The Darkness and the Deep by Aline Templeton

Author:Aline Templeton [Templeton, Aline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

13

‘Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep . . .’

The voices, led by the muted strains of a silver band, wavered on the damp air. Beneath a leaden sky the crowd surrounded the lifeboat shed and filled its pier, then spilled out along Shore Street, falling silent at the end of the hymn so that the only sound was the moaning of the green-black sea. On a dais in front of the shed the minister, black-robed, raised his hand in the final blessing and the crowd mutely fell aside to allow the three coffins, draped in lifeboat flags and shouldered by men in lifeboat blazers, passage to the waiting hearses.

Behind came the chief mourners: Luke Smith’s parents, his mother leaning heavily on her husband’s arm as if she could barely stand unsupported; Katy Anderson, alone, white-faced, tearless and blank-eyed; Lewis Randall, his face sombre and unrevealing, with his mother in a well-cut coat and black felt hat with a dipping brim. Luke’s parents were taking him directly back home for burial and Ashley was to be cremated at a private ceremony in Stranraer later. Only Rob Anderson would lie in the local cemetery, but there would be a big attendance at the graveside.

Slowly the rest of the crowd began to drift away, most people heading up the hill to the town hall, where the ladies of the Lifeboat Committee had provided tea. Links in this rural area were strong and they came from all over the area, from Kirkluce to the north, Whithorn to the south, Wigtown in the west and a dozen other small communities in between.

Marjory Fleming stood to one side, observing. MacNee, Kerr and Kingsley would all be doing the same somewhere, although she couldn’t see any of them. She could see Nat Rettie, though, who’d been released without charge for the moment at least, standing near the front in his school uniform, with his hands in his pockets and his head lowered. She saw too with dismay the distinctive hennaed head of Kylie MacEwan beside him.

No one was speaking to them; indeed, a little space had been left round about as if no one was willing to risk even coincidental association. Kylie had confirmed that they had been together that evening, though her assertion that they hadn’t been doing anything except ‘just talking a bit’ didn’t exactly instil confidence in the reliability of her evidence. And, thought Marjory anxiously, what effect could all this be having on her own Cat?

But her domestic worries would have to wait. She was here to work. Professionally, she wasn’t happy, and that was an understatement on a par with saying the new Scottish Parliament seemed to be going a wee bit over budget. The forty-eight hours after the murders, in which most cases are solved if they’re to be solved at all, were long gone. There had been unprecedented levels of public support and information, yet here

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