The Orkney Scroll (20 page)

“I’m so glad you’re feeling better,” Willow said.

“This is great, Lara,” the adorable Kenny said, pulling out a chair. “Please join us.”

“I will,” I said. “I’m starving.”

“Good sign,” Willow said. “We seem to have stumbled on the place to be in Kirkwall, Kenny. We went to a pub first, Lara, but it was so dark we decided to try for something else, and we picked this place, and what do you know, here’s Lester. And then you come in, too. I can’t believe it.”

I couldn’t either. “How do you know each other?” I said brightly. Kenny and Willow looked discomfited. It was left to Lester to reply.

“Kenny and I met at the University.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Which one?”

“Glasgow,” Lester said, as simultaneously Kenny offered up Edinburgh. I suppose I looked perplexed.

“Was it Edinburgh, Ken?” Lester said. At least his name was really Kenny apparently, unlike other people I’d met lately. “I suppose it must have been. I give courses at both universities from time to time, and obviously have trouble keeping them apart.”

Didn’t this just strain one’s credulity? “Has to be,” Kenny said. “I’ve never been to Glasgow University.”

“That solves it, then,” Lester said.

“You give courses, Lester?” I said. “You are a man of many talents. Antiques? History?”

“I have made something of a hobby of Viking jewelry,” Lester said. “Nothing to do with the shop, but from time to time I give a lecture or two.”

“He’s being modest,” Kenny said. “He’s a real expert, unlike me who is just trying to be.”

“So you’re talking about…” Willow gave me an almost imperceptible shake of the head, but there was no mistaking her meaning. “Vikings,” I said. “How fascinating. Tell me more.”

“It is,” Willow said. “But how do you and Lester know each other?”

“Fellow antique dealers,” Lester said.

“Yes, we met in Glasgow when I happened upon Lester’s shop. He was kind enough to suggest I attend a rather splendid fund-raiser at a lovely home in Glasgow.”

“I think we’re going to be fellow houseguests this evening, in fact,” Lester said.

“Are we?” I asked.

“You’re staying at the same B & B in Stromness?” Willow said. “What a coincidence!”

“Stromness?” Lester said.

Oh, dear.
“I received a very nice invitation today,” I said. “I ran into Maya a couple of days ago, and she’s just invited me to stay with them.”

“She told me last night you were coming,” Lester said.

Kenny and Willow looked at me. The tables had somehow been turned here, and I was the one who was under suspicion. I didn’t think that was exactly fair under the circumstances. “I think she must have meant she intended to invite me,” I said. “I was just talking to her this morning.”

“That must have been it,” Lester agreed, but he looked doubtful.

“I see,” Willow said. I expect she did, too, which was too bad, but given I didn’t believe a word she was saying, maybe she shouldn’t believe me either.

“The Alexanders are fabulous hosts,” Lester said. “I know you’ll enjoy it there. I e-mailed Robert a couple of days ago with a photo of a pocket watch I thought he’d love, and he invited me to come for a visit. I never turn down an invitation from the Alexanders.”

“This would be Robert Alexander the entrepreneur, would it?” Kenny said. “The rich guy?”

“One and the same,” Lester said. “They have a wonderful weekend home here.”

“Very nice,” Willow said, but she didn’t mean it. The conversation was a little strained after that, and I didn’t learn anything more of interest. Lester rattled on about antiques and Vikings, Kenny joined in on the Viking stuff, and Willow just picked quietly at her food. I concentrated on eating everything in sight.

“So, are we going to get together tomorrow as planned?” I asked brightly as we left the restaurant.

“Kenny and I were thinking of taking a day off,” Willow said. “Given you’ll be spending time with Lester and your hosts, maybe we should regroup the next day.”

“Fine with me,” I said. “Should I just come to your B & B first thing the day after tomorrow? Then we can take my car.”

“Sure,” Willow said, and with that we parted company. I offered Lester a ride to Hoxa, but he declined saying he had some business to attend to in town, some banking or something, and had already rented a car. I went back to the parking lot and waited awhile to see if Willow and Kenny came back. I felt I had to make a better effort at explaining myself, although of course all I’d be doing would be making a lie worse. They didn’t come. I eventually gave up and drove across the Churchill Barriers to St. Margaret’s Hope and Hoxa once more. Or maybe what I was heading for was The Wasteland, the maze, and the wounded king.

My reception at the Alexanders was not quite what I was expecting, although Maya and Robert were waiting for me, and Drever the Intimidating, still in army fatigues, took my bag with exemplary speed. Unfortunately Detective Cusiter was awaiting my arrival as well.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said in his polite Orkney fashion, looking as if he was personally pained by any inconvenience he might be causing. “But I’m afraid I have some more questions. The Alexanders have very graciously said we can use the downstairs study.”

I thought he wanted to ask me about Percy’s last words, but that wasn’t what had brought him to Hoxa. “You were telling us you gave Mr. Budge a ride,” he began.

“I did, yes,” I said.

“You picked him up on the side of the road,” he said, consulting his notes.

“Yes.”

“Not a safe thing to do, really, is it? Pick up a stranger? This is Orkney, of course, but I wouldn’t have thought you as a tourist would want to do something like that.”

“I was sure I’d seen him somewhere,” I said. “I didn’t regard him as a real stranger. And you know he looked kind of harmless. And his bicycle was all bent and everything.”

“Very good of you, I’m sure.” I didn’t like his tone. There was something underneath the politeness there.

“Did you
get
the message I left about his last words?”

“I did. Unusual.”

“I thought so, too, both at the time, and when I remembered them again. Do you have any idea what that might mean?”

“None at all,” he said. There was a long pause. “I’ll come to the point. We found traces of the victim’s blood in your rental car.”

“Oh! Well, he did grab me, and there was blood everywhere, on my clothes, on my arm. But you knew that.” I was obviously still not firing on all cylinders, because I didn’t immediately fathom where he was going with this. I had not been in that car since just before I’d found Percy.

“On the door side of the passenger seat,” he said, as if I’d said nothing. “You didn’t climb across from the passenger side, did you?”

I was tempted to say I was always trying to get in the passenger side, that and turning on the windshield wipers when I wanted to signal a turn, because I was unaccustomed to right-hand drive. “No. It must be from his bicycle accident, when I gave him a ride. He did have some bad scratches from a barbed wire fence.”

“Hmm,” he said, or something like that. I suppose it did sound a little lame. “Anyone you can think of that would confirm this bicycle accident?”

“His mother? He might have mentioned it to her. The bicycle repair shop? I mean he couldn’t repair it himself. I even wondered if it was a write-off.”

“The blood,” he said. “The cuts and scratches. Did anyone see him in that state?”

“We went to Maeshowe,” I said. “He went into the men’s room at the Historic Scotland center there, so maybe someone would recall that.”

“Hmm,” he said again. “He had a bad fall, cut himself on barbed wire, was bleeding, but you decided to go sightseeing with this complete stranger.”

“We struck up a conversation. It turned out he’d been to Toronto recently, so we talked about that.” There I’d said it. “He pointed out Maeshowe to me and was appalled I didn’t know what it was, and insisted we go to see it. I guess he thought I should know something about his home. Then I said I’d like to see the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness and he very kindly agreed to accompany me, then we went to Skara Brae. He was very knowledgeable, and I assumed this was his way of saying thank you for the lift. I dropped him off in Kirkwall. But why are you asking me this? He wasn’t stabbed in my car. He was stabbed in the bunker.”

“Just part of our investigation,” he said.

I thought about that for a moment. “The glasses,” I said. “You didn’t find the glasses, and that means he was killed somewhere else and transported to that bunker. Am I right? There’d be other things, too, where the blood was and everything.”

He looked a bit startled, but then he almost smiled. “I see a close personal relationship with a policeman has rubbed off on you. You may even know what I’m going to say next.”

“Something about not leaving Orkney anytime soon.”

“Right again. You wouldn’t be thinking of it, would you?

“I guess not,” I said.

“Good. That will be all for now.”

“You can’t possibly think there’d only be a couple of drops of blood in my car if I’d driven him around with all those stab wounds, do you? You think I propped him up in the passenger seat, hauled him up that hill and then down the steps of the bunker and on to that slab?” This was making me cranky.

“I don’t think anything,” he replied. “We’re in the early stages of our investigation. But we believe someone, presumably the person who stabbed him, threw Mr. Budge down the stairs, along with his bicycle, and that Mr. Budge dragged himself across the bunker and up onto the slab.”

“Please, no!” I said, with a catch in my voice. I could hardly tolerate such a terrible thought, and I think it must have showed. I got this horrible idea Percy had crawled up on that slab to get his last look at the setting sun. Ridiculous, but I couldn’t shake it.

“We’ll find whoever did this,” Cusiter said, his expression softening slightly. Then he shook my hand and left.

Despite the welcome, my accommodations at the Alexander residence were definitely a step up, although perhaps not as relaxing as Mrs. Brown’s place. Robert immediately asked me if I played golf. I reluctantly said no, because his homegrown driving range and putting green would be a spectacular place to play. I was given my own little suite, complete with fancy bathroom and a little sitting area off the bedroom with a small sofa, a desk, and a couple of interesting-looking chairs. Still, the fabulous antique furniture, which I promised myself I’d have a closer look at later, took second place to the views: from the bedroom across beautiful countryside to the sea, and from the sitting room, a perfect, unobstructed view of the house across the way. Maya showed me to my room.

“I want you to consider this your home,” she said. “Anything you want, please help yourself. If you can’t find it, just ask. I’ll give you a key so you can come and go as you please. We have a reservation for dinner at a very nice place, and we want you to be our guest. If you feel like coming with us, that’s great. If you’d prefer, I’ll make something up for you here. I know you’ve had a terrible time, and you might just like to rest. I hope that discussion with the policeman wasn’t too upsetting. You looked a little pale when he left.”

“Unpleasant subject,” I said, which was true, especially the part about a dying Percy dragging himself up on to the slab. On top of that, I seemed to have gone from unfortunate tourist to potential killer in the space of a day or two. I wondered if Maya would be as keen on me as a houseguest, going so far as to give me a key, if she’d known that. “I’d like to come with you to dinner.” I didn’t want her to think I was an invalid, because I had things to do, people to see, and I didn’t want her fussing over me the whole time. “I really would like the company. It keeps my mind off what happened. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your exceedingly generous invitation.”

“It was a selfish invitation, if truth be told. I’m very glad of your company, too. Robert is away from the house much of the day when we’re here, and Drever always has chores that take him away for hours. I’m not that comfortable by myself now, what with that murder happening so close by. I’ll be a lot happier when they catch the awful person who did it. I love it here. I just hope this doesn’t spoil the place for me.” I didn’t tell her that Percy might have been murdered somewhere else entirely, because what difference would that make to her? The body had been found just a few minutes drive away. I didn’t think this was a random killing though, a killer just roaming the neighborhood looking for someone to stab. I thought Maya pretty safe and said so.

“I suppose it wasn’t a robbery, or anything,” she said. “A man on his bike can’t be a great target, so I guess I don’t have to worry about a home invasion or anything. It must have been something else, a jilted lover or something. What do you think?”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said.

“I wish I knew more people here. I’m lonely, really. Robert is, I don’t know, a jealous man. I don’t mean other men. He would have no cause for that. He seems to be content with just the two of us, you know. We don’t have friends as a couple. There are lots of people around, like that evening we did the fund-raiser in Glasgow, but they’re not friends. I haven’t had a close girlfriend since Bev, Robert’s first wife, died. Robert has his business associates, of course, and so he always has people to talk to, but I don’t. So often I’m alone with only Drever. Please don’t tell Robert, but I don’t like Drever much. I sometimes think he considers part of his job to be watching me on Robert’s behalf. Oh my. I’m really running off at the mouth, here, aren’t I? And you’ve had such a dreadful time. I know I’m very fortunate. Anything my little heart desires is mine. Please forgive me. It must all sound terribly selfish.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I appreciate your company very much, and I hope we’ll be friends. I think we are already.”

“You are so nice. If you don’t mind, I might just have a nap before dinner. I haven’t been sleeping that well.”

“A nap sounds good to me, too.”

“Good. We’re leaving at seven-thirty. We have two other guests, Lester whom you know, and there’s someone else as well, Simon Spence, a museum consultant. He’s a friend of both Lester’s and Robert’s.”