A Spell of Murder

by Kennedy Kerr

  Liz appeared in the hallway, carrying an empty silver tray.

  ‘Ah, take care now.’ She handed Temerity her coat.

  ‘Thanks for taking care of me, Liz.’ Temerity smiled. ‘Come and visit my shop next time you’re in the village and I’ll repay the tea and cake. It was delicious.’

  ‘Ah, it was nae bother.’ Liz held up a finger. ‘Wait, I’ll give ye the recipe.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no need—’ Temerity protested, seeing that Harley and the Inspector were waiting for her, but the housekeeper was already writing it down. She folded the paper into a square and pushed it into Temerity’s pocket.

  ‘There ye go, lassie. Make yer own.’ She smiled.

  ‘Thanks again.’

  Temerity followed the two policemen out into the large hallway; the staircase led up in a graceful sweep behind them. She looked up as she walked out: for a moment, she thought she glimpsed a woman at the top of the stairs, watching her.

  Inspector Hyland drove down Dalcairney Manor’s long gravelled drive and out onto the main road into the village.

  ‘Quite a night,’ he said. ‘Those guys’ll think again before they take a boat out in a storm.’ He sighed. ‘Tourists. They’ll be the death of me.’

  ‘I’m still surprised that Henry Sutherland let them take the boat out,’ Temerity said, watching the empty road unfurl in front of the car. It was almost ten o’clock and she was exhausted.

  ‘Aye. Nae doubt he’d had a dram or two this afternoon. I’ll be havin’ a word with him about it, don’t ye worry,’ Hyland said, grimly. ‘Old Henry’s not as on the ball as he once was. He shouldae known that storm was on its way.’

  ‘That guidebook for tourists – The Mysteries of Lost Maidens Loch. Full of incorrect information, including the idea that the whole village is apparently haunted, including the loch.’ Angus’s expression was stony. ‘I appreciate that it seems to be bringing in more business to the village, but if it means that we end up with tourists constantly having to be rescued by the coastguard, I don’t think it’s a good thing.’

  For once, I agree with you, Temerity thought, tiredly. We must stop agreeing like this, Wolfman.

  ‘I know. I’ve seen it,’ Temerity said. ‘Muriel seemed to be very happy about it.’

  ‘Muriel is charging tourists twice the goin’ rate for breakfast, pretendin’ that the café’s haunted by some blacksmith.’ Hyland snorted.

  ‘Aye, well. I’m going to be looking into who wrote it,’ Angus replied. ‘And believe me when I say, when I find out who it is, they’re going to get a talking to.’ His tone softened. ‘Anyway. Thanks for your help earlier, Temerity.’ He turned around his seat. Temerity blinked, then opened her eyes wide; the movement of the car had started to lull her to sleep.

  ‘Oh. That’s all right. I didn’t really do anything.’ She felt uncomfortable; they’d been in the middle of what was heading towards an argument when she’d seen the upturned boat in the water. ‘I hope I didn’t… I mean, I… earlier, I got a bit emotional. What we were talking about.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I could have been kinder.’ He turned away and looked out of the window. There was a silence in the car that continued until the Inspector pulled up outside Temerity’s shop.

  ‘Here ye go, lassie.’ He nodded at her. ‘Sleep well, now. No bad dreams, aye?’

  Temerity got out of the car; the streets were still slick with rain, but the storm had passed.

  ‘All right.’ She waved the car off and went inside.

  But there were dreams. In them, she ran after Patrick, shouting his name, but he showed no sign of being able to hear her. She woke with her cheeks wet with tears.

  16

  ‘Rise and shine, sleepyhead.’ Tilda put a mug of steaming hot chocolate on Temerity’s bedside table and opened the curtains.

  Temerity’s walls were painted a blue so dark it was almost black and her wide cast-iron bedstead was white, though the paint was slightly chipped. The sheets were plain yellow, which contrasted beautifully against the deep blue. Against one wall, there was a Chinese cabinet featuring a tarnished, mottled mirror on one panel and a painting of a peacock in a courtyard on the other. Bronze and silver statuettes of Hindu and Greek gods and goddesses crowded the room’s deep windowsill. An almost life-size bronze statue of a Thai prince, sitting cross-legged and playing a flute, sat in the opposite corner to the wooden cabinet. An oil painting of the loch hung above her bed, showing it covered with mist.

  ‘Mmmmph.’ Temerity grumbled at the early Spring sunlight that stung her eyes and pulled the duvet over her head. ‘Go away.’

  ‘It’s past ten and I made you hot chocolate, so I won’t go away, if it’s all the same to you.’ Tilda got under the covers at the other end of Temerity’s bed and rested her feet on the pillow next to her sister’s head. As usual, she wore thick socks to protect her toes from the cold. If you didn’t, the draughty old house would give you chilblains. ‘Tell me all about it.’

  Scylla, the fat black cat, had followed Tilda up the stairs and jumped heavily onto the bed, instantly turning herself around in a ball and snuggling next to Tilda’s legs, between them on the bed.

  ‘Scylla! Not when I’m holding a hot drink,’ Tilda scolded the cat, who purred. ‘You don’t think the rules apply to you, do you, kitty?’ Tilda sighed. ‘And I suppose you’re right. You’re earning your keep, keeping the bad spirits away.’

  Tilda and Temerity believed, like their parents had, that cats provided a kind of spiritual protection for the house. Either way, the cats hunted mice and voles out in the wild land behind the house and brought them in regularly as gifts. The catty sentiment was nice, but it was still disgusting, especially if you stepped in half a dead mouse in your slippers when you were still half asleep in the morning.

  Reluctantly, Temerity sat up. The room was cold, so she reached for a black knitted bedjacket she’d embroidered with red woollen cherries and put it on.

  She sipped the chocolate. It was thick and sweet; Tilda made it with a French powdered chocolate that came from the same gourmet shop as her coffee. ‘What do you want to know? We walked around the loch; it was freezing. Harley and the Inspector and the Laird helped with the rescue. I went up to the Manor. A nice woman called Liz gave me whisky and cake. They were tourists. Henry Sutherland rented them the boat when he shouldn’t have.’

  ‘The storm was absolutely lashing,’ Tilda agreed. ‘We were stuck in the café for ages. Just as well Muriel had provisions.’

  ‘I saw.’ Temerity grinned. ‘How’s Alf?’

  ‘Not so bad. He’s started a phased return to work. Tell you what he did tell me, mind you,’ Tilda said conspiratorially, stroking the cat next to her. ‘The locum, Theakstone?’

  ‘Yes?’ Temerity warmed her hands on the mug.

  ‘Alf thinks he’s been stealing drugs from the surgery. Maybe selling them.’

  ‘What? Surely not.’ Temerity was shocked. She was about to say, Things like that don’t happen in Lost Maidens Loch, when she realised it wasn’t true. Odd things happened in the village all the time.

  ‘Well, Alf said he looked at the stock and they seemed low on some things that weren’t accounted for. He checked and they hadn’t been prescribed. You know Alf, he’s a control freak. He’s hated not being able to work.’

  Being the doctor in a place like Lost Maidens Loch was a big deal and Alf took his responsibilities very seriously. He’d delivered babies, visited the elderly members of the village who found it hard to get out of the house, sometimes just for a cup of tea and a catch-up, knowing what an awful effect loneliness could have on health. He treated childhood viruses, ran an addiction clinic in his own time and had even been known to drive villagers to their hospital appointments in Edinburgh.

  ‘I know.’ Temerity and Tilda knew Alf and Harry pretty well now; as neighbours, they often popped in for coffee, or, sometimes dinner. Harry had helped the sisters when bad weather had blown a tree over in the garden. ‘I wouldn’t
be surprised if he taped his own hair to the filing cabinets. So, what was missing?’

  ‘Painkillers, mostly. The kind of thing that people want to buy illegally.’ Tilda sat up and leaned towards Temerity. ‘And, guess what else? They had a small store of atropine. Not much, because Alf said it’s not something you’d anticipate needing much in a place like Lost Maidens Loch. But they did have some and it’s gone.’

  ‘Goodness. So… someone could have bought atropine? From Theakstone?’

  ‘That’s what Alf thinks. He’s going to talk to the Inspector about it, but it’s hard to prove. They don’t have any CCTV at the surgery, so either Theakstone confesses to having sold drugs, or we find someone that’s bought some. That’s the only way we’d be able to get him.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Temerity drained the last of her hot chocolate. ‘If Alf’s right, that is. He might not be, you know. He’s been off the job a while. He’s getting older, he had a major operation. He might just be… I don’t know. Paranoid.’

  ‘I know. But I don’t think he’s wrong. He hasn’t forgotten how their drugs inventory works.’

  ‘Well, if he’s right about the medicine disappearing, he might still be wrong that it’s Theakstone selling it. It could be someone else.’

  ‘He does seem the obvious choice, but yes, you’re right. I don’t know who, though. No one else has keys to the surgery apart from the locum and Alf. Anyway, surely the real question is not so much who’s sold the drugs, but who bought them. The murderer.’ Tilda’s eyes glowed. ‘It’s a definite lead.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ Temerity mused. ‘And he’s going to talk to Kim about it?’

  Tilda nodded.

  ‘Yep. You’re going to ask him about it, aren’t you?’

  Temerity tried to look unconcerned.

  ‘I might. It’s our village, after all. We should all care about this murder.’

  ‘You’re not actually the police, though. You do know that?’ Tilda nudged her sister’s shoulder with one foot. ‘There’s a difference between psychic investigation and police work.’

  ‘I know! I’m just helping out.’ Temerity pushed Tilda’s foot away.

  ‘You seem to be spending quite a lot of time helping Constable Harley in particular.’ Tilda reached down beside the bed and placed her mug on the bare floorboards, avoiding her sister’s gaze.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Temerity snapped, blushing.

  ‘I mean, you went out onto the loch with him last night. You went to talk to that girl together. You hang out in the café with him all the time. Oh, and you made him take his top off while he was here, let’s not forget.’ Tilda sat up and rested her head against the tall iron bedstead, one eyebrow raised.

  ‘I do not hang out with him all the time,’ Temerity protested. ‘Anyway, he’s awkward. He hardly talks. When he does, he’s usually spouting some narrow-minded rubbish about the world always being logical. And he’s got no sense of humour. At all.’

  ‘Just saying. People are starting to notice.’ Tilda wagged her finger at her sister. ‘You know what they’re like here. Gossips.’

  ‘There’s nothing to gossip about,’ Temerity snapped again. ‘Honestly. All I’m doing is trying to help out; at the detriment of my work, by the way. I’ve got an inbox full of provenance requests I haven’t been able to get to for days.’

  ‘Hmm… any other conference offers?’ Tilda needled.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘The next one that comes up, you should go.’

  Temerity bridled. ‘I might not want to.’

  ‘No. But you should.’ Her sister gave her a look. ‘All this stuff at the loch. I know it’s upsetting for you. All the more reason to get away. I don’t understand why you refuse to. It’s like you… you anchor yourself here out of a sense of obligation or something. He’s gone, Tem. You can’t bring him back.’

  Tilda wasn’t being unkind, but her version of kindness was often of the tough love variety.

  ‘I know, Tils.’ Temerity’s voice was quiet. Outside, a crow cawed. ‘Let me be.’

  ‘I don’t want to let you be. I want you to be happy,’ Tilda insisted.

  17

  This time, Temerity saw the shadowy feather on Ben McKinley’s shoulder immediately.

  She sat at a bare white melamine table in a bare beige-painted room next door to the main interrogation room. No one knew she was there except the Inspector, who had asked her to observe him interviewing McKinley.

  Her room had a window, but it wasn’t a real window. It was a two-way glass partition between the room she was in and the one in which Kim Hyland was making McKinley and his lawyer comfortable next door. She could see them, but they couldn’t see her.

  The interrogation room next door was exactly like she’d seen on TV shows: sparse with one table in the middle which held a recording machine; two chairs on each side of the table. There were no windows and the walls were painted a depressing beige.

  Temerity watched as Hyland placed two plain white mugs on the table in front of McKinley and the woman next to him, who must be his lawyer, then sat down, saying something with a smile. Temerity reached over to switch on the intercom between the rooms, a silver toggle switch underneath the window.

  ‘—only instant coffee, I’m afraid,’ the Inspector was saying. Temerity knew that he used being jovial to put suspects at their ease. She remembered him saying to her once, I’ve been at this game far tae long, lassie; an’ if it’s taught me anythin’, it’s that ye catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

  McKinley didn’t look reassured by Kim Hyland’s friendliness. His face was a white mask of tension; his jaw was set, as if he was gritting his teeth. He made no move to pick up the mug.

  The feather on his shoulder was clearer than the one Temerity had seen on Beth Bennett: McKinley’s had a clear shape and, even from where Temerity sat in the next room, she could see its fibres. It was a deep blue this time.

  Temerity stared in disbelief at the feather. Not because she thought Ben McKinley was innocent, but because this was the second feather she had seen in only a few days. She hadn’t felt, in her heart of hearts that Beth Bennett was a murderer, which was why she hadn’t done anything to try to persuade Harley or the Inspector to probe further. But now, here was a feather on McKinley’s shoulder too, so what did that mean about Beth? She didn’t know what to make of it.

  Hyland leaned forward in his chair and switched on the machine. He spoke his name, McKinley’s name and the time and date into it and nodded to the lawyer – a smartly dressed woman with short grey hair – indicating that she should add her name and presence. Having done that, he sat back and looked pleasantly at the teacher.

  ‘So…’ His voice was relaxed, as if the three of them were out fishing or sitting around a table at The Singing Kettle. ‘Tell me about Molly.’

  McKinley looked at his hands.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked, quietly. Temerity remembered his uncontrollable cries that day in the staff room; this felt very different. He was controlled now, reserved and secret like a locked case.

  ‘When did you meet?’

  ‘Her first day. At school.’

  ‘You liked her from the start?’ Hyland still reclined in his chair, but his eyes were bright.

  ‘Course. Nothing not to like,’ McKinley replied in the same voice.

  ‘Pretty girl,’ Hyland observed neutrally.

  ‘Obviously.’ McKinley sounded almost dismissive. ‘She was…’ He took a deep breath. ‘She was… lovely. As a person. Not everyone got that – I mean, she had a sharp tongue when she wanted to, she kind of put people off before they could get to know her. But she was a good person. I saw that.’

  What a hero, Temerity thought, drily. She wondered again at the significance of the feather. Did that mean Beth and Ben were both guilty of Molly’s murder, or were they both guilty of something else, possibly unrelated? If that was it, then surely everyone in Lost Maidens Loch
should be sporting a spirit feather on their shoulder?

  ‘The others…?’ Hyland enquired. Temerity wondered whether she should mention the feather visions to him, but she decided against it for now. Kim Hyland was very understanding of her witchy ways as a rule, but until she really understood what the feathers meant, she thought she should probably keep the information to herself.

  ‘The other teachers. I’m one of the only male teachers – not that unusual with young children. Working with women is great but they do get catty from time to time. They turned on her.’

  Temerity reflected that it was hard to know the truth now that Molly was dead: all there was to listen to was hearsay. Ben certainly had a rose-tinted memory of Molly Bayliss, but as the saying went, love was blind. In this case, love might also be cause for murder.

  ‘I see. But as I understand it, she spurned your advances.’ Temerity smiled at the Inspector’s old-fashioned phrase, but McKinley didn’t seem amused.

  ‘Not exactly. It was my fault; I asked her out too soon, before we’d had time to become friends. Of course she said no at first.’ McKinley appealed to Hyland. ‘Come on. You’re a guy. You understand. They always say no at first – that just means they’re a decent girl. Not a tease. She was playing the game. She said no, but she wanted me to keep trying.’

  The Inspector blinked. In her room outside the interrogation, Temerity was startled by the use of the word tease as much as the sentiment. She hadn’t known that there were young men in this day and age who had such backward views about women.

  ‘In my experience, laddie, if a woman says she doesnae want to go out with ye – or if she doesnae want tae cuddle up tae ye at the flicks, or she’s sick tae death of goin’ on holiday tae St Andrews fer that matter… that’s Mrs Hyland I’m talking aboot there, a cruise it is this year, aye…’ Hyland shook his head, reached into his pocket and pulled out his pipe and a packet of tobacco. ‘Then I’ve found they tend tae mean it.’ He stuffed the bowl of the pipe with the brown strands and nodded. ‘I dinnae think calling lassies teases comes into it, either, but maybe that’s ma old fashioned opinion,’ he added.