A Spell of Murder

by Kennedy Kerr

  30

  When the patrol car screeched to a halt halfway up the long drive to Dalcairney Manor, smoke was billowing from the upstairs windows, but the house seemed eerily deserted.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Temerity gasped as she got out of the car and held her sleeve over her nose and mouth to avoid breathing in the acrid smoke. ‘Is anyone still in there, do you think?’

  The Inspector was on his radio, calling for assistance.

  ‘Fire crew cannae get here for about another half hour at the best. I’ve called in an ambulance, they’ll be here as soon as they can, but looks like it’s just us for the moment.’ He grimaced and went to the back of the patrol car, pulling out two oxygen masks. He handed one to Angus.

  ‘We’ll have tae go in, lad.’ Hyland looked grim. ‘Every minute counts. I need yer experience in this, okay?’

  Angus had gone white, but he nodded and pulled on the mask. It was attached to an oxygen canister that could be strapped around the body. ‘Follow me.’ He nodded at the Inspector.

  Oh, no. Temerity thought. This is his worst nightmare. The story of how Angus had got his scars was horrifying. Surely he couldn’t go back into another burning building?

  She caught at Angus’s sleeve.

  ‘You don’t have to. I know you’re scared,’ she tried to reassure him, but he shook his head.

  ‘I do have to. Someone could be trapped in there.’ Angus shook her hand away and refused to meet her eyes. She could tell from touching him how terrified he was; Temerity had a sudden vision, when she touched his arm, of Angus running into another burning building; of the smoke in his lungs, coughing, coughing and then looking up to see the flaming timbers about to fall on his head. She knew he felt like a frightened child, dwarfed by the house, by the fire that they could all see blazing in the upstairs windows.

  David Dalcairney came running around the side of the house. There was a black soot mark across his face in the shape of a feather.

  Is that just me imagining it now, or is that a sign as well? Temerity wondered and filed the sight away for future analysis in her mind. She tried to catch Angus’ eye, to see if he could see it too, but he was looking up at the Manor house.

  ‘Oh, thank God. I couldn’t find my phone… and the house line isn’t working. Please, Kim, have you called an ambulance? Call whoever you can. Mother’s trapped in there.’ The Laird’s eyes were wild and he was out of breath. He leaned on the outside of the Manor wall and coughed.

  ‘Where is she?’ Angus demanded.

  ‘Upstairs. In her room. But the stairs are burning… I couldn’t get to her…’ The Laird coughed again, doubling over.

  ‘What about the other maid? Sally?’ Temerity demanded. The Laird shook his head.

  ‘She’s not here. She went home earlier this morning. Night shift.’

  Convenient, Temerity thought.

  ‘Temerity, look after David. There’s whisky in a flask in the car and get the first aid kit out. Check him over, aye?’ Hyland gripped the Laird’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes. ‘David. It’s okay. I’ve called the fire service and the ambulance, but they’re not goin’ tae be here for a wee while, so me an’ Angus are goin’ tae see if we can get in. Apart from Lady Dalcairney, is there anyone else in the hoose?’

  ‘Aye. I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t seen Liz; she should have been here, but I can’t see her.’

  ‘All right.’ The Inspector nodded. ‘C’mon, Harley. Let’s go.’

  Temerity watched, her heart in her throat, as both policemen stepped cautiously through the warped Manor house doors. Beyond, the hall was thick with black smoke. They disappeared into it like ghosts.

  ‘How on earth did it start?’ Temerity guided the Laird to the patrol car, made him sit in the passenger seat and handed him the flask, which she found in the glove compartment along with a map of Lost Maidens Loch, a fishing magazine and a half-eaten packet of peanuts. Good to see the boys are concentrating on the important elements of police work, she thought dryly. At least there aren’t any doughnuts.

  ‘No idea,’ the Laird confessed. ‘I’d gone for a sail and when I came back, this had happened. I walked into the hallway and it was full of smoke. I thought immediately of Mother – she was in her room… but I couldn’t get to her. The whole upstairs is alight. I—’ His voice broke.

  ‘It’s going to be okay,’ Temerity reassured him, even though she was pretty sure they both knew it was a lie. ‘Come on. We’ll split up and search for Liz,’ she suggested, watching as David Dalcairney drained the whisky flask, wiped his mouth and handed it back to her. Fair enough, she thought. If there was any time to drink an entire flask of whisky, she supposed that watching your house burn down was probably it.

  ‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ He looked up at the Manor. ‘I don’t think we should go into the house.’

  Temerity tried not to think about what might be happening inside, right at this moment. Angus and Kim had oxygen. That was the main thing.

  ‘I agree, but we can look outside and in the parts of the house that aren’t burning. I’ll go around to the back. I seem to remember you can get to the kitchen through the back door. I’ll go that way and see how far I can get,’ she suggested.

  ‘All right. I’ll check the conservatory and the boot room. I don’t know how far the fire has spread,’ he replied, wiping his hand over his face; the soot mark smudged into a random splodge of black on his skin.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, wrapping her scarf around her mouth to protect against the acrid smoke that filled the air. The house was devastated: the glass in the old-fashioned panelled windows was cracked, the stone was stained with soot. As they stood there, Temerity jumped as a whole window at the far end of the house from where they were standing fell out and smashed onto the drive.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t stand here. I know I’m a witch, but I’ve got no desire for any Wrath of God-type injuries,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll meet you back here, okay? Be safe, David.’ Temerity thought there was no point calling him Laird now; if you couldn’t resort to first names whilst saving people from a burning building, then when could you?

  She made her way to the side of the house and followed it around, taking care to stay as far as she could from the walls to avoid any other falling glass or something worse. The noise of the fire was intense; she would never have imagined that the sound of a house fire would be so chaotic, but she could hear regular crashes as, she supposed, furniture fell over; there was an ongoing creaking noise and other sounds she couldn’t identify; a whistling, a kind of screaming noise.

  Towards the back of the house, she came upon the untended vegetable garden again. She went to the back door of the kitchen, remembering when she had been here before and tried it, but the door wouldn’t open. It was either locked from inside or the heat had warped the wood, making it difficult to open. Temerity tugged on the handle but to no avail. She peered through the glass. The kitchen didn’t appear to be on fire, but it was filled with smoke. She concluded that the fire must be mainly upstairs, remembering what the Laird had said about there only being smoke in the hallway, too. Yet there was still a lot of smoke in the air, even at the back of the house which seemed less affected than the front.

  There was no one in the kitchen as far as she could see, which was a relief. She joggled the handle again, but the door didn’t open.

  Stepping back, Temerity looked around her. Something wasn’t right.

  She walked away from the house and followed the path through the bushes and trees towards the shed she and Angus had investigated the night before.

  Through the trees, there was light, but it shifted and leaped. Temerity’s heart was in her mouth: she knew what she was going to see before she saw it.

  The shed was on fire, too.

  31

  She knew it was too late before it crumpled into a heap in front of her, the flames licking the old wood. She thought of the fabric wall hangings and the rugs; all it would take would be a candle
flame flickering the wrong way and the whole thing would go up in a matter of minutes. But the Manor house and the shed at the same time? Too much of a coincidence.

  The fire was too savage to get close to; Temerity could only stand by helplessly and watch it all burn. All the evidence they were going to trace; the fingerprints, the poppet doll pinned to the bed. The box of Russian dolls. She was glad she’d taken that one home; at least there was something left. But it was obvious: whoever the murderer was had known that she and Angus had found their secret place and set fire to it to get rid of the evidence.

  Yet, why burn the house down, too? Temerity pondered, dejected that their discovery had been denied them. If you were the murderer and you had to destroy a shed, you could probably burn it to the ground without anyone knowing. What was the sense in setting fire to the Manor house, which would draw much more attention than you needed? Unless you had to silence someone who was in the house. Who you had been controlling by drugging them and using a poppet-doll curse.

  Temerity shivered and turned back to face Dalcairney Manor. Angus, be careful, she thought, her heart clenching in sudden anxiety. If the murderer knew that she and Angus had seen everything, then they both might be in danger. She didn’t care about herself; she knew that her sixth sense would protect her. But Angus didn’t have the gift of precognition. He didn’t have visions or an uncanny sense of whether to trust people or not.

  She wondered briefly if the Laird had found Liz; there was no sign of her here. She looked up the path, back to the house, as the kitchen door banged open. The Laird appeared from the inside, his arm over his mouth. Speak of the devil she thought. And I was just thinking about precognition. She waited for Liz to follow him out, but he was alone.

  Temerity ran back up the path.

  ‘David! Are you all right? I tried to get into the kitchen but the door was locked, or jammed,’ she called out.

  The Laird nodded to her and coughed for a few moments as he regained his breath.

  ‘It was locked, Miss Love. Are you all right?’ he spluttered.

  ‘I’m fine, don’t worry about me,’ she reassured him. ‘You sound terrible.’

  ‘It’s the smoke. I got in through the boot room. I tried to get up the back stairs but I couldn’t,’ he panted. The soot was all over his skin and clothes now.

  ‘Look, there’s something else.’ Temerity beckoned him down the path; the shed was still blazing. The roof had fallen in and the flames were eating the walls. Melted, twisted shapes lay among the ash that had fallen around the outside; whatever they had once been, they were unrecognisable now.

  ‘Oh dear Lord!’ the Laird exclaimed. ‘How did the fire manage to spread out here?’ He looked confusedly back at the house. ‘I don’t understand… how is this possible?’ He took a few steps closer to the burning wood. ‘The whole garden would have to be on fire for this to have caught.’

  ‘I don’t think this was an accident,’ Temerity said quietly. ‘And maybe the house isn’t an accident either,’ she continued. ‘Last night, Constable Harley and I found this shed. It was being used as some kind of… ritual space, by someone. There was a poppet doll there. I think it was meant to represent your mother.’

  The Laird’s eyes widened.

  ‘What? This is just an old shed. There’s nothing but garden tools in there. Maybe some bags of compost, a bit of weedkiller, that sort of thing. We haven’t had a gardener working up here for a few years, so it’s gone to ruin a bit, as you can see.’ He held his hand out to indicate the garden. ‘What do you mean, a ritual room?’

  ‘You know what I mean. You visited Mother and Father. You spent time in theirs.’ Temerity frowned.

  The Laird looked at her blankly.

  ‘Who would… I mean, I don’t know who would be… doing that kind of thing. I mean, Mother, maybe… but she’s been more or less bedridden for the past year or so.’

  ‘Your mother? It seems unlikely, not least that she’d make a poppet-doll spell confining herself to her own bed.’ Temerity found herself irritated, suddenly. It was obvious to her that the shed hadn’t been used by Lady Dalcairney; she had felt no trace of her there apart from her hair, fixed onto the poppet. She was sure that the Lady had never set foot in there.

  ‘She makes these lotions and potions, you see. Or at least, she used to,’ the Laird continued. ‘Time was, she was very active in the garden. Growing unusual plants, making up herbal tinctures and whatnot. Maybe she kept some of her old stuff in there. She never said, but she’s a secretive old bird. That’s probably what it was. Somewhere to dry herbs.’

  Temerity shook her head.

  ‘That’s not what it was, David. I know the difference between hanging herbs and a space someone’s been using for magic. And it had been used recently, too. There was a pentagram drawn on the floor. Lots of sigils drawn on, candles that had been used. There was an altar set out. You don’t set out an altar and then leave it for a couple of years. That’s something that’s meant to be used.’

  He frowned and looked at the shed again.

  ‘Then I don’t know. It could have been a stranger, I suppose? Looking for some kind of secret place to do their… sorcery?’

  Temerity stared at the Laird in disbelief.

  ‘Do you really think that’s likely? Someone comes onto your land, repeatedly, at night, uses one of your outbuildings and you don’t notice?’ she interrogated him.

  ‘It’s feasible,’ he shrugged. ‘Someone could come up from the loch.’

  ‘Don’t you think that it might have been Liz?’ Temerity suggested gently. ‘We can’t find her. There might be a reason for that.’

  David Dalcairney stared uncomprehendingly at Temerity for a moment. Behind them, Temerity could hear sirens approaching. Thank goodness, she thought.

  ‘Liz? A… witch?’ he repeated. He looked back at the house. ‘She did this?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know. And I don’t know if she’s a witch. She could be.’ Temerity sighed.

  ‘No. I can’t believe it,’ the Laird said, his brow furrowed. ‘I’d have known. All these years she’s been here. Inside my home. She’s like family.’

  ‘It makes sense…’ Temerity continued. ‘For some reason, she wanted to hurt your mother. Keep her bedridden and confused. She might very well have been doctoring her medicine. Drugging her. Why would she do that?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ The Laird frowned. Temerity met his eyes, but he looked away. ‘Look, Miss Love. This is all very strange. But I think we should go back and see if Liz has turned up and I need to know what’s happening with Mother. I can’t be away long. I just hope the Constable and the Inspector managed to get to her.’

  ‘But…’ Temerity started to argue, but she realised he was right. The shed wasn’t going anywhere and whatever evidence had been in there was lost now. Angus, she thought.

  They had started a fire and Angus Harley had run into it, despite his fear. Like a poppet doll being pushed by an unseen hand.

  Temerity started running towards the front of the house again. She was dimly aware that the Laird was following her.

  ‘Angus!’ she shouted, turning the corner. ‘Angus, be careful!’ she shouted. He was in danger; he’d been in danger from the minute he entered the house, but it was more than just the fire that might want to hurt him.

  There was no point in shouting as he couldn’t possibly have heard her, but she shouted nonetheless. The noise of the fire was almost deafening, worse as she approached the driveway that led to the front of the house. She jumped over a row of ornamental bushes and narrowly avoided landing on a large terracotta plant pot. Temerity had the strange feeling that she was too late, but she didn’t know what she was too late for.

  Her first feeling was relief when she saw the ambulance and fire engine.

  But when she saw Angus Harley being wheeled out of the house on a stretcher, the relief evaporated like smoke.

  Behind Angus, two firemen wheeled another stretcher. On it was a small
figure; her grey hair was spread out over the white sheet.

  ‘Mother!’ David Dalcairney cried and ran to her side.

  Yet, behind Lady Dalcairney, there was another stretcher, holding a body which was completely covered by a white sheet.

  There were two people who hadn’t been accounted for; either of them could be lying burned under that cover. Liz and Kim Hyland.

  32

  ‘She battled on for a few days, but she was too fragile to recover from the smoke inhalation.’ Tilda shook her head as the sisters listened to the radio in the kitchen. There will be a memorial service for Lady Jane Balfour Dalcairney and Elizabeth Maitland at 11 a.m. on 29 March at St Peter’s Church. All welcome, with refreshments after at The Singing Kettle.

  ‘It’s terribly sad. And to have lost Liz, too.’ Tilda looked forlorn. ‘Such a terrible way to go.’

  ‘Terrible, terrible,’ Hebrides repeated. He was sitting on the back of one of the kitchen chairs; Tilda put a bowl of seed on the table and he hopped down to peck at it. His plumage was as grand as ever: deep cerulean blues merged with midnight and teal, depending on how his feathers caught the light. Temerity stroked his head.

  ‘She was in the shed, the firemen said. It collapsed on her.’ She shivered. ‘It must have caught fire and either she was trying to put it out, or she set it on fire and got caught in there somehow. No one knew she was in there for ages. When we were there we looked for her. The Laird and I watched the shed burn. We… we didn’t know. It had already collapsed.’ Temerity started crying. After the bodies had been wheeled out, she’d been relieved to see Kim Hyland stagger out of the Manor house, soot-blackened but very much alive. But then she’d realised who had been under the sheet of the last stretcher that was taken onto the ambulance. ‘They said they found her first. We were standing there arguing, but we didn’t realise in all the confusion.’

  ‘Oh, love. You couldn’t have known!’ Tilda enveloped her sister in a bear hug. ‘You were doing your best.’