Beneath the Abbey Wall (8 page)

“He's admitted it's his knife—an old filleting knife he says belonged to his father. But it's sharp and clean and . . . ”
And still had traces of blood on it.

McAllister stood. He needed to pace. With the inspector there, there was little space. He pored a dram without offering the policeman one. He downed it in one, then went back to his chair. Elbows on the desk, head in his hands, he said, “None of this makes sense. Don cared for Mrs. Smart . . . greatly.” He was unable to say the “love” word.

“He also admitted he was drunk that night. Add all these things together and the fiscal sees a good case.”

“What about you?” McAllister was not hearing certainty in DI Dunne's voice, but the inspector only shrugged. “Will you pursue this further? Try to find the real killer?”

“Ah well. You know how this operates.” They both paused to consider Dunne's words, both knowing indeed how the system operated. “Being the lead detective and a person having been charged, all I can say is, a cold-blooded killer who knew what he was about did this.” That it could be a she never entered his mind. “If anyone should show me good reason to investigate further, I would be duty bound to do so.” The policeman had resumed formal policeman speak, then his voice dropped an octave, went softly confidential, and McAllister was reminded of the story that Detective Inspector Dunne had been destined for the Church before the war changed his plans. “Don's not helping himself.”

“What does he say?”

“That's it, he's saying nothing, and the sergeant major's shouts are loud.”

DI Dunne knew he had said more than was needed. He stood. “I'll bid you good morning, Mr. McAllister. I'll see myself out.” He said this partly as a formality and partly because, seeing McAllister's face, he doubted the editor could move from his chair.

Once alone, move from his chair McAllister did—straight to the decanter. He took the Talisker he saved for serious occasions and poured a healthy dram. Still standing, he gulped it down. He poured another, and took it to his desk. Five minutes later, and none the wiser, he picked up the phone and dialed.

“McAllister at the
Gazette
here. May I speak with Angus McLean?”

Five minutes after that, he walked into the newsroom where Rob and Joanne were working steadily at their typewriters. Even
Hector was picking away, two-fingered, listing the weights and the winners of a trout-fishing competition.

“The front page.” McAllister had their attention. “I'll be doing the lead story.” He leaned against the high table, feeling the effects of the whisky on an empty stomach, or so he told himself. “Don has been arrested for the murder of Mrs. Smart.”

The babble of “no” and “never” and “that's not right” and “the polis are stupid”—this last from Hector—filled the room, echoing up to the high ceiling and back down to the high desk, permeating walls that had absorbed much in one hundred years, but nothing as scandalous as this.

“I know, I know”—McAllister held up his hand—“but we must cover the story. So be prepared for the onslaught of gossip and innuendo.”

“And Don?” Joanne looked at him, her eyes huge and, McAllister noticed, startlingly green, as though emotion had washed out the bluish tint he normally saw and loved.

“Don McLeod did not kill Mrs. Smart,” McAllister told them with total conviction. But the cold-blooded journalist part of him flashed the thought,
But nothing is certain except death itself.

T
he
Highland Gazette
was the news and everyone, right down to the printer's boy, hated that.

Rob was particularly annoyed at being waylaid on the steps outside the
Gazette
office by a gleeful rival from the Aberdeen daily broadsheet.

McAllister fended off phone calls from other newspapers with a brusque “No comment,” but he gave a brief phone interview to a colleague from the Glasgow national, knowing it would be reported accurately.

The front page of the
Gazette
carried the full facts of Don's arrest and the charge. “We report this as we would any other case of this significance,” McAllister told Rob, Joanne, Hector, and Beech.

They had worked early and late, pushed themselves until exhausted, and the newspaper had come out on time, with full content.

Friday morning, and the regular postmortem meeting was taking place. No one knew how to express the delayed-until-after-the-deadline shock. The hush around the table was dense. Like the crew of a sinking ship, they wanted the captain to announce the rescue plan.

“First, I'd like to thank all of you,” McAllister started. “We managed to put together a newspaper minus two of our key staff. Thanks also to Mrs. Buchanan for looking after business so efficiently.” He glanced across at Betsy, thankful she had had
the tact not to sit in Mrs. Smart's usual place at the head of the table, not knowing Joanne had pre-empted Betsy Buchanan by taking the seat herself. “This saga is likely to go on for some time unless . . . ”

“Until we can find who really killed Mrs. Smart.” To Rob, Don was the consummate newspaper hack, accused of a crime he did not commit, destined to be proved innocent by the dashing young hero, himself. Only, Rob could find no way into the case. No one he knew, knew anything to help his investigations.

“Aye—until the real killer is found,” McAllister agreed, but the exhaustion in his voice, the slump of his body, his lighting one cigarette from the butt of the previous one did not inspire confidence.

“McAllister, how could Don be charged . . . I mean, what evidence . . . ” Joanne was stumbling over her words, her brain refusing to contemplate.

“All the evidence is circumstantial—but you never know.” He saw the faces of his staff, each in their own way expressing their horror that Don might be found guilty. He started to cough to cover his emotions. “Let's start early on next week's edition.”

The mumbles of
Fine
and
Sure
and
No problem
were all anyone could muster. But work—a refuge from thinking about Don McLeod, locked up, awaiting trial and the judgment of fifteen of his peers—saved them.

*  *  *  

As Friday was normally a slow day on the
Gazette,
it was Joanne's library day. Today, it felt like an escape to an oasis of tranquillity. In order to borrow two books of fiction, two books of nonfiction had to be checked out. She thought the system patronizing, but because she was forced to, she had discovered travel books, which she would share with her girls, especially those with pictures.

The books were heavy. Joanne had left her bag in the office and was attempting to wrap her coat around to protect them from the intermittent drizzle that had been falling for the past three days, making the cobbled surface of the steep brae of Castle Wynd treacherous.

“Careful there.”

From a step above, she was level with and much too close to the man she had almost collided with. From this step, she could see directly into his hazel eyes, see his even white teeth in an open, I-know-I-am-a-good-looking-man grin. She thought she felt his breath on her cheek, but perhaps that was wishful thinking. His other attributes, good haircut, good teeth, good but unostentatious tweed jacket and cavalry twill trousers in a shade of brown that spoke quality, made him instantly recognizable as not Scottish—or at least not Scottish of the class that she belonged to.

“I'm so sorry, I was in a right dwam.” She knew she was blushing and hated it.

Again the stranger's grin made her feel off balance.

“My mother used to say that.”

“Oh really?”

“She used to say ‘a right dwam,' usually referring to me when I was lost in a book—like you.” He pointed to her finds from the library.

She couldn't quite place his accent. “You're not from here,” was all Joanne could think to say, knowing that to mistake a Canadian for an American was as terrible as calling a Scotsman English.

“No. But my bones are from hereabouts. I'm Neil Stewart.” He held out his hand, then laughed. “Sorry, I can see you're laden. Would you like help with those?”

“Thanks, but I'm not going far. I work down the street at the
Highland Gazette
.” This was said with obvious pride, and she was delighted when he whistled in appreciation.

“A journalist, eh? I was a journalist before becoming an academic. Started at my hometown newspaper in Nova Scotia; now I live in Ottawa.” He glanced up at the Church Street clock tower. “Have you time for a cup of tea? I'd love to pick your brains about the town.”

“I'd love to. But I'm late and it's crazy in the office right now . . . why don't you call me at the
Gazette
?”

“I'll do that.” Again his smile. “So, what do I call you?”

She saw him glance at her wedding ring.

“I'm Joanne Ross.” It was suddenly important to her to state the facts. “I hate the
Mrs. Ross
bit—I
was
married, I'm now separated, and I want to be known as
me
.” Even saying the words felt daring.

“Pleased to meet you, ‘Me.'”

It was a silly joke, and she was glad of it. Again he offered his hand. Clutching her books in the crook of her elbow, she took it. “Pleased to meet you too.” She smiled back. “Sorry, but I must get back to work.”

“Can we meet again?”

Yes. Yes please,
she was thinking. “Call me at the
Gazette
office,” she said, and hurried off, anxious to hide her embarrassment.

Did I really do that? Ask him to call me?
Joanne was amazed at herself.
Anyhow, I don't suppose he will.

*  *  *  

Neil Stewart had worked and planned and saved for this journey for seven years. He had arrived in Scotland two months ago and had spent the time in Edinburgh, mostly in the National Library. But the focus of his journey was the Highlands.

Expecting Scotland to be like the stories that permeated his childhood—stories from school, from books, stories told by his émigrée mother—was, he knew, unrealistic. But from the
moment his train had reached the lowland hills to its steady climb up and across the faultline of mountains, his enchantment with the highland scenery grew and grew. He felt, right to his bones, the visceral pleasure of a prodigal homecoming, knowing that passing burns, rivers, crags, glens, were as much a part of him as that other indelible mark of a true Scot—freckles.

And from the moment he arrived in the Highlands town, stepping off the train and crossing the station square with its statue of an unknown soldier from a forgotten war and seeing the stone terraces lining the wide street, Union Street, aware of the air and the harsh light and the faces and walk and dress of the passersby, familiar yet poorer than he had imagined, he felt he belonged here, because that was why he had come—to belong.

“Where to?” Even the accent of the taxi driver was familiar. It was his mother's intonation, cadence, the way the
wh
in “where” was pronounced as softly as a whiff of wind.

“Seventy-three Crown Terrace, please.”

“You'll be staying wi' Mrs. Wilkie then.”

It wasn't a question, it was a statement. The way the man said it, as though he was announcing the Apocalypse, did not fill Neil with confidence.

“So where are you from?”

“Canada.” He wanted to say,
From here.

His name—Neil Stewart—came from here in the Highlands. He knew his late mother, Chrissie, was born in Sutherland but not where. She had always been reluctant to talk of the details of her past. His dark sandy hair, his hazel eyes, and his freckles were marks of a Highland man and although he did not know it, having been born and raised after the diaspora of Scots to Nova Scotia, he had the trait of those raised in a time warp; they did not recognize that their homeland had changed and moved on.
Brigadoon
was Scotland to many of them.

The journey was short. The taxi driver pulled into a semicircular driveway and stopped in front of a glassed-in porch sheltering a double door painted a shade of brown reminiscent of a medical sample.

The guesthouse was a large Victorian edifice with a lawn, herbaceous borders, and not one ounce of warmth showing in the shrubs or the curtains or the paint. It seemed that all the life had been drained from it in its transformation from family home to lodging house. Respectability dictated that net curtains shroud every window; convenience meant the removal of trees so all that remained were churchyard cypress evergreens.

Neil took his suitcase, asked the fare, paid, and added a tip.

“Here's yer change, sir,” the man said.

“It's for you.”