mood was further offset by the Saturday afternoon tourists who, now that Elizabeth did not want to be bothered with them, insisted on stopping her with questions about the Chattan mascot. Everybody wanted to pet the bobcat.
“Can we just have little Allison’s picture taken with the kitty?” asked a besotted father festooned in cameras.
Little Allison, who looked like a dismemberer of stuffed animals, was gazing at Cluny with a gleam of purpose in her piggy eyes.
“Another time,” said Elizabeth sweetly. “He hasn’t had all his shots.” She steered the bobcat firmly away into the crowd while she tried to decide where to look for Marge. The tent or the practice meadow? She would never have spotted her at all if Somerled hadn’t started to bark.
The border collie, who had been curled up by his mistress’s chair in the MacDonald tent, caught the scent of Strange cat and decided that the immediate world should be notified. He sprang to attention, searching the crowd of manshapes for the interloper, and spotting the bobcat a few yards away, he hunched into a menacing crouch and began to announce his discovery.
Cluny sat down with the dignity of an interrupted bishop and hissed cordially at the source of the disturbance. Fortunately, the bagpipes drowned out most of it. Before the confrontation could degenerate into a donnybrook, Marge Hutcheson sprang between them. A sharp word from her sent Somerled back to wary disapproval; Cluny was still bristling, but he no longer bothered to hiss.
“Were you looking for me?” asked Marge dryly, once peace had been restored.
Elizabeth nodded. “Nothing very important. Just thought I’d tell you how things are going.”
Marge pointed her finger at the border collie. “Somerled, stay until I get back,” she said sternly. She smiled at Elizabeth. “I find dogs much easier to reason with than bobcats. Now, let’s take a walk while we discuss all this.”
“There isn’t very much to tell,” Elizabeth warned her. “Nothing really dramatic. At least I found out what Colin’s meeting was about.”
She explained about Jerry Buchanan’s zeal for a conservative tartan, and how his conversation with Colin had revealed the existence of the S.R.A. scam. By the time she reached the part about Geoffrey’s impromptu initiation into the conspiracy, Marge was laughing.
“Geoffrey has created any amount of havoc,” Elizabeth told her. “He’s told them that Cameron was a spy, and he terrorized that poor dentist a little while ago. But he refuses to believe that any of it ties in with the murder.”
Marge smiled. “What about Lachlan?”
“I can’t find him. Geoffrey insists that Lachlan isn’t capable of violence. Apparently it’s against con-man psychology.”
“And how say you, sociology major?”
“I took criminology in my sophomore year, thinking that it was going to be a fascinating course full of Jack the Ripper and blood and thunder. People always assume that; the class is packed every quarter. Actually, it’s deadly dull. Mostly statistics. I don’t remember a single thing.”
“Well, having known Lachlan from a few seasons of festivals, I must say I don’t think he’s a very likely killer, either. Anyway, I don’t see how he could have got hold of Walter’s
Marge looked up.
“B.C.? Oh! Before Cameron. I guess you’re right. I’ve been listening to his accent so hard that I must have picked up a phrase or two. Not enough, though. When Cameron met Heather, they were using a whole dictionary full of words I’d never heard of. And they’d throw in names of places (I guess) which confused me even more.” She sighed. “They knew each other before.”
Marge stopped walking. “Who told you that?”
“I could tell. They even had pet names for each other.”
“My successor is quite the
“Oh, I don’t know that there’s anything between them anymore,” Elizabeth murmured. “I couldn’t tell from what they were saying. Whatever they were saying.”
“Ask him.”
“Ask Cameron?” Elizabeth stared. “You have to be kidding. Why, a Southern girl would tap-dance on a mine field sooner than she’d ask a loaded question like that to her… to Cameron.”
“The way I see it, you’ve got two choices. You can either sit around and worry about it until you turn into a paranoid schizophrenic, or you can just up and ask him in a reasonable way. You don’t have to interrogate him, Elizabeth. But it seems to me that it’s your business, all things considered.”
“Last night, you mean. That was pretty impulsive for a girl who usually cannot pronounce the word
“Exactly. Ask him.”
“Maybe. After the murder case is over. If I ever see him again.”
“Ask him now,” said Marge. “Some things shouldn’t be put off. The case will take care of itself for that long, my girl.”
“I’ll see if I have the courage to do it.”
“Promise you’ll ask him.”
Elizabeth smiled. Marge was such a wonderful person. Even with all her own worries, she could still take time to be concerned about someone else. “I promise.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE was cold. Odd that when he took a breath, the air didn’t chill his nostrils and throat, but he knew it was bloody cold because his hands were numb. Where were his gloves? Wexford wouldn’t half create if he caught one of his gunners without ’em. He began to feel around the dark, enclosed space for his gloves. It felt wrong somehow. He wished he could see; pitch-black it was.
“I’ll just keep staring straight in front of me,” he told himself, “and in a wee while the lighthouse at Buchan Ness will appear below, and that’ll be the Moray Firth.” If Wexford could hold the crate in the air for another quarter of an hour, they’d reach Kinloss with naught to worry about but coming down like a bloody Christmas sparkler on the runway. They could reach Kinloss, couldn’t they? If not, they could always put down at Lossiemouth. Anywhere but the damned sea.
Wexford hadn’t been hit, had he? He didn’t like the stink crowding him out of the turret. Somebody must have brought it. Shit was the worst part of dying, as far as he could tell; poor buggers couldn’t help it, of course. The numbness was more insistent now. He must have taken a hit himself, he thought.
Bagpipes? Sounds like “MacPherson’s Lament.” That would be a good one to tell them at the Culbin Arms in Forres tomorrow night. “The engine of my Lancaster bomber plays ‘MacPherson’s Lament’!” His mates were always on him about his keenness for Scottish history, but he passed it off by saying that an auctioneer has to know his stuff. He liked history well enough, and it was true that the buyers were apt to spend more for the goods if you tossed in a bit of a tale about it. A little learning might make him a bit of lucre one of these days.
Where was the bloody lighthouse? Oh, the blackout. Sod that! They weren’t going to put down in the sea, were they? If he could have stood water, he’d have joined the Navy.
Flying Officer Forsyth closed his eyes. Bagpipes again. Engine trouble? As he pitched forward and fell into darkness, his last thought was that Wexford was going to ditch her in the bloody sea, and he’d never see light again.
The problem with portable toilets, thought Edwin Davis, was that there was no place to wash your hands after
