Mungo Murdock's Murder, Mayhem & Mystery Tour (3/3)

I

Jock McIntyre, proprietor of Darkest Edinburgh Inc., a company specializing in walking tours to the city’s most cursed locales, picked his teeth with a toothpick and a mournful expression.

“Why,” he was thinking, “Does this sort of thing always happen to me?”

Like most small-business owners, he’d taken a hit during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The concern was finally getting back on its feet but not before he’d had to take a mortgage out on his house to keep it afloat. Then this had to happen.

Two murders, one after another, both on Darkest Edinburgh’s ‘Midnight Meander’ tour. Thank god he’d had customers sign waivers beforehand.

The first victim Athena Wright had a lawyer brother who’d been knocking on the door two days ago, fresh off the plane from Kansas City, primed to sue. Very unpleasant. Jock had taken a certain amount of spiteful pleasure in regretfully informing him that the company could not possibly be held accountable, every precaution was taken, so sorry for your loss, but there it is, unfortunately. The second victim, the Korean man, had children who were due to arrive tomorrow morning. That would be another painful meeting.

He stood up and looked out of his office window at the city. It was an awful day. Rain was coming down in thick diagonal drifts. The stone walls of the castle were black and slick, looking even more formidable than usual on top of its big rocky crag. Ordinarily it was a view that Jock liked and felt possessive about: ‘imposing’, ‘majestic’, ‘venerable’ was how he described it in the brochures. But today it seemed to have acquired a malicious, cruel quality. Perhaps that was just his fancy.

He shook his head abruptly and threw the toothpick in the bin.

He must be cracking up. He thought resentfully of Morag, his star guide who’d quit soon after the second murder. He’d been good to her for 13 years. Darkest Edinburgh had made her what she was, one of the best tour guides in Scotland. And how did she repay him? Like a rat leaving a sinking ship. No loyalty, no loyalty at all.

The tinkling of bells jolted Jock out of his thoughts. The front door was opening. Looking up, he saw the CEO of Spooky City Tours, Eoin Kellas.

Jock couldn’t stand the man. Everything irritated him: the softness of his voice, the red stubble on his cheek that looked like kiwifruit fuzz, the constant suggestion of a suppressed giggle somewhere at the back of his throat. Creep, Jock thought savagely, the kind of man who’d strangle a cat when no one was looking.

“Eoin,” he nodded.

“Aw right Jock?” Kellas said softly.

“I’ve been better.”

Kellas nodded.

“Terrible what’s happened, just terrible.”

There was that suggestion of a giggle again.

“Ah well, these things happen, don’t they,” Jock forced a smile.

“But lightning rarely strikes the same place twice, does it? I’d say it was terrible luck for Darkest Edinburgh. You must feel like there’s been a curse on you.”

Jock counted to five in his head. Anger management classes had been useful to that extent.

“What is it I can do for you Eoin?”

“Me? Ach, there’s nothing I want from you. More to the point, is there anything I can do for you? Do you have a need for anything, money for instance? Spooky City has been doing very well indeed lately. No shame in being hard up, we’ve all suffered a blow these past few years.”

“Who told you I was hard up?” Jock said, his eyes narrowed.

“I just assumed, with things being as they are, that you might need a helping hand."

“The business is doing fine actually. Thanks for your offer but I don’t need help.”

“Pleased to hear it, very pleased indeed,” purred Eoin. “I must have made a mistake. I was talking to your lassie who left, young Morag. She must have got the wrong end of the stick. In any case, I told her—and the offer stands for you as well—that if she was looking for another job, our door is always open. Got to stick together, don’t we.”

Jock couldn’t speak because he was choking with rage. He dearly wanted to lash out at this pest. Morag! Cosying up to the competition…it was appalling.

“Well, I’ll be going now. Just wanted to let you know, you have a friend in me Jock, aw right? You have a friend in me.”

Jock winced as Eoin leaned over and patted him on the arm.

“Bye now fella,” said the redhead. Jock closed his eyes and the doors on the door tinkled again.

II

Morag rummaged around for the spare keys and couldn’t find them. Where had the damn things gone? She always kept them in the same place, in the drawer of the in the hallway. It was easy to grab them on her way out the door.

Jock had sounded furious. She had to admit, she should have given them back but she’d just forgotten—there was no need for him to fly off the handle like that. It wasn’t like her to forget but she’d been distracted lately.

Her kids can’t have taken them. The babysitter? Never! The girl was prosaic and prissy as they came, from a good family. Not a kleptomaniac. Besides, why would she bother?

Had someone broken into her house?

A memory suddenly and swiftly punched her gut: her romantic indiscretion two weeks earlier. The kids had been staying with their grandmother. A hook-up that had ended in nothing, a polite kiss on the cheek. He’d been a gentleman. She, conversely, had a bit too much to drink in anticipation of action and had ended up babbling.

When morning came around she was relieved nothing had come of it. He’d clearly felt the same way because he never bothered getting in touch with her again.

She cast her mind back to that night. What had they talked about? Her work, obviously. After all, it was the most interesting thing about her. Aside from her kids and she didn’t want to talk about her kids with a stranger. Had she mentioned the keys? She racked her brains. She might have. She did talk about the Vaults. He’d wanted to know how she got access to them so late at night.

Two weeks earlier.

Just before the murders.

Her legs like jelly, Morag left the house, got in her car and drove.

III

Mungo Murdoch paced back and forth outside the White Hart Inn, smoking. The pub was widely believed to be ‘the most haunted pub in Edinburgh’. Judging from the stories he’d heard from his aunt, no pub in Edinburgh could get a license without having at least two ghosts.

It was funny, the Canadian girl didn’t seem like a goth but she was more excited by morbid shit than any of the goths he’d known at school. She looked normal, in the way that movie stars look normal. Flawless. Goddess-like, cheerful.

He’d never been on this sort of excursion before and hadn’t known what to wear. He’d agonized for an hour over it. In the end he decided not to go for his tailored work suit. He did look smart in it but it was not really cemetery-seductive wear.  He decided to go for a black leather jacket, jeans and high boots with the suggestion of a heel. He was always a little self-conscious about his height or lack thereof, and a kitten heel was nicely suggestive of goth tendencies.

He noted with disappointment that the moon was not full but a thin waning crescent. The rain had cleared up and there wasn’t even any fog. He’d have to rely on pure showmanship without atmospheric help.

“Hi!” he heard Sandy chirp to his right. “I hope I’m not late!”

“No, no, you’re good,” he said, though she wasactually fifteen minutes late.

He looked at her appreciatively.  She was wearing a black coat with intriguing sleeves. The blouse underneath was white and frilly. She wore a black pleather skirt and riding boots.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Yes please. Where are we?” she asked.

“Only the most haunted pub in Edinburgh,” he said. “There have been sightings of at least three ghosts.”

“Oooooh, wonderful,” she clapped her hands.

“Yes. A disembodied pair of legs, a man disfigured by some bad skin condition who wears a cloak, and a girl named Sally Beggs who was found dead as a doornail right where you are standing in 1772. I’m going to get you a drink so beware: you may feel some strange sensations while you wait.”

“What kind of strange sensations?” she asked.

“Tingles. Goosebumps, breath on your neck.”

She shivered.

“I hope so!”

Returning with her beer, he launched into the story of Burke and Hare, who’d also allegedly frequented the pub.

“They were Irish laborers who’d been working on the Union Canal. When the work stopped, Hare ran a lodging house to make some cash. One of his tenants died unexpectedly with the rent still owing. Hare asked his friend Burke what he should do. Burke had heard that the medical school was offering up to ten pounds each for fresh corpses, so they went to an unscrupulous teaching doctor, Dr. Knox, who paid them handsomely and asked for more specimens.

“Next time one of his lodgers got sick, Hare decided to hurry things up by smothering him with a pillow and taking the remains to Dr. Knox, as before. Over the next ten months the pair killed at least 16 more people.”

Sandy shivered.

“Did Dr. Knox know they were murdering people.”

“They say that once or twice he commented on the unusual warmth of a corpse. I bet he did know but he didn’t care. They say one of his students recognized one of the cadavers as a disabled boy Daft Jamie that the neighborhood had been worried about. The student suspected Dr. Knox was up to something but he was too respected to denounce.”

“How do you know so much about the city?” Sandy asked, swizzling her straw flirtatiously.

“Oh, ah…well, it’s in the family to be honest,” he said. He fingered the keys in his pocket feeling a twinge of guilt. Hopefully his aunt Morag wouldn’t notice they’d gone missing. After all, she wouldn’t have any need of them now that she had quit her job as a tour guide. He looked and Sandy and decided that lying to his aunt had been a tactical necessity. Her hair was a beautiful color. Halfway between cornsilk and gold satin.

“They say the poet Robbie Burns stayed in this inn for a week with his mistress Nancy Maclehose. He wrote a poem to her called “Ae Fond Kiss.”

“I’m not really interested in poetry,” Sandy shrugged. “Did they die?”

“Well, eventually. I mean, it was in the nineteenth century so…”

“But they didn’t die here at the inn?”

“No.”

“Where else are we going for the tour?” she said.

Mungo came up with a start. He’d momentarily forgotten this wasn’t a proper date.

“I thought we could go to Greyfriars Kirkyard.”

“I can’t wait,” she beamed.

IV

When Morag pulled out of her driveway in a tearing hurry, it did not go unnoticed. DC Khalid, who was parked nearby in readiness for just such an eventuality, turned the engine on and followed her at a distance.

She called DS Blane on her car phone.

“The bat has left the cave, sir.”

“Say what?”

“Morag left her house. Suddenly. I’m following her.”

“What’s that about the bat?”

“I thought I should use some kind of code, sir.”

“Right. Well, stay on her.”

Khalid followed Morag through the historical district, through Cowgate and towards Scottish Parliament and Holyrood House. Morag came to a stop in the big parking lot next to Holyrood Park. Khalid chose a space well away and stayed in the car, watching her.

Morag got out, went to the back of the car, lifted the hatch and took out a pair of Wellington boots and something that looked like a trowel.

“What on earth?” Khalid murmured.

Morag changed her footwear and set off into the park, a torch in one hand, the trowel in the other.

Khalid called Blane again.

“Subject seems to be going for a walk in Holyrood Park. With a shovel or some kind of digging implement.”

“At ten o’clock at night? Anyone with her?”

“No.”

“Can you follow her without being seen yourself?”

“Not sure sir…”

“Why, what’s the problem?”

“Well, it’s just I’m wearing my good shoes. They’re suede. And it’s muddy up there.”

She heard a long silence at the other end.

“But that’s OK, I can always get a new pair.” She sighed.

“’Atta girl.”

V

“What will we see here?” Sandy asked, shining the torch on the lock as Mungo tried various keys.

“It’s not what we’ll see, it’s what we’ll feel. There’s a poltergeist here.”

“Really?”

“At least one. This was where a lot of bodies were dug up for that medical school. And the spirit of George MacKenzie is pretty feisty as well.”

“Who’s he?”

“In 1679, a bunch of militant Protestants called Covenanters fought against royalist troops in the Battle of Bothwell. The royalists won and George MacKenzie was the attorney responsible for dealing with the rebels. He penned them up in this area in horrible conditions and some of the ones who weren’t hauled off to America died of disease and general misery.”

“Oh wait, I think I read about that in Old Mortality,that book by Walter Scott.”

“Probably,” said Mungo. “In any case, MacKenzie doesn’t seem to have gone in for haunting much until the early twenty-first century, when his grave was disturbed by a couple of teenagers. Since then, there’s been a mass of paranormal activity. He’s been responsible for all kinds of injuries: paper cuts, stubbed toes, concussion. The worst one was when a medium died of a heart attack shortly after trying to exorcise the place of his spirit.”

“Wow!” Sandy breathed. “I hope he says hello to us.”

“You do?” Mungo looked at her askance.

Finally, he got the gate to open and pointed out an obelisk covered with moss.

“See that?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“The final resting place of Headless Henry. His body can sometimes be seen wandering among the headstones, dressed in a doublet and bombasted hose. They say he has nice legs.”

“Ooooh, I can’t wait. But Mungo?”

“Yes?”

“I kind of have to pee.”

“Just go over there by the wall.”

“Isn’t sacrilegious to pee in a cemetery?”

“It’s already sacrilegious to be poking about in a cemetery at midnight. I don’t think peeing will make much difference. I’ll wait for you here.”

“OK,” she said uncertainly.

Mungo was checking the football results on his phone when he heard an unearthly scream.

“Get aWAY!” Sandy roared. Or was it Sandy? It didn’t sound like her chirpy voice at all. In fact, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end.

“Mungo! Help!” That was definitely her voice. He ran to where he thought he’d seen her go.

“Sandy? Where are you? I’m coming! Are you OK?”

“Mungo!!”

At last he found her and hugged her, relieved that she was OK. When he pulled back and shone his torch on her face, he saw that she was covered in blood and felt nauseous.

“Oh my god. Sandy. You’re badly injured.”

“No, no,” she smiled weakly. “It’s just my hand. He had a knife or something and I stopped it with my hand. Then he heard your voice and ran away. You saved my life!”

“Let’s see your hand,” said Mungo. She did and he almost fainted. There was a deep gash. He took off his jacket and T-shirt, then wrapped the T-shirt to staunch the wound as much as possible.

“We have to get you to ER,” he said. “Do you think you can walk to the gate? My car’s not far from there.”

She nodded, weakly.

“Mungo,” she said listlessly, “What’s that shiny thing?”

His flashlight lingered on something bright and iridescent. Stooping, he picked it up.

“It’s a business card. It says ‘Courtesy of the Grey Ghost’.”

VI

Khalid did not enjoy the Great Outdoors. She preferred cosy interiors. Most of all she liked her comfortable bedroom, cushions, a mug of hot tea…

Why did you join up with the police force then? She asked herself angrily as she trudged along a muddy path, slipping here and there, trying to keep the shaky light ahead of her in sight.

She’d believed that recruiter who’d said that you could choose the kind of job best suited to your temperament. If you liked paperwork, that’s what you’d be doing. Though, of course, there’d be a certain amount of variety at first.

At first—it was three years already. And here she was ruining her shoes and puffing up a muddy hill in the dark.

She was so preoccupied that it took her a while to realize that the light had stopped moving.

She practically stumbled across Morag, who was digging in the ground under a tree. The flashlight had been propped up on a branch, which is why it had stopped moving.

Morag looked terrified, just marginally more terrified than Khalid herself.

“I’m DC Khalid and you are under arrest my love,” she said bravely.

“What for?” Morag said.

“For the murder of Athena Wright and Han-Jae Park.”

VII

Duncan Blane regarded the young man opposite him with a dark look. He’d started recording and hoped that Mungo James Murdock would volunteer answers before they were asked. He looked as if he were green enough and nervous enough.

“Mind telling me, young man, what you were doing trespassing in Greyfriar’s Kirkyard in the middle of the night?”

“But, with all due respect, sir, that’s not the issue here, surely?”

“What is the issue?” Asked Blane, feigning ignorance.

“Well, how about a brutal attack on a young woman!” said Mungo defiantly.

“I’ll be getting to that in a minute,” said Blane. “Right now, I’m asking you something that I consider fully relevant to the matter. That is, what were you doing there?”

“I wasn’t trespassing. The kirkyard is open for registered guides.”

“Oh!” Blane folded his arms across his chest, starting to enjoy his interviewee’s discomfort. “You’re a registered guide then? Can I see your ID?”

“I don’t have it on me right now,” muttered Mungo.

“That’s inconvenient,” said Blane. “But you can tell me the company you work for, perhaps?”

“Darkest Edinburgh,” said Mungo.

Blane froze. It was almost imperceptible but Mungo perceived it. And then, rather belatedly, he realized the magnitude of his lie.

“OK, OK! I’ll tell you the truth. But please don’t tell Sandy, OK?”

Blane raised his eyebrows and twitched his moustache. He had no intention of making any promises.

“I’m not a guide. My aunt is. I took her keys and pretended to be a guide because Sandy wanted to see some haunted places.”

“Theft, fraud, impersonating an official…those are criminal offenses.”

“I know, I know. But I didn’t mean any harm. I was going to take the keys back tomorrow morning. I was just trying to impress a girl.”

“Are you aware,” said Blane, “That there is a serial killer attacking tourists visiting haunted sites in Edinburgh?”

“Yes,” said Mungo, wide-eyed, “But that’s got nothing to do with me! I’m not a psycho.”

“Perhaps. But even if you are psychologically healthy, you are exceptionally foolhardy. You see, Mr. Murdock, a policeman such as myself is trained to find patterns in behavior. And this incident, involving as it does an attack on a tourist in a haunted graveyard, strongly resembles those other two attacks. And it is funny, isn’t it, that you were there on the scene?”

“What? Are you saying I attacked her? I would never do that!”

“You were on the scene. Not only that, but you had a set of keys that would have given you access to the other two crime scenes. You had means, opportunity…”

“This is insane!” Murdock cried. “You’re trying to frame me.”

“I’m doing nothing of the sort.”

“I want to speak to a lawyer.”

“That’s your privilege. However, I will tell you that we will be looking to establish an alibi for you for the early hours of Saturday March 25 and Saturday April 1. Thank you Mr. Murdock,” he said, noting that the young man had risen haughtily to his feet, “This interview is concluded,” he said for the benefit of the recording.

VIII

“Mungo!” Morag cried, so astonished to see him that she wasn’t even embarrassed to be seen in the police station.

“Aunty Morag!” said Mungo, confused. He immediately assumed that the police had asked her down to the station to incriminate him. He rushed up to her, barely noticing that she was handcuffed to a policewoman.

“Don’t listen to them. They’re trying to frame me! I’m sorry I took your keys without asking, it was really dumb. But I was trying to impress a girl.”

“You took the keys?” Morag said, dazed.

“Yes! I’m sorry.” He caught sight of Sandy, who came around the corridor. “There she is, the girl!” he pointed. “I’m in love with her, aunty, that’s why I took them. You’ve got to believe me!”

Still confused, Morag’s gaze shifted to the tall young blonde woman in boots. There was something familiar about her…but her mind wasn’t right at the moment. It must be the shock. Déjà vu.

“This way ma’am, we’ll need to ask you some questions,” said the policewoman firmly.

Morag walked into the interrogation room and sat down as if she were dreaming.

Blane recorded the opening spiel for the recorder and looked keenly at Morag.

“Please tell us, for the record, what you were doing in Holyrood Park in the middle of the night.”

“Digging,” she said simply.

“Why?”

“I had an unregistered gun in a tin box that I’d buried up there, should I ever need it.”

“And tonight you felt you needed it?”

“Yes.

“Why? “

“I was going to see someone…a man. I thought he’d taken something from me. And that he was…”

She started shaking.

“That he was what?”

“The murderer. I thought he must be the murderer and he’d taken my keys. But now Mungo says he took my keys. Mungo’s my nephew. But he can’t be the murderer. Can he?” she looked desperately at Blane for reassurance. Feeling like a coward, he averted his eyes.

“Who was it you were going to see, Morag?” Blane asked.

“A man named Eoin Kellas. But he didn’t take my keys, so…”

“When did you notice the keys were missing?”

“This evening. My old boss, Jock McIntyre rang up. He was angry because I had a set of spare keys that I hadn’t returned. I’d forgotten all about them. When they weren’t there, I thought Eoin had taken them.”

“When was the last time you saw them before that?”

“Maybe three weeks ago. I keep them in a drawer in the corridor.”

“Just out of curiosity,” said Blane, “What were you planning to do with the gun when you met this Eoin character?”

“I just wanted him to tell me the truth. I figured if he’d already killed two people he might very well have a go at me too.”

Blane ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

“Do me a favor, Morag,” he said, “Next time you have a suspicion about someone, call me first, OK?”

She nodded dully.

IX

Mungo lay on the bed in the hotel in a state of post-coital bliss. Sandy was in the shower and he decided it would be the perfect moment for a cigarette on the balcony.

It turned out that all the excitement had been something of an aphrodisiac, at least after the real danger had passed. He realized that he had a perfect alibi for the two nights in question—he’d been working nightshift at the hotel. His boss could vouch for him, there was camera footage: no way in hell he could be framed for being the killer.

Sandy, singing in the shower, sounded just as happy as he was. He could imagine going to live in Canada with her.

Ah crap, somewhere in the excitement he’d lost his lighter. Sandy might have one…

Feeling a little guilty, he went over to her handbag on the hotel desk. He opened it up and rummaged through it. Lipstick, keys, a bunch of business cards held together with rubber bands.... He realized that he didn’t even know what she did for a living. Bringing them into the light of the window, he saw that they flashed and changed with the angle he held them. ‘By courtesy of the Grey Ghost’.

“Oh…no no no no,” he moaned softly. His eye fell on her passport, which was also in her handbag. He flipped through the pages and saw what he was afraid of: she’d entered the UK a month ago, not a few days ago.

As quickly and noiselessly as possible, he got dressed and slipped out of the room. It was morning, the cemetery would be open now. He had to make sure.

X

Morag was treating Mungo to one of her Sunday afternoon high teas, as a reward for getting her out of trouble by showing that the serial killer was none other than Sandy Colhoun of Kentville, Nova Scotia.

“I thought I’d seen her before,” said Morag. “She’d been on one of my tours about three weeks ago. She’d asked an awful lot of questions. There was something very odd about her.”

“Easy to say that after the fact, isn’t it?” said Mungo censoriously, before popping a strawberry in his mouth.

“Brat. It was clever of you to find the knife, though.”

“Well, I realized she hadn’t had time to get rid of it. I was with her the whole time, so it must still be in the cemetery. I called Blane about it—his team helped locate the knife.”

“Where was it?”

“She’d hidden it in one of those vases, among a bouquet of plastic flowers.”

“And it had her fingerprints on the handle?”

“Yes, I guess she didn’t count on us finding it.”

“What on earth made her do it? A nice looking girl like her. Butter wouldn’t melt!”

“It excited her. Some sort of complex.”

Morag sighed.

“I hope you’ll be more careful about your choice of girlfriend next time. You really can be awfully dense about girls sometimes.”

“Thanks.”

“Well it’s true. You might have been next.”

“Are you going to go back to work with Darkest Edinburgh now that it’s all cleared up?”

“No, I don’t think I will. I’ve decided to do something quite different.”

“What’s that then?”

“I’m going to knit babies’ booties and sell them at craft fairs. I think there will be a much lower chance of encountering ghouls and massacres in that line of work, don’t you?”

“You never know,” said Jock, “This is Edinburgh after all.”