The Stalking Party Page 16

  Robb nodded at Winter, and said, ‘Please. For both of us.’’

  ‘Instant, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s fine. It’s kind of you to put us up at short notice.’

  ‘Glad to help,’ said Torquil as if he meant it. ‘All a bit rough and ready, but at least you’ll have the annexe to yourselves. All our other rooms are being stripped for re-decoration.’

  ‘Suits me,’ said Robb heartily. ‘The less room for the media circus the better.’

  Torquil nodded. ‘Lead story on tonight’s news – local news, that is. The armed siege at the Greenock supermarket is hogging the national headlines.’

  ‘Long may it last.’

  ‘I doubt there’ll be any great invasion of journalists anyway. There’s a big blow on its way down from Iceland, and the Spanish Lady may not sail tomorrow.’

  ‘Does that often happen?’

  ‘Often enough. Sometimes we’re cut off from the Tounie supermarket for a week at a time, and it’s a long way round by the coast road.’ He smiled and added, ‘It’s no big deal, really. We keep supplies of basics, and there’s always venison and salmon. No one goes hungry these days.’

  ‘Can you and Lady Strathtorran spare us a moment?’ asked Robb. ‘I’d like to hear your impressions of Beverley Tanner. I gather she didn’t tell you she’d been staying at Glen Buie Lodge?’

  After a moment’s consideration, Torquil said, ‘No, she didn’t, but of course this is a small place. Word gets around. We thought she must have her own reasons for moving out, and it wasn’t difficult to guess what they were. She was so obviously a square peg in a round hole among Archie’s guests. So my wife and I thought if that was what she wanted, we’d play along. Janie saw more of her than I did. Darling!’ he called, and she appeared in the serving-hatch. ‘Leave all that and come and talk. Inspector Robb wants to know what you made of La Skinner.’

  Janie joined them, wiping her hands on her apron. They were reddened and wrinkled, as if they spent too much time in hot water.

  ‘Quiet, competent, businesslike,’ she said, perching on the bench beside her husband. ‘Not shy-quiet, but deliberately keeping herself to herself. What we call a B-type. The As like lots of organised activities: climbing, sailing, barbecues, that kind of thing. They don’t feel they’re having a holiday unless they’re constantly occupied. The Bs are just the opposite. They like to wander lonely as a cloud, and feel they’re close to Nature.’ Her tone betrayed more than a trace of contempt. ‘They’re the ones who tell me how lucky we are to live here all year round, away from the rat-race.’

  ‘Well, we are, aren’t we?’ said her husband defensively.

  ‘Sometimes I wouldn’t mind a bit of rat-race if it meant less than 90 inches of rain a year.’

  ‘I’ll take you to the sun this winter, I promise,’ said Torquil, and she gave him a look that said I’ve heard that one before.

  ‘Did Beverley tell you how lucky you are?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Ad infinitum,’ said Janie rather wearily.

  ‘How did she spend her time?’

  ‘I gave her a packed lunch and a map, and she did various walks, checking out the local landmarks. She used to ring some friend or other in the evening and tell them what she’d seen, and what she planned to do next day. I warned her to stick to the paths, and to steer clear of the Glen Buie stalkers, who get stroppy about hikers, not that they’ve any right to drive them away.’

  ‘That doesn’t stop them,’ Torquil muttered.

  Janie shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh, Kim would have told them where they got off if they’d tried it on her. She wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself, not like some of the poor foreigners. That old brute Sandy McNichol scared one couple this summer, just because they sat down to eat their sandwiches beside Loch a Bealach. They were terrified, and it wasn’t even during the deer-cull. I don’t believe Archie Hanbury has any idea what his stalkers get up to when his back is turned.’

  ‘Still, we’ve all got to rub along,’ said Torquil uncomfortably.

  ‘But if we don’t say anything, they think they can get away with it,’ she flashed at him. It was evidently a disagreement of long standing.

  ‘There’s no sense in antagonising our neighbours,’ insisted Torquil. ‘I don’t want a repeat of that stupid business with Ian last year.’

  Robb searched his memory. ‘Was that when Sandy McNichol accused your brother of poaching deer?’

  ‘As if we haven’t more stags than we know what to do with!’ exclaimed Janie. ‘He just wanted an excuse to get at Ian.’

  ‘Why should he want to do that, Lady Strathtorran?’

  Janie made an exasperated noise, and her husband fielded the question. ‘Let me explain: in my father’s time, before Ian and I came here, Sir Archie had a lease on the Strathtorran stalking as well as owning Glen Buie, so Sandy could go more or less where he pleased. He can’t get used to the fact that things are different now.’

  ‘I see. I shall want to speak to Mr McNeil in any case. Do you expect him home soon?’

  Janie glanced at her watch, and said, ‘He’ll be in the pub now until closing time. After that – God knows. Some nights he takes his boat out...’

  ‘In a gale like this?’

  ‘He’s a grown man, Inspector,’ she snapped. ‘We can’t monitor his movements.’

  Lady Priscilla had described her as a saint to put up with her brother-in-law’s ways, but Robb thought that compassion-fatigue was setting in fast.

  ‘We’ll look into the pub before closing time,’ he rumbled reassuringly. ‘I daresay you could do with a pint, eh, Jim?’

  ‘So long as it’s Coke.’

  ‘Filthy stuff.’ Robb grinned. ‘Right, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Beverley left here on Tuesday morning, to walk over to Glen Alderdale hostel via the Prince’s Rock?’

  The Strathtorrans looked at one another and nodded.

  ‘We expected her back on Wednesday evening,’ said Janie. ‘When it was getting dark, my brother-in-law said he’d drive up through the Forestry, in case she’d been benighted. It’s a long hike – about fourteen miles.’

  ‘Was that your idea or his?’

  ‘His, I think. Yes. I’m sure it was. He went out to look for her, and drove right up to the top fence, but no sign. By the time he got back here, we had heard from the Glen Alderdale warden, Jamie Lomax, that Kim – sorry, Beverley – had decided to cut short her holiday, and wanted to cancel the rest of her booking with us.’

  ‘Were you surprised she’d changed her plans?’

  ‘Nothing our guests do surprises us,’ said Torquil ruefully. ‘Not any longer.’

  Robb turned to Janie. ‘Did you speak to the warden yourself?’

  ‘Morag McIntyre, who helps me in the kitchen – she took the call. Jamie is a nice fellow, and ringing up to stop us getting supper ready for someone who wouldn’t show is just the kind of helpful thing he would do.’ She paused, then added, ‘Only he didn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Janie said deliberately, ‘I saw him in the Tounie supermarket on Saturday, and thanked him for his message, and he asked what I was talking about. He’d never seen Kim at all. Whoever rang here that evening, it wasn’t Jamie.’

  She gave a little shiver and, rising abruptly, began to clear the plates.

  ‘My job, darling,’ protested Torquil, and she gave him a look that said, Why the hell don’t you get on and do it, then? Robb had an uneasy sense of a quarrel simmering just below the surface, ready to burst out the moment they were alone.

  He thanked them for supper and, followed rather reluctantly by Winter, went out into the dark, windy night.

  *****

  The Strathtorran Arms hardly deserved the name of public house, being no more than a bar and snug attached to the peninsula’s post office-cum-general store, but tonight, at least, the landlord Jock Taggart, gaunt and grey-faced as any lifer, was doing a roaring trade.

  The car park was jammed.
No hope of easing the borrowed Land Rover into that muddy morass of battered 4WDs, and both up and down the street vehicles cluttered the narrow pavement with cavalier disregard of parking regulations.

  ‘When in Rome,’ muttered Robb, bumping his offside wheels up to join the rest. Winter tried to lock his door, but every time he pushed it down, the button popped up again.

  ‘Leave it,’ said Robb. ‘No one would want it except for scrap.’

  They pushed through the narrow porch, and encountered an inner wall of backs packed as tight and symmetrical as a rugger scrum. The fug of turf smoke, tobacco, and damp oiled wool was choking. Robb saw Winter’s nose wrinkle and suppressed the impulse to tell him he could get AIDS just by kissing the barman.

  Why did he have this urge to tease the poor lad? Why couldn’t he accept that the political correctness that seemed wimpish and affected was, in fact, a perfectly genuine part of Winter’s personality?

  He’s the New Man, and I’m just an out of date, unreconstructed, Male Chauvinist Pig, he thought ruefully. Even so, he drew the line at ordering the New Man a coke.

  ‘I’ll have a Guinness, thanks,’ he said, fishing a tenner from his wallet. ‘Get yourself whatever muck you fancy. Here, it’s on me. I’ll be over there.’

  Shoving the note in Winter’s hand, he began to work his way towards the corner settle, where two whiskery old men were playing dominoes. Scraps of conversation as he squeezed past confirmed that Topics One, Two, and Three in the Strathtorran Arms that night were the police investigation into the death of Beverley Tanner. From the way people stared and dropped their voices, he knew that even in his old tweed jacket he was as conspicuous as if he had worn uniform. The classic response of a small community. He thought they had probably made the Vikings feel just as welcome.

  Fishermen, crofters, ghillies, shepherds... As his eyes got used to the haze, he recognised other faces he had met that day. The big ponytailed ferryman, Ishy’s husband. The tight-jeaned blonde who manned the petrol pump. Squint-eyed Donny, the Glen Buie pony-boy, and away in the far inglenook sat Sandy McNichol, head stalker, with the cares of the world on his shoulders, according to his expression, and his big hands crooked about his dram.

  Fergus was there, too, deep in talk. As his companion turned her head, Robb recognised the blonde topknot of Ashy Macleod. He felt briefly sorry for Nicky, whose millions would never rival Fergus’s effortless sex appeal.

  Robb squeezed his bulk on to the unoccupied end of the settle, and Winter, following with the drinks, had no option but to prop his shoulders against the wall. He drained his coke quickly, said, ‘Be with you in a mo,’ and slid through the scrum towards the illuminated arrow.

  Robb exchanged nods with the ancient men. ‘Busy, tonight.’

  ‘Aye, so it iss.’ Their rheumy eyes surveyed him briefly and returned to their game.

  ‘There’s nae boats will sail the nicht,’ observed a chatty voice in his left ear, and Robb turned.

  ‘Because of the gale?’

  ‘They’re forecasting a big blow. The fisher-lads will have time enough tae drown their sorrows, if they’ve the inclination and the cash. That daft bugger Ian McNeil may run his boat across the Gash, but then it won’t be fish he’s seeking.’ Small bright eyes twinkled at Robb from a ruddy, gnomic face topped with wiry white hair like an Old Testament prophet.

  ‘Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,

  My ship must sail the faem.

  The King’s daughter of Norroway,

  ‘Tis we must bring her hame!’ he declaimed.

  ‘Sir Patrick Spens,’ said Robb with an effort of memory.

  ‘You’re in the right of it, sir; only it’s no’ the King’s daughter he’s seeking but a lassie whose man is awa’ tae the oil-rigs. Frailty, thy name is Woman!’ He put out a brown hand, ridged with muscle. ‘Allow me tae name masel’: Hector Logie of Fas Buie, above the Sound of Gash, from where I’ve the best view in all the West Coast, tae ma way o’ thinking. And you, sir, will be Inspector Robb?’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Logie. Are you a fisherman yourself?’

  ‘Not in the way you’re meaning – no, sir.’ He chuckled and coughed. ‘I was dominie in the School House for nigh on thirty years, and I promised masel’ I’d retire here when the time came. It’s a grand place for a birdwatcher and naturalist.’

  ‘The deerstalking doesn’t bother you at this time of year?’

  ‘Och, no, no, not at all! There’s naught like a sporting landlord for presairving wildlife and keeping down vermin, and the fewer young folks wi’ rucksacks I see tramping the hills, the better I’m pleased,’ said Hector Logie with emphasis. ‘Torquil Strathtorran wi’ his wee signs and nature trails is like tae ruin one o’ our last remaining wildernesses. What good does it do tae draw in sich a rabble of towerists,’ he demanded, thrusting his face close to Robb’s. ‘What do they ken of nature? Yon puir lassie, now, kilt as she walked where she’d nae business tae be. If she’d stayed on the path she’d be alive this minute, but no. She had tae go tramping the heather and disturbing the deer, for all she’d been warned o’ the danger.’

  Robb eyed him curiously, aware he had information to impart. ‘How do you know she left the path, Mr Logie?’

  ‘Man, I saw her do it. I was in ma wee hide, watching the osprey teach the young birds tae take fish.’

  ‘You mean on Loch a Bealach, where Lady Hanbury and her friend had their picnic?’

  Hector Logie nodded. ‘The leddies frae the Lodge were down by the jetty, and they didn’t disturb ma birds at all. It was yon lassie who turned off the path and walked clean past the cliff where ma birds were feeding.’ His eyes sparked indignation.

  ‘Didn’t she go to the Prince’s Rock, then?’

  ‘I’m no’ saying she didna go there,’ said Logie cautiously, ‘but she didna go by the proper route that’s agreed between Sir Archibald and the laird. When she went out of ma sight, she was headed up Corrie Odhar towards Carn Beag.’

  Robb turned this information over in his mind, visualising the topography. ‘Where Fergus and his party were stalking?’

  ‘Aye. She could have ruined their sport, but that wouldna worry her kind.’

  Robb nodded. ‘You had binoculars?’

  ‘Leica 10 x 42,’ said the old schoolmaster complacently. ‘They’re small but unco powerful. At two hundred yards I can count the flies on a stag’s head.’

  ‘So you got a good look at her?’

  ‘Och, aye, good enough. I’d seen her about the place for the past week. A dark-haired lassie, bonny for all she’d a wheen paint on her face.’

  ‘Who else did you see that day? The ladies fishing –’

  Logie snorted. ‘Is it fishing they call it? Swimming and frisking on the shore wi’ never a stitch tae cover their nakedness? Ye’d think they’d have more shame.’

  You didn’t have to watch them through 10 x 42 lenses, thought Robb with an inward grin. Aloud he said, ‘I don’t suppose you could see the stalking party on Carn Beag, but could you tell where they were? Deer moving, and so on?’

  He took Logie through the latter stages of Everard Cooper’s stalk, and was not surprised when the former dominie confirmed Maya’s impression of two rifle shots ten minutes apart.

  ‘I’m obliged to you, Mr Logie,’ he said at last. Some gleam in the bright eyes, some hint of secrets yet untold, prompted him to ask, ‘I don’t imagine you were in the same place the next day: last Wednesday, that was?’

  ‘Indeed I was,’ replied Logie promptly, ‘and I’ve pictures to prove it.’

  He drew a number of talc strips from a bulging yellow wallet, and perched half-moon spectacles on his nose to peer at the date on each.

  ‘There you are, sir.’ He chose one set and slapped them on the table, stowing the rest away. ‘Taken last Wednesday between sunrise and sunset, and I’d have had more if the leddies of the Lodge hadna taken the boat, for without it I canna bring up ma heavy gear tae the hide.’

&n
bsp; ‘So you moved the boat,’ said Robb, light dawning.

  ‘I did, sir, just as soon as the leddies headed for home, for it’s a weary way for an old man tae carry sixty pounds weight of photographic gear. When they’d gone, I took the boat up the loch, and had it all stowed safe in ma hide before the stalkers came off the hill.’

  He beamed at Robb and lifted his glass, but the latter’s brain was humming. Maya claimed to have found the body under the boat on Wednesday afternoon, but by Wednesday night, when the search party went up to the loch, the boat was back in its proper place at the jetty.

  ‘When did you return the boat to its mooring?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, there’s the rub, sir. Someone else did that for me on Wednesday afternoon when I was busy wi’ ma birds. When I was ready tae leave the hide, it had gone frae the bank by the islands, and me wi’ ma tripod and three great cameras to carry! It was close on eight before I got them back tae where I had concealed ma vehicle, and while I was loading it in the moonlight I saw the Land Rovers go up the track frae Glen Buie Lodge, and guessed there was something amiss.’

  ‘You didn’t see who took the boat?’

  ‘Have a look at the prints, sir, and ye’ll have the answer tae that.’

  Robb leaned forward and studied the photographs with care. The cameraman’s focus of interest had been the untidy heap of branches that formed the osprey’s nest, halfway up the cliff at the head of Loch a Bealach, and some three hundred yards from the water.

  The first half-dozen pictures showed the almost-fledged nestlings perched on the lip of their eyrie, beaks agape, awaiting the approach of an adult. Subsequent shots showed the parent birds hovering, alighting, depositing fish in the greedy beaks, and soaring back over the loch for fresh supplies.

  It was the background, though, that held Robb’s attention, for there on the shore, fuzzy yet unmistakable, was the green boat, with a figure sprawled beside it.

  ‘That must be Maya Forrester,’ he said, and Logie nodded.

  ‘She was there sunning hersel’ for half an hour, but she was ower distant tae disturb ma birds, so I paid little heed.’