“Condition, for one thing. And I talked to all the families who run sheep. They were certain it wasna’ here in the summer. A fox or dog had chewed the shoes, and what bits of clothing we found weren’t of any use. First thought was that we’d found a climber. People climb here who havena’ the sense of a beetle! They canna’ believe on a fine day like this one that the mists can come in sae fast, you’re lost before you take ten steps. And she was doubled up, as if trying to keep warm. Loose stones had washed around and over her.”

“Doubled? How?”

“Head on knees, arms around them. Made the body smaller, kept heat in the middle. The bones were still in a huddle, like. The doctor found no injuries, but that’s no’ to say she hadna’ turned her ankle or twisted her knee.”

Hamish said, “Doubled o’er, she’d fit behind the seat of a car, out of sight.”

Rutledge said, “If she was already dead, rigor had passed.”

“Aye, that’s right. Or hadna’ set in. The birds and foxes must have stripped the body in a matter of days. We couldn’t find one hand or the best part of a foot. Other bones had been pulled apart to get at the meat. The skull had rolled into her lap.” MacDougal sighed. “We’ve had a walker or two lost in these parts. But we always ken how they got into the glen. They’d be seen and reported. One left a bicycle. Another begged a lift on a crofter’s wagon. With this one, there’s no way of establishing when—or how—she came to be here. We don’t know the question to ask, do we? And it’s possible she came over the top, from the other side.”

“What’s your opinion of the engraving on the brooch?”

“I have none. It spells out ‘MacDonald,’ and that’s your patch, is it no’?” MacDougal grinned, then shrugged. “It could hae come from the dead woman’s clothing, if she was murdered and dragged up here. Climbers don’t wear much jewelry as a rule. Or it came from the murderer’s, trying to drag up that corpse. We do na’ have well-dressed middle-class women promenading up this mountainside, losing the odd brooch or two.”

“The center stone of the brooch isn’t scratched enough to have been washing down a mountainside since 1916.”

“Yes, I ken what you’re suggesting. Still, if it lodged somewhere for a time, then came down in the rains Betty spoke of, it might not have tumbled about all that much.”

If—if—if— Investigations were made and lost on “ifs.”

“We’ll have to take the brooch back with us. Oliver will give a receipt to Betty.”