Holy Terror in the Hebrides
Table of Contents
The Dorothy Martin Mysteries
THE BODY IN THE TRANSEPT
TROUBLE IN THE TOWN HALL
HOLY TERROR IN THE HEBRIDES
MALICE IN MINIATURE
THE VICTIM IN THE VICTORIA STATION
KILLING CASSIDY
TO PERISH IN PENZANCE
SINS OUT OF SCHOOL
WINTER OF DISCONTENT
A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT
THE EVIL THAT MEN DO
THE CORPSE OF ST JAMES’S
MURDER AT THE CASTLE
A Dorothy Martin Mystery
Jeanne M. Dams
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First published in the United States of America in 1997
by Walker Publishing Company, Inc.
eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 1997 by Jeanne M. Dams
The right of Jeanne M. Dams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0074-7 (ePub)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
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Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
A
S DOROTHY L
.
SAYERS
said with reference to Oxford, it would be idle to deny that the Isle of Iona does actually exist, and very largely as I have portrayed it. I’ve run up a house or two and had the temerity to turn a large house owned by the Abbey into a hotel, but those fortunate enough to know Iona will certainly recognize it.
And, as the island shelters no more than ninety-some full-time residents, it would be equally useless to pretend that none of them served as inspiration for my characters. In particular, masquerading under the name of MacPherson goes David Kirkpatrick, whose family has operated the Staffa boat for generations, time out of mind. (I have never met his wife, but I have no doubt she brews excellent tea.) I hasten to add that all foolish or unpleasant characters, English, Scottish, or American, are the products solely of my imagination.
To the people of Iona, then, and to all those hardy Christian souls from St. Columba onward whose benevolent influences have endowed Iona with a peace so vast that only the tortuous mind of a mystery writer could conceive of murderous intent along its shores, this book is gratefully dedicated. I must, however, also mention my deep debt of gratitude to Michael Seidman, without whose inspired editing this hymn to Iona would have been much the poorer.
I
F THE UNIVERSE
behaved in the foreshadowing manner it used to in thirties thrillers, a thunderstorm would have been in progress, or threatening, or at the very least clouds would have been gathering as the little bus jolted over the road across Mull. But weather these days seems to have abandoned its role as a prophet of doom. After, admittedly, a rather gray dawn, Scotland had pulled itself together and put on its best face for its tourists. The brisk sunshine positively sparkled, with that crystalline quality of the very best autumn days. I bounced along, holding on to my hat and trying not to let my head hit the roof, uncomfortable but deeply content. Sighing with pure pleasure, I gazed out the window, wishing the bus would stop long enough for me to trap the view in my memory forever.
On either side of the road, rugged slopes of rocky meadowland soared sharply to the sky, with now and then a narrow stream—“burns” they were called in Scotland, I remembered—tumbling down in a mad rush of white water. Sheep grazed here and there, keeping their footing by magic, apparently, and wandering across the road when they felt like it. I found their meanderings charming; the bus driver didn’t, but he managed not to hit any, also presumably by magic. Pheasants and grouse (or so this ignorant, town-bred American supposed) whirred up every so often in colorful display, and once a small herd of stags leapt across the road, achingly beautiful with their magnificent racks of antlers and their proud bearing, like dancers, like kings.
I was crossing the island of Mull in the Scottish Hebrides, and doing it on a bus, because of a complicated series of events. I’ve never quite understood why my life tends to complications. Other people seem able to get organized, but even after sixty-odd years of trying to live tidily, I find myself in one entanglement after another. To begin with, my four-hundred-year-old house in the southeast of England was being renovated, and the mess had just reached the unbearable stage when the Andersons (friends and fellow American expatriates; they live in London) called to invite me to spend a couple of weeks with them on the tiny island of Iona.
“It’s a
magical
place, Dorothy,” said Lynn in her emphatic Katharine Hepburn style; I could picture her thin, elegant hands waving at the other end of the line. “Rocky hills with lots of sheep, air like wine, fuchsia hedges growing twelve feet tall, I
swear
. . .”
“Come on! Fuchsias? In Scotland?”
“It’s the Gulf Stream, D.,” Tom chimed in on the extension. “Keeps the weather much more temperate than you’d expect that far north. And for once my charming wife isn’t exaggerating. The hedges do grow at least that high, and they’re covered with blooms this time of year. And you know I haven’t got any imagination, but there’s something about the atmosphere of the place . . . anyway, you’d love it. We’ve rented a cottage, and there’s room for three.”
“There’s lots of fresh crab, Dorothy, and the most
exquisite
salmon!”
That did it. Lynn knows my weaknesses, and unfortunately the palate is one of them. Despite my constant efforts to be sensible, my figure shows my deep and abiding love for good food. And then there was the dust and noise of rebuilding—and besides, I was lonesome. My dear friend, or . . . well, dear friend would do . . . Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, was away in Brussels at a European Community police conference, and I was at loose ends.
“We-ell . . .” I said to the telephone.
“Good! Be sure to pack warm clothes, sensible stuff—sweaters and slacks. It can get cold even in the summer on Iona, let alone in September, and nobody ever dresses up. We’re leaving a week from Monday; we’ll call and let you know when we’ll pick you up. And Dorothy, we’re
so
glad you’re coming!”
I’d limited my shopping to the recommended sensible clothes, indulging in my passion for hats with just one jaunty tam-o’-shanter affair in red velvet with a tartan band and a feather cockade, and happily told my boss at my volunteer job that I’d be away for a while. But the phone call, when it came a few days later, was to tell me that Tom was suffering severe chest pains and had been sent to the hospital. “His doctor wants to watch him, Dorothy,” said Lynn, as subdued as I’d ever heard her. “He says it’s probably not an actual heart attack, but he’s been warning Tom for years that he needs to lose weight and get more exercise, and this is a good excuse to run a lot of tests and see just what the situation is. I—I’m sort of scared.” She sounded more like a little girl than the wealthy, witty, self-assured society woman I’d known for years.
“I can sympathize,” I said with feeling. My husband Frank had died of a heart attack that had come with no such warning. But Lynn didn’t need right now to be reminded of my experience. “Do try not to fret yourself into a state, Lynn. That won’t help Tom at all. Look upon this as a fire alarm, a chance for Tom to get out safely.”
“Well, at least I can finally make him go on a diet,” she said with a hint of familiar determination. “But we both feel so badly about letting you down.”
“Good grief, Lynn!”
“Yes, I know, but we do. Look, why don’t you go ahead anyway? I know you won’t want to drive, but the train connections aren’t too bad. We looked them up. And the cottage is already paid for; it’d be a shame to waste it. We might be able to join you later, when Tom is feeling better. I know he’ll just go on stewing about it if you don’t go.”
Lynn was right about the driving. Driving in the UK, even after living here for over a year, is for me an exquisitely refined torture. But I
had
begun to look forward to getting away, and Tom
wouldn’t
cure himself by worrying. So I packed my sweaters and slacks (and long underwear just in case), made arrangements with my amiable next-door neighbor Jane Langland to look after my two cats, and hopped on the train to London for the first leg of a trip that would involve two more trains, a ferry, a bus, and another ferry, with an overnight stay in the little port town of Oban. The entire distance to be covered was less than five hundred miles as the crow flies, but distances are relative. In Britain they can take a lot longer to cover than in America.
Now, though, I was nearing my journey’s end. I glanced at my watch. In fifteen minutes or so we’d arrive at the tiny village of Fionnphort (pronounced, oddly, finna-fort) to catch the ferry to Iona. The landscape was beginning to flatten out and grow less interesting as we made the descent toward the sea, and I’d been up at six, to catch the seven o’clock ferry from Oban. I stretched out my legs and closed my eyes.
I suppose the conversation behind me had been going on for some time, but I hadn’t noticed. Now, with my eyes shut, I couldn’t seem to ignore it.
“Can’t say I care much what they do with each other, but with AIDS and all that these days, I’d just as soon not have to mix with them.” It was a rather flat voice, American in accent, low in volume, but irritated enough to carry.
“An abomination unto the Lord!” The second voice, also American, was rich and deep, a warm contralto. “‘Men with men workin’ that which is unseemly.’ Romans 1:27. But never you mind, Sister Douglas, the Lord’ll strike ’em down in His own good time. He says—”
The bus driver changed gears to negotiate a sharp bend onto a narrow stone bridge, and the rest was mercifully drowned out in the roar of the engine and the beat of tires over cobblestones. I sat up again and looked out the window unhappily. The nastiness of the little exchange I’d overheard had blighted the view. I wondered what they looked like, these rather unpleasant compatriots of mine, but I didn’t glance back. If I caught their eye, they might draw me into a discussion I wanted no part of.
And then we were hurtling down a steep street that ended near the water’s edge in a parking lot full of cars and tour buses. Our driver pulled up next to a green-and-cream behemoth and applied his hand brake with a screech.
