Free The Avalon Chanter by Lillian Stewart Carl Page B

and
bagged the quartet by the car. Jean flinched as the bright light
hung in her face, blinding her.
    But the light wasn’t focused on her. “Well,
stuff that for a game of soldiers. Alasdair Cameron. And here’s me
hoping the local plod’s, Crawley, Crawford—hoping he’s
hallucinating saying you’re here. But it’s not enough we’ve got
prats of our own, is it? Scotland’s sending theirs to
interfere.”
    “ Hullo, George,” Alasdair said evenly,
but Jean sensed his body go even colder than the car.
    “ Who’s your entourage,
then?”
    “ Hugh Munro and Hector Cruz from the
music school. My wife, Jean Fairbairn.”
    Again the light dazzled her eyes. “One of
those, are you, girl? Too pleased with yourself to take your
husband’s name?”
    She wouldn’t have detailed the whys and
wherefores of her name choices to a much more affable person, never
mind this man. Following Alasdair’s example, she offered a terse,
“Hello.”
    People milled about, going from priory to
village to the road and back. Jean was vaguely aware of twin dots
of lime-green carrying Pen back to her post at the B&B, and of
Hugh seizing the arm of Hector’s windbreaker and pulling him away
into the surrounding darkness. She was much more aware of
Grinsell.
    A car came up the road, lurched into a
pothole, and after a brief spin of its wheels lurched out again.
Its headlights caught the man like an insect in amber. He stood
about the same height as Alasdair, but was more slightly built, bar
the protrusion of a small pot belly. Thinning reddish hair, a sour
slit of a mouth, the sly sideways cant of his eyes close together
in a long face, a sharp chin—he resembled a fox, Jean thought, and
she didn’t mean foxy as in attractive.
    Handsome is as handsome
does. At five-foot-eight, Alasdair was hardly on the
tall side, but he stood with his usual quiet reserve, at ease if
also poised, having no need to prove his manhood or anything
else.
    The headlights went out. Grinsell again
assumed the power position, legs spread, shoulders braced beneath
the weight of their chips. “What’s your business here, Inspector?
Oh, excuse me. Chief Inspector.”
    “ My wife is here writing a magazine
article on Farnaby Priory. I’m having myself a bit of a busman’s
holiday. Nowadays I’m head of Protect and Survive in
Edinburgh.”
    “ Edinburgh?” The word was a sneer in
Grinsell’s whine. “So you’ve taken on some namby-pamby job with the
greenies. Made the Northern Constabulary too hot to hold you, eh,
playing the knight in shining armor?”
    Yes, Alasdair had once made a very
painful decision to do the right thing. Jean tightened her lips
over her teeth and clasped her hands behind her back so tightly the
bones squeaked. Don’t let him know his
words have any effect on you.
    The tall man in the suit and reflective
jacket loomed up beside them. “Sir, I’ve had the lads set up the
incident room in the vacant shop.”
    “ You have, have you?” Scenting new
prey, Grinsell spun around. “You’re taking a lot on yourself,
Darling. Feeling ambitious, are we?”
    Say who? Jean
wondered if once again she’d heard a name incorrectly.
    Alasdair extended a hand. “Alasdair Cameron,
Northern Constabulary, retired.”
    “ Detective Sergeant Rufus Darling,
Berwick,” replied the other man.
    Oh. Like Hogg,
Darling was a Borders name. And setting up an incident room was a
sergeant’s job. Grinsell had pretty much told him to do so. No
surprise the young man’s features, even in the uncertain light of
the flashlights, seemed to be pinched in a vise. “Jean
Fairbairn, Great Scot ,
Edinburgh.”
    “ Good to . . .” Darling began, but was
overridden by Grinsell’s, “The Lauder woman lives just there,
Crawford’s telling me. That looks to be her at the gate. Stop
wasting time and escort her to this shop of yours. We’ve got no
girls along, have we?”
    “ We have no female constables with us,
no.”
    “ You.” Grinsell took such a long