Owen Gilchrist gave his bagpipes a final swish for good measure and then carefully poured the mixture into the ground behind the hut. He had poured out the honey-and-hot-wax mixture the night before, according to the instructions; after he had kneaded the leather bag to make sure that the inside was entirely lubricated, he had set the bag upside down on the grass to drain. This morning he had used some of the hot water to swish it out one last time. The directions hadn't said to do this, but he thought it seemed like a good idea. He'd added half a cup of warm water to the bagpipe through the blowpipe and then quickly dumped it out. It hadn't taken much. There was still enough water in the pan on the stove to make a few cups of tea, when it eventually boiled, especially since Alasdair seemed to have skipped out without breakfast. Owen felt that this was an insult directed at him personally, but from the way the Danish girl was sniffling while she worked, perhaps the snub had been general.
He thought he might not wait for Elizabeth's boyfriend to arrive. It wasn't as if he were bringing mail or candy bars or anything worth waiting for. He might as well get Callum to help him haul the boat out of the cave. He could set off for the little island right away.
It was while he was blowing a few experimental notes on the newly cleaned pipes that Owen remembered that there was something Cameron could bring that would interest him. News. If the Edinburgh police had apprehended Keenan's murderer, surely the news would be all over the newspapers and radio. Assuming, of course, that Cameron had bothered to listen. Still, he'd better hang around and ask him; certainly no one else would bother to do so, and he couldn't stand the suspense another week. He continued to reassemble his pipes, fantasizing happily about his murder theory being proved right, and the others all begging his pardon for teasing him. He allowed himself to manufacture these small scenes of triumph to make up for the fact that in real life they never, ever happened.
Gitte stared at the tin plate of powdered eggs slowly congealing in front of her. Where was everybody this morning? It was only half past eight, and only the two Americans were to be found. She supposed that Marchand had paid an early visit to the site, taking Leath, and probably Denny, with him.
She didn't want to think about Alasdair just then, because that would make the tears come. She wished she could ask the American girl how she managed to get on so well with her Scottish boyfriend, but perhaps it was early days yet. Anyway, Gitte did not feel like confiding in Elizabeth, who acted altogether too much like one of the men, if you asked her.
"Here," she said grudgingly, pushing the plate of eggs toward Elizabeth. "You might as well have these."
"No, thank you," Elizabeth said with equal insincerity. "I'm sure that they can be reheated." Perhaps Alasdair will choke on them, she thought spitefully. She picked up the pill that Denny had left her and swallowed it with the last bit of her tea.
"Do you plan to stay here all day waiting for your boyfriend?" Gitte asked with more than a hint of scorn.
Elizabeth was stung. "I guess not!" she snapped. "What about you?"
Gitte began clearing the breakfast things from the table. "I have work to do. They will need me at the site."
Elizabeth left the Nissen hut, but she did not go straight to the standing stones. Perhaps he is already on his way, she on the cliff for several minutes, shivering in a sharp sea wind, before she realized that he would probably be coming to the other side of the island, as he had the time before. The wind in the rocks did sound a bit like a baby's cry, she thought. That was probably the origin of the Taran legends. The sky was gunmetal-gray, but mere was no hint of rain, and no darker clouds on the horizon, so she supposed that he would still be coming.
A movement on the beach below caught her eye, and she saw the seal—perhaps the one Denny had told her about-sitting on a flat rock near the shore. It was a deep, shiny brown, almost the color of the wet rock, and it seemed to be looking back at her. Around its neck she could see a bit of plastic that must be the radio collar. She thought of going to get her camera, but that would mean returning to the hut for another confrontation with Gitte, so she decided against it. She would settle for telling Cameron about it when he arrived. Or perhaps it would still be there then. She wondered if anyone would mind if she fed it. But fed it what? Did they eat anything besides raw fish? She must remember to ask Cameron.
Cameron Dawson had got a late start from the research station, so that it was nearly noon by the time he saw the mountains of Banrigh appear before him on the horizon. He had not quite liked the look of the sky, so he had stopped for one last check on the weather before setting out, in case the forecast had changed from the night before. It had not. A slow drizzle toward late afternoon was the worst he could expect, if the weather people were to be believed. He supposed he would have set off anyhow. Elizabeth was bound to take it personally if he did not turn up. She would excuse nothing less than a howling gale without doubting his devotion.
Probably she thought that he was a much better sailor than he was. It fit his Scottish image in her mind: a race of Highland fishermen. But Cameron, who had admittedly become more accustomed to boats while getting a degree in marine biology, was not used to manning the vessel alone. He usually had the company of two or three more experienced people, and their trips were either short ones, or else taken on much larger vessels than this that were professionally manned. He supposed that he had agreed to run supplies for her dig partly to ensure her acceptance on the crew and partly to impress her. But, of course, she wasn't impressed. She simply took these things for granted. He supposed that might be a compliment, in a way, except that she would have thought the same of every other Scot.
He wondered if he ought to have a go at landing on the western side of the island, thus braving the rocky inlet; but another glance at the sky convinced him that this was not the day for heroics. He could feel the pitch of the sea beneath him, and knew that while this was by no means stormy weather, neither was it dead calm.
He wondered how Elizabeth was adjusting to life in the rough. No, he knew full well how she'd be taking it; what he wondered was whether she would admit it. He had brought her a tin of powdered cocoa mix and a box of chocolates as consolation, and he had firmly resolved to be as vague as possible about the comforts of his own research station. Hot water, he sensed, could easily be a source of hostility. The island was quite near now. Time to begin maneuvering to land. Cameron suddenly wondered if everything was all right on Banrigh, but he had no idea why such a thought should have occurred to him.
Derek Marchand looked up from the theodolite, because he could no longer see the hexagonal prism in the viewfinder. He squinted at the dark stone for a moment. Finally, he caught sight of the reflector lying in the dirt in front of the stone. Elizabeth, who had been holding it, was running across the field toward a tall young man that for a moment he took to be Alasdair. That did not seem to make sense, and then he realized that this was the day the biologist was coming to see them, that, in fact, he had arrived.
Marchand consulted his watch. "Half twelve," he said to no one in particular. "I suppose we could break for lunch now." If it were up to him, he would have kept working; they had lost a good bit of time to the rain, and there was no saying they wouldn't lose even more. Still, he thought, he could probably use a break more than the young people. He was beginning to feel the chill in his bones now, and he tired more easily than he remembered. Years of relative inactivity had taken their toll, and he had only been able to get back into fieldwork when his wife had finally died. He felt guilty putting it like that, but he assured himself that it did not mean he didn't miss her, only that he was adjusting well by taking up new interests. In fact, he hardly thought of her at all anymore, but he told himself that this was better than the vague sense of annoyance she had stirred in him while she was alive. Once he had caught himself wondering if she would have come with him on a dig the way these young girls few random images that seemed like, and probably were, snapshots in the family album, he had no memory of her youth. She had just been there, he supposed, while his preoccupation was with himself, his career, and the war.