My Bones Will Keep

‘No, no. I was for knocking off, anyway, when Corrie came over. Well, I have done what I could for the place. Tomorrow I must away.’

‘You are thinking of leaving Tannasgan?’

‘Well is it called Tannasgan! There’s nothing here but ghosts. Ay, and they leave their promises behind them, and the promises are as ghostly as their makers. Besides, I’m in danger. The police have been here again. A great fool I was to call them in! It’s true that they’ve taken off Bradan’s wee grilse. I hear he’s for trial on a major charge. But the inspector stayed behind and speired at me again about Bradan’s death. He means to pin that on me. I ken that very well.’

‘I wouldn’t run away. It looks bad,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘What does the deer do if it gets wind of the stalker? I tell you, yon man needs a scapegoat.’

‘Has he anything to build on in thinking that you might be the guilty person?’

‘Ay.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘I found Bradan’s body and I piped him a lament. Then it came to me that I was the heir to this’ – he waved an arm like the trunk of a young oak – ‘and I changed my tune.’

‘You certainly did,’ agreed Laura. ‘It sounded like hell gone mad.’

Macbeth, forgetting his grievances, looked gratified.

‘Ay,’ he said, ‘I’m a guid man on the pipes when I let masel go.’ His face changed again. ‘But it was an ill night for me when that reporter laddie heard me.’

‘We both heard you,’ said Laura. ‘Nobody could help it. I should think they heard you in Freagair.’

‘The newspaper laddie brought back the boat and seeped back into the house. He opened the door and then closed it behind him. I was marching up and down to my piping, you’ll understand, and as I turned I saw him. His hair was on end and his face was white, but he stood his ground.

‘ “You’re still here, then?” I speired at him, and at that he nods his head.

‘ “And I’m no leaving without my story,” he tells me.

‘ “And what story may that be?”

‘ “I spied Bradan being brought hame?”

‘ “You did? And what about it?”

‘ “He was in a verra bad way. There were twa men in the boat. They almost had to carry him ashore.”

‘ “Look, now,” I said, “if a gentleman and a landowner canna be fou with his ain friends in his ain boat, where can he be fou?”

‘ “He was no fou,” the laddie said. “The belief is on me that he’s dead.”

‘Well, I had to make up my mind. I wasna so very sure how much the laddie had seen, so I told him that, if he’s a mind to, he could take a keek at anything he liked, and then he was to print what he thought fit. I warned him to be careful what he printed, because a newspaper is fair game to extortionists, and then I left him to it. I kenned he would find the laird, for he was in the cellar.’ He turned to Laura ‘And gin I hadna been engaged with you and your fashes, mistress, I’d have heard them bring him in.’

‘Sorry,’ said Laura. ‘Pity neither of us knew. Do tell us more.’

‘I dinna ken ony mair. The neist thing I knew was Corrie banging on my door the morn and speiring did I know that the laird was in a barrel over at the quay. I thought the man was haverin’, but he was right, so I sent him off for a doctor and the doctor – from Freagair he was – found that Bradan had been killed.’

‘Yes,’ put in Dame Beatrice, ‘but how? By what means?’

‘He had a muckle great lump on the back of his head and a skian-dhu intil his ribs.’

‘The lump on the head would account for his having to be helped up to the house, I suppose, but what about the skian-dhu?’

‘I dinna ken. It was not mine.’

‘Did they test it for fingerprints?’ asked Laura.

‘I dinna ken that, either. The police move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform, but what they do is no business of mine so long as I keep out of their hands, and that I’m determined to do. So, mistress’ – he met Dame Beatrice’s eye – ‘gin ye ken ony gowk wha will put up good siller for a house and an island, Tannasgan and An Tigh Mor are in feu.’

‘I would rent them myself for a fortnight,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘A sennight would do. Verra guid.’

‘Very well. How much are you asking?’

‘I wouldna want to take a cheque. Will ya give me ten pounds? I’m a man of my word. I want naething signed, ye ken, and I’ll no give ye a receipt. Gin ye’ll hand me twa five-pound notes, Tannasgan and An Tigh Mor will be yours for seven days. Doubtless ye’re thinking of taking a wee holiday.’

‘Yes, and a childish one,’ said Dame Beatrice. She pulled out a notecase and handed over the money. Laura looked on, amazed, but she realised that there was a tacit understanding that she should say nothing until Macbeth had gone. He wrung Dame Beatrice’s yellow fingers, nodded to Laura and went out of the room. In no time he was back, a kit-bag slung over his shoulder.

‘Well, gu’n robh maith agad,’ he said.