The Murder Hole (49 page)

Kirsty and Brendan were ambling up the
sidewalk toward them, Jean saw. They lived in a different world
than Ambrose’s. The only thing constant in life was change, yes,
and yet the more things changed . . .

“My father, Ambrose,” said Iris, “was at
heart an intelligent, imaginative man who wanted something beyond
the life he had been given. And yet he risked everything to protect
me, to provide for me. He took care to have a will written that
left Pitclachie to me. Full stop. That I am not biologically
related to him makes no matter.”

No, Jean thought, it doesn’t.

“He was a bit cracked, yes. When he saw the
remains of the shark, he thought they came from the loch, and then,
half-crazed with guilt after the events of nineteen-thirty-three,
he imagined he saw the creature still living there. Even after he
lost his faith in Crowley as a man, still he believed in him as a
mage. It comforted my father to think that there is another side of
life, one that we cannot see but is there for us nevertheless. He
turned to the occult. I, on the other hand, turned to science.”

“And Gordon Fraser?” asked Alasdair.

“The Dempseys had no call involving him. It’s
as well they did, though, as it spurred me to visit him and own the
truth. I hope that in time Edith’s bones will be released as well,
Chief Inspector, so that her family can take her back, and see her
through to the other side of their own beliefs.”

How carefully, Jean thought, had Fraser
phrased his answers, so as not to betray his cousin Iris.

“The greatest irony of all is that nowhere in
my father’s book did he reveal where he discovered his hoard of
Pictish treasure. Nor did he ever tell me. The treasures of this
earth, they weren’t important to him. They were only a means to an
end.” Iris picked up her knitting, finished the row, rolled up the
half-completed sweater and stowed it in her basket.

Jean remembered the oversized cardigan
Eileen’s ghost was wearing. Perhaps Edith had knitted it for
herself and then given it to her friend and protector. Did Iris
know the Lodge was—had been—haunted by Ambrose’s memories, and by
his guilt? If she did, fine. If she didn’t, well then, that didn’t
matter either.

Iris set the basket on her arm and rose from
her chair. “Do what you wish with what I’ve told you, Chief
Inspector.”

Alasdair stood up as well. “It’s none of my
business, Miss Mackintosh. None at all.”

Her narrow lips curved up in a smile.

“Thank you for the tea,” Jean said, getting
to her feet. “And for paying our admissions to the Visitor
Center.”

“I know when I am confronted with a fait
accompli,” said Iris, with the slightest of twinkles in her eye.
“Making my peace with Hysterical Scotland seems minor enough,
considering.”

“Considering,” said Alasdair.

“Well then, I must be getting on. The
bookings for the week are in complete disarray, and my niece has
had to do more than her share of the work.”

“So I have,” said Kirsty, walking up the
steps onto the terrace with Brendan close beside her. Her
determined grimace took in Jean and Alasdair both. “I’m sorry about
the aggro with the letters, the, ah, poltergeist story and all. I
should have spoken up. But I’m that tired of people teasing me for
being a bit—spooky.”

“That’s quite understandable.” One corner of
Alasdair’s mouth tucked in a very private smile.

Everything was understandable, added Jean.
Not always excusable, but understandable. She turned to Iris.
“You’ll be hearing from the Museum of Scotland about the passage
grave and the top half of the Stone.”

“Yes, now that the multitudes have trodden
over it, it’s past time to have the archaeologists in for a proper
excavation. Brendan, if you’d fancy participating . . .”

Brendan, yet another of Iris’s faits
accompli, shook his head. “Thank you, but I’m a diver. I think
Roger only hired me for protective coloring. It’s really, well . .
.” His voice died away.

Everyone stood for a long moment with faces
averted. But if Roger Dempsey left a ghost, it wasn’t walking
here.

At last Iris pulled herself to attention and
shooed Kirsty and Brendan toward the exit. “Miss Fairbairn, if
you’d still fancy an interview, feel free to ring me. Until then,
good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” Jean called to them all, and
looked at Alasdair.

He was watching her. She might once have
thought that his expression was cool and correct, but now she saw
it for what it was, a mask. Thick as a glacier, but still a mask.
She said, “Let’s walk down to the castle.”

Silently they walked down to the castle and
through the entrance tunnel, along with tourists for whom modern
Scotland was little more than a theme park built on the calcified
remains of history. How many of them, Jean wondered, had the
knowledge and the will to thread the labyrinth of myth? And yet
they still wanted to see for themselves. Mankind needed mystery to
blunt the edges of reality and demonstrate its limits. Like Ambrose
and his passion for Crowley, and the upper room where he had
enacted his self-conscious, self-created rites. Like Jean herself,
taking up residence at the intersection of fantasy and reality.

At a low wall overlooking the loch, Jean and
Alasdair stopped and stood at ease. Below them the water rippled
and frothed and heaved with mighty secrets. At last Alasdair said,
voice rasping, “My jumping on him, it might could have made Roger
drop the lad. They could be looking out his body in the loch. They
could be looking out yours.”

So that was it. He was doubting his vocation.
Again. And she’d thought he might be doubting the relationship that
left them hostages to fortune. “Roger would have dropped him
anyway. You did what you had to do. And you tried to save
Roger.”

“All the way down to the water, he was
shouting, sorry, sorry, sorry. Not so much to me, I’m thinking, as
to everyone. To the Ducketts’ son-in-law, and Jonathan, and Tracy.
I reckon he never intended to survive. Suicide by loch.”

Jean shuddered. “He never intended to kill
anyone. Tracy never intended to kill anyone. One thing led to
another and to another, and there they were.”

“You’re not blaming yourself, are you now?”
Alasdair asked, with a sideways glance sharp as a scalpel.

“Everything I was afraid of happening,
happened. And yet, here we are, you and me. Maybe it’s one of those
strong in the broken places things. Maybe it’s just selfish.”

“Maybe it is that, aye.” He looked out over
the water, his profile slicing the distant mountains.

She’d go back home and have nightmares and
second and triple-guess herself, Jean thought. She’d continue to
jump at every noise. But she did feel stronger. Or resigned to her
fate, which might be the same thing. Alasdair, though, had a strong
shell to begin with. How many wedges were now prying apart its
fissures?

From the tower of the castle came the skreel
of the pipes. Not the twee tourist standards but something
livelier, an age-old war cry or a modern rant in the ancient
tradition, in-your-face, up-your-spine. The music flowed across the
loch, its echo off the opposite bank a ghostly undertone. Far
below, a tourist boat presented its stern to the castle so the
passengers could take photos. Jean waved.

She turned to Alasdair with a determined
smile. “It was an unexpected treat seeing you in a kilt again.”

“I’m owing Hamish for a new one, I reckon.”
And he, too, chose to smile.

“Maybe you can bring your own to Edinburgh.
There’s a restaurant called The Witchery just up from my flat. It’s
not cheap, but then, a posh dinner would do us good.” Jean didn’t
ask herself just what she had in mind for afters.

Alasdair’s brows registered but passed on the
same question. “It’s my shout, then. You saved my life.”

“We made a deal. I wasn’t going to let you
get out of it that easily.” And she had to ask the deal-breaking
question, “You’re not upset, are you, that you were rescued by a
girl?”

“Don’t go any dafter than you are already,”
he retorted, and then, miraculously, he laughed. The frown lines in
his face eased and his eyes glinted like the sky peeking through
storm clouds. “You’re away to Edinburgh just now?”

“I’m all packed and ready to go. I can stop
off in Inverness, though . . .”

Alasdair’s phone rang. With an apologetic
shrug, he answered it. “Cameron. Oh. Yes, sir.”

Sir? The next rung of command was calling to
congratulate Alasdair on another case well-solved.

His lips tightened, freezing out their smile.
Every line in his face deepened. Frost crept down from his
hairline. “Yes, sir. I’ll be there directly.”

“What is it?” asked Jean, her heart
sinking.

“Andy Sawyer was transcribing Gunn’s notes,
and found the ones you made. Gunn admitted you were sitting in on
the interviews—and so he should have done, it’s no secret. But now
Sawyer’s filed a report with the Chief Constable saying I’ve
violated procedures.” Alasdair thrust his phone into his pocket so
sharply Jean was surprised it didn’t rip right through the cloth.
“I’d not have solved the case without you. And it was my decision
to let you in, in any event.”

“So the Chief Constable’s called you on the
carpet?”

“It’s not as bad as all that. I’ll sort it.
And I’ll sort Andy while I’m at it. But that means going, now.” He
lunged away from the wall and down the sidewalk, Jean hurrying
along behind.

In the darkness of the entrance passage,
below the vaulted roof no longer hidden by a ceiling pierced by
murder holes, he stopped and spun around. Jean changed course so
quickly she stumbled. Alasdair caught her and pulled her close.
“Here I am rushing off again, without properly taking my
leave.”

“I’m out of practice with this relationship
stuff, too,” she returned, wrapping her arms around his chest so
snugly she felt the phone in his pocket pressing into her breast.
And she heard herself say, as she had once before, “Have you ever
considered quitting the police force?”

“What should I do with myself, then?” This
time the question was less a challenge than a plea.

“Miranda was saying something the other day—I
don’t remember—she’ll find you something.”

“Right.”

Light gleamed behind them, and light before
them, but for just this moment they were alone in the shadows.
Their lips met, gently, firmly, and they touched foreheads,
drinking in each others’ breaths, each others’ electricity. He
murmured something, something she swore was
Bonny Jean
, but
he had already released her and walked away. “I’ll be phoning you,”
he called over his shoulder.

Jean stood where the long-vanished portcullis
had once closed off the castle, watching him stride up the walk and
into the doorway of the Visitor Center. The sound of the pipes
mimicked the thrumming of the blood in her veins.

“Right!” she called after Alasdair, and began
her own trek home.

* * * * *

After starting out in science fiction and
fantasy, Lillian Stewart Carl is now writing contemporary novels
blending mystery, romance, and fantasy, along with short mystery
and fantasy stories. Her work often includes paranormal themes. It
always features plots based on history and archaeology. While she
doesn’t write comedy, she believes in characters with a sense of
humor. Her novels have been compared to those of Daphne du Maurier,
Mary Renault, Mary Stewart (no relation), Barbara
Michaels/Elizabeth Peters, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s colleague Charles
Williams.

Her fantasies are set in a mythological,
alternate-history Mediterranean and India. Her contemporary novels
are set in Texas, in Ohio, in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, and
in England and Scotland.

Of
Shadows in Scarlet
,
Publishers
Weekly
says, “Presenting a delicious mix of romance and
supernatural suspense, Carl (
Ashes to Ashes
) delivers yet
another immensely readable tale. She has created an engaging cast
and a very entertaining plot, spicing the mix with some interesting
twists on the ghostly romantic suspense novel.”

Of
Lucifer's Crown
,
Library
Journal
says: “Blending historical mystery with a touch of the
supernatural, the author creates an intriguing exploration of faith
and redemption in a world that is at once both modern and
timeless.”

Among many other novels, Lillian is the
author of the five-volume Jean Fairbairn/Alasdair Cameron
cross-genre mystery series: America’s exile and Scotland’s finest
on the trail of all-too-living legends. Of
The Secret
Portrait
,
Kirkus
says: "Mystery, history and sexual
tension blend with a taste of the wild beauty of the Highlands." Of
The
Burning Glass
,
Publishers Weekly
says: “Authentic
dialect, detailed descriptions of the castle and environs, and
vivid characters recreate an area rich in history and legend. The
tightly woven plot is certain to delight history fans with its
dramatic collision of past and present.”

With John Helfers, Lillian co-edited The
Vorkosigan Companion
, a retrospective on Lois McMaster
Bujold’s science fiction work, which was nominated for a Hugo
award.

Her first story collection,
Along the Rim
of Time
, was published in 2000, and her second,
The Muse and
Other Stories of History, Mystery, and Myth
, in 2008, including
three stories that were reprinted in
Year's Best
mystery
anthologies.

Her books are available in both print and
electronic editions. Here is her
website
. Here is
her
Facebook
Group Page
. Here is a listing of more
Smashwords
books.