Death of a Chief by Douglas Watt sampler
The year is 1686. Sir Lachlan MacLean, chief of a proud but poverty-striken Highland clan, has met with a macabre death in his Edinburgh lodgings. With a history of bad debts, family quarrels, and some very shady associates, Sir Lachlan had many enemies. But while motives are not hard to find, evidence is another thing entirely. It falls to lawyer John MacKenzie and his scribe Davie Scougall to investigate the mystery surrounding the death of the chief, but among the endless possibilities, can Reason prevail in a time of witchcraft, superstition and religious turmoil? This thrilling tale of suspense plays out against a wonderfully realised backdrop of pre-Enlightenment Scotland, a country on the brink of financial ruin, ruled from London, a country divided politically by religion and geography. The first in the series featuring investigative advocate John MacKenzie, Death of a Chief comes from a time long before police detectives existed.
The year is 1686. Sir Lachlan MacLean, chief of a proud but poverty-striken Highland clan, has met with a macabre death in his Edinburgh lodgings. With a history of bad debts, family quarrels, and some very shady associates, Sir Lachlan had many enemies. But while motives are not hard to find, evidence is another thing entirely. It falls to lawyer John MacKenzie and his scribe Davie Scougall to investigate the mystery surrounding the death of the chief, but among the endless possibilities, can Reason prevail in a time of witchcraft, superstition and religious turmoil?
This thrilling tale of suspense plays out against a wonderfully realised backdrop of pre-Enlightenment Scotland, a country on the brink of financial ruin, ruled from London, a country divided politically by religion and geography. The first in the series featuring investigative advocate John MacKenzie, Death of a Chief comes from a time long before police detectives existed.
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death <strong>of</strong> a chief<br />
chapter 1<br />
The Apothecary’s Shop<br />
the apothecary sat on a tall stool with his back to the<br />
door <strong>of</strong> the shop. He carefully measured a small quantity <strong>of</strong><br />
liquid in a phial and poured it into a large stone mortar lying<br />
before him on a wooden bench at the back wall. Above the<br />
bench were shelves lined with bottles <strong>of</strong> different shapes and<br />
sizes, whose multicoloured contents reflected the light from<br />
the two candles which lit the room, casting a rainbow over<br />
the old man’s hands.<br />
As he lifted his head he was just able to determine the<br />
names scrawled on the labels <strong>of</strong> the bottles, flasks, glasses<br />
and boxes: castoreum, antimonium, Peruvian bark, stribrum,<br />
orange peel, opium, almond oil, helleboris albus, elaterium,<br />
mercury sublimate, arsenic.<br />
His swollen hands reached up to the second shelf and<br />
removed a bottle labelled vitriolum romanum. He poured<br />
a small amount into the mortar and began to grind slowly.<br />
He had repeated this procedure on countless occasions – the<br />
sound <strong>of</strong> the pestle on the mortar had accompanied his adult<br />
life and he found the process reassuring.<br />
Easing himself slowly <strong>of</strong>f his stool, he made his way<br />
painfully to the shelves where he stored an assortment <strong>of</strong><br />
books and ledgers. He screwed up his eyes as he read the<br />
spines. A number <strong>of</strong> years had passed since he had last made<br />
this concoction and it took a while before he found what<br />
he was looking for. He removed a dusty tome and returned<br />
15
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