Death in Dalkinchie

by Carly Reid

  Jessica nodded. Grant bid his farewell and left, leaving her to the research.

  * * *

  By the time DI Gordon and Murdo arrived at the office, Jessica had found plenty of material for her tribute Show article. As Grant had suggested, it had been really simple to find the relevant issues as the Show took place in the same weekend in August every year, and had done since approximately the dawn of time. Desmond Wilcott had run thirteen Shows as Convenor, and Jessica had been able to find the write-up of his first Show, as well as picking out highlights from many events across the years. With the results of this year’s Show, she was confident she could put together an article that not only contained the information people would be looking for this year, but also honored Desmond Wilcott’s service to the Craft Show. She only hoped that she could do this tastefully. With that accomplished, she had moved on to the task of finding out as much as she could about the intriguingly named McScunnered. She worked backwards, first looking at the letter pages in the Show issues of the newspaper, and then expanding her search. What she had found convinced her it was worth mentioning to the police. She was sure that they would be interested.

  “Dear Sir,

  I refer to last week’s letter offered by your anonymous correspondent who prefers to go by the pseudonym ‘McScunnered.’ Once again, I am convinced that his choice to use an epithet is due to embarrassment at an evident lack of education. The case presented is simply inaccurate, and one wonders what McScunnered stands to gain from presenting it. Perhaps if we had a sense of his true identity, this self-interest would be revealed. As it is, surely his opinions are best ignored, and I question their inclusion in your paper.

  Yours, etc,

  Desmond Wilcott.”

  Jessica, agog, found the reply printed a week later.

  “Dear Sir,

  Mr Wilcott does not like opinions contrary to his own, and once again, his suggested solution is censorship. Unfortunately he will find that he is not the only person to have a voice in the community, and that the free press will not allow his the sole opinion to be aired. He no doubt enjoyed such privilege in his professional life! Perhaps Mr Wilcott would be surprised at the local strength of feeling on this matter. Surely public facilities should be decided on by the public, and not by a single individual who appears bent upon a dictatorship?

  Yours sincerely,

  McScunnered of Drummond.”

  This entire exchange seemed to be related to a change in opening hours and management of the local public restrooms near the park. Reading back, Jessica came across many similar exchanges over the years, all of them related to apparently trivial local matters. Grant had explained that the previous editor had gone with an open publication policy and he had followed suit, publishing every letter sent in, so that no letter-writer could accuse the newspaper of bias. This led to long-running spats, taking place over weeks and weeks in The Herald’s pages, often with no reference to the original disagreement.

  Desmond Wilcott always signed off with his name in full, and his adversary with ‘McScunnered’ or ‘McScunnered of Drummond’. Apart from that there was no clue as to the identity of the letter-writer, and although Jessica noted that Desmond Wilcott had clearly thought he was arguing with a man, she found nothing among the letters she read which indicated that this was definitely the case. The letter that convinced her that it was worth raising with the police read as follows:

  “Dear Sir,

  Mr Wilcott has shown himself to be quite ruthless in local matters, often ignoring or discarding the hard work of others in his pursuit of leadership. While this seemed to have served him well in the workplace, he is not the gaffer any more and he will soon find out that it’s not an attitude he can take for long as a member of the community without repercussions.

  Yours sincerely,

  McScunnered of Drummond.”

  Jessica moved the plate, reading this letter over several times. Given recent events, it distinctly read as a threat.

  Had McScunnered followed through with the repercussions?

  7

  A Visit to Drummond

  Jessica was still poring over the letters when DI Gordon and Murdo arrived. They wanted a better sense of who had been around at the Village Hall in the morning before the Show had opened and had already spoken to Magnus, hoping that his time-stamped photographs would give a clearer picture. Unfortunately Magnus had zoomed in to get close-ups of the crafts, and had deliberately avoided having any people in the background, so his memory was all they had to go on.

  Jessica didn’t fare much better. Apart from the groups of judges, and the people she had seen setting up their crafts – all of whom were documented on Show administration lists – she couldn’t remember the exact timings and details of any specific person who had been there in the Hall. She remembered the Wilcotts’ arrival very clearly, but that was it. The Detective Inspector seemed quite resigned. There was a lot of information to sift through, and Jessica didn’t envy the challenge of narrowing it down. She spoke up:

  “DI Gordon, there is some information you might find helpful. Mrs Wilcott mentioned that her husband had a feud with someone in The Herald letter pages, and I’ve managed to find quite a lot of them, including one I think you should look at. It’s still on the reader.” Jessica gestured to the microfiche reader in the corner. DI Gordon followed her lead, sitting down in front of the clunky machine and adjusting the focus until he was comfortable. Jessica noticed that he didn’t have to be shown how to use it. He peered closely at the screen.

  “Can you show me any of Mr Wilcott’s letters?”

  Jessica nodded, moving the fiche off the plate and adding in the previous week’s issue. DI Gordon read it in a contemplative silence. He then switched the fiche again to re-read the threatening letter.

  “Who is this McScunnered? Constable Smith, does this ring any bells?”

  “No’ really, although I might have heard the name mentioned. I don’t really read the letters pages in the paper. McScunnered? That’s a made-up name, surely? There’s nobody roond here wi’ a name like that! Can you imagine being landed wi’ ‘scunnered’ in your name, you’d be permanently annoyed.”

  Murdo gave a wide smile at Jessica who smiled back. Murdo always had a way of making a situation seem lighter.

  “Indeed, this writer does seem to be annoyed. Perhaps that’s why they chose this particular pseudonym. There are a lot of these letters, Miss Greer?”

  “Yes, going back for years. That was the most threatening one I found, although I didn’t check all the records we have. Plus, the letters are missing for some of the earlier editions, although Grant did say that they would be available in Dundee.”

  “Yes, of course. Was there anything identifying on any of the letters? Anything that might give more of a clue as to who exactly McScunnered might be?”

  “Not that I found so far. I can keep looking if you like?” Jessica relished the research task. Now that she had mastered the microfiche, she was enjoying looking through back issues of the newspaper – as well as an interesting investigative challenge, it was also fascinating to see the evolution of local news over the last decade. She could feel her understanding of journalism deepen, looking at the scale and frequency of stories that appeared in the local newspaper over time.

  “If you have time, that would be extremely useful Miss Greer, thank you. I will give you my number, and can you let me know if you find anything by the end of the day? If not, I think a trip to Dundee might well be on the cards. We have to start somewhere.”

  DI Gordon looked grimly off into the middle distance, no doubt contemplating the enormity of the task before him. A hall full of people, freely moving in and out. A pot of marmalade in a locked room, but to which many people could have had access either before or after its entry into the Craft Show. And Desmond Wilcott, whose actions in life increasingly appeared to show him to have been a very unpleasant man.

  Jessica wondered again whether she should tel
l the police the conversation she had overheard from Mrs Wilcott, and decided against it. Her feelings of sympathy for the victim’s wife were only increasing as time went on.

  Perhaps after visiting she would feel differently.

  * * *

  Ealisaid turned up at Reenie’s cottage that evening, exactly as promised. She drove an old car that had belonged to her mother, a dilapidated blue Beetle which Jessica had never ridden in before. She got in gingerly, although so far it felt more sound than the shuddering old green van that Reenie had been driving around in for over a decade. Jessica felt that any suspension that old clunker had ever had had been rattled away over Edinburgh cobblestones. The Beetle felt like a positively smooth ride by comparison.

  On the back seat lay a casserole dish with the lid wedged on tightly, and a tub which Jessica was sure would be full of some deliciously tempting sweet treats. She herself clutched a potted flowering plant. Reenie had gone to her shop earlier that day especially to pick one out for her and had ended up choosing a pretty red kalanchoe which she’d assured Jessica wouldn’t need much ongoing care, and would therefore be a perfect gift.

  Ealisaid knew where the Wilcott house was, having attended Craft Show committee meetings there before. It was a few miles away from Dalkinchie in the neighbouring town of Drummond, where the MacNaughton also resided in Castle Drummond upon the hill.

  They drew up and parked on the street outside; a white Volkswagen Golf occupied the driveway of the attractive detached stone house. It was set in large landscaped gardens and Jessica marveled at the views it would command – over the hills and down the glen towards Dalkinchie. She wondered briefly if Mrs Wilcott would be at home, as Donald Donaldson had said she was staying with them the day before, but she needn’t have worried. Patricia Wilcott answered the door herself, looking tired but composed, and as neatly turned out as the day before.

  “Jessica, hello. And Ealisaid. How kind of you to come by. Please, do come in. Donald is here, but I think he’s just about to leave.”

  Jessica was bolstered by this welcome, and felt more convinced she had done the right thing by visiting. Patricia took the plant from Jessica and the cake tin from Ealisaid, but the latter insisted on carrying the heavy casserole through to the kitchen with her. Jessica was directed to the sitting room which lay to the left just inside the front door. It was a large airy room, furnished in soothing pale greens with papered walls, a plush carpet under Jessica’s feet and solid, dark wood furniture including a piano in one corner of the room. The top of the piano was covered with framed photographs, mostly of a girl with long dark hair who Jessica assumed to be the Wilcott’s daughter. In one she was holding a baby, and beaming at the camera.

  Donald Donaldson was indeed present, standing with his back to the door, in front of a long mantelpiece above an elegant tiled fireplace. The shelf was laden with trophies and shields, all highly polished and reflecting the August sun which was slanting through the large picture window as it set; she had not been wrong about the views over the hills.

  Donald Donaldson turned around briefly as Jessica entered the room.

  “Hello again. I didn’t know you were a friend of Patricia’s. We have not been properly introduced. I’m Donald Donaldson.”

  Jessica replied hesitantly. Did he not remember that he had been quite rude to her on the two previous occasions they had met?

  “I’m Jessica Greer, I have been in Dalkinchie for a couple of months. I’m a friend of Ealisaid’s who is here too, and I was present yesterday when…when Mrs Wilcott received her sad news. I just wanted to come over and pay my respects.”

  Donald Donaldson nodded, and turning on his heel, began to pace back and forth. With his back to Jessica, he spoke.

  “It’s a terrible state of affairs. Just a dreadful thing to have to deal with. No matter what’s going on between a husband and wife, when something like this happens it really knocks you for six. And it seems terribly likely that it was the marmalade! Who would believe it. The famous Castle Drummond Orange and Whisky. Why, I had some myself this morning.”

  His hands clasped behind his back, he quarter-turned towards Jessica and gave a small, sad closed mouth smile, then strolled to the centre of the mantelpiece where he seemed to be looking at a medium sized double-handed cup, placed to great effect in the centre of the display. He spoke again. “Despite everything, Patricia seems to be coping remarkably well. She was distressed yesterday yes, but she stayed with us and today she’s very calm…very calm indeed. Determined to carry on as normal. I almost wonder…”

  Whatever Donald Donaldson wondered, he didn’t finish the thought. He picked up the cup, gently easing it from its crowded position without disturbing its neighbors, and held it up to the sunlight filtering through the window. The polished surface caught the fading beams and bounced them around the room as he turned it this way and that.

  Patricia and Ealisaid entered the room, the former still thanking the latter for the casserole. As they did so, Donald Donaldson returned the cup to its position on the mantelpiece.

  “No need to return the dish any time soon. If you like, I’ll pop over in a week or so and pick it up. I’ll let you know.”

  Patricia Wilcott thanked Ealisaid again. Donald Donaldson cleared his throat.

  “If that’s you settled in then Patricia, I’ll be on my way. If you need anything, just let us know. Mary will pop in tomorrow and check how things are. There’s no need to see me out, I’ll let you attend to your…visitors.”

  “Thank you for everything, Donald, and do pass on my gratitude to Mary as well. You have both been so kind. I think I will be OK now, but if anything crops up I’ll be sure to let you know, and I’ll keep you updated with developments.”

  Donald Donaldson departed, with a nod in both Jessica and Ealisaid’s direction. Jessica heard the front door close behind him and watched as the white Golf started up, pulled out of the drive and disappeared into the distance.

  “Can I get you both a cup of tea? It would be no trouble.”

  Jessica didn’t know whether it would be better to accept or decline, and was grateful when Ealisaid replied. “Tea would be lovely, but let me make it. You’ve been through a lot this weekend.”

  “I’ll let you help, Ealisaid, but it’s a relief to be able to move around again. Donald and Mary mean well and they are very kind, but I’ve been treated like an invalid the whole time I was with them. Waited on hand and foot, barely allowed to stand up…they even called the doctor out who gave me a Valium. I wasn’t going to take it, but I did get a good night’s sleep which may not have happened otherwise. Let’s make the tea together.”

  The two women moved through to the kitchen together, once again leaving Jessica in the sitting room. Unable to suppress her curiosity, she moved to the mantelpiece where she, too, looked at the cup that Donald Donaldson had been examining so closely. Like him, she lifted it gently from its place in order to rotate it and better read the engraved inscription.

  Drummond Golf Club

  Donaldson Memorial Cup

  Awarded to Desmond Wilcott

  Moving along the mantelpiece, Jessica could see that a considerable percentage of the trophies were similar awards for golfing competitions. A couple of them, positioned at the back with their inscriptions slightly obscured, had been awarded to Patricia Wilcott for her lace work at the Dalkinchie Craft Show.

  Her observations were interrupted by Patricia and Ealisaid arriving back. Ealisaid carried a tray, and Patricia had removed the plant from its wrapping and now placed it on the windowsill. She then hurried to pull out a small occasional table from a nest of tables stacked against the wall. She positioned it in front of the large sofa and Ealisaid placed the tray down. It held a large blue-and-white patterned porcelain tea pot, a matching milk jug and sugar bowl, and three fine bone china mugs. These were decorated with Scots words and their definitions, with Patricia keeping ‘Wheesht’, Ealisaid taking ‘Stoater’ and Jessica ending up with ‘Blether’. P
atricia had placed Ealisaid’s millionaire shortbread on a plate and Jessica took a piece, along with a napkin from a small stack thoughtfully provided. Ealisaid’s shortbread was exquisite, but crumbly.

  “Thank you again for coming to visit, girls. You have shown such kindness over the past couple of days.”

  “I just wanted to see if you were OK. I mean, I know you can’t…” Jessica trailed off, aware that her words were clumsy but not knowing the best way of expressing herself. Luckily Patricia seemed to understand her faltering sentiments.

  “I think I am, as much as I can be. It was a terrible shock indeed, and the ongoing investigation is horrible, but I feel calm enough at the moment. Of course, that may change as I have to make arrangements, but right now I am not going to worry about any of that. I certainly appreciate not having to think about cooking, so thank you Ealisaid, and the plant is beautiful, Jessica – a little color around the place. Desmond had terrible hayfever so we never had cut flowers, and most plants seemed to disagree with him too.”

  She looked over at the plant and smiled. Jessica glanced at Ealisaid, whose face was impassive. Once again, Jessica felt a sense of unreality and eerie calm. She had no idea how a person who had just lost her husband was supposed to react, but this certainly seemed unusual. She remember Donald Donaldson’s earlier words, and his statement yesterday about the Wilcott’s marriage. Could Patricia even be happy that her husband was dead? It wasn’t exactly a question she could ask!

  “How is your daughter coping, Patricia?” Ealisaid asked. A shadow crossed Patricia Wilcott’s face, and her tone was sorrowful when she spoke.