Vincent sat down on the side of the bed and handed her his Get-Well card. ‘I saw Morag Driscoll, the sergeant, on Harbour Street. She told me about his plan to put up windmills on Gordon MacDonald’s croft.’
‘And I told him it would be over my dead body,’ Rhona said, with shake of her head as she opened the card and smiled at the picture of an old goat in bed. She perched it on the bedside cabinet alongside the others. ‘And then one of his toadies sniggered and I saw red. I was about to give him a good skelp on the side of his head – and then I ended up in here.’
Vincent’s jaw muscles tightened. ‘I think I’ll be having a word with this lad then. He sounds as if he needs teaching a lesson.’
Rhona noticed the way his fist opened and closed. ‘You’ll do no such thing, Vincent. I can fight my own battles and I’ll not have you getting into trouble with the likes of him. It’s not your battle.’
‘It sounds as if it is a battle for all of us on the Wee Kingdom, Rhona. What have the others said about it?’
Rhona pouted. ‘Nial Urquart was round yesterday and he said that Megan was upset, of course. And they’ve had a bee in their bonnet about the wind farm threat anyway for a while. This has just sort of focused everything a bit.’ She bit her lip. ‘God, I could murder a cigarette!’ She looked at him pleadingly. ‘You couldn’t sneak in a pack for me could you, Vincent?’
‘More than my life is worth, Rhona. And it is time you were stopping anyway.’
‘Ach! It’s too late for me now.’ She made to fold her arms, but being unable to do so because of the heavily bound wrist with its drip-line she swore volubly.
‘I am seeing that you cannot be too ill then,’ came Alistair McKinley’s voice from the end of the unit. He came forward, nodded to Vincent and bent to kiss Rhona on the cheek. ‘That was some fleg you gave us yesterday, Rhona. You’ll not be planning another I am hoping.’
Rhona scowled, then looked worried. ‘Will you manage my goats?’
‘Everything is taken care of,’ said Alistair. ‘All the animals are fed, the crops are doing well and the weaving will get done as and when we’ve time.’
Rhona gave a smile of resignation. ‘Of course, like always, the Wee Kingdom folk will pull together.’
Vincent put a hand on Alistair’s shoulder. ‘Will you point out the young fool that caused all this to me?’
‘Vincent!’ Rhona exclaimed. ‘I’ve told you already.’
‘Of course I will, Vincent,’ Alistair McKinley said, ignoring Rhona’s look of exasperation for a moment. ‘But I am thinking that you might need to stand in line if you are contemplating violence. Young Kenneth went off in one of his huffs and you know what a temper he has. He didn’t come home last night. He does that when he’s working himself up about something. And he’s been doing that a lot lately.’ He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and stared at the floor for a few moments, as if deep in his own thoughts. Then he added, ‘And as for that mad woman—’
‘Alistair! I’ve told you before about calling Megan Munro names! We have to be united in the Wee Kingdom.’
‘Ach, well, she is mad,’ replied Alistair. ‘Her and her hedgehogs. I don’t know what she gets up to sometimes, but I heard her screaming away this morning. Her man dropped another of those flyers of his on my doormat, but didn’t stop long enough to talk to me. No manners!’
‘What flyer was this, Alistair?’ Vincent asked.
‘This meeting he’s been on about for a while. The anti-windmill thing this afternoon. I suppose under the circumstances we should be there, don’t you?’
Rhona sat forward. ‘Of course the pair of you should go and represent our interests. But don’t do anything silly. No violence, or any of that nonsense.’
Vincent smiled and clicked his tongue. ‘This coming from the woman who was going to give that lad a “good skelp” herself!’
chapter five
No one on the island of West Uist had ever known Jesmond’s first name. He was not a local man, but had come to the island to serve Fergus MacLeod as a footman in the 1950s when he was about sixteen. The household at Dunshiffin Castle had been trimmed right back with the last laird, Angus MacLeod, but Jesmond had worked loyally for his master and had come to be associated with the very fabric of the building. Indeed, when Jock McArdle, the new owner, had purchased the estate he found to his delight that he had also retained the services of a butler.
The elderly retainer seemed to have all the qualities one could have wished for in a butler. He was old, lean as a rake and so straight that he could well have had such an instrument thrust up the back of his ever present white jacket. He had a slightly bulbous nose speckled at the sides with tiny red veins, suggestive of a partiality for the castle brandy, and a comb-over that perpetually threatened to fall back whenever he bowed. And the deferential bow was something that he had down to a fine art. He did it perfectly to his master (and that meant to his new master), but with just a tinge of disdain to those he felt disdainful of. All in all, Jock McArdle couldn’t have been happier with him.
But the feeling was not reciprocated by Jesmond. He had been a loyal butler to the MacLeods for fifty years. And in his book, being loyal to the laird meant being loyal to the estate and all that the estate represented. He did not like the new laird’s two heavies from Glasgow. He did not particularly like the new laird himself, whom he thought to be boorish and bullying. He did not approve of the laird’s plans for the development of the estate, such as he had overheard while serving dinner or port to him and the two heavies whom he seemed to dote on as if they were his own sons. But more than any of that, he did not approve of Jock McArdle’s two pet Rottweilers. Nasty-tempered buggers, he thought them, leaving hairs all over the place, skidding on the polished floors and barking whenever a fly landed. His nerves were shot to pieces, but he judged that it was too soon in the relationship with the new laird to protest about them.
He came into the billiard-room where the laird was playing snooker with Liam Sartori and Danny Reid. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and he eyed with disdain Liam Sartori’s habit of leaving a cigarette end balanced on the edge of the billiard table while he took a shot.
Dallas and Tulsa, the two Rottweilers, lay sprawled on the mat in the window bay, both growling menacingly at his entry.
‘This note was dropped through the letterbox, Mr McArdle,’ he said, executing his bow and proffering the envelope on his little silver salver.
Jock McArdle picked it up and tore the envelope open. As he read it his eyes widened and anger lines appeared between his eyebrows. ‘Did you see who left this?’ he demanded.
Jesmond had moved a crystal ashtray from the side table onto the edge of the billiard table, beside Liam Sartori’s cigarette end. ‘No, sir, it was lying on the mat. But as you can see, it was hand-delivered rather than mail-delivered.’
‘What’s it say, boss?’ Liam asked.
In answer, Jock McArdle tossed the single sheet of paper down on the table for them to see. Upon it, with words cut out of a newspaper was the message:
THERE IS A WIND OF DISCONTENT
NO WINDMILLS
WE’RE WATCHING YOU
Liam laughed his strange laugh. Is that someone trying to frighten you, boss? That’s a good one that is. That’s original.’
‘Shut it, Liam!’ snapped Danny Reid, indicating Jesmond with a slight motion of his eyes.