North Sea Requiem (23 page)

“So the letters were in with advertising, not mail?” Joanne mused. “And all we have is Mal's word he didn't put them there?”

“And Fiona's assertion that the letters appeared after she'd sorted through the mail.”

“Aye, that'll be right.” Joanne had seen how much work Mal Forbes left to Fiona, preferring instead to be “out on the road chasing clients.” In a bar chasing drinks, more like. Although not a real drinker, frequenting hotel bars rather than pubs, Mal Forbes had become a well-known character in the short time he had been in town. To Joanne's surprise, he was well liked. But not by people she had time for. His wife was in her church, his daughter in Annie's class. There seemed to be some tragedy associated with their son, whom no one had seen, the rumor being he was disabled—physically or mentally, Joanne hadn't heard.

She so wanted it to be Mal Forbes that she dismissed all other possibilities—Fiona, the cleaner, others in the office slipping the envelope into the box as they came in to work, or when they passed reception or . . . “Blast the man.” She was shaking her head.

“Dad?” Annie had walked into the kitchen, scared she was missing out on something.

Joanne said
Mal Forbes
without thinking, so horrified that her child thought of her father in that way.

“Maureen Forbes told me her dad's a good dad, he smacks her an' her brother only when they're really bad. And Maureen's dad never hits her mum.”

Joanne was upset by the thought of Annie comparing dads with her friends. “I never knew there was a brother.”

“He's mental.” She saw her mother's frown. “I mean, he's no' right in the head.” That wasn't the phrase either. Annie sighed. “He's disabled. Only a wee bit, so Maureen says. But I've never seen him.”

It was not for want of trying. She had tried to bribe Maureen with
Bunty
comics—preloved—and with sherbet dabs, but Maureen had been too afraid to take Annie to her house, afraid of her mother finding out, which was a pity, as Annie wanted to see what a boy who was
mental
looked like.

Joanne said no more but again, she felt guilty; she too now believed she was being unreasonable when it came to Mal Forbes.

On and off all evening they discussed it, in between getting the girls to bed, McAllister reading them a story, them dancing to a slow meandering song from Edith Piaf, a singer new to Joanne and whom she now loved.

When the conversations, observations, speculations ran out and they could put off the decision no longer, once again it was Joanne who took his hand and led him upstairs to his bedroom, making the decision for both of them.

She never knew how to tell him, but it happened at her father's graveside, when he was there, out of sight, just a step or two behind her, when her mother had looked across and through not one drop of tears, had nodded to her. Then to him. He had moved imperceptibly forwards, so she could feel his presence; he put a reassuring hand on her arm when she turned to walk once again through the tombstones, this time back to the manse where she had endured her childhood of little light and little love, and he was there with her, her support, her rock, her future husband. For it was then that she knew this was the man she could perhaps share her life with.

M
ae Bell chose her outfit carefully. It was hard for her not to be noticed, especially her hair.

Ever since a child she had dressed with care and looked after herself. She did not have much else. No books, no toys, clothes handmade, often cut down from dresses and coats her mother was given by whatever household she was working in, for her mother never stayed long in a job, eighteen months being the longest she had ever stayed sober. Sober, what a delightful woman she was. Drunk, she was quiet, and it was hard to tell how far gone she was. But Mae always knew—from the cigarette to the lips; the cup, glass, spoon to the mouth as though the film had been slowed down; the too-careful placing of the feet; the odd angle her hat sat at when she came home from work, late—
they kept me back to clean up for a late guest,
or some other excuse she would offer—relieved when her daughter smiled and said,
You must be tired,
and she could take to her bed, the remains of a half bottle hidden in plain view by her pillow.

Her father was a traveling salesman specializing in sheet music. Seldom at home when she was a young child, often at home when she was in high school, when the work became less and less. When home, he joined in the “fun.” Fun meaning drink. He had a fine voice, about the only fine thing about him that she remembered, and in spite of, or because of, his love of the bottle,
he became a fierce, but to her fake, evangelist in his middle age. A drunk or a puritan, Mae was never sure what was worse.

She examined herself in the mirror and was momentarily horrified by what she saw. She pulled off her transformation by dressing as her mother had for work.
Scary
. Her hair was no problem; she made a turban out of a scarf, one with pink and purple roses printed on synthetic silk. The only real problem had been shoes. Then she remembered sand shoes; her mother had worn them because she had a bunion.

“Plimsolls,” the shop assistant in Woolworth's called them when she pointed out the school sports shoes lying in bundles, black or white.

The dress didn't matter, but she added the floral cotton tabard cum apron, the uniform of housewives, in a clashing print to the head scarf, this time with pansies and another indeterminate flower in a lemony shade of orange. The coat, a war-era utility label raincoat, martini-olive green, she had found in a fund-raising bring-and-buy sale held in the Northern Meeting Rooms for the Liberal Party. A shopping basket in wicker, rescued from a dustbin, the edges broken, with stray strands poking out at just the right angle to catch on clothes, completed the disguise.

What she hadn't thought of was buying the bus ticket. First, she didn't know the price; second, she didn't know which bus to take, plus she did not want the bus conductor to remember her, especially her voice. So she walked. She hadn't walked more than a hundred yards for many years. The plimsolls were no help; she had been walking standing stumbling wearing high heels for two decades, calf muscles atrophied in a tiptoe position.

When she arrived at the street, she once more reconnoitered the house, the garden, the neighbors, the hiding places. When satisfied, she saw a bus coming towards her and was about to take it, but decided it was safer to wait for the next one and get
on around the corner.
Take no chance of being recognized,
she told herself.

The journey back to town was short—only four stops. She changed out of her disguise in the ladies' toilets in the train station; she had donned her disguise in the bus station toilets, but they were disgusting.

As Mae Bell once more, she walked across the station square towards the covered Victorian arcade. Halfway across the street, she discovered she was still carrying the basket. Dressed again in her usual garb of cashmere and silks, the basket smelled of poverty, of her childhood, of her mother, and she wanted to throw it in the nearest bin but couldn't see one. It was a bus driver blowing his horn, making her jump, that brought her back to where she was—back to the place she should not be.

Would Robert want me to do this?
She hid the basket behind a parked car.
Of course he would.

She walked towards Eastgate, heading for McAllister's house, not noticing Rob McLean, even though he was in clear view in the window of the café at the entrance to the arcade, observing her. He was smiling. He thought nothing odd of her behavior and saw nothing odd about the basket. It was his habit to notice strangers. He thought,
She's a fine-looking woman, but very different from us.
He couldn't say why he thought that, but knew it was not because she was American. There were depths to Mae Bell that an older person might, or might not, recognize as scarring.

Rob ordered a second cup of tea. Then called the waitress back. “And another bacon roll, please.”

As he waited he wondered if he should once more attempt smoking—it seemed a useful habit for passing the time of day. He looked across at the station clock. Fifteen minutes to spare. He paid and went across Union Street to Arnotts department store, up to the men's department, and saw Frankie shake a man's
hand, then give the customer what was obviously a suit neatly wrapped in brown paper and tied with string with a loop for a handle. The parcel looked substantial.

“Heavy tweed. Three-piece. It'll see him to his coffin.” Frankie was still new to the bereavement scenario, making remarks that some would call in bad taste, refusing to be anyone other than Frankie Urquhart. It was only when Rob asked him where he had been hiding these last ten days that he became a furtive Frankie Urquhart.

“What do you mean? I've been around.” Frankie started tidying up, putting discarded choices back on their hangers, then back on the rails, then moving them so the spaces were exactly equidistant.

“Friday night, you coming to the Strath? There's this band from London playing; they're meant to be great.”

“No, I can't make it. Family—you know.”

Rob couldn't believe Frankie wouldn't come to the dancing in Strathpeffer with a London rock band top of the bill. He saw how Frankie couldn't look at him, busying himself doing very little with scissors and pens and string. “Oh, I get it.” Rob laughed. “You've found a girlfriend.”

“Naw. I just don't feel like going out.” Frankie couldn't bring himself to say that he was worried about his father, who seemed to have aged twenty years in two weeks, plus a sister who hid in her room saying she was doing her homework—hours upon hours of homework.

“Sorry. I'm being insensitive.” Rob felt so helpless, unable to comfort his friend. “Your mother wouldn't mind you getting on with your life . . .”

“Can I help you, sir?” The manager had moved in as though on silent wheels.

“I'm fine, thanks. Must be getting back to work. Thank
you, Mr. Urquhart.” Rob was joking, but there was no humor in the manager's eyes.

Frankie didn't look up as Rob left, saying, “Catch you later.”

It was not only his father and his wee sister who were lost; after the blessed numbness of the funeral, life without their mother was empty and, without their mother to cook and shop and do the washing, chaotic. Frankie would never dare tell his best pal that many nights he set up the ironing board to see to his work shirts and his sister's school uniform. His father worked in the foundry, and his blue boiler suit went unironed. Frankie hadn't the time to iron them as well as everything else. Mr. Urquhart's workmates noticed. But no one commented.

What with Joanne going to Stirlingshire to bury her father, and McAllister with her, and with Frankie avoiding him, and no fresh leads in the investigations, it turned into a week when Rob had no real friends to talk to or go out with.

In desperation he'd asked Hector, “Do you want to come to the dancing in the Strath? I've got my father's car and . . .”

“No thanks, I'm busy.” Hec grabbed his school satchel and beetled down the stairs.

When Hec was gone, Rob realized Hec hadn't even asked what night the dancing was.

Don came in.

“I think I have a bad case of psychic stink,” Rob declared. “No one wants to come out with me.”

“I've no idea what you're blethering about, but it won't get these pages done.” Don shoved two heaving marked articles at Rob and said, “See if you can fix these. They're from a man from Daviot who thinks he's a poet when he's supposed to be writing an article on sheepdog trials.”

They worked away.

“No progress on who left the letters?” Rob asked.

“None. But I hear Mrs. Bell received another one.”

It took Rob a moment to register who Mrs. Bell was. “What did it say?”

“I don't know; Fiona gave it straight to DI Dunne.” Don was aggrieved because he did not get to read the letter. Fiona told him, “I have to follow the detective inspector's orders.”

“Leave it to me,” Rob said, “I'll find out.”

•   •   •

Mae Bell was not expecting Rob. But from the way she was dressed, the way she was sitting in the Station Hotel foyer, on the edge of a hard leather sofa, legs together and at a slight but studied angle, it was clear she was expecting someone.

“How good to see you, Rob. How did you find me?” The tone was honey, the intent the opposite.

Rob saw it, was hurt, but recovered. He couldn't tell her he had spent an hour running from one place to the next—bar, café, hotel—looking for her. “I can see you're busy, so can I ask a quick question?” He didn't wait for an answer. “Another anonymous letter came for you at the
Gazette
. What did it say?” He saw her eyes widen slightly. Assumed it was at the thought of the letter.