My Bones Will Keep

‘You have, yes.’

‘If I had killed Cu Dubh, that would have been my reason.’

‘But you didn’t kill him?’

‘I did not. Consider the facts. Here am I, an honest poor man, the Dear knows, tied in partnership with a scoundrel. Oh, ay, Bradan was a rascal all right. Now he’s dead – murdered. But, mistress, he was my bread and butter, ay, and my cake, too. What way would I wish to lose all that? Forbye, I’ll tell you this: what we were doing was against the law. So much I am well prepared to admit. What I am not prepared to admit is that it was sinful.’

‘You do not think of gun-running as being sinful?’

‘Woman, if they hadna got the stuff from us, they would only have bought it elsewhere!’

‘Sophistry!’

Grant grinned again. He might be a villain, thought Laura, but he was a likeable one.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But the gun-running was a bit of an afterthought. It was the moonshine trade that brought in the dollars first of all.’

‘Rum?’

‘Ay, rum. There was nothing difficult about it. We took out coal, potatoes, pig-iron – that kind of innocent stuff – and we sold it. We had regular customers out there, and it was a good business. Bradan, to give the man his due, had a good head on his shoulders. Then all we had to do was to buy rum in the islands and work it to the ‘dry’ places, pick up a cargo of sugar and cotton and land it in a perfectly legitimate way at Leith (or maybe Newhaven) and that’s all there was to it.’

‘Interesting. And the Salamander, of course, was not engaged in the innocent pursuit of rum-running.’

‘You ken very well that she was not.’

‘Now, Mr Grant, you have been comparatively frank with us, and I realise that this is a story which you can hardly tell to the police.’

‘And you?’

Dame Beatrice indicated her cup of tea.

‘It is not for me to cast – what is the rest of it, Laura?’

Laura, who had been studying the tea-leaves in the bottom of her cup before relinquishing it to Mrs Grant, looked up.

‘I prefer not to call the police swine, Dame B.,’ she said, with affected seriousness.

‘No, no. I was not thinking of asking you to do so. We cannot think of pigs and our dear Robert at the same time,’ responded Dame Beatrice in a similar tone.

‘Casting bread upon the waters, doesn’t fit.’

‘You know, you’re not trying,’ said Dame Beatrice, giving a harsh cackle which had the curious effect of quietening the baby in the next room.

‘Casting nasturtiums? Care to the winds? A clout before May is out? The runes? The lie in someone’s teeth?’

‘Dear, dear! I had no idea that I should provoke all this! Anyhow, Mr Grant, I shall not betray you to the police under any circumstances except one.’

‘Well, I didna murder Bradan,’ said Grant

‘And the kidnapping story?’

‘I willna talk about that. It was all in the course of business. I had to make contacts. It had naething at all to do with Bradan’s death except that I had to shoulder some of his work.’

‘But this would have been before his death, would it not?’

Grant gave her a very odd look.

‘Maybe it would,’ he said ‘We had reasons, and that’s all I’m prepared to say.’

‘I see. Mr Grant, I ask for no names, but do you know who killed Mr Bradan?’

‘I wish him well, whoever he was, although he’s cost me my cake, if not some of my bread and butter.’

‘That is not an answer, you know,’ said Dame Beatrice gently. Grant passed his cup to his wife for more tea.

Chapter 15

The Meaning of Coinneamh

‘Up jumps old Peter, and, heaving the regelashuns away, yells, “Damn all the nonsense! Heave the body overboard”.’

Harry Lander

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