Paying the Piper

He shook one small white tablet out of the bottle and put it in her hand. "Okay," Elizabeth said. "I guess it couldn't hurt to take one."

"One a day," said Denny. "We'll give it a week, and if your finger doesn't fall off, we'll pronounce you cured."

Elizabeth laughed. "If I remember to take them."

Owen Gilchrist wondered if the British had ever heard of snipe hunts. More specifically, he wondered if sending him in search of a rowboat had been a British variant of the wild goose chase, because he had not found any sign of a rowboat. He had spent the entire morning wandering around the island like Banquo's ghost, and he hadn't accomplished anything, except to get his month's quota of exercise and more fresh air than he ever wanted.

The dig was beginning to strike Owen as rather a closed shop. Callum was the photographer; Alasdair tested soils; Denny did the surveying. Owen felt that he and the two women were afterthoughts, but he wasn't sure what he could do about it. He was not familiar with British archaeology, and he did not have enough experience to handle any job without supervision, but surely they should be teaching him something. He ought to be good for more than chasing nonexistent boats.

He was afraid that, as usual, he was getting a reputation as an eccentric clown. The bagpipes—they all enjoyed ragging him about that. And perhaps he'd been too enthusiastic about his fascination with crime. But he wasn't stupid, or even incompetent. Owen decided that his fellow workers' attitude was their problem. He certainly didn't intend to alter his personality just to conform with their dull conventionality. Of course, he reflected sadly, he wouldn't have any friends—but he was used to that.

That evening, while they were waiting for their dinner to complete the interminable process of heating up on the Camping Gaz stove, Derek Marchand insisted that each of them give an account of his day.

Alasdair explained in considerable detail exactly what sorts of soil samples he had taken and added that he could use another day or so to complete his testing.

"What did you find?" Owen asked.

Alasdair favored him with a cold smile. "The soil is acidic, of course. Peat bogs on top of limestone. I'm afraid I can't get much more specific than that. We send the samples back to the mainland to be analyzed."

Owen reddened. "Yes, I knew that! I just wondered if you'd found anything of interest."

Another smile. "A cache of Celtic gold, for example?"

Tom Leath pointed out that there had been gold found from that era on other Scottish islands.

"In the Orkneys," Alasdair reminded him.

"I read about a legend once concerning a French ship that left thirty thousand pounds in gold for Bonnie Prince Charlie," Denny said. "No one has ever found that, have they?"

"Not officially," Callum Farthing said. "But I can promise you that it didn't last much past 1745. The MacDonalds probably spent the lot."

"Be that as it may," Derek Marchand said, "we are not here to hunt treasure, but to find knowledge. I personally would rather confirm the existence of a megalithic yard than uncover a trunkful of gold trinkets from some ancient lady's boudoir.''

"How very noble of you," Alasdair drawled.

"Right," said Tom Leath, taking his cue from the expedition leader. "Let's get back on track, then, shall we? We were in the midst of discussing our day's activities."

Callum produced a list of the photographs that he had taken. He and Marchand discussed what other ones might be necessary.

Denny discussed the results of the day's surveying without any mention of Gitte's incompetence.

"I didn't find the boat," Owen said when his turn came. He explained that he had searched most of the shoreline, the huts in the village at the other side of the island, and even among the trees, looking for a hidden rowboat, but there was none to be found.

"That's odd!" said Marchand. "I was told there was one kept here."

"Did you try the cave?" Callum Farthing asked.

Owen frowned. "Cave?"

"Yes. If you walk along the beach below the cliffs, and then climb over the rocks, you'll find a small cave cut into the cliffs. I imagine the sea goes well into it at high tide, but when I went in this afternoon, it was dry enough."

"Sounds like Sawney Bean's place," Owen grunted. "What makes you think the boat would be in there?"

"It seems a logical place to put it to protect it from the elements. Anyhow, that's where it is. I saw it there this afternoon, up on a sort of ledge about twenty yards back from the mouth of the cave."

"I didn't check along the beach," Owen muttered defensively.

"Well, perhaps it did take a bit of finding," Marchand said soothingly. "But now that we've located it, you can start checking that heelstone on the little island. I think that can wait until day after tomorrow, though. I want everyone to pitch in at the main site tomorrow."

"Okay,'' Owen said. "I think I'll go off and read now.''

After a few more minutes' conversation around the camp fire, Elizabeth decided to go and check on Owen. It wasn't that she felt any kinship with him because they were both Americans, but she did feel sorry for him, because he seemed to be the underdog of the camp. Besides, she told herself, if I can only dislike one member of the expedition, it's going to be Gitte, so I have to be nice to poor Owen.

She found him sitting at the long table in the Nissen hut, studying his crime books.

"I thought you were going to feed your bagpipes tonight, '' she said, pulling up the other chair.

"I can do that tomorrow," Owen grunted. "I might want to play some later tonight. Anyhow, I wanted to read up on these cases."

"Who's Who of British Murderers. Very wholesome, Owen."

He scowled. "I'm not reading this for fun. Not this time anyhow. Remember what the policeman told me?"

"As I recall, nobody told you anything. I believe you were eavesdropping—"

Owen waved away this detail. "Whatever. I found out, if you insist on being technical, that Keenan was researching a piece on paroled killers. Where are they now? Obviously one of them was in Edinburgh."

"I agree with that," Elizabeth said, "since Keenan was apparently there to interview somebody, but I don't think you can assume that whoever it was murdered him."

Owen sighed. "If the police are as naive as you are, I'd better hurry and figure this case out, because otherwise there'll be no hope of finding the murderer."

Elizabeth decided that arguing with somebody, even if he was wrong, did not constitute cheering him up. "All right, Owen," she said. "I'll keep an open mind. What have you got so far?"

Owen brightened. "I ruled out all the famous criminals because I'd know if they had been paroled, and they haven't been. I also ruled out the mundane ones, for obvious reasons."

"It isn't obvious to me. What, exactly, is a mundane murder?''

"Someone who kills while burglarizing a house, or hits somebody too hard in a bar fight or kills his wife in a drunken rage. Those people wouldn't make very interesting reading in a tabloid story. Usually they are just poor and trapped."

"There is a certain logic there," Elizabeth conceded. "You assume that Mr. Keenan would have been looking for sensational cases to sell newspapers. Somebody famous enough for people to remember the crime, but not so famous that people have kept up with him. Did you find any murderers who fit the bill?''

"Quite a few. But the snag is that I don't know where they are now. Boy, I would love to have read Keenan's article. What a great story! Too bad he didn't get to write it."

Elizabeth shivered. "I should think you'd have had enough horrors watching someone actually die."

"It didn't seem very real, did it? Anyway, it all happened so fast, and it isn't as if we knew him. Don't you think he'd be pleased that I'm trying to track down his killer?"

"He was a reporter. I suppose he might."

"I think so, too. Here are the ones I've considered so far.'' He pulled a small sheet of paper out of the back of the book and showed her a list of names. "I kind of like this one. Fifteen years ago a little boy was strangled in Newcastle, and the killer turned out to be one of his playmates—an eight-year-old girl! She was sent to a mental institution, but supposedly she was released at age twenty-one."

Elizabeth shivered. "Cured, I hope?"

Owen shrugged. "You never know. She sounds like a psychopath to me. Someone who doesn't feel the difference between right and wrong, but who just has to learn to obey the laws through fear of society's retribution."

"Thank you. I know what a psychopath is," Elizabeth snapped. "I have a bachelor's degree in sociology."

Owen smirked. "Guess you know what poverty is, too, then."

"I'm going to grad school."

"Wise move. Okay, next case. This guy would be pretty old now. He was a soldier in World War II, and he was engaged to this girl, and then he found out she was a local prostitute, so he killed her and hid her body in a tank on the army base. Pretty weird, huh? At the trial they claimed he'd been visiting the body for a couple of days and fixing its makeup and changing its clothes."

"Ugh!" said Elizabeth. "I suppose he went off to Valium Village as well?"

"Oh, yeah. Broadmoor, I think. But when these old geezers pass sixty, they usually get released quietly. Unless the crime was too notorious. That sort of killer is pretty safe after sixty. Diminished sex drive, you know. Remember Ed Gein, the cannibal murderer in Wisconsin?"

"No."

"Oh! Weil, he's the guy that the movie Psycho was based on, but the real case was much more interesting. Ed died in a mental institution, because people stayed grossed out about his crimes for decades, but I'm sure he wouldn't have done anything if they'd let him out."

"I can understand their being unwilling to risk it, Owen."

"Oh, sure. The publicity is deadly. Once they make a TV movie of your case, you're in for good. John Wayne Gacy . . . Ted Bundy . . . Charlie Manson ... no way they're getting out."

"Do they have TV movies in Britain?" Elizabeth asked.

Owen shrugged. "Not that I know of, but they have the same kind of publicity. The Yorkshire Ripper isn't coming out, I can tell you that. But this guy here, I bet he's out, or soon will be. Alec Evans."

Elizabeth took the book and read aloud the entry that Owen had marked in red. " 'Glasgow. Poisoned his entire family with thallium in the sugar bowl. Considered a brilliant young man, very good in chemistry.' "

Owen snickered. "Well might they say so. Thallium was a very good choice. It's slow, and it hits everyone in different ways so that the causes of death appear different: meningitis, pneumonia, and so on."

"He poisoned his whole family!" said Elizabeth, still reading. "And he was only fourteen years old."

"Kids don't have a lot of self-control anyway," Owen said. "I guess he got angry with them and booby-trapped the sugar bowl. Probably too immature to know the finality of it."

"I think fourteen is old enough to grasp the concept of death."

"Well, so do I," Owen agreed. "And I'll bet he's another psychopath, but I'll also bet you that he gets out. Because he was so young when he did it."

"How do you sleep at night, Owen?"

He grinned. "Oh, these guys are pretty rare. Most of them don't kill men anyhow. Now the last one here is the best bet, I think."

Elizabeth consulted the book. "Hmm. From Edinburgh. Malcolm Allen. At age sixteen, he raped and killed a nine-year-old girl in a public park. In Scotland}"

Owen grinned. "It's a bad old world these days, even in sleepy Scotland."

"I guess it always was, what with Sawney the Cannibal

wandering around a few centuries ago. You just don't think of things like that when you see the travel posters. All the castles and kilts and all that."

"Your boyfriend is from Edinburgh, isn't he? I wonder if he knows anything about these cases? Especially the Malcolm guy."

"Don't bet on it." Elizabeth smiled. "Unless one of the killers is a seal, he will have escaped Cameron's notice."

"I wish we could have stayed in Edinburgh longer. I'd like to check newspaper morgues about these cases. See if there were any articles on release dates for these four.''

"You can always do it when we go back," said Elizabeth. "That is, if the police haven't solved Keenan's murder by then."

Owen brightened considerably. "That's right. I might as well give them a sporting chance."

"That's very kind of you, Owen," Elizabeth said with a straight face. "Now, why don't you go and annoy the others with a bagpipe concert?"

CHAPTER

10

TRAVELER'S DIARY

Friday

Cameron is coming tomorrow. For the past three days die sea and sky have been an unbroken line of gray, barely visible through a curtain of rain. The air is wet and smells of salt and kelp, and I am chilled from the inside out. I do not think I am being very successful in my efforts to capture the spirit of the ancient island Celts, unless cabin fever was a problem in the Highlands. Unless one of them once wanted to stand out on the cliff in the rain screaming, "Get me off this island!"

Three days in a Nissen hut with these people ... At least Owen has not played his bagpipes anymore. Denny has been teasing him about playing an American Indian rain dance by mistake, and saying that the rain is all Owen's fault. Owen sulked for most of the day, but since then most of his conversation has been about famous murderers, and he has been pumping the other diggers for their recollections about the cases. Of course, Denny instantly claimed to be one of them, which annoyed Owen still further, and the others made no secret of their disinterest. Actually, of course, no one remembers anything except in a vague jumble, the way we remember the Corn Laws, and I'm afraid Owen is becoming less popular by the minute. He is not the endearing sort of eccentric. He is a bit of a show-off.

Alasdair and Callum (true Scots?) profess not to be bothered by what they call "a little rain," and they spend much of the daylight hours out of the hut, supposedly tramping about the island. I suspect that Callum is exploring the sea cave. Alasdair seems to be indulging his preference for solitude as much as anything, although he does occasionally allow Gitte to go with him, for which I am grateful.

And I have spent most of the leisure time (apart from mapping and so on) as close to the camp stove as I can get, in a nonstop bridge game against Leath and Marchand. Denny overbids. He cannot seem to grasp the idea that the object of the game is to win.

Gitte talks incessantly, which she calls "practicing her English." I don't see why Alasdair doesn't just buy a cocker spaniel and be done with it! Why do some intelligent men like unintellectual women? Is it restful for their egos, or just an answer to the servant problem?

Thank God, I'll be seeing Cameron tomorrow. That thought has enabled me to be civil to everyone throughout this interminable downpour. Cameron seems so pleasant and normal, now that everyone else I know is grating on my nerves.

I am beginning to imagine this island in winter. No wonder the old Scots thought of hell as a cold, wet place. It must have been a grim life. It makes you understand why Celtic and Norse mythology is so pessimistic compared to Greek myths. The Northern people simply couldn't imagine a carefree existence, even for the gods. I just wish the rain would stop.

By the wee hours on Friday morning the drumming of rain on the hut's tin roof had begun to subside, and when Elizabeth peeped out the door just past six, the sky was an encouraging shade of blue. She ran her hand through her jumble of curls, and hoped that one day would be enough time for the frizz to go away.

Denny Allan rounded the corner of the Nissen hut carrying two tin cups of spring water and Tang. "Pill time!" he announced.

Elizabeth took the cup and the capsule, trying to smile. She always felt like a gorgon in the morning, and she wished people wouldn't expect her to be civil before she had lipstick on. Some women could manage the disheveled look, she thought, but she was not among them.

"How's the hand today?" Denny asked.

Elizabeth gulped down her medicine. "Fine," she croaked. "I mean, it isn't infected, but the cut is rather deep. I suppose I could have used stitches, but I'm not very brave about things like that. Anyhow, I put a fresh bandage on it. Is anyone at the burn now? I want to wash up."

"I saw Callum, but he was about finished when I was there. Leath and Marchand have been up for ages, getting ready for today's project. Where's Alasdair?"

Elizabeth made a face. "He has also been up a while. He's

in there helping Gitte make breakfast, and she is simpering like mad."

"Oh, well." Denny smiled. "You know how women are with a foreign boyfriend."

With that he strolled away, leaving Elizabeth to wonder whether or not she had been insulted.

Derek Marchand, delighted with the return of good weather, supervised the assembling of the surveying equipment for measuring the standing stones. As a civil engineer he was in his element with tachymeters and tripods. He had risen at dawn, and the traces of red on the horizon had lifted his spirits immeasurably. His first impulse had been to shake Tom Leath awake and to begin the day at once, but an instant later he decided that he did not want to share these early moments with anyone.

He pulled on a white fisherman's sweater over his turtle-neck and set off inland toward the stones. The peat was still slippery from the previous rains, but to Marchand's nose the air smelled dry and fresh—a further promise that today the work would begin in earnest. The stones were still black shapes in the graying light of morning, and their twisted forms silhouetted against the sky looked oddly graceful, like dancers frozen in place. They seemed to bow to each other and to him, beckoning him closer.

Derek Marchand wondered what dawn it was, or perhaps what moonset, that would make the stones reveal their secret to a waiting communicant. Midsummer, perhaps, or Beltane. He was sure that there was some significance to the standing stones and that the paths of sun and moon were somehow bound to this rine of rock mired in neat on a forgotten island. If you stood just here—or perhaps there, by the tall tapered stone—and looked . . . where? At the mountain? At the smaller island just past the channel? . . . From some such point of reference, on a given day ordained centuries ago, the sun would rise just over one certain stone; or perhaps by standing at one special place within the circle, one could see the moon caught in a fold between two mountains.

The ancient engineers had set it all up to some heavenly purpose, and modern man had yet to determine what it was. Marchand was sure, though, that the extraordinary efforts put forth to construct that monument over a span of decades had not been expended frivolously or for the sake of art. There had been some careful plan at work, perhaps a religious one. He was certain that the circle had been precisely engineered to tell its builders something that they needed to know. The time of the solstice, perhaps, for planting or for worship. What in heaven—literally—had they watched for?

Such determinations were months—perhaps years—away from the work at hand. Before the astronomical significance of the Banrigh stones could be considered, hours of more prosaic measuring had to be done, in order to determine heights, widths, and angles. Marchand thought he might even leave the star-charting to a younger scholar. He doubted that he had the time or the strength to stay for all the answers. He would settle for his short-term goal: determining the unit of measurement they had depended on to construct their circle. That was knowledge enough for him. They had not been children, these old ones. For all their quaintness of dress and lifestyle (to modern sensibilities), Marchand did not underestimate them for a moment. Modern scientists achieved a good deal by standing on the shoulders of a host of others whose discoveries had made later ones possible, but these old ones had stood alone, and they had accomplished much. He watched the sun come up over the water and shower the stones with golden light. Far off were wave sounds and the cry of seabirds, but across the stubble of heather, among the standing stones, all was quiet.

Two hours later the circle was glinting in bright sunshine, and the site was animated by the babble of voices and a flash of red and yellow sweatshirts weaving in and out among the stones.

Marchand, looking like a silver-haired gnome, was directing the bustle of activity, sending his workers scurrying to and fro with every new instruction. The first order of business was to check the temperature and the humidity, since weather conditions—especially dampness—affected the readings of the electronic surveying instrument.

Tom Leath, in a hangover-induced calm, was leaning against one of the stones, studying an ordnance map, trying to concentrate on Denny Allan's explanation of the procedure. Leath, who was accustomed neither to surveying nor to Scottish accents, and who was not in his most receptive mood at present, kept nodding and wishing that the lilting Glasgow accent would stop clanging in his head.

"The ordnance survey has the national grid superimposed on it, right?" Denny was saying. "Okay, in the margin you'll find the angle between grid north and true north . . . Not following me? Look, if we calculate the azimuth of a line with respect to the grid, it can be reduced to true north if we apply the correction obtained at the observer's end of the line. And if we know the grid coordinates of two points, then we can find the azimuth of the line joining the two points."

"Fine with me." Leath shrugged. "We tend to put things in simpler terms for the measuring done in my fieldwork."

Denny smiled. "I know you'll be wanting to get on to your own specialty here."

"Right. Give me a kitchen midden. Once I find where these fellows dumped their garbage, I can find out where they lived."

"There's a lot of peat covering up mat secret."

"Too right." Leath sighed. "It took a major storm on Mainland in the Orkneys to uncover the ruins at Skara Brae. I suppose I could pray for more rain. Ah, well, that's neither here nor there. Suppose you tell me in less grandiose terms how I can help."

Denny handed the Englishman a hexagonal-shaped prism. "Hold this," he said. "And go and stand where I tell you."

The site may have been ancient, but me surveying techniques were not. The tachymeter used an infrared beam bounced off the prism to determine distance, and Leath's job was to hold the prism against the base of each standing stone while Denny took aim from the tripod set up in center circle.

"We are closing a traverse," Denny said to Elizabeth, who was noting down the figures on a clipboard as he called them out to her.

"Shall I write that down?" Elizabeth asked.

"No, hen, I'm explaining it to you. Closing a traverse means that we will be shooting the location of a number of points around a circle and then coming back to our original point."

"Impressive jargon," Elizabeth said approvingly. "Mind if I take a look through the sight?"

Denny stepped back and motioned her to the tachymeter. "No! Don't stand with your legs astraddle the tripod legs, dear! It's too easy to bump it out of alignment that way. Stand between the legs. That's fine. Now have a look."

She peered into the lens. "It's upside down," she announced.

"It's supposed to be."

"I see a little symbol on the stick. I think it's supposed to be a V."

"That stands for five," Denny told her. "They put it in Roman numerals so you won't mistake it for a nine when you see it upside down."

"Why don't you just hold the measuring stick upside down?" Elizabeth wanted to know.

Denny shook his head. "There's no explaining science to some people," he said.

"That means you haven't a clue." Elizabeth nodded.

The day spent measuring the circle was the most perfect one imaginable in a Highland summer: comfortably warm sunshine and a bright blue sky with only a few puffs of clouds low on the horizon. They had spent many hours carefully measuring the site and rechecking their findings, stopping only for quick lunch of potted meat sandwiches fetched to the site by Alasdair, who was being more cooperative than anyone had expected. He and Gitte had taken charge of a second tripod and were measuring the levels at the base of each stone, while Owen followed, making chalk marks on

the stones to indicate the points of measurement. Callum, as usual, photographed the work in progress.

Marchand and Denny had compared their findings and pronounced the site a flattened circle, composed of two arcs of 240 degrees and 120 degrees respectively.

"Does mat make sense?" Elizabeth wanted to know; she was resting on the grass, adding notations to her clipboard.

"I think so," said Owen, who was also resting. "There are hundreds of these stone circles all over Britain, and from what Marchand was saying today, mat seems to be one of the recognized types of circles.''

"I haven't seen any evidence of a tomb, yet, have you?"

"I asked about that," Owen said. "Callum told me that if you do find tombs associated with stone circles, they were added by a later culture. The original builders did not use the circles for burial purposes."

"So much for the treasure." Elizabeth sighed. "I wondered when I saw Alasdair poking into the peat with a sharp stick. What was he looking for?"

Owen shrugged. "More stones. They seem to think a few are missing."

"The villagers probably snatched them for millstones in the Middle Ages."

"It's really going to be difficult to measure that outer ring of the henge monument. The posts were usually timber or small stones, and those will be a couple of feet into the turf by now.''

Elizabeth nodded. "Shoveling required. I doubt if we get to that stage on this expedition, though. If we stay that long,

we'll be digging peat anyway—to bum!"

* * *

They kept working until seven to make up for the days the rain had cost them. Even then the sky was bright with full sun, but everyone except Marchand was too tired to care. He and Denny stayed at the circle for "just one more measuring," while the others straggled off to the burn to wash off the sweat before going back to camp.

Elizabeth shivered as she plunged her arms into the icy spring. "Ugh!" she said. "The Bronze Age is losing its charm incredibly fast."

Gitte nodded. "Tonight I will heat water on the camping stove, no matter how long it takes. I do not think we get really clean in cold water.''

"Boil some extra water," Owen told her. "I'll want some to soften up my honey and hot wax."

"You'll crack the jar," Gitte told him.

Owen rolled his eyes. "I'll wait until it cools off some. Honestly!"

"So you're cleaning the bagpipes tonight, huh, Owen?" Elizabeth asked.

He blushed. "I might as well. You'll be playing bridge, and nobody else wants to talk to me. Besides, Marchand says that he's sending me over to the small island to measure that stone tomorrow, now that it's stopped raining. I told him I'd just take some food and camp over there for a couple of days. That way I can play my bagpipes without disturbing anyone."

Elizabeth privately thought that sound would carry very well indeed over still water, but she decided not to say so. Perhaps Owen wanted her to protest that his playing was no disturbance at all, and that was nearly true. It was not that he played well, but it took enormous lung power to play, and as a relative beginner, Owen had very little endurance. He was, therefore, only able to be a nuisance for short periods of time.

By the time Marchand and Denny showed up, tripods slung over their shoulders, there were long shadows in the grass and the air was chilly. Gitte had finished boiling the water on the camping stove and had allowed its burners to be used for preparing dinner, a concoction of stewed vegetables in beef broth. True to his word, Owen had commandeered a tin cup full of the water and had set his wax-and-honey mixture in it to reach the proper consistency for lubrication.

"You might have saved some of it for coffee!" Alasdair had grumbled, so Gitte had gone back to the spring for more water. She then set a smaller pan to boil.

Marchand, his cheeks red from sun and exercise, accepted a steaming cup of tea and took his place at the long table beside Callum, who was eating cheese and crackers while he waited for the stew. "What did you think of your day, then?'' he asked heartily.

Among the assorted murmurs of enthusiasm, Owen piped up. "I was still hoping we'd find a burial chamber."

Callum looked up from his cracker. "Do you want neolithic, or will any one do?"

Owen narrowed his eyes. "I don't mean the village cemetery, thank you!"

Denny laughed. "I don't think that's what he meant, Owen! You're talking about the sea dead, aren't you?"

Callum nodded. "Yes, of course. I took some photos of them, but of course they aren't germane to the project."

Owen was instantly alert. "Sea burial?"

"Those flat stones near the causeway. The ones sticking

up in the ground, like small standing stones. The islanders put them there. It's the way they buried bodies washed ashore from shipwrecks. They didn't do crosses, because they didn't know if the deceased were Christian or not."

"You mustn't disturb them, though," Tom Leath warned him. "That crosses the line between archaeology and grave robbing. They're much too recent to interest us anyway."

Alasdair yawned and stretched. "Owen won't do any body snatching, will you, Owen? There's no sport in it. I fancy there's another site on the island as well. Did you catch that, Farthing?"

Callum shrugged. "The Tarans, you mean? It's possible, I suppose. I haven't looked closely."

Owen, who had fished the jar of honey and hot wax out of the pan of water, looked up from his bagpipes. "What are 7ara«5?" he demanded.

"Unbaptized children. When a child was stillborn, or if it died before it could be given the rite of baptism, the islanders did not bury it in the ordinary cemetery.''

"They were put in unmarked graves in special burial grounds high up in the hills or on the grassy ledges of cliffs facing the sea,'' Alasdair said in a tone that made it clear that he was showing off rather than being helpful.

"Why?" asked Elizabeth, whose passion for folklore had been aroused by the discussion.

"To give them a chance at salvation," Callum said solemnly. "The high places are halfway between heaven and earth, and their parents hoped that the kind spirits of the middle kingdom—between heaven and hell—would take pity on the little spirits."

"They say that you can hear the wee things crying in the wind," said Alasdair, smirking at Elizabeth's tears.

"And there's such a place here on Banrigh?'' Owen asked. He was carefully pouring the thick mixture into the sac of his bagpipes, but he was paying careful attention to the conversation nonetheless.

"Perhaps," Alasdair said, with a mocking smile. "I thought I might go off and see tomorrow. By myself," he added to the three pairs of pleading eyes gazing hopefully at him.

"I couldn't go anyway." Owen shrugged. "Tomorrow I'm taking the boat to the little island." He sloshed his instrument around a bit in order to coat the inside thoroughly. "I'll let it sit for a bit before I dump it out," he said to no one in particular.

"I couldn't go tomorrow, either," Elizabeth said proudly. "Cameron is coming, you know."

"I'd leave the place alone, Alasdair, if I were you," said Callum. "It'll bring you no luck."

Alasdair smirked. "People make their own luck, I always think!"

CHAPTER

11

Alasdair looked with disfavor at the breakfast foods haphazardly laid out on the slightly sticky wooden table. This must be someone's idea of working-class Scout fare: lardlike margarine, aging bread, teabags, and a cracked cup of white sugar. Powdered orange juice, stewed tomatoes, and canned beans would no doubt follow. He shuddered, wondering if he ought to demand that a supply of stomach tablets to be added to whatever the biologist would be asked to bring on his next stopover. He decided against it. If he complained, the others might think him not a team player, which of course he wasn't. He thought teamwork was a peculiar form of stupidity, merely sharing the incompetence so that no one could be blamed when things went wrong. Alasdair, who could be chillingly efficient when he chose to be, had no use for the encumbrance of others when he wanted to get something done.

He searched about in the larder for the cheese. That and the bread would make a barely acceptable breakfast, he decided, and he could eat it quickly, without having to be bothered by the insipid chatter of the others. He glanced over at Gitte, who was still sleeping. She was a stupid cow, of course; he'd never met a woman who wasn't, only some who thought they weren't. He wondered why women made such a virtue of self-sacrifice; perhaps it was nature's way of making it easy to exploit them.

He stood up. Time to get moving. There would be reproachful looks and sniffles of martyrdom to endure when he got back, but Gitte was used to being left out when it suited him, and well she knew that sulking would get her nowhere. Still, he preferred to deal with her later, rather than now.

He didn't want to miss the biologist, though. That was important. Hastily, he scribbled a note:

Must see C. Dawson when he arrives. I want to send something back with him. Also have instructions regarding soil samples, etc. Do not let him leave until I return.

A. McEwan.

That should do it, he thought to himself. It left no room for argument. He anchored the note to the table with a corner of the sugar cup; then he pulled on his anorak. He had better be off before the others woke—lazy pigs!

Elizabeth tugged on her cleanest lambswool pullover—the burgundy-colored one that set off her dark hair so nicely. She wished she had brought a fourth pair of jeans, but perhaps it wouldn't have mattered. The cold spring water was not able to get them really clean anyway, and it took them days and days to dry in the moist chill of a Highland summer.

Elizabeth reached for a paper tissue and stifled a sneeze. She was running low on tissues; she must remember to ask Cameron to bring her some. Perhaps this was the beginning of a cold. She wouldn't be surprised, considering the climate. She had almost forgotten what it felt like not to be cold and slightly damp. Did her ancestors really need a marauding English army to persuade them to emigrate? The very thought of winter would have sent her packing. It's all a matter of what you're used to, though, she told herself. Only she and Owen, the Americans, seemed to notice the cold. Gitte wore a T-shirt most of the time and seemed to think the weather was normal.

Still, it was beautiful in the Highlands. She thought that if one had a little house in some less remote place—like Skye— with central heating and a generous supply of hot water, Scotland could be a wonderful place in which to live. However, if one had to subsist in a tin shack from World War II, with no conveniences and nothing to eat but carbohydrates, one might as well be a seal.

She distracted herself with the thought that Cameron was coming in a matter of hours, and for that momentous occasion she decided to heat a pan of water on the camp stove. She would try to get her face and hands really clean.

Owen Gilchrist gave his bagpipes a final swish for good measure and then carefully poured the mixture into the ground behind the hut. He had poured out the honey-and-hot-wax mixture the night before, according to the instructions; after he had kneaded the leather bag to make sure that the inside was entirely lubricated, he had set the bag upside down on the grass to drain. This morning he had used some of the hot water to swish it out one last time. The directions hadn't said to do this, but he thought it seemed like a good idea. He'd added half a cup of warm water to the bagpipe through the blowpipe and then quickly dumped it out. It hadn't taken much. There was still enough water in the pan on the stove to make a few cups of tea, when it eventually boiled, especially since Alasdair seemed to have skipped out without breakfast. Owen felt that this was an insult directed at him personally, but from the way the Danish girl was sniffling while she worked, perhaps the snub had been general.

He thought he might not wait for Elizabeth's boyfriend to arrive. It wasn't as if he were bringing mail or candy bars or anything worth waiting for. He might as well get Callum to help him haul the boat out of the cave. He could set off for the little island right away.

It was while he was blowing a few experimental notes on the newly cleaned pipes that Owen remembered that there was something Cameron could bring that would interest him. News. If the Edinburgh police had apprehended Keenan's murderer, surely the news would be all over the newspapers and radio. Assuming, of course, that Cameron had bothered to listen. Still, he'd better hang around and ask him; certainly no one else would bother to do so, and he couldn't stand the suspense another week. He continued to reassemble his pipes, fantasizing happily about his murder theory being proved right, and the others all begging his pardon for teasing him. He allowed himself to manufacture these small scenes of triumph to make up for the fact that in real life they never, ever happened.

Gitte stared at the tin plate of powdered eggs slowly congealing in front of her. Where was everybody this morning? It was only half past eight, and only the two Americans were to be found. She supposed that Marchand had paid an early visit to the site, taking Leath, and probably Denny, with him.

She didn't want to think about Alasdair just then, because that would make the tears come. She wished she could ask the American girl how she managed to get on so well with her Scottish boyfriend, but perhaps it was early days yet. Anyway, Gitte did not feel like confiding in Elizabeth, who acted altogether too much like one of the men, if you asked her.

"Here," she said grudgingly, pushing the plate of eggs toward Elizabeth. "You might as well have these."

"No, thank you," Elizabeth said with equal insincerity. "I'm sure that they can be reheated." Perhaps Alasdair will choke on them, she thought spitefully. She picked up the pill that Denny had left her and swallowed it with the last bit of her tea.

"Do you plan to stay here all day waiting for your boyfriend?" Gitte asked with more than a hint of scorn.

Elizabeth was stung. "I guess not!" she snapped. "What about you?"

Gitte began clearing the breakfast things from the table. "I have work to do. They will need me at the site."

Elizabeth left the Nissen hut, but she did not go straight to the standing stones. Perhaps he is already on his way, she on the cliff for several minutes, shivering in a sharp sea wind, before she realized that he would probably be coming to the other side of the island, as he had the time before. The wind in the rocks did sound a bit like a baby's cry, she thought. That was probably the origin of the Taran legends. The sky was gunmetal-gray, but mere was no hint of rain, and no darker clouds on the horizon, so she supposed that he would still be coming.

A movement on the beach below caught her eye, and she saw the seal—perhaps the one Denny had told her about-sitting on a flat rock near the shore. It was a deep, shiny brown, almost the color of the wet rock, and it seemed to be looking back at her. Around its neck she could see a bit of plastic that must be the radio collar. She thought of going to get her camera, but that would mean returning to the hut for another confrontation with Gitte, so she decided against it. She would settle for telling Cameron about it when he arrived. Or perhaps it would still be there then. She wondered if anyone would mind if she fed it. But fed it what? Did they eat anything besides raw fish? She must remember to ask Cameron.

Cameron Dawson had got a late start from the research station, so that it was nearly noon by the time he saw the mountains of Banrigh appear before him on the horizon. He had not quite liked the look of the sky, so he had stopped for one last check on the weather before setting out, in case the forecast had changed from the night before. It had not. A slow drizzle toward late afternoon was the worst he could expect, if the weather people were to be believed. He supposed he would have set off anyhow. Elizabeth was bound to take it personally if he did not turn up. She would excuse nothing less than a howling gale without doubting his devotion.

Probably she thought that he was a much better sailor than he was. It fit his Scottish image in her mind: a race of Highland fishermen. But Cameron, who had admittedly become more accustomed to boats while getting a degree in marine biology, was not used to manning the vessel alone. He usually had the company of two or three more experienced people, and their trips were either short ones, or else taken on much larger vessels than this that were professionally manned. He supposed that he had agreed to run supplies for her dig partly to ensure her acceptance on the crew and partly to impress her. But, of course, she wasn't impressed. She simply took these things for granted. He supposed that might be a compliment, in a way, except that she would have thought the same of every other Scot.

He wondered if he ought to have a go at landing on the western side of the island, thus braving the rocky inlet; but another glance at the sky convinced him that this was not the day for heroics. He could feel the pitch of the sea beneath him, and knew that while this was by no means stormy weather, neither was it dead calm.

He wondered how Elizabeth was adjusting to life in the rough. No, he knew full well how she'd be taking it; what he wondered was whether she would admit it. He had brought her a tin of powdered cocoa mix and a box of chocolates as consolation, and he had firmly resolved to be as vague as possible about the comforts of his own research station. Hot water, he sensed, could easily be a source of hostility. The island was quite near now. Time to begin maneuvering to land. Cameron suddenly wondered if everything was all right on Banrigh, but he had no idea why such a thought should have occurred to him.

Derek Marchand looked up from the theodolite, because he could no longer see the hexagonal prism in the viewfinder. He squinted at the dark stone for a moment. Finally, he caught sight of the reflector lying in the dirt in front of the stone. Elizabeth, who had been holding it, was running across the field toward a tall young man that for a moment he took to be Alasdair. That did not seem to make sense, and then he realized that this was the day the biologist was coming to see them, that, in fact, he had arrived.

Marchand consulted his watch. "Half twelve," he said to no one in particular. "I suppose we could break for lunch now." If it were up to him, he would have kept working; they had lost a good bit of time to the rain, and there was no saying they wouldn't lose even more. Still, he thought, he could probably use a break more than the young people. He was beginning to feel the chill in his bones now, and he tired more easily than he remembered. Years of relative inactivity had taken their toll, and he had only been able to get back into fieldwork when his wife had finally died. He felt guilty putting it like that, but he assured himself that it did not mean he didn't miss her, only that he was adjusting well by taking up new interests. In fact, he hardly thought of her at all anymore, but he told himself that this was better than the vague sense of annoyance she had stirred in him while she was alive. Once he had caught himself wondering if she would have come with him on a dig the way these young girls few random images that seemed like, and probably were, snapshots in the family album, he had no memory of her youth. She had just been there, he supposed, while his preoccupation was with himself, his career, and the war.

He looked at the plump American girl embracing her young man, and they were as foreign to him as fifth-century Celts.

Elizabeth understood that her time alone with Cameron would have to wait until he chatted with all the other diggers, received lists of supplies they needed and items they wanted sent back to the mainland, and until he had a general visit with Denny and Marchand, probably over lunch. She had resigned herself to this delay, resolving not to compete for his attention like a neglected child, and not to brood on questions like whether or not he had missed her. In order not to seem impatient for this general socializing to end, she paid considerably more attention to her potted meat sandwich than it merited.

She sat down on a rock very close to Cameron, thinking that she could at least allow herself to be this proprietary. He smiled at her, and then turned back to his conversation with Denny, who was just telling him about the Banrigh seal.

"I saw it, too!" Elizabeth cried, forgetting her resolution about Cameron's attention.

"Then I suppose I can believe you, Denny," Cameron said solemnly. "One of our seals frequents your island. I'll see if I can figure out which one he is when I get back."

Owen appeared just then, red faced and panting. "We've been getting the boat out, Callum and I, but I wanted to see you before I left. Might as well eat, too," he added. "My provisions are already packed up."

"Owen will be staying a couple of nights on the small island to study the menhir there," Elizabeth explained.

Owen did not look pleased at the prospect. "It's awfully gloomy today," he said, frowning up at the sky. "Did you run into rain?"

"No," said Cameron. "But there may be some later on. You'll want to set off soon. It's not dead calm as it is."

Owen looked as if he would like to say something else on the subject, but instead he asked, "Have they found the Edinburgh killer yet?"

"I don't think so," Cameron replied. "It hasn't been mentioned on any news broadcasts."

Owen looked pleased. He turned away and began to make himself a sandwich without even so much as a thank-you. "Owen," Denny said, "just how much boating experience have you had anyway?"

"None," Owen said, smearing meat paste on a wedge of bread.

Callum Farthing looked up. "None?"

Owen flushed. "Well, it isn't far! Three-quarters of a mile at the most."

"It will seem far if a storm comes in," said Denny. "Then how will you get back?"

Callum sighed and stood up. "I suppose I'd better take him over.''

"But I'll be stranded!" Owen cried. "What if I run out of food or something?"

Denny smirked. "You're taking your bagpipes, aren't you,

"I was planning on playing while I was over there," said Owen. "How will you know which is which?"

Callum shrugged. "Can you play taps? You wouldn't be likely to practice that tune, would you? Play that when you want to be brought back."

"Okay," Owen mumbled. "I guess it's better than getting swept away in that dinky boat.'' Another thought struck him. "Are you sure you'll be able to hear me from here?"

Denny sighed. "I'm afraid so, Owen."

Callum and Owen said their goodbyes to the group and headed for the beach where they had left the boat. For the rest of lunch Marchand explained what they had been doing on the dig, and he and Leath discussed the various things that needed to be sent back to the mainland: Callum's film, Alasdair's soil samples.

"Talking of Alasdair, where is he?" asked Denny. "Didn't you say he left a note saying he needed to see Cameron?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Yes. He left it quite early. Before he went to look for his Tarans." She made a face.

"His what?" asked Cameron.

Elizabeth shook her head. "Cultural illiteracy strikes again."

"They're burial grounds up on cliffs," Denny told him. "Nothing you'd have come across in Auld Reekie."

Gitte, who had said almost nothing since Cameron's arrival, looked worried. "Has no one seen him today?"

"I'm sure he's fine," Denny said automatically, but he looked at Cameron as he said it, and his eyes were grave.

Cameron stood up. "Perhaps we ought to go and hunt him up," he said with careful heartiness. "I'm sure he just lost track of the time, but we'd better find him if he wants a word with me before I leave. Let's spread out, shall we? Elizabeth, want to come with me?"

Elizabeth realized at once that this was to be their time together, and while she would have preferred another way to spend it, she could hardly say so, with everyone so concerned about Alasdair—but pretending not to be. They started off together up the path that led through the hills and, eventually, back to where Cameron had left his boat. The others had started out in different directions along the cliffs to search the edges of the island.

Elizabeth looked out at the peat bogs, now a dull green in the gray light of an overcast sky. The black speckled rocks dotted the field like birds' eggs. What color had Alasdair been wearing? Would he be easy to spot? Should they call out to him?

"I cut my finger," she said, in consequence of nothing.

After a moment's pause, Cameron replied, "I'm sorry. Is it painful?"

"A little," Elizabeth said, glad she could say that it was. ' T keep the bandage changed, and Denny has given me some of his antibiotics—just in case."

"You shouldn't..." Take other people's medicine, Cameron was going to say, but he realized that she might take this as a lack of concern for her. There might have been a small chance of infection, after all, so what did it matter if she took a few pills. "You shouldn't try to use it too much," he finished.

She nodded. "I'll be careful. I always wash my hands after I've been working.''

"I brought you a few things," he said, fishing a package out of the pocket of his anorak. "Chocolate bars and some cocoa. You look as if you need a treat."

The spark in Elizabeth's eyes made him realize that this had been an unwise thing to say, but he thought that a manufactured excuse might make things worse, so he said nothing.

"Thank you," she said at last. "I promise to share them round."

"Have you missed me?"

Elizabeth was grateful that he had posed the question before she burst out with it. "I expect I have," she replied. "It's hard to say, really. Things are so primitive here, and practically everyone is so difficult, that I can't tell if I miss you desperately, or if I'd just be glad to see anybody who isn't on this dig!"

"We'll hope it's more than that," said Cameron.

"Well, I wouldn't want you getting too conceited."

Cameron looked at the rocks on one side of the path, and at the sheer drop on the other. "Why did Alasdair go looking for this Taran place?"

"Chiefly to taunt Owen, I think," Elizabeth said. "He's a great one for solitude, is Alasdair—always going off by himself anyway. Having spent a week with Gitte, I can't say that I blame him. And he has been teasing Owen about his morbid tastes in crime and about his image of archaeology as a child's treasure hunt. I think he wanted to drive Owen mad with envy by suggesting that he had made a discovery concerning one or both.''

"Suppose he has?"

"I don't think so," said Elizabeth. "I don't think he'd want to give Owen the satisfaction of being proved right. It would almost be like Alasdair to cover up anything interesting, just for spite."

Cameron considered this. "I suppose the Crown would get anything they found anyway. Isn't that how it works?"

Elizabeth stared at him. "Don't you know? It's your country!"

"Well, they've never asked me for any seals. I thought the subject might have come up, what with you being archaeologists and all."

"I'm an anthropologist," Elizabeth reminded him. "And the Queen is welcome to any old bones I find. Actually, I think the stuff gets claimed for the Crown as a technicality, but in fact it would end up in a museum somewhere. Probably Edinburgh, like the St. Ninian's treasure."

Cameron nodded. "Very likely."

"But there isn't anything to find, of course. Tarans are unbaptized babies buried in unmarked graves. They wouldn't be buried with anything at all. Even the bones may be dust by now. I tell you, all this is Alasdair's idea of a joke." She shivered. "I have missed you. Denny is nice enough in his shallow little way, but sometimes I just want to talk to you so much ..."

Cameron wasn't listening. He stared ahead at nothing, one ear cocked in the direction of the cliff. After a moment's pause, Elizabeth heard it too. The echo of a scream that could only be Gitte, followed by shouts for help.

Cameron said, "They've found Alasdair."

CHAPTER

12

"He's going to be all right," Denny kept saying, although no one was listening. He was not sure what to do, but it seemed to him that being cheerful and encouraging was both innocuous and satisfying. He had no idea whether or not it was true, but it seemed the proper attitude to take.

Denny and Gitte had been the first ones to find Alasdair, as he lay unconscious but still breathing at the base of a rocky hill, his head just to the left of a white-flecked stone that must have stopped his fall. A smear of dirt and a long scratch on his cheek were the only signs of injury, but they knew that he must have hit the back of his head on the rock and that they must not move him. Denny remembered reading that somewhere.

After the one involuntary scream, Gitte had not uttered another sound. Denny shouted for help, his hands cupped against his cheeks, as he scanned the cliffs for a glimpse of the others. Gitte sat down on the ground beside Alasdair, never taking her eyes off his face, watching to see that his shallow breathing did not stop.

After a long few minutes, Derek Marchand and Tom Leath appeared, working their way down a grassy slope from the other direction. Leath bent over the body, taking Alasdair's wrist between his fingers. "What did you do?" he asked.

"Nothing!" Denny said, as if that were a virtue.

"Should we radio for help?" asked Marchand, kneeling on the other side of Alasdair. "Perhaps an emergency helicopter?"

"No," said Leath. "Our radio isn't strong enough. We can just reach the next island. Trust the medic to be the first casualty!"

"I suppose we'll have to get Dawson to take him off by boat, then. He's still here, is he not?"

Denny caught sight of Cameron's red anorak on the path above them. "He's just coming now!"

Leath glanced at Denny. "We need blankets from camp to cover him up. I expect he's in shock. Is there anything in the medical kit that would help? I suppose not. These scratches aren't serious."

"When we get on the boat, I will clean them," Gitte said calmly. "I am going with him."

Denny ended the silence that followed. "Well. . . right,'' he said. "I'm off to fetch the blankets."

Marchand didn't quite like the paleness of Alasdair's face— although it was a better face now that the scornful look was gone. He looked much younger somehow. "Should we make a stretcher of some sort?"

Leath shrugged. "From what? It might be better to waste no time. Just carry him to the boat as carefully as we can."

Marchand looked up at the lowering sky. "I hope the weather holds."

Elizabeth and Cameron spent their last few minutes together clearing space in the cabin of the boat for Alasdair. They found a stack of white woolen blankets in the chest with the life preservers, and Elizabeth was spreading them out on the floor, smoothing out the creases as best she could. Cameron was looking at sea charts. "I suppose I could make for Skye," he murmured, tracing his finger along the map. "But it's twice as far, and there's no hospital there. I think there's one on Lewis, but if he's badly hurt, he ought to go to Inverness anyway."

Elizabeth nodded, still smoothing blankets. "When will you be back?''

"Next Saturday," said Cameron. "I really can't come any sooner! I have to go to the mainland for supplies, and I expect I'll look in at hospital and see how Alasdair is doing. I need to get some work done on my project this week as well. I simply haven't time."

Elizabeth said nothing. She seemed intent on her work, but he could tell from the stiffness of her movements that she was listening.

"Of course, if there's an emergency, you can always call me on the radio."

"Not much chance for intimate conversation there," she said lightly.

"No. I am sorry. I know you're upset. And, of course, worried about Alasdair."

Elizabeth shrugged. Being worried about Alasdair might have been preferable to the guilt she felt for her slight concern. When she did not like a person, no misfortune that befell him could make her like him any better. "I hope he isn't seriously hurt," she said carefully.

"He shouldn't have gone climbing those cliffs alone."

"That was the whole point of it, Cameron," Elizabeth said. "Alasdair liked being alone, and he liked leaving people out of things. I think secrets made him feel superior. That's probably why he was studying medicine."

Cameron grinned in spite of himself. "You'll be all right here, won't you?"

"I suppose so. I'm coming down with a cold. Will you bring me some tissues?"

"I'll put them on the list.'' A movement up the hill caught Cameron's attention. "Here they come, Elizabeth. Gitte seems to be coming with him—she's carrying her duffel bag.''

Elizabeth got to her feet and slid her hand into Cameron's. "Leath and Denny are carrying Alasdair. He's still unconscious."

''It was a bad fall," Cameron said. ''I wonder how he lost his balance."

Elizabeth watched the silent procession make its way toward the boat. "I wonder if he did," she said.

"And then there were five," Denny said, as they walked back to the stone circle.

Elizabeth frowned. "Five?"

"You, me, Callum, Leath, and Derek Marchand. I'm not counting Owen until he comes back day after tomorrow."

"We'll manage," said Elizabeth. "I can hold the prism and do the chalk marks."

"I know. Certainly Alasdair and Gitte were more expendable than, say, Callum and I. Bad luck for him, taking a fall like that. Head injuries are funny things. I've known people knocked out like that who came to ten minutes later and went right about their business."

"I thought we might try to get Cameron on the radio tomorrow night and see what news he has of Alasdair. No, he said he's going to the mainland after supplies. The night after, then."

"Alasdair might be ready to come back by midweek," Denny said, "Unless he's one of the self-dramatizing types."

"Cameron said he isn't coming back until Saturday," Elizabeth said.

"Well, he's a very serious sort, is Cameron. He was always at the books at Fettes. Looked a bit like an owl in those days. Big glasses. Funny haircut. Terminal case of adolescence."

"He has improved considerably since then," said Elizabeth.

"Yes. I was very relieved to find that you weren't a seal or a porpoise," he told her. "Cameron has indeed progressed."

"I wish I understood him better. Sometimes I think that the British and the Americans do not speak the same language."

"So Cameron was telling me. When he first began driving in Virginia, he saw a sign that said drive on the pavement . . . something like that. Well, of course, in Scotland the pavement is the sidewalk. He thought they were mad."

"It isn't only that. You can learn that a jumper is a sweater, and a banger is a sausage, and that a trunk call means long distance. Even Americans have different names for things.

Try ordering a hoagie in New York sometime. But there are cultural differences that you don't learn, because you don't know they're there."

Denny looked puzzled. "Like what?"

"I don't know." Elizabeth sighed. "I told you: I don't know they're there. I just feel it."

The mood for the remainder of the day was subdued. When Callum returned, they told him about the accident in brief, understated terms, and he nodded and said that it was unfortunate. Derek Marchand, leaning on the surveying staff and looking a bit like Moses, made a little speech to the effect that while their thoughts were with Alasdair, they ought to continue with the work at hand, that Alasdair would want it that way, and so on. Everyone listened politely; no one had anything to add, and work went on as usual, despite a sharp wind from the darkening sky.

"I should have been an Egyptologist,'' Tom Leath thought for the hundredth time.

"Is Owen settled in on the island all right?" Elizabeth asked Callum.

"He has everything he needs,'' Callum said. I let him take my one-man tent. A few cold meals won't hurt him."

"Can we see him from the cliffs?"

"No. His camp is on the other side, where the shore is open for landing. He didn't want to carry his things too far from that."

''Good,'' said Denny, who had stopped to listen. ''If we're lucky, the hills will muffle the sound of his piping."

Callum smiled and began to adjust the lens on his camera.

"Do you think we ought to tell him about Alasdair?" Elizabeth asked.

Denny gave her a sour smile. "Let's save it for a surprise when he comes back."

The rain came by late evening, so that it was impossible to tell when the day's dark clouds turned into an overcast night. Elizabeth lay huddled in her sleeping bag, the cold making her feel even more alone, and listened to the soft thud of rain on the tin cylinder. She was thinking about Cameron, in a sort of backward rehearsal of all the things she could have said, but she kept thinking about old war movies from the Forties, the ones where the handsome American pilot falls in love with an English girl. They always had chestnut brown hair, these English girls (even in black and white you could tell), and sweet soprano voices, and they always wore head scarfs. Sensible. Ordinary. Wholesome. Perfect noses. Elizabeth knew for a fact that she looked like a pumpkin in a head scarf. She didn't think she was reassuringly ordinary, either, not that she was to blame for that. Southerners are not known for being wholesome or ordinary. Too much imagination, she thought. I could be a quiet, sensible girl who'd be perfectly happy staying home and baking bread and weeding the garden. If I had a lobotomy, she thought grimly. She wondered just who it was that Cameron actually wanted, and if she had a chance of being that person.

For a moment, as she closed her eyes, she thought she heard the wail of Owen's bagpipes, but it might have been the wind.

CHAPTER

13

Sunday was cloudy and dark, but the rain held off until early evening, so that they were able to get much work done at the site. Elizabeth thought that it went more smoothly with fewer people jostling each other about. She was becoming much more experienced at surveying now, and since it seemed certain that there would be no work in her own specialty to keep her busy, she had to make herself useful in other ways. She missed Cameron very much. His brief visit the day before, attended by so much chaos, was worse than no visit at all. Even communication by radio had been denied her because the weather Sunday night was not good, and, in her opinion, Tom Leath was too lazy to make the effort to try to raise the other island in difficult broadcasting conditions. Even her protests of concern for Alasdair (more useful than true) had been met with a shrug and Leath's opinion that it was too soon to learn much anyhow. He'd try Monday nigh he said, even if the weather had not let up, and Elizabeth had to be content with that.

On Monday it had rained off and on most of the day, but they had worked anyway. Marchand was anxious to get the major portion of the measuring finished in case a real storm appeared. Elizabeth listened off and on during the day for the sound of bagpipes from the smaller island, half expecting to hear taps sounded in screeching desperation. Surely Owen must be chilled and tired of cold food by now, she thought. He had been working alone there for two days and a half. She decided that he had more endurance than she had given him credit for, but she doubted that he was taking it in cheerful pioneer spirit. She had not heard his bagpipes since his first night over there. Either he was playing quietly, or—as she suspected—he was sulking in his tent with his murder books.

On her trips from the Nissen hut to the stone circle, she had once or twice seen the seal, but she had not caught a glimpse of Owen at work on the menhir on the smaller island. If, as she suspected, he was refusing to work during drizzle, he might be there a long time completing his work. She suspected that the prospect of more days in an unheated tent, with canned food, would persuade him to brave the elements.

When about five o'clock Monday evening the drizzle turned into a downpour, she even began to feel sorry for Owen. "Aren't you going to go and get him, Callum?"

He squinted at her through wet eyelashes. "What? In this muck? By tomorrow it may clear off."

"Aye, but he hasn't signaled for us to come and get him.''

"We haven't heard him," Denny said. "You know fine we spend most of our time out here at the circle, Callum. I doubt we'd hear him here."

"Go and get him, Callum," Elizabeth said. "He needs a hot meal at least. If he isn't finished, you can always send him back."

"All right!" said Callum. "And you're wanting me to go before supper, too, I suppose."

Elizabeth nodded. "If you wouldn't mind," she said politely, because she was sure that the matter was settled.

They trooped back to camp across the soggy peat fields, with the wind blowing a steady stream of water in their faces. "What you need is a nice cup of tea!'' Denny shouted, nudging her arm.

"Right! I'm going to pour it over my head!" Elizabeth shouted back, pulling her rain hood tighter about her face. It was no use. She was soaked to the cervical vertebrae, she thought.

"Well, this is a nasty evening!" Derek Marchand announced when they were inside the Nissen hut. "I'm thinking we all ought to bunk in here for the night, or be drowned in our beds."

"It'll be a bit crowded," Tom Leath said, "but I'll take crowded over wet any day."

"Do you think you can raise anyone on the radio in this storm?" Marchand asked.

Leath shrugged. "I'll have a go at it after dinner."

"Good idea. Poor Callum, having to put out to sea in this, but I suppose we couldn't leave the American boy over there Elizabeth, who was brewing tea, smiled to herself. If it hadn't been for me, you would have, she thought. She began to take packets of dried-noodle dinners out of the supply box, calculating how many she would need to feed six people, and how much water that would require. A sudden sound carried on the wind made her look up from her task. "That's odd," she said. "Hasn't Callum left already?"

"Three quarters of an hour ago, at least," Denny said. "Why?"

"Just now ... I thought I heard Owen^ bagpipes playing taps."

Denny shook his head. "He's left it a bit late, hasn't he?"

Callum Farthing had not enjoyed the rain-sodden, heaving journey from Banrigh to the smaller island, and he hoped that he would not have to prolong the visit any further by having to track down Owen Gilchrist. He had hauled the boat up out of the water no farther onto the stony beach than necessary not to risk its going adrift again. Through the sheets of rain he could see the orange of Owen's tent farther inland among the rocks. Oh, Christ, I'll have to help him take it down, he thought.

Cupping his hands against his cheeks, he shouted Owen's name against the wind. No one answered.

He's not out working his site in weather like this, Callum told himself. I'd have seen him. Not likely anyhow! Trust him to have found some dry little cave to hole up in, and I'll be freezing my bum off going in search of him.

He decided to look at the tent first, to see if Owen had left his tools or his food there. It might give him a better idea of on them for warmth and thrust them into the pockets of his anorak. They'd be cold again soon enough; he'd have to use his hands for balance to clamber up the rocks to the tent. The rain made everything slick as glass.

Callum took his time negotiating the jutting rocks, losing his footing more than once and thinking what a nuisance it was going to be to carry the gear down to the boat. Perhaps they could pitch the unbreakable stuff off the rock onto the beach. He didn't fancy making half a dozen trips of it.

"Hallo! Owen!" he shouted, as he neared the tent. "Are you in there, man? I've come to fetch you."

Callum eased open one of the tent flaps, and in the shadow of the light from outside he saw Owen lying peacefully in his sleeping bag. "What a time for kipping! Have you not heard me yelling myself hoarse for you?" He reached down to shake him awake, but the shoulder was stiff to the touch. "Owen, damn you, man—"

Then he saw Owen's face, bluish in the storm's gray light. The swollen tongue pushed its way through bared teeth, and Owen's eyes stared through Callum at nothing. Callum did not know how long he had been dead. The cold eased the smell of sickness. The body would lose heat quickly here. He did not want to touch it anyway. He turned away from the ugly sight of the corpse, without any conscious thought except some vague instinct to summon help. The bagpipes lay cast off in one corner of the tent. Callum, who had been a piper in Scouts, crawled out of the tent, dragging the instrument behind him.

Outside in the cold, clean rain, he lifted the mouthpiece to his lips and played taps as hard as he could. The effort eased the tightness in his chest and emptied his lungs of the urge to scream and go on screaming.

He had no sensation of time or rain or coldness on the trip back to the larger island. His mind was filled with questions about Owen and with wondering if he had done the right thing. He was scrambling up the rocks toward the Nissen hut before he realized that the others would not have understood his signal. He had told Owen to play taps as a sign that he wanted to come back, and of course they would think that it had been an impatient Owen who had sent out the message by bagpipes. He wondered if anyone would want to see the body. If so, they could go without him.

He thought he must look like the ghost of a drowned sailor as he flung open the door of the hut and stood staring at the cozy scene inside. Four people were seated at the wooden table playing cards, with steaming cups of tea in front of them.

Elizabeth looked up and smiled. "Good!'' she said. "Now I can start dinner. Where's Owen?"

Callum shrugged off his wet rain gear and left it where it fell. "He's back on the other island," he told her. "He's dead."

The others looked not at him but at each other, as if trying to decide what to make of this announcement. If anyone laughed, then it would be understood as a grisly joke. No one laughed.

Finally, Derek Marchand motioned for Callum to sit down at the table and pushed his own cup of tea in front of the young man. "Tell us exactly what has happened," he said quietly.

Callum recounted his trip over and his annoyance when Owen did not answer his shouts. He described his slippery climb up the rocks to the tent, and—in halting tones—he told diem what he found inside.

"But we heard him playing the bagpipes," Denny said.

"No. That was me," Callum said. "I just ... I was thinking about it, I suppose, and I just did it without knowing why. I suppose I thought you would understand it as a signal, but, of course, you didn't. . . I put the bagpipes back in the tent with him, and I came back."

"And you left him there?" Elizabeth demanded, her face pale except for two spots of color on her cheeks.

Derek Marchand nodded. "That was wise of you, Callum."

Tom Leath spoke up. "I quite agree," he said. "We've no idea what he died of. Pneumonia, perhaps. Drugs, for all we know. But we must take precautions. The authorities can deal with all that when they get here in a few hours." He slid off the bench and knelt in front of the radio, now sitting on two wooden crates in the corner.

"Yes, do call for help now, Tom," said Marchand. "We seem to be having more man our share of bad luck."

Elizabeth and Denny looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Luck?

"Right," Leath said. "I won't go into too much detail on the radio. Just that mere's been a suspicious death, and ..." His voice trailed off into silence. He frowned at the radio and began adjusting knobs, but the usual crackle of static from the instrument never sounded. "What the hell ..."

Dennv went over to the radio. "Need some help?"

"The thing acts as if it were dead, but it was switched off just now. I can't understand . . . Help me get the casing off.''

For several silent minutes, the two of them worked at the screws on the front of the radio. Elizabeth stared into her mug of tea, trying not to look frightened. Cameron is going to come and get me tonight, she thought to herself over and over. Derek Marchand did not seem to realize that he was drumming his fingers against the wooden table, but no one seemed to notice. Callum was staring at the wall, the tea still untouched between his hands.

Two voices swore in unison, and the others looked up sharply.

"It has been tampered with," Tom Leath said grimly. "Somebody has disconnected the wire to the off-switch, so that even when the radio is turned to the exposition, it continues to run."

"The batteries are dead," said Denny.

"I'll get the spares," said Leath. He pulled the supply crate toward him and began to rummage inside it among the tools, boxes of chalk, rolls of film. "Where did we put the batteries?"

"In there," Denny insisted. "Let me look."

They all looked, handing the items round one at a time and even looking inside the chalk boxes. The batteries were gone. Nor were they in the food boxes or the medical kit.

"Why has somebody stranded us here on this island?" Denny wondered aloud.

Elizabeth shivered. "What if somebody is killing us off one by one?"

"Nonsense!" Marchand said. "Alasdair's fall was an accident, and we don't even know what killed young Gilchrist!"

"Hadn't we ought to try to find out?" Denny asked.

"No!" said Leath. "That could be much more dangerous than not knowing. I say we get off this island as soon as possible and let the authorities sort it out.''

"We won't get far in that boat," Callum said. "Not in this storm. It would take us quite a long time anyway, even in good weather. There's only one pair of oars, and navigation might be tricky."

Leath shrugged. "Head east. You're bound to hit land soon enough."

Elizabeth sipped her tea with a thoughtful expression. Marchand could be right, of course. Alasdair most probably slipped and fell on his own, and Owen might have died of the flu. But the sabotaged radio told her otherwise. And if she were right about there being a connection between the deaths, then one of the people in the hut was very dangerous indeed. She wished that she could confide in Denny and ask him what he thought of it all. Surely, he was not the killer.

CHAPTER

14

On Tuesday the storm did not lessen, and the five people in the Nissen hut said very little to each other. They had lost interest in bridge. Elizabeth sat huddled at the wooden table writing in her traveler's diary, and Derek Marchand made notes about the stone circle to accompany his diagram. Leath had abandoned his earlier discretion about his private stock of alcohol, and he sat sipping straight Scotch out of his china tea mug. Even Denny seemed more subdued than usual.

"May I have some tea, Elizabeth?" Callum asked hoarsely. "I caught a chill out there last night."

"Sore throat?" she asked.

"Mostly a cough."

She nearly said that she was surprised at his asking her to fix him anything. The others had tried to be nonchalant about fixing their own food, but the unvoiced suspicion was obvious. Only Denny had eaten from anything that had already looked closer at Callum. He had not shaved, and he was wearing the same jeans and sweatshirt he'd slept in. She thought he looked pale and tired. The shock of the night before had not worn off. Without another word she fixed him a cup of tea.

"Elizabeth, what are the chances that Dawson will turn up in midweek?" Marchand asked, trying to sound offhand.

Elizabeth looked up from the card game she had started. "None," she said. "I asked him on Saturday, and he said he hadn't time."

"A pity," Marchand said softly. "Still, I suppose we will manage without him. Er, how is your patience coming along?"

"My what?"

Marchand pointed to the seven rows of cards spread out on the table. "Your game. We call it patience."

Elizabeth sighed. "Americans call it solitaire," she told him. "And that's the best explanation for the difference in our cultures that I have ever heard.''

Learn wished that the rain would stop drumming on the tin roof. It was beginning to give him a headache. Well, perhaps the Scotch had been a contributing factor, but the rain and the tension were chiefly to blame. He had tried to read a paperback spy novel, but each time he started a new page, he realized that he had no idea what he had read on the last one.

"Farthing, will you stop coughing?" he snapped, without looking up from the page.

"How do you propose that I do that?'' Callum asked wearily.

Elizabeth, now in a game of gin with Denny, touched Callum's arm. "Would you like one of Denny's pills, Callum?"

He smiled bitterly. "Denny's clap pills? That isn't what ails me, thanks. What I need is a bit of cough syrup."

"I could make you some more tea. We don't have any cough syrup, but my mother used to put honey in things when we were sick. Is Owen's jar of honey still around?"

"Thanks, I'll have my tea straight," Callum croaked. "And I think I'll have a lie-down. The light hurts my eyes, and talking makes me cough."

"He's got the flu from being out last night," Elizabeth whispered to Denny when Callum had stumbled off to a sleeping bag in a far corner of the hut. "And between this rain and the cold, we'll all have it before long."

Denny frowned. "Are you not feeling well, hen?"

"I'm fine," said Elizabeth, measuring out the tea. "But it's only a matter of time."

"They'll come and get us soon," Denny said cheerfully.

"Have you got a chance of fixing the radio, Denny?"

"Not a hope."

She looked around for inspiration. "What about using the batteries from the surveying instrument?"

Denny yawned. "I thought of that. Wrong size. Not enough power anyhow. Maybe somebody more electronically inclined could make that work, but I doubt it. Anyhow, it's beyond Leath and me, I'm afraid."

Elizabeth looked at him with troubled eyes. "I'm afraid, too," she said.

She told herself that Cameron would when he tried unsuccessfully to contact them by radio. But of course he would blame that on the storm. He might think that they were cold and miserable in their damp tin hut in the middle of nowhere, but he would not consider it enough of an emergency to take him out into rough seas in his small launch. She was not even sure that she wanted such heroics from him. There had been enough tragedy already without risking the sacrifice of Cameron as well.

Leath and Marchand had put on their rain gear and announced that they were going out to have a look around. Elizabeth, feeling very much alone, was trying to read Withering Heights again, but she had reached the part where Catherine was dying, and she couldn't bear to go on with it.

Denny, who had been taking a nap in the corner, wandered over and sat beside her. "Do you think we ought to check on Callum?" he asked.

"I did. While you were asleep. He said he wasn't hungry. I suppose we ought to let him rest."

"I wish he'd do the same for us. His coughing gave me nightmares. Me being chased by the Gabriel hounds,'' Denny smiled. "Or maybe it's the wee folk sent me that dream, letting me know that the island is cursed."

"It certainly seems to be. First, Alasdair is hurt messing about with the babies' graves, and then Owen is working on the menhir and he dies.'' Elizabeth took a deep breath. What did she have to lose by talking to him? "Do you think it's a coincidence?"

Denny looked puzzled. "How do you mean? Are you saying you believe in fairy curses?"

"No, of course not! I mean, do you think somebody is making this happen?" She lowered her voice to the barest whisper. "One of us!''

He shrugged. "I can't think why anyone would."

"I know. That's had me worried all afternoon. Suppose . . . suppose Alasdair found something? I know he was taunting Owen, but suppose he wasn't kidding? If he really found treasure, and somebody wanted it. . ."

"Enough to try to kill all the rest of us?" Denny said lightly. "That would have to be quite a treasure."

"I realize that. Something on the order of Sutton Hoo."

"A Viking ship full of golden artifacts? Yes, that would do nicely. But wouldn't it look a bit odd to have all of us die on the expedition, except for one lone survivor, and then he suddenly purchases a castle and a Bentley? People would get suspicious."

Elizabeth nodded. "Besides, from Callum's description, Owen didn't die violently. He was just sick."

Denny smiled. "Fairy curse, I tell you. They're protecting their stone circle. And speaking of the bad luck of Banrigh, how's that finger of yours?''

She glanced at her bandage. "I ought to have had stitches,'' she said.

"You were the first casualty of the island, weren't you?"

"Yes." She smiled. "And I assure you that nobody sabotaged me. I was quite alone on the beach when I cut my finger. It was my own stupidity.''

"Was the seal there at the time?"

Elizabeth closed her eyes and tried to remember. "He might have been."

"There you have it!" Denny smiled. "Everybody knows that seals are magic beings in disguise. He probably wants us off his island. Well, at least you've been taking the pills.

Modem science thwarts wee folk. It's time for another one, isn't it?"

She reached for the bottle that sat on the table beside the cup of sugar. "I suppose so. And for you, as well."

"Nag, nag, nag," said Denny. "My symptoms are quite gone away now. I think I'll cut back to one a week. I feel fine."

"What we really need is some good old American liquid cold medicine."

"Check the medical chest. Surely there's cold capsules in there. They'd be counting on somebody coming down with catarrh, what with all the wet and the cold out here."

Elizabeth set the white metal box on the table. "Bandages . . . scissors . . . iodine. Ah, what's this?" She held up a bright yellow box. "Nonprescription cold capsules. One every eight hours. Yeah, this sounds like the stuff we take at home to dry up a runny nose. As soon as Callum wakes up, I'll make him take one."

Denny frowned. "How many capsules are in there?"

"Twenty-four. No. One is missing. Twenty-three. Why?"

"I think we should all start taking them."

Leath and Marchand came back in less than an hour, stamping their wet boots in the doorway and peeling off anoraks shiny with rain. "It shows no sign of letting up, I'm afraid," Marchand said. "We went down to look at the boat."

Denny stared at them openmouthed. "You're not going to try anything in that boat?"

"It isn't very seaworthy,'' Marchand agreed, "but we can't be more than ten miles or so from another island."

"And if you miss it, there's always New Jersey!"

Marchand forced himself to smile. "I thought I might give it a try tomorrow. The weather should be better by then, and perhaps I shall feel more up to the task."

Elizabeth shook her head. "You should not have been tramping around in the rain like that. But never mind; Denny and I have found the cold capsules, and we are all going to take them." She waited, hands on hips, for an argument.

Marchand said gravely, "Thank you, my dear. I think that is a very good idea."

"So do I," Tom Leath said. "I'm having one now with my Scotch. Would anyone care to join me?"

About seven o'clock Elizabeth took a cold capsule to Callum, who was still sleeping. Shaking him gently awake, she put the cold capsule in his hand. "Take this," she said. "It's one of the cold capsules, and I've brought you some water. How do you feel?"

Callum's shrug turned into a cough. "The same, I guess,'' he said. He tossed the capsule into his mouth and gulped most of the water from the tin cup. "I hate the flu.''

Elizabeth nodded. "We'll probably all get it. The rest of us took these cold capsules at dinner."

Callum looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes. "I've been trying not to think about Owen," he said. "I didn't stay long enough to get a good look at him, but. . . suppose he died of something contagious, and suppose that when I went into his tent, I caught it. . . ."

Elizabeth laughed gently. "In Britain they immunize babies against things like smallpox and diphtheria, don't they? They do in the States."

"Of course we do."

Elizabeth nodded. "I thought so. Have you had shots for typhoid?"

"Sure. As an archaeologist, of course you—"

"Tetanus?"

"Yes, but—"

"Okay, let's get really way out. Cholera?"

"Actually, yes. I took a holiday in Turkey last year."

"God, you're better off than I am," Elizabeth said. "They don't make you take cholera shots to come to Scotland. Anyhow, you see my point. You have been protected against everything we can think of. I mean, what else is there?"

He tried to smile. "Leprosy?"

"Right. That takes two to seven years' incubation, and it causes numbness. Take two aspirin and call me at the turn of the century." She relaxed a bit when he laughed. She was worried about him, and she wanted to be reassuring. She wanted them both to feel safe. It sounded logical enough. But she was still frightened.

Callum closed his eyes. "Then what killed Owen?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath. "Callum, I think he was poisoned."

"What—by one of us? That's insane."

"I've been over and over it. Nothing else makes sense. So I think we ought to be very careful."

"And not take capsules offered us by fellow diggers?"

"It isn't me!" she hissed. "And you'll need those capsules to get your strength back. Somebody has to get us off this island fast, and you're the best sailor we've got."

"What if I'm a killer?" he teased.

She patted his hand. "Then you're too sick to be dangerous, aren't you?"

Elizabeth lay huddled in her sleeping bag that night with her copy of Wuthering Heights and a dwindling stack of tissues beside her. She told herself that with a runny nose, she could not afford to waste her few tissues on tears. Tomorrow would be Wednesday . . . wouldn't it? Cameron was coming on Saturday. And if it kept raining so hard until then, the seas would be dry and they could walk away from the island, she thought, half-asleep. The sound of coughing kept her awake far into the night, but she finally fell into a fitful sleep sometime past three o'clock. What woke her up again a few hours later was silence. She realized that she could no longer hear the clatter of rain on the roof.

Pulling her sweater on over her T-shirt, Elizabeth eased out of the sleeping bag and crept to the door. She pushed it open a few inches and saw the graying sky of dawn. There was mist, but no downpour. She took a deep breath of sea air and stretched. No more endless days cooped up in a tin can listening to war stories and British jokes! She decided to take the bucket down to the burn. The endless cups of tea had depleted their supply of water.

Tucking the metal handle into the crook of her arm, she made her way over the rocks and down the path to the meadow. She thought that it might be nice to stay out for a while, despite the cold, and perhaps to watch the sun rise over the stone circle. She even thought of offering up a prayer from within the confines of that ancient temple. Surely it had been meant for worship of some sort; man reserved his greatest efforts for offerings to his gods. And she felt that a prayer might make her feel better, if nothing else. Or a thank-you to somebody. Because the rain had stopped, so that they could try to escape by sea and the nightmare was over.

She washed her face and hands in the cold water of the burn, glad of the stinging numbness it brought to her skin. She would heat water and have a proper wash later, but this she needed to celebrate life. She scooped water to the brim of the bucket and, after a moment's thought, let it rush back into the stream again. She could leave the bucket there and get water when she was ready to go back to the Nissen hut. No need to carry a heavy bucket all the way to the standing stones, she thought, smiling. Water would be no offering to a god of Celts!

She did not know which way the ancient builders had intended for the circle to be entered. They had created a north-south avenue of small stones leading up to the circle, but no one seemed to know what its purpose had been. Some of these small stones were still visible, half-buried in the peat. The stones themselves made her think of black-robed figures gathered around a grave. She hesitated for a few minutes before walking into the circle, feeling afraid of the place for the first time. How different it was from before! How casual they had been only a few mornings before, when everyone had come down in a pack, intent on work and chattering among themselves after a hearty breakfast. The majesty of the stones had been there even then, but it had not been so imposing. Back then, even a word could have broken the spell. Now that she was alone and frightened in the early hours of dawn, she felt as if she were expected to say something. To whom? To the stones, or to those long-ago islanders who built them? Or to the old gods themselves?

She shivered. Stop it, she thought. It is peaceful here. And the day will be fine. You are safe.

She spent a long time walking inside the circle, looking at the slant of light over the mountains from first one stone and then another, and once she tried to find an alignment with the just-visible stone on the far island, but that made her think of Owen, and she turned her back on it, determined to think of something else.

As the sky grew lighter, she began to feel warmer and more at ease, and she was leaning against the largest stone, thinking of Cameron and of spending a few days on Skye after this was over, when she heard someone calling her name.

She felt a clutch of coldness, and her first thought was that it was Owen, not dead after all, who had staggered to the menhir and was calling to her for help, but a moment later she recognized the voice. It was Denny, trotting across the meadow, shouting for her.

She didn't feel like shouting back from the circle. Somehow it would be disrespectful. She stood up, walked to the center of the circle, and waved, unsmiling.

He saw her then, and he did not smile, either. She saw that he was pale, and his hands were clenched into fists.

"What is it?" she called out even before he reached the circle. She wished she didn't have to hear—whatever it was going to be. She had never seen Denny so solemn.

"So, you're all right," he said when he reached her. He peered into her face, as if he would decide that for himself. She nodded. "Everyone was still asleep, and I just wanted to get out for a bit. I took the bucket to the burn, in case you were looking for it."

"I looked there first. I thought ... I don't know."

She stared at him wide-eyed. "Did you think something had happened to me, Denny?"

He looked away. "Not exactly. I thought you might have taken the boat ..."

"What? And left all of you?"

He shrugged. "I wouldn't have blamed you. I thought of it myself.'' Seeing her bewilderment, he took a deep breath and shut his eyes. "Listen, you silly git, Callum is dead. He woke up coughing and he couldn't breathe, and as I sat there trying to figure out what the hell to do about it ... he just died."

Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief. "He had the flu!" she whispered.

"I don't know what he had," Denny said softly. "But Leath and Marchand have it, too." Holding his fist up to his mouth, he began to cough.

CHAPTER

15

Elizabeth followed Denny back to the burn and scooped up a bucketful of cold water. Denny knelt down on a flat rock at the water's edge and cupped a handful of water, smelling it carefully. He shrugged. "You don't think it's poisoned, do you?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "Haven't we all had typhoid shots?"

"I was thinking about some kind of manmade stuff. Arsenic or some such thing."

"I don't think you can poison a fast-flowing stream. And I wash the bucket with boiling water. Look, Denny, maybe we were just being edgy. Alasdair had an accident; Owen died of who-knows-what; and the rest of us are coming down with the flu."

"Callum was twenty-three and strong as a horse. Do you think he died of the flu?"

"Well, if one of us is a poisoner, he's an idiot. We're all eating the same food and drinking the same water. If one of us is committing murder, I don't see how he can expect to survive."

Denny looked at her carefully. "You're not sick."

"No. But I'm terrified. I'm miserable. Denny, be reasonable. Not charitable, just reasonable. If I were going to kill anybody for fun, would Gitte have walked off this island under her own power?''

He smiled. "Good point."

"And besides, I don't think many murderers like to watch people actually die. I suppose Owen would know. I wish we could ask him ..."

Denny stood up and brushed his wet hand against the leg of his jeans. "I suppose we ought to get back. Leath isn't bedfast or anything, but Marchand seems pretty hard hit. We have to do what we can."

"How do you feel, Denny?"

He shrugged. "Bit short of breath. Scratchy throat. It does feel like flu, now you mention it." He smiled. "I took my clap pill this morning, like a good fellow. Stupid, isn't it, to worry about a minor infection when you may be dying of something else altogether?''

"You are not dying!'' Elizabeth snapped. She felt the chill again in the pit of her stomach. What would be worse? To feel herself falling sick like the rest of them, or to be the only one left healthy, and to watch them all die? Please, she thought, looking up at the bright blue sky, let the weather hold.

They took turns carrying the bucket back to the Nissen hut. All was quiet. Even the sea was silent in the August sunshine. As they neared the hut, Elizabeth shrank back, suddenly remembering what might be inside. "Is Callum still in there?" she whispered.

"Yes. I didn't know what else to do. I realize that he could contaminate us by staying, but I might also get contaminated by touching him to move him."

"I'll help you," said Elizabeth. "I think if we zipped him all the way into a sleeping bag and put him in one of the tents—that isn't too terrible, is it?"

"No. It's bloody sensible." He eased open the door and peered into the semidarkness. "Leath! We're back. How are—"

Elizabeth saw him stiffen. "What's wrong?" she demanded, thinking: he's dead, too.

Denny closed the door and leaned against it. "He's not there."

"I don't blame him," Elizabeth said. "I don't really want to go in there, either. I'm glad he's well enough to go out walking."

Denny grunted. "He didn't look well enough to me. Go in and make the tea, hen. I'll be back soon."

"Go in and make the tea," he'd said, making it sound so easy. The sort of task women were always assigned in times of crisis. But Elizabeth felt considerably undomestic at the prospect. She was to walk in to a dimly lit tin hut containing a corpse and a dying man—and make tea. Never mind the risk of contamination . . . never mind the horror.

She pulled open the door and went in. It couldn't be worse than labs with Milo. As a forensic anthropologist, she had done her share of work with bodies in every stage of decay. Lord, she dreaded hunting season, when the deer stalkers would stumble across an old person who had wandered away from home the spring before and died of exposure. The remains would come to the university in a green plastic body bag, waiting for the forensic anthropologists to utilize their skills and to tell them who this lump of flesh had been. It couldn't be worse than a ripe corpse from a southern forest. It was only that this time she knew the deceased personally.

"Hello, Mr. Marchand!" she said, trying to sound cheerful. "I've brought some water."

She hauled the bucket over the doorsill and carried it with two hands to the wooden table near the gas stove. She wouldn't look at the still form in the corner . . . Callum.

Derek Marchand coughed, a dry, raspy cough that went on too long. "I'll try a bit of tea," he said. He sounded out of breath as he spoke.

Elizabeth dipped some water into the red saucepan. "I'll just heat a bit right now, so that it will boil quicker. Have you had your cold capsule?"

"No. I've been dozing off, I think. Have you seen Tom?"

"Denny has gone to look for him. Now, here's your capsule. You can take it with your tea." I almost called him ducks, Elizabeth thought to herself. I sound like an English girl in a head scarf. For some reason this did not please her.

"We have been having some very bad luck, I'm afraid," Marchand remarked.

Elizabeth nodded, busying herself with tea things. "You must feel like Howard Carter," she remarked, thinking of the King Tut curse.

Marchand had a coughing spasm of almost a minute's duration. Without a word Elizabeth passed him a tin cup of cold water. When he could speak again, he said, as if nothing had happened, "You know, I was thinking about the Carter expedition just this morning. They picked up some sort of lung virus from the stale air in that Egyptian tomb, and it was fatal in several cases."

Elizabeth nodded. "I read about that. But we weren't doing any excavating of tombs.''

Marchand looked searchingly at her. "You dug an exploratory trench, as I recall."

"But I didn't find anything!" Elizabeth protested.

"I thought not. Certainly none of us found anything like a burial chamber."

"Unless Alasdair ..." she shrugged. Alasdair wasn't sick, only clumsy. "So you don't believe in ancient curses protecting sacred sites?"

"I am an engineer, young woman, not a guru."

Elizabeth smiled. "The tea is ready," she announced, pouring the water from the saucepan into the china mugs. Would you like to take it outside? It's a fine sunny day."

She helped him out of his sleeping hag and waited through the spasm of coughing that this provoked. "I think the sunshine will do you good," she said in a faltering voice.

Marchand cleared his throat, "Well, at any rate, it won't do me any harm."

They settled themselves on a rock in full sunshine, overlooking the sea. Elizabeth and Marchand took their cold capsules together, making it into a toast, but Elizabeth had tried to swallow both it and her antibiotic at the same time, and, before she succeeded in keeping them down, she succumbed to a fit of coughing. She was wiping the tears from her eyes and still catching her breath when Denny reappeared.

He looked at her suspiciously. "You've not got it as well?"

"No," she said. "I swallowed the wrong way. Where is Tom Leath?" Denny frowned. "He's gone. The boat's gone as well." Elizabeth stared. "I thought you said he was too sick!" "So he is," Marchand said thoughtfully. "I think he must have been very frightened. Illness takes some people that way, particularly if they are not used to it. He must have felt it was a desperate chance."

"You don't think he caused all this?" "No. Not as ill as he was. He coughed all night." "But suppose he gets sicker out there?" Elizabeth asked. Marchand shrugged. "Then he will die at sea." "Meanwhile,'' said Denny, stifling a cough, "we are stuck here on this rock." He sank down beside Marchand. "God, I'm tired. That bit of rock climbing to the beach and back has taken the wind out of me."

Elizabeth looked thoughtfully at him. He is sicker than he lets on, she thought. And he is in no shape to do anything to help. But if something isn't done, he may die, and Derek Marchand surely will. Aloud she said, "Stay here with Marchand, Denny. You have everything you need. I'm just going to have a look around for myself." "I tell you, Leath is gone ..." "Yes, I believe you. I'm looking for something else." Denny looked scornful. "And what are you looking for?" "I don't know."

The midmorning sun was warm. Elizabeth pulled off her navy-blue sweater and tied it around her waist. She would be warm enough in her T-shirt, she thought. She looked at her finger. She had forgotten to change the bandage that morning. Peeling the adhesive away from the cut, she looked at the red slash above the knuckle, wondering if it was too late for stitches. Still, there was no swelling, no telltale red line of blood poisoning. At least she had avoided that mishap. She wondered if a curse had been flung at her and had missed.

She took the path along the edge of the mountains that would lead to the other side of the island. Suppose the villagers had died of some disease long ago? But they hadn't. They had moved off the island a few at a time, until finally a handful of elderly folk became too tired to hold out anymore and moved away. Besides, no one had disturbed their cemetery. She couldn't even remember having seen it. As Marchand had said, no one had done any digging on the island except her, with that one exploratory trench, which was shallow and had turned up nothing.

Except Alasdair. He had been taking soil samples. She remembered noticing one such place near the hut. Fortunately, Alasdair had not been particularly neat with his sample-taking. His test areas should be easy to spot. She began to pay careful attention to the ground as she walked, looking for evidence of disturbed soil.

Why am I doing this? she asked herself. If Alasdair found anything, Alasdair would have got sick, and he didn't. That we know of, she told herself. His symptoms might have developed in the hospital, where they could find out what was wrong with him and treat him. Lucky Alasdair.

This last thought took a moment to sink in, and she nearly stumbled on a rock in the road when its significance hit her. Very lucky Alasdair. He has an accident at the one time that there is a boat available to take him off the island. The radio is put out of order so that no one else can get off the island. And then people start to die.

At first she had thought Alasdair might have found a treasure that he wanted to conceal; but now she knew what he must have found. The question was why he would have used it, and the answer to that did not lie on the island.

CHAPTER

16

Cameron Dawson was not particularly interested in the state of the weather. He had spent much of the past few days in the laboratory monitoring blips from the radio collars of seals that had been banded earlier by other marine biologists who were still maintaining their own tracking stations on Skye and the mainland. He drank endless cups of coffee and watched his screen. It was a week of routine and monotony. The weather was all one to him, except that it had delayed the ferry that brought the mail. He had a letter from home and a newspaper still folded in front of him. He always saved his mail to read during lunch, as a distraction from his unappetizing sandwich.

Occasionally he thought of Elizabeth, whom he would be seeing in three days. They must be very busy, keeping late hours at the dig site in the long summer evenings, because he had been unable to reach them by radio. Or perhaps the rainstorm—the one that had delayed the ferry, now that he thought of it—had hampered their reception. It did not really matter, as he had no news. Alasdair had been taken to Inverness by emergency medical helicopter, accompanied by his stone-faced girlfriend, and Cameron had heard no news of him. He kept delaying his own trip to the mainland for supplies. He would have to go before Saturday, though. There were supplies he had promised to take to Banrigh, and of course they would want news of their injured friend. Cameron knew that he had an unfortunate tendency to get caught up in a project to the exclusion of everything else. Elizabeth had mentioned it often enough. He must try to spend some time with her before the end of their time in Scotland.

A break in the sound pattern in the room caught his attention. He had been switching frequencies to check on the transmissions of the radio collars of the various seals when an odd sequence made him stop. He switched back to mat frequency and listened.

It was not making the uniform sounds he had been accustomed to. The sounds were coming at regular intervals . . . intervals of varying duration. Perhaps the animal had been injured. He kept listening. There was a familiar regularity about it.

Cameron took a long gulp of black coffee. Hell! He hoped it wasn't what he first suspected. Some sailors had killed the seal and were playing games with its collar. He checked to see where the animal had been. At last monitoring it had been on shore. In fact, he thought it might be the one Elizabeth had told him she'd seen on Banrigh.

Elizabeth . . .

With half a smile he remembered what she'd said about not being able to talk intimately on a shortwave radio. So she had snatched a seal collar, silly git! Still, he was rather flattered. He hoped he could make out the message.

With pencil in hand, he began to note the sounds. One dot. Four dashes. Four dashes! Morse code, of course. Numbers, then. They were the easiest to remember. A one was one dot, four dashes; two was two dots, three dashes—it always added up to a sequence of five. Five was five dots, and at six the process reversed, with dashes preceding dots, so that six was the reverse of one: one dash, four dots.

Nearly half an hour later, he had narrowed the signal down to eight symbols, separated at midpoint by a long pause, as if to denote a word break.

He looked at the sheet of paper. 1-3-4-8 (long pause) 1-6-6-5. Now, what was that? He tried substituting letters, and got A-C-D-H . . . A-F-F-E. It made no sense. C-D could be his initials, but he could not find any logical meanings for A andH.

He tried the sequence backward. H-D-C-A . . . E-F-F-A. It wasn't English. He was pretty sure it wasn't Gaelic. And it couldn't be much of a love message, if it was that hard to decipher. Cameron looked at his watch. Why would Elizabeth be sending him messages in the middle of a sunny day when she ought to be working? Would she really remove a seal collar for such a frivolous reason?

He began to worry without understanding why. Was this connected to their radio silence?

He stared at the sequence again. 1-3-4-8 . . . 1-6-6-5. Suppose you took it as numbers, not letters? 1348-1665.

It made sense. But it was insane. It was a joke.

He looked again at his watch. Nobody would tap out dots and dashes with a radio transmitter for nearly an hour for a

joke. They might make such an effort for a signal for help. But then, why not tap out S-O-S? That was easy enough. Everybody knew three dots, three dashes, three dots. He considered the numbers, and he thought he understood. Signaling S-O-S would not convey enough information, not if you were concerned about your rescuer.

Suddenly he knew that it was Elizabeth—and that she was in trouble. But he could not signal that he had received her message. She would have to take it on faith that he was coming. Cameron flipped off the machines and snatched up his mail as he went. He would need something to read on the long trip to the island, something to divert his mind from worry.

Just now, though, he had to scrounge up some diving gear.

CHAPTER

17

CAMERON

It seemed that for all the searching she had done, through Scotland and through folklore, for bits and pieces of the past . . . Thomas the Rhymer . . . Bonnie Prince Charlie . . . that now the past had reached up out of the peat bogs and seized her. For that is what the two numbers were: designations of the past, the years 1348 and 1665. Was she lucky that I had paid attention in history class, or did she simply assume that I would know, since it is my country we are speaking of? Or perhaps I understood because I know her, and those dates would be in her repertoire of folklore. The nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Roses" came out of 1665; it's the sort of thing she would remember. And being logical and scientifically trained, I put the pieces together: 1348, the first year of the great epidemic of the Black Death, and 1665, the last terrible outbreak of plague in Britain. Taken together, those numbers could mean only one thing: plague. It is like her to gamble on a warning that might be misunderstood, when a simpler one would have brought certain help, but risk to the rescuer. Myself. There was more love in that message than I had thought.

Plague, she says. Be careful.

But she knows I will come for her, and because she sent the message, I know that she is at least alive.

I read the letter from my mother, my lips moving over the words, and I was unable to say what it contained when I finished it. The newspaper provided little more distraction, except for one brief article that I feel must be connected to what I will find on Banrigh.

The island sparkles in the sunshine, its green meadows just visible across the blue of the sea. I will go in on the cliff side this time. I do not have an hour to waste clambering over the mountain path, and the sea is calm. I can anchor the launch out beyond the rocks if need be. I have come prepared for that.

I have made myself ready to go ashore now, and as I look down at myself, I think that she has found her legend after all, for surely I look like a seal-man: shiny black skin covers me from head to foot, and flippers have become my appendages. I put the breathing apparatus in my mouth, adjust the air tank, and throw myself into the sea. My Celtic woman is waiting.

She must have been watching the sea from the rocks near the hut, for as I look up while I swim, I see her hurrying down the cliffs to meet me. She is wearing her tapestry skirt and the blue wool shawl from Princes Street. Surely this is not her everyday attire for the island. No, perhaps that is the point. It is the only thing she has not worn, which means that it is clean—the closest she has to safe.

The seal is no longer on the rocks. She has frightened him away now, this will change his daily pattern, and also in a small way the results of my study. I fight the current a bit to keep myself clear of the rocks and find myself in water shallow enough to stand in. She is on the beach now, but she does not come toward me, and I keep the mouthpiece in place. I am on the beach, but I am breathing air from the tank on my back. I cannot speak to her.

"Don't come any closer!" she calls out to me. "I'm not sick yet, but I may carry the infection." She half smiles, pleased with her own cleverness. "I see you understood my message."

I nod once and raise both hands to make a question, whatever question she wishes.

She sits down on the rock against the cliff, with fifteen feet of pebble-strewn beach between us. She has to speak much more loudly than usual, and it makes her American Southern accent much more noticeable. Or perhaps she reverts to mat speech when she is distracted and afraid.

"Owen is dead, Cameron. Callum rowed over to the little island on Monday and found him. Callum died this morning. Marchand is very sick, and we are trapped here because Tom Leath took the rowboat. But he was sick, too. Did you pass him when you were coming here?"

I shake my head no.

"Denny is coughing badly, but he seems less affected than the others, and I still have the cold I had Saturday, but the deadly part seems to be the cough, and I don't have that. We found some cold capsules and made everyone take them, but it hasn't seemed to help."

I made the questioning gesture again.

"What is it? I don't know. It isn't typhoid or cholera. Callum had been immunized against those. And it isn't really bubonic plague, because I know the symptoms of that . . . ring around the roses ... No one has pustules or swollen lymph glands. I used the plague years because it was the only way I could think of to warn you about disease. My Morse code is limited to numbers, and I only learned those by osmosis when Bill was in Scouts."

I applaud her silently and nod for her to go on.

"I thought that we were being poisoned, but I couldn't think of any way to poison everyone. We've been eating tinned food for the last two days as a precaution, and it hasn't helped." She twists a strand of hair and looks pleased with herself again. "That's when I thought that maybe we were infected with something here on the island, but no one did any digging except me."

I shake my head and kneel down to pick up a handful of coarse sand.

"You're right,'' she says, watching the sand trickle through my gloved fingers. "Alasdair did soil sampling. I remembered mat this morning, and I tried to find all the places he'd taken samples." She paused for effect. "On one of them, in one of the meadows near the village, I found quicklime!"

How to show her that I understand? I make the sign of the cross and bow my head.

"Yes, Cameron. A layer of quicklime under topsoil means a mass grave, either human or animal, but always from a contagious disease. The quicklime is to prevent the germs, or whatever, from getting into the soil and infecting crops or livestock. Archaeologists are told that if they come across quicklime in an exploratory trench, they must cover it up,

and tell everyone on the site where the place is, so that it can be avoided."

I am a biologist. She has put me on familiar ground. Now I know more than she. I mime the opening of a small bottle, swallowing a pill.

She frowns. "I told you, the cold capsules didn't work."

I shake my head a vigorous no and point to her bandaged finger. Again, I mime the pill-taking.

"My finger is fine. That's not important. Yes, I'm taking the pills for it, so that I can die of plague instead of tetanus.''

I pull the oxygen mask out of my mouth. "You're not going to die at all, dear," I tell her, flapping awkwardly across the rocky beach with my arms outstretched. "You have prevented yourself from getting the disease."

We are back in the boat now. Together we hauled it into shore and got Marchand and Denny aboard. Denny is a bit shaky on his feet, but he'll be fine. Marchand may pull through with luck. I have given them all double doses of Denny's antibiotic, which is a form of penicillin that can both cure and prevent. . . anthrax. I took the same dose myself.

I decided that it would be best to leave the bodies of Callum and Owen where they are. The medical authorities will have to come to this island anyway to make their investigation and to see that the plague pit is sealed and marked. I can only hope that they will find Leath in his open boat before it is too late. We haven't time to look for him; Marchand and Denny must go to the hospital at once. I shall make Elizabeth go as well, just as a precaution.

Denny and Marchand are sleeping in the cabin, and Elizabeth is sitting on the deck with me, watching for land to appear on the horizon so that we will be safe.

"How did you know it was anthrax?" she asks suspiciously.

"That's what plague pits are in these islands. Bubonic plague didn't get here. I know a lot about anthrax, actually. Have you ever heard of Gruinard?"

She shakes her head. World War II is too recent in history to have caught her attention.

"During the War, British Intelligence took a Scottish island called Gruinard and deliberately contaminated it with anthrax. They were trying to develop something for germ warfare. It's still contaminated, after all these years. It will be for centuries, in fact, if they don't reverse the process, because anthrax is a spore-forming disease, which means that the organisms don't die. They simply hibernate there in the ground until conditions are favorable again."

"And how do you know so much about it?"

"We were afraid that seals might get it, because Gruinard is in the area they inhabit. They do get it, by the way. I was still in grad school when Hanley did that project, but I got to know quite a bit about the disease during the study, since he was one of my professors."

Elizabeth nods. "Alasdair found the plague pit, and of course he knows what it is. He knows it's still dangerous. And he decides to kill us all?"

"Yes. We'll come back to that. I want to know how he did it."

' T want to know why.''

"He was a medical student. He'd know to scoop up the soil under the quicklime and to put it in a jar of water. After an hour, the sediment would settle to the bottom, and the water itself would contain the anthrax spores. To infect someone, you would have to put the spores in a substance that would make them grow. A sort of culture. Jam perhaps. Or honey."

Elizabeth looks up, trembling. "What about honey and hot wax, poured into the bag of a bagpipe?"

"Oh, God, nothing better! A damp moist place. The spores wake up. You blow into the pipe and disturb the air. You inhale it, and you have pneumonic anthrax. That explains the cough."

Elizabeth is shaking. "It explains everything. Callum played Owen's bagpipes after he found him dead."

"That was stupid!" I say without thinking. "He was infected by that, and from then on, he breathed contagion with every word he spoke. No wonder the rest of you got it. Two days of flulike symptoms, and unless you treat it with penicillin, death comes in a matter of hours.

"So Denny's pills protected me," she murmured. "And if he hadn't been so slack about taking them himself, he wouldn't be sick at all."

"It lessened the severity for him. We can be thankful for that."

Elizabeth takes a deep breath and rubs her eyes. "Now can we get to the why?"

I get up and go into the cabin, where I have left my mail. The newspaper is still folded to the article in question. Silently I hand it to her.

PAROLED POISONER DIES IN HOSPITAL

Alasdair McEwan, better known as Alexander Evans, died in hospital at Inverness on Sunday, from injuries sustained during a fall on the island of Banrigh.

The victim's true identity was not known until his guardian, Dr. Philip Sinclair, came forward to claim the body. Sinclair, who had been Evans's prison psychiatrist, thought the young convict was a gifted youth, and he determined to give him a new life once he had served his sentence, even sponsoring the boy to medical school under his new name.

Evans was sentenced to indefinite juvenile detention at the age of fourteen for poisoning his entire family with thallium. After . . .

Elizabeth lays the article aside. "Owen was right. How he would have rejoiced!"

"Right?"

"Yes! The murder at the Witchery tour. That was Alasdair. The reporter was doing his story on the new lives of convicted murderers. Alasdair couldn't afford to have that get out. It wouldn't have done his medical career any good.''

"I suppose Owen was playing detective. And he got too close?"

"Yes. And the rest of us—perhaps he didn't know that we'd be infected, too."

"He guessed, Elizabeth. Otherwise, why stage an accident so that he could get himself and Gitte safely away before the contamination started?"

She looks troubled. "It was a real fall!"

"It had to be in order to be plausible. I suspect that it went wrong. Alasdair must have meant to break an arm or even a leg in his fall from the cliff. Instead, he hit his head—in just the right place to kill him. Bad luck."

"Unless you consider the alternative. After this poisoning venture, there wouldn't have been another parole."

I see a dark shape ahead of us on the line of the sea. The island will be visible soon. I reach out to hold Elizabeth, and it is only when she shivers that I realize I am still in the black wet suit I wore to the beach.

She smiles up at me, still pale, though. "Seal-men only stay with their mortal lovers for seven years,'' she says lightly.

I smile back and pull her closer. "Seven years is a lifetime if you're a seal. Will you settle for a lifetime?"

We stand on the prow of the launch and watch Scotland rise out of the sea to meet us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sharyn McCrumb is an award-winning crime novelist and short story writer. Her first mystery featuring Elizabeth MacPherson was SICK OF SHADOWS; that novel was followed by LOVELY IN HER BONES (named "the outstanding work of fiction for 1985" by the Appalachian Writers Association) and HIGHLAND LADDIE GONE. Ms. McCrumb also wrote the Edgar Award-winning comic whodunit, BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN. Her short fiction has been published in Crescent Review, Appalachian Heritage, Central Appalachian Review, Harvest from the Hills, and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. She lives in New Castle, Virginia.