His entrance had silenced everyone in the room. Even the domino players had halted their game. The man casually snapped his fingers at the dog. It trotted back to him, wagging its tail.
‘Sorry about that, Ellen,’ he said with an easy confidence, the clipped vowels of South Africa evident in his voice. ‘He shot straight in as soon as I opened the door.’
Ellen looked unimpressed with both the newcomer and his apology. ‘You should keep hold of him, then. This is a hotel, not a kennel.’
‘I know. It won’t happen again.’
He looked contrite, but as she turned away and walked out I saw him flash a quick smile and wink at the drinkers at the bar. There were grins in reply. Whoever the newcomer was, he was popular.
‘Evening, everyone. It’s a raw one out there tonight,’ he said, shrugging out of his coat.
There was a chorus of ‘Feasgar Math’ and ‘aye’s. I had the impression he could have said it was a beautiful evening and they would just as readily have agreed with him. But the newcomer either didn’t notice their deference, or accepted it as his due.
‘Will you take a drink, Mr Strachan?’ Kinross asked, with an awkward formality.
‘No, thank you, Iain. But I’ll gladly buy a round myself. Help yourselves, and mark it up on my tab.’ He gave the woman at the bar a smile that made his eyes crinkle. ‘Hello, Karen. I’ve not seen you for a while. Are you and Mary keeping well?’
She was more susceptible to his charm than Ellen had been. Her blush was visible even from where I sat.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, pleased to be singled out.
Only now did the newcomer turn towards where Brody and I were sitting. ‘Evening, Andrew.’
Brody gave a stiff nod in return. His expression was hard as granite. He shifted his legs to put them between his border collie bitch and the golden retriever, which was sniffing around her.
The newcomer swatted the retriever with his gloves. ‘Leave her alone, Oscar, you hound.’
The dog came away, wagging its tail. Its owner gave me a grin. For all his self-assurance, there was something engaging about him.
‘And you must be one of the visitors I’ve been hearing about. I’m Michael Strachan.’
I’d already guessed this must be who Fraser had told me about on the way back from the cottage: Runa’s unofficial laird, and the owner of the big house. He was younger than I’d expected, somehow.
‘David Hunter,’ I said, shaking the offered hand. He had a dry, strong grip.
‘Can I buy you both a drink as well?’ he offered.
‘Not for me, thanks,’ I said.
Brody rose to his feet, his expression stony. He towered nearly a half-head over Strachan.
‘I was just leaving. Nice seeing you again, Dr Hunter. Come on, Bess.’
The dog obediently trotted out after him. Strachan watched him go, mouth curved in a faint smile, before turning back to me. ‘Mind if I join you?’
He was already sliding into Brody’s seat, casually tossing his gloves on to the table. In his black jeans and charcoal-grey sweater, sleeves pushed back to reveal tanned forearms and a Swiss Army watch, he looked as though he’d be more at home in Soho than the Outer Hebrides.
The golden retriever flopped down beside him, as near to the crackling fire as it could get. Strachan reached down and scratched its ears, looking every bit as relaxed himself.
‘Are you a friend of Andrew Brody’s?’ he asked.
‘We only met today.’
He grinned. ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t approve of me, as you probably noticed. I’m sure he was a good policeman, but God, the man’s dour!’
I didn’t say anything. I’d been quite impressed by Brody so far. Strachan slouched easily in his chair, casually resting one foot on his knee.
‘I gather you’re a…what is it? A forensic anthropologist?’ He smiled at my surprise. ‘You’ll find it’s hard to keep anything a secret on Runa. Especially when we’ve got a reporter whose grandmother lives on the island.’
I thought back to how Maggie Cassidy had come over to talk to me on the ferry. Stumbling against me, pretending to be a novelist as she’d pumped me for information.
And I’d fallen for it.
‘Don’t feel too bad,’ Strachan said, interpreting my expression. ‘It isn’t often we get this sort of excitement. Not that we want it, obviously. The last time a body was found here was when an old crofter tried to walk home in the dark after a few malts too many. Got lost and died of exposure. But this doesn’t sound anything like that.’
He paused, giving me a chance to comment. When I didn’t he went on anyway.
‘What was it, some kind of accident?’
‘Sorry, I can’t really say.’
Strachan gave an apologetic smile. ‘No, of course. You’ll have to excuse my curiosity. It’s just that I’ve got what you might call a vested interest in this place. I’m responsible for a lot of redevelopment here. It’s brought more people to the island than we’re used to-contractors and so on. I’d hate to think I’d imported big-town troubles as well.’
He seemed genuinely concerned, but I wasn’t going to let myself be drawn. ‘You don’t sound like a local,’ I said.
He grinned. ‘The accent’s a bit of a giveaway, eh? My family’s Scottish originally, but I grew up near Johannesburg. My wife and I moved to Runa about five years ago.’
‘It’s a long way from South Africa.’
Strachan tousled his dog’s ears. ‘I suppose it is. But we’d been travelling round a lot, so it was time to put down roots. I liked the remoteness of this place. Reminded me in some ways of where I grew up. Place was pretty depressed back then, of course. No local economy to speak of, population in decline. Another few years and it could have been another St Kilda.’
I’d heard of St Kilda, another Hebridean island that had been abandoned in the 1930s, and lain unoccupied ever since. Now it was a ghost-island, tenanted only by seabirds and researchers.
‘You seem to have helped turn it round,’ I said.
He looked embarrassed. ‘We’ve still got some way to go. And I don’t want to make out it’s all down to me. But Runa’s our home now. Grace, my wife, helps out at the school, and we do what we can in other ways as well. That’s why I worry when I hear about something like this happening. Hello, what’s up, Oscar?’
The golden retriever was looking expectantly at the doorway. I hadn’t heard anyone come into the hotel, but a moment later there was the sound of the front door opening. The dog gave an excited whine, its tail thumping against the floor.
‘I don’t know how he does that, but he always knows,’ Strachan said, shaking his head.
Knows what? I wondered, and then a woman came into the bar. I didn’t need to be told to know that she was Strachan’s wife. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, although she was certainly that. Her white Prada parka was flecked with rain, setting off thick, shoulder-length hair that was raven black. It framed a face whose skin was flawless, with a full mouth it was hard to take your eyes from.
But it was more than that. There was an energy to her, a sheer physical presence that seemed to draw all the light in the room. I remembered Fraser’s envious comment earlier: His wife’s supposed to be a stunner.
He was right.
She’d had a tentative smile as she came into the bar, but when she saw Strachan it bloomed into something dazzling.
‘Caught you! So this is where you end up when you go out on “business”, is it?’
She had the same faint South African accent as her husband. Strachan rose to give her a kiss.
‘Guilty. How did you know I was here?’
‘I came to get some things from the store, but it was shut,’ she said, taking off her gloves. They were fur-lined black leather, unobtrusively expensive. On her left hand she wore a plain gold wedding band, and a diamond ring whose single stone danced with blue light. ‘Next time you want to sneak a drink, don’t leave your car outside.’