Bruar's Rest

clicked two black brogue heels together and marched off.
    ‘Pay no attention to her, dear, we are all in a state of shock.’
    ‘Mrs Newton, I am well aware you need to know who took your husband’s life but it’s more than I am worth to tell about that terrible night.’
    ‘Look dear, I know of the affair, and also that he was being blackmailed about it. But if the killer’s identity is known to you, then please tell me. I swear no one will be any the wiser as to who disclosed the information. Please tell me, for our children’s sake.’
    Before she could repeat her refusal, a small girl walked slowly into the room, followed by a pale-faced young boy. The girl hurried over to the lady and threw herself into her arms, sobbing. ‘Mummy, I want my Daddy,’ tears streaming down her elf-like face.
    ‘Daddy isn’t here anymore, Lavinia,’ said the boy trying not to do anything other than what was expected of a gentleman, albeit a seven-year-old one.
    ‘Where is he? Mummy all the servants are wearing black, why? Didn’t they do that when Grandma died? Daddy’s not dead, is he Mummy?’
    ‘There, there, my sweet child, so many questions. Mummy is very tired. In a moment I shall speak to you about Daddy. Now David, why don’t you take Lavinia upstairs and wait till Mummy comes.’
    ‘Poor wee bairns,’ thought Megan, and to think bloody Buckley is prancing about somewhere in freedom. Probably sitting supping in a public house and boasting like a puffed cock.’ She watched them go upstairs, heads hung, weighted with aching sadness, poor little innocent mites. It was then she thought, ‘Well, I may be a gypsy of sorts, but I’m first and foremost a Coe Scot. She remembered her own mother telling the story of the ‘Massacre’. ‘If someone had forewarned the Macdonalds all those years ago that their neighbours, the Campbells, were on their way to slaughter them, then perhaps it never would have happened. Who’s to say Buckley won’t come to Burnstall Hall and terrorise this defenceless family?’ These thoughts twisted and turned inside her head. ‘Will I? Can I? Should I?’ Surely he should be caught, imprisoned, punished? Yes, it was only proper. So as she sipped tea with her host, she told her all she had heard and witnessed the night her husband was murdered, finally adding, ‘tell the police that Bull’s in York, wherever that is.’
    When she had finished her story, she asked the woman to promise not to inform detective Martin until two days had passed. That would give the gypsies time to conduct Lucy’s funeral and leave the quarry.
    The woman was strangely quiet as she rose to touch a silver photo frame with a small family photograph hidden among a dozen or more upon a grand piano. Her gaze stayed softly on her late husband’s smiling face.
    ‘It pains me deeply to say this, Megan, but it’s not who killed Mr Newton that is important, it’s the fact he was involved with the gypsies; sadly it is that we have to keep secret, even from the police. The future of his good name depends on it, and that of the children, of course. I promise that what you have told me will remain with me, and thank you so very much. I shall put my demons to rest, now that I know the truth, awful though it is.’ She laid her pale hand on Megan’s arm, adding, ‘I do realise the sacrifice you have made in telling me, but I had to know the murderer’s name.’
    Before leaving, Megan gazed round the massive, marble hall. The walls were hung with portraits of men in uniform, soldiers. While hawking her scourers in Kirriemor she had seen similar pictures. They reminded her of what Bruar would have looked like. ‘My husband was a soldier, was yours?’
    ‘Yes, a proud captain in the Queen’s Cavalry. That’s a portrait of him over there.’ She pointed to a large painting suspended above the curved turn of a broad winding staircase. Megan took a closer look. Indeed, he was a very handsome fellow. Tall, tanned skin, thin moustache above a firm lip, ocean-blue eyes, perfectly groomed brown hair. She could see how Lucy had fallen so heavily for him.
    ‘My lad, he too is a looker. Not nicely ironed like him. Wild and strong, that’s my Bruar.’
    Mrs Newton touched her arm again and asked where he was.
    She told her everything.
    ‘The dream disclosed to you that he sleeps above and not below the ground?’
    ‘Yes, missus.’
    ‘And you think “King’s Land” is in London?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘It may be