The Blue Hackle by Lillian Stewart Carl Page B

reflected glory, Alasdair offered a polite nod to all
and sundry. Jean was the sundry, she supposed, since the nod warmed
to a half-smile by the time it reached her.
    She ran a quick assessment of Alasdair’s
face, its pallor beneath the weather-burnished scarlet and the set
of each wrinkle, like crevasses in a glacier. His posture was
neither more or less erect than usual. If the investigation had
made any headway—finding the murder weapon, for example—she saw no
evidence of it in his stern expression. He’d been able to do no
more than set Portree to work securing the scene and checking out
the vicinity.
    The dogs tail-wagged their way to Sanjay’s
black-clad legs. He squatted down, perhaps warming his hands in
their fur as much as petting them. “Hullo there, Somerled, Bruce.
Good lads, aren’t you now?”
    “P.C. Thomson,” said Diana, with a slight
shooing gesture. “We’ve laid on sandwiches and tea in the staff
sitting room.”
    “Righty-ho, Di. Come along, lads.” The young
man and his furry friends headed off toward the kitchen.
    Alasdair eyed Diana, head tilted, waiting to
see if she designated him fish or fowl.
    “Dinner in ten minutes, Mr. Cameron,” she
said, and wafted away.
    Fergus rubbed his hands together, only the
slightest of edges to his smile. “Dinner! Steak pie!”
    “Say what?” asked Heather.
    “Look at it as a kind of beef Wellington,”
Jean said. “Bits of meat beneath a crust.”
    “Yes, yes,” Fergie said. “Nancy’s food is to
die for, as you Americans would say. Let’s get on down the hall,
shall we? Hospitality being a fine Highland tradition and all.”
    Yeah, Jean thought with a glance at
Alasdair, hospitality, and treachery and betrayal.
    A spark in his return glance showed that he
was thinking the same thing.
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
     
    Jean finally felt warm again. Nothing like a
good meal cooked and then served by Nancy Finlay to reset the
internal thermostat.
    She folded her napkin and smoothed it down
next to her dessert plate, empty except for a strawberry stem.
Maybe it was a sign of desensitization, but murder or no grisly
murder, child or no put-upon child, she’d consumed the delicious
soup, fish, meat and veg, trifle and fruit, with good appetite and
moderate sips of a less than sophisticated but good-natured
Burgundy.
    So had Alasdair, no doubt needing fuel after
his outdoor vigil. Now he, too, lingered at the table, toying not
with his napkin but his watch. Surely it was eight-thirty by now.
Waiting for Gilnockie was like waiting for Godot.
    Diana’s elegantly lettered cards had placed
Fergie at the head of the table—if you defined “head” as the seat
closest to the door—and Diana at the foot, with Jean next to Scott,
Alasdair next to Heather, and Dakota between, close enough to her
mother that Heather could indicate the proper fork and insist on
the child eating at least one Brussels sprout.
    Each patch of dining territory was generous
enough to make Jean acutely aware two places were missing, one for
Tina, one for Greg. But even their chairs had been whisked away,
out of sight.
    Alasdair had greeted the Krums with his usual
grave courtesy, answered some of Scott’s questions about security
issues, and held up his end of mostly Fergie’s conversation about
history, language, myth, and culture. In the spirit of soldiering
on, Jean had contributed anecdotes along the lines of the past
being another country, one that you probably wouldn’t want to
visit. But mostly she watched her thoughts playing billiards,
clacking from who, to where, to when, to why. Even Fergie’s genial
expression occasionally grew vacant and his face turned to the
windows, blank sheets of black ice facing the coastline and the man
lying cold if not neglected below the even blanker windows of the
old castle.
    Now Diana rose from her chair, initiating a
general movement upward. “We have a library of films available in
the drawing room, and satellite television as