Table Of ContentThe Wild Island - Jemima Shore 02
Book Jacket
Series: Jemima Shore [2]
Tags: Mystery
SUMMARY:
As Jemima Shore, Investigator, arrives at Inverness Station for a Highland
holiday, the sun is shining. Paradise, she thinks. But at that moment, she hears a
voice: "All this way for a funeral." So begins an adventure far removed from
Jemima's visions of heather-covered hills, crystal-clear streams, romantic men in
kilts, fairy-tale castles. Instead she is plunged into the strange world of the
aristocratic Beauregard family with its tensions, jealousies and violence. The
setting is the Wild Island itself, sometimes enchanting but too often frighteningly
remote, the streams, not silvery, but brown and sinister; her holiday home with
its disturbing influence; the people -- none of them quite what they seem.
The Wild Island
Before them stretched a valley, broad but clearly defined with high mountains on
either side. Glen Bronnack, valley of weeping, but looking happy enough now.
Jemima knew all about it. from Charles Beauregard's original letter. The road
stretched forward, winding, until it vanished behind a wall of mountain. The
mountains themselves were covered with dark trees, then grasses, then grass and
rocks, then pure rock. There was heather - yes, it really was heather - that
brilliant purple flower. The sky was still the improbably vivid blue it had been
since her arrival in Scotland a few hours earlier.
There was a feeling of pristine innocence about the scene.
Once again Jemima Shore thought: this is Paradise. This is what I've come to
find.
'Aye, yon's a beautiful glen true enough,' said Duncan, getting out of the car. He
returned with an even older version of himself - Old Duncan perhaps? - who was
unlocking the padlocked gate.
'There's many a mon would commit murder to own a bonnie glen like that,'
continued Duncan. 'And those were Colonel Henry's own words to me. The very
day that Mr Charles Beauregard was drowned. And him on his way to London,
and never knew the poor laddie was dead in the river.'
Also by Antonia Fraser
Quiet as a Nun
A Splash of Red
Cool Repentance
Oxford Blood
Your Royal Hostage
The Cavalier Case
Jemima Shore's First Case and other stories
Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave and other stories
Political Death
Antonia Fraser
The Wild Island
ARROW
Reprinted in Arrow Books, 1999
3 5 7 9 8 6 4
Copyright © Antonia Fraser, 1978
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1978 by Weidenfeld and Nicholson
This edition first published in 1981 by Mandarin Paperbacks and reissued in
1996
Arrow Books The Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
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www.randomhouse.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the
environmental regulations of the country of origin.
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by Cox &Wyman Ltd, Reading,
Berkshire
ISBN 0 7493 0852 4
Contents
I A Highland welcome 9
2 Terribly sudden 17
3 Nature red 25
4 Blood on the. rose 32
5 Dead but not buried 41
6 Island of Eden 48
7 There's tragedy enough 57
8 Utmost quiet 69
9 From the South 78
10 A royal link 87
II Is she safe? 98
12 Midnight and after 107
13 TU be back' 115
14 Danger 123
15 Official action 131
16 Appearances 141
17 Remember me 151
18 Outdoor manoeuvre 162
19 The Prey 171
20 Before you die 178
21 A Highland farewell 187
CHAPTER l
A Highland welcome
As Jemima Shore arrived at Inverness Station, it was early morning but already
the sun was shining. She thought: I'm arriving in Paradise. At that moment a
man's voice said in her ear:
'All this way for a funeral.' It was an intimate voice. Almost purring. Jemima felt
uncomfortably startled. She looked round.
Behind her a man of a certain age, tall, cadaverous, was bending down to pick up
a suitcase. A younger man of much the same ilk was standing beside him.
Possibly they were related. Both were dressed with extreme formality for the
place - a station - and the time-it was 8.30 am. Jemima had just emerged from
her sleeper. She did not feel up to such a situation, at least until she had had a
cup of coffee. Whichever of the two men had spoken, it was nothing to do with
her. She turned her head back and concentrated on the prospect of a porter.
'It's not all that bad, Colonel Henry,' said a second voice. 'In fact, in some ways
it's good. In some ways it's very good indeed.'
Jemima shivered. She was glad she did not know, and never would know,
anything more about a funeral to which it was possible to have anything but
unmixed reactions of sorrow. She stepped firmly onto the platform. She had
come here to getaway from that sort of thing. The first sight which met her eyes
was an enormous splashed scarlet graffiti on a hoarding opposite.
'Up the Red Rose!' it screamed and then something beneath in what looked like
Gaelic, as well as an odd separate sort of calligraph, which she couldn't make out
at all. The scarlet letters were imposed wilfully on another, more formally
written, white notice. To her irritation, she found herself trying to make it out
instead of concentrating on the task of finding a porter, or even a barrow.
Stronger men than her, with dogs and gun Cases to reinforce their claim, Were
apparently engaging all conceivable porterage. 'A Highland Welcome', the
original notice had read. That at least was friendly.
Of course the inhabitants of the Highlands could still welcome Jemima weekly
on their television sets, if they were so minded. As 'Jemima Shore, Investigator'
in a series put out by Megalith Television under that title, she generally found
her way into the ratings. Jemima's speciality was in fact serious-minded
