Callum smiled. The resident loony was present and accounted for.
"Wonderful to be getting away from it all!" Derek Marchand remarked to his assistant.
"Wonderful, indeed," Tom Leath said, through his teeth. He hoped the bottles wouldn't clank in his rucksack. With his luck Marchand would either demand that he pour them out or expect him to share the lot.
"I like the fact that we'll be right away from civilization. It will make me feel more in touch with the people who built this thing. Set up a channel across the centuries, perhaps— no interference." He grinned. "I'm being fanciful—not daft!"
"Right," Leath grunted. "Let's hope they tip you off to some good burial sites. We could do with a major find."
"Like the Viking ship at Sutton Hoo?" Marchand smiled. "That would do wonders for our funding, wouldn't it?"
"We've as much chance of finding Nessie, though."
"Don't be too pessimistic, lad. Our ship may come in."
In fact, it had, but it was the Calmac ferry, a nautical monopoly of the Caledonian MacBrayne Company, which inspired the Scottish doggereclass="underline"
The earth belongs unto the Lord, and all it contains, Except the western highland piers, and they are all MacBrayne's.
Elizabeth enjoyed the ferryboat ride very much. Despite a sharp wind from the sea, she spent most of the time on deck, scanning the water for seals and taking photographs of the mainland diminishing in the distance across an expanse of darkest blue. Occasionally, when the wind made her cold, she climbed back into the Dawsons' Moggie Thou, parked with the other cars on the deck, but soon she would brave the elements again, trying for just one more shot of a seabird diving for its dinner. She asked Cameron when they were going to pass the white castle that showed up in all the calendars of Scotland. When he finally realized that she was talking about Eilean Donan, he explained that she could stop waiting for that particular shot: that castle was on the way to the Skye ferry at the Kyle of Lochalsh, and they wouldn't be going anywhere near it.
Elizabeth took it philosophically, saying that castles didn't seem to bring her much luck anyhow.
After several hours of sea watching and picture taking, punctuated by conversations with various members of the expedition over sausage rolls in the snack room, Elizabeth saw the small green point of land appear in front of them. Cameron, who was leaning against the railing, his green windbreaker zipped to protect him from the sea spray, touched her shoulder and pointed to the island. "I guess this is it," Elizabeth murmured, snuggling closer to him.
He nodded. "That white building off to the left is my research station."
"And you'll come to Banrigh every Saturday?" "Barring bad weather," Cameron said reasonably. "I'm not that good a sailor."
"And will you come oftener if you miss me?"
He smiled. "No. But I'll miss you all the same, hen."
The remainder of the journey to the isle of Banrigh began two hours later, when the diggers and their gear had been transferred from die ferry to the green Moggie Thou—in several trips—and when the gear was stowed away on the old motor launch on loan to Cameron by the foundation for his seal research.
There were more people headed for Banrigh than the launch could comfortably transport, but the trip was a relatively short one—just under an hour, if the wind and weather were good—so it was decided that they would forego the elbow room in me interest of making only one trip.
Elizabeth found the voyage much less enjoyable than she had anticipated. It did not turn out to be a romantic journey, reminiscent of the Young Pretender's sail to Skye, nor was it a quiet time of togetherness before she and Cameron went their separate ways. Elizabeth decided that it was like being in steerage with a party of mental patients. She found herself stuck with Callum, Denny, and Alasdair, all of whom were discussing soccer rivalries, while Cameron had been cornered by Derek Marchand, who wanted to hear about the seal research.
"Not going to kill the beasts, are you?" he asked. "I hear that in Canada they club the young ones for their fur."
"We don't have fur seals," Cameron said politely. "Ours are gray seals, Halichoerus giyphus."
"The ones I've seen are brown," said Marchand.
Cameron smiled. "Gray seals can be brown, silver, or any shade of gray."
"And what are you wanting to know. Dietary habits?"
"Oh, no. We know that. They eat herring, halibut, pollack, and even crustaceans. My project is to find out how far they go, and in what direction."
"Going to follow them about, are you?"
"In a high tech way, yes. We've put radio collars on a dozen or so, and I plan to keep track of them electronically.''
"Think you can tell a seal from a Russian sub?"
Cameron blinked. "I imagine so, unless one of the crew is wearing a radio collar."
This reply amused Derek Marchand so much mat he insisted on repeating the entire conversation to the rest of the party, who smiled faintly and went back to their own conversations.
"So you'll be by every week to bring us supplies and to see your young lady. Very kind of you."
"Not at all," said Cameron, blushing. "Of course, if you need anything urgently, you can always contact me at the station on your radio set. You won't have any range to speak of out here, but your signal ought to reach as far as my research station." His lips twitched. "Or you could try hailing a Russian submarine."
"Perhaps we could catch a passing seal!" Denny said.
"I doubt if you'll see any on Banrigh," Cameron said. "Of course, you might. They've never been tracked before. And nobody lives there to report their presence."
"We'll let you know if we see any," Gitte promised.
Midway through the trip Owen discovered that most of the expedition had not heard about the Witchery adventure and the murder investigation that followed it, and although none of them seemed interested in obtaining such information, Owen insisted on providing it anyway, with heavy emphasis on his cachet as the last person to speak to the deceased.
"And you didn't even find out who he was," Denny reminded him.
Owen shrugged. "Who knew he was going to get himself killed?"
"Some detective you are!" said Elizabeth.
"I don't do well under stress," Owen informed her, "but I'm better prepared now, and I’ve been thinking a lot about Mr. Keenan's murder.''
"I'll let you know if I hear on the news that the Edinburgh police have solved it," Cameron offered.
"And if I solve it first," Owen said, "I'll radio the information to you."
Elizabeth sighed. "Owen, how can you solve the murder of someone you hardly spoke to, in a country where you don't know a soul, when you are stranded on a barren island miles from civilization?"
"I have my methods!" Owen smirked. He seemed to be willing to explain them, but at that moment Cameron announced that they were coming in sight of Banrigh, and Elizabeth turned her attention back to the heaving sea and the rocky island still small in the distance.
CHAPTER
8
Banrigh, appearing from a distance like a black seal floating on the surface of the ocean, was one of several thousand uninhabited islands off the northern coast of Scotland. It lay dead and silent in the dark sea, its rocky cliffs shining like bones washed up on the barren beach. In winter the island would be a gray shell shrouded in mist, cold and wet and empty. Even now in the bright summer sunshine some trace of this starkness remained in the sharp outlines of the rocks. The stone circle was not visible from the sea, but its presence seemed to make itself felt, reminding the visitor of prehistoric rituals and sacrifice before the old gods. It made one think, too, of the shipwrecks that must have brought death time and again to the rocky shores.