"I didn't find the boat," Owen said when his turn came. He explained that he had searched most of the shoreline, the huts in the village at the other side of the island, and even among the trees, looking for a hidden rowboat, but there was none to be found.
"That's odd!" said Marchand. "I was told there was one kept here."
"Did you try the cave?" Callum Farthing asked.
Owen frowned. "Cave?"
"Yes. If you walk along the beach below the cliffs, and then climb over the rocks, you'll find a small cave cut into the cliffs. I imagine the sea goes well into it at high tide, but when I went in this afternoon, it was dry enough."
"Sounds like Sawney Bean's place," Owen grunted. "What makes you think the boat would be in there?"
"It seems a logical place to put it to protect it from the elements. Anyhow, that's where it is. I saw it there this afternoon, up on a sort of ledge about twenty yards back from the mouth of the cave."
"I didn't check along the beach," Owen muttered defensively.
"Well, perhaps it did take a bit of finding," Marchand said soothingly. "But now that we've located it, you can start checking that heelstone on the little island. I think that can wait until day after tomorrow, though. I want everyone to pitch in at the main site tomorrow."
"Okay,'' Owen said. "I think I'll go off and read now.''
After a few more minutes' conversation around the camp fire, Elizabeth decided to go and check on Owen. It wasn't that she felt any kinship with him because they were both Americans, but she did feel sorry for him, because he seemed to be the underdog of the camp. Besides, she told herself, if I can only dislike one member of the expedition, it's going to be Gitte, so I have to be nice to poor Owen.
She found him sitting at the long table in the Nissen hut, studying his crime books.
"I thought you were going to feed your bagpipes tonight, '' she said, pulling up the other chair.
"I can do that tomorrow," Owen grunted. "I might want to play some later tonight. Anyhow, I wanted to read up on these cases."
"Who's Who of British Murderers. Very wholesome, Owen."
He scowled. "I'm not reading this for fun. Not this time anyhow. Remember what the policeman told me?"
"As I recall, nobody told you anything. I believe you were eavesdropping—"
Owen waved away this detail. "Whatever. I found out, if you insist on being technical, that Keenan was researching a piece on paroled killers. Where are they now? Obviously one of them was in Edinburgh."
"I agree with that," Elizabeth said, "since Keenan was apparently there to interview somebody, but I don't think you can assume that whoever it was murdered him."
Owen sighed. "If the police are as naive as you are, I'd better hurry and figure this case out, because otherwise there'll be no hope of finding the murderer."
Elizabeth decided that arguing with somebody, even if he was wrong, did not constitute cheering him up. "All right, Owen," she said. "I'll keep an open mind. What have you got so far?"
Owen brightened. "I ruled out all the famous criminals because I'd know if they had been paroled, and they haven't been. I also ruled out the mundane ones, for obvious reasons."
"It isn't obvious to me. What, exactly, is a mundane murder?''
"Someone who kills while burglarizing a house, or hits somebody too hard in a bar fight or kills his wife in a drunken rage. Those people wouldn't make very interesting reading in a tabloid story. Usually they are just poor and trapped."
"There is a certain logic there," Elizabeth conceded. "You assume that Mr. Keenan would have been looking for sensational cases to sell newspapers. Somebody famous enough for people to remember the crime, but not so famous that people have kept up with him. Did you find any murderers who fit the bill?''
"Quite a few. But the snag is that I don't know where they are now. Boy, I would love to have read Keenan's article. What a great story! Too bad he didn't get to write it."
Elizabeth shivered. "I should think you'd have had enough horrors watching someone actually die."
"It didn't seem very real, did it? Anyway, it all happened so fast, and it isn't as if we knew him. Don't you think he'd be pleased that I'm trying to track down his killer?"
"He was a reporter. I suppose he might."
"I think so, too. Here are the ones I've considered so far.'' He pulled a small sheet of paper out of the back of the book and showed her a list of names. "I kind of like this one. Fifteen years ago a little boy was strangled in Newcastle, and the killer turned out to be one of his playmates—an eight-year-old girl! She was sent to a mental institution, but supposedly she was released at age twenty-one."
Elizabeth shivered. "Cured, I hope?"
Owen shrugged. "You never know. She sounds like a psychopath to me. Someone who doesn't feel the difference between right and wrong, but who just has to learn to obey the laws through fear of society's retribution."
"Thank you. I know what a psychopath is," Elizabeth snapped. "I have a bachelor's degree in sociology."
Owen smirked. "Guess you know what poverty is, too, then."
"I'm going to grad school."
"Wise move. Okay, next case. This guy would be pretty old now. He was a soldier in World War II, and he was engaged to this girl, and then he found out she was a local prostitute, so he killed her and hid her body in a tank on the army base. Pretty weird, huh? At the trial they claimed he'd been visiting the body for a couple of days and fixing its makeup and changing its clothes."
"Ugh!" said Elizabeth. "I suppose he went off to Valium Village as well?"
"Oh, yeah. Broadmoor, I think. But when these old geezers pass sixty, they usually get released quietly. Unless the crime was too notorious. That sort of killer is pretty safe after sixty. Diminished sex drive, you know. Remember Ed Gein, the cannibal murderer in Wisconsin?"
"No."
"Oh! Weil, he's the guy that the movie Psycho was based on, but the real case was much more interesting. Ed died in a mental institution, because people stayed grossed out about his crimes for decades, but I'm sure he wouldn't have done anything if they'd let him out."
"I can understand their being unwilling to risk it, Owen."
"Oh, sure. The publicity is deadly. Once they make a TV movie of your case, you're in for good. John Wayne Gacy . . . Ted Bundy . . . Charlie Manson ... no way they're getting out."
"Do they have TV movies in Britain?" Elizabeth asked.
Owen shrugged. "Not that I know of, but they have the same kind of publicity. The Yorkshire Ripper isn't coming out, I can tell you that. But this guy here, I bet he's out, or soon will be. Alec Evans."
Elizabeth took the book and read aloud the entry that Owen had marked in red. " 'Glasgow. Poisoned his entire family with thallium in the sugar bowl. Considered a brilliant young man, very good in chemistry.' "
Owen snickered. "Well might they say so. Thallium was a very good choice. It's slow, and it hits everyone in different ways so that the causes of death appear different: meningitis, pneumonia, and so on."
"He poisoned his whole family!" said Elizabeth, still reading. "And he was only fourteen years old."
"Kids don't have a lot of self-control anyway," Owen said. "I guess he got angry with them and booby-trapped the sugar bowl. Probably too immature to know the finality of it."
"I think fourteen is old enough to grasp the concept of death."
"Well, so do I," Owen agreed. "And I'll bet he's another psychopath, but I'll also bet you that he gets out. Because he was so young when he did it."
"How do you sleep at night, Owen?"
He grinned. "Oh, these guys are pretty rare. Most of them don't kill men anyhow. Now the last one here is the best bet, I think."
Elizabeth consulted the book. "Hmm. From Edinburgh. Malcolm Allen. At age sixteen, he raped and killed a nine-year-old girl in a public park. In Scotland}"