Chapter 35
Emma found Jock back at his father’s snack bar and treated them both to a hot meat pie.
“It’s good,” she commented. “And we Aussies know about meat pies.”
“So did you find what you were looking for at the newspaper?” Jock’s father asked.
“I did. It was pretty much as the author has written it.” She did not add “with the exception of the buried suitor.” Was that a figment of Iris’s fertile imagination? There would be no way of finding out until she had a chance to talk to Iris . . . and then would she remember?
“I’m wondering if I should have a talk with the local police,” Emma said. “They were involved at the time. They’d have records, wouldn’t they?”
“Likely they would,” Jock agreed. “So I’ll take you to the police station, if that’s what you want.”
They came out into cold dampness and Emma followed Jock across the waterfront again and then turned up a side street.
The police station was not far, an unassuming whitewashed stone building.
The constable at the desk listened patiently but then shook his head.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there was a fire sometime in the twenties and all our records were burned, so I can’t really help you there. ”
“Oh well. That’s that then,” Emma said as they came out. “I don’t know much that I didn’t know before.”
“But you said it was a novel she was writing. Fiction, right?”
“I now think it was entirely based on this real case,” Emma said. “I want to speak to the Pattersons.”
The drive back took longer, with the car going through patches of dense mist as the road hugged the shoreline and then rose above it on the crests. Jock dropped her off at the hotel with the promise to come at nine the next day. Once she was back in the Kings Arms she started another postcard.
She wrote: The story is real, but I suspect you knew that. I’m going to visit the Pattersons tomorrow. (The name of the real family.) I can’t wait to find out more. Sincerely, Emma.
Lying on her bed, looking out at the mist swirling outside her window, she had time to think.
So Iris had come here in the nineteen thirties when there were people around who still remembered the drowning of the laird’s daughter.
Presumably she had been shown Craigard, and perhaps the driver said, “There’s a tragic story associated with this castle.
” Iris’s ears would have pricked up, and she’d have wanted to know more, probably interviewing local people to get the details and maybe going to read the newspaper archives.
Back in the thirties she would not have been so famous and thus not recognized, so perhaps nobody would remember her now.
Had she made up the murder of Mr Chisholm to make the story darker and more complicated?
Emma had to talk to the Patterson family and find out what they knew or didn’t know.
Close to dinner time there was a tap on her door, and Emma opened it to find Mrs Bruce standing there.
“If you don’t mind, my dear,” she said, “I’ll serve you your meal in the lounge tonight.
We’ve got a big, rowdy party taking up the dining room, and I don’t think you’d feel comfortable there.
Football players, you know. The local team having their kickoff celebration for the upcoming season. ”
“Thank you.” Emma smiled. “I think I’d probably not want to join a room full of football players.”
“But you’ll be pleased to know that it’s roast beef tonight, on account of the number of men we have to feed.
” Mrs Bruce delivered this parting shot as she closed Emma’s door again.
Knowing that the place was full of young men made Emma touch up her make-up and tidy her hair before she went out to dinner.
She admitted to a certain amount of vanity, after all.
Loud male voices came from the bar and dining room, followed by raucous laughter.
She took a seat at the far end of the lounge near the fireplace and waited for Mrs Bruce to find her, rather than going up to the bar for a sherry.
A large plate of roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, roasted parsnips and cabbage was delivered to her place, and Emma asked for a glass of red wine. Then she settled in to eat alone.
A trifle followed and Emma was feeling rather full and content as she finished the last of her wine.
The noise level had dropped while the men next door attacked their own meals, but clearly they too had finished now as somebody broke into song, and there was more laughter and shouted insults.
Emma had decided it might be wise to retreat to her room when the door to the dining room opened and Andrew Patterson came out, a glass of something in his hand.
He saw her and a big smile spread across his face.
Her own pulse quickened at seeing him. He really was an attractive man.
A vision of Tony flashed into her mind but she dismissed it.
Tony has a girlfriend, a very suitable girlfriend, remember.
“Hello again,” he said. “I’m glad to find you here. I’ve had enough of that rowdy bunch.”
“Are you a football player then?” she asked as he came over to her.
“Not me. I played rugby at school. But my family sponsors the team, so I had to be present to give the official blessing, since my father claimed he was too busy to do it—lazy bugger.”
He took a seat beside her. “Can I get you a whisky?”
“I hate to say it but I’ve never tried it.”
“Well, we must remedy that. Patterson’s Fine Malt is the best, though I say it with all modesty.
” Andrew winked at her, laughing, as he went to the bar.
He really was quite attractive, she thought, followed by the realization that a nice chat with Andrew could get her the invitation to the castle so she could find out more details.
He returned with a glass for her, his own refilled.
She took a sip, gasped as it went down her throat, blinked and coughed.
Andrew laughed.
“It’s strong,” she said.
“Aye. They say here it’s guaranteed to put hair on your . . .” He broke off. “Chest,” he finished, making her smile, too. “Now take another sip and tell me that you sense overtones of smoky peat and juniper with a bouquet that is almost chocolate.”
“All I’m tasting is fiery liquid,” she said.
He leaned closer. “I have to admit that I don’t notice all these supposed overtones and undertones, but that’s what we have to tell the people who come to taste. It makes them feel superior.” He laughed again. “So what have you been doing so far? Have you done the required tour of the island yet?”
“I have,” she said. “Everything is spectacular.”
He nodded. “You’re right, and we take it all for granted.
Our mountains are as challenging as anything in the Alps, you know.
I’ve been doing a little climbing since I came home.
I’m not sure that I’ll take to it—frankly it scares the pants off me—but I have to admit the views are amazing. You don’t climb, I take it?”
“No. Never tried it,” she said. She decided to test the waters. “We did the tour of Dunvegan Castle. It is very impressive, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he said. “Those MacLeods, they’ve taken good care of it. Always had plenty of money, of course, whereas we just hang on by our fingertips. Have you had a chance to see our family seat yet?”
“I did,” she said. “Jock drove me there. It’s also quite impressive—scary but impressive. What did you feel about growing up in a place like that?”
He shrugged. “I took it for granted. When I went away to school I was quite surprised that other chaps didn’t live in castles. And when I brought a friend home for the hols once and his jaw dropped when he saw Craigard, I realized I was living somewhere quite different from most.”
“I’m interested in your family history,” Emma said cautiously. “This writer I’m working for has included things I thought were fiction, but must have learned about them when they visited the island back in the thirties. The drowning of Lily Patterson? You know about it, presumably?”
“I was told something about it,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “My great-aunt, I believe. Something about running off with a servant? And the boat capsizing?”
“That’s right,” Emma said. “Only it wasn’t a servant. It was a man who’d come to the island to tell the crofters their rights. A labour instigator. I gather your great-grandfather threw him out and he went, taking your great-aunt with him.”
“I suppose a Communist rabble-rouser would appeal to a young girl raised in a castle. We all grew up so horribly sheltered. Very sad, huh?”
“More than sad,” Emma said. “It appears, from what I read in your newspaper, that their boat was deliberately sunk.”
“I didn’t know that part.”
“That’s what it said in the newspaper article.
” Emma thought it wise not to admit that’s what Iris had concluded, too.
“So I wondered, if my writer wants to include this in her story, whether I could speak to your family and make sure I get the true facts. I don’t know whether the writer will want to use them or not, but I’d like to get it right. ”
“I don’t see why not,” Andrew said. He took another swig of whisky.
“So your grandfather would be Lily’s brother. Is that true?”
He thought for a moment. “Must have been. He didn’t have any other siblings.”
“Is he still alive and with you?”
“He is, but rather frail, I’m afraid. He keeps to his room these days and is a bit vague. Not batty, you know, but out of it sometimes. He is eighty-eight, after all. And he went through the First World War. Four years in the trenches. That was enough to break many men.”
“It was,” Emma agreed. “My grandfather was luckily too old to fight and my father too young, but plenty of Aussies volunteered to go off to Europe, which I’ve always thought was so brave—fighting for a country that wasn’t theirs, half a world away.”
“It was brave,” he agreed. “Or bloody stupid.” He laughed.
“Do you think I could meet your grandfather and get a tour of the castle tomorrow?”