Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

A pretty thing, and had probably been treasured once.

Rutledge said, “May I?” and took the brooch to examine it more closely.

The stones, well polished, flashed in his hand. The color was striking. He turned the brooch this way and that, to catch the light. Under the pin he noted that something had been engraved. Time had worn whatever it was to a blur.

“See just there. Initials, I think.” He pointed these out to Oliver. “Or a name. I can’t quite make them out-” Working with the light and shadow, he finally said, “There’s an M- possibly an A-a D-surely that’s an A-L.”

Oliver took the brooch and turned it back and forth himself, then shook his head. “Is that an M? Are you certain? Or an N?”

He passed the brooch on to MacDougal. “I looked at it earlier,” he confessed. “With a glass, before I telephoned you. It’s an M right enough.” He paused, and then said, “With a glass you can read the whole of it. ‘MacDonald.’ ”

McKinstry moved, denial in the abrupt shift from one foot to the other. In the ensuing silence, MacDougal handed the brooch back to Betty Lawlor. Her fingers closed over it until the knuckles were white.

“How far from where the body was found would you say this came to light?” Rutledge asked MacDougal.

“Possibly a hundred feet downhill. But it could have washed that far. In the rains and melting snow. After all, if you take into account the fact that it was here for several years, it’s not surprising at all.” He pointed above their heads again, where scree had been brought down the rough face of the peak. “I’d say the brooch must have come from above. There’s no other explanation. People don’t walk just here. It’s too uncertain. Most climbers follow that line over there.” He shifted to show them the preferred path. “And there.” He pointed across the road to the opposite slope. “It’s not impossible someone would be walking in our direction, but I’d say the odds were strongly against it.”

Hamish said, “The cairngorm wasna’ scratched enough to ha’ washed that far!”

Rutledge turned to Betty Lawlor, standing silently as they talked, her eyes moving from face to face. A self-contained child… “How did it happen that you were up there?”

She shrugged. “I walk all over this land. Always have. Helping with the sheep. I doubt there’s a foot of it I havena’ covered at some time or another.”

“But you never came upon the body that was found higher up?”

“I might’ve if the sheep had gone that far up. But generally they don’t just there. Stupid beasts, they are, but not foolish.”

He looked down at her shoes as she spoke, thinking of her walking day after day over such rough terrain-a hard life for a child.

Her shoes were new. Sturdy. He could see the leather toes just peeking out at the hem of her gown. The gown was a hand-me-down, the shawl the same. But her shoes were new. Even the edges of the soles hadn’t been worn yet.

Oliver said, “Tell me what you told Inspector MacDougal when you brought in the brooch.”

She looked at him directly, shading her eyes with her hand. “It was nearly a year ago that I found it. Summer anyway. I saw it in the sun. It was the first day it hadna’ stormed in a week or more. I didna’ like to think it might belong to- to whoever it was they found. Up there. It was pretty, and I wanted to keep it. But I’m afraid my father will find it and beat me for stealing. So I went to Inspector MacDougal to ask him to set it right!” She broke off, then asked anxiously, “You aren’t going to take it away, are you? You can’t be sure it’s hers!”

Oliver said magnanimously, “I’m afraid it must be taken in evidence. But when we’ve finished with it, I’ll see that you have it back again.” His eyes switched to Rutledge’s face. He didn’t have to put into words what was in both their minds. This was the first direct link between Fiona and the mountain. Between Fiona and the bones that might be Eleanor Gray’s.

Rutledge said nothing.

MacDougal asked Betty to take them to the place where she found the brooch, and she turned to spring up the hillside like one of the sheep she watched out for. Strong for all her thinness, and agile, she seemed to fly. Oliver, puffing in her wake, swore under his breath, but didn’t ask her to slow down. McKinstry turned back to stay with the vehicles.

Rutledge was just behind her, watching the new shoes, watching her almost intuitive knowledge of where there was enough stability to place a foot. She had learned from the sheep MacDougal, keeping pace but red-faced, said, “Fra’ the top are fine views. I used to climb here as a lad, with my brothers.”

“Did you know the MacDonalds?” Rutledge asked him.

“I knew one of them-brother of the accused, I’d guess. A good man. He lost his legs and bled to death before they could get him back over the wire. My brother died the same day. Machine-gun fire. I was lucky-shot three times but nothing that kept me from going back.” There was a quiet irony in his voice.

They had come some distance, cutting diagonally across the mountain’s face, slipping and sliding here or there, and Betty had begun to look around, as if trying to find landmarks.

Finally she paused and pointed to an area that was perhaps ten feet square. “About here, I’d guess,” she told them.

It was a rocky slope that seemed to be no different from any of its neighbors for a hundred yards in any direction.

“Why are you so sure?” Oliver demanded, mopping his face with a large handkerchief. “I can’t see any difference between this patch and that one-or that one over there.”

“See for yoursel’. I can match that spot just above us with that one across the way-” She pointed to the great bare face opposite, and following her finger, they identified a small outcropping of rock.

If you looked, Rutledge thought, you could find your way easily. But it was always a matter of seeing. To the uninitiated, this was barren ground. Above their heads, another tumbled mass of rock stood out against the sky.

Following his gaze, MacDougal said, “It was there we found the remains. In a slight crevice where water has brought down the supporting scree and left a hollow.” He paused, then said, “You’d have to know it was there. The hollow. It isn’t visible from the road.”

In short, no one would think to leave a body there who didn’t have some familiarity with these mountains.

“Want to climb up?” MacDougal asked.

Rutledge nodded and they walked on, picking their way carefully. It was hot here in the sun, and feet unused to this terrain found it difficult to know where to step with any certainty.

Carrying a body, Hamish pointed out, would not be easy. And for a woman, very nearly impossible. “Unless the corpse was dragged on a rope.”

And there was no one to see such a long, laborious effort. From where he stood, Rutledge could look down at the two motorcars, Oliver standing talking to Betty Lawlor, and a ruined croft some distance away. In the far distance, he saw sheep, but no one with them.

“Hard place for a woman to carry a dead weight,” MacDougal said as if reading his thoughts. “But if that brooch belongs to the deceased, it means she’s not your missing woman. Eleanor Gray.”

“And if it belonged to the murderer, then we have her in custody,” Rutledge finished for him.

They had reached the outcropping where three heavy rocks were lying in a heap. Not so large by the standards of these mountains, but beyond a man’s strength to tumble together so tidily. And where the smaller fragments had washed out from under, there was indeed a crevice. Put a body here in April, and it might be found. But put it here before the weather turns and the autumn storms begin, and it would still be here in the spring. What was left.