spoke in an undertone. “Chuckie’s quite mad, you know.”
“No kidding,” Renie retorted.
“He should be institutionalized,” the woman said, brushing her chin against the sable collar of her splendid coat. “These days they treat crazy people with pills. I don’t think it works very well.”
Philip was brushing himself off while Will looked the other way, perhaps to save them both from the embarrassment of the moment.
“Are you friends of the Fordyces?” Judith inquired.
Marie smiled slightly. She was several years younger than her husband who appeared to be close to forty. “Beth and Moira and I all went to school together. My husband, Will Fleming, is the Blackwell Petroleum comptroller. That’s how we met.” Her smile widened, showing dimples. “Will’s very clever. Believe it or not, he can be quite funny.”
Judith glanced at Will, who was looking anything but amused at the moment. He’d finally walked away from Philip.
“We should go, Marie,” he said. “The tide will be changing shortly.”
Marie nodded. “Of course, darling.” She turned to the cousins. “Beth says you’re guests here. You’ve had rather a rude welcome.”
“We’re used to it,” Renie said.
“Really?” Marie giggled, then suddenly sobered. “I shouldn’t laugh. It’s quite dreadful about Harry. Still, it’s the sort of thing one would expect of him.” She scooted away to join her husband, who was already at the arched entrance to the castle.
“Harry’s not getting a lot of sympathy,” Renie noted. “I’m beginning to think I was right the first time—he was a jerk.”
“I pity him,” Judith said, but shut up as Philip approached.
“I apologize,” he said stiffly, “for my son. He’s unwell. You mustn’t think ill of him. He has a genetic defect, causing physical and emotional growth problems. I’ve sent him to the best doctors and clinics. When he takes his medication, he’s well behaved and quite bright.”
“It must be very hard on you,” Judith said before Renie could open her big mouth and spoil what must be a difficult admission for a man like Philip Fordyce. “I sympathize.”
“Very kind of you,” Philip murmured. “Excuse me, I feel a need to walk the beach.”
Judith watched him move away, hampered by a slight limp. “Maybe we should go someplace, too,” she said.
Renie frowned. “Where?”
“The village? I think I can walk that far.”
“Everything’s probably closed on the Sabbath,” Renie pointed out.
“True.” Judith gazed around the courtyard. The sun had come out from behind the clouds. Judith noticed an old sundial in the flowerbed near the door where Beth had left with Chuckie. She strolled toward it with Renie following her.
“No hands,” Judith noted. “It’s symbolic, don’t you think? This place is really timeless.”
Renie disagreed. “It’s marking time, a millennium’s worth of centuries. So many people have come and gone, yet the castle remains.”
Renie stopped as a strange, eerily familiar sound captured the cousins’ attention. Judith looked up. Near the top of the castle’s second story, the great northern diver was perched on a corbel, emitting his haunting cry. The bird preened a bit before flapping its wings and sailing off over the courtyard and out of sight.
“That weird call,” Judith said softly. “It sounds like the bird is mourning.”
“Maybe,” Renie allowed. “Or uttering a cry for help.”
Despite the sun, Judith shivered. “I’m not a fanciful person, but there is something spooky about this place. Maybe it’s all the history.”
“History is nothing but old gossip,” Renie declared. “Who did what to whom and why and how it all turned into a war or a revolution.”
Judith frowned. “Maybe. I wonder if there really is a ghost here. Certainly there’s a voice, telling us to open the gate or the window. Where does it come from?”
“TV,” Renie said. “For not being fanciful, you’re sounding a little loopy. Remember on our first trip to Europe we reached Deauville the night before taking ship for home, we got to the cheap B&B and were terrified before we rang the bell?”
Judith’s mind traveled back to that chilly October night in Normandy. “Yes. The house was dark, it looked run- down, and when we finally rang the bell nobody answered. We almost grabbed our suitcases and ran off.”
“Oh yes. It was raining and blowing like mad. We were sure the owners were inside plotting our imminent demise.” Renie grinned. “Instead they had the lights out and wouldn’t come to the door because they wanted to finish watching a rerun of
Judith smiled. “So I’m imagining the atmosphere at Grimloch?”
Renie was studying the daffodil and hyacinth greenery that was poking its way out of the peaty ground. “I can’t dismiss the murder that’s occurred since we arrived, but we should be used to it.”
“If people knew about my track record when it comes to dead bodies,” Judith said, “they’d avoid me like the plague.”
