My Bones Will Keep

‘A foreigner?’

‘Ay, and as black as the minister’s hat.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, he would hae been a fine visitor at the first footing o’ Hogmanay.’

‘Did he speak English?’

‘Ou, ay, in a fashion, but for swearing he relied on his native tongue, whatever that might hae been. My man always had it that he was no sailor. Of navigation he knew nothing.’

‘I thought that the mate of a cargo ship was responsible chiefly for the cargo.’

‘Ay,’ said Mrs Baillie, narrowing her eyes, ‘and since I’ve been capable of thinking about it at all, I’ve been speiring – in my own mind, ye’ll agree – what kind of cargo it would be to blow up like that.’

‘A cargo of coal, so we heard.’

‘And what way does a cargo of coal blow up and not leave a big enough piece of the ship for them that kens about such things to study? No, no. Coal there may have been, but something mair was underneath it.’

‘Did your husband ever mention a man named Grant as being one of the ship’s company?’

‘Grant? I dinna think so.’

‘What did you make of her?’ asked Laura, when she and Dame Beatrice were in the car again.

‘She has done nothing more than confirm our suspicions, child. There were certainly explosives aboard the Saracen. That we know. There was nobody named Grant aboard when she blew up. That is what interests me most.’

‘Well, where do we go from here?’

‘Back to Slanliebh, child.’

‘We’re not washing our hands of the case?’

‘Time will show.’

‘You’re not going to visit any more of the relatives of those men?’

‘Not at present, if at all. We must wait upon events.’

‘At Slanliebh?’

‘At Slanleibh. It is a pleasant spot.’

Laura snorted with frustration.

‘Action! Give me action!’ she said. Dame Beatrice greeted this cry from the heart with an eldritch cackle.

‘You will have action, and to spare, before very long, if I am any judge,’ she said. ‘Sit still; let time pass; enjoy your native land.’

‘All right, if you say so,’ said Laura. ‘By the way, don’t you think the inspector may be underestimating our friend Macbeth? And there’s still that claim by Grant that his brother was killed when the Saracen went up in smoke. Either he was lying or else his brother was going under another name. Fishy, in either case, wouldn’t you say?’

Dame Beatrice declined to comment.

‘Now,’ said Dame Beatrice, later in the week, ‘I am wondering whether we know enough of the truth to decide which persons who have supplied us with information are lying, to what extent and what their reasons are for doing so.’

‘Everybody has something to hide,’ said Laura. They were in the lounge of the hotel at Slanliebh. Outside it was pouring with rain. Laura, who had decided to take a pre-breakfast walk, had been caught on the hillside in a deluge and had hurried back to a boiling hot bath. She was now lounging, in slacks and a wind-cheater, on one of the settees, while Dame Beatrice, upright and straight-backed as a nun, sat in a chair beside her. There were other visitors in the large room, but these were gathered in groups or couples about small tables sufficiently far apart to make private conversations possible.

‘Yes, everybody has something to hide.’

Dame Beatrice agreed, ‘so, while this inclement weather keeps us within doors, let us take the opportunity of examining the evidence, such as it is, of the Grants and the Corries.’

‘I hate to think ill of the Corries, so let’s take them first and get it over.’

‘Very well.’ Dame Beatrice took out her notebook. ‘But let us banish prejudice from our minds.’

‘For me, that’s difficult, if not impossible, but I’ll do my best Do you think there was any truth in that crack of Macbeth’s that they’re not married?’

‘If there is, it might provide a motive for the murder of Mr Bradan.’

‘You mean blackmail. But an employer wouldn’t find it worthwhile to blackmail people like the Corries. I mean, even if you put their earnings together, they can’t amount to very much.’

‘I was not thinking in terms of money, child. Suppose they had wanted to apply for another post and the laird had not wanted to part with two good and faithful servants? After all, it is not every middle-aged couple who would be willing to spend their lives on a small island in a West Highland loch.’

‘I see what you mean, but it still doesn’t seem an adequate motive for murder.’

‘Suppose, then, that Mr Bradan, whose activities, as we are beginning to find out (thanks largely to the nose for