A Kind of Grief (41 page)

“Good to meet you again, Mr. McAllister.” Superintendent Westland turned to Joanne. “And you, Mrs. McAllister. Congratulations on the marriage.” Westland, in a uniform with many insignias of rank, smiled.

Joanne and McAllister had been involved in helping to resolve a case of child abuse some years back, and the superintendent had been sent to the Highlands to solve the case.

Westland continued, “Good to meet you, DI Dunne,” and shook his colleague's hand. “I was asked to accompany this gentleman and to vouch for his identity. I will also be reviewing the circumstances surrounding the death of Miss Ramsay.”

“I'm glad,” Joanne said. She did not notice the formal wording; McAllister did.

Circumstances surrounding? Does he mean to look at the FAI? The hasty cremation? Or the death itself?

The large man, muscle not fat
,
was dressed in the Civil Service uniform of navy-blue suit, with highly polished black shoes on feet that seemed incongruously large and more accustomed to boots. With a briefcase and a bowler hat, he was as clichéd and as out of place as a kilted Highlander in London.

He first introduced himself to Joanne. “Roland Hennessey. My credentials.” He held out an ID card and a letter with an impressive crest and an equally impressive address: the Ministry of Defense.

McAllister gestured to Westland. “I hope someone checked his ID.” Hennessey ignored him, but both policemen smiled.

Mr. Hennessey asked, “Do you prefer I address you as Joanne Ross or Mrs. McAllister?”

“Mrs. McAllister.” She wanted the protection of her status.

Turning to McAllister, he said, “Honored to meet you. I've been reading some of your Spanish Civil War reporting. Most enlightening.”

McAllister knew he was saying
I've read your file
, but he was flattered nonetheless. He also knew, from the suit, that Mr. Hennessey might now be an office man, but from his hands and handshake and eyes that flicked to take in everything and everyone, even the hotel's tartan carpet, he was much more than that.

“First, we need to get the police work out of the way,” Westland said.

The police work was almost an hour of intense questioning from both visitors, the witnesses being all three locals.

“Establishing the identity of Stuart . . .” Hennessey was saying.

“And his driver . . .” Superintendent Westland added.

“. . . is of paramount importance.”

“So are you saying Stuart isn't with your lot?” McAllister needed to ask directly, needed to know if he—they—had been fooled.

“I can't answer that.”

“Can't, Mr. Hennessey? Or won't?”

Westland was sitting opposite McAllister. He leaned back slightly in his chair, observing the exchange and enjoying it.

“Mr. Stuart was employed by a department of a service that does not exist in any public record.” Hennessey spoke quietly, his words well chosen. He knew McAllister knew how to interpret “was” and “in any public record.” It still didn't clear up what Alice Ramsay's role was. But McAllister knew how to wait.

They took a break. The superintendent and DI Dunne disappeared. McAllister guessed they were conferring from a Scottish-policeman point of view. He hoped so, as the secretive Secret Service perspective was stifling. And annoying.

They returned five minutes later with a waitress pushing a trolley with tea, coffee, and scones. Hennessey was delighted. “I'm addicted to good scones,” he said as he helped himself to one.

“Spent time in Scotland, then?” McAllister asked. Hennessey gave the look of a small boy caught out in the pantry. “Your pronunciation of ‘scones,' ” the newspaperman explained.

“Got me. Yes, I trained with one of your rugged regiments in equally rugged country.”

“You'll know the Highlands, then,” McAllister said, guessing it was with the Lovat Scouts but receiving no confirmation.

Another intense hour of questioning relating to the break-ins, including the disappearance of Hec's negatives, followed. Then a sandwich lunch. In early afternoon, the questioning turned to Miss Alice Ramsay and her artworks.

Joanne was exhausted. She was almost teary when the subject of the paintings came up. “They still haven't returned one of my paintings. One I really liked.”

There it is again
, McAllister thought,
the mysterious
“they.” He was becoming annoyed with Hennessey and the never-ending questions.

“Do you have any other artworks by Miss Ramsay?” Hennessey asked.

“Yes,” Joanne answered. “The pages we told you about come from the manuscript and the loose papers we found in Alice's writing box. There are also two small drawings that might be by Leonardo da Vinci.”

McAllister said nothing. This was his wife's decision. And he respected that.

“Hector Bain sent the drawings to an art expert in Edinburgh. We are waiting to hear if they are genuine.”

“Do you believe they are?”

“I don't know.” To her, the drawings, genuine or otherwise, meant a great deal. The image of a bird wing, pulled open to illustrate how every bone, every feather of such an insubstantial yet sublime creature—a skylark, she fancied—was miraculous. She felt humbled by the craftsmanship of a true artist and inspired by the illustration of the miracle of flight.

“We will need to check the manuscript and drawings but only to see if there is anything hidden. After that . . .” Mr. Hennessey shrugged.

“I need to leave,” Joanne said quietly. “The children will be home soon.”

“When would it be convenient to study the manuscript?” Hennessey asked.

“Will you take it away?”

“I can examine it in your presence.”

“Come to our house tomorrow morning. We can go through it together. That is, if you're staying?”

“Thank you, Mrs. McAllister.”

McAllister drove her home. Both knew that Hennessey needed no permission to take the manuscript. Both appreciated his asking.

After the McAllisters had left, DI Dunne with them, Superintendent Westland remarked to the man he'd only met last night on the train. “Good people. Intelligent too.”

“More than can be said for our lot,” Hennessey replied.

Westland thought well of his companion for admitting it.

The following days were intense, with bad weather, hours of questions, and Joanne having to recount, again and again, the same events. At first, it was interesting, then boring, then confusing. She wanted to say, loudly and frequently,
We've already been over that, twice at least
, but instead, decided to enjoy the sessions.

Using her author's eye, she would try to recall the small details of everything and everyone connected to Alice.

Hennessey was accompanied this time by Detective Constable Ann McPherson, whom Joanne knew.

“I'm here because my shorthand is the best in the station,” McPherson explained.

“It's the small unremembered details that might be important,” Hennessey explained before the questions started.

Over many cups of tea and a batch of scones Joanne had taken out of the oven just as the doorbell announced her visitors, she was impressed by his patience, his ability to keep to the point, and his ability to eat a plate of scones and still have room for seconds of the shepherd's pie she'd made for the family dinner but served to the unexpected lunch guests.

“Are these numbers connected to the spy scandal?” Joanne eventually asked.

“I can't say,” Hennessey replied.

She tried again. “And are the drawings in the style of Leonardo da Vinci genuine?”

“That I don't know, but I promise to find out.”

Joanne stated her version: “A talented artist, retires from her job as . . .” She paused, not wanting to know exactly what Alice did, as it all sounded too fantastical. “A government employee. She has a family connection to this part of Scotland. So she settles in Sutherland, using her birth name, renovates the home she inherited, and works on her paintings in peace and quiet. She ends up in court, accused of deliberately causing a miscarriage, which leads to accusations of witchcraft.”

The snort from Hennessey was loud.

And appropriate, Joanne thought. “The trial is reported in the local press,” she continued. “I read it. Then I drive up to meet her and . . .” Here she stopped. Remembering.
I wanted to meet her because I wanted to meet a real live witch living near the town where the last witch in Scotland was put in a barrel of boiling tar and burnt alive
.

“And?” Hennessey asked.

I'm no better than Mrs. Mackenzie, she didn't say. “And this leads to me talking to Dougald Forsythe, who then uses what I emphasized was background information in an article in a national newspaper. He also reveals the whereabouts of Alice Ramsay, the artist.”

“Not your fault,” Hennessey interjects. But Joanne does not accept his opinion.

“Forsythe's article leads to someone”—“persons unknown” was a police phrase that always made Joanne smile—“discovering her. Perhaps killing her.”

“And now we are here to investigate.” Hennessey did not respond to the last sentence.

Ann McPherson intervened. “Sir, the appointment with the chief constable is at three o'clock, and it's now half past two.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” He stood. As did Joanne and Ann.

The three of them were of an almost equal height, and Joanne was reminded that Alice too had inherited those tall northern genes.

“Is treason still a hanging offense?” She shuddered as the word escaped into the air, polluting the already abysmal day. The thought was haunting her. Although abolished for all other crimes, capital punishment was still the sentence for betraying your country.

He looked at her in surprise. She saw his eyes were like her eyes, that muddy green common in the north.

“Technically, yes. But it is unlikely to come to that.”

Because it is unlikely it will ever come out, she thought, or it will be dealt with in other equally secretive ways.

“Thank you, Mrs. McAllister, for being so helpful. And for the magnificent scones.”

“Sorry for the gruesome question.”

“I'll need to take seven pages from the manuscript and these loose sheets with the numbers.” He ended by writing out an official receipt, with Ann McPherson cosigning as witness. “Good luck with Miss Ramsay's manuscript. To have it published would be a wonderful homage to a fascinating woman.”

Joanne made a fresh pot of tea, then sat and thought. It had been intense, and too much thinking gave her a headache. So she went to the piano, and almost an hour later, in the middle of a tricky passage in the Shubert, the girls came home.

From the kitchen came Annie's voice. “Who ate all the scones? There's only one left.”

Joanne smiled.
Caught out by a twelve-year-old, Mr. Hennessey
. “I'll make pancakes instead.”

That night, even McAllister was too tired to talk. “So, to summarize, a talented forger and artist, but was Alice a traitor?”

Joanne was shocked at that suggestion.

“We're meeting tomorrow, probably for the last time. We'll know more then.”

“Oh, really?” Joanne asked. “This is the secret intelligence service. Why would they tell us anything?”

“Because, dear wife, no professional spy would be unwise enough to leave a nosy journalist and a budding author with unanswered questions.”

“I'm sure we'll be fed a plausible story. True or otherwise.” Joanne sighed. “I know Mr. Hennessey and Superintendent Westland are the best we could hope for. But all I want is to find out what happened to Alice.”