Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

Rutledge squatted on his heels. MacDougal said, “You won’t find anything. We were verra’ thorough.”

“I expect you were,” Rutledge said evenly. “I was just thinking that this was a perfect place for bones. What makes you so certain that the body was not here before 1916?”

“Condition, for one thing. And I talked to all the families who run sheep. They were certain it wasna’ here in the summer. A fox or dog had chewed the shoes, and what bits of clothing we found weren’t of any use. First thought was that we’d found a climber. People climb here who havena’ the sense of a beetle! They canna’ believe on a fine day like this one that the mists can come in sae fast, you’re lost before you take ten steps. And she was doubled up, as if trying to keep warm. Loose stones had washed around and over her.”

“Doubled? How?”

“Head on knees, arms around them. Made the body smaller, kept heat in the middle. The bones were still in a huddle, like. The doctor found no injuries, but that’s no’ to say she hadna’ turned her ankle or twisted her knee.”

Hamish said, “Doubled o’er, she’d fit behind the seat of a car, out of sight.”

Rutledge said, “If she was already dead, rigor had passed.”

“Aye, that’s right. Or hadna’ set in. The birds and foxes must have stripped the body in a matter of days. We couldn’t find one hand or the best part of a foot. Other bones had been pulled apart to get at the meat. The skull had rolled into her lap.” MacDougal sighed. “We’ve had a walker or two lost in these parts. But we always ken how they got into the glen. They’d be seen and reported. One left a bicycle. Another begged a lift on a crofter’s wagon. With this one, there’s no way of establishing when-or how-she came to be here. We don’t know the question to ask, do we? And it’s possible she came over the top, from the other side.”

“What’s your opinion of the engraving on the brooch?”

“I have none. It spells out ‘MacDonald,’ and that’s your patch, is it no’?” MacDougal grinned, then shrugged. “It could hae come from the dead woman’s clothing, if she was murdered and dragged up here. Climbers don’t wear much jewelry as a rule. Or it came from the murderer’s, trying to drag up that corpse. We do na’ have well-dressed middle-class women promenading up this mountainside, losing the odd brooch or two.”

“The center stone of the brooch isn’t scratched enough to have been washing down a mountainside since 1916.”

“Yes, I ken what you’re suggesting. Still, if it lodged somewhere for a time, then came down in the rains Betty spoke of, it might not have tumbled about all that much.”

If-if-if- Investigations were made and lost on “ifs.”

“We’ll have to take the brooch back with us. Oliver will give a receipt to Betty.”

“It’s a valuable piece to her,” MacDougal agreed. “I’m surprised she brought it to me in the first place. But her father’s a devil when he’s drunk. If he found she had such a thing, he’d beat her for stealing it and use that as an excuse to take it from her. She was probably counting on me to speak up for her if that happened. Betty spends the summer wi’ the sheep, as far away from him as she can get. I’ve seen her out here in all weathers, a small figure with naething but a dog for companionship.”

Rutledge got to his feet and looked around. This was a very beautiful valley-and very bleak. “Wild” was the word most often used to describe it. He thought about the February night when the massacre had begun, and how the soldiers had run through the darkness with torches, searching for those who had fled. Driven by blood lust. A nightmarish way to die…

“Is there any other?” Hamish asked quietly.

Rutledge shivered in the warm sun.

“Did you come here?” he asked Hamish silently. “You and Fiona? When there was no work to be done on the farm?”

“Aye, we came. With horses. Sometimes we climbed. Or we’d find a place out of the wind and eat the bannocks we’d brought wi’ us. She liked the glen. The silence, but for the wind. And the closeness to her kin…”

MacDougal was asking if Rutledge had seen enough. He nodded and they started back down, slipping once or twice.

“The Lawlor girl. What sort of family does she come from? Aside from the drunken father?”

“Poor enough. She’s the middle girl. They work hard and go hungry sometimes, I’ve no doubt.”

“Why didn’t she bide her time and quietly sell the brooch for whatever it might bring? Even a little money would allow her to escape from the glen and her father and her poverty.”

“She’s too young,” MacDougal said simply. “In another year or two she might have. That’s why she wants it back. If you take it, she’s locked into this life. There won’t be other brooches waiting for sharp eyes to pick them out!”

Joining Oliver and Betty Lawlor, they descended to the road. Oliver bent to brush off his trousers where the cuffs had collected a fine pattern of dust.

Rutledge said to the girl, “I’ve been admiring your shoes.”

There was a flare of fear in Betty Lawlor’s eyes, then she said defiantly, “I earned the money for them!”

It was a silent journey back to Duncarrick. McKinstry was wretchedly weighing the damage the brooch would do to Fiona MacDonald’s case. Rutledge, in the rear seat, could see the fine lines around his eyes, as if his head ached. But he drove with skill and attention to the road, wherever his mind was.

Oliver, on the other hand, was a satisfied man. His investigation had borne fruit, and he could see the end of it now. There was a smugness in his face, and from time to time his head dropped to his chest, relaxed into sleep.

Rutledge, remembering Betty Lawlor’s face when Oliver had offered her a scrap of paper in exchange for the brooch, wondered if she could read.

Fiona MacDonald’s lawyer could argue that the brooch was found in a part of Scotland where the MacDonald clan had lived for centuries. The brooch might well have belonged to any one of them.

But a jury could find it damning evidence…

The three men stopped for the night in Lanark, finding a small hotel where they were served a dinner of mutton soup with barley and a roast chicken. Oliver, fidgety and eager to be back in Duncarrick, called it an early night. McKinstry, poor company at best, excused himself as well.

When they had disappeared up the stairs, Rutledge went out for a walk. Relieved to be out of the glen, relieved to be alone-except for Hamish. The night was clear though cool, and the smell of wood smoke followed him out of the hotel. He was restless, thinking of Wilson and the clinic, thinking of the brooch and Betty Lawlor’s new shoes, thinking of Fiona.

The town was tranquil, lights shining from windows in the houses along side streets, shop fronts dark, a pub noisy with singing and laughter, a dog scavenging in an alley. Several men passed him, and then a couple arm in arm, intent on their soft conversation, and the sound of a carriage echoed down the main street. He could see the stars overhead, and the first threads of clouds winding among them.

Hamish hadn’t relished the journey to the glen. And it had awakened memories that Rutledge had convinced himself he was beginning to forget. Instead Scotland had revived them with a vengeance. He had been right not to want to come here.

Wishful thinking, that time might heal-it seldom healed anything, only making scars that were often tender to the touch, and ugly.

Without knowing how he got there, he found himself outside the local police station. He had come here the last time he was in Lanark, asking for information about private clinics and hospitals. The constable on duty had sent him to Dr. Wilson. He stopped, looking up at the lamp above the door, his mind not really taking in his surroundings.