Beneath the Abbey Wall (3 page)

It took Joanne a minute or so to realize Hec had sneaked out. She looked at the long expanse of empty table, wondering how they would be able to meet this week's deadline without Mrs. Smart, when the phone rang.

“
Gazette
. Oh, hello, Betsy. No. Mrs. Smart won't be in.” Hearing the panic in the
Gazette
secretary's voice, Joanne knew she would have to break the bad news. Knowing that Busty Betsy, as the printers called her, hated climbing the narrow stone stairs in what Joanne considered too high-heeled shoes for a workday, she said, “You'd better come upstairs.”

Thanks a lot, McAllister; dealing with a hysterical Betsy Buchanan is just what I don't need.
But deal with Betsy she must; she had assured McAllister that knowing that her husband, Bill, was living with Mrs. Betsy Buchanan, war widow and assisted blonde, was not a problem.

It keeps him away from me,
she had told McAllister. She would never admit her niggles of resentment; Betsy could wind Bill Ross round her little finger, whereas all Joanne had managed in ten years was to rile him, provoke him into hitting her—and worse.

*  *  *  

The disturbance was over by the time Rob came roaring down the hill on his red Triumph motorbike. He parked on the pavement and went through the open gate leading to the back garden. The back of the large turreted mansion house faced the road leading to the south side of Loch Ness. The substantial gardens, bound by high stone walls, faced the river.

When he came in the garden gate, Rob saw three policemen: one talking to Mr. Beauchamp Carlyle, the other two talking to a man in a wheelchair. Holding onto the handles of the wheelchair stood a slight, Asian-looking man who seemed half the height of Mr. Beauchamp Carlyle's six foot five. Beech wrote the “Countryside” column for the
Gazette,
and unknown to most, he was a major shareholder of the newspaper. There was no sign of Don.

Rob waved to Beech, who mimed
Two minutes.
Rob saw the man in the wheelchair, guessed he was Mrs. Smart's husband, and wondered if it would be too crass to approach him. The arrival of a police car with Detective Inspector Dunne and a taxi with McAllister solved his dilemma.

Wee Hec, hiding behind a broken rhododendron bush, was pointing a camera, clicking so fast it sounded like a mad metronome.

McAllister waved Hec away with a shooing gesture but, ever the journalist, not before he was satisfied Hec had enough shots of the scene. McAllister also watched Rob prowl the perimeter of the lawn, taking in the people, the back door that looked as though it had been attacked with an axe, the broken garden pots, and remains of geraniums, chrysanthemums, and lavender shrubs lying like casualties on a battlefield.

Rob came over to him and asked, “Whatever happened?” The editor shrugged in a “search me” gesture. He took out a packet of Passing Cloud and lit up.
Whatever happened,
McAllister was thinking,
was done in great anger.

“There's nothing much for you here, Rob. Get back to the office; you and Joanne can cobble together the basic pages for the next edition.”

Rob looked at him, the question obvious on his face.

“I'll write up . . . ” McAllister hesitated. “Murder” was the worst swear word in the world, he always thought. “I'll write about Mrs. Smart. Front page obviously.”

“And Don?”

McAllister stood for a moment, sighed out a long stream of smoke, and turned away, his head shaking slightly from side to side.

Rob knew this was all the answer he would get. But as he sat astride his bike, he had to put both feet on the ground and hold tightly to the handlebars, unable to kick-start the engine. The reality of what had happened hit him.
Mrs. Smart is dead, murdered. Who the hell would want to kill her? And why the hell has Don McLeod vandalized her house?
When he eventually drove off, for the first time ever he drove well within the speed limits.

“I can't bring myself to believe it,” Beech said as he showed McAllister into the next-door house belonging to his sister—another substantial mansion built in grey stone in the Scottish
baronial style, with crow-step gables and French doors opening onto a front lawn large enough for a bowling green. “Mrs. Smart dead.”

“A police officer thought he recognized her in connection with the
Gazette
. I was asked to identify the body, so I know she is dead. But murdered . . . ” McAllister too was having trouble with the idea.

“Quite.” Mortimer Beauchamp Carlyle had witnessed many deaths—even murders in his time as an administrative officer in the Sudan, but the murder of a family friend, in this quiet town—this was different.

Beech ushered McAllister into a sitting room the size of most people's houses. “Last night, I heard someone call next door—very late, nearly midnight. The police no doubt.”

“Aye.”

“My sister will be devastated. She and Joyce Mackenzie—Mrs. Smart—have been friends for about twenty-five years, ever since they both returned from abroad.” He saw the question on McAllister's face and went to elaborate. What he didn't see was McAllister searching for an ashtray, wondering if he could light up in such a splendid sitting room.

“My sister was in China . . . ” Beech started.

“I can see,” said McAllister, looking at the Oriental furniture, such an odd contrast to the heavy wooden paneling and the equally elaborate paneled ceiling. But he could spy no ashtrays.

“Joyce Smart was in India. Came home in the early thirties. A few years later, her husband, Archibald, had an unfortunate accident with an elephant—so the story goes—and he too returned to Scotland.”

McAllister detected a twinge of doubt in that remark.

Beech paced across the room as though measuring the dimensions of the faded Persian carpet. “Look here, McAllister,
do you think it too early for a dram? I don't mind admitting I'm pretty shaken.”

“Shaken? What's happened? And why is there a police car parked next door?”

A tall slim woman who could be mistaken for Beech's twin, not his elder sister, had come quietly into the room without the men noticing. Elegantly dressed in tweed skirt and moss-green jumper, her hair in a loose knot at the nape of her neck matched the plentiful silver frames of the photographs of groups of Asian children crowding the top of the baby grand piano. She did not seem nervous, but it was obvious she knew something was amiss.

McAllister had met her before but could not say he knew her. He stood. “Countess Sokolov.”

“Please, no formalities, I prefer to be know as Mrs. Sokolov. Even though I am legally a countess, it sounds so pretentious.”

As she smiled, McAllister saw that her eyes, as pale blue as a duck's egg, had that ethereal quality which, in a photograph, would make the eyes seem empty.

“I can see by your dram it must be . . . unfortunate.” She said this to her brother. “Do you want to tell me now or shall I make tea first?”

“Tea first, please.” Beech believed not so much in tea for shock, more in the tea ritual.

The three sat around a small table set by a window overlooking a profusion of flowerless shrubs that McAllister, being a Glaswegian, guessed to be azalea, the only garden plant he knew.

Rosemary Sokolov poured, saw her brother stir two spoons of sugar into his cup, and knew this was not going to be good news.

“Mrs. Smart has been killed.” Beech was gentle but direct in his speech. They were both of an age where they had seen
too much of death to use platitudes. “There is no way to soften this—my dear, the police are saying she was murdered.”

Rosemary looked into her cup as though searching for an explanation in the tea leaves—or perhaps to hide the salt water in her eyes. “That poor woman—after all she has been through . . . ”

They were silent for a moment, the pause like the one minute's silence on Armistice Day, to reflect on the dead. The phrase would stick in McAllister's mind.
After all she has been through.

“I'm sorry,” McAllister said putting his teacup carefully back into the delicate saucer, “there is not much I can tell you. But if and when I do hear more, I'll let you know.” He stood. “Please excuse me, I must get back to the office.”

Beech saw him out. “I'll come in this afternoon,” he said, “see if I can be of any help.”

“I'd be grateful.”

They shook hands. The idea of Beech in the office was reassuring. The much older man had a calming presence and a good sense of the milieu of a newspaper. He knew all the casual correspondents and contributors. His name alone was enough to calm the most querulous complainants. His voice, when he telephoned to ask a favor or two from recalcitrant councilors or noble lords, made the listener believe that their opinion mattered. Plus, the family name, and that of the matriarchal lineage, made him a formidable figure in Highland society.

Thank goodness I can rely on Beech,
was McAllister's thought as he strode off along the river to the town and the next edition of the
Highland Gazette. We will surely need all the help we can get.

B
etsy Buchanan was at the front desk when McAllister arrived at the
Gazette
office. She looked frazzled.

“Hold the line please.” She put down the receiver and said, “Mr. McAllister, Sergeant Patience has been here looking for Mr. McLeod, and Inspector Dunne has called I don't know how many times, and . . . ”

“Did you write up an ad in this week's paper for a junior receptionist?”

“I did, but I don't know how I'll get through this week.” Betsy was trying her best not to cry, worried she would ruin her mascara, but tears were always close these days.

“Ask around, see if you can find anyone to help out,” he said. “And thanks, Betsy, you're doing a grand job.”

McAllister feared that after the achievements of the last six months, the
Highland Gazette
would fall apart. The new design brought more advertising, that meant more pages, more content, and he was determined to keep up standards.

Yes, he had Rob, but the events of the last week had dampened what made Rob the successful reporter—his good cheer, happy grin, the ability to ask anyone anything. McAllister imagined that when in front of Saint Peter, Rob would be asking the awkward questions about war and famines and pestilence and the human condition.

Yes, there was Joanne, but then again, she had been so shaken she seemed to be walking around in a dwam. McAllister
knew that Joanne was never one to doubt her ability to fail. Sometimes he felt like shaking her. “You're a good reporter,” he wanted to say, “and a lovely woman.” Then again, his former life as a senior journalist with a prestigious national newspaper had taught him that battered wives never scored high in self-esteem stakes.

Hector the
Gazette
photographer was doing his job fine. It was his bursting into tears whenever the murder was mentioned that was driving McAllister round the bend.

And Betsy Buchanan, the office secretary—all she could do was wring her hands and say, “There's a maniac out there. Maybe I'll be next.”
If she keeps going on like that, I'll be the one to do for her,
McAllister thought.

Don McLeod going missing was hard to cope with. McAllister had often had the rhetorical thought—
What would we do without Don?
But he had never imagined that day would arrive. Don seemed as much a part of the
Gazette
as the printing press—and as indestructible.
And,
McAllister acknowledged,
I don't know how we can run the paper without Mrs. Smart.

He stirred himself.
This will not get the next edition out.
He went to the door of his office and yelled across the landing to the reporters' room, “Hector, go and fetch Mr. McLeod from the Market Bar. Now!”

The reply was pitched in a high screechy wail, “He'll no' listen to me.”

McAllister heard Rob intervene. “For goodness sake, Hec, Don's not going to bite you.”

“He said he would kick me into the river if I ever again interrupted his drinking.”

Rob could see how Don had that idea. Hec had a look about him; the look of a dog waiting for his master to come home drunk and angry, and eager to take it out on the dumb creature.

The Market Bar was Don's regular. Up an alleyway that led to the meat, fish, and vegetable section of the covered Victorian market, it was a drinking-hole-in-the-wall type of bar. Salubrious it was not.

Rob pushed his way past three men who had obviously finished a night shift, and this was their equivalent of an evening's pint or three. Hector stood outside in the alley, refusing to come in. The public toilets opposite were not a good place to hang about, but Rob left Hec to discover that for himself.