Murder on the Moor by C. S. Challinor Page A

wheels.”
    “I wouldn’t be seen dead in it,” Alistair declared. “The good news is I doubt anybody will bother sabotaging it.”
    “I should lock it in the stable, just in case—though I doubt it would make it up the hill in the mud. It barely managed the other side on a proper road. Perhaps I should have left it at the top of the hill, but I thought I should keep an eye on it since it’s on loan.”
    “Are you going to keep everyone here?” Alistair asked.
    “At least until I’ve spoken to the coroner. Perhaps he can shed some light on events.”
    “It’s a she. Dr. Sheila Macleod. I impressed upon the medic how urgent this was. In fact, I even got his number.” The look of complicit satisfaction on Alistair’s face left Rex in no doubt as to his meaning.
    “What happened to your solicitor friend? The one who arranged the sale of this house? I’m assuming you and he … ”
    “We had a tiff. I left Edinburgh without my phone on purpose. I hoped—childishly—that he would call and wonder where I was, and I didn’t want to be constantly checking my messages in the hope that he had.”
    “I see.”
    “Sorry about that. However, to redeem myself, I begged a favour off the young medic—John. His aunt just so happens to be Dr. Macleod. He’ll tell her to get right on it, and she’ll contact the procurator fiscal if she determines the death suspicious.”
    “I’m glad something is working to our advantage at last.” Rex glanced at the house. “I’ll join you inside in just a minute. I want to take a quick look around first.”
    He found the pony grazing among his dripping flowerbeds, in the spot where he had left the ladder. Donnie must have let her out of the stable. He could at least have put her in the meadow, Rex fumed to himself.
    “Off with you! Shoo!” he exclaimed, waving his arms at the Shetland, without venturing too close in case she decided to take a bite out of him with her big ivory teeth—the size of piano keys.
    Strolling off, she started nonchalantly nibbling on a rhododendron bush. Rex, though incensed, attended to the more urgent matter of examining the ground beneath the bathroom window. Horse hooves had churned up the soil and grass around the feet of the ladder. No other prints had survived the downpour. However, a thorny vine growing up the wall had been flattened where it grew out of the soil. Moira’s body must have landed there. Unless that, too, was the horse’s doing. Rex regretted not having taken a look before he left for the village, but he had expected the police to arrive.
    He followed the most direct route across the lawn to the jetty where the boat was moored. Rid of its tarpaulin, the bottom had filled with rainwater. Rex looked back toward the house. A distance of not more than thirty feet, but no one looking from a window would have seen anything through the deluge the previous night.
    All the perpetrator had to do was transport the body to the loch, dump it in the boat, and row out as far as possible before dispatching it into the chilly depths. In the low visibility, that person may not have noticed the islet where the corpse was ultimately washed up among the reeds.
    Mulling over his meager findings, Rex entered the house and added his boots to those in the hallway. He compared the samples of soil and plant debris from the flowerbed on his to the mud on the guests’ footwear, and found something of botanical interest. Subdued male voices emanated from the library. Upon walking into the room, he saw that the television was switched on to the news. The newspaper photograph of seven-year-old Melissa Bates filled the screen, her dark hair braided on either side of a heart-shaped face.
    Alistair, standing in the middle of the room, muted the sound when he saw Rex. “Nothing new,” he reported.
    “It’s si—sick,” Donnie stuttered from the sofa where he sat beside his dad. “Who’d want to hurt a wee girl?”
    “I hope they got the sadistic bastard