Murder at the Castle Read online

  For Sarah Glynn, with love

  Prologue

  The girl knelt before the altar, alone. Dawn had barely broken over Venice and the stone floors of the church of San Cassiano were cold to the touch. Directly in front of her, faint chinks of light filtered through the stained glass and danced across Tintoretto’s masterpiece, The Resurrection of Christ. This morning, she alone was the master’s audience. The glow of the rich red cloth, draped around Jesus’ loins; the chubby folds of skin on the angels’ thighs; the upturned faces of the adoring women, so exquisitely rendered, so alive – all were for her, a lowly hotel chambermaid’s daughter from Fusina. A nobody.

  This was the wonderful thing about Venice. She, the poorest of the poor, could walk in off the street into almost any church and be transformed into a queen, surrounded by gold and magnificence, her senses overwhelmed with beauty and brilliance, with art unparalleled anywhere in the world. Her heart broke to say goodbye to it. But what choice did she have, after what she’d done? She must go to him now. Even though she knew what that would mean. Even though she knew how her mother would suffer.

  Poor Mamma! That was the worst part. Tears welled in the girl’s eyes and spilled down her dirty cheeks, leaving salty streaks through the grime. For seventeen years it had been just the two of them, struggling but happy, or so she had thought. How had it come to this? The thought of leaving was unbearable; of slipping away like a criminal before the sun was even up, of disappearing, like a shadow. And yet she must bear it. She must do it.

  Stubby fingers, rubbed raw, caressed the old wooden rosary beads her godmother had given her for her First Holy Communion. Where had that little girl gone, the one in the white dress with the gap-toothed smile? The girl who had grown up believing she was a lady, a princess, someone special, and that one day her life would be different? One day there would be no more mouldy apartments, cheap pasta suppers and late nights helping Mamma scrub rich men’s floors. Instead, there would be palazzos and ballgowns and their own floors being scrubbed. When, exactly, had that dream been snuffed out? She couldn’t remember now.

  She could remember only what happened afterwards. What she’d done.

  Help me, she pleaded, gazing into the eyes of Tintoretto’s Jesus. Give me strength. It wasn’t a prayer. She no longer believed in God, not after everything that had happened. But she still believed in art; in the transcendence of beauty; in the spirit of Venice, her city, her beloved home.

  Perhaps, one day, she would return. Perhaps, then, the God she didn’t believe in might forgive her.

  She knew her mother never would.

  * * *

  From the shadows of the sacristy, the young priest watched her turn, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Later, Father Antonio would remember every detail of this moment. He would remember her stooping to pick up her rucksack, green and white and with filthy hanging straps and a fake Adidas logo sewn onto the canvas. The way her hair trailed behind her like the dark tail of a comet, tangled and wild. The slap, slap of her flip-flops on the stone. Her last, longing glance back at the altar, to the face of the risen Lord, judging her. Judging them both.

  But now, in the moment, all he felt was the dreadful wrench of her leaving, like an organ being ripped from his body. He had loved her for so long, wanted her for so long, in ways he knew he could never have her, clinging stubbornly to a wretched, angry longing that had made his life torture, yet had been the breath in his body and the beat in his heart. And now she was going and he was dying because he knew he couldn’t stop her, couldn’t save her, any more than he could save himself.

  Only the Lord can save, he reminded himself. Only he can redeem.

  Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

  How inadequate those words were. How futile and worthless, a coward’s mantra.

  In his anguish, the young priest waited patiently for his tears to come. But they never did. Slipping into his robes, he found his mind drifting back to a line from an English poem he’d learned at school – Yeats, wasn’t it? – Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. Was that what was happening to him? Was that what God wanted? For him to feel nothing? For his heart, or at least the part of it that belonged to her, to turn to stone? And was it really sacrifice that did that – or hatred?

  Across the city, the pealing of the matins bells called him back to reality, to the rhythms of the city and the life he had chosen. Soon, worshippers would be arriving for the first Mass of the day. Slowly, methodically, he began lighting the candles.

  He knew he wouldn’t see her again.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Iris Grey scanned the faces of the crowds milling around Aberdeen railway station, hunting for her driver. Scotland was not what she expected. For one thing, it was boiling hot. The intercity train from London had been air-conditioned and stepping off it onto the platform was like stepping into an oven. The red-faced Scots sweating uncomfortably beneath the station’s modern glass roof seemed as surprised as Iris by the blazing sunshine. Many of them wore jeans and long-sleeved shirts, which must be very uncomfortable. According to the headline in the Aberdeen Citizen, currently Scotland was experiencing the hottest August bank holiday weekend on record. Evidently, the locals hadn’t had time to update their wardrobes.

  Amid the clammy, irritated throng, Iris searched in vain for a sign with her name on it. Jock MacKinnon, Baron of Pitfeldy Castle and Iris’s latest patron, had assured her that her train would be met in his latest, terse-but-efficient email:

  Newcomers find the coast roads treacherous. A driver will bring you to the castle. Mrs Gregory will show you to your room.

  Iris was in Scotland to paint Jock’s new, young fiancée, an American socialite by the name of Kathy Miller. The portrait was to be a wedding present, which meant that it needed to be finished by Christmas as the wedding (both Baron Pitfeldy’s and Ms Miller’s third, apparently) was being planned for New Year’s Eve.

  To her initial delight, Iris had been invited to stay at the castle for the long weekend, to meet her subject and to get to know her latest patron’s family better before moving into her own rental house in the village. Pitfeldy had been the MacKinnon family seat for over four hundred years and was (according to Google) steeped in romantic Scottish history that fascinated Iris. As the time for her arrival grew nearer, however, she’d begun to get jittery about the idea of staying at the castle rather than going straight to her own place. Jock’s missives hadn’t exactly been warm and welcoming. If his family turned out to be awful, or boring, or served haggis for breakfast and insisted on sword dancing every night, there’d be no escape for three long days. Since separating from Ian, her husband of more than twenty years, Iris had grown used to having her own space again. Perhaps agreeing to be the house guest of a set of complete strangers had been a mistake.

  ‘Miss Grey?’

  A tap on her shoulder made Iris spin round and find herself face to face with a grinning giant.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding warily.

  ‘Ah’m here to tek ye to Pitfeldy,’ said the giant, his smile spreading even more widely across his enormous face. ‘Is this wee bag the only one ye’ve got? I’m William, by the way.’

  ‘Iris.’

  Six foot four in his socks, completely bald, heavyset and with bare arms that were more tattoo than skin, ‘William’ was not the uniformed chauffeur Iris had expected. Picking up her heavy suitcase as if it were a child’s toy, he swung it happily back and forth as he led her to the car park.

  ‘Pretty nice weather we’re having,’ he observed convivially, tossing Iris’s case into the back of a sleek-looking navy-blue Range Rover with Moray Cars embossed on the side. Iris was surprised. In her mind Jock MacKinnon’s message ab
out sending a driver had implied an employee, not a local taxi driver. Not that it mattered. ‘Have ye been to this part o’ Scotland before?’

  ‘No, actually,’ said Iris, who decided she liked William and hoped his friendliness would turn out to be a local trait. ‘My husband – ex-husband – was from Edinburgh. I went there once years ago, for Christmas, but that’s it.’

  ‘Edinburgh’s not Scotland,’ William announced bluntly.

  ‘Is it not?’ Iris laughed.

  ‘Nah. Full of southerners and tourists.’

  ‘I’ll have to let Ian know,’ said Iris, warming to William even more.

  ‘This is the real Scotland, up here,’ he continued, pulling out onto Guild Street and cutting right in front of a rubbish truck that came within a whisker of hitting them. ‘You’re in for a treat, believe me,’ he told a flinching Iris, simultaneously giving two fingers to the truck driver who was leaning on his horn furiously and mouthing obscenities out of his window. ‘Pitfeldy’s the prettiest wee village in Banffshire, and that’s sayin’ something.’

  He wasn’t wrong. From the moment they left Aberdeen, the landscape was breathtaking. Hugging the coast road, they passed rugged cliffs, sheering off dramatically to reveal a string of pretty stone fishing villages, rings of simple grey houses huddled around sandy bays that couldn’t have changed much in the last three hundred years. Then, turning inland towards Fyvie Castle and the famous Glenglassaugh distillery, the seaside quaintness gave way to magnificent open vistas, broken here and there by swathes of pine forest, with the peaks of Bennachie looming in the distance like a benign gathering of giants. Most striking of all was the sky; it seemed wider and lower to Iris than any she could remember, almost like a radiantly painted ceiling pressing down on this beautiful corner of the earth. Long, thin clouds like stretched candyfloss streaked across the horizon, and as they drove, Iris watched in awe as the palette above her changed from a pale grey to a dusty blue. By the time they turned back to the Moray coast, taking the long, narrow road down from the A96 towards Pitfeldy, it was almost white, the sunlight bouncing in dazzling reflection off the North Sea in a wild dance that had the artist in Iris transfixed. The contrast with Hampshire, where she’d spent most of the last six months, could not have been more striking. Not that Hazelford wasn’t idyllic in its own way; it certainly was. But here prettiness had been swept aside for something altogether grander, wilder and more awe-inspiring. And empty.

  ‘We haven’t passed a single car since we left the main road,’ Iris said to William. ‘Is it always this quiet?’

  ‘Aye, for the most part, it is. It’s the Highlands that see most of the tourists. Places like Pitfeldy are still working communities. Fishing and farming, that’s us. O’ course there’s the castle. But that’s no open to the public, not like Drum or Castle Fraser. Not yet anyway,’ he added darkly. ‘There she is, look.’

  They rounded a bend and the narrow road opened up dramatically on both sides. To Iris’s right, the town of Pitfeldy came into view for the first time, or at least its rooftops and the squat, square tower of its thirteenth-century church, overlooking the harbour. To the left, perched high on a craggy hillside dotted with pines, was Pitfeldy Castle, complete with turrets and crenellated battlements, looking for all the world like an illustration from Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

  ‘She’s a beauty, all right,’ said William, with admirable understatement, as Iris’s jaw dropped. She’d seen pictures, of course, online, but none of them did justice to the romance of the place, especially on such a glorious evening.

  ‘You’re here to paint the baron’s latest, are you?’ William probed, shifting down to first gear as they swung left over a cattle grid and began the sharp ascent to the castle, past the first of a series of ‘Private’ signs.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Iris. ‘His fiancée, Kathy Miller.’

  ‘Fiancée,’ William scoffed. ‘Those two’ll never marry, you mark my words.’

  ‘Oh?’ Iris’s ears pricked up. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because,’ said William, ‘it’s a joke, isn’t it? I mean, for one thing, he’s three times her age. And for another, they’ve nothing in common. And that’s leaving aside the young lady’s character,’ he added cryptically.

  ‘Do you know Kathy?’ asked Iris.

  ‘I know as much as I care to,’ said William, oddly prim all of a sudden.

  ‘You don’t like her?’

  He shrugged his vast shoulders in a failed attempt to seem neutral. ‘She’s no popular locally.’

  ‘Because she’s American? An outsider?’ Iris offered innocently.

  ‘O’ course not. Nothing like that.’ William sounded hurt. ‘Around here we take people as we find them. Newcomers are welcome. But have some respect for the community, you know? For the way of life you’re marrying into.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Iris, fascinated.

  ‘Well, take the baron,’ said William, by way of explanation. ‘He’s never been the most likeable man in the world, OK? Jock MacKinnon can be rude. Snobby. You’d no want to sit down for a pint with him, if you know what I’m saying. But he understands his role in Pitfeldy. He supports the local fishing fleet. He treats his tenant farmers fairly. He pays to stop the church from crumbling into the sea, and he always hosts the St Kenelm’s fair up at the castle on the August bank holiday. Or at least he did until this year, when she put paid to it.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why would Jock’s fiancée refuse to host the church fair?’ Iris was suitably astonished.

  ‘Oh, well, I’ll tell ye why,’ said William, warming to his theme. ‘Because the vicar, Reverend Michaela…’

  ‘Pitfeldy has a woman vicar?’ Iris couldn’t help interrupting.

  ‘Aye, and she’s bloody fantastic,’ William said firmly. ‘The nicest lady you’ll ever meet. In any case, Reverend Michaela refused to let Jock’s girlfriend hold her crystal-munching, chanting, barefoot, bullshit Californian wedding ceremony in the local church. There was no malice in it, mind. She agreed to officiate and all that, up at the castle. But St Kenelm’s is Church of Scotland and there’re rules, you know. Anyway, Miss Miller decided to hold a grudge. And of course the baron, wrapped around her little finger, supported her – “I’m afraid Kathy doesn’t feel comfortable hosting the fair this year, reverend”.’ William did a passable upper-class English accent, halfway between Dom Wetherby, the subject of Iris’s last portrait, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, which made Iris grin. ‘I mean, I’m sorry, but who the hell does she think she is? First, she wants to turn the castle – our castle – into some sort of Disneyland; paying guests and visitors’ centres and God knows what. And then she goes and refuses to host the fair on a whim, and then wonders why nobody’ll give her the time of day! Life may be all yoga mats and transgender mindfulness retreats where she comes from, but this is Pitfeldy. This is bloody Scotland, if you’ll excuse my French.’

  A screech of brakes and spray of gravel announced that they had arrived. Distracted by the driver’s gossip, Iris had barely registered the approach to the castle. Now here it was, towering over her in the early evening light like a great stone monster.

  ‘I’m all paid up, don’t you worry,’ said William cheerfully, unloading Iris’s case as she fumbled in her handbag. ‘You take care now. And good luck painting the Wicked Witch of the West,’ he added cheekily, under his breath.

  Before Iris could say anything further he was gone, heaving his vast frame back into the driver’s seat and hurtling off down the drive.

  For a moment Iris stood completely alone outside the castle, with only two imposing stone lions for company. What on earth had she let herself in for? Was Kathy Miller really as bad as all that, or was the taxi driver exaggerating? Iris fervently hoped it was the latter. People had probably taken against her because she was new, and young, and perhaps had fresh ideas. Iris had also heard that she’d been Jock’s mistress before her promotion to fiancée number three. So perhaps there was some loyalty to
the last Lady Pitfeldy being thrown into the mix? She must try to reserve judgment and not to assume, on the basis of a conversation with one taxi driver, that she was about to spend the next few months cooped up in a studio with a moronic, grudge-bearing, gold-digging airhead whom the entire local community loathed.

  Give her a chance, Iris told herself, reaching for the sturdy brass knocker on the castle’s vast front door. Give all of them a chance.

  Chapter Two

  The door swung open and a plump middle-aged woman stood in front of Iris, radiating efficiency like a boarding-school house mistress in her sensible tweed skirt and crisp white blouse. Not Kathy Miller, surely?

  ‘You must be Ms Grey,’ she stated. ‘Welcome to Pitfeldy. I’m Eileen Gregory, the housekeeper here. I’ll show you to your room so you can catch your breath before dinner.’

  Her handshake was as firm and businesslike as she was.

  ‘Dinner is at eight. No need to dress formally, in case you were wondering.’

  As she followed the housekeeper up a spectacular wide stone staircase and along a straight, slightly gloomy corridor to her room, it struck Iris that should she ever get the heave-ho from the MacKinnons, Mrs Gregory would be welcomed with open arms by the Swiss Railway Service. She was already getting the strong sense that life at Pitfeldy Castle ran like clockwork and with military precision. The hallway was lined with equally gloomy art, most of it Victorian and in need of a good clean, in Iris’s opinion. One or two wall-mounted pieces of armour completed the dour, baronial look. Pushed back against the walls every ten feet or so were the sort of overly delicate, spindly antique chairs that Iris hated, on whose cushioned seats someone had helpfully placed thistles, in the unlikely event that anyone should be tempted to try and sit down on them. A grand house, then, but not a warm one. On reflection, Iris decided the vibe was less Downton Abbey and more Scooby Doo: a huge, empty, spooky house with, on the face of it, no people, no voices, no life at all.