My Bones Will Keep

Chapter 15

The Meaning of Coinneamh

‘Up jumps old Peter, and, heaving the regelashuns away, yells, “Damn all the nonsense! Heave the body overboard”.’

Harry Lander

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Meeting,’ said Dame Beatrice, referring to the English rendering of Coinneamh. ‘If so, I wonder why Mrs Grant was willing to put you up for the night? I wonder how she ever contrived to persuade a baby-sitter to stay in the house? I wonder how much Mr Macbeth knows about the Grants, and how much of the knowledge he had never disclosed?’

‘Golly!’ said Laura ‘What hare has poor Ian at the station started now?’

‘In what sense, dear child?’

‘This Coinneamh gag. Are we talking of witchcraft, do you think?’

‘Of one kind of witchcraft, no doubt. We now know that we are talking of the kind of witchcraft which (to coin a phrase and alter it just a little) has been running guns and butter in the same ships.’

‘As for Mrs Grant putting me up for the night, I am pretty sure that she may have wanted the use of a car in the early hours of the morning and saw how she could get it. But I may be wronging her hopelessly about that. Anyway, where do we go from here?’

‘Oh, back to Tannasgan.’

‘To confront Macbeth with our new knowledge, such as it is?’

‘To invite his co-operation, as I see it.’

‘Some hopes, if you ask me! I shouldn’t think he’d ever give anybody any cooperation in his life!’

‘We shall get it, provided that he has returned safely from Dingwall. I shall challenge him, and I am fairly certain that he will pick up the gage.’

‘Don’t forget to be quick on the draw with that lethal little gat of yours, then,’ said Laura. ‘Sheriff,’ she added unnecessarily.

Dame Beatrice cackled and her car drew in to one of the passing-places to let through a car coming from the opposite direction.

‘That was our friend Macbeth,’ she said. ‘Did you see him?’

‘Good Lord! We ought to follow him up,’ said Laura, ‘But I don’t see how George can turn on a road as narrow as this.’

‘There is no need for us to follow him,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘It will be much better to meet him on his own ground. We will await him at An Tigh Mór.’

Arrived on the shores of Loch na Gréine, the car drew in on to the grass verge and Laura got out. Macbeth, it seemed, had rowed himself ashore, for the boat was tied up to the jetty. George opened the car door for Dame Beatrice and then led the way to the boat, handed in his employer, waited for both women to seat themselves and then untied the boat and pushed off from the jetty.

‘Wonder whether the Corries are still in possession?’ said Laura, when they reached the boathouse. ‘Oh, well, we shall soon know.’

‘Do you wish me to accompany you to the house, madam?’ asked George. Dame Beatrice patted the pocket of her skirt.

‘Not this time, George, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I think you had better stay here in case the owner of the house comes back and needs the boat. If you hear the sound of a shot, you may come to our rescue.’

‘Very good, madam,’ He watched them as they walked towards the house, for the boathouse had wooden planking on three sides and the door was at the back and had been left open. Laura went up to the mansion and hammered on the door. It was opened by a police-sergeant.

‘Well, I’m blessed!’ said Laura, her marriage to Detective Chief-Inspector Robert Gavin having freed her from the average citizen’s awe of the police. ‘I thought you lot had finished here a couple of weeks ago!’

‘Gin ye’ll step inside, ladies, the Inspector would be glad of the favour of a word wi’ ye. We spied ye from the window,’ said the policeman, holding the door wide open and standing aside. ‘He’ll be in the dining-room. That is the door, on the right there.’

They entered the dining-room and a tall inspector of police looked round and then stood up.

‘I am very glad to see you, Dame Beatrice,’ he said gravely. ‘This saves me the trouble of running you to earth. It seems you have been travelling half over Scotland since your Conference ended.’

‘Yes, Mrs Gavin and I have had some enjoyable journeys,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Inspector…?’

‘MacCraig, of the Edinburgh police. Please to sit down.’

They took chairs and he seated himself (uncharacteristically in the presence of witnesses) in the chair which he had been occupying when they came in. This caused him to face the window.

‘As Mrs Gavin remarked to your sergeant at the front door, we thought you had left this house for good,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Ah, well, you’ll note I’m from Edinburgh. Now, we have in our files a story which Mrs Gavin told to one of our men on point duty about a man being deliberately pushed under a car and killed. Well, very recently that story has received confirmation from a reliable source and it ties up, we fancy, with the murder of Mr Bradan of this house, whose body, as you well know, was found stabbed and in a hogshead or barrel which had contained rum.’

‘Not whisky,’ said Laura. ‘Most unpatriotic.’

‘No, it wouldn’t have been whisky,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘What causes you to say that?’ asked the inspector.

‘There is a good deal of symbolism mixed up in this business, Inspector. You saw the significance of the fabulous beasts, of course?’

‘I am not aware that they had significance, Dame Beatrice. See here, now. We ken very well that you and Mrs Gavin have interested yourselves in this queer business. We know, from her own report to the Inverness police, and also from another source, that Mrs Gavin was in this house for some hours on the night when Mr Bradan was killed, and we also know of your connection with the Home Office and that Mrs Gavin is the wife of a C.I.D. officer at present on so-called leave. We have heard from Detective Chief-Inspector Gavin. He is not spending all his time fishing for barracuda, as Mrs Gavin, I take it, knows perfectly well, or you and she would not be chasing murderers in Scotland.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Laura. ‘I’ve heard only once from my husband since he went on leave, and that was before Dame Beatrice went to Edinburgh for the Conference.’

‘Did you not think his leave was an extended one?’ The inspector watched her closely.

‘I hadn’t thought much about him at all. He’s never been a good correspondent and he has a very busy couple of years’ work behind him, so I took it for granted that he would get a fair amount of leave and would simply let me know when he was coming home.’

‘Ah,’ said the inspector. ‘Well, well!’

‘You are making me very curious, Inspector. What is Gavin up to, then? Is he on a job?’

‘He is that, then. But since he has not told you anything about it, I must respect his confidence.’ His ordinarily grave face creased suddenly into a smile. ‘All the same,’ he added, ‘by the time Dame Beatrice and I have put our heads together and maybe pooled our ideas, an intelligent lady such as yourself will know how many beans make nine.’

‘Am I allowed to ask whether it was a young newspaper reporter named Grant who confirmed my story of the street murder in Edinburgh?’

‘It was. He also told us that you were here that night and that you could give him an alibi for the time of the murder of Mr Bradan.’

‘But I can’t, as I’ve told him myself, and this is for the good and sufficient reason that I haven’t any idea of the time when that murder was committed.’

‘There was a mention of the skirling of pipes.’

‘But there’s not necessarily any connection between that and the time of the murder, is there?’

‘As a matter of fact, there may well be a connection. At the enquiry – as you know, we do not hold inquests as they do south of the Border – the evidence was carefully edited for the Press, and trouble was taken for some details to be scamped if not suppressed, notably the limits of time between which the death may have taken place, and the fact that the barrel in which the body was found had contained rum. Now, young Mr Grant is very ambitious, or so he told us, and there is no doubt that he wanted a scoop for his paper big enough to allow him to try for a job on an Edinburgh journal. He not only saw the Edinburgh murder committed. He also knew by sight one of the two men who committed it.’

‘Did they also recognise him?’ demanded Laura.

‘He thinks not. He lives at Crioch, you see, and works in Freagair, and there is nothing to connect these men with either place. Except that he is a reporter and so gets to find out a good deal about local affairs, I do not suppose he would have known either of them. Unfortunately he cannot name the man. He knew him by sight, but not by name.’

‘Could he describe him?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Not very well. The description would have fitted a thousand men – maybe a hundred thousand. There was nothing in it that would help us.’

‘I see. Of course, he may not have wanted to describe him very clearly.’

‘What would you be meaning by that, ma’am?’

‘That the man may have borne the same surname as Grant himself. Just a while ago, Inspector, you suggested that we pool our ideas. I have one in particular which I am prepared to present to you. I am wondering whether the man involved was the Grant who lives at a house called Coinneamh Lodge, between here and Tigh-Osda.’

‘Any relation, would you say, to young reporter Grant?’

‘I doubt it very much. But there is a psychological angle here. Either one betrays a person of one’s own name with a certain amount of enthusiasm – a revenge reaction, let us say – or one cannot bear to bring the clan name into disrepute. In the case of young Mr Grant, I think he would take the latter view.’

‘It might well be. I shall see him again and put the point to him. Of course, he may be telling the truth when he says that he cannot name the man. Only one thing troubles me. The laird of Tannasgan is dead: murdered. What way is it that this Grant of Coinneamh Lodge is still alive? The murder of Bradan must have been an act of revenge. There can be little doubt of that. What way, then, has Grant escaped the murderer’s hand?’

‘Because he murdered Bradan, perhaps,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘That is, if you are right, and the murder was an act of revenge for the loss of the Saracen.’

‘Do you tell me that? Where is your proof?’

‘There is no proof that a court of law would accept. The psychological proof would lie in the remark which you yourself have just made. If Bradan’s death was an act of revenge, then Grant could not possibly have escaped the murder’s vengeance either, unless he himself is the murderer.’

‘That sounds logical, I admit. We ourselves have had strong suspicions of Mr Bradan’s son, but I am bound to admit that we have nothing on him at present.’

‘Is it not true that his father disinherited him?’

‘He says so, and as we know that Bradan was a wealthy man it seems likely that the laddie got his own back on him.’

‘What about Macbeth?’ asked Laura ‘He seems to be the heir. Wouldn’t he have had a pretty strong motive for murder? – to obtain possession, I mean.’

‘Well, there, you see, Mrs Gavin, you’re the strongest witness we’ve so far found in his favour.’

‘I have sometimes wondered whether the laird was killed on Tannasgan,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘or on the mainland.’

‘The Island of Ghosts!’ said Laura. ‘It sounds a sinister sort of name to me. Just the place to expect murder.’

‘There was once a monastry where this house stands,’ said the inspector, ‘but Norsemen from the Hebrides wrecked the place at the end of the eighth century, so I have read, and murdered the monks. That is the story and it goes on that the island has been haunted ever since.’

‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘So it wasn’t Macbeth I fled from that night, but the ghosts! I knew there was something queer about this place!’ She looked over her shoulder fearfully and gasped to find a black-clothed figure standing just behind her shoulder.

‘Will I infuse the tea?’ asked Mrs Corrie.

‘Ay, Mrs Corrie,’ replied the inspector. ‘Ladies can always do with a tassie and so can I. You were saying, a while back, Dame Beatrice, that you have sometimes wondered whether Mr Bradan was killed here.’

‘I do not see how he can have been, and yet I cannot see how he could not have been. There is the skian-dhu, of course, but one cannot imagine even such an eccentric as Mr Macbeth entertaining Laura as he did, and asking her to extend her visit, if he had contemplated killing his cousin while she was in the house. Besides, unless the Corries were in collusion with Mr Macbeth and knew where the laird had been (we’ll say) incarcerated, why did Laura obtain no inkling of his presence and why did the young Mr Grant fail to obtain the interview that he wanted?’

‘Since you have interpreted the facts so far, ma’am, perhaps you know where the killing took place?’ said the inspector, smiling. Dame Beatrice shook her head.

‘I might hazard a guess,’ she said, ‘but it would be nothing more.’

‘Well, now!’

‘Tell me, first, whether the police know where it took place.’

‘We do.’

‘Then I will suppose that he was set upon in or near Inverness (since Edinburgh would have been too far away) and murdered on the wooded island where stand the carvings of the fabulous beasts.’

‘What brought you to that conclusion, I wonder? You mean that he ran into some sort of trouble in Inverness, but was actually murdered on Tannasgan?’

‘I did tell you that it was only a guess. One other thing that I know, however, is that Mr Bradan had interests in or near Edinburgh and that those interests were in shipping.’

‘How did you come to that conclusion?’

‘The fabulous beasts, Inspector.’ True to her half-given promise, she did not mention Grant’s regular visits to Inverness and Edinburgh.

‘The fabulous beasties, Dame Beatrice?’

‘Your men – no, I suppose it would have been the men from Inverness or Dingwall – must have seen them when they first searched these islands and rocks, and you appear to have seen them, too.’

‘Oh, ay, I’ve seen them, of course.’

‘Well, they must have had some significance. Not one of them, so far as I am aware, figures in Scottish legend.’

The inspector wrinkled his brow.

‘What way did you get on to shipping?’ he demanded. Dame Beatrice advanced her theories, bolstering them by describing the activities of herself and Laura. ‘So you thought maybe Mrs Gavin would be in trouble because she was in this house on the night of the murder,’ the inspector observed, when she had concluded her recital.

‘It took a little time to work out my theories,’ said Dame Beatrice blandly, ‘and we were not helped by the persistence with which the young reporter Grant dogged Mrs Gavin and waylaid her with requests for assistance in establishing his alibi. There was no doubt that he thought the murder was committed here. Once I had realised that he was in earnest about this, I began to wonder whether he was in any way responsible for the disposal of the body.’

‘You did, ma’am?’

‘Well, a mixture of the dramatic and the macabre is often a feature of the minds of his age and sex; then, he needed his scoop; then – and this, I think, Inspector, may be of the first importance – being a journalist and, as we know, an ambitious one, he may have found out something about the activities of Mr Bradan, and he may even have come here in the first place to blackmail Mr Bradan into using his influence to obtain him a post in Edinburgh. Now, do please tell us what our dear Robert Gavin has been up to when he has not been fishing for sharks or whatever it was.’

The inspector studied his shoes.

‘Well, well,’ he said. He hesitated for a few seconds. ‘Ah, well,’ he added in a tone of resignation, ‘fair’s fair, I suppose, so – you’ll not be letting a word of this go further?’

‘Well, I did mention the loss of the Saracen,’ said Dame Beatrice.