‘Your uncle being the laird?’
‘No, no, Mrs Gavin. My uncle is the man Corrie. He wrote that there was a job going at An Tigh Mor. As I was finishing my term at the University and needed to make a little money during the vacation, this was good news, so I happened along to present myself to the laird.’
‘And got the job?’
‘I was on trial for a fortnight. If I suited it, I was to stay until the laird could get a permanent body. If not…’
‘And what were you expected to do?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘It doesn’t matter telling you that, for the laird is dead and, in any case, I didn’t carry out what he laid upon me and nobody can pretend that I did. My job was to sabotage, in any way that presented itself, the hydro-electrical scheme near Tigh-Osda.’
‘Did your uncle know the nature of this assignment?’
‘No, no. He was as horrified as I was, when I told him what I was expected to do. However, we were agreed that the laird was mad to think of such a thing, and that there would be nothing I could do about it.’
‘The laird was mad all right,’ said Laura, ‘but, as I believe I told you on Skye, I rather liked him.’
‘It’s as well that somebody did, then, for he was very short of friends, I’m thinking.’
‘How long had you been on Tannasgan when Mrs Gavin called there?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘She does not seem to have seen you until you met at the boathouse that night.’
‘A matter of two days, so, you see, apart from all else, I wouldn’t have known the laird well enough to want to murder him,’ the young man replied, ignoring the implication contained in her last remark.
‘That’s as may be,’ said Laura. ‘I’ve known myself to be in people’s company no more than half an hour and I’d find myself wanting to murder them.’
‘Ay, but that’s only in a manner of speaking. You’ve never translated the wish into action. Now the laird surely
‘And you knew he was going to be. You’ve let that much out, haven’t you? You told us that the laird was murdered just as you were tying up the boat to set me ashore. How did you know what was happening?’
‘It was, first, the unearthly wailing and screaming on the pipes, and then the silence. The noise clearly told of the stabbing and the silence must have shown that he was dead.’
‘All this sounds as though you may have been an accessory before the fact. You knew he was going to be murdered?’
‘I did not, then. It was after I had the news of his death that I put two and two together.’ Young Grant sounded desperate.
‘What were you doing down at the boathouse when Mrs Gavin was leaving the house?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘I was having a quiet smoke and I was wondering, to tell the truth, how I could keep my position and take the laird’s wages without attempting to do the job I was to be paid for. Maybe it doesn’t sound over honest, but I comforted myself with the thought that I could always lend my Uncle Corrie a hand about the place and so earn my money that way.’
‘Who killed your employer? Do you know?’
‘I could not hazard a guess. According to my uncle, there were plenty who did not like him, and it did not take me two days to find out the reason. He was a stubborn, self-opinionated, selfish old stot.’
‘Was he a wealthy man?’
‘That’s not for me to say. He was a warm man, I think, but he kept just the two servants, my Uncle and Auntie Corrie. Still, they were on comfortable wages and the food was plentiful. They had no cause to grumble.’
‘But you had no idea of the value of his property?’ Dame Beatrice had taken over all the questioning and Laura retired into the background to wait until it seemed necessary that she should speak to the facts as she knew them. ‘Property, is it? He owned the loch and its fish and the islands on it and, of course, the house, but you could buy the lot, I dare say, for a few thousands. If the laird was rich, it was not in land and water. No, no. He had some other ways of making money. My uncle was telling me that when he wasn’t calling at the hydro-electric plant to complain, he was away to to Inverness or Edinburgh on business and would be from home perhaps a week at a time, sometimes longer, but my uncle did not know what his business was.’
The association of the names of the two cities brought about another association in Laura’s mind.
‘You say your name’s Grant?’ she asked.
‘It is, ay.’
‘You did say you were not related to the Grants who live at a house called Coinneamh Lodge?’
‘Coinneamh Lodge? No, I’ve no relatives living in such a place, so far as I know. And whereabouts would this Coinneamh Lodge be situated?’
‘Oh, somewhere between Freagair and Tigh-Osda, but nearer to Tigh-Osda. You have to cross the river and the railway-line to get there. It’s rather an isolated place, I should think. I wouldn’t want to live there myself, but I may have told you that I spent the night there’ – she had picked up a signal from Dame Beatrice that she was to go on talking – ‘after I’d driven Mrs Grant home from Tigh-Osda station after their station-wagon had broken down. I suddenly thought of it when you mentioned Inverness and Edinburgh and remembered that your name was Grant, the same as hers.’
‘And why would Inverness and Edinburgh bring all that to your mind, Mrs Gavin?’
‘Oh, because Mr Grant was going by train. He said that he was going to Inverness, but Mrs Grant told me he was going to Edinburgh, too. It just seemed a coincidence when you mentioned them,’
