Chapter 18
Emma broke off, looking up from the pages.
This was a new twist. Was the writer suggesting that Flora had caused the fatal accident?
Because she hadn’t wanted Lucy to leave her behind?
Surely if she was close to Lucy, bosom friends as Sir Henry had suggested, she wouldn’t want her harmed or killed.
But she was the Wild Girl. She clearly didn’t play by the rules of society.
Emma considered Chisholm. He was the more likely suspect.
Described as arrogant and smug. Lucy was his conquest. If he married her, he’d acquire more land and more power.
So if she had rejected him and he found she was fleeing with a man he considered his social inferior, he would have been angry enough to make sure they never made that crossing.
And staying in a cottage rather than the main house would have given him the freedom to come and go without being noticed.
She jotted down more notes, satisfied that the case could now be easily solved.
There were not too many more pages. She would finish it by the end of the day, and then she could tell Iris that she felt confident enough to tie the remaining threads together and finish the book.
And she was looking forward to going to Scotland, seeing for herself the scenes described, although it wasn’t strictly necessary.
Iris had described it all well enough. She picked up the next set of pages off the pile:
“So I can safely leave you in good hands then?” MacDonald said as they followed Sir Henry out of the room. “As soon as we’ve taken a look at the bodies.”
Lady Hamilton still sat by the fire, not moving. The look on her face was one of blank despair.
The butler appeared in the hall in that uncanny way that butlers had of knowing when someone was about to leave.
“Ah, Cummings, go and find Mr Roland and tell him he’s wanted. Tell him he’ll find us in the game larder.”
“Very good, Sir Henry.” The elderly man went up the stairs with surprising agility.
“Right. Follow me. This way.” They stepped out into a fine, misty rain.
Sir Henry didn’t seem to notice the rain or go back for an umbrella.
Instead he led them around the side of the keep to several low stone outbuildings.
He opened the door to one of these. Melrose reacted to the smell.
In spite of the cold temperature inside, the bodies were beginning to decay.
There was a stone slab on each side and a cruel-looking hook hanging from the ceiling at the back.
It looked like a house of horrors to Melrose.
The two bodies were lying on the slabs, each covered in a white sheet.
Sir Henry went ahead and drew back the first sheet.
The young man looked greenish-white but quite peaceful.
He had had a pleasant face, but there was no trace of expression. He resembled a large porcelain doll.
“You have had a doctor examine both of them?” Melrose asked. His voice echoed from the stone walls and floor. “And he signed a death certificate?”
“Of course. The cause of death was drowning. That’s obvious enough isn’t it? No sign of trauma on either body, so nobody knocked them into the water. The boat capsized. They went in.”
“Could your daughter not swim?”
“She could not,” Sir Henry said. “With the temperature of the water here there is little need for swimming lessons. And I gather that Stewart could not swim either.”
“It’s interesting to me that Stewart was found near the boat and your daughter down the coast on the mainland,” Melrose said.
“The currents are strong in the channel,” Sir Henry said. “Maybe Stewart was able to cling to the boat for a while before he became too cold and lost his grip while Lucy went under and was carried away.”
Melrose covered Stewart again, then went across to the other body.
“It’s not a pretty sight,” Sir Henry said. “She was face down in a rock pool for quite a while. The crabs must have gone to work on her.”
He pulled back the sheet and Melrose swallowed hard. Part of her face and neck were eaten away. “I don’t need to see more,” he said, hastily covering her again with the sheet. “At least she was dead before . . .” He shuddered.
“You wanted me, Father?” A voice from the doorway made them turn around.
Roland Hamilton was indeed a young version of his father.
Striking red hair, a strong chin and blue eyes.
A remarkably good-looking family, Melrose thought.
Even at twenty-one Roland had that same air of arrogance.
Did all aristocrats look like that? Melrose wondered.
Were they born that way or did they acquire the expression from ordering other people around all their lives and having servants bowing and scraping to them?
“Ah yes, Roland, my boy,” Sir Henry said. “This is Inspector Melrose, sent to us from Glasgow. He wants to take a look at the wrecked boat and to find Flora.”
“I don’t know what good either of those things will do,” Roland said, giving Melrose a look of dislike. Or was it disdain? “The boat capsized. And Flora wasn’t even here when it happened.”
“Your sister may have confided in her about her plans to run away,” Melrose said.
“My sister was quite a private person,” Roland said.
“I doubt she would have confided in a peasant girl who was only here out of the goodness of my mother. Mother wanted to educate the girl. I doubt that it did much good. They say her own mother was wild, too. Slept with any sailor who came into port. The locals say she was part kelpie. Ridiculous superstition, of course. Primitive people.”
“That’s enough, Roland,” Sir Henry said, his voice echoing in the chamber.
“The girl is not to be judged on her mother. I’d say my wife and Lucy did a fine job of educating her.
Miss Anderson said she had a good brain and a willingness to learn.
Anyway, I’m asking you to fetch the estate car and drive the inspector where he needs to go—unless you have more pressing matters? ”
“I do. Plenty of pressing matters. Didn’t you tell me I should be studying for my law exams?” Roland scowled at the two policemen. “Do the police not have their own motor cars on this island?”
“We do, but I’m needed elsewhere,” MacDonald said. “I can’t put a police vehicle at the inspector’s disposal for the entire time he is here. I need to be back at headquarters.”
“Headquarters?” Roland gave a derisive chuckle.
“That shack in Portree? Come now, man. What major crimes are you expecting to find committed in the next few days? I take it this man from Glasgow will only need to be here for a day or so. He’s not going to find Chisholm on the island, is he?
And if anyone damaged the boat, it will have been he.
” He turned to Melrose. “I suggest we call this a horrible mistake, an accidental drowning, so we don’t embarrass another important family, and let us give my sister a decent burial. ”
“And if somebody did deliberately send your sister to a watery grave, do you not want them apprehended and punished?” Melrose held his gaze.
The young man eventually shrugged and looked away.
“You’ll never find him,” he said. “He has money and a powerful family. They’ll have spirited him off somewhere. He’ll be in the colonies by now.”
“Well, get going then,” Sir Henry said. “Go with Roland. He’ll drive you.”
“Father, I really don’t . . . ,” Roland began, but Sir Henry cut him off. “Now, Roland. Get cracking.”
Another thought had come to Melrose. “Perhaps I should speak to the other members of the household first. The governess? Your daughter might have confided in her.”
“The governess was let go recently. When Euan Chisholm arrived to court Lucy it was clear that her school days were behind her and the governess was no longer needed.”
“Where would I find her now?” Melrose asked.
“I presume she moved back in with her parents on the mainland,” Sir Henry said.
“Her father was the local schoolmaster in Kyle of Lochalsh, on the other side of the ferry. Miss Anderson assisted him at the school before coming to us. I understand she was quite well educated. Her father had been to the university and imparted his knowledge to her. At least she was educated enough to teach Lucy the basics she needed to know.”
Melrose made a note that he should take the ferry across to Kyle and speak with the lady as soon as he could.
“I’ll be on my way then.” MacDonald thumped him on the shoulder.
“You’ll be able to reach me by telephone if you need me.
There is a telephone at the hotel where you’re staying.
Perhaps Mr Roland will be kind enough to drive you back to your hotel, and they can summon Jock and his taxi when you need him. ”
“Come on, if you’re coming,” Roland said. “The garage is this way.”
Melrose remembered his manners. “Thank you for your time, Sir Henry. I’ll keep you updated on any developments,” he said. “And if anything else occurs to you, please pass along any information to me at the Kings Arms.”
“What information is there likely to be?” Sir Henry said, giving him a scornful look. “Somebody caused my daughter’s death. She drowned. Nothing you do can bring her back. But I would like the person responsible for this caught.”
He stumped off towards the front steps. Melrose followed Roland past several outbuildings to what had clearly been the old stables but now housed a Daimler and a shooting brake. Melrose waited as Roland started the latter up and drove it out of its parking space, then got in beside him.
“So are you supposed to be some bright new hope of the police force?” Roland asked. “All the new forensic techniques and that sort of thing? Did they send you to college?”
“I have been trained in the latest methods, yes,” Melrose replied civilly although he could tell the other man’s tone was derisive.
“But you can’t beat experience on the streets, dealing with real criminals and solving real cases.
I had a good mentor who had been on the force for thirty years.
There wasn’t anything about the criminal mind he didn’t know. ”
“Such a pity we’re not dealing with criminal minds here then,” Roland said.
“If Euan sank the boat it was in a mad fit of rage and jealousy. He was a spoiled little boy, you know. He’d have a tantrum if he didn’t get what he wanted, and he wanted my sister and all that came with her.
He wouldn’t have given up without a fight. ”
“Did you ever see your sister and Chisholm have any sort of confrontation?”
“Not a confrontation,” Roland said. “But she made it quite clear she didn’t like him. He was patronizing, too smarmy. She liked people to be straightforward, not say things they didn’t mean.”
“Would the match have gone ahead anyway, even if your sister didn’t want it?” Melrose asked.
“Would my parents have forced her to marry him?” Roland frowned. “I don’t think so, but they were of the opinion that she was young and sheltered. That she would have come to like him when she got to know him better.”
“Do you think that would have happened?”
“Probably not. My sister was strong-minded, even though she came across as dainty and meek. We had some good old fights when we were young.”
“Did you and your sister get along well?”
“When we were children we were very close. We did everything together. Then I was sent off to school and then university, and the relationship was never the same. And when Flora came Lucy turned all her attention and affection to her. She became the sister Lucy never had.”
“Do you believe she was involved in this . . . tragedy?”
“Flora?” Roland shrugged. “Who can say? Flora is a law unto herself. She doesn’t abide by the rules like the rest of us.”
“Do you think we’ll find her?”
Roland shrugged again. “If she hears there’s a policeman from Glasgow come to Skye I reckon she’ll be off and away into the hills.”