The Stalking Party Read online

  ‘Did you see her run away?’

  ‘No, sir. The young birds were near flying, and ma mind was on them.’ He brought out his yellow wallet and chose another set of pictures. ‘There’s the last I took that day – see what ye make of them. By then the light was going.’

  Robb fanned them out on the table and obligingly the domino players shifted their game to give him room.

  The same scene, from the same viewpoint, but now the shadows were longer and the colours muted, the loch no more than a glimmer of silver against the darkening sky. By the shoreline, the blurred shape of the boat was still visible, but now it was in the water, and amidships he could just make out a blob that might be an oarsman.

  ‘Do you know who that was?’ he said, pointing.

  Logie shook a regretful head. ‘If I did, he’d get a piece o’ ma mind.’

  ‘I’d like to borrow these,’ said Robb. ‘I’ll give you a receipt. Maybe our boys in the lab can make something of them.’

  Logie said with a touch of anxiety, ‘Ye’ll take good care o’ them now, sir? I’ve a bird magazine buys every picture I can get.’

  ‘I’ll bring them back myself,’ promised Rob. ‘Your house is called Fas Buie, you said?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Overlooking the Sound. Anyone will point you there.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Robb stowed them carefully in his own wallet. ‘Is Ian McNeil here tonight?’

  ‘On your right, sir. Talking to – would it be your sergeant?’ With a touch of scorn Logie added, ‘They say what’s bred in the blood will come out in the bone, but in the case of Ian McNeil I take leave tae doubt it. Weel, as the Good Book tells us, Esau was a hairy man.’

  ‘And Jacob was a smooth one,’ responded Robb, who had served his time in Sunday School.

  Logie’s eyes twinkled. ‘Verra true, sir. Verra true.’

  Robb left him chuckling into his drink, and went to join Winter and the tall young man with the dusty ponytail, but when he tried to question him, the din of the juke-box made conversation impossible.

  ‘Can we go somewhere quieter?

  McNeil spoke briefly to the landlord, and nodded. ‘Jock says we can use his parlour. This way.’

  Scarcely were they settled in the bare little front room that had damp islands on the walls and smelled of must and lavender polish in roughly equal parts, than a tousled white head poked angrily round the door, like a hen surprised in the nesting-box.

  ‘Yon’s no’ the Public! Get on oot o’ it!’

  ‘It’s all right, Patsy. Jock said we could come in here. It’s the Police.’

  ‘I’ll gie them Pollis!’ squawked the head, withdrawing nevertheless, and McNeil grinned and gently closed the door.

  ‘Now what can I do for you gentlemen?’

  Both tone and address were in marked contrast to his earlier demeanour. Robb wondered whom the New Age scruffiness was designed to impress, but said merely, ‘You’ll have heard we’re enquiring into the death of Beverley Tanner. Tell me, how well did you know her?’

  ‘Hardly at all, Inspector. In fact I met her for the first time about a fortnight ago, but of course I’ve known of her for several years, because she and my late wife once ran a catering business together.’

  ‘That would have been Gentlemen’s Relish?’

  ‘That’s right. My wife sold her share when we married, but I believe Beverley carried on for some time. It was quite a successful operation.’

  ‘Were you surprised when Beverley contacted you here?’

  ‘Frankly, yes. I’d understood from my wife that by the time they parted company, there was precious little friendship left between them.’

  ‘Why was that, sir?’

  McNeil shrugged. ‘Oh, you know how these things go. People get across one another at work.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you agreed to meet Beverley?’

  ‘I couldn’t see any reason not to. Gentlemen’s Relish was water under the bridge as far as I was concerned, and I knew that Eliza and Beverley used to swap letters from time to time, so it would have been unfriendly to try to avoid her. She said she wanted to get in touch with various people who had been their clients – mostly Eliza’s friends – so I suggested we met for a coffee in Tounie on Sunday morning.’

  ‘Did it surprise you to find she was staying with the Hanburys?’

  ‘Well, yes and no. There’s not a lot of contact between us and the Hanburys, but I had heard rumblings about Nicky’s unsuitable girlfriend, so I wasn’t entirely unprepared.’

  ‘Can you give me the gist of your conversation, sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He thought for a moment, then said, ‘She turned up on the early boat, as promised, and I stood her a cup of what the Clachan calls coffee, and after beating about the bush for a bit, she told me what was bothering her – namely that she had a week of holiday still to run, and she didn’t want to upset Nicky or offend the Hanburys, but she didn’t think she could stand the atmosphere at the Lodge that long. She hadn’t realised what she was letting herself in for, couldn’t stand the killing, and so on. Did I think my sister-in-law would let her stay at the hostel for a week and get in some proper walking? That was what she enjoyed, and she’d been terribly disappointed to discover that most of the Glen Buie ground is off limits to ramblers at this time of year. Well, of course I said that would be fine.’

  ‘Of course?’

  McNeil said impatiently, ‘Janie’s always glad of an extra booking, and I could just imagine Archie’s disgust when he found a rambler in his midst.’ The corners of his mouth drew down. ‘Would you believe it, I even felt sorry for her.’

  ‘When did that change?’

  ‘Not soon enough,’ said McNeil grimly. ‘All that rambler stuff was pure eyewash. What Beverley really wanted was to find out if our business was viable, and if not whether we could be persuaded to sell out. And since I wasn’t there to stop the rot, poor Janie simply played into her hands.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Fishing. The mackerel were runnng, and I was away in the boat for the first part of the week. When I got back just after midday on Tuesday, the only person in the house was old Morag – you’ve met Morag?’

  They nodded.

  ‘She was keening away to the hoover, and saying what would become of Strathtorran if her ladyship quit? Well, I didn’t like the sound of that, so I sat Morag down with a cup of tea, and out it all came. High words between Janie and my brother, who never ever quarrel – “all on account of yon thrawn lassie.” Morag said Janie had pitched into Torquil, and told him she couldn’t face another winter here, she wanted out, she wasn’t prepared to go on slogging her guts out for nothing. The business was doomed, they were fools to think they could ever make it pay, they must sell up and get out before it destroyed them both. All the things my brother least wanted to hear. Morag said he was shaking like a leaf, and when Janie ran out of steam, he simply turned and went out without another word, while Janie jumped in the car and drove off “greeting sair,” as Morag put it. And she’s not a girl who cries easily, believe me.’

  ‘So you immediately deduced that Beverley had been getting at her?’ said Winter, hardly bothering to cover his scepticism.

  McNeil gave him an angry glance. ‘I did indeed.’

  ‘So family feeling impelled you to go looking for her?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you have?’

  Antagonism sparked between them.

  Robb frowned at Winter and said peaceably, ‘I thought Lady Strathtorran said it was nearly dark before you went up into the forestry?’

  ‘She was talking about Wednesday,’ said McNeil after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘So you went looking for Beverley on Tuesday as well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me about Tuesday.’

  McNeil said reluctantly, ‘Morag told me Beverley had taken a packed lunch and was walking to Glen Alderdale via the Prince’s Rock. I thought if I took the steep path over the back of Ben Torran, I mi
ght catch up with her before she got to the Rock.’

  ‘Then what would you have done?’

  ‘Talked to her.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose you took your rifle?’ put in Winter.

  ‘I always do.’

  ‘Habit?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Robb, irritated by their sparring. ‘Did you catch up with her?’

  ‘No. Either she was a faster walker than I imagined, or she branched off the path. I got to the Rock well before two, but she wasn’t there.’ He glanced from Robb to Winter and back. ‘Did she leave the path?’

  ‘Mr Logie saw her turn off and cross the hill towards Loch a Bealach, passing right beneath the cliff where he was taking photographs.’

  ‘Logie told you that? He’s got a nerve! What he means is that she stuck to the proper path marked on the map and refused to be deflected by the fact that he had moved the stones that mark it.’

  ‘Why should he do that, sir?’

  ‘Because the Prince’s Rock path passes too close to his damned nest, that’s why. We’ve had no end of trouble over it. My brother takes the view that history is history, and you shouldn’t alter the line of an authentic ancient path just because a rare raptor has decided to nest there.’

  ‘Mr Logie disagrees?’

  ‘Bloody old dog-in-the-manger. Of course he does. He is the self-appointed guardian and official photographer of the Strathtorran ospreys, and he would very much like to re-route the Prince’s Path round the back of Ben Torran, which is steeper and shorter and altogether less attractive.’

  ‘The way you walked up last Tuesday, in fact?’

  ‘Precisely. As I said, I keep the proper path marked with whitewashed stones, but whenever the coast is clear, Friend Logie turns the sign round to point in the other direction, and kicks my marked stones into the heather. As a result, we get furious complaints from hikers who go astray and miss the monument altogether. We find the activities of Mr Logie a confounded nuisance.’

  Robb nodded, reflected, and then said, ‘All right, sir. We’ve got you as far as the Prince’s Rock. What did you do after that?’

  ‘I hung around for half an hour, hoping she’d turn up, but finally I decided I’d missed her and returned to base.’

  ‘By way of the Prince’s Path?’

  A fractional hesitation, then McNeil said, ‘Well, no. I was in no hurry, so I walked round the head of the glen to Loch a Bealach, and back by the Devil’s Staircase.’

  The same route Nicky had taken the following day, Robb reflected, pleased to find himself able to visualise the lie of the land from his study of the contour model. ‘Weren’t you afraid you might bump into one of the stalking parties from Glen Buie? With the wind where it was, you must have known they’d be on that beat.’

  McNeil shook his head, smiling. ‘It was after five by the time I reached the loch. I knew they must be on their way home, if they weren’t back already. In fact, I’d seen Fergus’s vehicle go down the track with the stag in the trailer, and I knew the other party was ahead of me on the path.’

  ‘Could you see them?’

  ‘No, but I could hear Archie booming away like a foghorn.’

  So you slunk along behind them like a wolf, keeping out of sight, thought Robb. No wonder the Hanburys find you an uneasy neighbour. Between half-past two and five o’clock left a lot of afternoon unaccounted for. Aloud he said, ‘It’s a pity you didn’t speak to any of them.’

  ‘Oh, but I did.’

  ‘With Sir Archibald?’

  ‘With Ashy. She must have stopped for a pee, because she was behind, hurrying to catch up. She came running down the path, so I told her not to worry, they were only just ahead. She gave me a bit of a wave, and went steaming on without stopping.’

  ‘Weren’t you afraid she’d tell Sir Archibald she’d seen you?’

  McNeil grinned. ‘Ashy knows when to keep her mouth shut. There’s a lot of common sense under all that gush and chatter of hers. Now if she was to marry Nicky and take over Glen Buie forest, none of us would complain.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  SIR ARCHIE WATCHED from the door of the gun-room as Fergus and his party squeezed into the big black Trooper next morning, and bumped away up the glen track.

  He was well aware that he had played a low trick on Inspector Robb by going over his head to the Chief Constable, but what was the old boy network for if you didn’t pull strings when you needed to? At this stage of the cull, he couldn’t afford to lose a single day’s stalking, let alone have it indefinitely suspended. Any day now the weather might turn against them: it was essential to shoot all the stags they needed before mist, gales or snow forced them on to the low ground.

  On a personal and practical level, he was by no means sorry to have seen the last of Beverley. Nicky had always been easily influenced, and any determined gold-digger could make mincemeat of him. If only, thought his father longingly, he would settle for Ashy, who would give him the kick-start he needed. Then there would be no need to involve Johnny in Glen Buie affairs after all. Though he would never have admitted it to his sister Marjorie, there was something about his elder nephew that set Sir Archie’s teeth on edge.

  Johnny was shooting today, with Ashy as second rifle, should a second chance present itself. Maya and young Benjamin were in support, together with Robb’s sidekick. Sir Archie would have liked to go with them himself, but the Inspector had wanted Sergeant Winter to have a first-hand look at the ground, and any more would have made the party unmanageable. Reluctantly he had stood himself down, resigned to yet another day of frustrating inactivity.

  Marjorie had gone fishing, and he thought he might join her later, though after a run of fine days the water was so low that she had little chance of catching anything on a fly.

  Gwennie and Lady Priscilla, escorted by Wpc Kenny, had gone to visit Everard in hospital. That’s one person I shan’t be asking here again, thought Sir Archie. If Priscilla wants to come up next year, I’ll suggest she brings her son Lucas and leaves Everard to look after her dogs.

  Catching sight of the purposeful figure of Inspector Robb heading towards the house, Sir Archie locked the gun-room door and hung the key on its nail hidden between two beams. Then he walked briskly out of the back door and down the path towards the river.

  *****

  ‘Cheer up, laddie! It may never happen,’ said Donny with a wink as they jolted together in the back seat of the Trooper.

  ‘What may never happen?’

  ‘Whatever’s bugging you.’

  Ben hunched his head into his shoulders and didn’t answer. He wasn’t in the mood for Donny’s banter, nor would he have come out today if his mother had not insisted. She had opened the door of his top-floor bedroom only minutes after he’d switched on his ghetto-blaster.

  ‘Turn that off at once. I didn’t bring you here to skulk in your room listening to that mindless rubbish.’

  With a sulky glare, he had obeyed.

  ‘Go downstairs and get your boots on. Quick! The stalkers are leaving in five minutes.’

  ‘But, Mum – !’

  ‘Do as you’re told and don’t argue.’

  He knew she would watch to make sure he obeyed. She had been looking for a way to get at him ever since she found Elspeth lying on the floor with him yesterday evening, giggling over Phat!

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ she had demanded then, while Elspeth pretended she didn’t exist.

  ‘She was lending me some tapes.’

  ‘I should have thought you had enough of your own without scrounging from the servants,’ his mother had said in the way that made him cringe. ‘Every drawer in your room is stuffed with the wretched things.’

  He would have liked to tell her to keep her snoopy nose out of his drawers, but didn’t quite dare.

  ‘Demo tapes, Mum. Not the kind you buy. I need them for my Band.’

  But she had al
lowed him no time to play through Elspeth’s tapes, let alone work on them last night; and this morning Elspeth had caught him in the serving-room during breakfast, and demanded them back.

  ‘What’s the rush? I haven’t nearly finished with them.’

  ‘I want them back. I’m leaving this afternon,’ she had said jerkily, and he noticed that her eyes were puffy and pink.

  ‘Leaving? Why?’

  ‘Never mind why,’ snapped Elspeth. ‘Kirsty’s giving me a lift to the ferry, and I want those tapes before I go.’ She had turned to carry out a stack of plates, but he caught her shoulder.

  ‘Wait! You’ve got to tell me why you’re going, and where I can get hold of you.’

  ‘The old cow has sacked me, that’s why,’ said Elspeth bitterly. ‘She’s had her knife into me ever since I was late back that night.’

  ‘Did Ishy tell on you?’ He lowered his voice, conscious that Maya was filling her coffee-cup on the other side of the serving-hatch, while Nicky piled his plate with sausages.

  ‘I don’t know. It was all your fault, but I’m the one gets the blame.’ She sniffed and said spitefully, ‘And you’re going to catch it when Sir Archibald hears what Angus Buchan’s got to say.’

  ‘Who’s Angus Buchan?’

  ‘One of the crofters. Those were his sheep that you –’

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Ben, paling visibly.

  ‘He wants compensation.’

  ‘But can he – does he know it was me?’

  ‘You’ll find out when he comes again tonight, won’t you? I wouldn’t be in your shoes then.’

  He had looked at her with a spasm of dislike. Had he been crazy to ask her to sing with his group? She had talent, OK, but those tapes of hers needed a lot of work. Cut out the crummy tracks, sharpen up the backing. It would take him all morning...

  He had said, ‘What’s your dad going to say?’

  Elspeth shrugged. ‘I don’t care. Look, do I get my tapes back or not?’

  ‘Give me a chance. I haven’t played them through yet. I’ll give them back before you leave, honest.’

  She had given him her insolent, upward-slanting look through her fringe, and he thought she was going to be difficult, but she said, ‘Meet you at the larder, then, but don’t be late. The ferry goes at three, and Kirsty won’t wait.’