kit, Jean offered no comments aloud. Silently, though, she said to the constable, Go ahead, change that passive voice to active—someone stabbed him, someone carried away the weapon. It was…
“A murder? Here? On my patch?” Thomson’s voice swooped to a higher register. Then his body seemed to grow heavier and more compact, and his voice sank again, finding its specific gravity. “Well then. Visitor or local makes never mind, we canna have murders, now, can we? What are you thinking happened, sir?”
Jean read Alasdair’s nod as a repeat of her own Good lad. Tucking her flashlight beneath her arm, she reached into the carrier bag for the thermos.
“He was alone no more than twenty minutes,” Alasdair said. “From the time we saw him on the battlement—and he did not fall, he let himself down carefully—to the time we met Tina was no more than fifteen. And it was perhaps five more minutes before we heard her scream.”
“How long did you talk to Ian at the office?” Jean poured tea into a plastic cup, the warmth searing through her gloves, and handed it to Alasdair.
“Ah, ta. Twelve minutes, according to my phone.”
Jean poured Thomson a cup as well. Steam coiled upward in the glow of the flashlight.
“Thank you kindly, madam. Mr. MacLeod here, he was after seeing the old ruined church, you were saying?”
“So he was telling us,” Alasdair answered over the edge of the cup. “He had no time to get there, though. Likely he never even reached the wee promontory. He met up with someone else and they did not stand about talking. One, maybe two thrusts, and the killer was off along the beach and past the church. Whether he then circled round the estate to Kinlochroy or went on along the coastline—well, we’ll leave the evidence-gathering for the C.I.D.”
Thomson was looking more starstruck by the moment, his tea forgotten, steam dissipating, in his hand. He dragged his gaze away from Alasdair’s face to his surroundings. “If the killer had come away along the path, you’d have seen him. By sea, well, it’s a rough night.”
You could tell, Jean thought, what a landlubber she was. The concept of water as highway hadn’t occurred to her. And yet there was a reason the formal entrance of the new castle faced the loch. Passable roads were late coming, here. The early peoples of this area hadn’t felt they were on the rim of civilization at all, when such a broad highway connected them to the world.
“What’s further up the coastline to the north?” Jean asked. “More beaches? Or cliffs?”
“Cliffs,” replied Thomson. “No proper beaches, and no proper roads save the one leading to Keppoch Point and the lighthouse. The works are automated, but there’s a hermit lives there. Or so folk are saying of him. I’m thinking he just prefers the company of the birds and the sea creatures. No harm in that.”
“Usually not, no.” Alasdair drained his cup.
Jean envisioned the beautifully drawn map of Dunasheen Estate posted on the website. The house or new castle and its dependent buildings lay to the west of Loch Roy, south of the old castle on its islet. The extensive garden with its smaller segments lay on the sheltered southwest side of the house, otherwise there would have been nothing but gorse and heather lining the forest walk leading to the new—newer, newish—church. Whereas the old church was outside the walls, almost outside the estate entirely, northwest of the house.
Light flashed in the corner of Jean’s eye and she looked around. Two beams of radiance preceded two humanoid blobs down the hill and onto the bridge. They didn’t indicate the Scene of Crimes Officer, unfortunately—more likely the blobs were Rab Finlay and the doctor. Instead of pouring herself a cup of tea, she screwed the top back on the thermos.
What had Greg said? Oh yes. “He said something about having time for a squint at the old castle. I thought he meant having time before it got dark.”
“But what if he had an appointment with someone at the church?” asked Alasdair.
Two minds, one thought. Go figure. “If that person wasn’t the murderer, then maybe he or she saw something.”
“Aye,” said Thomson.
“And look here,” Alasdair went on. “He fell with his head a wee bit closer to the castle, as though he was turning and going back to it. Or as though he was trying to escape his killer. And yet he was stabbed in front, not in back. Could be he turned about to strike out with his torch.”
Thomson nodded, remembered his tea, and swallowed it in one audible gulp. Jean collected the cups. Yeah, the female ran the refreshment services, but it wasn’t as though she had anything more to contribute, not right now, anyway.
“Hullo!” called a man’s voice, and the two dim shapes squeaked across the shingle, the occasional raindrop like a nano-comet streaking down through the beacons of their flashlights.
Yes, the man in the lead was burly Rab Finlay. His tweed cap was pulled down low and his gray-shot black beard bristled upward, so that his cheeks reddened by weather and nose reddened by the weather’s antidote—anti-freeze, Tina had said—seemed squashed between. He tucked his flashlight beneath his arm, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and bellowed, “Can a man not sit at peace by his own fireside without being called out in the cauld and wet?”
“The man’s hardly got himself murdered just to be troubling your evening,” Thomson said.
“Murder?” repeated Rab, the r’s rolling into the darkness like cannonballs down a staircase. “No guid will come of that.”
Young Dakota Krum, thought Jean, would probably have added “duh.”
She less than cleverly deduced that the other man was Dr. Irvine. But she could make out very little of him beyond a wizened form wrapped in a raincoat, with two bright eyes and a nose sharp as a hatchet beneath a floppy-brimmed hat.
“What have we here?” he asked. “A corpse, is it? And an Aussie corpse at that, Rab’s telling me. You’re thinking it’s foul play? Well now, let’s have a look.” He knelt down, positioned his flashlight, and opened his bag.
Again Jean stepped back, and this time stayed back and partially turned aside while Alasdair introduced himself, gave Irvine her name without designating her as partner, intended, or thorn in the side, and proceeded with as much chapter and verse as was available.
“Well,” said Irvine, “the man’s dead, I’ll testify to that—and will, I expect—and I agree that a stab wound’s the likely cause. But under these conditions even the pathologist would be hard put to tell you more.”
“Right.” Alasdair began issuing orders. “Fetch a tarpaulin to cover the body, if you please, Rab,” the even if you don’t please implicit in his tone. “Doctor, I’d be obliged if you’d take as many photos as possible, allowing for conditions.”
“I’ve got no cam—” Irvine began.
Alasdair pulled his own small camera from his pocket. “Here you are.”
“Very good then.” The doctor trained his flashlight on the camera, assessing the buttons.
“P.C. Thomson, stay with the doctor just now, please. A team from Portree’s on its way, but they’ll not be here soon. Sooner than Gilnockie
