Mary Daheim - Scots on the Rocks

“Uh…” Renie peered down at the ground. “Maybe. But you can’t.”

“If you move enough people, I can stay upright and follow you.”

“Oh…” Renie looked aghast. But the sirens were very close. “Okay, here goes,” she said, digging into her purse and taking out a pair of small but very pointed nail scissors. “Stay close.” She squatted down, got to her knees, and began to crawl toward the road.

As the shouts and jeers became punctured with sharp squeals of pain and hopping feet, Judith was able to squeeze between Renie’s victims, who had been caught off guard by the unexpected jabs with the nail scissors. Mouthing apologies and stumbling awkwardly through the throng, Judith had broken into a sweat by the time she got to the road. Fortunately, the crowd was thinning out as two police vans came toward the entrance to Hollywood House.

“I can’t get up!” Renie cried, sounding miserable. “About a hundred people stepped on me! I’m a wreck!”

Judith gave her cousin a hand and helped her get to her feet. “You do look pretty ghastly,” she said, taking in Renie’s disheveled hair, which sported a couple of candy wrappers, a cigarette butt, and an unopened condom. “Let’s see if we can move our stolen police car.”

The sedan was right where they’d left it, but it wasn’t empty. Judith spotted two figures in the front seat.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Someone else is trying to steal it!”

“No!” Renie gasped. “What’s this world coming to?”

Wiping perspiration from her forehead, Judith moved purposefully through the gaggle of onlookers, some of whom had lost their steam as the police vans came to a stop nearby. Reaching the car, she looked inside and saw Alpin MacRae in the passenger seat. Recognizing Judith, he rolled down the window.

“I can explain…” Judith began, starting to sweat again.

“Of course,” MacRae said with a grim smile. “But not now. Thank God you were able to get here. We had to borrow bicycles from the village after we lost track of James Blackwell and heard about this mob. Would you like to get in?”

“Oh yes!” Judith was confused by MacRae’s reaction but needed sanctuary, not explanations. She opened the back door and practically fell into the seat. Renie scrambled in next to her.

“Are you all right?” MacRae asked after swiftly surveying the cousins.

“Yes, yes,” Judith replied.

“Speak for yourself,” Renie muttered, raking the detritus from her hair. “I’ve scraped my hands and knees. I’ll have bruises all over…”

Her words were drowned out by a loudspeaker ordering the crowd to disperse.

“Inverness sent a riot squad,” MacRae said. “This is an amazing turn of events, like a rock concert or a football game on a smaller scale.”

“I never saw the like,” Ogilvie asserted, “except at a Dundee United match against Heart of Midlothian. Hearts is bloody vicious.”

MacRae gave his subordinate a faintly patronizing glance. “Aye, lad, but this melee is a wee bit different. I don’t like it. I gather Jocko Morton has been stirring up the local folk.”

“That’s so,” Judith said, watching as several riot squad police spilled onto the road and took up positions. A handful of younger people seemed confrontational, but most of the crowd began to break up. “Have you seen the banner on the village green?”

Keeping his eyes on the situation that was beginning to ease, MacRae nodded. “We walk a fine line between free speech and inciting a riot.” He turned to Ogilvie. “Stay with the ladies. I’ll make sure everything’s under control.”

As soon as MacRae got out of the car, Judith tapped Ogilvie’s shoulder. “Have you been to Grimloch since we found Chuckie?”

“Aye.” Ogilvie’s expression was somber. “A horrible way to kill someone, poor laddie. Mr. Fordyce is offering a million-pound reward.”

“Surely,” Judith said, “he has confidence in the police.”

“He does,” Ogilvie assured her, “but he’s that upset over losing his only bairn.”

“Do you think that whoever killed Chuckie also killed Harry?” Judith asked as Renie made faces and obscene gestures at the people who were staring at her in the police car.

Ogilvie shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

“No,” Judith agreed. She poked Renie. “Stop that! This is an official vehicle!”

“These morons think I’m an official prisoner,” Renie declared. “They ought to be cheering me. Why aren’t they getting arrested?”

“Only if they resist,” Ogilvie said. “They’re giving up, it seems.”

“Glad you folks don’t play much hockey,” Renie murmured. “We colonials get kind of fractious at the ice rink.”

MacRae, who had been conferring with a member of the riot squad, got back into the car. “We can leave,” he informed Ogilvie. “The driveway is clear and constables will be on duty. Mrs. Gibbs’s doctor is on his way. She had a fainting spell after her…ah…balcony appearance.”

“No wonder,” Judith said. “From what I’ve heard, Moira’s a very emotional young woman. Of course she’s been through a great deal. Her health also seems precarious.”

“Indeed,” MacRae said as Ogilvie drove slowly to avoid stragglers. “Mrs. Gibbs is the Poor Little Rich Girl personified. She—stop!”

A man had flung himself on the car’s hood. He was facedown, his hands stretched out as if in supplication.

“Don’t move!” MacRae ordered as he and Ogilvie got out of the car.

“Was he pushed?” Judith said to Renie.

“I don’t know. I still can’t see very well.”

Only a couple of people were close by. Judith peered through the backseat window and recognized Barry and Alison. Quickly, she rolled the window down and called to them. “Did you see what happened?”

They both shook their heads. “Too sudden,” Barry replied. “Have you been arrested?”

“No.” Judith waved weakly and focused on the man who was being helped off of the hood. She still couldn’t see his face, but the dark raincoat looked familiar. At last he turned just enough so that Judith could see a bloody gash on his left cheek. When he dug into his pockets to pull out a handkerchief, he turned again.

“It’s Will Fleming,” Judith said softly. “I guess he’s not missing after all.”

Asheepish Will Fleming squeezed in next to Judith. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” he murmured, dabbing at the wound on his cheek with a white handkerchief. “Did the police rescue you, too?”

MacRae spoke up before either of the cousins could answer. “It was the other way round,” he said, twisting in the front seat just enough to look at Will. “Did you get that cut from one of the crowd?”

“I was gashed by a sharp branch while avoiding the mob at Hollywood House,” Will said. “I had to crawl through the shrubbery.”

“Do you need a doctor?” MacRae asked. “Mrs. Gibbs has called in a Dr. Carmichael for her own problems.”

“No,” Will replied. “Take me home. Marie must be frantic.”

“Of course,” MacRae said, then addressed Ogilvie. “Monk Road, the Priory. We reversed for about three kilometers.”

Judith was puzzled. “Why is Marie so upset?”

“We’d been to a…sort of soiree earlier this evening,” Will responded. “After we left, we heard about poor Chuckie Fordyce. I told Marie I’d go to Grimloch to see Philip and Beth. I insisted that Marie take the car and go home. She’s just getting over flu. When I didn’t come home within an hour, she panicked, thinking perhaps that something had happened to me. We live in dangerous times.”

The explanation was smooth. Too smooth, Judith thought. An hour wasn’t nearly long enough to make even the most anxious of wives call the cops.