She sat in the front of the Audi with Donald. Ruairidh’s parents sat in the back. And they drove in silence down the hill behind the hearse. When they turned at the bridge, Niamh saw Seonag and her husband, and their two children, getting into their SUV to join the procession. For the briefest of moments their eyes met, before Seonag turned away to say something to her husband. And Donald accelerated up the hill on the main road towards the turn-off to Dalmore Beach, little more than half a mile away.
The car park at the beach was inadequate to accommodate all the vehicles in the procession, and most of them were forced to park in a line all the way up the hill, perched precariously on the verge, leaving the road clear for mourners to walk down to the cemetery.
The undertakers unlocked the door of a small concrete hut by the gate to slide out the bier on which the coffin would be carried. As well as half a dozen or more shovels to be taken to the grave for use by the family to fill it in afterwards.
Niamh could see where the grave had been dug at the far end of the cemetery, almost overlooking the beach, and only a few feet from where her brother lay.
Flowers and wreaths were carried from cars and laid by the gate, too many for the undertakers to carry to the grave themselves. And Niamh decided to break with convention. She stooped to gather up as many of the flowers as she could, and started off on the long walk through the cemetery herself. A lone figure. The coffin had not even been taken yet from the hearse. Others, who had no idea of the conventions, followed suit. Catwalk models in hopelessly inappropriate footwear, picking their precarious way across the uneven sandy soil, bearing bouquets and wreaths, like some procession of funereal fashionistas at a dark autumn collection. The coffin and all the male mourners followed on behind. A funeral the like of which had never before been seen on the island.
When Niamh reached the grave and looked back, she saw that Seonag was among the carriers of flowers. But that her mother, and Mrs Macfarlane, and many of the older women remained behind. Whatever else they might disagree upon, they remained punctilious in their adherence to the old ways.
The wind whipped the rain in off the sea, umbrellas abandoned or blown inside out. The gathering in black around the grave seemed drawn together in a collective huddle against the elements. But it was so exposed here that there was no protection to be had, and even the pages of the minister’s bible were stuck together by the wet, so that he had to peel them carefully apart to avoid tearing the delicate paper. And in an ultimate irony, his final words were lost in the roar of the sea and the howling of the wind, as if Nature herself were determined to have the last say.
When it was over, most of the mourners hurried off towards the shelter of their cars. Donald and several friends lifted the spades brought by the undertakers to start shovelling sand over the coffin, stooped by the weight of grief and sand and weather.
Niamh wandered away to the fence where a wooden bench provided a view across the beach. The crescent of sand was deserted, the sea thundering angrily over it in wave after wave of white breaking water. Off to her right she saw a lone figure standing watching from the far side of the cemetery. It took her a moment to realize that it was Iain Maciver. Peanut, as she had always known him. No longer the boy she remembered with his twisted, angry face as he sank his boot time and again into Ruairidh’s prone form on the ground. A man now, old before his time. Almost completely bald, a dark beard greying in streaks of silver. Strangely, he too was dressed in black, though he had not stood among the mourners.
Satisfied that Niamh had seen him, he turned and walked away, strangely bowed, hands plunged deep into his pockets. And she wondered why he had come. Not to mourn, she was sure.
Beyond, on the headland, stood two more figures, watching proceedings below. Even as she spotted them, they turned and headed back down the slope towards the car park. Only then did she recognize who they were. Detective Sergeant Gunn, and Lieutenant Braque of the Paris Police Judiciaire. What, if anything, could they possibly have gleaned from this sombre gathering in the rain? Somehow, she felt, it was not here that Ruairidh’s murder would be resolved.
A hand on her shoulder startled her, and she turned to find herself gazing into the rain-streaked face of Lee Blunt. She wondered if it was eyeliner he was wearing. Whatever it was had smudged all around his eyes in the rain, tears of black, creating the illusion of sunken sockets. The eyes at their centre had an oddly glazed quality, pupils dilated unnaturally, even in this light.
He slipped his arms around her and drew her tightly against him, turning her head to press it to his chest, and resting his chin lightly on top of it. ‘You don’t still think that Ruairidh was having an affair with Irina, do you?’
‘I don’t know that I ever did, Lee. In spite of evidence to the contrary. I’m even less inclined to believe it now. Back here with all my memories of him, and everything we shared.’
‘You’re quite right,’ he said. ‘I never believed it either. She was such a little nothing. Couldn’t hold a candle to my Niamh.’ He stepped back, still holding her by the shoulders. ‘Jake tells me he called at the house yesterday.’
She nodded.
‘So you know we’ve taken over Amhuinnsuidhe Castle for a couple of days? Me and everyone else on my plane.’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re having a party tonight, Niamh. What do you Scots call it, a wake? A celebration of the life rather than a mourning of the death.’ Apparently he had given up numbering himself among the Scots. ‘I’d like you to come. We all would.’
Niamh shook her head. ‘I couldn’t, Lee. Honestly. I couldn’t.’
‘Of course you could. What else are you going to do? Go home alone and cry into your pillow? Too many tears already. You need to come and get drunk with us. Raise a glass or ten to Ruairidh and Ranish.’
‘Lee...’ she started to protest, but he placed a forefinger on her lips. ‘Shhhh. I’m not taking no for an answer. You’re coming with us girl. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Braque and Gunn drove in thoughtful silence from Dalmore back up the west coast to Barvas before turning off to head across the moor to Stornoway. There wasn’t much to say. No one unexpected had turned up at the cemetery, except perhaps for Iain Peanut Maciver, and he certainly couldn’t be arrested for attending a funeral.
They were both drenched. Although Gunn’s anorak had protected him from the worst of the rain his trousers were clinging to his thighs. Braque’s sodden jacket lay across the back seat, filling the car with the smell of wet denim. Her jeans and boots were almost black with the rain, and even her T-shirt was soaked down the front, half-revealing her bra, which Gunn tried not to look at. She had come hopelessly ill-prepared for the island weather.
He said, ‘I checked with air traffic control. Lee Blunt’s plane is due for take-off at midday tomorrow — if you want to talk to him before they fly out.’
She nodded, and he seemed uncertain whether that was an affirmative or otherwise.
‘Have you booked a flight for yourself yet?’
‘No. I’ll do that when I get back to the hotel.’ A depression had fallen over her. Deep and penetrating. Hurrying back to the car park with Gunn, she had examined each and every face as the mourners returned to their vehicles, wondering which, if any of them, was capable of the murder of Ruairidh Macfarlane. Earlier she had watched Niamh from a distance, felt her grief in the tension of her shoulders. Her sense of isolation and loneliness. Even among the crowd of mourners she stood out on her own. Only now, really for the first time, did Braque fully empathize with her, identifying in her the sense of loss that she felt buried somewhere inside herself.