A Kind of Grief (11 page)

“Yes, yes. But how can you be sure they were not tainted in any way?”

“Why would they be? Besides, Miss Ramsay always brought some for the nurses. Delicious they were too.”

“So Miss Ramsay, a self-styled recluse, would often visit the hospital to sit with old people?”

“Not often. Mostly on Sundays when we were short-staffed as—”

“Was she supervised?”

“The residents' areas are open.”

“And these teas, these herbal medications?”

The sheriff had intervened. “We've already covered this.”

“The procurator fiscal is an experienced prosecutor,” Calum told Joanne, “but he was beaten by Nurse Ogilvie's honesty. It was hard to see why the charges went to trial.”

“Agreed.” Joanne could not see why either.

“It was said Miss Ramsay was doing . . .” Calum hesitated. “It was rumored that girls who wanted rid of their babies could go to her for help.”

“Was there evidence of that?”

“No,” Calum said, “but that didn't make the stories go away.”

“The defense witnesses, tell me about them.” Joanne needed to hear the positives of Alice's trial.

“Mr. Dougald Forsythe.” Calum grinned. “He took up so much time no further witnesses were called. A right bit of entertainment he turned out to be. But first up was Mrs. Galloway telling everyone what a good person Miss Ramsay was. How Miss Ramsay looked out for her old mother, made her smile, how she'd made tea that was good for the nerves—calmed her mother right down, Mrs. Galloway said. Next and last was Mr. Forsythe.” Calum paused. “I told you about his testimony, how he annoyed the sheriff an' all.”

“I know,” Joanne said. “It's just that I'm trying to find how—”

“How it connects with her death?”

“How it could lead to her death.”

“No idea.” Calum then recounted how Forsythe had first made sure his name was spelled right. Then he'd had the ushers set up an easel with the drawing of a bird skeleton and a bird's wing. Then he'd made certain the sheriff had the portfolio of numbered references to hand.

“I hope this won't take long,” the sheriff told him. Forsythe paid no heed.

“He went on and on,” Calum said. “Boring everyone wi' lectures about art and the like, mostly talking about himself and how much he knows. Didn't go down too well with the locals, being called ignoramuses.”

“And she was found not guilty.”

“Aye. Only took Sheriff Anderson a few minutes to decide.”

“Thanks, Calum.” In spite of the verdict, Joanne knew, as Alice probably did, in the eyes of some she would always be guilty.

“How does knowing about the trial help?” he asked.

It was Joanne's turn to say, “No idea.”

A
lice decides to re-hang the skeleton drawing, this time above the sideboard where she keeps the crockery. After the derision the small delicate bird skeleton sketch had caused in the courtroom it felt tainted by the memory.

Every time I need a cup or a plate, every time I look across, it will remind me I was once the best, she tells herself. Here in the glens, no one knows how valuable my talent made me, how they sought me out, asking for my help, because I was the best of the best.

Of course, when he asked, I said yes, without thinking of all the ramifications. I have to admit I was flattered. I never thought this one small favor could be so disastrous.

She hammers the picture hook in without measuring, her eye sure.

Alice notices the light darken, and seeing the purple bruise across the skyline, she knows that one of the frequent fierce cloudbursts typical of the glens is imminent. A bird is huddling on the windowsill. She opens the kitchen door to throw out a crust. But the sparrow has flown.

She steps out, gathers an armful of logs. A flash—she counts the seconds to the thunder-roll, watching as the storm moves towards the mountains. Something moving on the edge of the Forestry plantation registers in the corner of her eye. Another crash of thunder startles her. And the dog; he hates thunder.

She looks again but sees nothing. “Probably some deer,” she tells the Skye terrier. Deer hate thunder too.

The weather had been abysmal for days—sky collapsed, drained of color, no wind, no breaks in the suffocating canopy of persistent rain.

Joanne was trying to write at the kitchen table; keeping two fires burning in two rooms was too hard. In these dreich days, fetching coal and logs from the shed chilled her, making her fear in her weakened state she'd catch a cold. The kitchen was warm, but with the wood-burning stove stoked up, wash hanging from the pulley, over the backs of chairs, on an old wooden towel rack, and the girls' school socks pegged to a length of string hung over the mantelpiece, the smell and feel of damp were thick and cloying. Everything smelled damp, she noticed, even the newspaper was warped, and there was at least four months of winter to come.

One letter and one bill and McAllister's political magazine arrived in the mail. She'd given up waiting on the publisher, consoling herself with the thought that she'd submitted to a major British publication, not a Scottish one, and to have them accept one of her stories was an ambition too far.

The letter was from Calum Mackenzie. She unfolded a cutting from a newspaper. Classified ads. There was a note with it.

Thought you might be interested.

Yours sincerely,

Calum.

The ad read: “Auction 21st October, Inchdarroch House, auction of goods and chattels of the late Miss Alice Ramsay. Items include one Land Rover, furniture, paintings, household equipment, garden equipment, and sundry bric-a-brac.”

Joanne realized the twenty-first was this Saturday, three days away, and she knew she had to attend. Not just out of curiosity—she coveted that drawing, the one of the bird skeleton.

It had been weeks, yet still she held to the belief that she was partly to blame for Alice's death.

When she'd said this to McAllister, he'd said, “How can you think that? You can't blame yourself for this . . . this . . .”

“Tragedy.” She knew he was right, but she couldn't shake the conviction that her role in Alice's last days was not an innocent one.

Still staring at the paragraph on the typewriter, wondering where next to take her latest story—about a local postie who served the remote communities up the glens and was the community lifeline for news, both written and oral—she heard the front door open and close.

“Is my beautiful wife at home?”

She laughed. Then shivered. His voice made her want to grab him and tell him how happy she was, how very glad she was to be his wife. Instead, she said, “I'll warm up some soup.”

“No,” he said. “You stay there. I'll get it.”

And he did, but not before reaching down, kissing her on the top of her skull, enveloping her in a current of cold and rain and his own particular scent of wet wool, cigarettes, and a very un-Scottish cologne he bought whenever he was in Glasgow.

When they finished the soup, served with buttered brown bread and lashings of parsley, he asked, “How's the writing?”

“Slow.” She never liked to talk about her writing, so she quickly passed over the newspaper cutting. “Calum Mackenzie sent me this. I'd like to go, so I thought I'd leave the girls with their granny and granddad Ross and drive up.”

“I'll come with you. I've never been to that part of the world.”

“I'd like that.” She looked out at the steel sky, felt the damp wash pressing down on them, and said, “Let's hope it's not raining in Sutherland.”

Back at the
Gazette
, McAllister mentioned the trip to Don McLeod.

“We're driving up to Sutherland on Saturday morning. Joanne wants to go to an auction, Alice Ramsay's estate.”

“Take the Nuisance with you. There's a junior golf tournament up there this Saturday, our lot versus theirs. I need better pictures than thon disasters the club secretary sends us.”

Do I have to?
McAllister was about to say, then remembered this was Hector's catchphrase.

Coverage of local sporting events mattered to the newspaper. Intercounty games were often played in wee communities, in remote parts of the Highlands, so the editor knew the logic in taking the photographer with them. The thought of being in an enclosed space with Hector for hours, with Hector endlessly discussing lenses and camera angles and light, or lack of in this weather, bothered him. He cheered himself up with the thought that while Hector covered the tournament, he could wait in the nearest bar.

Saturday morning was still wet, but occasional breaks in the cloud cover made Joanne optimistic. “You never know, it might be nice in Sutherland.”

“Considering it's farther north, I doubt it,” McAllister said as he parked outside Hector Bain's house—or, rather, his granny's house, where Hec and his wee sister still lived.

“Eeyore,” Joanne said, and stuck her tongue out at him.

“For that, you can drive.” He honked the horn for Hector, then opened the door to change seats. Joanne slid over, saying nothing, but she was relieved. McAllister could drive well enough, but she was better. He saw it as a way to get from place to place. She actually enjoyed it.

Hector came running through the rain, a duffel bag over his shoulder. He knocked on the driver's window. “Want me to drive?”

“No!” Hec's driving petrified Joanne. “Hector, get in. It's pouring.”

They hadn't covered half a mile before Hec began to blether. “I see there's some camera stuff for sale at the auction. Maybe I'll get a bargain.”

“Maybe,” McAllister said. He knew that all the photographer needed was the occasional “aye,” or “maybe,” or a grunt, as nothing would stop the flow. He adjusted the seat to his six feet two inches, settled back, and let the road and Hec's words flow over and around him, much the same way as the rain was enveloping the car. And with the heater up full blast, the radio playing country dance music, and Joanne's steady but fast driving, they were at Bonar Bridge sooner than he expected.