Read The Avalon Chanter Online

Authors: Lillian Stewart Carl

Tags: #mystery, #ghosts, #history, #scotland, #king arthur, #archaeology, #britain, #guinevere, #lindisfarne, #celtic music

The Avalon Chanter (39 page)

BOOK: The Avalon Chanter
7.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads


Crawford!” Alasdair hissed, an
impressive feat when the name had no sibilants.

Ignoring him, the constable lifted his hands
into the air and took several more steps toward the house. A
convulsive movement on the porch stopped him an arm’s length from
the gate. Had Tara tried to pull away and Donal jerked her back? Or
had Donal deliberately shaken her as a warning? They were no more
than a double bulk against the faintly illuminated rectangle of the
doorway.

All Jean could see was Crawford standing
solitary as a prehistoric megalith in the moonlight, his uniform
the color of ebony, his face shadowed by the bill of his cap. “Best
you be releasing the lass now,” he said.


Chance would be a fine thing,” Donal
replied.

No one seemed to be emitting a steamy breath
any longer. Everyone had either stopped breathing or was so chilled
their breaths were no longer warm. Alasdair dropped back to stand
beside Webber, their faces positive and negative images of the same
grim expression.


What are you wanting, then?”
Crawford’s voice seemed even deeper than usual, a well of
patience.


What do you think, numpty? Safe
passage off the island to the mainland. A fast boat. That little
police boat in the harbor, that’s yours, eh? That’ll do. And a car
waiting ashore.”


You’re only putting off the
inevitable, Donal. Best you be cooperating.”


I shan’t be going back to prison. I
know what’s waiting for me inside.”

Crawford shifted his weight. The tiny
movement made the insignia on his uniform brighten and darken.
“It’s not your fault, is it, Donal? If Grinsell had left well
alone, Maggie would have been freed and you as well. No fault. No
foul. No harm done.”

The Phillips family would have another
opinion on that, Jean thought.


Grinsell.” Donal spat the name. “He
cost me my marriage. He cost me my daughter. Like Oliver Phillips,
he deserved what he got. As for Maggie, the bitch—it’s on her head,
isn’t it? Are you there, Maggie? Are you hearing this?”

Maggie’s head fell forward on a long sigh,
but for once she was wise enough not to respond.

Crawford wisely did not ask who made Donal
judge, jury, and executioner. He said, “Tara there, she’s your
daughter as well.”


Niamh’s telling me that. She’s saying
the pair of them, they have the same father.”


You wouldn’t harm your own daughter,
would you now?”


No matter. They were both taken from
me. I don’t know them at all, do I?”

Jean had thought Alasdair’s voice in the old
book shop had been cold. Compared to Donal’s hard, cold
callousness, it had been positively tropical.

Far away, a sheep bleated. The dark shapes in
the cemetery crept even closer. The leaves of the herbaceous border
at the far side of the garden moved against the wind. “Didn’t know
I’d be wanting sharpshooters,” whispered Webber.


No one’s getting in a good shot,”
Alasdair whispered back. “Not in the dark, with her held so
close.”

Again Donal jerked Tara up and back, a dog
with a rat in its jaws. Her gasp of terror was loud as a scream.
“Enough chin-wagging. You’d best be organizing the boat and the
car, Constable Numpty.”


I’ve got lads seeing to it,” Crawford
said. “Till then, no harm in us having a chat.”

Crawford sure had a glib tongue on him. Who
knew?

A movement in the doorway behind Donal. A
shape lurching inside the darkened house. A halo atop its head—a
mane of blond hair. Lance.

Beside Jean, Maggie inhaled sharply and
struggled against Hector’s grasp. A quickly suppressed murmur ran
through the crowd. Alasdair tensed, Webber clenched his fists,
Darling crouched. Crawford’s voice grew louder and yet calmer at
the same time. “We’re moving the boat next the steps, Donal. We’ve
got a car coming to the ferry landing near Beal—the tide’s in.
You’ll be away quicker, going past Lindisfarne.”

A human body plunged out of the doorway and
collided with the double shape that was Donal and Tara, pushing it
a long step across the porch. The watchers swirled—some people
leaping forward, some back, some—like Jean—dancing up and down in
place.

But no one moved as fast as Crawford. He
didn’t open the gate. He vaulted over it, landing halfway up the
sidewalk, his feet running as they hit the ground.

Alasdair jumped forward. So did Darling. The
gate opened. The two men jammed together briefly in the opening,
then popped out into the garden and ran.

On the porch the now triple shape staggered
to the side. Light glanced off the barrel of the shotgun, angled
now . . . Lance fell with a sickening crump against a supporting
post and slid down it.

Crawford threw himself onto the porch, making
another triple shape, which heaved right, then heaved left. And an
explosion lit up the night.

The flash glared off two different faces,
mouths gaping, eyes staring. Then it was gone, leaving the shadow
darker than before. The report rolled away across the island,
echoed off the back of the village houses, disappeared over the
sea.

Dogs barked. Seabirds screeched. People
seethed across the parking lot. The Berwick cops spilled over the
walls and out of the shrubbery and formed a perimeter. Someone
switched on the lights in the house and on the porch.

Maggie threw Hector to one side, dropped the
knife, and sprinted toward the house screaming. “Tara! Tara!”

Jean ran after her, every pulse in her body
palpitating, bracing herself for what she’d see in the glare of the
light.

Blood, and more than blood, splattered the
porch and the walls, Tara’s sweater and jeans and her face. Maggie
clutched her close, sobbing, scrabbling at the rope, curtain pull,
bathrobe cord—the strip of fabric binding her wrists. Released,
Tara clutched Maggie close and sobbed like a lost child.

Crawford held the shotgun up in the air,
playing keep-away. Gesturing in victory. Frozen in horror. The red
blotches didn’t show up as well on the dark fabric of his uniform,
except where they obscured the insignia. His dour gaze was fixed on
the stock of the gun.

Lance sat propped against the post, fresh
blood sprinkled on his clothing, old brown blood matted in his
hair. Clyde heaved the wicker basket into the yard and threw
himself down beside his son. Hector pushed in. “Look at me, Lance.
Try to focus.” And, under his breath, “I was so not intending a
busman’s holiday.”

Donal’s body lay on the other side of the
porch. The mutilated face was, thankfully, draped in shadow.

Niamh stood in the doorway. She swayed in one
direction, bounced off the door frame, swayed back again. Her
complexion brought new meaning to the word “fair,” so white it
seemed faintly green, a shade that clashed with her red hair.

Darling waded through the others to take her
in a firm embrace. At first she stood stiffly in his arms, then
relaxed against his chest. Okay, Jean thought, so she wasn’t trying
to make a break for it. But . . .

Tara sniffed. “Coming here. Worst. Decision.
Ever.”

Maggie sniffed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so
sorry.”


Okay, Mags. S’okay.” The two women
rocked each other back and forth on the edge of the
porch.

One of the Berwick cops appeared with a thin
thermal blanket, which he laid over Donal’s body. Webber stood
surveying the battleground. Alasdair looked around, saw Jean,
reached back for her. “What are you going to do with that?”


What?” She saw she still grasped the
poker. “I don’t know. Made me feel better.”


Ah, Bonny Jean.” He pried her fingers
from the handle and let it fall to the earth, making a dull thud.
His hand engulfed hers. It was cold, but seemed warm by comparison
to the icy chills trickling through her body. She leaned against
his side.

Something poked her rib cage. Oh. What was
that old joke? Something about are you glad to see me or are you
carrying a gun? She couldn’t remember.

She could have sworn she heard Michael’s
voice, and James’s, and Hugh’s, and Rosalie Banks’s, clashing notes
in the distance. Up close, a female voice spoke, tones soft and
dull. Niamh, peering out from Darling’s chest toward the shrouded
corpse. “He saw me when he came here for Maggie’s press conference.
He recognized me. Guess my mum sending all those photos wasn’t
wasted at all, was it?” Her laugh was more of a gulping sob.

Darling made soothing noises into the top of
her head. Hector glanced up, shrugged, turned his attention back to
Lance. “No, don’t try to stand up. We’ve gotta get you to a
hospital.”

Niamh swallowed and said, “He stopped me in
the garden late last night. Scared the living daylights out of me.
I gave him some sandwiches and a torch, hoping he’d go away. When I
saw Inspector Grinsell this morning, when you were talking about
him being bashed with a torch—I didn’t want to believe it. I
couldn’t.”


You saw Donal sitting in the audience
at the concert,” Alasdair stated.


Yes. I’d hoped he’d gone away, but
with the fret he was stranded here. He stopped me outside the
school, insisted I give him the key to the church from Maggie’s
ring—I’m so sorry, Maggie, if I’d cut and run just then . .
.”


You were curious about him,” said
Maggie over Tara’s head. “You never knew him. You thought it was
all right to talk.”


Yes. He almost had me convinced he
hadn’t bashed Grinsell at all—though he kept saying you’d done it,
and I knew that wasn’t right. Then I caught sight of the rash on
his arm. He had to have gotten it rolling Inspector Grinsell
through the nettles into the trench. But when I asked—the proper
little nurse, mind you, always caring—he told me a cat had rubbed
against him outside the pub and he was allergic to
cats.”

Dang,
Jean
thought. If only Parkinson’s story at the concert of Hildy and the
bacon had tipped off her loup of logic earlier. If only she’d seen
the rash on his arm rather than his aimless scratching. But even
her Byzantine thought processes only went so far.

If only I had known.

Lance quietly vomited over the edge of the
porch, Hector steadying his shoulders.


By then I was right scared of him,”
Niamh went on. “I decided better to let him play me for a fool. I
spent all evening chatting with him. He said Grinsell had
mistreated Mum all these years ago. He was right about that. But
why was Mum there for the mistreating? Because of Donal’s—he’s
never Dad—Donal’s own bad decisions.”

Maggie said dryly—and her voice was probably
the only dry thing about her, “He claimed he never stepped forward
at my trial to protect you and your mum.”


He said that, yes. He said if not for
you, I’d have had a dad.”

Alasdair asked, “Did he say anything about
Grinsell at all?”


No. Even though he knew I
knew—allergic to a cat, my left foot.” She inhaled shakily. “I kept
thinking I was making him see reason. I kept thinking I was talking
him into turning himself in. I even gave him my word I’d not try to
escape, that I’d not work against him, if he’d not hurt
Maggie.”


Niamh . . .” Maggie began.

Niamh held up her hand, palm
forward.
Don’t say it.
“I felt
sorry for him. He was pitiful. But then he made me let him into the
kitchen door of the house. He opened the door behind Lance and hit
him with a stone dragon from the curio cabinet and took the gun
away. He threw Tara down and tied her up. It’s as though every time
he saw her he saw you, Maggie. He was saying ugly, spiteful, loony
things. I hated him then. I had to do something. But unlike him, I
keep my word.”


You brought me round,” said Lance
thickly as he settled back against the post. “You helped me up. You
got me to the door.”


And I prayed. I didn’t know I knew so
many prayers. Blessed Saint Mary. Blessed Saint Hilda. Blessed
Saint Genevieve. All the holy women associated with
Farnaby.”


They listened,” said
Hector.

Webber looked over at Crawford, who had by
now lowered the gun but hadn’t otherwise moved. “Constable, are you
all right?”

With a sigh that seemed to come from his toes
and a desolate look in his eye, Crawford extended the shotgun
toward Alasdair. “Look at this, sir.”

Squeezing Jean’s hand, Alasdair released it
and accepted the shotgun. He held it horizontally between him and
Webber, the porch light gleaming equally on his straight blond hair
stroked with frost and Webber’s curly black hair flecked with snow.
“Aye, Constable?”


On the stock, sir.”

As Alasdair tilted the gun, two initials
leaped into resolution. A and C. “What?” Jean asked, and then
realized they didn’t stand for Alasdair Cameron. They stood for
Athelstan Crawford.

Clyde pulled himself to his feet and took an
unsteady step forward. “I was thinking that was the one Lance took
from the safe. Aye, it’s been hidden away all these years. We found
it in Athelstan’s boat, my father and me. Seemed only right we
should be finding the boat, when we were guiding the trek that
ended so badly. Though someone said now—it was Athelstan . . .” His
voice died away at the look on Crawford’s face, mirroring the look
on Maggie’s. The wheel of fate had rolled over them, crushed them,
and moved on, leaving them still standing.

Alasdair extended his hand to Crawford. “Well
done.”

BOOK: The Avalon Chanter
7.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Dare to Die by Carolyn Hart
Faith and Love Found by Claudia Hope
The Golden Dream by Birmingham, Stephen;
A Lady of Notoriety (The Masquerade Club) by Diane Gaston - A Lady of Notoriety (The Masquerade Club)
Home Is Where the Bark Is by Kandy Shepherd
Island's End by Padma Venkatraman
Men of Courage by Lori Foster, Donna Kauffman, Jill Shalvis