by Kennedy Kerr
‘Don’t know. Don’t think much,’ Alf replied. ‘But there are quite a few unfamiliar faces, so I can’t be sure.’ He nodded over at the front couple of rows to their left. ‘That’s Anthony Dalcairney in the front row, next to David. I don’t know who the man next to him is. Then I think…’ He squinted and peered closer; Harry nudged him with his elbow.
‘Don’t be nosy,’ he muttered.
‘If I can’t be nosy at a funeral, when can I?’ Alf whispered peevishly. ‘Now. Ah! That’s John, he used to be the chauffeur over at the Dalcairney house. I treated him for shingles once. Nasty case. And that’s Elsie Maitland, Liz’s sister. She was in service with Liz there, back in the day. They must be her children with her.’
Temerity recognised all the village usuals: Ken MacDonald, the glass-blower, looking unusually smart in a dark blue suit and tie; Mrs Black from the bakery wearing a calf-length black dress and pearls. Henry Sutherland from the boat shed stood in the pew in front of Temerity with his family, including his two eleven-year-old twins who were watching something on their phones with earphones in.
Temerity wondered about all the connections between these people, Liz Maitland and Lady Dalcairney. The friendships, passing acquaintances or rivalries they’d held; the times they’d said hello as they passed each other, or remarked on the weather. Temerity thought ruefully that probably only Muriel knew even half of it.
‘So the second Lady Dalcairney hasn’t come.’ Tilda nodded at the back of Anthony’s head. ‘She’s the one that lives overseas? Obviously no love lost between her and the old Lady Dalcairney.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Temerity mused. She wondered whether Claire and David Dalcairney really had divorced because he couldn’t get over his grief for his first wife, or whether it was something more than that.
The Minister cleared his throat and she listened as he began the ceremony.
Yet, suddenly, in her mind, Temerity was remembering another funeral service, long ago and tears sprang to her eyes, even though she fought them back.
Temerity was sipping a glass of ginger wine at the wake and listening politely to the Minister talk about the evils of social media when her phone rang. She frowned at the name on the screen. The Inspector and Angus Harley had left as soon as the service was over. Why was Angus calling her?
‘Angus Harley, I told you. Funerals really aren’t the time or place for sexy chitchat,’ she turned away from the group and answered it, smiling.
‘Hi, Temerity. You at the wake?’
‘Yes. I thought you were going to be here,’ she replied, wondering if yet again she’d misjudged the flirtation. She honestly wondered if she would ever get it right.
‘Something came up. Police business.’ It was difficult to hear Angus’s voice against the hubbub inside the town hall, so she walked out onto the small cobbled street outside. Obviously, because of the fire, the wake couldn’t be held at Dalcairney Manor.
‘Gods, it’s freezing,’ Temerity muttered, folding her arms over her chest, wishing she had brought her coat outside with her. She was dressed in a black, full-skirted 1950s Rockabilly-style dress with a black tulle underskirt, a black cardigan over the top, black tights and yellow kitten heels. Her hair was tied up in a yellow scarf. Tilda had told her she looked like a bumble bee, which she had ignored.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Why are you calling me?’
‘We had some important last-minute information that had to be followed up. I wanted to check if you were still at the wake.’
‘I just told you I am.’
‘Okay, good. Is everyone else there? The Dalcairneys?’
‘Yes…’ She frowned. ‘Look, by the way. I searched my mother’s journals and I found a few entries in one of them, about the time when Emma Dalcairney was supposed to have drowned. It’s nothing incriminating per se, but it suggests that David Dalcairney knows more about magic than he’s letting on. It’s possible that the stuff in the shed could have been his.’
‘Right, okay. Interesting. We’ve spoken to Emma Ross, his first wife, and Claire Dalcairney in Italy. They had some interesting things to say.’
‘You tracked Emma Ross down? Did you tell her about Molly?’ Temerity sheltered the phone against the wind with her hand as best she could.
‘She was understandably upset. She said she left because David was very controlling. From what she told the Inspector, it’s what would now be described as coercive control. Mind games. Incremental physical and mental torture. Emma said when she found out she was pregnant, she knew she had to leave him. She couldn’t stand the thought of him around a child.’
‘Gods. How awful.’ Temerity looked through the window of the Town Hall and watched as David Dalcairney laughed at something Muriel had said. He seemed so pleasant. He’d taken his own boat out with Angus to find the missing tourists; had always seemed every inch the benevolent landowner. But you never knew what people really were, beneath the surface. And Temerity had heard about men like David Dalcairney, who were experts at deceiving people into thinking they were kind and decent.
‘There’s a lot more, but we need your help with one more thing. Keep them there until we get there, okay? David and Anthony.’
‘Of course.’ Temerity shivered and listened to the rest of what Angus said carefully. ‘Okay. I’ll see you soon.’
She ended the phone call and went back inside. She really needed another glass of ginger wine.
36
The main room in Lost Maidens Loch Town Hall had seen many village pantomimes, birthday parties, wedding receptions, wakes, Town Council meetings, dancercise, karate and yoga classes, but the smaller room which connected to it through double doors was musty and dank.
On one wall, a heavy cabinet with glass partitions held a series of leather-bound notebooks which held the minutes of every town council meeting since 1947; the previous records had been lost in World War Two. Lost Maidens Loch had escaped being bombed, but an overzealous member of the local Home Guard had hidden them away from potential invaders and then had died without telling anyone where they were hidden.
Temerity sat opposite Angus Harley at a green baize-topped oval card table with the Inspector and David Dalcairney to her right and Anthony Dalcairney, Tilda and Alf Hersey to her left.
Above them, apparently cascading from the ceiling, were hundreds of black spirit feathers that pooled on the table. Temerity stared up at them in wonder, knowing that only she could see them and wishing that the others could, too: it was such a strange and beautiful sight. All of them were for one person, but who?
She’d never met Anthony Dalcairney before; she remembered Liz telling her that he lived in London and didn’t visit much. He was well dressed in an expensive-looking black suit with black tie; his shoes shone and his straight black hair was combed neatly. While Angus was shuffling some paperwork, conferring with the Inspector, they made small talk. When Temerity asked what he did, he told her that he was a stockbroker.
‘It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but Dad pulled strings in the City after university and… London seemed like a good change of scene,’ he explained. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I know not everyone has someone to pull strings for them.’ He trailed off, meeting his father’s stare.
‘Anyone would think you weren’t grateful, son.’ David Dalcairney’s tone was jolly, but Temerity detected an edge in his words. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered with that expensive education.’
Anthony looked down and said nothing.
The Inspector stood up.
‘Thanks tae ye all fer hangin’ aboot. I didnae want tae make this long and I know yer all wantin’ tae get home and put yer feet up, so I won’t keep ye.’
‘What’s all this about, Hyland?’ David Dalcairney asked; he looked tired.
‘Aye. Well, the thing is, some information’s come our way and we wanted tae talk it over with ye,’ the Inspector continued.
‘About the fire?’ the Laird asked. The Inspector nodded.
‘Now, Anthony, lad. I wanted tae ask ye aboot the insurance policy ye took out recently for the Manor.’
Anthony Dalcairney sat up straighter than before; his expression was defensive.
‘What of it? Dad asked me to look into it for him. We’d been talking about it and I realised that the policy he had wasn’t fit for purpose, so we updated it to something much more comprehensive,’ he explained.
‘Ah, I see. Protected against fire, I take it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Aye. So you’ll earn a pretty penny from the payout when it comes through, I’m guessin’?’
Anthony Dalcairney shrugged. ‘When you consider everything that has to be repaired and replaced due to fire damage, it’s not as though we’ll be making anything on the policy. I don’t see what this has to do with my grandmother’s death.’
‘Hmmm. Well, of course, the wake isn’t just for your grandmother’s death, is it? It’s for Liz, too. You were close tae Liz, weren’t you, Anthony? Like the mother you never had?’ Angus took over the questions; Temerity watched Anthony’s face.
‘Liz was like part of the family,’ Anthony replied, but there was a catch in his voice.
‘More than that, wasn’t she? You told her in this email you considered her your mother and that, quote, the sooner that crazy old bitch and my abusive father are out of the picture, the sooner we can be family again.’ Angus handed a printout of an email to Anthony, who read it and passed it back.
‘I didn’t mean anything by it. It was a turn of phrase.’ Anthony took in a deep breath, avoiding his father’s gaze.
‘Rather a strange turn of phrase. You called your father an abuser. Would you like to elaborate on that?’ Angus continued.
‘No.’ Anthony met Angus’s stare.
‘Fine. We’ll tell you what your father’s first wife has to say about him, then.’ Angus took out his notebook and caught a few confused expressions. ‘Yes, Emma Dalcairney – or, Emma Ross, as she’s now known, is alive. Liz Maitland started that rumour to hide the truth; to protect Emma and her baby. She told you, David, that Emma was suicidal; that she’d seen her wading into the loch in just her nightdress, one night when you were out. But of course, the body was never found.’ Angus nodded. ‘Emma was terrified of you, David. What had started as a whirlwind romance turned into a controlling and violent relationship. When Emma found out she was pregnant, she knew she had to leave. She didn’t want any child of hers growing up under your roof. She feared for her own life and the child’s.’ Angus passed a picture of a young Molly to David over the table. ‘Did you know that Molly Bayliss was your daughter, David?’
Tilda gasped; Temerity was expecting the news, after Angus’s email, but the reveal was still shocking.
The Laird took the photo and stared at it for a moment, then pushed it back over the table at Angus.
‘Yes, I knew. She came to see me a few weeks after she’d moved to Lost Maidens Loch. She’d found out about me somehow. It was… it was wonderful. It was a second chance.’
‘But then you found out, didn’t you, David? That Liz had known about Molly for all those years. That she’d kept her from you,’ Temerity interjected. ‘I found my Mum’s magical journal from the year that you came to her for magical training. You didn’t stay with it for very long, but your fellow student did. And she got really good, didn’t she? She got so good that she was able to enchant a present she gave little Molly one time she visited – a Russian doll – to protect Molly from you. It deflected your attention away from her, should you have ever gotten suspicious that Emma’s body had never turned up.’
‘Oh. Liz was Elen. Elen must have been her witch name.’ Tilda shook her head. ‘Elen. She’s a British deer goddess. Deer. Stags. It all makes sense with your vision, now.’
‘Yes. She trained with Mum and Dad for quite some time and I think she used witchcraft to protect herself and others from David. Presumably it was only ever Mum and Dad that called her Elen; no one else would have known that name. You thought she stayed because she loved you, didn’t you?’ Temerity turned to the Laird. ‘The Inspector told Angus and I that Liz had been in service at the house for years and that you had a habit of dating the staff when you were young. She was probably stuck on you for a while, maybe some years, until she saw who you really were. When Emma told her about the mind games, the abuse.’
Temerity didn’t want to be near David Dalcairney anymore; her psychic senses were too sensitive. Now that the truth had come out, she could feel his slipperiness, his lies and obsession around her like a cloud. ‘She didn’t love you. She loved Anthony and she drove away anyone else that got close to you for their own good. And then, Molly arrived.’
‘Aye. Anthony’s mother, Claire Dalcairney – we spoke to her in Italy. She told us about what your father did tae you. Why she left.’ The Inspector’s tone was kind. ‘It’s nothing a child should ever experience.’
Anthony Dalcairney sat with his head bowed. When he spoke, his voice had lost its earlier composure.
‘My grandmother and my father made my life hell after Mother left. They refused to let her take me with her. And then when Liz told me that my half-sister had come to the village and come and met Dad up at the house, I wanted to warn her about him. So I came up to the village and I met up with her.’ He started crying. ‘But what I could have never predicted was that she was exactly like him.’
‘How was Molly like your father?’ Tilda asked. ‘How could you tell?’
‘I didn’t at first. She was quite charming. She said was so happy to have found her family again. She invited me around to her house for dinner. Her housemate came home and there was a bit of an atmosphere between them, but I just put that down to the normal stresses of cohabiting.’ Anthony kept looking at his hands, folded on the table in front of him. ‘The housemate, Beth, I think her name was? She went up to her room and left us alone, anyway. We talked. She asked me a lot about Dad’s health, the estate. What it was worth. I told her – I thought she had a right to know.’
‘David. I’ve told the police the extent of your health problems.’ Alf Hersey spoke up. ‘I had to.’
The Laird shrugged and stared into the corner of the room.
‘Doesn’t matter now,’ he said, tonelessly.
‘Go on, Anthony,’ Tilda encouraged him gently.
‘Molly was… she was so charismatic. That should have put me on the alert, but it didn’t. Dad was like that too; that was why no one ever suspected him of being anything other than a genial Laird. But he was controlling. His temper was terrible. He’d punish me for the smallest thing; I was locked in a cupboard for forgetting to say please or thank you, for not finishing my dinner, forgetting to say my prayers at night. Grandmother was the same, only with her, there was a kind of unhinged sprinkling of religion in there, too. She had her own strange version of God, a revenging angel.
‘She lived in fear of everything; I think she was afraid of my father. She knew that after Emma was supposed to have died, Dad went for help to Tilda and Temerity’s parents. After that, she was convinced that he’d brought a curse onto the house. She used to make me take boiling hot salt baths to get the curse off me. I know she took them too. She’d make up these bundles of foul-smelling stuff and smoke the house out with them, trying to cleanse the house in her own peculiar way, I suppose. She got more and more paranoid the frailer she got. By the time I was old enough to leave home, she was convinced the devil had cursed her.’
‘Isn’t it true that Liz was drugging your mother, David?’ Alf asked. ‘I think she must have been doing it for some time. Did you find that out?’
‘No comment,’ the Laird muttered. ‘I’m allowed to say that, aren’t I? I don’t have a lawyer here.’
‘Aye, ye can say that,’ the Inspector agreed. ‘But it’s nae goin’ tae help your case.’
‘She did it because I asked her to,’ Anthony interjected. ‘Grandmother was insane. People thought she was this slightly eccentr
ic aristocratic old lady who made herbal remedies for the people in the village now and again. She wasn’t. Before Liz and I agreed that we should take control of the situation, Grandmother had tried to burn the house down on more than one occasion. She thought it was cursed and the only solution was to burn it all. Ironic, really. That’s why I took out the insurance policy. Liz took care of things her end. We thought if we could keep Grandmother more or less bedridden, we could just wait until they both passed away, then I could come home. Take over the estate.’
‘I think someone planted the idea of a curse in her head, though,’ Temerity said, looking at David. ‘You told us when we were at the house that you went to our parents because you believed you were under a curse and you needed their help lifting it. In fact, Mother’s diary is quite clear that you were a part of their training coven for some time. You went there for power, nothing else.’
‘No comment,’ the Laird said, a smile playing around his lips.
‘You planted the idea of a curse in a vulnerable woman’s mind and let it fester there.’ Temerity shook her head. ‘How could you?’
‘No comment,’ the Laird repeated.
Kim Hyland put his hand on Temerity’s and gave it a gentle squeeze as if to say, enough for now. He turned to Anthony.
‘You knew that your father was ill,’ he said. ‘You were waiting for him to die, too.’
‘From what Liz said, I knew it wouldn’t be long,’ Anthony said. ‘I was stupid enough to tell Molly all of this. I even told her that we could share the estate; I was happy to do that. She had just as much right to it as I did, after all. But then, things got a bit… strange. She’d come to visit me at my flat in London, so that we could get to know each other better. Away from Lost Maidens Loch. She said she had a boyfriend who was beginning to be a pain, he was stalking her and she wanted to get away. We talked, she told me about her childhood.’
‘What was Molly like?’ Temerity asked.
‘She was… it’s hard to describe. Two-faced, I suppose. She had this way of suggesting something and then if you said no, laughing it off like it was a joke, but she hadn’t meant it as one. That first day, we were having dinner at a restaurant near where I live and when the bill came, she said, Aren’t you going to pay, Anthony? You’re the rich one, I’m just a humble teacher and the thing was, I was going to pay anyway, I wouldn’t have thought of asking her to go halves, but it was the way she said it. And then, when I said, of course I would pay, it was my treat, she was all smiles and Oh you’re so kind, Anthony, I can pay if you want me to, I was only joking.’ He shook his head. ‘That probably sounds like nothing, it’s hard to describe.’