history of the island.
“It was,” the major said, “for a long time merely a glorified pig farm! Hence the name Swona. It derives from ‘swine’. Keeping them on an island was safer than a farm, easier to protect and impossible for the animals to stray.”
Dehan asked, “How old is the castle?”
“There has been a small fortress here since the Vikings, first intended to fend them off, and then used by them to protect their settlements. The swine were a highly prized asset, as you can imagine.”
We had been served lamb cutlets with new potatoes, Vichy carrots and fresh garden peas, all from the castle’s own orchards. Dehan was engrossed in her food, but looked up to ask, “So when did it come into the possession of the Gordons?”
“Oh.” He sipped his claret and smacked his lips. “The earliest record of a Gordon owning the island dates back to the 13th century. In the parish record it is stated that it was a dispute settled by contest of arms, which was won by one Charles Gordon, who fatally wounded his opponent with a blow to the head, thus rendering the estate his in lieu of moneys due.”
“They didn’t mess around in those days, huh, Major?”
“Quite so. It remained then in the Gordon family for almost seven hundred years, until the 18th century, when they were overtaken by several misfortunes, not least an attack of swine fever which wiped out the pigs on the island and ruined the family. Charles Sr.’s great grandfather, six times over, if you follow me, sold what little possessions he had left and sailed for Boston in 1780 or thereabouts, but it wasn’t until the great drive east, after the Civil War, that Charles, Richard Gordon, began to amass his fortune. He never left Boston, but he invested in cattle farms, mining, gun trafficking… you name it! And by the turn of the century, he was one of the richest men in Boston.”
We had finished our main course, except for Dehan, who was picking up the bones and nibbling at them. She caught a glance from Pam and said, “It’s finger-food, right?”
Pam looked away and Brown and the maids started clearing the table. Ian got to his feet and spoke loudly over Gordon Sr.’s conversation, forcing him and Sally and Bee to turn and look. His accent seemed to have grown stronger with the wine.
“Ut’s late. We need ta be gone. C’mon, Sally, git yer thungs.”
Sally turned to him with narrowed eyes.
Gordon Sr. boomed, “You have not even finished your meal, man! Can’t you at least wait for coffee?”
Ian’s face hardened. “No. We’re gone now. But thanks for a wonderful evening, Charles!”
Just for a moment I saw savagery and hatred in his face. Sally sighed, stood and flounced out of the room. Ian looked at us all as though he knew some shocking truth about us and said, “I’ll wish yiz all a good evening!” Then he left, trailing his self-conscious dignity.
After he had gone, Pam stood too. “Actually, I’m quite tired myself. I think I’ll turn in.” She did something with her mouth that could not be bothered to be a smile and added, “Night all,” and followed Ian out of the room.
Gordon Sr. heaved a big sigh and threw his napkin on the table. “Fine!” he said gracelessly. “If there is to be no entertainment, and my wife is not to attend me, then I too shall bid you all a good night and retire.” He stood and stared at Dehan. “I breakfast and lunch in my chambers, but I shall no doubt see you at dinner tomorrow. Unless of course you care to pay me a visit.” He paused deliberately for a long second, then turned to me, as though pretending to include me in the invitation.
I held his eye. “Goodnight, Mr. Gordon.”
Unlike Ian, he gathered his dignity about him like robes of office and left the room.
Charles Gordon Jr. expostulated breathlessly, “Well!” Then he stammered, “We, we, um, we’re left with our cozy little group then! And, and, and… that’s nice! Who’s for sticky toffee pudding?”
We had sticky toffee pudding, which was astonishingly good, and then withdrew to the withdrawing room to have coffee and whiskey, though Bee had cognac. We settled ourselves by the fire, the major, Dehan and myself, armed with generous measures of single malt, while Charles and Bee took their drinks to a small card table near the French windows and played canasta together.
The major smiled happily, sipped, smacked his lips and sighed. I looked at Dehan. She was examining her drink and I was wondering how long it would take her to ask. It didn’t take long. She raised her eyes to the major and said, “What did Mrs. Gordon mean when she said some people thought Richard Gordon had been murdered?”
He gave a small, comfortable chuckle. “Couldn’t resist it, hey? Well, it was all rather peculiar, to tell the truth. Long time ago now, 1981, I suppose. Old Man Gordon, that’s Charles Jr.’s grandfather, hadn’t long bought the castle. His family were very rich, of course, having made their fortune in the previous century. But his passion, as I told you before, was to return to his roots and reclaim the land that he felt belonged to him and his family by right. When his wife died…” He paused, frowning at the fire, and mumbled half to himself, “Never really sure actually if she died or they divorced, but that’s neither here nor there, really…” He looked back at Dehan and raised his eyebrows. “That’s exactly what he did.”
I sipped. “So he bought it in 1980.”
“That’s right. Of course, Charles Sr. was only in his early twenties at the time, finishing at university in Boston. He read law, or as you would say, he majored in law, and came out to join his father when he graduated, which must have been ’81 or ’82, I suppose. And what he found was a rather peculiar set up.”
Dehan arched her eyebrows. “Peculiar in what way?”
“Well, for a start, it seemed that Old Man Gordon was going a bit… odd! He had started researching all the families that lived on the island, looking into their family backgrounds, finding out how long they had lived here and, above all, if any of them were related to him. It became something of an obsession.”
I frowned. “Aren’t most people in communities like this related to each other?”
He spread his hands. “Well, exactly! But he found one family, the Armstrongs, who were in fact quite closely related, via the mother, who was in fact a Gordon. And he sort of ad
opted this family.”
“Adopted them?”
He nodded down at his glass. “To the extent that he was considering putting young Robert Armstrong into his will. As you can imagine, Charles Sr., when he arrived at his new home from university in Boston, was quite alarmed at the situation. His father was talking about ‘raising up’ the Gordons once more and ‘re-empowering’ them. He wanted to reunite the clan…” He shook his head. “All sorts of mad stuff. He had clearly lost the plot, as they say these days, and Charles was understandably worried, as he could see his family’s considerable fortune being squandered on some bizarre project and, frankly, pilfered by unscrupulous people claiming to be related to him.”
Dehan shifted in her seat. “So, what happened?”
The major sighed. “Well, at first not very much.. Charles begged his father to reconsider his relationship with the Armstrongs, and to put some kind of financial cap on his so-called project, but his father wouldn’t hear of it. He continued to restore the castle…” He waved his hand around. “Forty years ago this was largely a ruin. He restored it and refurnished it with genuine antiques. That, at least, was an investment. But his increasing closeness with young Robert Armstrong, and the vast amounts of money he was spending on him and his mother, that was cause for genuine concern.” He paused, tipping his glass this way and that. “Then things got much more complicated.”
I raised an eyebrow and smiled. “More?”
“Yes, because Charles Gordon Sr. fell in love.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “He fell in love with a girl who was of the wrong social class.”
The major looked a little startled.
I smiled. “I may be an American, major, but I lived here long enough to learn to distinguish the accents. I know a non-U accent when I hear one. Even if it’s been disguised.”