North Sea Requiem (6 page)

“Finish the coffee. Go an' see your godson.” From Gino this was an order. After shooing her out of the café as though she was indeed a lost puppy, he followed her out to the pavement, watched her walk towards the cathedral, made sure she turned towards his daughter's house, that she did as she was told.

Once in her best friend Chiara's kitchen, holding baby Andrew, all did indeed seem right with the world, or at least in this small corner.

She and Chiara chatted, cooed, making small sounds to delight the baby, exchanging all the details of the everyday life of mothers, outsiders, alone in a small circle of friends.

But Chiara wasn't fooled.
She'll tell me when she's ready,
she thought.

As Joanne was unable to identify the cause of her restlessness, she was unable to share with her friend. But sensing herself being examined, Joanne smiled, saying, “Sorry, I'm not good company today.”

Chiara smiled back. “Cheerful or not, it's good to see you.” Chiara knew not to press Joanne, so she said, “I liked your article about the missing aeroplane.”

It took Joanne only a moment to connect this with Mae Bell; so obsessed had she become over the American woman—a woman she hardly knew but whom she had already made into a fantastical creature who represented
not-from-here,
so that the missing aircraft, the missing crewmen, the mystery of
the whole accident were the least part of the story to Joanne.

“Thanks. Though I'm not sure it's my story anymore.” Joanne sat down again at the kitchen table.

Wee Andrew was back in his pram, fed, changed, and asleep. Chiara rejoined Joanne, stirring sugar into the fresh tea, tasting in, putting it down again in horror. “No matter how much sugar I put in, I don't get the point of tea. Feeding the wee one, it'll be months before I can drink an espresso again.” She saw that Joanne was lost in thought, in a dwam. Chiara savored the Scottish word, a favorite of hers. “Daylight dreaming” was the translation Joanne gave her, and she had laughed, clapping her hands in glee.
I love that,
she'd said.

“Mae Bell must have been deeply in love,” Joanne said, as though speaking to herself. “Six years on and she is still in love with her husband.”

“I can't bear to think how you'd feel if that happened,” Chiara added. “Not knowing . . .”

“I'm not sure I could love anyone that much.” This time Joanne's voice was so faint, Chiara wondered if she'd heard right. So she let it go.

But when, five minutes later, Joanne said she had to get back to work, and after she had hugged her friend and seen her to the door, and remarked on the weather and asked her to say hello to the girls, Chiara went back into the kitchen. Deciding that one very small coffee would not keep wee Andrew awake all night, she made coffee, sat to savor the three sips of bitter dark sinful liquid and think about Joanne's visit, and knew she had heard right.

I'm not sure I could love anyone that much.

In a straight-out Scottish accent, but with Italian open hands and shoulder shrug, she said to the sleeping baby, “What are we going to do with your auntie Joanne? Eh?”

There was no reply.

M
aybe, Joanne thought as she cycled across town to work, she was restless because she knew there was no certainty a magistrate would grant her a divorce, no matter how compelling the reasons. Hopefully, her soon-to-be-ex husband would migrate to Australia, hopefully with his new wife, and that would end that chapter of her life.

Maybe it was because McAllister had declared his intent to “court her.”

Perhaps it was the appearance of Mae Bell in their small highland town. Or a longing for spring to burst through. Whatever the cause, discontent continued to rumble inside Joanne like distant thunder. So she decided to reinvent herself.

A haircut? Too expensive.

A tight, straight skirt à la Mae Bell from that length of tweed she had been hoarding for the last six months? She would have to take the bus instead of cycling everywhere.

A good story, front page in the
Gazette,
might solve her discontent; then she would be a real news reporter, not a woman relegated to writing up school events and church happenings and plum duff recipes. The attitude of Mal Forbes still rankled. Then again, he was expressing the views of at least ninety-nine percent of the population. Her daydream of becoming the Martha Gellhorn of Scotland was looking highly unlikely.

She pushed her bicycle up the last steep yards of Castle
Wynd, then ran up the steps to the office. Mal Forbes was the first person she encountered as she walked into reception.

“You've no right taking that booking, they're my clients.” He was leaning over the counter, talking to Fiona, whom Joanne couldn't quite see but could imagine. “I don't care if they phoned the order in, I'm the one who deals with that account, so don't be thinking you'll get commission out of this.” He was waving a sheet of paper at Fiona.

Fiona was looking at the floor, miserable, trying to hide behind her fringe of thick dark hair.

Without thinking, Joanne intervened. “Leave her alone, she's only doing her job.”

Mal Forbes turned, looked at Joanne, and, as Joanne later told Chiara Kowalski, he snarled.

She also told Chiara she'd never seen anyone who looked and sounded so like a nasty wee dog—a cross-breed, some mixter-maxter of corgi and terrier and collie that's always yapping, going for your ankles, making you want to kick him. (Always a “him” to Joanne.)

“This is my department, Mrs. Ross, so keep your nose out o' it.”

“You are bullying a member of staff, Mr. Forbes.” She needed a very deep breath to control the itch to slap the man, but Joanne had learned over years of marriage that violence was never an answer.

“Aye, aye, what's going on here?” It took an appearance by Don McLeod to end the standoff, and to get Mal to gather his papers and leave, but not before he passed a little too close to Joanne, making her feel the heat of his anger, even though he didn't actually touch her.

“You all right, lass?” Don asked Fiona.

“Fine, thank you, Mr. McLeod.” She gave a half-smile. “Please don't worry on my behalf. Mr. Forbes is a good boss, and I'm learning a lot. His bark is worse than his bite.”

Joanne stifled a laugh. Her picture of Mal as a wee terrier was obviously shared.

Don made for the stairs; Joanne followed. The reporters' room was empty. Joanne started to speak; she wanted to ask Don more about the disappearance of, and search for, Robert Bell. The sound of Rob's and McAllister's voices made her stop.

“Later,” Don said. “Let's get this edition out first.”

But later never came; the attack on Nurse Urquhart made them forget “later.”

•   •   •

“None o' the shinty boys would do this,” Frank Urquhart said when the police asked, at the hospital, who would do such a thing to his wife.

He was shaking; his son, Frankie, was pacing. The cigarette smoke was thick, and both men were finding it hard to comprehend what had happened. “I know the lads joke around . . .” Coach Frank was saying.

“But no one would do this,” his son finished.

“It hardly touched her face,” the doctor told them. He didn't tell them how badly damaged her throat was, that he privately doubted he could save her larynx, that the acid had run down her chest and etched deep rivulets in her breasts. “Her clothing saved her—and her quick thinking.”

Nurse Urquhart had had a few seconds to snatch at her uniform and pull the acid-soaked fabric from her skin before losing consciousness from the pain. Her hands were a mess, the strength of the acid eating into fingertips. Again, the doctor doubted that all of the fingertips could be saved, but as Nurse Urquhart was still in surgery, he couldn't yet say how bad the damage was.

“I'm very sorry about your wife . . . and your mother.” He nodded at the Urquhart men. “I'll let you know the results as soon as the operation is over.”

It was the lack of reassurance that they could save her that Frankie noticed. He didn't tell his dad. But he knew. Saving her
life was what it was about now.
Her throat,
he thought,
how will she breathe? How will she eat? Will she be able to talk?
He knew now was not the time to share his terror with his father. So he took himself and Coach Urquhart outside for fresh air and a cigarette.

Unfortunately, it had been a vital five minutes before Nurse Urquhart had been found. After the school bell released the schoolchildren into the playground, their shrieks alerted the teacher, Miss Rose. By that time the injuries were critical.

WPC Ann McPherson had taken the phone call and was on the scene within three minutes. The smell of burnt flesh and acid was revolting, but her main task was to help Miss Rose gather up the children and keep them away from the sight of Nurse Urquhart. Later the policewoman's task was to try to make sense of the children's stories.

At first, clearing the gawping, jittery semicircle of children seemed as hopeless as rounding up a flock of seagulls, and as noisy. Then the headmaster appeared with a brass handbell, and the steady clanging caused a murmuring hush. The ambulance arrived next, bells shrill. Next the uniformed men with the stretcher ran into the playground, and started the children off again, agitation and curiosity running through the crowd like a tsunami.

“In your lines.” Miss Rose's voice was as loud as the bell and all the more startling, as she was as sweet and as rounded as her name. “Class monitors, lead your groups back to the classrooms.”

The headmaster was watching, along with Detective Inspector Dunne, who had just arrived, had instantly recognized Nurse Urquhart—in spite of her injuries—and was furious. Mostly with himself.
I should have taken this whole incident with the foot more seriously,
he was thinking.

“No,” the headmaster told them, “you can't question the children yet. They're in shock.” He told the inspector he would deal with the questioning himself, along with Miss Rose.

DI Dunne said nothing. Then, in his usual reasonable, quiet voice: “We need to find whoever did this as soon as possible.”

The headmaster relented and allowed that WPC McPherson could assist.

It took nearly an hour and a half of talking to the five classes of children and their teachers before the report came back to the headmaster. “No one saw anyone or anything until they went outside for morning break.”

WPC McPherson agreed. “None of the children saw anyone or anything strange.”

“Yes,” the headmaster told the police officers. “Nurse Urquhart was expected; she was halfway through her annual health inspection—weighing the children, measuring their heights, checking up on their well-being.” He held out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. Attacking a woman with acid was beyond his comprehension.

•   •   •

“Hiya, Frankie,” Rob answered, receiver under his chin hands, still typing when Joanne had passed over the receiver. “I wrote up the jazz club but . . . What? When? Where are you now? I'll be right over.” He flung the receiver back in the cradle, snatched his jacket, saw his colleagues staring at him. “Someone threw acid at Nurse Urquhart. She's in Raigmore Hospital.” He was out the door, shouting over his shoulder, “It's serious.”

“Acid?” Joanne asked.

“Here?” Don said.

“Horrible stuff.” McAllister shuddered.

“It's no' my fault,” Hector wailed.

“I'll call the police station,” McAllister told them, and went into his office.

“God love us, thon's a nasty, nasty thing to do to anyone.” Don let out a long sigh. “And her such a nice wifie.”

“Is it to do with the shinty?” Hector asked. Nurse Urquhart
had made it plain to him that his photographs and his “interfering” were very unwelcome. Even though the story of a severed foot was of huge interest in the community, she told Hector she did not thank him for broadcasting the event. That had been three weeks ago; he thought it was over and done with.

“I use acid sometimes. Even a wee drop burns right through your clothes,” Hec informed them.

“You have acid?” Don asked.

“Aye, in the studio. I use it for . . .”

“And your so-called studio is next door to the Urquharts'?”

“Next door but one.”

“I'd no' be telling anyone that in a hurry,” Don told him.

Joanne got it first.

It took longer for Hector to get the implication. “I'd never . . . never ever . . .”

“We know,” Joanne said.

“Have you checked the bottle is there?” Don asked.

“I'll go now . . .”

“Better not. Wait until someone can go with you. We don't want . . .”

“What?” McAllister came into the room.