The Burning Glass (45 page)

“Then when Ciara became a threat—a greater
threat—because of her book, Minty did it again. At the pub this
time round, ensuring the maximum number of suspects in the event
this death was seen as suspicious.”

“What do you want to bet Angus hied himself
back out here right after the dinner because, with the book deal,
Wallace’s so-called ‘proof’ reared its ugly head again. Maybe Minty
even sent Angus out here with orders to find Exhibit P.”

“He meant to turn over Wallace’s things
again, I reckon. They were in the lumber room.” Alasdair’s brows
knotted again. “What’s this got to do with getting more
evidence?”

“What if we could get Minty to commit another
crime, this time in front of half the policemen in Roxburghshire?
Even if she never actually confessed to the earlier murders,
wouldn’t that shore up Delaney’s case? Wouldn’t that make Derek
into a lot more credible witness?” There. She’d articulated that
much. Now for the rest.

Alasdair stared at her as though the mouse he
was waiting for had turned out to be an orange. “Jean, you’re not
thinking . . .”

She climbed out of the car, almost tripping
over her own feet. Her emotional paralysis of the past few years
had waned too far. Her entire body felt like a numbed limb when the
feeling returns, all prickles and electrical zaps. If Brad had been
a dampening field, Alasdair was a live wire. What was she thinking,
and why was she thinking it? But she knew the answer to both.

She led Alasdair to one of the park benches
beneath the eaves of the trees and sat down. The wood felt cool and
the sun, filtered through the leaves, felt warm. From here she
could see both castle and chapel, one wracked, the other ruined. A
hint of smoke hung on the wind.

“Jean?”

For some strange reason she was short of
breath. “When Delaney asked Val if she was blackmailing Minty, she
said, ‘I’m never that stupid.’ She’s right, who’d be stupid enough
to try blackmail on Minty?”

“You’re not thinking that Wallace meant his
remark as blackmail, are you?”

“No, I’m not. He was just trying to get
Ciara, and by extension himself, some respect. He must have thought
there really was some sort of proof, a map or something, in the
dungeon.” Jean fluttered her hand as though she could shoo the dank
prison darkness away. “The point is, what if Minty took his remark
as blackmail? That’s why she killed him. Derek’s testimony isn’t
much of a threat to her, but Wallace’s would have been.”

“Ahhh.” Alasdair leaned back against the
bench.

“What if I tell Minty that Gerald left a
complete inventory of the jewelry and Wallace had it. That Wallace
himself wrote out a full confession. Because, it doesn’t make any
difference whether Exhibit P actually exists or not, so long as
Minty thinks it does. Perception is reality. Is it ever.”

“It matters to Ciara’s publisher whether
there’s actually a map,” Alasdair pointed out. “I know, I know,
that’s not the problem just now. What you’re suggesting is . .
.”

“Leaving the window in the Laigh Hall open
and seeing if Minty climbs in, metaphorically speaking. In other
words, I’ll blackmail her. I’ll tell her we’ve found Exhibit P, and
if she doesn’t pay me, I’ll publish it. In the scummiest tabloid I
can find to boot.” They’d come to the bottom line. Jean
straightened, folded her hands in her lap, and said, “And with any
luck, that will get her to come after me.”

Alasdair sat up with a jolt and his face went
askew, his studied expressionlessness ruptured by a tremor of
emotion. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ve got—how’d you put
it? You’ve got no dog in this hunt.”

“Sure I do. I have you.”

“Jean!” He bounded to his feet so abruptly
that Freeman looked around from his post by the gate. “Jean,
no.”

She stood up and tucked her hand beneath his
arm. “If you or Delaney or any of the cops mention you’ve got
Exhibit P, Minty would probably expect a trap. Same thing with Val
or Derek. She might believe Roddy, but good luck getting him to
cooperate. As for Ciara—well, she already tried to kill Ciara.
Let’s leave Ciara out of this.”

He watched her, shadows moving in the deep
places of his eyes like leviathans in the sea.

“But I’m a journalist. Everyone knows
journalists are unethical, right? Maybe she’d think I’m stupid
enough to try blackmailing her. If she doesn’t take the bait, we’re
no worse off than we are now. If she does—”

“You’d be putting yourself in danger. She
knows you’ll not be drinking a cup of tea or the like with her.
She’ll try something a lot less subtle.”

“That’s just it. She’ll make an attack that
isn’t circumstantial, that she can’t explain away.” Jean saw Minty
slicing the eggplant, her knife flashing, and her mouth went dry.
She swallowed what felt like glue. “Let Delaney ransack Glebe House
and the school. Then he and his people can walk away. I’ll call
Minty and tell her to meet me out here. You could hide twenty
witnesses in the flat and the castle.”

“She’ll wonder why Delaney’s giving up so
easily.”

“She’ll figure he’s giving up because she’s
won. She’s used to winning, isn’t she?”

Alasdair’s arm quivered like a tuning fork.
“Why, Jean? Why are you after doing this? Justice? Or are you after
proving something to me—especially after my threatening Derek?”

She rested her head on his shoulder, closed
her eyes, and breathed in his scent, wool, soap, an elusive
salt-smoke like fine whiskey. The tickle of his sweater against her
cheek was nothing compared to the friction of his personality
against hers. Friction could be inspiring. It could create fire.
Fire could warm you, or it could hurt. “All of the above,” she
replied. “None of the above. I don’t know. It’s just—what needs to
be done.”

He took her hand in his and for several
minutes said nothing. Then he pulled her into a walk, down the path
to the chapel. “All right then. I’ll talk to Delaney. But Jean . .
.”

“If I get hurt you’ll kill me. Yeah, I
know.”

With a squeeze of her hand, Alasdair released
her and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. She strolled on into
the roofless nave of the chapel. There was the memorial to Henry
Sinclair, ravaged by time. There was Isabel’s grave, ravaged by
man. The carved stone pillars stood aloof, no longer resonating to
plainchant and harp.

She heard Alasdair’s voice. “You’ve got three
choices. You can go ahead with charges and see what happens. Maybe
you can push through to a trial. But if the jury returns a verdict
of not guilty, and likely they will, there’s no trying her again.
Or you can give up the case as a bad job and walk away, never mind
Angus and Wallace. Or you can try Jean’s daft idea.”

Silence, except for the ripple of the river
and whisper of the trees. The dappled shadows seemed fluid, a
mingling of elements. People came and went, buildings rose and
fell, but water and wind and growing green things, they were
eternal.

“Oh aye, I’ll be taking a black eye from
Protect and Survive if the case goes unresolved—give over, Gary,
you think I’d be sacrificing my . . . my own . . .”

He still didn’t know what to call her, did
he?

“Stage a diversion. Make your search and then
call everyone away, as though after someone else. Let her think she
can get herself to Ferniebank and back again with no one
noticing.”

Jean considered the ancient well, Mary’s
well, Mary the Queen of heaven, Mary the Queen of Scots, Mary the
beautiful sinner, friend of God.

“All right, then.” Alasdair stared at his
phone, then thrust it into his pocket and turned to Jean. Clasping
her shoulders, he jiggled her around, either shaking her up or
settling her down. “You’re on. Delaney will be here
straightaway.”

Oh. She had convinced Alasdair, and through
him Delaney. Well, she could still change her mind. But then,
nothing would change Angus’s death. Or Wallace’s. Still trying to
catch her breath, she walked back up to the castle with Alasdair’s
arm around her and her arm around him. They barely had time to go
into the flat, find Dougie asleep on the bed, and make a pot of
coffee before Delaney pounded on the door. Alasdair waved him and
his shadow, Kallinikos, inside.

“What the hell’s all this?” Delaney demanded
of Jean.

“The case is solved. The problem is bringing
the killer to justice. I’m suggesting a way.” She poured milk into
her coffee and sat down, leaving the others to fend for themselves.
You’d think Delaney could at least have brought elevenses,
doughnuts or cream scones or something, but no. Not that pastries
wouldn’t have turned into paste in her throat. She took a deep
drink from her mug and juggled the hot liquid around her mouth so
it didn’t burn her tongue.

Delaney helped himself to a cup and plopped
down in the decrepit chair, which creaked beneath him. “You’re
telling us our business, are you? You’re thinking you’ll have
yourself a fine behind-the-scenes story for your rag?”

“
Great Scot
,” said Kallinikos, “is no
rag. Even Minty knows that.”

“Minty. Queen Minty, the first and only.”
Delaney drank and then choked. “Is this her coffee?”

“We’ve been drinking it all along,” Alasdair
told him.

Kallinikos sat down at the table with a cup,
his notebook, and several file folders. “We’ll have Glebe House
clear of our folk by mid-afternoon, assuming they’ve found nothing.
If you’ll ring Mrs. Rutherford, Miss Fairbairn, and set up the
appointment. Use the telephone on the desk.”

“In case she has caller I.D.?” asked
Jean.

“Aye,” Alasdair replied. “And because that
phone’s been tapped since early on the Sunday.”

Jean wasn’t in the least surprised, either
about the tap or that Alasdair hadn’t bothered to tell her. Why
should he? She set her cup on the table and stood up.

“Minty’ll not take the bait,” said
Delaney.

“I reckon she will,” Alasdair said. “She’ll
be taking a chance, but she’s been taking chances for years now,
ever since the excavation. With the excavation itself, for that
matter. Every choice she’s made has brought her here. She’ll keep
on fighting to the bitter end.”

Thanks
, Jean thought toward him, even
though she knew what he meant. Telling her heart to back off from
her throat, she picked up the telephone on the desk.

“Her number’s on the speed dial,” said
Alasdair. “First one.”

Three pairs of eyes watched her punch the
button. Three sets of breath went shallow and surreptitious. One
ring, two, and she heard the clicks of a forwarded call—to the
cooking school, no doubt. “Stanelaw two-four-seven,” said Minty’s
rich, cool voice.

“Minty,” Jean said, hoping her own voice
clung near its usual register. “This is Jean Fairbairn. I need to
talk to you privately.”

“Let me guess. You’ve remembered that you’re
a journalist and not a police auxiliary.”

“You could say that, yes.” Jean paused, not
for effect but to breathe.
Come on, you’re telling a story here.
One of those stories that’s a lie
. “I have a business deal for
you.”

“My story, exclusive for
Great Scot
,
is that it?”

“Not exactly, no. You see, I don’t work only
for
Great Scot
. I have connections with the
Sunburn
in London. And with several similar papers in the US. Americans,
they just love scandals in the British upper classes. You’d think
we never fought a revolution.”

“And?”

“Alasdair’s gone off with his police
friends—they’ve taken Valerie and Derek Trotter to Hawick for
questioning, maybe even charges of some sort. They’ve closed down
the incident room. I’ve got the place to myself.”

Minty’s voice chilled even further, like
vodka kept in the freezer, icy but still pourable. “Please get to
the point, Jean.”

“The point is, I’ve been looking through
Wallace’s personal effects. I found a sketch he did of the dig here
at Ferniebank, like the one P.C. Logan took away, except it’s
Valerie holding the little chest like Angus was holding it in the
other sketch. And that’s not all. On the back is an inventory of a
collection of jewelry—some very impressive pieces there. I wonder
what happened to them?”

The line rang hollowly.

“Plus, I found an envelope marked, ‘To be
opened in case of my death.’ Since Wallace died, I opened it. It
doesn’t look like a will so much as a, well, confession of sorts.
Answers to what happened to that jewelry.”

“What are you implying?” Minty
enunciated.

“I’m not implying, I’m telling you right up
front. If you don’t make it worth my while to keep quiet, I’ll take
the story about the jewelry to the
Sunburn
and the American
tabloids as well. They’ll love it. It’ll go on their front pages,
along with photos of you and your school. And then, once the story
is out, Inland Revenue’s going to be only one of the groups that
will find it inspirational.”

Jean thought she could detect a long,
aggravated breath, unless it was one of the men behind her keeping
himself from breaking in and telling her what to say. “And what,”
asked Minty, “would your paramour think of your indulging in
blackmail? We are speaking blackmail here, aren’t we?”

“Blackmail is an appropriate word. It comes
from here in the Borders, did you know that?”

“Yes.” The word came across as a sibilant,
squeezed between Minty’s teeth.

“What Alasdair doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Behind her, he smothered a scalded snicker.

“I see we’ll have to have ourselves a chat,”
said Minty. “If you’ll bring the papers here late this afternoon,
after my class—”

“No way am I removing the papers from
Ferniebank. You can come here. Shall we say six? I’ll meet you in
the Laigh Hall, where Wallace’s things are now. Bring money,
dollars, pounds, euros, your choice. As a down payment.”