Beneath the Abbey Wall (26 page)

A tap came out of the wall above a drain in the far corner of the courtyard. To one side there was a block of granite, its upper surface polished smooth. Behind it, a crevice in the wall looked right for the storage of a knife and big enough to store a cleaver. The wall above was the only one not part of a building, but as it was at least one and a half stories high, and of a smooth construction, they thought it unlikely anyone would come into the courtyard over the top.

“This is where Mr. McLeod prepared fish,” Angus informed them.

“Sensible fellow.” Mr. Brodie was ferreting around the niche with his hand. Finding nothing except dried fish scales, he nodded and walked to the front door of the narrow terrace. Angus produced the key, opened the door, and stood aside to allow the Edinburgh lawyers first entry.

Facing the door rose a staircase where many policemen's boots had left mud on the carpet. At the left of the staircase was a coatrack, to the right a door leading to the sitting room. At the back another door lead to a galley kitchen. There were the remains of a fire in the grate, the remains of a newspaper on the table and a bottle of whisky—empty. On top of a bookshelf, crammed with titles familiar to the advocate, sat a vase with the remains of what looked like roses.

Roses in September,
Angus McLean thought,
they must have been expensive.
Then he remembered Mrs. Smart's walled garden.

Angus could not bring himself to join the others upstairs in the bedroom. As he waited, he thought the house felt forsaken.
But not as terrible as the cell where Don is now in residence.

*  *  *  

Not more than a quarter of a mile away, Don McLeod was scratching an itch in his memory.

It was the nurses and the medical staff, particularly the students, who had dislodged the fragment; the student, a medical student, Don seemed to remember, a student whom he had only met once before when the young man had knocked on his door asking for change for the electricity meter.
I've an idea he was Eilidh's boyfriend. Had he been there that night? Or was it the night before?
The harder he tried to remember, the less certain he became.
No, I must have it wrong,
Don decided.
If he were there that night, the lass would have said so when she was questioned about Joyce.

The name did it. Saying her name, thinking her name, remembering the small and the large instances of their friendship, made him hurt to the bone. He would have cried were he not Donal McLeod from Skye, where only the heavens wept.

N
o, I haven't time, I'm meeting Angus McLean and the advocates from Edinburgh this afternoon.” McAllister did not look up from his writing. With a leaky fountain pen, he was attempting to make notes for the meeting, as he did not want to join the others at a typewriter in the reporters' room.

Joanne could not look at him either. She felt the tension and was not able, or willing, to ask the cause.

“Fine. I'll write you a memo.” She turned to go. “But someone needs to look at the accounts and letters . . . there are complaints . . . ”

“Can I help?” Beech stood in the doorway.

“No,” McAllister said. “Joanne can deal with it.” He looked up. He saw her waiting, wanting him to say something more. And he wanted her to know his hurt so he lashed out. “Will that be all, Mrs. Ross?”

She didn't reply. He went back to scribbling in his notebook. He heard her leave and did not look up. When he did, he saw Beech watching him. Which made him even more surly. “I can't give you long. I'm preparing notes for Angus McLean.”

“That is why I'm here.” Beech shut the office door, the Do Not Disturb sign to all at the
Gazette
. He sat down. Taking his time, he reached for some sheets of folded writing paper. He smoothed them open. He cleared his throat. McAllister was beginning to wonder if this pantomime was meant to further annoy him. But he sighed and put down his pen. Then Beech began.

“I have here an account of a conversation my sister had with Gurkha Bahadur. The information may help with Don's case.”

Now he had McAllister's full attention.

“Firstly,” Beech began, “Sergeant Major and Mrs. Smart . . . ”

“Were not legally married.”

Beech, although surprised, was too polite to ask McAllister how he came by his information. “In 1920, Joyce Mackenzie asked her father's permission to marry Mr. Donal McLeod.” Beech glanced at his notes, although there was no need; he knew the contents almost word for word.

“It took months for her to hear back. Her father was upcountry with his regiment and letters to and from India sometimes took months to arrive, sometimes never arrived. Joyce Mackenzie waited more than six months, to no avail. Then she and Mr. McLeod married in the local parish church in Sutherland. When a letter finally arrived, apparently shortly after the marriage ceremony, Colonel Mackenzie denied his permission. Not because Don McLeod was the candidate; he wanted his only child to wait because of her age, and he wanted to meet the future husband.”

Beech sighed. He himself had never married, he had married his career, and the vagaries of matrimony were a puzzle to him.

“A year or so after the marriage, Joyce McLeod, née Mackenzie, went to India to join her father. It took her months to get there. When she arrived, she was ill—weak, thin, in distress, according to Bahadur, who at the time was Colonel Mackenzie's batman. The colonel arranged for her to stay with friends in a hill station in Simla for the climate. But apparently it was another year before she regained her health, and even then, Bahadur said, she was fragile.”

This McAllister found hard to believe. Mrs. Smart, as he
still thought of her, had seemed so strong, so independent. “Why would she leave for India so soon after marrying?”

“All Bahadur knows is that Joyce once told him that Mr. McLeod left her. Told her to find a way to have the marriage dissolved.”

“Now, that really surprises me.” McAllister thought about this. “From what I know, they loved each other.”

Beech made no comment. He glanced at another page of the notes and continued. “In India, Joyce lived very quietly, not part of the wives' brigade. But her father was away a lot, and she must have been lonely. She became a volunteer at an orphanage clinic. Then Sergeant Major Smart began to pursue Joyce Mackenzie. Smart was persistent, Bahadur says, and, apparently, he was thought of as a most charming man.” Beech did not add that his sister had also made a side note that Bahadur had never trusted the man.

“After about two years, they married. Joyce told my sister that she agreed in a moment of weakness, in the heat of a particularly hot summer. Smart announced it to all the army set, and it was done. Her father was not unhappy about the match but not thrilled either.”

“They were married when?” McAllister was taking notes.

“March 1930.”

“So it was a bigamous marriage?”

“Maybe. Maybe the first marriage was indeed dissolved. I don't know.”

“Then . . . ”

“Then . . . Not long after the marriage it became obvious that Smart was treating his new wife badly, physically and mentally. He'd discovered that although her family was rich, she herself had no cash. He had gambling debts and other unsavory habits. The colonel paid off some of the debts and hushed up a
scandal . . . ” Beech paused. “I don't think we need go into that . . . So, when Joyce Mackenzie left Smart to return to Scotland, it was with her father's tacit blessing.”

McAllister had not forgotten Don's remark about the sergeant major's fall from a brothel window and that it hadn't been girls the soldier was visiting.

“Mrs. Smart, as she was known when she returned here, she and Mr. McLeod resumed their relationship. My sister, recently widowed, returned from China in 1934. She and Joyce became friends. All was well until . . . ”

“Until Archibald Smart returned.”

“Without his legs.”

McAllister looked at Beech. “That was a remark worthy of Rob.”

“Or Mr. McLeod,” Beech agreed.

McAllister suddenly saw it; Mortimer Beauchamp Carlyle's resemblance to a wolf; not a big-bad-fairy-tale-I'll-blow-your-house-down wolf, but a lone noble savage intelligent wolf.
Never get on the wrong side of that man,
McAllister told himself.

“From the day he came back until the day she died, Smart made Joyce Mackenzie's life hell on earth,” Beech said. “My sister and Mr. Bahadur will attest to that.”

“So where does all this get us?” the editor asked.

“It gives Smart a motive.”

“Don too.”

They were silent for a moment, then Beech stood. “If you don't think I'm interfering, I will talk to Joanne and Mrs. Buchanan, see if I can be of help with the accounts, et cetera.”

“I'd be grateful.” McAllister did not mention that as Beech and his sister were the major shareholders and Beech chairman of the
Gazette
's board of trustees, he had every right to scrutinize the accounts.

“If there is anything else I can help with, do let me know.” Beech was examining McAllister, and his concern came through in his voice.

“I will.” McAllister meant it.

After Beech had left, McAllister knew he could not bear to stay in the office. He had a typewriter at home, so he left to write up the notes for Mr. Brodie, QC. He also needed to eat. He could not remember when he had last had a decent meal.

No,
he thought,
I'll pick up some fish, I'll cook properly, then I'll type up the notes.
Somehow the thought of domesticity cheered him. And the knowledge that he could work without constantly straining to listen for Joanne's voice, without constantly tracking her movements, was, he knew, much healthier than his morning's behavior.

*  *  *  

On the premises of Angus McLean, Solicitor, there was a room off the main office that looked more like a dining room than a meeting room. The secretary had laid pens, paper, and a bottle of black ink just in case the illustrious gentlemen from Edinburgh needed to refill their fountain pens. She had no time for the newfangled Biro pens and believed no real gentleman would ever use one.

Angus McLean went into the room, looked out the bay windows, spotted McAllister striding down the street, and was glad the editor was early.

“I thought we might catch up before the others arrive.”

“Good,” Angus said. “I must say I'm slightly nervous about the meeting—Mr. Brodie, QC, has a formidable reputation.”

“Mr. William Brodie, QC?”

“Yes, but for heaven's sake, don't call him ‘Deacon.'”

The reference to the infamous eighteenth-century jurist and burglar, Deacon William Brodie, who was hanged on a
gallows of his own design, had plagued Mr. Brodie most of his life. Then again, it had been the spur to him taking the queen's silk.

McAllister and Angus McLean spent a short fifteen minutes going over the relevant points, such as they were, before the advocates were announced. Rob came in at the same time, and as the secretary said, “Mr. William Brodie, QC,” as though she were announcing royalty, Rob, standing behind her, quipped, “Ah-ha, Deacon Brodie!”

Like Lot's wife, the secretary was pillar still.

McAllister looked out of the window, his shoulders trembling, trying his best not to laugh.

Angus McLean looked at the ceiling.

And Mr. Brodie, QC, turned to Rob and beamed. “No relation, I'm told, but it does my reputation no harm to never deny it.” He held out his small hand, “McLean the younger, I presume?”

“Rob.”

“You're the nosy reporter on the
Gazette
. Here, sit next to me, tell me the gossip, the speculation, everything; let me judge whether it is relevant or not.”

They all sat, now looking forward to the meeting. Mr. Brodie told the secretary Rob would take notes. “You have shorthand?” Rob nodded, and she left in very high dudgeon indeed.

“Firstly, let me say that I believe the prognosis for Mr. McLeod is not good,” Mr. Brodie started, “but”—here he paused for dramatic effect—“not beyond salvaging. If we are unfortunate and there is a guilty verdict, I am sure that, as the evidence is circumstantial, an appeal would succeed.”

“Thank goodness for that.” Rob spoke for all of them.

“That is more a reflection of the times; with capital punishment abolished, juries are less reluctant to return a guilty verdict. Now, let's review what we have.” Mr. Brodie barely paused
for breath between sentences. “This case calls for the ‘Abelard and Heloise' defense.”

McAllister sat up. He doubted a twelfth-century love affair, a French one at that, was a suitable defense strategy for a small Highland town in the mid-twentieth century.

Angus McLean agreed. “The McLeod Faerie Flag might be a better analogy,” he suggested.