A Double Death on the Black Isle (42 page)

“I'll make the tea.” Patricia fussed around with kettle and water and teapot. “Do you need an aspirin, Mrs. M.?” she asked as she reached for the teacups.

“I canny take it in.” Mr. Munro stood staring at his wife, who had sunk down into her armchair, her eyes so large and shining she looked consumptive.

“Patricia says Ronnie wi' the milk lorry saw them,” Mrs. Munro said. “I knew it couldney be her.” This time Mrs. Munro really did cry—big sobbing shuddering tears.

Patricia sensed the electricity between Mr. and Mrs. Munro and was sacred and nearly to tears herself. She took Mrs. Munro's hand and asked, “What's wrong? I don't understand.”

To Patricia, Allie Munro always seemed a slow man. Slow to move and slow to anger. But she knew that was a mistaken impression. “Unhurried” was a better word to describe him.

“Pour that tea, lass,” he told Patricia. “We have some talking to do.”

They gathered round the kitchen table to talk. They took their time. Mrs. Munro cried. Patricia cried. Allie Munro sat with his big hands clasped on the table listening, talking when he needed to, watching his women slowly unwind as comprehension dawned. Then it was his turn to make tea, a tea so strong that Mrs. Munro hardly noticed the whisky in it.

“I heard the Land Rover, early,” Allie started. “I was along the road a wee bit, opposite the woods, above the Devil's Den. I heard shouting. And swearing. I ran. The Land Rover had taken off down the road by the time I reached Fraser. He was in the ditch. He died.” He did not tell them it had taken some minutes for him to die. “I found your father's shooting stick. It had blood on it. I took it and I hid it. Then I went for the doctor, but I knew it was too late.”

“My mother.” Patricia was too shocked to speak in more than a whisper.

“We don't know that. Maybe . . .” Mrs. Munro's voice faded when she found Allie and Patricia looking at her.

“You thought it was
me
driving the Land Rover,” Patricia spoke rapidly. “You thought I'd . . .” She stopped, stared, unable to take in the revelation. There was absolute silence between the three of them until she put her hands to her face to hide her despair.

“Lass, I'm right sorry.” Allie Munro was more than sorry. He was ashamed. But he did not have the words to say this, not yet.

“That is why you confessed? Because you thought I had . . .”

He nodded. “Not that I blamed you . . . never. Fraser was . . .” He did not have the words to continue but they all knew what Fraser was.

“We took Mummy's car without asking,” Patricia started her
side of the story. She needed to speak, to try to make sense of the tragedy. “Goodness knows how Sandy talked me into it, but at that point I was more afraid of his temper than I was of my mother. He didn't know it, but I left her a note saying we would be away for a few days and I had borrowed the car.”

Mrs. Munro was listening and rocking lightly, one hand clasped around the other as though in prayer.

“We went to the Clootie Well like I told you.” Patricia was calm when describing the predawn escape, trying not to remember how helpless she felt with Sandy harassing her on one side and the thought of her mother's fury on the other. “We drove along the firth—it was too early for the ferry, then through town, and took the road to Dores. I was feeling horrible. We had to stop twice for me to be sick and stop again in Dores. When we reached the bridge over the burn that becomes the Falls of Foyers, I told Sandy I couldn't continue another minute. He was furious. He went to look at the falls . . .”

“You don't have to explain dear,” Mrs. Munro said. “We know.”

“Yes,” Patricia said, “but what you don't know is, when Sandy didn't return, I called Mummy from a phone box in Foyers.”

Mr. Munro sat helpless, hoping Patricia wasn't going to cry again—he never knew what to do with a crying woman.

Mrs. Munro interrupted, “We're all exhausted. Tell us in the morning.”

“No, Mrs. M., I want to tell you now.” She took a deep breath, let it out loudly and long, then continued.

“Mummy must have driven like a fury. She reached me in an hour and a bit—lucky with the ferry I suppose. I had called her because . . . I couldn't think what else to do. I know how strong she is. How good she is with officials and . . . I thought she would help organize a search, the police, the rescue people . . .”

Patricia shuddered. Mrs. Munro waited. Allie Munro looked away, not able to bear what was to come—for he knew, or guessed, or at least had an idea what Mrs. Ord Mackenzie didn't do.

“She was so angry, I have never seen her so angry. She screamed at me for taking her car. I told her about Sandy, how he had disappeared, how I couldn't find him. I told her I went down the path a little, I said he wasn't there. I said, ‘I can't find him anywhere. It's been over an hour and a half,' I said, ‘and he's not back.' I said, ‘maybe he's had an accident.' I wanted to get the police, I asked her to do something. I asked her to look for him. I was upset, I was crying, I couldn't even be sick properly, I was retching and my mouth tasted horrible, I had these terrible hiccups, I needed to change my dress because I had been sick down the front, and all she said was, when I told her I couldn't find Sandy, all she said was, ‘Good riddance.'”

And Patricia continued, the words spewing out of her like the bitter bile of morning sickness—no stopping them even if she tried.

“Mummy asked me for the car keys. I couldn't find them. I remembered they were in the car, in the ignition. She threw the Land Rover keys at me. She drove off, leaving me. I was alone. I . . .”

Patricia let loose decades of tears. Not tears for her late husband, not tears for Fraser, nor the Munros—they were tears of frustration and anger at herself. At almost thirty years of age, Patricia had hoped that for once, seeing her daughter's anguish, her mother would help her only child face an appalling situation.

“I should have known my mother would never help me.” She said this more to herself than to Agnes and Allie Munro.

But Allie Munro heard her. Heard her despair. He took the words and he stored them for later consideration. He would let the words simmer and act on them or not, but he would
never forget the pain in that simple phrase. . . . “I should have known. . . .”

“Sleep,” Allie Munro declared. “We all need sleep.” He stood. “Patricia, you stay here tonight. Mother, you see to Patricia.” He had spoken and the women obeyed. “In the morning we'll know what to do.”

When alone in the kitchen he reached for the bottle, poured a dram potent enough to calm his deep white anger.

“That woman . . .” he toasted, “damn her to Hell.”

Patricia was calmed by being told what to do, decisions being beyond her for now. Mrs. Munro clucked around, checking the bed was aired, the linen fresh. She insisted Patricia have a hot-water bottle, “Just to cuddle,” she said, and she tucked Patricia in, just as she had tucked her in when she was a child.

“Nightie-night,” Mrs. M. said as she leaned over and smoothed Patricia's hair.

“Nightie-night.”

Then they both went, “Nightie-night, sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite, mind you cover up your nose, and don't leg the midgies get at your toes.”

And they both went to bed and to sleep, both with a sense of hope, a sense that, although there were more storms to come, the air was clearing as surely as the air had cleared after the thunderstorm.

On waking, Joanne had that sense of Sunday that had been with her her entire life. How, she could never explain, but the second she awoke her inner radar always sensed Sunday mornings as different. “Hallowed” her father would have said. It wasn't the absence of the milk cart, the coal man, or any other of the horse-drawn drays that clopped the streets in the early hours; she had
no need of church bells—it was as though the hand of God rearranged the molecules in the air so no one could ignore the imperative of church or kirk or chapel or meetinghouse.

This particular Sunday was also one of the annual hangover Sundays—the day after the Black Isle Show.

Joanne's first thought was,
What is the weather up to?
Her second was McAllister.
A friend. Good friends? Maybe. A special friend? In time perhaps.
She smiled to herself, the smile of someone with a secret, and went to put the kettle on for tea. It was only then she remembered Mrs. Munro and Patricia Ord Mackenzie.

What had happened yesterday at the show?

We were all tired,
she decided.
Nothing more. I'll phone from the Ross house before we go to church.

Tea brewed, she poured herself a mug and went back to bed for those precious five minutes or so that she had to herself before one or both of her girls woke and climbed in beside her and were loving, lovely children for ten, perhaps fifteen minutes before the bickering started. The ritual of another Scottish Sabbath in the household of Joanne Ross had begun, and it surprised her to know she was happy.

“Hello Mum, hello Dad, ready for church?”

“You're bright and early,” Granddad Ross replied.

“May I use your phone to call Patricia? I want to be sure she and Mrs. Munro got home safely.”

“No need,” her mother-in-law said, “I phoned Agnes half an hour ago and they're fine.”

“Good.” Joanne looked at her mother-in-law, took in the set expression that meant “no more will be said for now” and knew there was no point in asking, she might as well save her breath to cool her porridge.

The Ross family, minus Bill Ross, walked in procession along
St. Valerie Avenue towards the church. The bell, a new-fangled electric chime that Granddad Ross hated, had not yet begun to toll—they were early and they walked slowly. The girls ran ahead, skipped back, stopped to argue about nothing, ran on again, covering twice the distance of the mile or so to their destination.

They were halfway there, Granddad was lagging behind, talking to a neighbor, when Joanne sensed the change in her mother-in-law. It may have been her steps, more purposeful than of late, it may have been the way she held her head, but she was different.

Joanne was only making passing conversation, but as soon as she spoke, she knew. “I'm glad Mrs. Munro is feeling better. She looked terrible yesterday.”

“Aye, but she's fine now. Patricia too.” Mrs. Ross didn't look at Joanne and didn't alter her walk, but she seemed softer.

“You know something, don't you?” Joanne said quietly, “Whatever happened with Mr. Munro, you know.”

“Aye, I do. But it's not my place to tell you.” Mrs. Ross would never betray a confidence. “Don't worry dear, it'll all be fine in the end.” She reached up and patted Joanne on the arm and in that gesture Joanne knew her mother-in-law was right.

“I know,” she agreed. “It
will
all be fine in the end.”

Patricia had woken early. The dawn chorus was in full song, but it was more her bladder than the birds that accounted for the early rise. She didn't go back to bed, too thirsty.
All those tears,
she thought.

She looked at her face in the small, dappled mirror of the dressing table that sat beneath the small window in the small room in the eaves of the farmhouse that had been her nursery as a child. Calm, clear eyes stared out of a swollen, blotchy face, but she felt safe. Empty, but safe, and it felt good.

“Good morning, Mr. M.,” Patricia said as she came into the kitchen and caught Allie Munro fussing with the teapot. “Here, let me do it. I couldn't cope with the tar you call tea this early in the morning.”

She stood beside him and he leaned close, letting their shoulders touch—an instinctive gesture, as close and as caring as a huge carthorse with a foal. Patricia had to fight back the tears she knew he hated.

“I need to go home,” she said when they were settled at the table with their tea.

“Mother and me want you to stay with us awhile,” he answered.

“You know, I'd really like that.”

“Mother is right tired,” Allie said after a minute of quiet, comfortable silence broken only by the frantic chirping and fluttering from a family of sparrows fighting for scraps put out on the kitchen window ledge. “I'll let her sleep in some more.”

“It was all that whisky you slipped into her tea,” Patricia giggled.

“It's right good to see you smile, lass.” Allie looked at her. “Do you want me to come to the big house wi' you?”

Patricia thought about it.

“Yes, I would. I'll pack some clothes. I don't want to speak to my mother . . . but if she is there, I may not be able to avoid her. And no church for me today, I couldn't face it.”

Allie drove Patricia in her car the short half-mile to Achnafern Grange.

“I'll wait outside, if that's all right.”

“I won't be long.”

Patricia was hoping her parents were still in bed. It was nearly eight o'clock, but Sundays usually started late.

“Where on earth did you get to yesterday afternoon?” Mrs. Ord Mackenzie was in the kitchen. Even at this hour, her hair
was immaculate, her lambswool twinset matched the tweed skirt exactly, her pearls were just right, but she had not yet applied lipstick or powder. “You let the Pony Club down, Patricia. You broke your promise to hand out the prizes.”

“Mrs. Munro was sick.”

“Mrs. Munro would have been fine. You had more important responsibilities.”

“How do you know she would have been fine?” Patricia looked calm, a little pale, and she was terrified. “And Mrs. Munro is more important to me.”

Mrs. Ord Mackenzie sensed a confrontation and sensed that for once her daughter might not back down. “You embarrassed me in front of the parents and the committee of Pony Club. Please have the manners to write to them apologizing.”