When Sorry Is Not Enough (22 page)

‘Oh.’

Luke coughed. ‘Now the two of you can skip around this all day if you like but what I want to know is who the hell this woman is.’

Waving her hands wildly to indicate the complexity of it all Sally replied, ‘Of course you don’t know. Well, Luke, her name is Dove Bird and she came into the Four Marys the night before …’ She halted and Luke could see that she was going over every detail in her mind before she stressed, ‘Yes, it was definitely the night before she was found dead! And she said she was trying to find Stan Roper because she had an appointment with him.’

Butting into the conversation Josie quickly spluttered, ‘And we told her he was a wrong one and to hightail it back to where she came from.’

Luke found himself looking from Josie to Sally and back to Josie again before uttering, ‘But what I need to know, Josie, is
why
did you say to the police then that you didn’t know who the dead woman was?’

Becoming agitated, Josie spluttered, ‘To help you of course.’

‘Me?’

‘Aye, I was frightened that somehow this lassie getting herself killed might muck up the case you had built up for Irish.’

‘In what way?’

‘Just that if we said we knew her they might think that one of us did it to make sure Irish got out.’

Sally and Luke looked at the ceiling, out of the window, down at the carpet, anywhere but at each other or Josie.

After a while Luke went over and took Josie by the hand and sat her down on the settee. ‘Josie, I know you were trying to help but … och, lassie …’ He paused. ‘Police work is not like it is in the pictures where weird and wonderful things happen.’ Stopping to gaze up at the ceiling for guidance he forcefully added, ‘Believe me it is only in Hollywood that all crimes are solved and the baddies end up swinging on a rope. In reality when a crime is solved it has been brought about by the police putting in some traditional hard slogging, following up the clues.’ He stopped to look at crestfallen Josie and grudgingly added, ‘And okay, they are sometimes helped by a big dollop of good luck dropping into their laps but that does not happen very often. In short what I’m saying is we’ll have to tell the police who this young woman is and how you came to meet her.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ve caused trouble again,’ she whimpered.

Shaking his head, Luke smiled. ‘No. We can put it right and I know you were just trying to help. And you have.’ He rubbed his hands together and grinned. ‘Oh aye, what’s good about all this is that I now have something to work on.’

When Luke came into the room Sally looked up. ‘Did you get her back to the Four Marys?’

‘Aye, and I also told Rita that the police were to be told the truth.’ Luke then whistled a merry little tune before drawling, ‘I think I should go looking for Jessie Scott. You wouldn’t like to come with me, Sally?’

‘I could do but I was going to go looking for someone myself.’

‘And who in the name of heavens would that be?’

‘Benny’s sister.’

‘Benny has a sister? And when did he last see her?’

‘About fifty years ago.’

‘Sally,’ Luke faltered through his laughter, ‘is it not bad enough our Josie being unhinged without you … thinking that you can find someone after fifty years.’

Sally ignored Luke’s sarcasm. ‘Tell you what, Charlie Chan, I’ll help you to find Jessie on condition that you assist me to trace Benny’s sister. And to make it easy for you I’ll not only find out what her full name is but how old she is.’ She looked quizzically at him before suggesting, ‘Deal?’

Sally and Luke knew before embarking on their trip to Port Seton that it was just a hop, skip and a jump of eight miles from Portobello. They also were aware that it was once a flourishing fishing port but today it had just a few small boats operating from it. What Sally found most surprising about this small town was that although it was just fifteen miles from the centre of Edinburgh, the magnificent ancient capital of Scotland, it still retained its individuality and old-world charm.

When starting out on their journey they were glad that the spectacular thunderstorm of half an hour ago had rumbled on to the west and the sun had felt safe to re-emerge.

Sally, content to be in the passenger’s seat, wound down the window so that she could feel the dazzling solar rays on her face.

As the car sped on its way she lazily admired the race course. Musselburgh was so proud of this course and today after the rains the grass looked lush. Turning her head towards Luke and pointing backwards to the track, she said, ‘Do you know that old Jock loved to come here and have a flutter on the ponies?’

Luke laughed and banged the steering wheel. ‘And here was me,’ he chortled, ‘thinking the only filly in his life was our mum.’

Sally gave him a playful nudge. ‘Don’t suppose you believe me but sometimes I think I would like to have known him a bit better.’

‘Sally, do you think that it’s true that men grow to be like their fathers?’

‘God forbid. Please don’t say you’re trying to tell me that you’ve fathered a multitude in Hong Kong.’

‘No. But I did date quite a few nubile maidens when I was trying to learn to speak Cantonese.’

Sally poked him again. ‘Luke, you don’t need to know the lingo to father a …’

‘Look, Sally, that sign says we’re there.’

‘So we are. Now go to the end of the High Street. We’ll park there and walk back.’

* * *

Life is funny in that whenever you have to ask for directions or if somebody knows a person you happen to be looking for, you always seem to ask a stranger.

Luke and Sally had just come unstuck for the third time when Sally stopped and sniffed. ‘Smell that. That tempting smell is coming from down there.’

‘The harbour?’

‘Yes, you get to it just down this street here on the right.’

‘So?’

‘Let’s go and get a couple of fish suppers and we can devour them while sitting on the sea wall.’ Luke was hesitant so Sally added, ‘It will be like going down memory lane for me. Lost count of the times I took my kids on a day treat down here and always we ended up getting stuffed with fresh-caught Port Seton fish and chips made with East Lothian tatties.’

Sally, swinging her legs backwards and forwards, had herself seated on the harbour wall when Luke returned with the newspaper-wrapped feast.

‘There’s only one way to eat this,’ Sally informed, unwrapping the parcel, ‘and that is with your fingers. So brother dear, get stuck in.’

Luke grinned. He felt that there was something so vulnerable about Sally as she sat there in the sunshine gorging herself. She had come a long, difficult way in her lifetime. He smiled as he noted that when in Leith she dressed, acted and behaved like the lady she had grown into. Today in Port Seton, time had been rolled back and she had become a carefree young mother again. Regularly stopping to suck the muck sauce from her fingers, he conceded she did look much younger than her years. He noted that her hair still had its red highlights and the sun appeared to be picking out every red strand.

Sally sighed as she finished her supper and when she had rolled up the paper and was about to throw it into the waste-paper basket she became aware of a woman, she judged to be about the same age as herself, staring at her.

‘Do I know you?’ Sally sweetly enquired.

‘No, I don’t think so. It was just so good to see you enjoying your meal. Reminded me, it did, of when I was growing up here. Often at the weekend we would come down here just to see the townies eating. Like going to the zoo it was.’ The woman chuckled.

‘So you were brought up here?’

‘Yes,’ was her reply to Sally, ‘but I left here when I was fourteen. You see, my mum was born and bred in Aberlady, the next village down, and she always felt she had married beneath herself by marring a fisherman from Port Seton.’ The woman chortled. ‘So when her mother died and left her a house in Aberlady she immediately moved us all over there. Disappointed she was when I married, like herself, beneath myself, a Polish refugee and settled over there in Fife.’

The woman pointed over her shoulder and sure enough from the harbour you could see across the Firth of Forth and beyond to green fertile Fife.

Moving closer to the woman, Sally simpered, ‘Here, I don’t suppose you ever came across a family in Port Seton called Liston?’ Sally’s eyes popped when a nod of the head confirmed that the lady had. Trying to control her excitement she then asked in a devil-may-care way, ‘Martha Liston?’

‘Aye, now let me see, the Listons’ house was halfway up Gosford Road. That’s the street just behind here. Don’t know the number.’ The woman became animated before confiding, ‘But you can’t miss it. Sitting in their front window are two ornaments. Honestly I saw them just a few minutes ago and I still thought that these two Siamese cats were the weirdest, ugliest and eeriest falderals I have ever seen.’

Luke, who hadn’t gorged his meal but had eaten it slowly as it should be, was screwing up the paper wrapping when Sally jumped down from the wall. ‘Luke, I think I know where Martha Liston might be.’

‘You do?’

Sally turned to point at the woman but it was as if she had been a ghost because she had simply vanished.

Holding on to Luke to steady herself, Sally acknowledged that the pavements in the small port did not lend themselves to being tottered on by ladies in high-heeled shoes – especially when they were in danger of being pushed off the narrow pavement by a lassie pushing a pram.

Halfway up the street Sally and Luke began to peer into all the windows. Suddenly they were looking into the cold, lifeless eyes of two horrible cat ornaments. To add to their excitement Sally pointed to the nameplate on the door. It was marked ‘Liston’.

After that had knocked only once an elderly lady who looked so wretched that she could have taken, without make-up, the part of Mary Magdalene in a passion play, opened up the door to them.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ Luke began.

The woman opened the door wider and with a sweep of her hand she bade them enter.

‘Are you Martha Liston?’

She nodded.

‘This is my sister, Sally Mack, and I’m Luke Doyle, a …’

‘No need to tell me. I know who you are. I have been expecting you.’

Sally gave an involuntary shudder as her blood ran cold. She didn’t believe in the psychic world. Fisher folk she knew were supposed to have the second sight but common sense told her that that was just a myth. Nonetheless, she was unnerved firstly by the woman at the harbour who knew the person Luke and she sought. And now this other woman was telling them that their arrival was anticipated.

Martha Liston indicated to Sally and Luke that they should take a seat. An eerie silence, only broken by the sound of the incoming tide, then descended upon the room.

Sally took this enforced silence to appraise Martha Liston. She noted that the woman sighed a lot and that the look in her eyes was that of utter despair. Sally identified with this woman’s dilemma. She had once been where Martha Liston was now. Life has become so intolerable that you are weighed down by the heaviest weight you will ever carry in your life – a deep depression that is blacker than black.

‘Mrs Liston,’ Luke kicked off, ‘I am taking it that Jessie Scott is your daughter?’

Martha nodded.

‘Do you know where she is?’

Her head bobbed again.

‘Is she here in Port Seton?’

A cry like that of a wounded animal escaped Martha and she turned from Luke to face Sally. ‘You try your best to steer them well,’ she sobbed, ‘but sometimes your seed is rotten and no matter what you try to do to save them, redeem them, have them repent, the evil one’s hold over them is too great.’

‘Your daughter has done something awful?’ Sally whispered.

Martha nodded. ‘She met a man, Satan in disguise he is, and he corrupted her. She became a whore to keep him. And now he has brought in younger women for his vile trade, she has …’ she hesitated.

‘Lost heart?’ suggested Sally.

Martha let out a loud cry. ‘Sweet Lord, if that was the half of it.’

‘Jenny Geddes. Do you know if she is with Jessie?’ Sally pleaded.

Martha nodded. ‘That lassie is through by.’ She now pointed back with her thumb towards another door. ‘She’s completely dominated by my Jessie.’

Luke got up and went over into the other room. Quietly opening up the door, he entered and called out, ‘Okay, Jenny, come on out. Nobody’s going to harm you.’

Jenny took her time to emerge from the room. Sally had forgotten how utterly washed out Jenny looked when she hadn’t had time to plaster on make-up. Her hair, which a decade ago had been her crowning glory, now hung like a dank, dirty, listless mop. Sally thought if any lassie required a salutary lesson on why she should not seek a career on the street then a good look at Jenny Geddes right now was all she would need.

Sally now turned to assess Martha Liston. She noted that Martha’s frozen face, cold snake-like eyes and pursed lips belied that there was any Christian charity in the woman.

‘Jenny,’ Martha’s voice echoed around the room like a sacred mantra, ‘as we decided when we prayed together, the time has come for you to own up to your sins. The police are now here so put your trust in the lord Jesus Christ and he will help you to unburden your soul.’

Sally and Luke exchanged astonished, secretive glances.

Jenny began by adopting a cowed, sorrowful look. Sally knew this was an insincere trick. She knew that anyone who had made their living on the streets ended up as hard as nails. No way could they be easily cowed or bullied.

‘Well,’ Jenny wailed, ‘I only helped because I was scared stiff of Jessie. I didnae … kill anybody, honestly I didnae. I only helped with the tidying up.’

This confession completely rocked Luke. He had hoped that the two women would know something about the killing of Marie and Dove but here, if he was reading between the lines correctly, was Jenny Geddes saying that she and Jessie were
directly
involved. Scratching his ear before gnawing on his thumb, Sally could see that his mind was racing on wheels. ‘Now,’ he said slowly and deliberately, ‘let me get this straight. You and Jessie were present when Marie was killed?’