A Kind of Grief (26 page)

“I agree.”

Elaine laughed, and Joanne smiled, and the seriousness of the days and weeks past vanished. Temporarily.

Shoes purchased, umbrellas open, they walked quickly through the back lanes, through the covered market, running the last yards across Queensgate, holding on to their hats, nervous the umbrellas might turn inside out in a gusting wind blowing from the Atlantic straight up the Great Glen, ripping through the town before joining its little brother, the North Sea squall.

“Whew!” Elaine laughed. “And I thought it rained up our way.”

The conversation started on Elaine's plan to move south to the town. Inevitably the subject turned to Mrs. Mackenzie.

Elaine said, “Mrs. Mackenzie being injured, Miss Ramsay being . . .” She was mopping a small smear of spilt coffee with a paper napkin. To say the word “murdered” would make true her fears. Like Joanne, Elaine could not believe Alice Ramsay had killed herself. She had no explanation for the death, only a firm belief in the impossibility of a bright, alert, caring woman, with a passion for her art, ending her own life.

“The old people miss her. Nurse Ogilvie does her best. Me too. Mrs. Galloway has a word with most of them when she comes to see her mum. But Miss Ramsay had that special touch.”

Joanne told her about working on the manuscript and asked her not to share this with anyone.

“I won't tell Calum, then.” Elaine smiled. “I swear his mother can read minds.”

“How is she?”

“Bones take time to heal. The bruising and swelling have gone down. But her mind is as full of the same old nonstop nosiness as ever.” Elaine looked up at Joanne. “Sorry, I shouldn't be so uncharitable. Mrs. Mackenzie has a hard life, so I can't condemn her. But Calum needs to get back here soon as possible, or else she'll never let go.” She smiled. “The interview for a transfer—I think I did well. Fingers crossed. Eyes too.”

Her face and crossed eyes were funny and guileless, as was her laughter. Joanne was glad she'd bumped into Elaine. “Don McLeod, the deputy editor, will love you for life if you persuade Calum to come back to work.”

“I'll do my best.”

After they parted, Joanne regretted not asking what was hard about Mrs. Mackenzie's life. The woman had an attentive son and a husband, a business, a home. Joanne knew the same mores that made her embarrassed to wear slippers stopped her from asking direct questions.

Walking back through the market, it came to her.
Ballet shoes. Thin black ballet slippers. And if I can't find them, I'll buy Highland dancing shoes.
One hour later, black Highland dancing shoes wrapped in brown paper in her shopping basket, she went into the newsagent's, bought five magazines that published short stories. Along with a fresh ream of typing paper, she was ready, and went home to write.

Before beginning, she put on Scottish country dance music, laid out crossed walking sticks, and practiced a sword dance.

“Hopeless,” she said, laughing, when she kicked a stick for the second time. Still panting, she sat down to write. The scene came easily, vividly.
A village hall, a ceilidh, the wee girls onstage dancing a Highland fling. A stranger comes in, back from some foreign campaign, sees the crossed swords, and remembers his regiment dancing the dance, the regimental warrior Highland sword dance. But the woman he sees across the room—he remembers her, remembers she is the granddaughter of a famous singer, and healer, and perhaps witch.

She wrote and wrote, the
ping
of the return carriage ringing out a fast rhythm. She kept typing until she was making too many spelling errors to continue. She took the typed sheets, put them into a folder, kissed the folder, and locked it in the writing box along with the manuscript. And the drawings.

“That felt good.” She did a wee skip. “When I write, I'm always going to wear dancing shoes,” she announced to the room.

The accident.
Once more, the fixation with all matters Sutherland intruded.
I wonder if it's connected. But if so, how?

She reached for an art book that McAllister had dusted, then placed it on a lower shelf. It was a large, heavy format, the full-color illustrations printed on thick paper. She checked the index. No references to Leonardo. Not wanting to go back to the library in the rain, she began to leaf through the color plates, hoping to find examples of paintings similar to the ones she'd bought at auction. Nothing matched. She looked at the frontispiece, then the dedication page. It was written in Greek. Above was an inscription in elegant handwriting: “To my dearest A, from your cousin D.” Then a date: “Cambridge 1936.” Cambridge? How was Alice connected to Cambridge? Was her cousin up at Cambridge? Was Cambridge her family home? The inscription was yet another mystery in the life of Alice Ramsay.

Joanne needed to find out more. Her promise to McAllister loomed in her mind, but, she reasoned, she wouldn't be looking into Alice's death—she'd be trying to discover more about her life.

I
was always good at drama. Starred in the school play every year. I suppose that's why subterfuge comes easily to me.

Alice is looking at the painting in progress—a small illustration of a tiny wren sitting on a nest as small as a child's hand—remembering her school days, remembering writing, in her best hand, to various aunts, pleading poverty, or family quarrels before asking for cash to be sent inside a card or a box—anything to fool that prying dried up stick of a devout Calvinist form-mistress.

It's easy to deceive when you have practiced for years on family members. And men. Alice chuckles to herself.

The dog looks up. Five minutes, she promises, then we will walk.

Finishing off the delicate cross-hatching lines of the nest, Alice thinks of her archenemy.

Poor Mrs. Mackenzie. My nemesis. Little does she, or anyone, know that she is right. Not in what she has accused me of, but she knows there is something not quite genuine about me. She smells it, senses it. Perhaps she is the witch.

Don was shouting, “How do you expect me to fill these pages when I've no staff?”

Frankie Urquhart shrugged. “It's my job to bring in the advertising. How else can the
Gazette
pay the wages?”

Fortunately, this was all he said. Pointing out that being understaffed was editorial's problem and not advertising's, would not have gone down well with the increasingly frazzled deputy editor. With Calum back in Sutherland and Joanne retired, filling the pages in the season leading up to Christmas was not easy.

“I've a picture of a two-headed sheep,” Hec said, chortling. “It's a trick o' the light, but it's funny.”

“Get it,” Don ordered. “Nothing like a shaggy sheep story.”

Hec squinted at his boss, trying to figure out if he was serious.

“Get on with it, laddie!”

Don had reached growling point, so Hec knew it was time to run. He did, straight into McAllister. “Sorry, I have to fetch ma two-headed sheep shot.”

The editor was so inured to Hec's bizarre behavior he didn't comment. “Don, I need a word.”

“Unless it's you offering to give me two five-hundred-word pieces, I haven't time.”

“Done,” McAllister said. “You'll have them when I get back.”

Don peered up through the bifocals perched on the end of his nose. And waited.

McAllister jerked his head to the left. “My office.”

Frankie said, “I was just leaving.”

Don knew it was impossible to shut the door to the reporters' room. Age and damp and a good few kickings had left it hanging squint on the frame. Then the thought of the whisky decanter in the editor's private lair made him climb down from the high stool and follow him.

“I've a summons from DI Dunne,” McAllister began. “A gentleman from London wants a wee chat. Says it can't wait till tomorrow. Then I've an appointment in town.” He didn't share that he was off to discuss the sale of his house and the purchase of another, not until he knew if his offer had been accepted.

“Aye, well, we've a newspaper to turn out, and it can't wait either.” Don raised the decanter. McAllister shook his head. Not because it was too early, more that he needed a clear head for Dunne and company. The inspector had sounded most official when he'd asked for the meeting. He'd been ordered to do this, McAllister guessed.

“I told Dunne that.”

“Better to go to him than him come to the office.” Don was now intrigued. “A story in it, you think?”

“I doubt it.”

Don knew McAllister was telling him the details on the remote chance the editor would need bailing out. “Och well, if you're not back in two hours, I'll send for some o' ma clansmen. Didn't work out too well in '45. But maybe this time.”

McAllister knew his colleague meant 1745, not the last war. “I'll have those articles ready by two,” was all he said. He took his hat off the stand. He pocketed a notebook and pencil. He thought again about a quick dram. But as it was ten past ten on a Wednesday morning, he resisted.

“Sorry, but an interview room is the only private place in the station.” DI Dunne ushered them into a small cramped space off the winding stone staircase. The police station was in a building similar to the
Gazette
office, and it smelled the same: cigarettes and damp.

“Plenty room for two,” the gentleman said.

“Inspector Dunne stays.” McAllister nodded towards the policeman. “Otherwise no interview.”

“This isn't an interview, more a friendly chat.”

The man was smooth. Oily as a cormorant's back, McAllister was thinking. “Nonnegotiable.”

Dunne took a chair on the editor's side of the table. He clasped his hands, not to lead them in prayer but in an
I'm waiting and this better be good
gesture.

“We haven't all been properly introduced,” Dunne began. The room was chilly and damp. The atmosphere and the detective's voice were equally cold. “You both know who I am. No doubt you've checked up on Mr. McAllister.” A slight bow of the head from the stranger acknowledged he had.

The visitor was silent for a moment. “Call me Stuart,” he replied.

“Of the Skye Stuarts? Or is it London?” McAllister asked.

“My name doesn't matter.”

“You could have introduced yourself before now. Not at the auction, I grant you, and perhaps not at the golf club, but sending the inspector to issue your threats, that was clumsy.”

“It was. I apologize.”

McAllister did not actually remember seeing him at the auction, and his remark was a guess, so the confirmation only added to his suspicions.

Stuart leaned forward from the chest, his hands beneath the table, his face in a practiced,
we are all friends
expression. Seeing that it wasn't washing with the Scotsmen, he sat back. “The person you know as Miss Alice Ramsay was a former colleague. I am greatly saddened by her death.”