The Stalking Party Read online

  To his surprise, Sergeant Winter was enjoying himself. Though the climb had been stiffer than he expected, and he had soon been obliged to shed both anorak and sweater, the slow, unvarying pace set by Fergus had brought the party up to the heights with very little hardship.

  Now, as the mist cleared, he saw for the first time the grand spread of peaks stretching to the limit of vision like a petrified sea of grey crests and ridges, interspersed with deep troughs: a view that car-bound visitors to the Highlands never guessed existed.

  Below them, a veil of low cloud hung over the shining thread of the Buie river, with its fringes of green oak, red-berried rowan, and elegantly branched Caledonian pine. Here and there a glimpse of the river track could be seen, winding along the bank above spate-level, with wooden bridges spanning the many small burns rushing down to join the parent stream. As they climbed, the lush, coarse grass of the lower slopes had shaded into this thin, flaxen-tipped sedge and cottongrass, gradually tinting a deeper gold until the vegetation between the outcrops of rock they were now traversing was tipped with ginger and bronze.

  Cloud-shadows dappled the heights, and accentuated the dark-blue hollows, while away at the far horizon, hills and sky merged in a grey-blue haze. Winter checked his compass, and noted that the wind, which in the glen had blown steadily from the north, was at this height swirling in from an easterly quarter, and this was dictating Fergus’s oblique approach to the group of stags they had seen from below, in order to keep his party constantly downwind of their quarry.

  Even more to his surprise, Winter found himself very keen to come up with that quarry.

  Twice they had interrupted the climb to rest for a few minutes and observe the deer. The half-dozen big stags that had been visible from the track were now revealed as part of a much larger mixed group of beasts, scattered among the boulders and overhanging cliffs a couple of hundred feet below the summit.

  ‘We won’t be able to get above them with the wind as it is,’ Johnny had muttered, elbows propped on knees to steady his binoculars, and Fergus grunted assent.

  ‘We’ll crawl up under them. There’s cover enough so long as some damned old hind doesna spot us and give the alarm. How are ye doing, Mrs Alec?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ Maya smiled at him, but Ashy’s face was turned away. Benjamin, too, stared sullenly into the glen, taking no interest in the stalk. Winter himself would have liked to ask questions, notably how Fergus planned to cross the open ground between them and the next cluster of boulders, and had to remind himself that he was only here to observe. The less attention he drew, the better.

  It was cold at this height, and although he had been sweating when they halted, the wind soon began to cut through his shirt. He was glad when they set off again, but before they had climbed more than fifty feet obliquely across the steep, rock-strewn slope, Fergus suddenly froze.

  A loud, indignant, sibilant sniff that was almost a bark sounded directly in front of them. Peering over Maya’s shoulder, Winter glimpsed an upflung, inquisitorial nose pointing at them, and smelt the warm, rank pungency of a stag.

  Crouching, Fergus signalled them back, and the party retreated with ape-like haste, knees bent and fingers to ground, until a shoulder of hill hid them.

  ‘We maun get round that young bugger,’ said Fergus, taking the rifle from its sleeve.

  ‘One up the spout?’ said Johnny quickly.

  ‘Not just yet awhile, Ready, now?’

  He led the way back at a cracking pace, making a big swing that would bring them above the young sentinel. Winter lost count of the times they crossed and recrossed the rocky burn, following the faintest thread of path. As it flattened out in a desolate bowl-like corrie where pools of standing water shone black between tussocks of sedge, he realised he had quite lost his sense of direction.

  Before he could consult his compass, they were moving again, crawling forward with deer all about them, outlying hinds and young staggies forming a defensive barrier around the big beasts. Sometimes they hurried, sometimes they crouched or lay flat, faces pressed into the soggy, boggy ground. To his chagrin, Winter discovered that the canvas-panelled hiking-boots which he had chosen from the Tounie emporium gave him little purchase on wet vegetation and none at all on wet rock. Despite his efforts to keep pace with Maya, next up the line, the gap between them constantly widened.

  Panting hard, he tumbled down an overhung peat bank into a gully, landing almost on top of Maya, who sat there alone amid a tangle of sticks and coats and haversacks.

  ‘They’ve gone on,’ she whispered; and a moment later, staring over his shoulder, she asked, ‘Where’s Ben?’

  Chapter Sixteen

  FEVERISHLY CALCULATING TIMES and distances, Benjamin rattled the Trooper over the stony track with scant regard for its suspension. The trailer bounced and jolted behind.

  Ten past twelve now. Twenty minutes to get back to the Lodge. If he allowed himself forty minutes’ work on Elspeth’s tapes, he should just catch her before she left for her rendezvous with Kirsty at the end of the drive. Then he could drive back and return the Trooper to its parking-place before the stalking-party came off the hill.

  He had better top up with Diesel from the yard pump before he went back, and concoct some story to explain why he’d left the stalkers. Tummy trouble...wrenched ankle...didn’t want to hold anyone up... He rehearsed excuses, right foot stamping down to the floor as he bucketed over the bumps.

  Damned old rattletrap, he brooded. If only Uncle Archie would have this track properly graded and surfaced, they’d be able to drive up and down the glen in half the time. Not that anyone at Glen Buie was much interested in driving, or knew anything about cars. The row of stuffy saloons and medium-range estates parked on the gravel sweep proved that.

  Even Nicky’s red Caterham had been a disappointment. When he had swerved to avoid a bunch of sheep lying on the tarmac, the little sod had nearly skidded off the road, and Elspeth had such a fright that she’d refused to go any farther with him. Out she had jumped, and insisted on walking the rest of the way back. All her subsequent troubles had stemmed from that.

  Reaching the loch road at last, Ben swung through the entrance gates and bumped over the cattle-grid before roaring the last couple of hundred yards to the back door. He parked in the outer courtyard, beside the fuel pump, and hurried into the house through the kitchen passage.

  Indoors all was quiet and still. Aunt Gwennie liked the domestic staff to take a long break in the middle of the day, to make up for working early and late. Passing the open kitchen door, Ben paused and looked in. The sink was empty, draining boards bare, and clean cloths hung folded on the Aga rail. Every surface had been cleared of the usual clutter, ready for the evening frenzy of whipping and peeling and chopping, but the loaded double-deck tea-trolley waited near the refrigerator for the first of the returning guests to wheel across the hall to the drawing-room, where the party would gather for a long-drawn-out, plates-on-knees tea.

  He lifted the starched white cloth that covered the food, and abstracted a triangular hunk of shortbread and two iced buns. The big chocolate layer-cake with its thick dark frosting tempted him briefly, but a missing slice might invite unwelcome speculation. Reluctantly he left it untouched. As he replaced the cloth, the click of a doorcatch made him glance round nervously, but his straining ears caught no other sound, and after a moment he relaxed..

  Now to work. Clutching his cakes, he took the back stairs two at a time, and pushed open the door to his bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it looked unnaturally tidy. His folded clothes lay on a straight-backed chair. He shoved them on to the floor and pulled it up to the dressing-table, on which he had set up his tape-deck. Alternately pressing buttons and wolfing buns, he played the first three tracks at full blast through his earphones, and sighed. Given time, given his synthesizer or, better still, the stereo equipment belonging to Dozo Dawson’s father, who worked in sound engineering, he could make these really good. Her voice was great, and
the lyrics weren’t bad, but the backing was crap, no two ways.

  He glanced at his watch. Just over an hour before he was due to meet her. With a backhanded sweep of the sleeve, he flicked the shortcake-crumbs on to the carpet, ran the tape back to the beginning, and switched to Record.

  *****

  Sandy had not troubled himself to seek clearance from the police before taking a bunch of stirks to market on the mainland, as Robb discovered to his annoyance when he finished his paperwork and went in search of the head stalker.

  After drawing blank round the buildings, he got back into the borrowed Land Rover and drove the two bumpy miles up the glen track to the Stalker’s Cottage, but there was no vehicle outside, and only a big, fluffy tabby and a noisy pack of kennelled terriers responded to his knock.

  Robb turned around on the muddy patch of turf by the woodshed, drove back to the junction of tracks, and took the branch that led towards the Greeting Pool and Strathtorran House. Before he reached either, however, he spotted Sir Archie’s silver Mercedes parked in a bay scooped out of the bank, and pulled in behind it.

  The doors were unlocked, the key in the ignition, and rod-clips open on the roof, but where was the driver?

  Robb let his feet follow the narrow path that led obliquely down the heather-covered bank until it merged with what was evidently a well-worn fishermen’s trail beside the water. Here the ponticum thickets had been cut back, and eroded sections of the path shored up. Boggy patches were bridged by planks covered in wire netting to prevent slippage. Shafts of sunlight filtered through glossy dark-green foliage, and the peaty, spongy soil produced the sensation of walking on chocolate mousse.

  After passing two promising-looking pools at either end of a big S-bend, Robb came on his quarry seated on a tree-stump that leaned over the water, hat wreathed in pipe-smoke, with a black labrador at his feet.

  He was squinting into the pool through Polaroid glasses, and calling soft instructions to the bulky, green-veiled figure casting expertly from the far bank.

  ‘Too far. Just a bit more to the left. No, your left. There, you were over him then. Try again.’

  The moment he stood still, Robb understood the reason for pipe and veil. Black clouds of midges descended on his face and hands, and he was aware of furtive movement in the hair at the nape of his neck. Slapping and scratching, he asked where Sandy was.

  ‘Gone to market,’ said Sir Archie, looking round. ‘I told him I’d clear it with you. No point in keeping beasts on once they’re fit.’

  Robb swallowed his irritation and said that was fine. He still had other people to interview.

  ‘Well done, Inspector. Keep up the good work.’ Sir Archie turned back to more interesting matters. ‘Not so far, Sis. He’s only halfway between me and the roots of that willow.’

  Robb ran his fingers over his neck and pinched sharply, capturing a struggling, many-legged insect. ‘When do you expect Sandy back, sir?’

  ‘No idea. Depends if they make their reserve in the ring or if he sells privately.’ He thought for a moment, then said, ‘Hang on, I can tell you who will know, and that’s Catriona McNichol, at the gate-house. Sandy’s mother, eighty-six and sharp as a knife. She part-owns the beasts, and Sandy always drops in to give her the crack before he goes home.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ For nothing, Robb added to himself as he retraced his steps along the peaty mousse. Sis. So the veiled figure had been Marjorie Forbes – well, you could have fooled him. Bulked out in waders, he had taken her for a man. Or had Sir Archibald said, ‘Priss.’ No, because Lady Priscilla had gone to visit her old man in hospital, and she at least had had the civility to clear it with him first. What a job it was keeping track of these people! They drifted about as they pleased, and made it clear enough that they thought his investigation not only a bore but a waste of time as well. Beverley Tanner was no loss, as far as they were concerned, and they would have been happy enough to let sleeping dogs lie and forget she ever existed.

  Frustrated and suddenly hungry, he drove on until he found room to turn, then made his way through the high deer-gate and down the back drive, stopping by the two little pepperpot towers with an archway between them that constituted the Glen Buie Lodge gate-house.

  *****

  Visitors were the breath of life to Catriona McNichol, imprisoned by age and arthritis in her armchair between the two windows of the room above the gate-arch. One overlooked the front drive, which curled right-handed into the gravel sweep before the front door, while the left-hand fork vanished into the dark shrubbery flanking the back drive.

  On the other side of her living-room, a matching window commanded the shore road and gentle slope leading eventually to the harbour where, even now, the 1.30 pm ferryboat was chugging out beyond the breakwater on its way to Tounie.

  ‘You certainly have a fine view,’ observed Robb, when the cracked old voice invited him to come up the stairs since she couldn’t get down to him.

  ‘Aye, ’tis grand, right enough, and Sir Archie’s very good. He’s had the double-glazing put in so I can sit here summer and winter, too. There’s no one goes up to the Lodge without me seeing them,’ she said with a twinkle that told him she was well aware of the purpose of his visit.

  Better than any watchdog, he thought, remembering the unlocked doors.

  She was a squat, solidly-built old woman, with white hair waving strongly back from a broad, lined forehead, a ski-jump nose and hooded, rheumy, pale-blue eyes that nevertheless sparked with curiosity. Her worn hands were knotted with arthritis, and the stick-thin legs planted firmly apart, their feet in sheepskin slippers, looked too brittle to support her body. Clearly she spent most of her waking hours in this position. To her right was a large television and VCR. On the table to her left, within easy reach, were an automatic tea-maker and biscuit caddy, an untidy heap of magazines, and a pair of 8 x 30 Zeiss binoculars.

  ‘Can you remember who came and went last Tuesday?’ Robb asked.

  ‘The day yon puir lassie was kilt? I mind it fine, sir,’ she said with a briskness that seemed incongruous in someone so old and immobile. ‘I have little to do but look through the window all day long. I have it written down for ye. Wait, now, while I put my hand on it.’

  She shuffled a pile of papers and picked out a sheet of lined foolscap. Date, names, times, vehicles – all set out in the elegant schoolroom copperplate hand of yesteryear. Robb received it almost reverently.

  ‘Take a look at that, and if there’s aught not plain, ye have only to ask,’ she smiled, and leaned back in her chair. With close attention, Robb began to read the record of Tuesday, September 22nd, as seen from the gate-house window.

  Mrs McNichol had taken up her station at 8 am, when the red post van delivered letters and newspapers. She had noted the departure of the two stalking-parties to Carn Mhor and Carn Beag at 9.10 and 9.15 respectively.

  At 9.30 Nicky and Benjamin had driven off in the red Caterham, fishing-rods sticking through the passenger window.

  At 10.10, Donny had led the white pony, wearing the stag-saddle, up the back drive towards the Carn Mhor pony-path.

  Nothing had happened then until 11 o’clock, when Duncan the gardener had gone off to the harbour on his motorbike, and Mary Grant and Ishy had left the house in Mary’s blue station-wagon.

  Robb looked up. ‘What about the other girl? Elspeth?’

  ‘Yon thrawn lassie!’ Mrs McNichol chuckled, half-admiring, half-censorious. ‘Och, she had other fish to fry. I saw her come flying out the house close on noon, with her hair all tangled like a bush full of snakes. She’d a shining gold jacket, and nothing on her hinder parts but a skirt as long as a pie-frill. Surely to God, I thought, she can’t be going on the bus in that rig? But go she did, for I never saw her return. Yon’s no’ one to fret over what folk think, though if her auntie had seen her then, she’d have lost her place sooner than she did. She’s a hard woman, is Mary Grant.’

  ‘When did Elspeth return?’

  Th
e lined brow crinkled. ‘As to that, I canna say for certain, but it must have been after dark, for I’d Ishy on the phone soon after six, in a rare taking because Elspeth wasna there to help with the vegetables, and Mary away to visit her sister on the Black Isle.’

  Robb rubbed his jaw and read on.

  At three o’clock Donny, John Forbes, and the white pony carrying a dead stag had passed under the arch on their way to the game larder. Soon after, the game-dealer’s refrigerated van paid its weekly call, departing twenty minutes later.

  At 5.15, Ishy had returned in her own car, and simultaneously Lady Hanbury and Lady Priscilla had appeared with their fishing-rods from the direction of the trout-loch. Ten minutes later, Marjorie Forbes and her dog had arrived tired and hot at the gatehouse. They had come straight up the stairs to share a pot of tea with Catriona.

  ‘Miss Marjorie was aye a kind lassie, and loved the hill,’ said the old woman affectionately, ‘but it’s only since her husband the minister died that she’s come here again, bringing her lads with her.’

  She leaned forward confidentially. ‘She was after telling me that Sir Archie is minded to put young Mr Johnny in charge here, now poor Mr Alec’s dead and gone.’

  At 5.30, the rest of Sandy’s party had returned from Carn Mhor, and repaired to the gun-room for a dram.

  An hour later, Fergus’s Trooper had driven under the gatehouse, with the Royal in the trailer and Mrs Alec in the front seat, while Mr Cooper had to make do with the back.

  Just as the light was fading, Nicky’s red sports car had roared in and skidded to a stop, ‘which is no way to treat Duncan’s gravel, as Mr Nicky knows full well,’ said the old woman severely, ‘and they with hardly time left to dress before the gong. Her leddyship canna abide the guests to keep dinner waiting on them.’

  Soon after that the yard lights had been extinguished, and Mrs McNichol had drawn her own curtains, switched on the TV, and turned her attention to supper.

  With her permission, Robb folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He felt depressed. What had seemed at the outset a neat, self-contained crime had begun to spread outwards like fungus, blurring its parameters.