North Sea Requiem (26 page)

•   •   •

Saturday mornings at the
Gazette
were a time for filing reports and expenses and catching up on the boring tasks, with the phone mercifully quiet.

Don didn't always appear on a Saturday, so this morning McAllister drove to Don's to pick him up from the tiny terraced house where he lived and which he hated, it being in sight of the scene of his late wife's murder.

When Rob wandered in to the reporters' room, trying to remember where he had put his petrol receipts so he could write up his expenses claim, the editor was there with Joanne and Don and Hec. When McAllister announced he wanted to talk about the anonymous letters again, Hector surprised them by insisting Fiona join in the discussion.

No one expected Hector to be part of the discussion, far less Fiona but, as he pointed out, she had been the one to receive the letters, the first one to talk to Mae Bell, albeit on the telephone.

“The lad's right,” Don said.

Silently thrilled to be asked to join in the discussion, Fiona came upstairs to the reporters' room.

“Is Mr. Forbes in?” McAllister asked her.

“He said he's away to Beauly.” Fiona doubted it was true; there was always somewhere Mal Forbes was “away to” on Saturday mornings.

“The anonymous letters. Mae Bell,” McAllister began.

“Nurse Urquhart,” Joanne added.

The leg
. Hector hoped no one would mention the leg.

McAllister laid the notes he and Joanne received on the table.

Fiona noticed immediately. “That's the same paper and envelopes as the others. The printing on the envelopes is the same an' all.” She blushed as soon as she said it, not sure she should have spoken up.

“Thanks, Fiona, you've confirmed what Joanne and I thought.”

She blushed again. Hector nudged her with his elbow.

“Does that mean . . .” Fiona couldn't finish.

“So you've no' mentioned these to the polis.” Don stated the obvious.

Like Fiona, Rob saw the similarity. “Mae Bell has written these”—he was tapping the notes with a forefinger—“but I'm certain she didn't write the anonymous letters.” He stopped. Looked around at the silent faces. “Did she?”

Joanne and McAllister had had time to digest the idea. Neither of them could quite bring themselves to believe it. Not the writing of the letters, there could be an explanation for that, but the next step, that the letter writer threw the acid,
that
they could not countenance.

It took Don to sum it up. “The envelopes and notepaper are the same brand as the anonymous letters. Maybe Mae Bell wrote the letters. But why would she?”

“Why was she here in the Highlands for so long?” Joanne was puzzled as to why Mae should stay when the advertisements were bringing no results. “But the main mystery is Mae saying she'd placed an advertisement in the local Elgin newspaper. There was no advertisement. No sign of Mae Bell. Nothing.”

More silence.

McAllister sighed. “I'll have to pass these on to the police.”

“Aye,” Don agreed.

“Hector, do you have the photos of Mae Bell's room, the ones you took after the acid was thrown?” Joanne was asking because the strangeness of the plimsolls still bothered her.

“Here.” Hector reached into his schoolbag. “I've only a couple; the rest are in ma studio.”

For once Rob did not correct him on “ma studio” but pulled the pictures towards him, looking for what Joanne was seeing and not succeeding.

“That coat. And that apron, it's hideous.” She hadn't seen this particular shot before, and it more than ever confirmed her confusion. Joanne hated the pattern of cabbage roses and hollyhocks, even in black and white. “Mae Bell would never wear clothes like that.”

“We don't know they're hers.” Rob was still finding it hard to contemplate Mae Bell involved in a crime.

“There's no link between the letters and the acid attack,” Don reminded them all. “I was found with a bloody knife and I didn't kill anyone.”

The others well remembered how Don had been locked up in a prison cell, with the threat of a life sentence hanging over him, for a murder he did not commit.

The next hour was taken up with “what if” and “maybe” and “perhaps” until McAllister told them he would have to phone DI Dunne.

Although Joanne joined in the speculation intermittently, she was hurt.
I can't believe Mae has left without saying good-bye. I thought we were friends. What's so important she couldn't tell me she was leaving?

“Aye, and when you see the inspector, prepare for a right bollocking for no' taking these notes to the polis sooner . . .” Don finished.

•   •   •

Sundays were a day of deadly boredom for the young men and women of the town—unless they were courting. Rob called round to Frankie's house in the late morning, knowing that without Nurse Urquhart to make them, none of the family would be at church. Rob didn't want to, but he knew he should be the one to tell Frankie the news.

“Do you fancy going out?” Rob didn't go in, staying on the doorstep of the Urquharts' semi-detached house.

“Where?”

“Drumnadrochit?”

“As good as anywhere.”

Church services finished, there would soon be the usual convoy of Sunday drivers out for the afternoon, driving at twenty-five miles an hour as they peered at the loch, hoping to catch sight of the monster. With Frankie on the back, Rob threw the Triumph into the bends, passing cars, perilously close to oncoming traffic at times, enjoying every moment of the road.

The Clansman Motel was a new construction of stone and glass and tartan carpets, and, being a motel, the bar was open. The view from the first floor was spectacular. “We can keep a lookout for the monster,” Rob joked as he returned with beers for Frankie and himself. The joke didn't work. He noticed Frankie was looking more suave than usual, not so much his former Teddy boy self. A new haircut, that's it. And jeans.

“How did you get hold of a real pair of jeans?” Rob was postponing the conversation, although he really did covet the denim jeans, knowing they were impossible to find in the Highlands.

“Mae bought them for me.”

Rob was about to say,
I bet she never bought those in Elgin,
before he remembered yesterday's meeting in the
Gazette
office.

“Mae said she's leaving soon.” Frankie was staring into his pint.

“Ah. Mae.” Rob hesitated how to put it, then went for honesty. “I heard she's already gone.”

“Never.” Frankie's glass spilled onto the coaster—tartan, naturally. “Mae would never go without saying cheerio.”

Rob shrugged. “She was staying at McAllister's house . . .”

“Because she was scared.”

“She left a note for him and another note for Joanne . . .”

“Was there one for me?”

“Frankie, she's gone.” He too was upset Mae Bell had not said good-bye to anyone. “All her things are gone, even her lipstick . . .” Rob didn't know this. He meant to lighten the dark surrounding Frankie.
He doesn't need any more misery,
Rob was thinking,
he's obsessed with her, it's completely unrealistic, it hurts.
He was remembering how he'd felt when he split with his last girlfriend, Eilidh. She turned out to be a nasty piece of work, yet he was still hurt.

Remembering the envelopes and notes lying on the reporters' table yesterday morning, he started again. “Frankie.” But he couldn't say it. He couldn't say,
Mae Bell may have written the letters.
He couldn't think, far less say,
Mae Bell may have attacked your mother
.

Rob could see from the way Frankie, eyes glazed, was staring out the window, that speculating on Mae Bell's possible involvement would devastate Frankie. He took a sip of flat beer.
I wish the Loch Ness Monster would appear
. Even that, Rob decided, would not take Frankie's mind off Mae Bell.
And I haven't the heart, or the courage, to tell him there's worse to come.

Although Rob did not know this absolutely, he was certain there was much worse to come.

After dropping Frankie off at his house, Rob went home. His parents were out. He was glad. He didn't feel like talking.

He was in his bedroom, the wireless on low, a big band playing not Rob's favorite music but he couldn't think clearly without
some noise in the background. A notepad and pencil beside him, he was lying on the bed, remembering yesterday's gathering, trying to come up with some ideas, ideas that would make sense of the information and give him a killer of a story.

•   •   •

Sunday afternoon was the ritual walk through the Islands for Joanne and family. Granddad Ross was with them but not Granny Ross. She had terrible pains in her stomach and was pretending it was the flu, but knowing it was the worry about her only son leaving to go to Australia. She was also terrified that Joanne would be estranged from them; she knew her daughter-in-law was more than friendly with her boss, Mr. McAllister. Bill had made sure she knew.

What if Joanne marries and they leave for the south with the bairns?
She put more Epsom salts in a glass, stirred, swallowed, waited. Half an hour later there was no relief.

“How's Mr. McAllister?” Granddad Ross asked as he and Joanne walked together, the girls running ahead, desperate for their Sunday ice cream. From Granddad Ross this was a genuine inquiry. He was ashamed his son was a wife beater.

“He's fine,” Joanne replied. She waited to hear if there was more to the question.

“He's a right fine man, so I hear.” He said no more as they had arrived at the café in the middle of the Islands.

The girls thanked their granddad for the sixpences and ran off to queue. Joanne and her father-in-law sat on a bench in a warm patch of sun shining through a gap in the canopy of beech trees. The sounds of water and the constantly shifting green light made Joanne feel they were underwater.

“I hope you and Bill splitting up won't make us strangers.” He couldn't use the word
divorce
.

What he said, so plain, so simple, so heartfelt, made Joanne
reach out, pat his arm, noticing the dark spots on the wrinkled hands resting on the walking stick, hands that had wielded a bayonet in an earlier war that he, unlike his son later, had survived mostly intact. The hands were trembling.

“Dad, I think of you as the father I always wanted.” She was shocked to feel the tears start to fall. “I . . . I mean I haven't seen him, my father in ten, no, eleven years. He was a hard man . . . not like you, he . . . I don't miss him. But . . .”

“He was your father.”

She took the neatly folded, worn but newly bleached white hankie from him, and shook it open. She wiped her eyes. “I don't know why I'm crying . . .” She saw that the girls had reached the head of the queue and told herself to behave, they've seen enough tears in the past.

Her father. Her husband. Mae Bell. Who else is going to let me down?

“Your mother and me, we're right glad you'll be staying. Thon wee girls mean the world to us. And you.”

“Not so wee anymore, Dad. Annie will be doing her eleven plus and then off to the academy.” They agreed it was certain Annie would make the academy.

“Mum, Granddad, Mr. McAllister was taking a walk too.” Jean had a strawberry ice cream in one hand and McAllister in the other.

“What a coincidence.” Granddad Ross said standing, holding out his hand. There was no cynicism in the remark and the greeting was glad.

“Aye, a real coincidence.” Although peeved at his assumption that she would be here and he could join them, Joanne had the grace to smile.

As they walked back homewards along the riverbank, her with the girls, McAllister asking Granddad about the start of
the bowling season, the state of the greens, who was on the lawn bowling committee this season, Joanne was watching McAllister, seeing him as others saw him—a man of substance. With his substantial house, his standing in the community as editor of the newspaper, his acceptance of her girls, her family, she knew he truly cared for her, and knew she loved him in a quiet way.
So why do I hesitate?

They reached the Infirmary footbridge. Granddad Ross turned back to Joanne. “You young things go off and enjoy yourselves. The girls are coming home with me.”

Joanne had to put her hand over her mouth at “young things.”

“Granny's made a treacle tart and she'll be waiting.” He lifted his hat. “Mr. McAllister, it's been good meeting wi' you.” Without waiting he walked onto the bridge, the girls following like faithful puppies.

Annie turned to wave. “See you later, Mum.” Her grin was for McAllister. “McAllister, don't forget you owe me a book.”

Joanne was about to say,
Mr. McAllister,
then shook her head. She was wondering if she might end up marrying McAllister to please her daughters and her in-laws and everyone on the
Gazette
.

“Joanne, sorry to break up the family afternoon. I wouldn't have if it wasn't important.”

She stood. The wind blew her hair in her face, catching in the corner of her eye, stinging.

“Mae Bell?”

“Aye.” He pointed back to the triangle of park next to the war memorial. “My car is up there.”

She couldn't wait. “Tell me now.”

“The police are looking for Mae Bell. Nothing more at this stage. But she has disappeared.”

“And you think . . .”

“Joanne, I don't know what to think. I went into her room and found her makeup bag. Her suitcase is under the bed. And no one has seen or heard from her since Friday morning, when she bought a ticket to Elgin.”