North Sea Requiem (27 page)

“Really? Elgin?”

“Inspector Dunne said the ticket inspector swears she wasn't on the train.”

“So where is she?” Joanne was looking at him, the anxiety clear in her eyes.

“I wish I knew.”

I
t's quiet for a Monday,
Joanne was thinking as she sat at the reporters' table, making notes for her page. When the sound of a commotion rang up the stairs, she smiled.
I knew it was too good to last.

“Don't you treat my fiancée like that,” Hector was shouting, “it's no' her fault your stupid copy has gone missing.”

“It's the silly wee girl's job to find it. So where is it?” This sentence Joanne heard as she was running down the stairs.

“Would you all keep your voices down? They can hear you as far as the high street.”

Mal Forbes turned. He pointed his finger at Joanne instead of Fiona. Aiming squarely at the sternum, the extended digit finger and the wild eyes made him look as though he was about to cast a curse.

“This is all your fault, you and your nosy parker friends.” From his voice, from the poking gesture, finger trembling, Joanne wouldn't have been surprised if lightning came out of the fingertip to emphasize his anger.

“Mr. Forbes, I don't know what you've lost, but can I help you find it?” Her tone was gentle, soothing, as though trying to calm a terrified child.

He looked into her eyes to see if she was being sarcastic. Saw the offer was genuine. All the anger drained out of the man. Looking at his shoes, he shook his head, saying, “No, I'll ask the
client if he has the original.” He went towards the door, and with his back turned to Joanne said, “Thanks all the same.”

She would have sworn he had tears in his eyes, but no one would believe her, least of all Rob, who came in saying, “What's up with cheerful face?” tossing his head in the direction of Mal Forbes, who could be seen disappearing down Castle Wynd, hands in his pockets, hat pulled down.

Mal's smaller than I remember,
Joanne thought.

Rob said, “Let's go upstairs, I need to talk to you.”

Hector stayed with Fiona.

“Fiancée?” Fiona asked. “Since when?”

She was trying to be casual about it, but she was thrilled. Marrying Hector Bain was all she wanted—that and a job for life on the
Gazette
. She appreciated Hec's standing up for her but had Mal Forbes's measure.
All the same,
she was thinking,
it shows Hector really cares.

“I want to marry you—if you'll have me.”

“Of course I'll marry you, Hector, but we might have to elope to Gretna Green—my father, he'd kill me, or you, if he found out we're engaged.”

“I
think
ma granny's car would make it that far,” he said but wasn't at all certain the old jalopy would manage the climb up the Pass of Drumochter.

When Hector left to take pictures of a woman's one hundredth birthday party, Fiona was too thrilled by the unofficial engagement to wonder too much about Mal Forbes.

A few days previously—she'd come in a quarter of an hour early to tidy up the accounts—she'd seen Mal Forbes in their office, but from behind. She saw his shoulders shaking, him sniffing. He didn't turn around, but blew his nose on his hankie, and she backed out of the room to leave him alone. When he came out, he walked quickly past her and as he was going out the door
he'd said,
Sorry, I've a terrible cold,
and she had accepted his explanation. Almost.
No, I must be mistaken,
she was thinking,
he couldn't have been crying. Men don't cry.

Rob and Joanne's conversation was less cheerful.

“Frankie Urquhart called me. He's taken a day off work. Told them he has the flu. He doesn't. He's heartsick.”

Joanne thought it all through: the leg in the shinty boot; the acid attack; his mother's death; an infatuation with Mae Bell; Mae Bell leaving. For a small-town young man whose height of excitement was dancing in the Caledonian Ballroom to the Harry Shore Big Band, this had been a momentous two months.

“Frankie says he's off to Paris as soon as possible, but he can't leave his dad and wee sister yet. I never mentioned Mae might have had an accident—or something.”

“Mae Bell is off on one of her mysterious jaunts. She wants to find out all she can about her late husband. Grief takes us all differently.” That she was wrestling over her own lack of grief at her father's death she didn't share. “I don't know what all the fuss is about.” Joanne almost believed this.

DI Dunne had said the same. “She's a grown woman,” the detective had told McAllister after examining Mae's room. “I know she left her things here, but women always have more than one lipstick.”

“I want to help Frankie, but I don't know how.” Rob was finding it hard to explain to Joanne that he was lost when it came to dealing with his friend's grief. He felt clumsy. His usual mode of confronting unpleasant situations—jokes, quips, avoiding the topic—weren't working. The raw grief on Frankie's face, in his voice, the way Frankie couldn't line up a snooker shot without fluffing it or gouging the green of the cloth, told him how deep Frankie's pain was.

“Rob, the best way to help Frankie is to find his mother's
killer.” Joanne's own frustrations were more than enough for her; her divorce, the death of her father, McAllister's need for her; although she felt for Frankie, she had little space left to worry about someone else.

Rob knew this and knew he was losing sight of finding Nurse Urquhart's killer.
Mae Bell,
he thought,
she so enchanted us we've forgotten Nurse Urquhart
.

“Nurse Urquhart, I've run out of ideas,” he said.

“Nurse Urquhart.” Don came into the room. “The woman deserves justice.” The deputy editor sat down, pulled out a copy of the racing guide to mark off the horses that had won or lost. He was transferring the information into his wee black book, his personal form guide. Finished, he looked at Rob. “Nurse Urquhart? You were saying?”

“I'm out of ideas,” Rob replied.

“Me too,” Joanne added, but quietly; she was out of ideas on many fronts.

“Get hold of thon editor of ours; it's time to convene a kitchen cabinet.”

•   •   •

They met that evening in McAllister's kitchen. Joanne brought the girls over on the bus, leaving their bicycles at home. They were delighted. From the front seat of the top deck, Annie announced loudly that she wanted to live in McAllister's house so she didn't have to keep books in two places. Mercifully, Joanne thought, there were only three young lads on their way to the bus station, off to hang out with their friends from other housing estates, kick litter and beer cans, and generally look fiercesome. Joanne knew it was all bravado and knew they were not interested in a housewife in a Fair Isle beret with an overloud schoolgirl daughter.

“Are you going to solve Nurse Urquhart's murder?” Annie asked when she saw the four musketeers from the
Gazette
sitting
around the kitchen table. She knew nothing of Mae Bell's disappearance.

“Annie!” Joanne scolded. Then, shaking her head, smiled with her lips closed.

“We're going to do our best,” McAllister told her.

“Good enough.” That Highland phrase, covering everything from grudging approval to outright praise, sufficed. They would do their best; in Annie's opinion, that meant they would succeed.

She returned to the sitting room, to her sister, her homework, to the essay on “What I Want to Be.”
I am going to be an editor of a newspaper in Edinburgh,
she wrote,
or I will write books
.

“Right, here's the old list.” McAllister said. “I'll add any new information.”

Don was nursing a cup of tea, saying nothing.

McAllister was staring at the list.

When there were no further ideas, Don asked, “Do we know how all yon connects?” He tapped the sheet of foolscap. “Do we know for sure there
is
a connection?”

McAllister stretched his back and sighed. Joanne leaned forwards, cupping her head in her hands. Rob tapped a light non-rhythmic pattern on the underside of the table. They took Don's point. And it was disheartening.

“Right. Let's play What If?. I'll start.” Don lit a cigarette before beginning, “What if this has nothing to do with the shinty?”

McAllister was next. “What if this is all to do with the American Robert Bell?”

“What if this has nothing to do with Robert Bell?” Rob countered.

“What if . . .” Joanne hesitated, afraid she would seem spiteful. She looked at Rob. He always listened to the outrageous. “What if this is all to do with Mal Forbes?”

“Explain.” Don was curious, not dismissive of the suggestion.

“Elgin. I can't think why Mae Bell would say she put an ad in the Elgin paper when she didn't. The one time she met Mal Forbes, she was really rude to him . . .” She remembered the incident more clearly because it was her first and, she'd decided, last taste of martini. “Mind you, he was as sleekit as a stoat towards her.” She saw the skepticism on the faces of the others. “He comes from Elgin. Robert Bell was stationed near there, Robert Bell's plane . . .” Her voice faded. She could hear how ridiculous it sounded.

McAllister stood. “Anyone for a dram?”

“Sit.” Don's voice startled them. “You can't avoid it, McAllister. Get it out, then you can have a dram.” Joanne noticed he didn't say “we.”

He did as he was told. He said, staring out the window at the darkening from the north dimming the black outline of Ben Wyvis, “Mae Bell. She
could
have written the anonymous letters . . .” His voice trailed away.

“Why?” Don challenged.

“What if she knew or found out something connecting her husband to Mal Forbes?” Rob asked.

“Why would she throw the acid at Nurse Urquhart?” Don said it. Said what they all had speculated on, dared not say, in case the saying of it named it and made it true.

“That can't be right.” Joanne refused to believe Mae Bell capable of such a cowardly attack. “Someone threw acid at her room.”

“What if she staged the attack on her own hotel room to put everyone off the scent?” Don again. He was not so involved with Mae Bell that he felt he couldn't stand back and say the unthinkable.

Joanne remembered that her suggestion that Mal Forbes might be involved had become lost in the speculation about Mae Bell. She didn't mind too much, but there was that familiar
feeling that anything she contributed was sometimes seen as of little significance.

“Joanne.” McAllister had his pencil back in his hand, the sheet of paper in front of him, and this time a dram at his elbow. “Mal Forbes? What made you suggest him?”

He surprised her. He'd listened. “Why did he leave Elgin? He had a good job. He's from there.”

“He also had a good house inherited from his father, so the editor told me,” McAllister said.

“This is a much bigger wee town. He makes more money here?” Rob asked.

“Not necessarily. He's on commission and he had the County of Moray to himself on his last job. There's money in Moray.” Don would know this.

“Mal could easily deliver the letters to the
Gazette,
” Joanne said.

“Sorry, I just don't get it. Mal Forbes comes from Elgin. You're not overfond o' him . . .” Don directed this at Joanne, and she had the grace to look away, somewhat ashamed after Mal Forbes's emotional breakdown early in the day. “There's nothing else against the man. Joanne, you asked why Mrs. Bell has been in Scotland for three months. You're right, it's a gey long time to be searching for her husbands' friends.”

“And expensive,” Rob said. “But she looks as though money is not a problem.”

McAllister said nothing, but he was surprised that a nightclub singer was seemingly so wealthy.

“We keep going over the same questions and getting nowhere,” Don summed up the meeting. No one wanted to hear this. And all agreed they were no further on.

The clock in the hallway struck ten. Rob stood.

“Radio Luxembourg is on, I have to go.” It was not why he
was leaving, it was the discussion—he couldn't bear to think about Mae Bell one minute more. “Don, can I give you a lift?”

He was as amazed as everyone, including Don, when Don said, “Why not? If I'm to die tonight, it might as well be in style.”

As the sound of the motorbike faded, the house was once more quiet, and to Joanne it seemed to be listening. She said, almost in a whisper, “Mae Bell. I can't believe she'd do anything wicked.”

“Then don't.” McAllister stood to empty the ashtrays. “Don't unless you have incontrovertible proof.”