My Bones Will Keep

‘Yes, I couldn’t make out about that, either.’

‘Mr Bradan, as we know, did come back to Tannasgan that night, but we do not know whether he was dead or alive.’

‘So the piper may have been Macbeth, after all!’

‘Yes. He played the pipes because he had seen the body, one might suppose. You remember telling me that the piper began with a lament, went on with an almost indecently triumphant skirling, then the lament again?’

‘It was a most extraordinary performance.’

‘Yes. He could have mourned his cousin and then realised that he had inherited the family property. Did you ever – no, you’re probably too young—’

‘Did I ever what?’

‘See a slender witch of a girl named, I think, Susan Salaman, perform a ballet solo called Funeral Dance for a Rich Aunt?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘It called for the same extraordinary mingling of two emotions.’

‘It must have been wildly comic!’

‘It was, wildly and brilliantly so.’

‘Well, we’ve sorted the Corries, so what about the Grants? Those of Coinneamh, I mean.’

‘Today’s thought. Well, now, what strikes you most about the Grants?’

‘Fishy people. I’ve changed my mind about them.’

‘By that you infer?’

‘I no longer think I can believe a word they say.’

‘They have not uttered very many words, child, when one comes to think of it.’

‘Granted,’ Laura agreed. ‘But what have we got on them, after all? There was the matter of my hired car and then the silly business of Grant’s being kidnapped, but – well, what else?’

‘Let us see.’ Dame Beatrice turned over a page of her notebook. ‘We begin, as you very rightly point out, with that so-far unexplained borrowing of your car. There was something very odd indeed about that. We have assumed that it made the journey between Coinneamh and Tannasgan, but there is no evidence, except that of the mileage, to show that that was indeed where the car went that night Then, as we have already noted, if Mrs Grant cannot drive, it cannot have been she who borrowed the car.’

‘But there’s nobody else it could have been,’ Laura protested. ‘I think she was lying.’

‘There is something in that. I see that it is still raining,’ said Dame Beatrice, with apparent inconsequence. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘Yes, with rum in it. Oh, well, no, perhaps not rum. I’d forgotten for the moment. Wonder what Cu Dubh looked like? I ought to have asked Mrs Grant when we were there.’ She signalled to the waiter, who had just served morning coffee at another table. ‘And now, what about the Grants and the possibility that they were lying at that last interview when we managed to get them both together?’

‘Let us have our coffee and enjoy it in peace,’ said Dame Beatrice, closing her notebook and restoring it to her skirt pocket. ‘I see that the bar is open. There is no reason why you should not drink rum. It is a kindly spirit and may assist thought.’

The waiter brought their coffee while Laura was at the bar and, when she returned to her seat, Dame Beatrice talked about the more amusing aspects of the Edinburgh Conference and then said:

‘I want to hear again exactly what happened on that afternoon and evening which you spent on Tannasgan.’

‘I don’t think you’ll pick up anything new,’ said Laura, ‘but here goes.’ When she had concluded her account, her employer, warning her that it was a leading question, asked whether, at any point during her walk, she had suspected that she was being dogged, followed or kept under any form of surveillance.

‘You’re thinking of the disinherited son.’ said Laura, ‘but I’m positive that my meeting him like that, at the edge of the loch, was sheer chance.’

‘I would still like to know why he signalled the island so that you were taken to An Tigh Mor.’

‘Can’t we put it down to a chivalrous gesture towards a damsel in distress?’

‘Well, we can,’ said Dame Beatrice doubtfully. ‘Let us place this tray on that vacant table and get to work again on the Grants.’

‘You noticed that Grant the elder said they had been marooned at Tigh-Osda station only for about a quarter of an hour?’ said Laura, when she had moved the tray.

‘I did notice it.’

‘Well, that was a fishy answer and I don’t think it was the truth. I mean, the Grants can’t have it both ways, can they?’

‘By which you mean…?’

‘Either she can drive, in which case (as I’ve felt certain all along) she did borrow my car that time I stayed there, or else they must have been at the station a lot longer than a quarter of an hour.’

‘Excellent. Pray expound your theory.’

‘Well, he was dead set on catching his train, wasn’t he?’