The Burry Man's Day (11 page)

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘That’s agreed then.’

This was a very odd remark and to cover it, I supposed, Cruickshank began to direct Daisy and me in rather hectoring tones to go and find Buttercup and get ready to visit Mrs Dudgeon, and when this petered out he took to bidding the doctor an elaborate farewell. Dr Rennick, with one hard-ish look at us all, melted away into the crowd. Meanwhile, I continued to stare at Inspector Cruickshank who, to his credit, after watching Dr Rennick’s back for a moment or two, then looking around above my head and whistling, finally met my eye.

‘You are quite right, Mrs Gilver,’ he said, obviously too cryptically for Daisy who looked at him in surprise. Before speaking again, he ushered us all out of the cramped doorway and we began to walk along the crowded street looking for Buttercup.

‘A death certificate is a very serious matter,’ Cruickshank went on. ‘But do not be alarmed. Robert Dudgeon did die of heart failure. Only it was brought on by alcoholic poisoning.’

‘Poisoning?’ echoed Daisy, stopping in her tracks.

‘Alcoholic
poisoning,’ said Inspector Cruickshank, putting a hand under her elbow to keep her moving, ‘is the medical term. In layman’s terms he drank too much and his heart gave out. At least a bottle of whisky as far as we can make out, never mind the beer, and only a wee ham sandwich to soak it up. Dr Rennick said he had never seen anything like it.’

‘How on earth do you know –’ began Daisy, then stopped and grimaced. ‘Oh, how revolting, Inspector really.’

‘And the death certificate will show . . .?’ I said.

‘Heart failure following on excessive consumption of alcoholic liquor,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘We need to be scrupulous as far as the certificate goes. But let’s call it heart failure plain and simple when we speak of it. I’m a great believer in taking care of the living and letting the good Lord take care of the dead.’ A surprising statement to come from a policeman, I thought, unblinking zeal in the pursuit of justice being rather more usual.

‘Well, I guess,’ said Cadwallader, as though rolling some idea around in his head.

‘Look around you,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘Look at them all in their blacks and their armbands. Dudgeon was their friend and you can be sure near every one of them gave the Burry Man a nip yesterday. What good would it do to go using a word like poisoning and make them think they had killed him?’

I glanced around at the villagers, and felt myself beginning to agree.

‘And,’ he went on, ‘it would awaken some very unwelcome ghosts.’ I saw Daisy rolling her eyes, but when she spoke her tone was quite polite.

‘Ghosts, Inspector?’

‘Figurative ghosts,’ he assured her. ‘There was a case here before, of what might have been alcoholic poisoning. And we never got to the bottom of it.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘Recently?’

‘Oh no, years ago,’ said the inspector. ‘Must have been four or five years ago now. Four more like; I remember it was about a year after the end of the war. Two young . . . gentlemen, I suppose you’d call them. Came on a sketching holiday and ended up dead.’ His voice was hard. ‘They went on a drinking spree along the High Street and once they were in their cups they let it slip that the pair of them had been conshies. The next morning they were found, face down and dead, down the lane behind the Sealscraig.’

‘Poisoned?’ asked Buttercup.

‘Hard to say,’ said the inspector. ‘Could have been. They were certainly well pickled. Or they could have passed out and died of hypothermia, lying out all night.’

‘Two of them, though?’ I asked.

‘That was the trouble,’ said the inspector. ‘Two young men in good health. The other possibility was that they were deliberately intoxicated then taken away and laid so that they’d smother in their sleep. As I say, we never got to the bottom of it and it made for a very troubled air about the place until we finally let it be. I’ve no wish to bring it all back to folk.’

I held no brief for conscientious objectors, and I did not want to dwell on the tale but, about the current instance, something still troubled me.

‘Inspector,’ I said, ‘if you
did
say it was poisoning, although it would be horrid for everyone, at least it would stop the same thing happening again. I mean, I’m as loath as the next to give fodder to the Temperance gang, but in this case, just this once, don’t they rather have a point?’

Inspector Cruickshank’s face twisted up into a wry grin.

‘Oh, don’t worry, Mrs Gilver,’ he said. ‘They don’t wait for ammunition. They’ll have started already. Go to the church tomorrow morning if you don’t believe me.’ At that moment we passed a pair of bobbies and Cruickshank, unable to resist the chance to inspect a couple of his troops unannounced, raised his hat to us and marched towards them.

‘So that’s that,’ said Cadwallader. ‘Now, where the hell is Freddy?’

We mounted the steps to the terrace above us to scour the crowd for her and stood watching the three quite separate occasions which seemed to be taking place all at once in the street below. Children were perched on every wall, windowsill and kerbstone, licking at toffee apples and ices, or were jostling at the stalls and plucking at their mothers for more pennies, intent on winning or wheedling another sticky treat while the going was good. The women more or less ignored the stalls and sideshows, choosing instead to stand around in laughing, chattering groups, seeming not to look at the children at all until a bark of reproach or a swift cuff to a passing ear gave the lie to it. In the same way, they seemed not to be looking at one another, but I was sure that each new dress or old hat was being studied and would be discussed amongst little knots of particular friends later on, just as I was sure that Daisy and Buttercup would be ready to share with me their thoughts on Mrs Turnbull’s terrible shoes and Mrs Meiklejohn’s surprisingly good pearls. Finally, the men. Perhaps we had chosen an unfortunate spot as our vantage point, slap between the Stag’s Head and the Queensferry Arms, but it seemed that all around working men, well-scrubbed for the day, with scraped cheeks and slicked-down hair were staggering into pubs, staggering out again, blundering along the street towards the Forth Bridge Saloon or, if they stood in gossiping groups of their own, waving like ears of wheat in a breeze and taking the occasional sudden step to the side when their balance threatened to leave them altogether. Three scenes then: the children out of Hogarth, the women from Brueghel, and the men, I fear, straight from an illustration in a Temperance pamphlet. All that was missing was Buttercup.

At last, I spied a head of bright curls disappearing around the bend towards the Hopetoun Road.

‘There she is,’ I said.

‘She’s going the wrong way,’ said Daisy with a querulous note like a tired child and Cadwallader too looked at his pocket watch and threatened to glower.

‘I’ll catch her and you two go ahead,’ I said. ‘We’ll meet up at home.’

With that, I plunged into the crowds again and began dodging in and out, threading my way towards my object, now and then catching just a glimpse of the glinting head. It really was the most peculiar colour. At last, after a determined effort – she was covering the ground at some speed – I called out and reached for her arm, but instead of the handful of silk georgette sleeve I had been expecting, my fingers closed on rough cotton, slightly sticky, and the head turned to reveal the face, shadowy under the eyes and blotchy with tears, of Joey Brown the barmaid.

My first thought, I am heartily ashamed to say, was that I should take great delight in telling Buttercup of my mistake in the hope of stamping out the April Sunrise for ever. Following hard upon this, though, came the proper recognition of what stood before me.

‘My dear,’ I said, ‘whatever is the matter?’

Miss Brown took her trembling lip between her teeth, and shook her head wordlessly, while tears continued to fall.

‘Come, come,’ I said. ‘Sit and tell me what’s happened.’ I drew her down on to a low wall, but she only gulped and hung her head. ‘Or is there anyone I can fetch?’ I said, getting desperate. She shook her head vehemently, curls bobbing. ‘I say, I hope no one has hurt you?’ I went on, this idea only just occurring. ‘If one of these young men has made a beast of himself, Inspector Cruickshank and two of his men are just around the corner and –’

‘No!’ said Miss Brown at last, looking up wildly. ‘Thank you, madam, it’s nothing like that. It’s just . . . My father wants me to go and see her and . . . I just can’t. I can’t go there.’

‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where can’t you go?’

She did not answer, but only continued to weep. I had been patting her arm absent-mindedly, but only at this point did it occur to me that the cotton sleeve I was patting, which had registered as sticky in the first instant, was sticky with new dye, and that more of this dye, obviously hastily and clumsily applied, had rubbed off on Joey Brown’s neck. Of course, mourning.

‘I see,’ I said. ‘Mr Dudgeon.’

Miss Brown sobbed, one hand over her mouth and the other pressed so hard against her eyes that it must be painful. I took her hands gently and drew them away, giving her a handkerchief, the thought flashing across my mind that I hoped Grant had packed plenty since this was the second I had relinquished since the same time yesterday.

‘And now my father wants me to go and see her.’

‘Well, that would be kind,’ I said. ‘But if you can’t face it no one will think the worse of you. You’re not a relation, are you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not.’ And for some reason this made her howl more than ever. ‘I can’t go there, because it’s – it’s – all my fault. And I was just being silly and now he’s dead.’ This was delivered in a tiny whisper, hoarse with tears.

‘How on earth can you think it’s your fault?’ I said.

‘I was supposed to give him his dram and if only I hadn’t looked in his face or if only I hadn’t dropped it. If only I’d been braver. If only I’d known.’

‘Oh, my dear,’ I said, putting an arm around her. ‘Oh, you silly girl. You must put this nonsense out of your pretty head at once. Why, you of all people are one of the few who shouldn’t feel the slightest twinge of guilt, because you –’ I stopped myself. It had been decided by those with far more say in the matter than me that this should not be touched on.

‘Because I what?’ said Joey, looking up at last. ‘Why me of all people? What do you mean?’ She looked wary and rather scared. I stared at her, spitting with exasperation that I could not tell her that if only more of Dudgeon’s so-called friends had dropped the glass and run away he would be still walking around.

‘Nothing,’ I said at last. ‘Only one can’t bear to see a pretty young face spoiled by tears, and one can’t bear to see a bright young head full of nonsense. You did nothing to harm Mr Dudgeon, and you know it. Your father should have known better than to play such a trick. Tell him that from me.’

Miss Brown drew herself up, and wiped her eyes.

‘My father did no wrong, madam. I don’t know what you mean.’ She blew her nose and stood up and I must say it is a bit much to be cut dead by a slip of a girl while she blows her nose quite so lavishly into one’s own handkerchief. Still, I was glad of this natural end to our tête-à-tête.

‘Chin up, Miss Brown,’ I said magnanimously.

‘Thank you,’ she said, rather more gently. ‘Now, if you’ll pardon me, madam, I must get back to the bar. This is a very busy day.’ She set off in the direction she had come, whatever mission she had been on abandoned.

‘At last!’ Mrs Dudgeon half rose out of her seat as Buttercup and I entered her living room an hour later. The cottage was beset by the women we had passed the day before who sailed around her in that self-important kerfuffle which always ensues when there are more bodies desperate to help than there is help needed, but I had no great opinion of any of them as handmaidens for her grieving: if anything she seemed even more agitated than she had the previous evening, trembling and anxious, barely making sense when she spoke.

‘Have they finished with him? I don’t know where I had put my wits last night. I wasn’t even thinking. And they’ve kept him all this time and all his things.’

‘They have finished,’ said Buttercup, ‘That’s what we came to tell you. He will be brought home to you tonight. A Mr Faichen?’

‘The undertaker,’ put in one of the women.

‘Yes, Mr Faichen will be bringing Mr Dudgeon home very shortly.’

‘And all his things?’ said Mrs Dudgeon.

‘Of course,’ I said. I assumed I was correct. Why would these things – whatever it was she was so anxious to regain – be kept away from her?

‘Good.’ Mrs Dudgeon sat back for less than a heartbeat it seemed before she pressed forward again. ‘I need . . . I want to have him here with me. And his things. I cannot bear to think of them going through his things. Did they, do you know, madam? Did they go through all his things? What did they find?’ All of this was on a rising scale which brought an answering murmur of soothing noises from her companions.

‘What did they find among his things?’ echoed Buttercup wonderingly.

Mrs Dudgeon gazed blankly at her for a second and then spoke hurriedly.

‘No – I – What I mean is, what did they find when they did the . . . What did the doctor . . .’

‘Heart failure,’ said Buttercup.

Mrs Dudgeon sank back into her chair.

‘Heart failure,’ she repeated, but even as she said it her eyes began to flit back and forward as though she was thinking furiously, and presently she added:

‘So they’re not going to do a post-mortem after all? There won’t be any . . .’ Again a rushing chorus like wind in trees began as the women tried to drown out such a bald reference to the very worst of it all.

‘They’ve done everything necessary,’ I said. ‘And heart failure is what it told them. The doctor thinks it was probably down to . . . I mean, it didn’t help that he had had rather a lot of whisky.’

‘But he hadn’t,’ said Mrs Dudgeon. Her companions drew in a collective breath. ‘I mean . . . he’d had a few drams but he wasn’t fu’. I grant you he’d had a few nips, but he wasn’t fu’.’