Page 81 of A Dangerous Highland Affair

“Aye, tis nae a long time ago,” he replied. “The whole keep is still in mourning for him…”

Gaie nodded. “We kent Neacal was wanted for two murders for a wee while, this third one is very recent…,” she added. “And the oddest…”

“Aye, the man had nary an enemy anywhere, strange, I ken, for a commander…,” reminisced Lorcal. “An’ more than that, he had been sent off on an operation, the day he died, that was very secret, an’ hardly anyone kent where he was… I’m nae sure how Neacal would have had that information…”

Then he screwed his face up again, thinking. “But it looks bad because it was nae far from here…”

Teasag’s heart began to pound, and a sick feeling crept through her veins. But not because she believed Neacal guilty, simply because the evidence looked more compelling.

“Near here?” she said.

“Aye, just a wee bit doon from that lake,” said Robbie, pointing off in the direction of the lake that Teasag had painted.

“He was found face down, floating, in the lake,” said Lorcal, grimly. “Everyone said that he drowned… an’ maybe he did, but…”

Here, Lorcal stopped, fast. “ah, it’s naething…,” he said.

“It doesnae look like nothing,” observed Gaie, watching his face. Lorcal looked at her.

“Well, it just seems so odd because Duncan was such a canny swimmer… some thought he must have been poisoned to end up in the lake like that… but it’s nae been proved…,” he said, scratching his head.

Teasag looked at him with such a strange expression on her face that Lorcal looked up. “What?” he said.

“What day did ye say this happened on?” she asked, her head beginning to clear.

“Well, um, a week gone, on Tuesday, in fact, the same day ye arrived in the toon,” he said as if the thought had just occurred to him.

Teasag’s eyes opened wildly. Immediately, she stood up, her cheeks burning. “That’s it!” she said, with an excited flourish.

She was so energized that even the lads, slumped in their chairs around the end of the table, looked up from their stupor.

“What is?” asked Lorcal, looking at her like she was mad. He could barely keep his eyes open, with the stifling fire and the quantities of wine they had consumed.

“Well, on the day that Neacal was meant to be busy murdering this Duncan, he was with me!” she leaped up, swirling around the room excitedly.

Only now did Gaie begin to look at her seriously. “Ye sure?” she asked.

“Certain,” replied Teasag. “He was nowhere near here, and I was with him all the time,” she stopped, remembering she had left the village at midnight. “That is right up until night…”

“He was found dead afore that,” said Lorcal, exchanging glances with Gaie. “Marcas was on the scene, earlier that afternoon…he tried to revive him, but it was too late…”

Teasag turned around, her cheeks flushed from the fire. “But this is braw news?” she said, to Gaie, still sitting down and looking thoughtful.

She wasn’t the only one. Beside her, by the fire, Lorcal looked troubled too.

“It was strange, though,” he said, drawing his forehead into a frown. “Because we were all hunting for him for ages afore that… Duncan had gone missing, or, so we thought,” he continued.

Now he commanded the attention of everyone in the room.

“Go on,” said Gaie.

“But it turned out, he was over here. However, no-one kent it, except the laird, who sent him, but he was away at the time an’ couldn’t tell us… Yet somehow, Marcas found him,” he said. “I can remember thinking it was a wee bit odd,” he said, the words fading on his lips.

“But we’ve got a witness. Me. I can prove that he wasnae there!” Teasag said. She was still full of excitement for her discovery, and Lorcal’s words hadn’t fully resonated with her. “That’s all that matters, isnae it?” she added.

But to Teasag’s surprise, Gaie did not immediately leap up. “Well, it certainly helps, but…” her voice trailed off. “It may help prove he couldnae have killed the last man, but there’s still the others… no, what we need to do is to find who really did kill them, an’ then bring them to justice….”

“Well, how do we do that?” asked Teasag, deflated a little. She had had the wind knocked out of her sails by Gaie’s uncharacteristic coolness.