Murder on the Moor (9 page)

“What do you mean?”

“She was trying so hard to win you back.”

They stood under the stone porch watching the rain, which had redoubled its assault.

“She seemed quite taken by Alistair, I thought.” Rex flipped his hood over his head in preparation for the dash to the Land Rover.

“You are such a modest fool, Rex. She was trying to make you jealous by singling out the most eligible bachelor in the house. That’s why she so brazenly flirted with him.”

“Oh—I see.”

“Really, Rex,” Helen said almost crossly. “For someone so intelligent, you can be truly dense at times.” She tucked her blond hair inside her hood. “Come on. Let’s go.”

They ran across the driveway to the white Land Rover. At that moment, Alistair approached them. “Look here,” he murmured, rain trickling down his lean features. “Moira’s body has been interfered with.”

“What do you mean?” Rex demanded.

“The tarpaulin has been moved.”

“Is she exposed?”

“Not exactly. It’s as though someone took a peek and hurriedly covered her up again.”

“The boy might have taken a look,” Helen said. “It’s only natural at his age.”

“That’s what I thought,” Alistair concurred. “And he’s not quite right in the head.”

“My bet is equally on the dad,” Rex told them. “He has a reputation for being overly fond of the ladies.” Hamish had stared inappropriately at Helen the previous evening, as he remembered with distaste.

“Not surprising, considering the mousy thing he’s married to.”

“Alistair!” Helen chided.

“Well, what do I know?” Alistair gave a graceful shrug, the shoulders of his gray jacket growing darker beneath the deluge. He stuck his hands in his pocket. “I’m gay,” he added. “In case you hadn’t guessed.”

“I had.”

“Alistair, please see to it no one else is disrespectful to Moira’s body,” Rex implored him. “I should not have let Donnie go back in the stable, but I thought it would be okay if his dad was there too. If I had time, I’d knock Hamish’s block off, even if just for not teaching his son better manners. Look, we best be heading off,” he told Helen.

“We can’t,” she said roundly.

“How not?”

“Slashed tyres.”

“Good God, she’s right,” Alistair exclaimed, walking around all the vehicles. “Every single one.”

When Rex saw the
vandalized tyres, he felt ready to bellow and stomp his feet.

“Rex, I’m frightened,” Helen said in a small voice beside him.

“Don’t worry, lass. We’ll get out of here one way or the other. Where’s that boy?”

Glancing about him, he strode off beyond the stable to the meadow, where Donnie stood beside Honey as she grazed peaceably beneath the rain. When the boy saw Rex, he led the pony by the reins through the wet grass toward him. Rex realized Honey was too small to be of any use to him after all.

“I don’t suppose your horse would support my weight, would she?” he asked.

“Och, noo, and she’s right mean-spirited,” Donnie told him in his slow, deliberate way. “She’ll throw you just as soon as look at you.”

“She’s looking at me now, and not kindly.”

The pony regarded him with much of the white of her eye showing, while her hind quarters did a little stampede on the spot.

Donnie stroked the length of her furry neck. “She kens you’d squash her.”

Rex was not willing to send the boy to the village on his behalf, even though he would get there quicker on horseback—if he ever got there at all. “Perhaps you should put Honey back in her stall,” he told Donnie. “I think we may all be here for a while yet. And I don’t want you catching a chill.”

The boy obediently led the horse toward the stable. Rex saw the bone-handled sheath knife was still in his belt. Had he slashed the tyres when he cut the phone line? Rex dismissed the idea. The careful planning involved in the murder all but ruled out the mentally disabled boy as a suspect.

“Donnie,” he called after him. “Did anyone borrow your knife?”

“No one,” the boy answered slowly. “I always keep it on me. Da gave it to me for my seventeenth birthday and said not to lose it as it cost more than he could afford.”

“Alistair,” Rex said when he drew near his colleague. “Follow the lad. When he’s seen to the pony, send him into the house. I’d rather they all stayed together.”

“Are you walking to the village?”

“We have no choice. We’ll try to get a lift back.”

Rex took off up the road with Helen, avoiding the worst of the puddles and potholes. The gravel crunched soggily underfoot. The damp chill on his face and the gentle patter of rain on the hood of his anorak made for a dismal walk, aside from the sad nature of his errand.

Someone had murdered Moira under his roof. That was the most logical explanation for all the water on the bathroom floor. The question that haunted him was whether the killer was a guest at Gleneagle Lodge or else an intruder who had snuck into the house with more than robbery in mind.

Rex pondered this last possibility. There were two points of access to the lodge: the front entrance and the kitchen door; and, of course, an unlocked window. The downstairs had been all lit up. Anyone could have peered inside while the inhabitants were partying and crept in at some point, perhaps when they were all in their rooms. He remembered locking the kitchen door, but not the front door, in case Donnie needed to get in the house.

Moira was prone to taking long baths, but she would have had to have been inconsiderate in the extreme to voluntarily remain in the bath for hours when people were trying to get in to use the facilities.

And what about the shadow Flora had seen on the stairs at around twelve-thirty? The apparition with a distorted head and a long knife?

“A penny for your thoughts,” Helen said, trudging breathlessly beside him. “Actually, I’d give a lot more to know exactly what goes on in your head sometimes.”

“I’m just trying to sort out this whole mess. Did Moira seem suicidal to you last night?”

“Hardly. Quite the belle of the ball, I’d say, and enjoying every minute of it.”

“You were the belle, Helen.”

“If you say so.”

Rex stopped in his tracks and turned Helen to face him. Her hood slipped into her eyes as she lifted her face to look up at him. He pulled it back tenderly. “She’s dead, Helen.”

“I know.” Helen burst into soft tears. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” He took her by the arm and together they crested the hill and started down the country road that led to Glen-eagle Village. Droplets of rain detached from the branches of the overhanging trees and fell onto the grass, where clumps of bluebells drooped beneath their watery burden. Sodden leaves clung to their boots as they trudged along. Not one car passed on the winding strip of blacktop.

“This reminds me of when we escaped to the pub from Swanmere Manor,” Helen told him. Snowbound at an English country hotel owned by a friend of his mother, they had skied down to the village to find the local constable and report a couple of suspicious deaths. “I must be a bad luck charm,” she added miserably.

“Don’t be daft, Helen. You were nowhere aboot when I had that case in the French West Indies, or in Florida, for that matter.” He let out a heavy sigh. “It’s a wee bit different when it’s on your own turf.”

“I was thinking … If Moira had had a bit too much to drink, she might have accidentally slipped in the bath and sloshed water all over the floor. Oh, wait,” Helen said before Rex could interrupt her. “That doesn’t explain how she ended up in the lake. But if she was drunk—I mean
really
drunk, she might have climbed out of the window and decided to take a swim. Then it wouldn’t be a murder at all,” she added hopefully.

“Does that seem plausible to you?”

“Her climbing out the window? Not really,” Helen admitted. “I’m just looking at all the angles.”

“If she had been found in the bath, the suicide theory might hold water—excuse the pun. But turning up dead in the loch … That’s definitely fishy.”

“I suppose so. That means a murderer is at large, doesn’t it? So, what’s your best guess?”

“I’m nowhere ready to say.”

“I knew a penny would be too little for your thoughts. What if I offered you a million pounds?”

“You don’t have a million pounds. As far as I know.”

Helen heaved a sigh as she walked in step beside him along the seemingly neverending wet road. “Unfortunately, no. School counsellors aren’t
that
well paid. And no one in my family has died and left me anything.” She was silent for a moment as the sign for Gleneagle Village came into view at the final bend in the road. “Does Moira have any family who would benefit from her death?”

“Only a father in Glasgow. But she had nothing, really, except her one-bedroom flat. If she left him anything, which I hope she didn’t, he’d only drink it away. No, Moira was verra much alone in this world.”

However, he refused to feel guilty. He had been good to her while they were together. He had not even complained when she suddenly decided it was her vocation to go and help the displaced in Baghdad. There she had fallen in love with an Australian photographer and written him a Dear John letter—when she eventually did decide to write. The contents of that letter made him flinch to this day. How she could have expected him to take her back when her lover returned to his wife in Sydney, he could not imagine.

“Here we are,” he said unnecessarily when they reached the village with its stark gray stone cottages and tiny shops aligned on each side of the road.

Beside the Gleneagle Arms stood Murray’s Newsagent’s, the name stenciled in black letters across the orange awning. A small-paned window held so many For Sale notices and sundry announcements that it was almost impossible to see through to the inside. A bell rang as they entered. From the newspaper stand, a headline screamed, “Moor Murderer Strikes Again!” Rex picked up a newspaper for Alistair.

“Guid day tae ye, Mr. Graves,” the wiry newsagent greeted from behind the counter, nodding a polite acknowledgment to Helen. “Whit can I dae for ye?”

“Is the pay phone down the street working?” Rex asked.

“Noo, but ye can use the phone in here—if ye’ll mind the shop while I nip round the pub. Is it a local call?” Murray inquired with a suspicious glint in his eye.

“Aye.”

The old man plunked the dial phone on Rex’s side of the counter.

“I also need a tow truck,” Rex informed him.

“Angus went fishin’. A’ll send him tae the lodge when he returns.”

Angus owned the local garage. Rex couldn’t think of anyone else who could help with the tyres.

“A’ll be reit back!” Murray gleefully raided the till, grabbed his cap, and disappeared through the door.

“He’s a trusting soul,” Helen remarked. “But then you
are
a Scottish barrister and an officer of the court.”

“I suppose we could always run off with an armful of Mars Bars and Malteesers,” Rex joked, gesturing toward the display of candy at the counter.

Pulling the old-fashioned black phone toward him, he dialed 9-9-9 and stated his emergency, adding detailed directions to the lodge. “Aye, that’s right. Off the A82 … between Invergarry and Laggan, north of the swing bridge. Aye, I’m sure the victim is dead,” he told the dispatcher. “Murdered. When can the police get here? … That long?”

“What’s the delay?” Helen asked when he replaced the receiver.

“They’re busy with the latest moor murder on top of all the emergencies caused by the rain. They’ll be here as soon as they can, but since the victim is dead, the dispatcher said it wasn’t a priority.”

“But it’s a murder!”

“I’m no sure she believed me, and all police resources are concentrated on hunting for Melissa Bates’ killer. Every off-duty constable from Inverness to Perth and from the Atlantic to the North Sea has been deployed in the search.”

“Isn’t there a local bobby?”

“Not any more. But not much goes on in Gleaneagle except for the occasional drunken brawl.”

“Until now.”

“Until now.” Rex dialed the lodge and then called the phone company to report that the line at his house was still down. “I wonder what’s keeping Murray.”

“Beer.”

“I’ll track him down next door and see if someone can take us back to the lodge.”

“I’ll go,” Helen said. “He specifically asked you to mind the shop.”

Rex did not much like the idea of Helen going into a pub by herself, but he knew she could take care of herself. After all, a group of lecherous old crofters and shopkeepers could not pose more of a threat than the hormonally active teenagers she worked with at her school.

While she was gone, he leaned against the counter and perused the story concerning the latest victim in the string of child murders on Rannoch Moor. The article did not offer many more details than Alistair had been able to provide. That the police had a traveling salesman from Inverness in custody was the latest development in the case. Chief Inspector Dalgerry from the Northern Constabulary was quoted as saying he was confident they had the right man for the murders and he hoped the public might rest more easy. A pair of photos accompanied the story, the pug-nosed Dalgerry contrasting starkly with the innocent young face of Melissa Bates.

The shop bell rang, and Helen re-entered with Murray and a midget of a man of about fifty with an impish countenance.

“This is Mr. Buccleugh, the fish monger,” Helen announced. “He has kindly agreed to lend us his van—for ten pounds. I explained that our car broke down.”

Good, Rex thought. He did not want to advertise a murder and have nosy-parkers turning up at the lodge and interfering with the evidence until after the police had left.

“I cleared oot the crates,” Buccleugh said. “Ye can return the van on the morrow.”

“Most obliged. Is there petrol in the tank?”

“Enough tae get ye tae Gleneagle Lodge an’ back. Tis the yellow van parked ootside the pub.” He gave Rex a key.

Rex paid the man and left money on the counter for the newspaper.

“Guid cheerio the nou!” Murray called after him as he and Helen left the shop.

Rex felt certain the locals exaggerated the Highland dialect for his benefit. But when he saw the van, he stopped short on the pavement. Now he knew he was the butt of a joke.

“No way!” This was what his Americanized son would say.

“It’ll get us there,” Helen said hesitantly.

The van was a mustard yellow Reliant Regal three-wheeler of the most basic design, with a bare metal floor and a window in the single door at the back. The interior reeked powerfully of haddock.