Shadows of Death (25 page)

‘But how can I get in to see her? She wouldn’t even see you last time.’ Besides, I quailed at the thought of bearding the lioness in her well-protected den. Mrs Norquist scared me, but I wasn’t going to admit that if I didn’t have to.

Of course Nora the all-seeing knew it anyway. ‘I’m sorry, I worded that ambiguously. My idea was that perhaps Alan could attempt the visit. Mrs Norquist fancies a good-looking man, even at her age. He might succeed where either of us would fail. And now I really must be seeing to Theodore’s supper. Thank you for the lovely sherry, my dears.’ And she let herself out.

‘I
think I need a little more Highland Park,’ Alan said after a slightly stunned silence. ‘Did that woman actually just give me orders to visit the madwoman of Chaillot?’

‘Something like that, my intrepid knight. I don’t want to seem hard-hearted, but better you than me. Nora’s a dear, isn’t she, but very … I don’t know quite what the word is. Kind, gracious, but somehow it’s almost impossible to say no to her.’

‘She reminds me,’ said Alan glumly, ‘of Mrs Thatcher. The Iron Lady. I don’t know what you were planning for dinner, my love, but I vote for the Royal Hotel. I require sustenance if I’m to work myself up to my ordeal.’

Well, I’m never averse to being treated to dinner, although I told myself I mustn’t eat too much. I fight a constant battle between my appetite and my stern dietary instructions to myself. Appetite usually wins, sad to say. I just plain like food, and when lovely food is in front of me I tell myself I should be grateful that I can still enjoy it. Then when I step on the scale I give myself a lecture about next time.

There was no scale in the bathroom at the flat. And besides, I told myself as I scanned the menu, I’d been walking a lot while I was here. And I was going to walk even more tomorrow. And how often did I get a chance to eat haggis?

After dinner, feeling slightly like a Strasbourg goose, I persuaded Alan to go with me on a long walk with Watson. We strolled along the harbour, watching the lights of the last ferry as it left for Aberdeen. Watson was more interested in the seagulls, some of which seemed nearly as big as he was. ‘They don’t grow ’em like that back home,’ I said, and Alan chuckled. ‘Nor in most parts of England. Different variety, I suspect. No, Watson, you must not chase it into the water.’

The dog gave a disappointed woof and looked around for something else he could chase. The gulls were thinning out; night was coming, though the sky still held lots of light. The sounds of the busy little town were quieter, evening sorts of sounds. Somewhere a cat was being called to its supper. Watson stiffened at the answering meow.

‘It’s all right, pup, that one won’t bother you anymore.’ Watson picked up both the reassurance and the sadness in my voice and whined questioningly. ‘It’s all right,’ I said again, and gave him a pat. ‘Just be glad you’re not human. We have much more to worry about.’

Alan took my arm and we walked on till the light was almost gone and we were glad to turn toward home.

Wednesday dawned bright and clear and all too soon for people who hadn’t fallen asleep till well after midnight. Alan sat up and blinked at the brilliant sunshine pouring through the uncurtained window.

‘I was hoping for torrential rain,’ he croaked in an unpractised morning voice. ‘Or snow. Or an earthquake.’

‘Or a tornado or a tsunami,’ I agreed. ‘Any sort of friendly weather. Go back to sleep, love. It’s ridiculously early. You don’t have to face the day’s ordeal for hours.’

Watson, of course, had other ideas. He jumped down from his spot in the middle of the bed and padded downstairs. We slipped back into an agreeable doze, but he was back in moments. He whined. He licked Alan’s toe and my hand, both of which were poking out from the covers. He barked sharply. He jumped back on the bed, creating something resembling that hoped-for earthquake, and barked again.

‘Cats, you know, use a sandbox,’ I remarked sourly, as I swung my feet to the floor and felt around for my slippers.

I’d planned to go straight back to bed as soon as I’d dealt with Watson’s needs, but I found to my dismay that I was wide awake. The air I’d caught a whiff of when I let him out was so clean and fresh, so full of the cries of gulls and the hoots of the ferry, that I had to admit I didn’t want any more sleep. Besides, it was later than I’d thought, nearly seven. That’s early enough, in all good conscience, for someone on holiday, but I knew I simply wasn’t going to be able to force my eyes shut again. I made myself a cup of coffee, took it and Watson out on the patio, and settled back to wait for Alan to wake up.

I was heartily in agreement with Alan’s wishes for a cataclysm. I, too, would rather have coped with almost any meteorological phenomenon than with the harpy who lay in wait for her morning’s prey: my poor husband.

Mrs Tredgold was right, though. It had to be done. One way or another, we needed to learn what Charlie Norquist’s mother knew about his whereabouts. I just wished there were some way that didn’t involve a personal interview, perhaps some sort of electronic suction device attached to her skull, to draw out all the information without pain to anyone concerned. I pictured the device, something Frankensteinian, humming away, humming …

I jerked myself awake to find a bee hovering over my coffee cup, and Alan just sitting down with his own mug.

We greeted each other with our usual raised eyebrows, and waited for the caffeine to kick in before embarking on conversation.

‘I thought I wasn’t sleepy, or I’d have come back to bed,’ I said. ‘But the sunshine out here was seductive.’

‘Mmm. Pouring into the bedroom and shining straight into my eyes, it was insistent.’

‘Up and doing with a heart for any fate, are you?’

He grunted. ‘Do you suppose if I ran up and down the road for a while I’d have a heart attack?’

‘More likely I’d have one, just watching you, and then you’d have to cope with me
and
Mrs Norquist. What would you like for breakfast?’

‘Just toast. I’m still feeling like a stuffed goose after that meal last night.’

‘Me, too. Sit still. I’ll bring it out here. It’s far too nice a day to spend indoors.’

We dawdled over our toast and coffee far longer than such modest provender warranted. Watson dozed in the sun for a while, but eventually he reminded us that a dog is a more active creature than a cat, and requires more out of life than a sunny spot for a nap.

I stood up. ‘Do you want to take him for a walk while I do the dishes, or vice versa?’

‘I’ll do the walkies. Gives me an illusion of freedom for a few more minutes.’

It doesn’t take long to deal with one coffee pot, two cups, two plates, and assorted silverware. I was finished before my two males returned, and had plenty of time to fret about what the day had to offer. When they got back, Watson with a happy grin on his face and Alan looking glum, I told them I’d made up my mind.

‘About what?’

‘We’re going with you, Watson and I both. No, I know what you’re going to say. We won’t go in with you, if you say not, but I want to be there. Just in case.’

‘My dear woman, I hardly think there’s any danger involved. Mrs Norquist sounds like an extremely unpleasant old woman, and I’m not looking forward to the encounter, but she can’t eat me.’

‘You never know. I want to be there. And Watson does too, don’t you, mutt?’

Watson, who had a dim instinct that an outing was under discussion, yipped enthusiastically in agreement.

‘You do remember that the blasted woman is more likely to see me alone, according to Nora Tredgold?’

‘I remember. I said I’ll probably not go in.’

‘In that case, why … oh, very well. Are you ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’ I tucked a scarf around my neck against the probable wind. ‘Let’s go.’

We rode in silence through a gorgeous day. The air was a bit nippy for late June, by English standards, let alone Hoosier ones, but it was crystal clear and invigorating. I should have been in the best of spirits.

‘I don’t think that woman has a friend in the world,’ I said after we’d negotiated the tricky roundabout. ‘How do people end up so sour and unloved? She must have been loved once. She married and had a son, after all.’

Alan shook his head. ‘Some marriages have very little to do with love, I’m afraid. We’ve been very lucky, you and I, to have had not one but two good marriages. Helen and I loved each other very much, as did you and Frank. And when they were gone, we found each other, against all odds.’ He reached over and took my hand.

I cleared my throat. ‘You’ve never talked very much about Helen.’

‘No need. I’ll never forget her, as you’ll never forget Frank. And that’s the way it should be.’ He said nothing for a little time. We passed a field of barley, slowed, and turned a corner to drive alongside a pasture. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I had some idea you agreed to come to Orkney because you didn’t want to disappoint me, or something like that.’

I sighed. ‘You don’t need to tiptoe around it. You’re quite right. I came because you came here with Helen. There, that’s out!’

He smiled and grasped my hand more firmly. ‘And I went to Indiana with you because you’d been there with Frank all those years. And we’re a pair of fools. It isn’t a competition, is it?’

I managed a smile, though tears were close to the surface. ‘I suppose we haven’t talked about it because there was no need, was there? They do say that more people who have had happy marriages remarry than the others. Well, you know what I mean, even if I didn’t say it very well. We found each other, we knew we were right for each other, and having loved before, we knew what love was about. And I’ll bet Frank and Helen are both looking down and smiling at us.’

Then I had to blow my nose. When I thought I could trust my voice, I cleared my throat and changed the subject. ‘But my question remains. If we are what we are because of our past experiences, what twists a person into a Mrs Norquist? I know she’s mentally disturbed, but there are mentally disturbed people who are perfectly lovable, aside from thinking they’re Napoleon, or whatever, and then there are the hateful ones. Where does the difference come from?’

Alan pondered for a while. ‘I think it goes back to your prime motivating factor, fear. But fear of what, I can’t tell you. I imagine it’s different for everyone. Fear of rejection, failure, poverty, loss of some sort … given the right, or I suppose the wrong, set of circumstances, I’d think an overpowering fear could turn into a monomania, and that could twist a soul into a fearful shape.’

‘You’re probably right. But I think a seed has to be there from the start. Discontent, jealousy, ambition, anything that can sprout and grow into a monster, given the fertile ground of fear.’

‘“Envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness”?’ he quoted.

‘The Prayer Book hits the nail on the head so much of the time, doesn’t it? And I think we’re about to meet them all, or at least you are. You turn in here.’

‘Yes, love, I remember. And what are you going to do while I go in there and confront all the deadly sins at once?’

‘Walk Watson around the building and pray for you. And hope you get something useful out of the ordeal. But we’re going to wait right here for a little while. We don’t know if she’ll even see you.’

‘True.’ Alan seemed cheered by the thought as he crunched across the gravel drive toward the front door.

W
atson whined anxiously as he watched Alan disappear inside the house. It’s remarkable how he can sense that all may not be well with his people. At such times he wants both of us to be under his watchful eye. ‘It’s all right, dog,’ I said, but I didn’t fool him for a moment. He knew I was edgy, too.

My edginess increased as Alan remained in the house. I had assumed, probably hoped, that the disagreeable old woman would refuse to see him, and that would be that. Apparently that wasn’t the case.

Watson was growing more and more impatient, so I attached his leash and let both of us out of the car. ‘Okay, then, we’ll walk it off, my friend. No, you can’t go inside. See, they don’t allow dogs.’ The sign just outside the door was small and discreet, but quite definite. ‘Service dogs only, please.’ I suppose other animals might disturb the inmates, whose emotional stability was fragile, anyway.

Watson was happy to be moving instead of just sitting and waiting, but he very much wanted Alan to come back. Now that my husband had got himself in there, though, I was hoping he’d get something useful out of the old termagant before she threw him out. That way neither of us might have to come back.

We had made only one circuit of the house, before Alan appeared at the door and walked toward us. I could not, for once, read his face.

‘You weren’t gone long enough for a real conversation,’ I said when he was close enough for speech, ‘but too long if she just refused to talk to you.’

‘She couldn’t refuse,’ he said with a peculiar intonation.

‘Alan! You don’t mean …’

‘No. Or probably not. The thing is, she’s not here.’

I looked at him blankly. ‘But that’s impossible! She couldn’t just walk away. The security is very good. CCTV and all that.’

‘Nevertheless, they can’t find her. They’re in quite a swivet over it, as you can imagine, and they weren’t best pleased that I came along when I did. They’d just as soon nobody knew they occasionally mislay their patients.’

‘Occasionally! You mean this has happened before?’

‘Only once. That they would admit to, anyway.’

‘Let me guess. It was Mrs Norquist that time, too.’

‘It was. A little over a week ago.’

‘Not … oh, no, Alan! That really is impossible!’

‘I’m afraid it’s true. She vanished briefly, sometime the night of the summer solstice.’

I gazed at him, mouth agape, and then suddenly I started to laugh. I had a hard time stopping, in fact, and Alan was, I could see, beginning to get concerned. ‘No, I’m not having hysterics,’ I said at last, when I could. ‘It’s just that this is the final touch of madness. Now I suppose we have to consider a crazy old lady as a murder suspect, and it’s completely ridiculous, and I think I may go mad myself. Are there some straws around that I can weave into my hair?’