Read Online The Murder Hole by Lillian Stewart Carl - Free Book Online Page B

we don’t know Dr. Dempsey personally.”
    “I only know his public face. And I haven’t
met Iris at all yet. It was Kirsty who let me in.”
    “Isn’t she a pretty little thing?” asked
Dave.
    “So nice to see a young girl without a ring
in her nose or a tattoo,” Patti added.
    Beneath her clothes, thought Jean, Kirsty
could well be tattooed with the map of Scotland, with a navel ring
marking the site of Glasgow. If so, that was her own business.
    Dave went on, “She’s off with her boyfriend
tonight. I saw them walking down the driveway.”
    “Cute couple,” said Patti. “He’s one of the
boys from the boat, you know, Dempsey’s assistant.”
    “Oh?” Jean asked, but before she could get
any more gossip, let alone pole-vault to any conclusions, the child
Elvis shot around the corner of the house, careened across the
terrace, and stopped dead in front of the three adults.
    “Hello there, sonny,” said Dave. “How old are
you?”
    Elvis peered up at his inquisitors from
beneath his sheaf of flaxen hair. “Six,” he allowed cautiously,
like a witness wondering whether his testimony would be used
against him.
    The cadaverous form of his father
materialized from the twilight, Dracula-like, and ambled down the
terrace. “Oh, hullo. Martin Hall. The lad’s Elvis. Ah, drinks.”
Martin’s amble sped up fractionally, to a mosey. He picked up a
bottle, then asked over his shoulder, “Here, have you seen a
corkscrew?”
    “No, sorry,” Jean answered, although it was
the darned elusive Iris who should be apologizing.
    Thwarted, Martin set down that bottle and
chose another, a creamy liqueur with a screw-off top. He filled a
small glass with it and a large one with what the locals called
lemonade—citric-acid soda—adding, extravagantly, one ice cube from
the bucket provided.
    “Ta!” Elvis clasped the fizzing glass with
both hands and gulped. A moment later he produced a loud belch.
Martin muttered some reprimand. Jean pretended she hadn’t heard.
The Ducketts laughed.
    Elvis set his glass on the edge of the cart
and ran off across the terrace. Martin sat down to nurse his
liqueur. His thick glasses and distracted air confirmed Jean’s
impression that he’d been forcibly removed from a library or lab
and was going through withdrawal. She could have initiated a
conversation by asking where Elvis’s mum was, but Martin, if not
obviously strong, seemed to be the silent type. She commiserated
with the need for silence, even though its corollary was sometimes
loneliness.
    Dave and Patti, though, did not. After
various dithers—“Is that Drambuie? How sweet it that? Is Lagavullin
one of those smoky ones?”—they chose their respective poisons.
Settling down between Martin and Jean, they started chatting about
their travels, the loch, and how they’d picked up some Omnium
brochures from the Water Horse boat and wasn’t underwater
exploration the wave of the future—wave, get it, wave?
    Jean returned the conversational birdie with
a few remarks about Dempsey’s theories and technical prowess.
Martin offered that he, Elvis, and Noreen-the-wife had toured the
Water Horse boat. While the lad had been right chuffed, Noreen, he
added in tones so weary they approached contempt, had developed a
migraine and was now having a lie-down.
    Tracy had been right about people tramping
through all day long, Jean thought. Maybe Jonathan’s belligerence
was evidence that he hadn’t appreciated being on show. Was he out
with Kirsty tonight, or had she gone with Brendan?
    The sound of bagpipes, part swagger, part
lament, drifted up from the Festival field. That was why armies
marched with pipers—the sound carried for miles. Jean’s nervous
system quivered with awe and delight and regret.
    Then the fine hair on the back of her neck
stirred, ever so slightly, as though a chill breeze had blown
across her skin. Her irritating hypersensitivity to the paranormal
was picking up an allergen—a ghost, walking the gardens