Murder on the Moor (16 page)

Rex met Chief Inspector
Dalgerry at the front door. Squat of stature and heavily jowled, he resembled a bulldog in a black rain cape. Behind him, blue and yellow squad cars with flashing roof lights swarmed the driveway as uniformed constables staked out the property beneath the drizzle. It looked as though Dalgerry had brought his whole task force.

“I got your message,” he told Rex. “This is Inspector Strickler and Sergeant Dawes from Area Command HQ in Fort William.” They flashed their warrant cards. “What do you have for us?”

“In here.” Rex led the chief inspector into the living room.

Dalgerry’s dark beady eyes roved over the guests and came to rest on Beardsley, who was beginning to regain consciousness.

“This the suspect?”

“Aye, minus his disguise. Rob Roy Beardsley, originally from Brora. Now lives in Glasgow. Previous conviction for child molestation in 2001. Sentenced to five years.” Rex summarized the rest of the results of Thaddeus’ research. “Abused as a child and put in a series of foster homes where he was rejected by the other children.” Was this the reason for the name-switches on the photographs? Were the victims supposed to represent the girls who’d refused to accept him? “Cruelty to pets was usually the reason he was returned to the institution,” Rex told Dalgerry.

“Where’d you get your information?”

“A reliable source in London.”

“What evidence d’you have that this is the Moor Murderer?”

Rex showed him the photos he had taken of the contents of the red suitcase. “I stumbled upon these in his room at the Loch Lochy Hotel where he is currently staying,” he said in a low voice.

“Stumbled?”

“I wasna absolutely sure of his guilt at that point. I set out to prove he was staying at the hotel under false pretences.”

“I sent a squad car over there after I got your message.”

“He said he had not been to Rannoch Moor,” Rex went on to explain. “Other information he gave me did not ring true, either. It was hard to separate fact from fable. I had to go and see what I could find.”

“You have proof he went to Rannoch Moor?” Dalgerry asked.

Rex nodded decisively. “He was at Loch Laidon. A wetland vascular plant, the Rannoch Rush or
Scheuchzeria Palustris
grows there. I found a sample of it on his hiking boot. I had marked on the grid map where I’d come across this unique specimen.”

Chief Inspector Dalgerry examined the map Rex showed him. “It’s within meters of where Melissa Bates’ body was recovered last night.” He signaled to an officer in the hall. “Arrest that man.”

Leaping to his feet, Beardsley pushed the rifle out of his face and bounded toward the window, which Helen had inched open earlier to air out the room. Alistair pulled the trigger. A muffled click ensued, accompanied by the acrid smell of damp cordite. Two policemen fell upon Beardsley before he could smash through the glass. The guests were all on their feet, except Cuthbert, incapacitated by his sprained ankle.

“The gun must have got wet in the grass,” he remarked. “Bloody useless thing. The dealer ripped me off! He assured me it was the latest in Finnish technology.”

Rex took the rifle off Alistair. “Just as well it misfired. You’re lucky you did not kill him.” He glanced anxiously at the chief inspector.

“I wish I had!” Alistair lashed out at Beardsley.

Rex pulled at his colleague’s arm. “Easy now. Let justice take its course.”

“What if he gets off?”

“He won’t,” Dalgerry told Alistair. “Ample proof this time. A wit-ness in the vicinity of Muiredge saw a man matching Beardsley’s description.”

“What was he wearing?” Rex inquired.

“A tan uniform, such as a scout leader might wear.”

Rex nodded in triumph at Alistair. His colleague relaxed his shoulders. “At least I know now it’s not Collins who murdered the wee girl. I don’t know if I could have ever forgiven myself.”

“Definitely not Collins,” the chief inspector confirmed. “We grilled him for three hours. His alibi sticks. No possibility of him being anywhere near the scene yesterday. And we had to release our other suspect, a door-to-door salesman in his fifties who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This one looks verra much like our man based on the sighting and evidence so far.”

“Beardsley has a green van like the one mentioned on the news,” Rex added.

Alistair slumped with relief in a chair as Beardsley was marched out of the room in handcuffs. He flung his head back and closed his eyes tight. Then he flopped forward with his face in his hands and wept. Estelle declared him in need of a reviving brandy and got up to fetch one.

“Poor man’s been under intolerable strain.”

“I say, old girl,” Cuthbert said plaintively, wincing as he adjusted his foot on the stool. “I could do with a refill myself.”

“Did you bag your Rannoch Rush?” the chief inspector asked Rex, prodding him into the hallway.

“Aye, it’s all yours.”

Donning latex gloves, Dalgerry scraped the plant and soil samples from Beardsley’s boot.

“This is his knapsack,” Rex informed him. “I haven’t looked in it yet.”

Dalgerry pounced on the bag and, opening it up, sifted among the contents. He pulled out a hunting knife, a ball of twine, and a roll of masking tape. “Well, well, what do we have here,” he rhetorically asked.

“He has a camera somewhere,” Rex added.

“Any interest in joining the Force, Mr. Graves?” Dalgerry inquired, baring his sharp teeth in a grin.

“Och, I’d rather stay dry and let you lads do the dirty work.”

Rex’s chambers were eminently more comfortable than police headquarters, and most of his work did not entail trudging around in the rain. He filled the chief inspector in on Moira’s suspicious drowning and told him about the precariously positioned scythe in the stable.

“Curious,” Dalgerry responded. “More of Beardsley’s doing, you think?”

“I canna be sure.”

“Well, most obliged to you.” Dalgerry shook his hand. “I’ll be in touch. Strickler and Dawes will investigate the Wilcox case and take statements.” He dipped his head at Helen and opened the front door.

Rex returned to the living room to see if Alistair had recovered, and was pleased to find him joking with the Farquharsons. Cuthbert raised his replenished tumbler to Rex.

“To think we were harboring a serial killer!” Estelle exclaimed. “Vascular plant, indeed! You certainly know your stuff, Rex.”

“How’s the foot?” Rex asked her husband.

“Oh, he’ll survive,” Estelle replied for him. “Alistair’s medic friend is going to come by at the end of his shift to make sure it’s not broken. As soon as that’s done, we’ll leave. This whole thing gives me the willies.”

“I’ll get that,” Alistair said when the doorbell rang. “It might be John.”

“Aye, it makes my skin crawl to think how that child molester was after Flora!” Mrs. Allerdice burst out, handkerchief trembling in her hand.

“I believe he feigned interest in your daughter to throw us off the scent,” Rex explained.

“He tried to befriend all of us, didn’t he, Donnie?” Flora said to her brother.

He nodded, staring at the unfinished game of backgammon. “Honey didna mind him.”

“He fed her apples and sugar lumps, that’s why.”

“The tow truck is here,” Alistair announced from the doorway. “Three men. The work should get done fast.”

“Oh, good,” Shona exclaimed. “I called the hotel on my mobile. The cook is in a stew.” She hesitated. “I dinna want the Loch Lochy Hotel associated with a child murderer. Do you think there’s any way to prevent news of this leaking to the press?”

“No chance,” Estelle informed her. “The police will be there right now with crime scene tape and fingerprint experts. They’ll be questioning your staff and all the guests. News will spread like wildfire. Soon everyone in Britain will have heard of the Loch Lochy Hotel. It’ll be infamous.”

“Och, noo!” Shona wailed.

“I warned you aboot him,” Hamish told his wife. “I said something wasna right. But you never listen.”

“Of course, you might get some business from the press. The legitimate press,” Estelle added snidely. “There’ll be camera crews filming the place from every angle and reporters waiting to interview you. You could be on TV!”

Shona looked ready to faint.

“We don’t need any more adverse publicity,” Hamish snapped.

“Oh, yes, I did hear mention of a drowning at your hotel.” Estelle interrogated Mrs. Allerdice with a look. “Am I right in assuming she might have been another of Beardsley’s victims?”

“Aye, I suppose,” Hamish admitted. “If he was in disguise and had booked into our hotel under a false name, he cannot have been up to any good.”

“I remember a guest talking to Amy about the mythical sea dragon,” Flora related. “He said if she went into the loch, the creature would sweep her up on its back and take her on a roller coaster ride in the water. She might never have gone in by herself if Beardsley hadn’t encouraged her. And I got the blame for her drowning!”

Donnie rose from the floor and sat beside his sister on the love-seat, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “I could kill him!” the boy muttered.

Rex raised his hands in a plea for silence. “I need you all to be patient just a wee bit longer. We still have to address Moira’s murder.”

“Oh, I almost forgot about Moira in all the commotion,” Estelle apologized, repositioning herself on the sofa. “Well, who on earth is responsible for that, then? Surely it must be Beardsley!”

Before addressing the remaining
guests, Rex went to have a word with Inspector Strickler and Sergeant Dawes outside. As he was finishing up with them, Angus approached him in the courtyard and informed him that his crew had replaced all the tyres.

“Whit happened?” he asked, cleaning off his brawny hands on an oil-stained rag and then using it to dry his shaved head. “Looks like someone took a knife to the tyres. Is that what that police car is doing parked round the side of the hoose?”

Angus had missed the first arrest, and Rex wasn’t about to get into it and provide instant gossip for the village.

“Why would anyone want to vandalize all these cars?”

“I imagine they didn’t want anyone leaving the property.”

Angus took in the enveloping hills and wooded glens, steeped in rain. “Aye, ye are verra isolated here.”

“That was the whole idea when I bought Gleneagle Lodge.”

“It’s a wee bit different when ye canna leave, though. Well, I hope the rain holds off a while longer. The road is like a mudslide as it is.”

“I’d offer you a dram o’ whisky,” Rex said in chummily accented Scottish, “but my guests drank it all.”

“Thanks anyway. I’ll get one at the pub.”

“You didna happen to be at the Gleneagle Arms last night, did you?”

Angus grinned toothlessly. “On Friday night, every soul in the village is in there.”

“Happen to remember a man coming in asking for directions?”

“A man wi’ a turban?”

“Is that what it was?”

“Aye. Stopped his taxi right ootside the pub. A1 Cabs it said on the side, with the 131 Edinburgh area code. A woman sat in the back, all dressed up, fixing her face. I was aboot to ask if she was lost when the man dashed oot and hopped back in the cab again.”

Rex thanked Angus for the information and asked him to tow the Reliant back to the village and return it to the fishmonger. After settling the bill, he walked back to the two policemen. “Find anything?” he asked.

“Just a load of hoof prints,” Dawes replied. “And we found where the phone line was cut.”

“Why don’t you sit in while I reveal my theory aboot the murderer to the guests?”

“You’re sure it was a murder?” Inspector Strickler asked, as though Rex might be getting carried away with the idea of murder following the first arrest. “We’re investigating a death without having seen the body yet.”

“Aye, I’m sure. I’ve already spoken to the coroner by phone. Dr. Macleod’s autopsy supports my theory.”

“Well, we’ll be glad to hear it,” the inspector said. “It’s been a long night and a long day for the both of us, and any work you can save us would be a blessing.” He clapped Rex on the shoulder. “Churchill is chuffed as heck that he collared the Moor murderer. Now he’ll make superintendent for sure, thanks to you.”

Churchill was Dalgerry’s nickname, apparently. Rex didn’t care if the chief inspector got all the credit. The important thing was to get Beardsley locked away for good. He led the two officers into the house and showed them into the living room.

“Any chance of a cup of tea for our law enforcement friends?” he asked Helen after the statements had been taken.

He joined her in the kitchen. “I’ll have a cup too, lass.”

“Do you think they’d like some of my ginger nut biscuits?”

“I know I would.”

Helen reached for the cookie tin. “Are we going to find out for sure who killed Moira?” she asked, placing the milk jug and sugar bowl on a tray. “I hope it’s Beardsley so we can be done with it. And, anyway, I don’t want it to be anyone else.”

“I canna guarantee it.”

“Can you give me an itsy-bitsy clue? By the way, what was that other clue you mentioned when we were out in the wood?”

“The pony.”

“So, the islet and the pony?”

“And, of course, motive,” Rex added while they waited for the kettle to boil.

“Would that be money?”

“Moira didn’t have any, remember.”

Helen turned off the flame beneath the whistling kettle and filled the teapot. “What about someone wanting to shut her up, like I said before? That leads us back to Hamish, because Cuthbert is basically harmless when it comes to women. I mean, he’ll try it on, but only because he thinks it’s expected of an old country laird to have his wicked way with anyone who takes his fancy.”

“You’ll see.” Rex grabbed a ginger nut cookie out of Helen’s hand and bit into it.

“Oh, you can be so smug sometimes!” she fumed.

“You were a big help,” he said, placating her with a kiss on the cheek.

Even so, a few details remained hazy and he would have liked to be better prepared. However, he could not detain his guests forever and the police officers were waiting. Draining his tea, he took up a position in the living room with his back to the window overlooking the loch. The guests fell silent and watched in rapt attention as he reviewed his notes.

“This morning we were involved in trying to determine who murdered Moira Wilcox,” he began. “Then we got sidetracked by another case. To begin with the facts: the coroner has confirmed that Moira drowned in fresh water and was dead before she reached the loch.”

He reiterated the events in detail for the benefit of the two officers seated in the room. “After Moira went up for her bath at around 11:45, I heard Hamish in conversation with her, a conversation which quickly turned sour as Moira tried to rebuff his advances.”

Rex noticed a sharp intake of breath from Shona and rapidly moved on. “Cuthbert spoke to Moira immediately afterwards and may have been the last person to speak to her.” Everyone’s glance shot toward Cuthbert.

“Oh, baa!” Estelle expostulated. “Why would any of us wish to harm the poor woman?”

Ignoring the outburst, Rex continued to plot his course. “Alistair and I went downstairs and saw Shona standing by the front door, acting suspiciously. It turns out she had just been oot for a smoke. At 12:15, she checked her watch, concerned that her husband would find out what she was up to. That’s when she heard the thud of a falling object. The timeline fits in with Beardsley’s comment about hearing a similar noise soon after he went to sleep. Alistair did not hear it because he was on the landing upstairs at the time. The library, where he was spending the night, is just below the bathroom, so he would have heard it otherwise.”

The policemen nodded, indicating they were with him so far.

“So, you see, there was a lot of activity in the house. Now,” Rex said, pacing in front of the window, giving onto a misty vista of loch and isolated fir trees. “Between 11:45, when Moira went for her bath, and 12:15, when a heavy thud was heard, there was a half-hour period during which time the murder was committed. I did not hear how the conversation between Moira and Cuthbert ended, but she mentioned a draught, which in retrospect I take to be caused by the opening of the bathroom window, through which we may assume the killer got in. The sound may have been drowned out by the running bath. The window slid open with barely a creak when I opened it this morning.”

“I say,” Cuthbert exclaimed from his invalid chair. “I felt a blast of cold air myself. I thought at the time what a draughty old place this was and how glad I was that Estelle had packed my hot water bottle.”

“The window may not have been open all the way at that point,” Rex resumed. “Since there are no curtains or blinds on the window yet, anyone can look in if they got up on a ladder.”

“This is giving me goose bumps,” Estelle remarked, rubbing the arms of her sweater.

“How did your conversation with Moira end, Cuthbert?” Rex asked her husband.

“Very amiably,” Mr. Farquharson replied. “She said she wished she had been my daughter because her own father was a worthless drunk and was never in a position to take care of her. Then she said goodnight as her bath was getting full, and she locked the door behind her. I went back to the bedroom and told Estelle all about the conversation.”

“Your wife never mentioned anything about it to me when I interviewed everyone after lunch.”

“Well, I knew Bertie didn’t kill Moira,” Mrs. Farquharson spluttered, “so I decided not to say anything. He was only gone five minutes.”

“And your trip downstairs in the middle of the night—any positive recollection yet of having done that?”

The two officers leaned forward in their chairs.

“As I told you, I may have gone downstairs to use the cloakroom. I have been known to do that almost in my sleep.”

Strickler and Dawes raised their eyebrows at one another.

Rex spun on Hamish, whose face flushed to a mottled ruby red. “After you spoke to Moira, you returned to your room. Your wife left you fixing the radiator and was gone five minutes for a smoke. That did not leave you enough time to fetch the ladder, get through the window, drown Moira, and dispose of her body in the loch. Unless you’re a trained assassin.” Mr. Allerdice’s out-of-shape frame clearly did not fit the bill. “That’s assuming your wife’s statement holds up … But let’s accept her story about her clandestine smoke for now. And let’s not forget Flora’s apparition on the stairs.”

“Look, old chap,” Cuthbert interrupted. “I don’t see you casting doubt on Alistair. I know he’s a friend and colleague and all that, but he did seem quite pally with Moira last night.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” Alistair replied. “The truth is, I’m gay.”

Shona sat bolt upright and glanced at her daughter, who had turned as pale as bleached bread.

“It’s true,” Rex confirmed. “Alistair had no interest in Moira beyond friendship. But I believe he was the catalyst for her murder.”

Rex gave his guests time to digest this while he planned his next words. There was no easy way to expose this murderer.