The Murder Hole (10 page)

“His name is Brendan Gilstrap,” said Kirsty,
her chin taking on that stubborn tilt Jean had seen all too often
in her students. “And aye, I went walking down to hear the music
with him last night. Dinna go tarring him with the brush you’re
using on Roger.”

“Roger’s tarred himself. He needs no help
from me. As for this Brendan, I promised your mum I’d look after
you, considering what happened in Glasgow and all. Hanging about
with Dempsey and his sort—no, I don’t think you’ll be doing that. I
don’t think so at all.”

Silence, except for the wind in the shrubbery
and Jean’s shoes making stealthy tracks away from the scene before
the women realized they hadn’t been alone. There you go, she
thought. The classic story of a young woman with an unsuitable
boyfriend. Or unsuitable by Iris’s standards. Her own mother had
been an American—surely that wasn’t the issue. Did Iris disapprove
of monster-hunters in general or of Roger in particular, especially
now that he had attracted violence?

And, parenthetically, what had happened with
Kirsty in Glasgow that she had been more or less exiled here? Jean
stopped at the far end of the terrace, straightened from her
crouch, and spared a thought for youth, death, and solitude.

Then she focused on the vista before her.
Plants and flowers of every color and description spilled up the
hillside behind the house, bulged out across gravel paths, and
strained against a fence. Drops of dew glinted like jewels tucked
away in the foliage. Beyond a gate lay open pasture, grass short as
a putting green, dotted with the gray of—oh, those lumps weren’t
rocks, they were sheep. That explained the well-manicured lawn.
Further up the hill the open fields were splotched with the dark
green of heather and the pink-purple of foxgloves.

At the crest of the hill several Scots pines
stood in solitary splendor, their limbs calligraphy against the
mountainside beyond. The fence encircling them was fringed by what
looked like large, lush Boston ferns but were actually bracken,
fronds rippling in the wind. The Bouchards stood there scrutinizing
a piece of paper.

“Good morning, Miss Fairbairn,” called Iris’s
deep voice from behind Jean’s back.

She probably realized Jean had overheard her
conversation with Kirsty, but courtesy consisted of mutual denial.
Assuming a guileless smile, Jean turned around. “Good morning, Miss
Mackintosh.”

Iris’s khaki and wool-clad form marched on
past, over the edge of the terrace and onto the gravel garden path.
“I hope the Lodge is all right for you.”

“I’m enjoying the space,” said Jean,
scurrying to catch up. “I’m curious, though—why is one of the upper
rooms locked?”

“Oh that. It’s too small for a bedroom so I
use it as a lumber room for the occasional old family
possession.”

Possession was the right word, thought Jean.
But she’d only alienate her subject by pointing out that most
B&B owners were happy to rent out rooms barely large enough for
a bed. “Were you or Kirsty looking for a book in the Lodge
yesterday afternoon? I found the shelves disarranged this
morning.”

Iris stopped dead in the path. Jean skidded
to a halt behind her. Her nose was so close to the much taller
Iris’s knitted cardigan that she caught a whiff of bacon, revealing
who had cooked the breakfast she’d skipped.

“I’ll have Kirsty set them to rights.” Iris’s
t
’s were honed to sharp points.

“No problem, I just wondered . . .”

Iris started off again, leaving Jean to sidle
along the way Kirsty had, head cocked upward. Iris hadn’t answered
the question, had she? Jean went on, “I’d like to ask you about . .
.”

“My garden,” stated Iris. She stopped at the
gate, made an about-face, and launched into a botanical litany.
Jean barely had time to whip out her notebook.

Meadow sweet. Thyme. Flag iris, origin of the
fleur de lis
of France and its Auld Alliance with Scotland.
St. John’s wort, almost a weed in Jean’s garden in Texas. Soapwort,
woundwort, ragwort—known as Stinking Willy after the infamous
William, Duke of Cumberland, the victor at Culloden. Prickly purple
thistles, the symbol of Scotland. Wild roses, woodruff, silverweed,
vetch, eyebright. More broom. The Bonny, Bonny Broom was one of
Hugh’s folk songs.

Iris’s face softened with both affection and
pride, as though she talked about grandchildren. She pointed out
the boxwood hedges, box being the clan badge of the Mackintoshes,
and indicated the elder trees rising at the back of the house and
the rowans at the front, that particular arrangement guarding
against witches. Jean wanted to comment that it had apparently not
guarded against Crowley, but thought better of it—Iris had already
segued into plant dyes, wool, spinning and knitting.

A knitter herself, Jean asked, “Do you use
the wool from your own sheep?”

Iris gazed out at the fuzzy gray blobs that
dotted the field. “Yes, I do. And I conduct classes. Cottage
industries, mind you, make more ecological sense than these giant
factories. Do you fancy a look at the Pitclachie Stone?”

“Yes, please.” Jean’s head was spinning. She
thrust her notebook into her bag and followed.

Iris headed through the gate and up a muddy
path, her boots splashing through the puddles. With her
not-so-sturdy but thankfully flat shoes, Jean played hopscotch with
the dryer patches. She waited next to the corrugated prints of the
Bouchards’ hiking boots while Iris unlatched the gate in the deer
fence and pushed it open. An inquisitive branch of the bracken
brushed against Jean’s ankle, sending a creeping sensation up her
leg.

Stepping into the pine glade was like
stepping into a remote, mysterious place out of another century, or
even another world. Even the song of the birds seemed muted. No one
else was there—the French couple had either not gone into the
enclosure at all or had walked through it and out the gate on the
far side.

The trees murmured in the wind and their
shadows rippled over the shape that stood beneath them, as though
shadow itself could erode like water. But the slab of stone had
been deliberately broken, not eroded. It rose from a pile of smooth
silver rocks stained by whorls of gold and gray lichen, lonely and
yet dignified. Jean stepped toward it reverently.

The Stone was taller than she’d thought from
its photo, as high as her chest. There was no way of knowing how
high it had stood when complete, but the stump was solid enough to
have supported several more feet of stone. She traced the carved
horse’s head with her forefinger, set her fingertips into the
shallower line beneath, then laid her hand flat on the unmarked
surface to the side. The rock harbored a chill that was deeper than
mere cold, sending a frisson up her arm, and felt like fine-grained
sandpaper against her skin. The small hole looked like a mouth
shaped in an O of sorrow.

Without quite realizing what she was doing,
Jean stooped and peered through the hole, just as she’d peeped
through the keyhole of the locked door. She saw merely the green
and gold rush of light and shadow, no glimpses of ancient times or
other dimensions. Her sixth sense remained dormant. Whatever
flicker of ghostly energy she’d felt last night didn’t seem to have
emanated from here. She was almost disappointed.

Straightening, she brushed her fingertips
across the broken edge, gingerly, but it wasn’t sharp enough to
cut. Only then did she remember Iris was standing behind her. “How
did the Stone get broken?” she asked in a voice that was almost a
whisper.

“I don’t know. This piece of it was lying
here amidst the bracken when I was a child. When I returned to
Pitclachie in the seventies, after my father’s death, I had it
erected. Seemed the least I could do to honor the ancient people
who once lived here.” Iris’s drill-sergeant voice softened, as
though she, too, sensed the weight of time in this place.
“Nomenclature can be a bit dodgy as evidence, I know, but the word
‘Pit-clachie’ does suggest that the Stone was a local landmark many
centuries ago. As a boundary marker of the old kingdom of Fidach,
perhaps.”

“Do you know where the rest of the Stone
is?”

“Vandalized and destroyed long since, I
daresay.”

“Your father found this part being used as
the doorstep of the same cottage that’s now the Lodge? Why didn’t
he set it up himself?”

When Iris didn’t answer, Jean looked around.
The woman stood with her hands on her hips, gazing between the tree
trunks down the hillside past the island of house and garden—of
modernity—toward the distant glint of water. Was that a certain
queasiness in her expression? No. Her face was stern and cold,
enigmatic as that of the Stone.

“My father was the local representative of
the Office of Works during the nineteen-twenties,” she finally
replied. “He helped excavate Urquhart Castle. He was quite the
scholar when it came to the archaeology and folklore of the
area.”

Instead of saying,
I know
, Jean
waited.

“He wrote that he found the Stone when he
shifted and repaired a seventeenth-century cottage, yes. He
believed these small stones . . .” Iris nudged one with her foot.
“. . . are all that remains of an ancient cairn, which is why he
left it here, I suppose. The Pictish cemetery of Garbeg is further
up the hill. This might be related to it.”

“I know he wrote about Garbeg,” Jean said,
without adding,
At least he only excavated one grave and left
the rest to archaeological posterity
. “I didn’t know he wrote
about finding the Stone. Where? Not in
Pictish
Antiquities
.”

“No, not at all. In some of his personal
papers.” Iris’s emphasis on the word “personal” was
unmistakable.

That Ambrose had personal papers was news to
Jean, although she was hardly going to faint in amazement. “Have
you ever thought of publishing some of his papers? His field notes
would interest historians and archaeologists. The Museum of
Scotland would love to know where he found that silver hoard,
whether here at Pitclachie or at Urquhart or on the south side of
the Loch. I’m sure my partner at
Great Scot
would make you
an offer.”

Iris took a hasty step away, no doubt
realizing she’d said too much. “Very kind of her, but no.”

“Perhaps I could just read a few of the
papers while I’m here, then, and take notes.”

“No,” said Iris again, biting off the word,
and then, with a half-smile that could be interpreted as apology,
“He was a much-maligned figure in these parts, Miss Fairbairn. Most
unfairly. He had his eccentricities, yes, but was at heart a good
man with no vices—he neither smoked nor drank to excess, for
example. Feel free to look over the library in the house. Much of
his collection of books and antiquities is there.”

But not those intriguing personal papers. Was
that what Iris meant by “the occasional old family possession”
stored in the locked room in the cottage? The room that smelled of
pipe tobacco—well, he could have given up smoking when his daughter
was born.

Feeling an itch in her palms, Jean murmured,
“Thank you, I’ll do that.” She told herself to get a grip. By
“papers,” Iris could mean anything from laundry lists to bank
statements. A diary reading, “February 4, 1933. Today my daughter
Iris was born” was possible. One reading “March 29, 1933. Today I
killed my wife by pushing her down the stairs” or “May 2, 1933.
Today I invented the Loch Ness monster” was much less likely.

Whatever, Iris did not want those papers
read, let alone published. Ambrose might be a historical figure of
sorts, but not far enough in the past for family feelings to have
dried up and blown away. In a country that ran to ghosties and
ghoulies dating back millennia, seventy years or so was a mere
blink of the eye. Jean had known all along she’d be reluctant to
grill Iris about her father’s—personal, private, secret—matters.
What she’d suspected all along was that once she reached the scene,
curiosity would win out over reluctance.

Iris walked to the gate and opened it, her
extended hand directing Jean down the path toward the house.
Obligingly, Jean moved out, but not without one last breath of the
tang of pine and one last look at the Stone. How Roger intended to
prove his theory that the symbols carved on it represented an early
Nessie even her imagination couldn’t fathom.

From the house came the gleeful shriek of a
child, answered by a shouted maternal directive. Car doors slammed.
“I’m sure the B&B is very popular, right here on the main
tourist route,” said Jean.

“That it is,” Iris replied, her steps steady
on Jean’s heels. “Tourists can be a bane as well as a blessing,
mind. We’re caught in a vicious circle. The visitors come,
therefore need facilities, and the facilities then change for the
worse the very thing the visitors have come to see. To say nothing
of attracting even more visitors.”

Alasdair Cameron had muttered about selling
your own heritage. If not for tourists, though, Scotland would be
in serious financial trouble. Jean asked, “Like the new Historic
Scotland visitor center at the Castle?”

“Hysterical Scotland.” Iris didn’t smile when
she said that, so Jean suppressed her own. “Not wishing to be
burdened by the facts, it ignored my environmental impact
statements and destroyed the site in order to ‘improve’ it. The
traffic has gone from bad to worse. Human beings can’t leave well
alone, can they?”

No, Jean thought, leaving well enough alone
was harder for your average human being than losing that last five
pounds. And she didn’t exclude herself from either. “I guess you’re
not too happy with this Monster Madness stuff, then.”

“This area has a great deal to offer the
visitor without going on and on about chimerical creatures in the
loch. Why, some pseudo-scientist or another has actually introduced
American flatworms to the eco-system, brought in on their
equipment. Shocking!”