The Burning Glass (44 page)

The slate roofs of Glebe House rose from the
trees, glistening like a freshly cleaned classroom blackboard.
Minty probably sent peons up ladders with brushes and buckets of
suds. Alasdair slowed and stopped behind a patrol car. Two more sat
in the cooking school driveway, and a civilian, plainclothes, car
was parked in front of the house. Kallinikos directed traffic,
waving two officers around to the side of the Euro-barn and another
to the back of the house.

“Well,” said Alasdair as he set the brake,
“we’ll certainly be taking her by surprise.”

Jean wasn’t sure she’d want to take Minty by
surprise, but then, everyone’s options were growing more limited by
the minute. She climbed out of the car and walked across the road a
wary two paces behind Alasdair.

Kallinikos waved a file folder toward the
cooking school in the manner of a bugler sounding the charge.
“Delaney’s just taken W.P.C. Blackhall inside. Mrs. Rutherford’s
been there for half an hour.”

“I guess there’s no chance of catching her
with the eye of newt or toe of frog,” said Jean, earning a
half-snort from Alasdair and nothing from Kallinikos. Which was
just what that comment deserved. If ever she was going to play the
silent partner, now was the time.

The interior of the building smelled less
aromatic than she remembered, as though an arctic wind had swept
away any nourishing scents. Today the granite and steel work
surfaces were layered with dishes and food. Everything, green
peppers, yellow-white cheese, terra-cotta bowls, a bottle of
ruby-red wine, shone beneath the overhead lights as though it had
been waxed and polished.

Minty stood beside the sink, wiping her hands
on a towel. She was clad in a “Cookery at the Glebe” apron over a
simple pair of slacks and a starched blouse with the sleeves rolled
up, exposing wiry forearms.

Delaney sat in a chair beside a small table,
the equivalent of a student’s desk. Blackhall handed a sheet of
paper to Kallinikos. He drew another sheet from his file folder and
compared what looked to Jean like blots but which she knew were
fingerprints.

Kallinikos angled the sheet toward Alasdair.
Alasdair nodded affirmatively. Kallinikos laid the papers in front
of Delaney, who eyed them, nodded, and sat back. “Well now, Minty.
Let’s be having us a wee blether.”

Jean stayed by the door, out of the line of
fire. A blether, he said. A chat. Because if he charged her and
hauled her in to the police station and sat her down with a
solicitor, she’d have to be warned that whatever she said could be
used against her—and if she didn’t say anything then, she’d better
not come up with a story later. But during a social visit, where
she could walk away at any time, anything went. Maybe Delaney had
learned his lesson about premature arrest from Ciara and Keith.

“Please be brief, Inspector,” said Minty.
“Polly Brimberry rang to say she couldn’t assist me this morning,
so I’m preparing for the one p.m. class on my own.”

“You’re teaching a class,” Delaney asked,
“when your husband’s laid out in an Edinburgh morgue?”

“Holding to one’s commitments is a sign of
character.” In the strong lights her upswept hair looked like a
warrior’s helmet, almost but not quite as impenetrable as her
marble-lidded eyes. She had been expressionless all along, but this
morning appeared to have dunked her entire face in anesthetic.

Minty started peeling and slicing a
glistening purple eggplant. The blade of her knife flashed as it
rose and fell, a tiny guillotine. “Have you a reason for presenting
me with a search warrant in lieu of a sympathy card?”

“Angus didn’t die of natural causes. He was
poisoned.”

“So I’ve been told.” Her gaze downcast, Minty
went on slicing and dicing.

“You were seen after the dinner on Saturday
pouring liquid from a glass bottle into a cup of coffee. The bottle
was found in the dustbin behind the Granite Cross. It contains
traces of digit, erm, of foxglove poison. It has your fingerprints
on it.”

Minty waved those fingers toward a rack
holding so many small glass bottles and their multi-colored
ingredients it resembled a stained-glass window without the
backlight. “I’ve been preparing my own spices and herbs for many
years, and selling them to much finer places than the Granite
Cross.”

Check
, Jean thought. Delaney shifted
uncomfortably. Alasdair stood in his knight-effigy pose,
motionless. Kallinikos wrote in his notebook. Blackhall sucked
contemplatively on her lower lip.

“You were seen,” Delaney repeated, “pouring
poison into a cup of coffee. Perhaps you intended that cup for
Ciara Macquarrie.”

“Sadly, there are people who are jealous of
me and my accomplishments, and who would enjoy stirring up trouble
for me.” Minty arranged the eggplant slices on a platter and set it
aside. With the flat of her knife she crushed several cloves of
garlic, the sudden, pungent burst drawing a grimace from
Delaney.

“Minty,” he said. “Mrs. Rutherford. You are
suspected of murder.”

“On what grounds, Inspector?”

“On the grounds that you wanted to rid
yourself of Ciara Macquarrie and her queer ideas. You wanted to
cover up the origins of the jewelry that bought you this building.
You wanted to have the running of Ferniebank to yourself.”

Even at the supposedly off-the-wall word
“jewelry,” Minty didn’t react. She’d probably spent the last
twenty-four hours going over every possible scenario. Why else
would she have tried to destroy some of Gerald’s papers? “How very
interesting, Inspector. How very creative of you and your
colleagues.” With a twist of her wrists, Minty wrenched open a jar
and poured tomatoes, red and lumpy, into a saucepan.

“You were shredding documents in the
museum.”

“Every museum de-accessions some of its
holdings.”

“You were seen poisoning the coffee.”
Delaney’s forehead broke out in a sweat. Alasdair inspected the
floor in front of his toes. Kallinikos inspected the ceiling.

“Who is this supposed witness?” asked Minty.
“Have him or her face me in a court of law, and we shall see which
of us the jury believes.”

Checkmate
, Jean thought. A mature,
elegant, well-connected woman accused by a fifteen-year-old boy.
Even if they cleaned Derek up, smoothed his hair, camouflaged him
in a suit, and gave him elocution and deportment lessons, they
couldn’t keep him from being the son of a woman who had good reason
to resent Minty. Even if Valerie got up and told the story of the
jewelry, what proof did they . . .
Proof
. Something scuttled
like a cockroach through the back of Jean’s mind, but as soon as
she turned the light of thought on it, it was gone.

“Mrs. Rutherford,” said Delaney, heaving
himself to his feet. “I expect—”

“What do you expect, Inspector Delaney?
Protestations of innocence? Really, now. You and I both have better
ways of occupying our time.” Her stance behind the counter was
neither aggressive nor defensive, just firm with a
self-righteousness that made Roddy look positively profane.

Profanity was what Delaney muttered beneath
his breath. “Don’t leave the area,” he called, and was halfway to
the door before Minty replied, “Whyever should I do that?”

Jean allowed herself to be swept along in the
official wake, and popped out into the open beside Blackhall’s rear
guard. It was still Monday morning in the real world, birds
caroling, clouds sailing, flowers bobbing and weaving in the
breeze. The rolling, almost feminine hills of the Borders drowsed
in the gold-tinted light of oncoming autumn, all passion spent.

Delaney went on swearing, audibly this time.
“Damn the woman.”

Another police car pulled up in front of the
house. From it emerged Ciara, rumpled, smudged, puffy, but unbowed.
She strolled over to the group gathered by the road and greeted
them with a smile of transcendent tolerance. “What’s this? A
Lothian and Borders conference? And here’s me, thinking the entire
force was guarding Keith and me back in Kelso, hardened criminals
that we are.”

“You’ll have your apology,” Delaney
growled.

“No worries, Inspector. You’re only doing
your job. Poor Angus, done to death at the very moment of our
triumph. Who’s your prime suspect now?”

With a firm hand on the small of her back,
Kallinikos edged Ciara toward Blackhall, who in turn pointed her
toward the guest cottage with a murmur of, “I’m sure you’re wanting
a wash and brush-up at the B&B, Ciara.”

“Oh aye, Annie, a bubble bath would go down a
treat. And tea, and perhaps a sausage or two, and bacon and tomato,
and toast with lashings of butter and marmalade. Those nice
Campbell-Reids at the Reiver’s Rest, they’re cooking breakfast for
Keith and me even though it’s going on for elevenses. Is Minty at
work? She is? Then I’ll just pack my tents and steal away from
Glebe House.” Ciara glanced around. “Very good of you, Alasdair,
for arranging my transfer.”

“You’re welcome,” he returned, his voice so
dry dust swirled across his features.

In spite of herself Jean had to smile at the
retreating pair, the policewoman encased in her uniform and Ciara,
the strolling piñata, still chatting away. Michael and Rebecca
wouldn’t mind cooking an extra meal if it meant getting the news
headlines and op-ed columns as well, even though neither would be
completely up to date.

Which reminded her, she needed to check in
with Miranda and Hugh. And she needed to—well, Ciara might be
content to just let things happen, but Alasdair wasn’t. And she
wasn’t either.

Delaney’s scowl was so fierce his jowls
quivered. Even Kallinikos’s classic features eroded into a frown.
Nothing for it, Jean told herself, and voiced the obvious. “Now
what?”

“We keep on looking out evidence,” said
Kallinikos.

“I’ll find us another stream of evidence,”
Delaney said, “if I have to taste everything in her kitchen myself.
Nik, turn the place over. If there’s one petal of foxglove in that
house—or in that school, come to that . . .”

“You could find yourself a bed of foxgloves
in her garden,” said Alasdair, “and she’d not turn a hair. She’ll
not incriminate herself so easily, not that one.”

Kallinikos looked from Delaney to Alasdair
and back. Setting his jaw, he walked off to gather his troops.
Delaney looked down at the inoffensive herbaceous border as though
he’d like to deploy herbicide and flame-throwers. In grim silence,
Alasdair started toward the car.

Jean looked back at the glass doors of the
school, at the gleam of light beyond. A whiff of garlic sauteed in
butter hung in the air, supplemented by the merest trace of
rosemary.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
. Mary, Queen of Scots,
with her fine Italian hand. Was Minty cooking some sort of Italian
eggplant flavored with red wine? Supposedly the alcohol in heated
wine burned away, though Jean had eaten some dishes that seemed
just as high a proof cooked as raw.
The proof’s in the
puddin
g.

“Jean?” Alasdair called.

Proof
. This time she stomped the
cockroach of a thought before it got away. Now if she could just
analyze the resulting blob of gunk, an antenna twitching here, a
leg flexing there.

She climbed into the car, buckled up, and let
Alasdair make a U-turn back toward Ferniebank before she spoke.
“Valerie said that the day Wallace died he told Ciara something
cryptic about having proof. And he told Roddy and Minty, too.”

“Oh aye.Val’s thinking it’s proof of Ciara’s
fancies, the map to the relics or to America or both. I’m not sure
Ciara herself knows quite what’s she talking about.”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is what
Val and Ciara thought Wallace meant. And what matters even more is
what Roddy and Minty—especially Minty—thought he meant.”

“Roddy might have thought Wallace meant a map
or such. It wasn’t ’til he heard of Ciara’s book deal, though, that
he made his move, such as it was. Minty, now, Minty—”

“Got rid of Wallace that very day. But she
didn’t know about the book deal yet, did she? What if she put her
own spin on what he said?”

Alasdair’s eyebrows tightened. “‘I’ve got the
proof, and you’ll be sorry when it comes out.’ Was that the word
according to Derek?”

“It is, yes. Well, assuming Derek makes a
good witness, but—”

“That’s not the problem now. Not,” Alasdair
added, “that I’m seeing where all this is going to solve the
problem of proving Minty’s the poisoner.”

“Well . . .” Jean watched the trees pass, and
the farm—no Roddy now—and the wall of the castle, and didn’t speak
again until Freeman admitted them to the courtyard and Alasdair
stopped the car.

He propped his arm on the seat and turned
toward her, in full cat at mousehole mode. “Well?”

Jean took first a deep breath and then the
plunge. “Minty sent Logan to pick up the drawing of the dig. She
probably just told him to pick up Wallace’s drawings, because he
picked up both of them. He thought the one of the inscription was
more important, because it had just been vandalized. The other
sketch of the dig was inside that book about the history of the
clarsach. No matter whether Minty packed Wallace’s things or just
watched Polly do it, she didn’t see that one.”

“Or she’d have taken it as well. And what the
drawings have in common is the wee cist. The treasure chest.”
Alasdair’s eyebrows reached for his hairline. “What if Minty’s
thinking—”

“That what Wallace meant was proof of them
finding and taking the jewelry. His conscience bothered him. So did
Angus’s—that’s why they helped Val. But Minty, center of her own
universe, killed Wallace before he could give this proof to Ciara
or to anyone else. I think Val’s right. Roddy’s talk about poison
and murder inspired Minty to go from word to deed.”