A Christmas Tartan Page 7

  “I’m beginning to wonder about the tourists too.”

  Elias shrugged. “Aye. Weel, ebb and flow, I guess. No guided tours here, but I ken that tour vans stop here. We must be in between groups.”

  I cleared my throat and stepped back from the ledge. I turned in a slow circle so I could take in the entire 360-degree view, but I only got about 100 degrees around.

  We were on one end of the roof of the castle, but it wasn’t all flat. There was a bricked peak that ran down the middle of the space, followed by more open space. I thought I spotted something on the ground on the other end of the peak and in the open space.

  “Is that a sandal? A sandal on a foot?” I said as I pushed past Elias and moved quickly in between the peak and the battlements. It wasn’t an overly tight space and there was no concern that I’d go over the edge, but I leaned inward anyway.

  The angle at which I saw what I thought was a foot made me think that someone was flat on their back behind the end of the peaked part.

  Unfortunately, my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me. The foot was attached to a person—a man’s body extended down a short flight of stairs, his head at the bottom, his sandaled and tights-clad feet at the top. Two things became immediately clear: the man was dead, and he was surely my contact.

  “No! It’s him! The man I was supposed to meet!” I yelled, and stomped my foot. I threw my hands up to my mouth and looked at Elias with wide, confused eyes. I became frozen in a surreal sense of unreality. Something in me wanted to scream, something else wanted to run. Part of me wanted to faint.

  Involuntarily, I doubled over and started to breathe loudly, quickly, and noisily again, but even more so than just after the trip up the stairs.

  Gently, Elias moved me away from the scene, guiding me to sit down at a spot away from the body and back from the battlement wall. He said things, but I didn’t register the words. Oddly, the only things I could focus on were those faraway snowcapped mountains. I’d sensed that I needed to go to them.

  Now, I wished I was already there.

  I recovered from the initial shock. I might have hyperventilated if I hadn’t, and I knew I needed to get it together to help Elias, or the dead man if there was any help to be had for him. Once I could breathe normally and my ears started to hear again, I stood and walked, with only slightly shaky legs, back to Elias and the body.

  He had the police on his mobile, his side of the conversation including things like, “We’ve come upon a dead body atop the Castle Doune. Aye, I checked for a pulse and listened for breath. Nothing. No, I can’t see right off what might have happened. We’ve just got a dead man in a . . . weel, I think it’s a costume of sorts.” I nodded but didn’t interrupt. I hadn’t told Elias about my contact’s acting job at the Wallace monument.

  The dead man was my contact, I was pretty sure. He fit the description Edwin had given me. It was more than the costume. Edwin had said he would be a big man, early fifties, shoulder-length auburn hair, somewhat gray at the temples. I’d commented that William Wallace had been tortured and executed when he was thirty-five. Edwin had been impressed by my historical knowledge, but then shrugged and said that if someone wanted to play the part of William Wallace, there’s usually a place that would welcome them aboard, no matter their age. The sandals, more like Birkenstocks than something from the thirteenth century, didn’t necessarily fit with the rest of the getup, but they were probably comfortable and close enough in style. Sandals were poor shoe choices for Scotland in November, but at least the socks must have helped a little.

  He was dead, there was no doubt, and Elias had been correct when he’d said that there was no visible cause. There was nothing gruesome about him, no blood, no injuries, though it was certainly a morbid scene and I had to work hard not to fall back into freak-out mode. I wondered who he was besides a reenactor of a famous historical Scottish figure. What was his real name? What was his job? I hadn’t asked Edwin, and he hadn’t offered. It was supposed to be an adventure. I thought his lack of details was on purpose, and meant I wasn’t supposed to ask too many questions. Turned out it was an adventure, but not in the way Edwin had intended, and definitely not in the way I had expected.

  I’d forgotten all about the cold until voices rode up to us on a gust of wind. Happy voices and jovial laughter.

  “Uh-oh.” I stood and looked over the edge. A van had parked in the parking lot, and a group of people were making their way up the path toward the castle entrance.

  “I’ll go talk to them,” I said to Elias.

  He looked at me, at the body, and then at me again. “Do ye want me tae do that?”

  “No, you stay here,” I said, giving him the worse of the two tasks. Though staying with the dead man wouldn’t help him come back to life, it seemed wrong to leave him alone.

  I hurried along the in-between space and tried to formulate what I would say to the group of people that would keep them away but not scare them too much, though if there was a killer in the vicinity maybe we all needed to be a little scared, or at least on guard.

  I stopped at the entryway to the spiral staircase and looked back over the roof. There were a couple of juts and corners that the killer could still be hiding behind but it was unlikely that we wouldn’t have noticed someone from the other end.

  “Be careful!” I said back to Elias.

  “Aye, ye too, lass.”

  “I will be,” I muttered quietly, hoping I didn’t come upon a killer in the tight stairway.

  If I hadn’t stopped and hesitated I might have missed a flutter out of the corner of my eye. My heartbeat picked up again when I saw the movement. I focused my attention on the spot around the wall and on the other side of the staircase entrance. It was a piece of paper, perhaps stuck behind a decorative stone cube that jutted upward.

  As I moved toward the flutter I’d all but forgotten about the Oor Wullie, but it came back full force when I saw it was a book wedged into the space. I crouched, unwedged it, and inspected the cover closely. Edwin had told me the cover would be an illustration of the lead character, Wullie, with his short spiky hair and dungarees, in sixteen different poses. The book I held matched the description. The book wasn’t in mint condition, but the tears on the cover and first few pages could have been from the book’s recent trip across the rooftop of the castle.

  I couldn’t see Elias or the body from where I was crouched. I looked that direction to confirm he couldn’t see me. I shouldn’t have picked up the book. It might have been evidence. Elias and I were going to have to explain to the police what we were doing atop the roof of Castle Doune. We’d have to tell them about our meeting, about the handoff that was supposed to have taken place. Maybe the comic book had something to do with the man dying, or being killed. I should have left it where it was.

  But even though Edwin was a good man, kind and considerate, some of the secrets he’d been sharing with me sometimes skirted along the edge of legal; sometimes they spilled over a tiny bit.

  I’d become fiercely loyal to him and my coworkers, Rosie and Hamlet. Of course I didn’t suspect that Edwin had played some part in the death of the man at the other end of the roof, but something was amiss. If there was a murder, how much did Edwin have to do with it, even peripherally?

  Ultimately it was an instinct. At least that was the excuse I would use later when I pondered exactly why I grabbed the comic book and put it under my jacket before going to talk to the approaching tourists.

  They didn’t believe me at first. They were from Berlin, Germany, and though they spoke English much better than I could have faked German, they thought it was strange that someone who was so distinctly American was instructing them that they couldn’t go into the Scottish castle. It was an awkward summit meeting that was ultimately successful because the police were quick to arrive.

  I was prepared to hand over the comic book if Elias spilled the beans about our visit to the castle. I would apologize for tainting evidence, and become appropriately h
umbled about my actions.

  But the police didn’t ask why we were there. They asked if we knew the dead man, for our names, our phone numbers, and our home and work addresses, but not for the reason behind our trip to the castle. We kept our answers brief and noncommittal, which I’d noticed was always Elias’s way when speaking to law enforcement. I was typically more forthcoming but today I followed his lead, glad I didn’t have to try to convince him to be less than forthright. He sent me a questioning expression when he noticed I was giving the same sorts of answers he was giving, but he didn’t comment.

  It must not have occurred to the police that there would be any reason to visit Castle Doune other than to see it. And they would probably be right most of the time.

  We were dismissed and the German tourists were sent away without getting even a chance to step into the courtyard. They were disappointed and sent me angry glances as Elias and I got into the cab.

  Neither he nor I spoke until we reached the busy motorway again, headed back toward Edinburgh.

  “Lass, who was that man?” Elias asked.

  “I have no idea,” I said, but I told him about the connection to William Wallace and the monument in Stirling. I told him I knew he was my contact by the costume and Edwin’s description.

  “Och, what a mess. Poor lad,” Elias said.

  “What do you think happened?”

  “I have no idea. He could have had a heart attack, I s’pose. The police will investigate.”

  “Do you think it’s weird that there were no other vehicles there?”

  “Aye. Verra much so, but I dinnae ken what tae make of it. Tour caravans and vans make their way tae the castle. He could have taken a ride with one of them.”

  “That makes sense. I . . .”

  “What?”

  I opened my jacket and pulled out the comic book.

  “Ooh, where did ye get that?” he asked as he smacked his forehead with his hand, knocking his cap backwards.

  “I found it at the other end of the roof, by the circular stairway, when I was going down to meet the tourists. I should have given it to the police, huh?”

  “Aye, ye shouldnae have even sae much as touched the wee thing.”

  “I know. I really do know, but . . . well, here it is.”

  “Aye.”

  “Do you think I should take it back to the police?”

  Elias rubbed his finger under his nose and adjusted the rearview mirror. He frowned as he looked in it and then in his side mirror. I got a final sideways glance before he said, “No, talk tae Edwin. See what he says.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. Good idea.”

  “Aye,” Elias said doubtfully.

  It took us just over an hour to get back to Edinburgh, which was about the right amount of time to recover from our time at the castle, and formulate the questions I had for Edwin. I hoped to find him at the shop. His hours were unpredictable at best. Once we were in front of The Cracked Spine, I sent Elias on his way, wondering how he would break the news of our travels to Aggie. I was sure we’d have to gather later to discuss the events.

  The bell above the door jingled as I came through. Everyone I worked with was there. Edwin, Hamlet, Rosie, and Hector, the tiny terrier with the long bangs (today, a bright pink barrette held the bangs up in a tiny feathered fur fountain) and Rosie’s boyfriend, Regg Brandon, who’d recently become a frequent fixture in the shop, all looked over to greet me as I came in. Rosie had witnessed Regg get hit by a bus a couple of months ago, and their romance had sparked when she’d sought him out at the hospital. His bruises and injuries had healed but he still walked with a slight limp. Since he was seventy-something, he’d accepted that he might have the limp forever and was grateful he wasn’t in worse condition. He was an architect with an office not far from the bookshop and his almost daily visits were always welcomed.

  Hector sat up from his stretched position on the edge of the desk in the front of the shop, welcoming me with a tail wag. His tail stopped being so happy when he must have sensed something wasn’t quite right. He sat and watched me with the cutest questioning brown eyes you’ve ever seen. I took a deep breath and told my face to normalize.

  I also pushed away any bookish voices that might want to talk to me. I had to focus, and I really needed to talk to Edwin.

  Though Rosie had her own office on the other side of the wall, the dark side, she usually sat at the front desk, either looking over her handwritten bookkeeping ledgers, helping customers, or visiting with Regg when he brought her coffee, or lunch, or just stopped to say hello. Hector went home with Rosie every night, but all of us were his people. He was well in tune with each of our moods and dispositions.

  Edwin stood on the rolling ladder attached to the side of the shop’s ceiling-to-floor, jam-packed shelves.

  “How did it go, lass?” he asked with a smile that faded when he truly looked at me.

  “Delaney? Ye awright?” Rosie asked as she peered up over a steaming mug.

  “Hi, everybody. I’m fine, thanks.”

  “You don’t look so good. Pale even for you,” Regg said.

  “I’m okay.” I smiled. I liked Regg. He was the bluntest person I’d ever met.

  Edwin stepped off the ladder. “Lass?”

  “Edwin, can we talk privately in the warehouse?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said as his eyebrows came together.

  Hamlet stood at the back of the shop, holding a broom and a dustpan. Even with my hurried steps toward the stairs that would lead us up and over to the dark side, I glanced quickly at the ground next to his feet, noticing shards of glass.

  We gave each other curious scrutinizing glances, both of us wondering what was going on with the other one. Our nods and blinks indicated that we’d discuss things later. Though we were a close-knit group and I cared deeply for them all, my bond with Hamlet had been the most surprising and maybe the deepest. It was part friendly, part sibling-like, made up of fun times and laughter but also of serious conversations about the world and the best way to live a life. Eight years my junior, his wisdom belied his youth, and our deep conversations were moments I looked forward to. I’d come to Scotland almost on a whim, a desire to be bold because I felt like I’d lived my life too safely. I hadn’t thought I would ever give a second thought to my motivations to move to the other side of the world, but I had, and Hamlet, who had been forced to live his life with no other choice but to be brave, had made that impulsive decision seem at least somewhat like a good one.

  After traveling down a small walkway at the top of the stairs, Edwin and I went through another door to a cooler, darker, and mustier space lit with only an exposed bulb hanging from the ceiling and whatever outside light could make it through the blacked-out and grungy front and back windows. The shop side had once been a bank; this side had sat empty and unused for years until Edwin acquired it to use for office and warehouse space. A small kitchen took up one corner and the water closet another one.

  At the bottom of the stairs, we turned left toward the large, ornately carved red wooden door that kept Edwin’s treasures safe and secure from the world. The warehouse used to also be Edwin’s office, but now it was mine, with my worktable and a desk that dated back to seventeenth-century Scottish royalty. I’d only recently become accustomed to working at the priceless desk, but still had to cover it with paper I tore fresh from a roll every day. Edwin said it reminded him of a doctor’s office but I’d told him it was the only way I could keep working on the priceless piece of furniture.

  I pulled the large blue key from my pocket, looked all directions in the small hallway—this had become a habit after watching my coworkers do it. I don’t think any one of us had ever come upon an unwelcome visitor, but you could never be too careful when doors hid rooms full of treasures. I placed the key in the lock and turned it three times to the left, releasing the deadbolt with a metallic thud and an echo, and pushed the heavy door open. Edwin followed me inside and I closed it t
ightly behind us.

  Other than one shelf full of old but not particularly valuable books, I hadn’t had time to organize much of anything in the warehouse. The task was daunting, to say the least. A room with shelves packed with things—the widest variety anyone could imagine. Not only were there books, but things like Egyptian artifacts that I’d decided were most likely genuine; wicked-looking items I’d first thought were turn-of-the-twentieth-century medical instruments but had concluded were torture devices. I’d recently found a small burlap bag full of arrowheads, something any good Kansas girl would recognize. I didn’t know where they were from and neither did Edwin. They were on my continually growing list of things to research. Crystal and silver pieces, some of which I was sure had been around when living in castles was all the rage. And that was only the beginning.

  I flipped the switch on the overhead fluorescent lights, giving the room a dungeon-like glow, since the sky outside the small windows at the top of the back wall was thick with clouds. Edwin still liked to spend a lot of time in the warehouse so I’d brought in another comfortable office chair. I rolled it from the corner of the room to the other side of my desk and then moved to my chair.

  The warehouse smelled like the best sort of dungeon—old books, ink, wood that had expanded and contracted more than a few times from moisture over the years, cold metal that had become grimy with time, congealed motor oil that had never been cleaned away. The surprisingly pleasant combination of the scents and the old stone building had more than once made me think I could almost travel through time when I was in the warehouse. I just hadn’t figured out all the particulars yet.

  I unzipped my jacket and pulled out the copy of the Oor Wullie annual, placing it on the desk in between us.

  “Ah, you retrieved it! But why was it in your jacket, lass? And was it this damaged when you received it? What happened?” Edwin said.

  “It didn’t go quite as planned, and I might have messed up,” I said.