08 - The Highland Fling Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

“For what? You saved the day for your friends.”
    “For being here. For being—you.”
    He stopped in front of the hotel. “Not a very nice way to begin your visit, Jess.”
    “Oh, just a little excitement. I have to get inside, George. You say you’re going up to Wick a day or two ahead of us. Will I see you again in London before that?”
    “Absolutely. Jess, I have to ask you a question.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Why did you do what you did this morning? Approach that madman.”
    I opened the door, stepped out of the car, and closed the door behind me. I leaned in through the open window and said, “George, I have absolutely no idea why I did it. If I’d thought about it, I never would have. And now that I am thinking about it, I’m scared to death. I’ll be in touch.”
    I blew him a kiss and ran into the lobby.

Chapter Four
    George had been right. The impact of my morning at the Tower of London hit me at eleven o’clock, right in the middle of an interview with the BBC. I managed to hide the pain and fatigue I felt, but once I walked from the studio and out onto the street, accompanied by Archie Semple’s director of publicity, I felt so faint I had to lean against a building
    “Feeling sick, Mrs. Fletcher?” the publicist asked.
    “Yes. It’s been a—an interesting morning.” I stood straight, took a few deep breaths, and smiled. “What’s next?”
    The rest of the London portion of the trip went smoothly, complicated only by press interest in my experience in helping free Jed and Alicia Richardson. Some government officials wanted to fete me at a banquet, but I managed to slip out of those commitments, falling back on the fact that I’d be returning to London after our sojourn in Scotland. “Perhaps then,” I said.
    The most nettlesome aspect of the media interest was created by London’s fabled tabloids. They’d decided that because Scotland Yard Chief Inspector George Sutherland and I would be spending time together at his family home in Wick, there must be something risqué to report. That I would be there with eleven chaperones from Cabot Cove didn’t seem to matter. I tried to be gracious in deflecting their inquiries, but my annoyance came through too often.
    Archie Semple was delighted with the media attention.
    “The book is selling out in every bookstore, Jessica,” he told me. “We’ve gone back to press for another thirty thousand. Best-seller list this coming Sunday in the Times, Guardian, and Independent. The London Review of Books is calling it your crossover book, Jessica, mainstream literature. The London Observer loves it. Absolutely l-o-v-e-s it! Tabloids are playing up your heroism big, full-page photos in the Star and Sun. Couldn’t go better if we’d planned- it.”
    I was pleased for Archie and his publishing house, of course. But as the week wore on, all I could think of was getting out of London and going to Scotland, where, I assumed, the pressure would be off and relaxation would be the order of the day. I pictured windswept cliffs and sparkling water, charming pubs and streams teeming with fat salmon. Ken Sassi had brought with him enough fly-fishing equipment for the two of us, and we promised each other a day on a stream, our artificial flies bobbing in dear, dean water, birds singing in the trees, and if we were lucky, the excitement of a sharp tug on the line and the sight of a salmon arching from the water, diving under again and playing out the line until I skillfully brought him to me where I would offer my verbal apologies, gently slip the barbless hook from his mouth, move him beneath the water a few times to force air through his gills, and send him off, hopefully having helped him gain a little more wisdom about telling the difference between real bugs and the hand-tied variety.
    I love fly-fishing, and do it as often as time allows back home. It’s the most liberating personal experience I know. The world disappears, all tension dissipates; there