“The Lewis dialect has a big Irish/Scandinavian influence,” he’d said, “and the Harris dialect is totally different again. Although I don’t see why that causes anyone any difficulty.”
I’d seen constable MacLeod look blank at a phrase or two there. Not fully fluent? A lot of the islanders weren’t, these days. We walked along quietly after that and soon came to the Royal Hotel, where Damien and Vanessa Price had intended to spend the first four nights of their holiday on the islands. As always, I wasn’t looking forward to this part of the job at all.
Five
I sent Ewan MacLeod back to the station with a thank you. He was a likeable young man and had been helpful, but I was sure he had better things to do than hang around waiting for us. It wasn’t as if we couldn’t find our own way around a town this size easily enough. Shay and I entered the pretty white harbourfront hotel, and I had the girl at the reception desk call up to the room to ask if Mrs Price could see us. She told me that the nice lady constable who was with her said yes. We followed the receptionist’s directions up to the next floor and down a carpeted hallway, and I tapped quietly at the door. The constable slipped out, pulling it almost closed behind her, and we walked back along the hallway to the head of the stairs so we could confer.
“Constable Annie MacLeod, Sir,” she introduced herself, “I was informed of your arrival.” Annie MacLeod was a pretty girl with very dark hair, wide black eyes and a milky, clear complexion. No trace of any Viking ancestry in those little bones. She reminded me a bit of Mair, in a way, although they were not at all alike. Strong old bloodlines from pre-Roman times showing in both our Bangor girl from north Wales and this island Scot. I found out later that if she was any relation to Ewan, the connection was too far back for either of them to be aware of it. There was no shortage of MacLeods on either island. Both the Lewis clan and the Harris clan had been dominant presences in these parts for centuries.
“Nice to meet you, Annie.” I shook her hand. She looked drawn, tired and sad. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her uniform shirt looked as if it had been slept in. “How is Mrs Price holding up this morning?”
“Not very well at all, Sir,” she told me. “I doubt she snatched more than an hour or two of sleep, on and off. And she didn’t touch her supper or her breakfast, apart from taking a drop of tea and a bite of toast before losing interest. The doctor left something to help her sleep, but she wouldn’t take it.” She twisted her hands miserably. “I think our being there is making her feel even worse, Sir, but the doctor said she shouldn’t be left alone. Maggie and I, that’s Constable MacAdam, Sir, have been spelling each other since yesterday, so we both got our heads down at the station for a few hours each in turn - but Mrs Price doesn’t want us in there with her, and it’s all been very awkward.”
No, having strangers around wouldn’t help to make Vanessa Price feel any better at all, but if the doctor had been concerned enough to request constant observation, it was better to be safe than sorry. Vanessa Price wouldn’t be the first person confronting an intolerable loss to decide that dying seemed far easier than facing another day. In the mentally healthy, the danger period was relatively brief, thank goodness. Wishing you could just die and actually killing yourself were two entirely different things. Nobody in their right minds would do such an awful thing to their families.
I looked to Shay, who was hanging back behind Annie’s shoulder. His photochromatic glasses had lightened to a semi-opaque, lighter shade of blue in the dimmer indoor light. My cousin’s face had unsurprisingly become an unreadable blank mask, what was visible of it when he lifted his head like that, anyway. His sympathetic resonance with the bereaved was always far stronger than any regret he might feel for the victims themselves; it wasn’t as if they could feel any pain now.
“Are any of the family on their way yet?” he asked in a perfectly normal, mildly interested low tone.
“Her Mam and her sister, aye,” Annie told him, without turning. “They’ll be on the afternoon flight from Glasgow.”
I was glad to hear it. It was a great pity they hadn’t been able to get here sooner, but at least Vanessa Price would soon be in the best possible hands. No doubt Annie and her friend Maggie were both very much looking forward to their arrival too. It was hard to imagine a less palatable assignment than their current one. I’d take a day of dumpster diving over that kind of watch without hesitation.
“Well, there’s no helping it,” though I really wished there was. “We need to speak with her as soon as possible, so we’d best get on with it.” Annie nodded and led us back along the hall.
“Go with the preventing further harm angle,” Shay advised me in an almost inaudible whisper before we reached the room. “It might be the only thing that could get her focused right now.” He took my bag off me and put it on his free shoulder, just like a good PA would.
Vanessa Price looked absolutely ghastly. She may have dozed
