My Bones Will Keep

Chapter 20

Tannasgan Changes Hands

What a haste looks through his eyes!

So should he look

That seems to speak things strange.’

Shakespeare

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MACBETH stalked up to the house. He was wearing a faded kilt in what Laura, as he approached, managed to identify as the Wemyss tartan. She was interested.

‘The Wemyss family, according to Thomas Innes of Learney,’ she explained to Dame Beatrice, ‘is descended from a third son of Macduff, twelfth-century Earl of Fife. For a Macbeth to identify himself with a Macduff is interesting, don’t you think? – although probably accidental, in this case.’

‘I call it fascinating,’ replied Dame Beatrice, her eyes not on Macbeth’s kilt, however, but upon his sweating bare chest and, alternatively, on his extremely muddy brogues. ‘I wonder what is the symbolic value of this latest excursion into history and literature, then?’

‘Maybe none. He may have bought it second-hand. He never gives the impression of having any money.’

Macbeth clumped into the hall, followed by Corrie. There came a thunderous knock on the dining-room door and both men marched in.

‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, before anyone else could speak, ‘you will catch cold in here, Mr Macbeth. Will you not go and get a good rub down with a rough towel and put a shirt on? You are perspiring very freely.’

‘Ay, you shouldna be in the company of ladies. I tellt ye so,’ said Corrie. ‘Awa’ and freshen.’

Crestfallen, Macbeth bowed to the said ladies and departed, followed by his henchman.

‘What was the point?’ asked Laura, amused by the proceedings.

‘The poor man was too hot, both physically and mentally, for his company to be desirable or even tolerable, child. Now he will have time to cool off, in both senses, and we shall be able to converse reasonably with him.’

She was right. In about ten minutes’ time a clean, dry, completely clad Macbeth returned to them. His demeanour, so far as could be said of that of such a bristling, red-bearded giant, was still chastened. He apologised, adding:

‘I’ve done hard, dirty work without the reward I expected.’

‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I do hope our visit has not inconvenienced you.’

‘No, no. I was for knocking off, anyway, when Corrie came over. Well, I have done what I could for the place. Tomorrow I must away.’

‘You are thinking of leaving Tannasgan?’

‘Well is it called Tannasgan! There’s nothing here but ghosts. Ay, and they leave their promises behind them, and the promises are as ghostly as their makers. Besides, I’m in danger. The police have been here again. A great fool I was to call them in! It’s true that they’ve taken off Bradan’s wee grilse. I hear he’s for trial on a major charge. But the inspector stayed behind and speired at me again about Bradan’s death. He means to pin that on me. I ken that very well.’

‘I wouldn’t run away. It looks bad,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘What does the deer do if it gets wind of the stalker? I tell you, yon man needs a scapegoat.’

‘Has he anything to build on in thinking that you might be the guilty person?’

‘Ay.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘I found Bradan’s body and I piped him a lament. Then it came to me that I was the heir to this’ – he waved an arm like the trunk of a young oak – ‘and I changed my tune.’

‘You certainly did,’ agreed Laura. ‘It sounded like hell gone mad.’

Macbeth, forgetting his grievances, looked gratified.

‘Ay,’ he said, ‘I’m a guid man on the pipes when I let masel go.’ His face changed again. ‘But it was an ill night for me when that reporter laddie heard me.’

‘We both heard you,’ said Laura. ‘Nobody could help it. I should think they heard you in Freagair.’

‘The newspaper laddie brought back the boat and seeped back into the house. He opened the door and then closed it behind him. I was marching up and down to my piping, you’ll understand, and as I turned I saw him. His hair was on end and his face was white, but he stood his ground.

‘ “You’re still here, then?” I speired at him, and at that he nods his head.

‘ “And I’m no leaving without my story,” he tells me.

‘ “And what story may that be?”

‘ “I spied Bradan being brought hame?”

‘ “You did? And what about it?”

‘ “He was in a verra bad way. There were twa men in the boat. They almost had to carry him ashore.”

‘ “Look, now,” I said, “if a gentleman and a landowner canna be fou with his ain friends in his ain boat, where can he be fou?”

‘ “He was no fou,” the laddie said. “The belief is on me that he’s dead.”

‘Well, I had to make up my mind. I wasna so very sure how much the laddie had seen, so I told him that, if he’s a mind to, he could take a keek at anything he liked, and then he was to print what he thought fit. I warned him to be careful what he printed, because a newspaper is fair game to extortionists, and then I left him to it. I kenned he would find the laird, for he was in the cellar.’ He turned to Laura ‘And gin I hadna been engaged with you and your fashes, mistress, I’d have heard them bring him in.’

‘Sorry,’ said Laura. ‘Pity neither of us knew. Do tell us more.’

‘I dinna ken ony mair. The neist thing I knew was Corrie banging on my door the morn and speiring did I know that the laird was in a barrel over at the quay. I thought the man was haverin’, but he was right, so I sent him off for a doctor and the doctor – from Freagair he was – found that Bradan had been killed.’

‘Yes,’ put in Dame Beatrice, ‘but how? By what means?’

‘He had a muckle great lump on the back of his head and a skian-dhu intil his ribs.’

‘The lump on the head would account for his having to be helped up to the house, I suppose, but what about the skian-dhu?’

‘I dinna ken. It was not mine.’

‘Did they test it for fingerprints?’ asked Laura.

‘I dinna ken that, either. The police move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform, but what they do is no business of mine so long as I keep out of their hands, and that I’m determined to do. So, mistress’ – he met Dame Beatrice’s eye – ‘gin ye ken ony gowk wha will put up good siller for a house and an island, Tannasgan and An Tigh Mór are in feu.’

‘I would rent them myself for a fortnight,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘A sennight would do. Verra guid.’

‘Very well. How much are you asking?’

‘I wouldna want to take a cheque. Will ya give me ten pounds? I’m a man of my word. I want naething signed, ye ken, and I’ll no give ye a receipt. Gin ye’ll hand me twa five-pound notes, Tannasgan and An Tigh Mór will be yours for seven days. Doubtless ye’re thinking of taking a wee holiday.’

‘Yes, and a childish one,’ said Dame Beatrice. She pulled out a notecase and handed over the money. Laura looked on, amazed, but she realised that there was a tacit understanding that she should say nothing until Macbeth had gone. He wrung Dame Beatrice’s yellow fingers, nodded to Laura and went out of the room. In no time he was back, a kit-bag slung over his shoulder.

‘Well, gu’n robh maith agad,’ he said.

‘Is e do bheatha,’ responded Laura, not to be outdone in the civilities. Macbeth bowed and departed.

‘Translate, child,’ commanded Dame Beatrice. ‘I had no idea that you had the Gaelic.’

‘I haven’t. All he said was, “Thank you,” and all I said was, “You’re welcome.” ’

‘Poor Sherlock Holmes!’

‘You mean the explanations always seem so obvious when they come? Never mind. You shall play Sherlock now and, as always, I’ll be Watson. Why have we rented this island for a week?’

‘First let us sort Corrie as soon as he brings the boat back from taking Mr Macbeth ashore. To do this at leisure, I ought to see that Mrs Corrie is engaged, or embroiled, or in some way prevented from coming to his rescue.’

‘Can do,’ said Laura, decidedly. ‘I’ll have a crack with her in the kitchen while you go ahead. It’s such a lonely life here for one woman on her own that, once I can get her talking, she’ll probably go on until Domesday.’

So they parted, Laura waylaying Corrie on her way to the kitchen on his return from the boathouse to tell him that he was wanted in the dining-room, Dame Beatrice to sharpen her hatchet.

‘Well, Corrie,’ she said, as soon as he came in, ‘you’ll have heard from Mr Macbeth that Tannasgan has changed hands for a week.’

‘Ay, the laird was telling me.’

‘Did he mention his plans?’

‘Ay, he’s awa’ to Skye.’

To Skye?’ (She remembered that Laura had seen young Bradan, as well as young Grant, on Skye, and she wondered where was the connection, if a connection existed.)

‘Maybe he’ll be climbing Sgurr Dearg,’ said Corrie, with a crafty little smile. Dame Beatrice dismissed the unscaleable peak with a wave of her yellow claw.

‘Well, never mind that,’ she said. ‘The point is that he thinks he’s running away from the police.’

‘The laird has done naething wrang.’

‘So he himself seems to think. Why, then, should he be afraid?’

‘Maybe it would be the skian-dhu?’

‘I am asking you. What about the skian-dhu?’

‘Maybe it belonged to the laird.’

‘Macbeth?’

‘Ay.’

‘So that his fingerprints might be on it?’

‘They were not.’

‘Oh, I see. The police tested it, I suppose?’

‘I dinna ken.’

Dame Beatrice was becoming a little tired of this Scottish circumlocution, but she spoke patiently.

‘Did the police ask to take your own fingerprints?’

‘Aye. I made no objection. I kenned fine it was no masel that put the knife in the old laird’s ribs.’

‘Man Corrie,’ said Dame Beatrice impressively, ‘I know so much about the whole affair that it would be better for nearly everybody if I knew all. Tell me about the night you and another brought Mr Bradan back to An Tigh Mór and put him in the cellar.’

‘So the laird had split on us!’

‘He has indeed, if you choose to put it that way. But as he had not been taken into your confidence and (as I see it) had gone into the cellar simply and solely to get himself something to drink and discovered Bradan there, I scarcely follow your argument. Surely one can only betray one’s fellow-conspirators?’

‘Ye’re in the right of it,’ Corrie gloomily agreed. ‘Here’s for it, then – and this time it’s the whole truth I’ll be telling ye.’

‘And quite time, too. Fire away.’

Corrie’s story did not differ, in a sense, from the one he had told before, but there were some significant additions and one or two important contradictions. He maintained that, when Macbeth had taken the boat over to pick up Laura, he had been expecting a visit from young Bradan on the score that the young man who had been disinherited would want to argue with Macbeth about the rights and wrongs of the matter while his father (of whom, Corrie claimed, he had always been in awe) was out of the way.

‘You told us that the fabulous beasts travelled to Leith for purposes of advertisement. I don’t think that was true,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Well, well!’ said Corrie. ‘The truth is that they did and they didna.’

‘Indeed?’

‘The old laird had wee images of them made.’

‘Oh, yes, I saw some of them,’ said Laura.

‘And it was the wee images that were taken across to Grant of Coinneamh and his motor-van. I understand now. Pray go on.’

Corrie again referred to the activities of young Grant and reasserted that he himself had had orders to go to the public telephone on the Freagair road and ring up Bradan.

‘And you are certain that his was the voice you heard?’ Dame Beatrice deliberately spoke in a tone of doubt, but Corrie was adamant. He could have sworn to it anywhere, he declared.

‘I press the point,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘because I cannot see how, if Mr Bradan was answering the telephone from Edinburgh at the time you say, he could have reached Loch na Gréine at soon after ten.’

‘But wha spoke of Edinburgh?’ demanded Corrie. ‘It was an Inverness number I was to call.’ He went on to speak of meeting the station-master’s newly-repaired car and of the sorry state of Cù Dubh. He had smelled strongly of spirits and was in a comatose condition.

‘Ye’ll appreciate,’ said Corrie, ‘that I had no suspicion then that he had been hit on the head and was to die.’

‘You helped him up to the house and into it, believing that he was drunk.’

‘I did that.’

‘And you saw nothing of young Grant.’

‘I did not.’

‘Now, Corrie, Mr Macbeth has told us that you and another man had almost to carry Mr Bradan up to the house, and that young Grant was suspicious about this and, seeing the chance of a scoop for his paper, he bearded Mr Macbeth, who, by that time, must have been aware of what had happened to his cousin, and then Grant was told he might search where he pleased. He found the body in the cellar. What have you to say about that?’

‘Only that the puir gentleman must hae crept down there to get himself anither drink, as you said about Mr Macbeth. In my experience, when a man is fou, all he thinks about is how to get his hands on anither bottle. Doubtless that would be the finish of him, gin he’d been clouted over the head – skian-dhu or no skian-dhu.’

Dame Beatrice agreed that this was very likely.

‘There is one other point,’ she said. ‘Do you know whether young Mr Grant told Mr Macbeth at the time that he’d found the body in the cellar?’

‘Why else would the laird be piping first a lament and then a reel?’

So you knew what was in the will, thought Dame Beatrice. Aloud she said, ‘One more question, Corrie. The man who helped you with Mr Bradan that night was the porter from Tigh Osda, I take it? He was driving the car.’

‘He was.’

‘I see. Well, I have met him and I cannot believe that he had guilty knowledge of Mr Bradan’s death. Are you and your wife prepared to stay on and look after Mrs Gavin and myself for a week?’

‘It will be a pleasure – forbye we have naewhere else to gae.’

‘Right. Then I want you to take the boat across and bring back my chauffeur.’

‘At once, ma’am?’

‘Yes, please – and you had better tell your wife about the new arrangements.’

When he had gone, Laura said:

‘What do you make of this business of the body in the cellar?’

‘I think that Corrie’s explanation is probable, although I have another, even more likely one.’

‘You do believe, then, that Bradan was not only alive but blind tight when they brought him home?’

‘It is possible. It would explain a good many things. It might even explain why, after a knock on the head which was obviously meant to kill him, he was able to crawl into the cellar. I do not profess to explain it, but it seems to be a fact that when a man is very drunk he can sustain injuries which, in a sober person, might be fatal.’

‘Do you speak from experience?’ asked Laura, cheekily.

‘Professional experience,’ said Dame Beatrice, whose only tribute to the grape was an occasional glass of sherry. ‘I wonder how Mrs Corrie will react to the news that she has two women and an extra man to cater, cook and clean for, in place of the one man to whom she has been accustomed.’

Two men, surely?’ said Laura. ‘At one time, before he was turfed out, young Bradan must have lived here, and, for a bit, I suppose Bradan and Macbeth must both have occupied the house. Besides, one assumes that a Mrs Bradan would have been included, if young Bradan is really Bradan’s son.’

‘How right you are,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Of course, if he isn’t…’

‘I didn’t mean to infer that he wasn’t!’

‘It might help to explain the disinheriting.’

‘I thought the reasons given already were enough to explain that.’

‘Anyway, it is no concern of ours. What is interesting, though, is that Mr Bradan was not in Edinburgh, but in Inverness.’

‘Yes, it explains how he was able to get back here that night.’

‘Of course, the medical evidence must always leave a margin in determining the time of death, and the waters of the loch must be extremely cold at this time of year.’

‘I’ll say they are!’ Laura had swum in them. ‘I see what you mean. The body being in the tub, rigor mortis might have set in earlier than if it had been left in the cellar.’

‘Corrie is not an entirely reliable witness, but there is one suspect who certainly could have been in Inverness that night, and that is Mr Bradan’s son.’

‘I suppose he could. He was on the loch-side ringing bells and turning lanterns, quite well on in the afternoon, but you think he went to Inverness after that and hit Bradan over the head, do you?’

‘It is a possibility.’

‘But, if so, he must have known he hadn’t killed him. There’s no doubt that Bradan got on the train and was met at Tigh-Osda. Of course, Grant of Coinneamh was also in Inverness that night, and told a very fishy story of kidnapping, which he’s since denied. If the other story is right – that there was bad blood between him and Bradan – there’s every reason to think that Grant may have done the job, isn’t there?’

‘We must keep open minds. Open your keen ears, too, and tell me whether I am imagining I hear the chink of teacups and the footsteps of the excellent Mrs Corrie.’

Dame Beatrice was imagining nothing, for Mrs Corrie entered bearing a tray. She was followed by her husband, who pushed a tea-trolley loaded with scones, cakes and jam.

‘What a spread!’ said Laura. Mrs Corrie dismissed her husband with a curt nod of the head and, as he closed the door behind himself, she exclaimed:

‘My man is no murderer, I’ll tell ye.’

‘But we did not suppose he was,’ Dame Beatrice remarked in her beautiful voice. ‘Tell us more, Mrs Corrie. Get another cup and saucer and let us go into conference.’

Mrs Corrie appeared to hesitate. Then, with a grim chuckle, she went off and reappeared with cup, saucer and plate.

‘The scones took,’ she announced. ‘Ye’ll do nae better than the scones.’

Dame Beatrice poured tea and for a few minutes there was silence. Judging that this was foreign to Mrs Corrie’s nature, Dame Beatrice broke it.

‘What do you think of Mr Macbeth’s defection – or is there another explanation of his absence?’ ske asked. Mrs Corrie put down her cup.

‘That one is up to his tricks,’ she said. ‘What caused ye to hold Tannasgan at feu?’

‘For fun,’ replied Dame Beatrice.

‘And games,’ added Laura, inexcusably. Mrs Corrie nodded, accepting Laura’s interpolation as a genuine contribution to the conversation.

‘It was always supposed there was something to be found on Haugr,’ she said, ‘but maybe folks were just havering.’

‘Haugr? A burial mound?’ said Laura. Mrs Corrie took up her teacup, looked wise, and sipped thoughtfully. Lowering the cup, she said:

‘I haena the Gaelic. All I ken is that the laird was awfu’ careful whom he let land on Haugr.’

‘That is the small island with the trees on it?’

‘It is that same.’

‘Mrs Corrie,’ pursued Laura, breaking in on another silence with some suddenness, ‘who was the piper the night I left here?’

‘The piper, Mrs Gavin? I dinna recollect ony piper,’ She turned a suspiciously mild gaze on the questioner.

‘Oh, well,’ said Laura, ‘I don’t suppose it matters.’ Privately she decided that it mattered a very great deal that Mrs Corrie should lie. She added, ‘Just tell me one thing, though. Who helped your husband put Bradan in the cellar?’

‘Naebody put the laird in the cellar. If the laird crawled down intil the cellar, he went of his own free will. It wouldna be the first time.’

‘So, according to you, Mr Bradan must have been alive when your husband and Ian, from the station at Tigh-Osda, landed him here?’

Mrs Corrie looked aggressively and fearlessly at her, and then addressed Dame Beatrice.

‘My man is no murderer,’ she reasserted. Dame Beatrice spread much-bejewelled yellow claws and nodded.

‘Should I really be employing him, although only for a week, if I thought he were?’ she demanded. This casuistry did not shake Mrs Corrie. She laughed. At the same moment there came a vigorous thump on the door. It was opened by Corrie, who had knocked, and behind him the stolid, reliable George filled the rest of the aperture.

‘Ah,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘George will be staying the night. I suppose you can fix him up?’

‘His wee bag is in the hall and the bed is aired,’ replied Corrie.

‘Splendid.’

‘And there’s a pot of tea ready to infuse in the kitchen, and scones and bannocks for ye,’ said Mrs Corrie, addressing her husband.

‘Ay,’ said Corrie, in dispirited tones, leading the way towards the domestic quarters.

‘He’s thinking my tongue may rin awa’ with me,’ said Mrs Corrie. She went over to the door and closed it. ‘But that it willna do, for I hae nae mair to tell.’

‘How long have you been on Tannasgan, Mrs Corrie?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘How long? Oh, a matter of less than two years. We came here last September twelvemonth.’

‘So you’ve spent two winters on Tannasgan.’

‘We have that.’

‘And you were on your own here for about three weeks last winter?’

‘We were. The laird was awa’ to Gàradh, where they keep the gardens open to the public some days during the summer.’

‘Did you like it better while he was away?’

‘Wha wouldna like it better? We were our own masters.’

‘Yes, of course. What were your dealings with Mr Bradan’s son?’

‘That one? His father had turned him frae the door lang syne.’

‘Before you came to work here, you mean?’

‘No, no, but not so verra much later. He couldna thole him. He was a natural son, so we heard.’

‘Indeed?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Who, then, is said to be his mother?’

But Mrs Corrie was not prepared to answer this question. She muttered that she did not know. Laura made a guess which was destined never to be confirmed or denied.

‘I suppose it was the Mrs Grant who lives at Coinneamh,’ she said. Mrs Corrie handed her the dish of scones. It might have been an ironic or it might have been a pacific gesture. Conscious that no response to her remark was to be forthcoming, Laura took a scone.

‘So,’ said Dame Beatrice, taking the conversation along her own line again after this brief digression, ‘you cannot have been surprised that this natural son was disinherited.’

‘There would hae been no surprise, for we heard he played fause with his father,’ said Mrs Corrie.

‘Oh? In what way?’

‘He took up what he hadna laid down.’

‘So, after that, the laird hid it, whatever it was.’

‘Naebody kens.’

‘Why have you yourself never been on the wooded island of Haugr? Did you never wish to see the models of the fabulous beasts? Did you never wish to see the maze?’

Mrs Corrie shook her head.

‘Gin ever I cross the water,’ she said, ‘I’ll be awa’ to Glasgow where there’s shops and parks. Sauchiehall Street! Trongate! Argyle Street! Kelvingrove!’

‘I thought you came from Kirkintilloch,’ said Laura.

‘I do, so, but Glasgow is where I would choose to be. As for the wee inch of Haugr, I wouldna set foot on it for ony siller ye could offer.’ Asked why, she shook her head and passed her cup for more tea.