The unforgiven dead, p.3
The Unforgiven Dead, page 3
“Folly,” Stout snorted as he drove past the billboard. “What’s going to happen when a wolf mauls some poor child, eh?”
Angus gave a noncommittal grunt. He rather liked the idea of wolves roaming the mountainside, but kept his own counsel in case Ashleigh found out. None of it mattered today, anyhow.
Up ahead, the ramparts of Dunbirlinn loomed through the mist like something from a Gothic horror, the only colour the red slash of a MacRuari flag with its wolf-head crest flying from the battlements. The car glided past a stable block and a row of squat stone houses that were staff quarters, before reaching the ancient stone bridge that led to the gatehouse. Angus glanced warily out of the passenger window. A hundred feet below, the sea was a broiling, living creature, thrashing against the rocks. Wind threw shrapnel bursts of rain against the cliffs. Herring gulls, gannets, and fulmars sat hunched on ledges, heads tucked tight against their bodies.
Stout nosed the Lexus through the gatehouse. Angus glanced up at the iron teeth of the portcullis, like the jaws of a beast ready to snap shut. A few yards farther, a row of murder holes was punched in the vaulted ceiling. He imagined boiling oil pouring through the shafts onto the clansmen who had besieged the castle in the sixteenth century. MacLoughlins they were, if he correctly recalled what Gills had told him. Their howls of agony must have been amplified in this narrow space. To the soldiers at the rear, it must have seemed as if their kin were being devoured by the castle itself.
Once through to the inner courtyard, Stout parked between a gleaming burgundy Aston Martin and a mustard-coloured Range Rover, which looked as if it had never seen a dirt track in its life. A Porsche Cayenne and a sporty Mercedes he recognised completed the set of luxury cars on show.
Stout popped a mint into his mouth, eyes scaling the turrets. “Remind me of her name again?”
He forced her name from his throat. “Faye.”
“And you knew the girl?”
“Wouldn’t say I knew her, sir. Met her when I was investigating that fire a couple weeks back.”
“What fire?”
“Shed up at the visitor centre. Nothing of value in it apart from the GPS trackers for the wolves. We think that might be why the shed was targeted.”
“Did you question the protesters?”
“Aye.”
Stout grinned. “That must have been awkward, with your missus being rabble-rouser in chief.”
He shrugged. “They’re mostly wee old women. Can’t see them creeping about in the dead of night with a jerrican full of petrol.”
“Hmmph! So, what was she like, Miss Chichester?”
Angus gave a faint smile. He hadn’t told Stout, but he’d met the girl weeks before the fire. Pulled her over for speeding. He saw the window of the Merc slide down, Faye’s 110-watt smile.
“Do you know why I stopped you, Miss?”
“To compliment me on my excellent driving?”
“Eh, no. Your brake light’s gubbed and you’re not wearing a seat belt.”
Stout crunched the mint. “MacNeil, what was she like?”
Charming, funny, down-to-earth. She’d also been under the legal driving age for Scotland, but he couldn’t bring himself to issue a fine. Instead he had driven her home and explained the situation to her father, who had been grateful to avoid any more press coverage.
“Err, she seemed like a typical teenager, sir.”
“Your typical teenybopper doesn’t live in a castle.”
He recalled Gills’s words from earlier.
Poor girl.
The irony of the statement lingered in his head as he eyed the luxury cars. But for all the wealth on display, the simplistic brutality of the castle left him cold. It was a place of fear and death.
“This place is supposed to be haunted. A ghost known as the Druid.”
Stout squinted at him. “And that’s relevant why?”
He shrugged.
“Right, once we’re inside, let me do the talking. And don’t mention ghosts.”
He reached across Angus, opened the glove compartment, and took out a garish salmon-pink tie. “Have to look our best for the landed gentry.” He slipped the tie over his head and tightened the Windsor knot.
“How do I look?” he asked, turning to Angus.
Like you dressed in the dark.
“Very smart, sir.”
Stout nodded, as if this were only to be expected. “Right, let’s go.”
Eddies of wind laced with the promise of snow swirled around the courtyard. Where once archers would have observed them from the walls of the keep, now they were watched by a host of CCTV cameras. He glanced in the Merc’s window. A pair of miniature pink boxing gloves with the letters F and C hung from the rearview mirror. He imagined Faye driving along the Road to the Isles, windows open, radio on, singing at the top of her lungs as windswept lochs and rugged mountains flashed by.
Angus dug his nails into his palms as he and Stout mounted the castle steps. A great wooden door swung open and an elderly woman appeared from the shadows of the portico. Her deeply furrowed face had a greyish tinge, as if hewn from the same coarse stone as the castle itself. She wore a tweed two-piece and observed them with cold blue eyes, hands clasped behind her back, lips stretched into a thin line. Her slate-coloured hair was pulled back from her lined forehead and collected in a tight bun. A wolf-headed broach glinted from her lapel, like a fleck of quartz in a block of granite.
“Police,” Stout said, brandishing his ID. “We’re here to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Chichester?”
The woman did not even glance at Stout’s ID. “I know who you are.”
Angus inclined his head and asked how she was doing. “Ciamar a tha thu, Mrs. MacCrimmon?” Her eyes softened. “Chan eil gu dona, Angus.”
Stout, who wasn’t a native speaker, scowled.
“Can we come in?” Angus asked.
Mrs MacCrimmon gave a brisk nod, spun on her heel, and led the way into the castle, her back ramrod straight.
Angus shoved the wooden door shut behind them. Inside, the cavernous entrance hallway was wood panelled and gloomy, decorated with stag heads, tapestries of hunting scenes, and a large portrait of a wild-eyed clan chief named Dòmhnall MacRuari, also known as an Droaidh. The Druid.
Two suits of armour stood guard at the foot of a crimson-carpeted staircase, which rose to a landing then split in opposite directions leading upwards. Both guards brandished Lochaber axes, vicious-looking weapons with a large curved blade attached to a six-foot-long shaft.
Mrs MacCrimmon turned and glared at them. Slithers of light gleamed from the housekeeper’s eyes. She stood in front of a wall-mounted stag’s head, which, in the dim light, gave the impression she had sprouted antlers.
“So, have you caught them yet?” she asked Angus. Although Stout was the senior officer, Mrs. MacCrimmon ignored him. Probably because he doesn’t speak Gaelic, Angus thought.
“We’ve not come about the fire,” he said, disconcerted by the eerie optical illusion. The antlers reminded him of the figure from his vision. “We’re here to deliver some bad news to the laird and his wife.”
A flicker of emotion flitted across the old woman’s face, the wrinkles on her forehead and the crow’s feet around her eyes creasing like crepe paper. “Why? What’s happened?”
Stout cleared his throat. “We’re here to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Chichester. In private.”
Mrs MacCrimmon gave Stout a stare as cold and furious as the Corryvreckan whirlpool, but relented, leaving only a bare concern.
“Follow me.”
Heels rapping out her disapproval, the housekeeper led them down a long corridor hung with gilt-framed paintings of famous battles: kilted Jacobites being massacred by bayonet-wielding Redcoats on Culloden Moor; William Wallace swinging his broadsword at the neck of a foe on Stirling Bridge. The paintings disconcerted Angus, but it wasn’t just that—the air itself seemed charged with threat, as if Dunbirlinn’s bloody past had been scorched into the walls.
Presently, Mrs. MacCrimmon led them into a vast room that must at one time have been a banquet hall. Now, though, it was a museum to the Highland’s martial past. A row of cannons sat behind a red rope barrier, their barrels trained on glass cabinets that housed swords, maces, and crossbows. A whole wall was devoted to muskets, another to shields, pikes, and axes, whilst further cases held military medals. He’d read in the West Highland Mail that Chichester planned to open parts of the castle to the public once his nature reserve was established. Tourists, their imaginations fired by Hollywood movies romanticizing Scotland’s gory past, would love this room, but Angus saw the nicks and scratches on bare steel. Screams of pain seethed beneath the still, cold air. This was a room of death.
Breathe, Angus. Breathe.
“Wait here,” Mrs. MacCrimmon barked.
Once she had gone, Stout blew air through his cheeks. “Bloody harridan,” he muttered. “Who the hell does she think she is?”
“That’s the housekeeper,” Angus told him. “Mary MacCrimmon. Her son’s the famous piper—”
“I don’t care,” Stout spat. “And don’t speak Gaelic. It’s unprofessional.”
Stout harrumphed over to inspect a display of medieval torture devices. Angus walked in the opposite direction. His stomach churned when he contemplated the conversation to come. Language crumbled when breaking the news of a child’s death. Words fell like rocks and there was little anyone could do to soften the blow.
He paused beside a large display that featured stuffed animals in a re-created Highland landscape. A hind and her calf nibbled at mountain grass, a wildcat bared its teeth from the heather, a pine marten clung to the trunk of a Caledonian pine, a red fox padded by with a grouse in its jaws, all watched over by a golden eagle from its eyrie high up on the fiberglass cliff face. The scene, however, was dominated by a large stuffed wolf with a luxurious silver pelt and bright amber eyes that gleamed with an otherworldly glow.
A placard claimed the wolf was the last of its species in Scotland. The creature had been pursued by a legendary stalker named—appropriately enough—Roderick Hunter, who had cornered the wolf and slain it in a cave above Loch Morar in 1753.
Angus felt a stab of pity for the wolf. Harried to the ends of the earth and butchered in a cave.
Death and more death . . .
He shook his head and moved on to the next display, which contained a hunting horn decorated with intricate spirals and symbols in gold and silver.
He flinched at the sound of a door opening at the far end of the hall. His pulse quickened as Mrs. MacCrimmon reappeared, then stepped aside to let the laird pass. James P. Chichester ambled towards him with the leisurely, confident stride of a man who knew his worth. He wore a dark three-piece suit that Angus reckoned had cost more than his monthly salary. The American’s face was furrowed and wrinkled, but rather than seeming old, he reminded Angus of a seasoned explorer or round-the-world yachtsman. His tan was a deep mahogany, the type earned on a Caribbean island. His smile when he saw Angus was easy and charming.
“Constable MacNeil, good to see you again,” he said, extending his hand. His eyes were warm, but his grip was like iron, his hand rough like a workingman’s. The nails, although manicured, had dirt under them. His hair was shot through with silver but thick, like the pelt of the wolf in the display. He fixed Angus with smiling eyes the colour of verdigris. “Thanks again for that solid you did me with Faye,” he whispered.
The laird was blissfully unaware. He glanced at the hunting horn Angus was examining. He opened the glass case, lifted the instrument from its stand, and held it up to the light. “The Fairy Horn of the MacRuaris—stunning, isn’t it? Pre-Celtic. One of a kind. Impossibly old. Legend has it that sounding the instrument in battle will lead to a MacRuari victory. Although it can only be used three times, and has already been blown twice.” Chichester raised the horn to his lips. “What do you think, Constable—should I? One good blare to scare off all these protestors who hate my wolves? Do you believe in the Good Folk?”
The Good Folk, Angus knew, was another term for the fairies from Scottish folklore. The epithet was used so as not to rouse their anger.
“Err, no—I don’t think so.”
Chichester sighed, like a teacher given the wrong answer by a star pupil. “That’s the problem with the world,” he said, replacing the horn carefully on its stand. “Nobody believes in anything nowadays.”
He didn’t argue the toss. Stout was heading his way, scowling. “Mr Chichester,” Angus said, “this is my—”
The inspector cut him off. “I’m Inspector Stout. My colleague and I need to talk to you.”
Chichester was a good foot taller than Stout and observed the inspector with a look of mild amusement.
“Of course. Please follow me, gentlemen. I’ll have Mrs. MacCrimmon fetch us some coffee.”
The housekeeper, who had been standing like a statue a few feet away, took the hint.
Angus’s heart thumped in his chest as he followed the two men into what turned out to be a library.
“Take a seat,” Chichester said, gesturing to a three-seater Chesterfield of weathered brown leather in front of a roaring log fire. Angus did as instructed, resisting the urge to tug at his shirt collar. The room was stifling from the heat of the fire. Weak daylight filtered in through a large arched window that overlooked a tiny interior courtyard. Books lined almost every wall, reaching all the way to the intricate cornicing on the ceiling. A wooden ladder set on wheels and attached to a railing allowed access to the tomes on the top shelves. A framed family tree was displayed prominently, Dòmhnall MacRuari’s name at the top. He could just make out Faye’s name at the bottom, a snapped twig.
The heady scent of woodsmoke, leather, and musty old books made Angus’s head spin. The aroma took him back to the study of the Old Manse, where Gills, feet up on the leather surface of his writing desk, was riffing on the topic of the day. He blinked away the memory and watched Chichester lower himself into a wingback chair at right angles to the Chesterfield.
“Now, gentlemen,” he said, crossing an elegant trouser leg over the other, “I take it you’re here to update me on the progress of your investigation into the fire. You have made progress, yes?”
Stout frowned. “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Mr. Chichester. We’re not here about the fire. We’re here about your daughter.”
“Faye? Why? What’s she done? Wait—she didn’t take the Benz out again?”
Angus glanced at Stout. Chichester might be wealthy, and perhaps he was the eccentric recluse the media cast, but he didn’t deserve to receive the news with Stout’s tactless delivery.
“There really is no easy way to say this. . . .” Angus faltered. Sweat prickled his brow. “Early this morning, the body of a young woman was discovered on a beach near here. The deceased was your daughter, Faye. We believe she was murdered.”
Chichester looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“But . . . but that’s not possible.”
Angus kept his voice level. “I’m truly sorry, sir, but there’s no doubt.”
“You’re wrong. Faye’s upstairs. In her room. She’s—”
Chichester sprang from his chair. “She’s in her room!”
A second later the laird was gone. Angus heard his futile footsteps recede into the distance.
“That went well,” Stout muttered. “I told you to let me do the talking.”
The inspector stood and strolled around the room, lifting ornaments and pursing his lips, as if weighing up how much they’d cost. He plucked the stopper from a crystal whisky decanter and sniffed.
“Hmmph! That’s no’ Famous Grouse. Probably costs about a hundred quid a dram.”
Angus watched Stout with barely concealed anger as the older man reached for a glass. Only the sound of approaching footsteps prevented him from pouring a measure. Angus stood as Chichester reentered the library. The laird had been away barely a minute but seemed to have aged a decade. His shoulders were hunched, and his face had taken on a sallow hue, the skin around his cheekbones and jawline flaccid, like melting wax. His eyes were desolate pools. Chichester trudged across to his chair and sagged into it.
After an awkward few seconds, when no one appeared to know what to say, Angus cleared his throat.
“I’m very sorry, sir.” Not the first time he’d used those words. Not the first time he’d thought how insufficient they were.
Chichester’s shoulders began to shake, but he held his sobs in check.
“Who would . . .”
“It’s really too early to say, sir.”
Angus dug his nails into his palms, the abused skin aching, pain the only way to silence the biting, accusatory voice in his head.
You could have saved me. . . .
“Can we get someone . . . your wife maybe?”
Chichester looked up at Angus, as if seeing him for the first time. He swiped a hand across his face. “My wife? Yes, my wife. Of course, she must be told.” He tried to stand, but his legs seemed to buckle. Angus caught him before he could fall.
“You’re okay, Laird. Just take it easy.”
He eased Chichester back down onto the armchair. No sooner had he done so than the library door swung open and Eleanor Chichester breezed in like an exotic cat. She could have been anywhere from forty to sixty years old, with sleek platinum-blond hair, pouty lips, and thin arched eyebrows that gave her a look of permanent surprise. She wore tight jeans and a white wrap blouse that left little to the imagination.
