Chapter One
Thursday, 8:40 A.M.
Macduff, Scotland
Conversations in the Macduff police office ceased the moment Detective Inspector Walter Byrne barreled through the plate-glass doors. Detective Sergeant Seth Mornay slouched further down into his chair, but his legs were too long and the office too small for him to disappear from view.
The noxious smell of cigar smoke preceded Byrne past the four molded plastic chairs in the small reception area, past the duty office, and into the main room. The office had four detectives assigned to the Criminal Investigation Division (CID); Byrne was the second in command and Mornay's immediate superior. Byrne veered left around the conference table, his face its usual shade of prestroke red, coattails flapping, leaving cigar ashes floating behind him.
A collective sigh of relief went through the room as Byrne barged into the office of Detective Chief Inspector McNab, the senior CID officer.
Mornay had a perfect view of McNab's office -- not that it was necessary, since Byrne's voice boomed loud enough to be heard at the chip shop three doors down busy Fife Street.
"What's with the bloody roster change?" Byrne shouted. "When I was a constable, you had to be on death's door to ask for the night off."
Byrne's husky smoker's voice contrasted completely with his appearance. If Byrne had worn a red woolen cap, he would've looked exactly like the garden gnome Mornay's best pal, Victoria, had put beneath her dying roses last spring in an attempt to revive them. As if a pug nose, mottled red cheeks, and piggy eyes were a magical ward against mildew and leaf rot. Byrne's gnomelike features lent no magic in closing cases; that was achieved by delegation, by harassment, by sheer luck half the time.
McNab answered Byrne's question in a calm tone. "Lawrence's son was put in hospital this morning. He has meningitis."
"I've motors being stolen all over the north of Scotland, and you're giving Lawrence the night off!"
"You've got four open cases involving stolen vehicles -- hardly what I'd call an overload. But we can always hand some cases over to Peterhead if they're proving a bit of a bother."
"Bugger that!"
There were a few snickers when Byrne's curse exploded. His disdain for the CID officers working in the other offices was as legendary as his temper.
"Perhaps if you'd take Sergeant Mornay along -- "
"I'd rather -- "
McNab spoke again, cutting off whatever Byrne had been about to say. Mornay couldn't quite hear what McNab was saying, but Byrne's response was to change the subject.
"Fucking cutbacks. They bloody overwork everyone who's left, that's what they do." Byrne pulled out his cigar and tapped the long ash on McNab's floor. "I'll be in Strichen. Working," he said as if he were the only person in the building who knew the meaning of the word.
He stomped out of McNab's office and sent a black look Mornay's way. Then his gaze drifted to the empty chair next to Mornay: Claire's chair. Mornay shared his desk with Detective Constable Claire Gillespie, who was responsible for the homey touches: smooth beach stones she used as paperweights, a pot of trailing ivy, and a small round fishbowl for Willie, her pet goldfish. Mornay's contribution to their communal workspace was sticky coffee rings and piles of unfinished reports.
"Finally getting to the Gregory file?" Byrne flicked more ash on the floor. The Gregorys had a vintage Rolls-Royce stolen three weeks ago, the fourth stolen car in the Macduff area this month.
"Aye," Mornay answered slowly. He always kept his voice neutral around Byrne. Another year, Mornay kept reminding himself. Another year and the stubby wee bastard would retire.
Byrne flicked a nail against Willie's tank. The fish ignored him. "Leave it for Gillespie," he said. "At least I know she'll check the spelling when she's through." Byrne grinned, exposing crooked, nicotine-stained teeth. "You've work to do in Strichen. We've had another stolen motor." He left.
When Mornay tagged along with Byrne, he always got the menial jobs, such as staking out the search area for the forensic team, their time being too valuable to waste. If there was anything filthy to crawl through, climb over, or shift, he was Byrne's man.
Constable Kashik Sahotra sidled up to Mornay's desk as soon as Byrne cleared the area. Sahotra had dark eyes and skin, a wide grin, and glow-in-the-dark white teeth; he looked like a twelve-year-old dressed in his father's woolens, playing cop.
"What's so funny?" Mornay's voice was gruff, but Sahotra never seemed to notice his black moods.
"There's rain in Strichen. You'll ruin another suit."
"Keep laughing, you heathen bastard -- Byrne will get round to you sooner or later."
Sahotra's grin widened. He had a gift for escaping Byrne's scrutiny, and everyone in the office, particularly Mornay, envied him this ability. He pulled a ragged notebook out of his pocket. "Up for this week's pool?" he asked. Besides his pedal patrol duties -- a job he got because he was the only officer in traffic who didn't get winded bicycling up and down Macduff's hills -- Sahotra ran the weekly betting pools.
"What is it?"
"The time Pratt's wife calls -- the first time only."
"Pratt?" Mornay asked.
"Short." Sahotra cupped his hand and made a curved motion in front of his flat abdomen, pantomiming Pratt's well-rounded belly. "You're always calling him Clark, which is curious since we don't have anyone named Clark in our office. And you do the same with the PC Bensen."
"Right," Mornay said, vaguely recalling Constable Pratt's face. Pratt was so newly married he still had the sunburn from his honeymoon in Florida. "His wife calls often?"
"Is whiskey wet?"
Mornay pulled a crumpled ten-pound note out of his pocket. Sahotra whistled appreciatively. "What shift is he?" Mornay asked.
"Second."
"Put me down for 5:03, exactly."
Sahotra plucked the note out of Mornay's fingers before he could change his mind and strolled away to make another collection.
"Mind you use the digital clock," Mornay called after him.
9:05 A.M.
Glen Ross
Rector Evan Whelan stared at his cold eggs and congealed sausage. His coffee had gone cold as well. Anymore, Evan was too distracted to drink his coffee or tea while it was still warm and palatable. For Mary's sake, he took a small, quick gulp.
"Eat your toast so I won't feel I've wasted my time cooking another untouched meal." Mary Hodgeson smiled to soften her admonishment. Mary had worked for his parents for twenty-five years before coming to work at the rectory. "We both know no one will be in your study yet. And if they were, the wait wouldn't harm them. Time you started worrying about yourself and your health instead of listening to everyone else's problems."
Mary hovered at the sink. Tucked and pressed to perfection, she wore a gray woolen skirt and a silk sweater threaded with silver strands. Her hair was pulled into its usual severe bun at the nape of her neck.
Evan's cup clattered in its saucer when he put it down. He reached across his plate for a slice of Mary's homemade toasted bread and then the jam.
Mary nodded her approval. "I'll bring you fresh coffee as soon as it's finished."
At least she'd stopped lecturing him on how thin he'd grown; they spent a fortune on food, keeping up this pretense of him eating proper meals. Evan pushed away from the table, his chair scraping on the cold flagstone floor. Taking his toast, he slowly walked out of the kitchen and up the dark hall toward his study. He liked to be seated at his desk by nine. He tried to be punctual with his office hours; his older parishioners found the regularity comforting.
On clear days, sunlight would stream in through the windows at either end of the hall, softening the fortress-thick walls of the rectory. Double glazing kept the chill on the outside as well as the rain, but nothing could diminish the pervasive gray that set in during these dreary, overcast days. It was May, yet they'd only had a few fair spring days.
Evan left a trail of crumbs as he dutifully chewed his toast and then swallowed. During his childhood, the scent of Mary's baked bread used to fill him with a sense of completeness. He'd felt guilty when Mary first came to work for him; his mother had been so helpless, and so angry about Mary's departure. After so many years, he knew he couldn't carry out his duties without Mary's assistance.
But now the simple pleasures of his life had disappeared. It was one of his many regrets that he couldn't simply enjoy eating a warm piece of bread or have a laugh with a friend without a shadow clinging to the back of his thoughts, reminding him how quickly it would be over -- the experience, the day, the life....
The crust of bread crumbled in Evan's clenched fist. While he went through most days in a hazy awareness of time passing, there were moments, like now, when rage would sear through his body. It would consume him, leaving him feeling completely without substance. A nonperson stitched together with skin and sinew and muscles.
Evan had somehow managed to hold this rage in check since his wife had died, but he felt the seams of his control straining daily to pull apart.
He gulped a lungful of air and quickly opened the door to his study before Mary found him sweating in the hall. He closed the door behind him, his breath coming out raggedly, as if he'd just sprinted two hundred meters instead of walked a dozen paces. Slowly, a single heartbeat at a time, the rage dissipated. Sweat trickled down Evan's brow and down the center of his chest. His pulse returned to a more normal rate, and then his breathing. Though he unclenched his fists, the muscles running the length of his arms and down his back remained bunched in hard cords of tissue that refused to relax. If they didn't loosen soon, he'd have another of his headaches.
Mary's footsteps sounded briskly down the hall. Evan stepped away from the door and quickly crossed the room to stand behind his desk. He stared out the window, hoping his fair coloring wouldn't give him away.
Mary opened the door. "Here's some coffee and fresh scones." She balanced a tray that held a white porcelain urn of coffee, several heavy mugs, a basket of steaming scones, and small white porcelain containers of cream and sugar. "Are you going back to Sandrington Hall this morning?" she asked.
"I've promised to string lights."
Mary put the tray on the one empty corner of his desk and smoothed the front of her apron, not bothering to hide her disapproval of Evan helping anyone do anything at Sandrington Hall. "Humph! And that Crownlow girl is rambling around the cemetery again, not even wearing a proper coat. Perhaps you'd have a word with her on your way back to the Hall?"
Evan watched silvery pale curls of steam rise above the scones. Anne Crownlow was a wealthy student from Edinburgh University. She was working on a genealogy project and had made a generous donation to the rectory's building repair fund in exchange for the use of a room for a week, access to the rectory's marriage and baptism records, and the cemetery records. While he didn't think it was entirely proper to have her staying at the rectory, her donation would make it possible to make desperately needed repairs to their leaking roof. Mary was still angry he'd accepted the donation.
"Anne's a grown woman; she doesn't need a lecture on how to dress for a stroll in the country."
The slamming of the mudroom door echoed through the house. Then running footsteps pounded loudly down the hall. Evan and Mary turned toward the study door, waiting.
Anne Crownlow caught the door casing with both hands in an attempt to slow her momentum as she ran into the room. Her shoulder connected with one of the bookcases flanking the door, books spilled off the shelves, and Anne was knocked to her knees.
Mary's voice was shrill. "What's happened to your pullover?"
Anne's pullover was gone; she was wearing only a thin, stretchy camisole. Her jeans were soaking wet and streaked with mud. She was shivering violently.
As Evan helped her to her feet, Anne's fingers dug through his jacket and into his forearms with amazing strength. Her pale hair clung in damp ringlets to a face devoid of color -- except for her lips, which were turning blue -- and gooseflesh covered every inch of her exposed skin.
"There's a woman," she said between chattering teeth, her horror-struck eyes wide. "She's in the cemetery. The crows...those horrible crows. I had to cover her face. Oh, God..." Anne was nearly incoherent. "Her face..."
Evan removed his jacket and draped it around Anne's shoulders. "Mary, make the 999 call. I'll see about the crows."
Mary didn't move. "Maybe you should wait for the police," she said quietly.
He paused in the doorway and held her gaze. Mary had been looking out for him for nearly thirty years, but sometimes she could be overprotective. "See to her, Mary, please. I'll wait by the body until the police arrive." Then he strode out of the room.
He needed to see whom Anne Crownlow had found. It was too wet for the casual tourist to be wandering among the gravestones -- that rarely happened even in good weather. She might have found a bed-and-breakfast guest -- Sandrington Hall was nearly half a kilometer up the road. It had been converted to a B and B about ten years earlier, and occasionally a guest would get lost walking from the Hall to Glen Ross. The mists that crept from the North Sea could get so heavy that some people lost all sense of direction.
Please let it be a stranger.
Evan strode rapidly toward the cemetery, which on sunny days was partially shaded by massive beech and oak trees that had been planted the same year the seventh Lord Sandrington put a new roof on the rectory his grandfather had built. Evan neglected to ask Anne in which part of the cemetery she'd found the body. But it turned out that directions were unnecessary; the sharp snapping of crow's wings was impossible to miss, as were their strident, high-pitched squawks.
Damp crept into Evan's shoes as he squelched across the grass toward the spot where the large black birds had gathered. Where had they come from?
The fine mist that surrounded him seemed to thicken the farther away from the rectory he walked. Visibility was diminishing. Sounds echoed weirdly. Fat plops of water dripped off beech leaves onto the gravestones beneath the heavily drooped branches.
The crows' squabbling grew fiercer. They were taking quick hops off the ground to slash at one another with their sharply taloned claws or take short stabs at each other with their wide black beaks.
He quickened his pace. "YA!" he shouted, flinging out his arms. The crows retreated only a few paces away. He walked across the narrow grassy path and found her. She was behind a row of headstones from the early 1800s; they were smaller and less ornately carved than the Celtic crosses and obelisks of their predecessors.
Shock prevented Evan from uttering even the faintest of sounds. He recognized the body immediately. He fell to his knees, oblivious to the cold and damp. "Ina." The tortured whisper was absorbed immediately by the mist.
The crows had been trying to rip away Anne Crownlow's yellow pullover, which covered Ina's face. The pullover was soaked in blood. Ina's denim jumper was also soaked with blood.
Evan looked away, his vision blurring with tears. "Oh, Christ, Ina," he whispered. "What happened?"
Copyright © 2003 by Moira Maus
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