A Double Death on the Black Isle

by A. D. Scott

  “Is that Mr. Beauchamp Carlyle?”

  “It is.”

  “That’s fine company you keep.” The landlady-cum-post-office-mistress looked impressed.

  Rob realized he had gone up a minimum of five notches in the woman’s estimation. He made a mental note to add her to his Black Isle contact list—so far a list of two, the others being the vet and of course Beech.

  Next, Hector drove them to the scene, stopping at the turnoff to Achnafern Farm to take pictures. On one side was the forest, on the other the fertile agricultural land that gave the Black Isle its prosperity.

  Worth marrying Patricia to become laird of all this, Rob thought. Nah, nothing would make it worth marrying Patricia.

  Half a mile farther on, the farm road made a sharp left turn. The road dropped steeply, made a right turn to a set of two stone bridges with a narrow island between, then rose from the gloom of the fern and forest to the brightness of skylarks and open farmland above.

  Hec stopped the car between the two bridges.

  “This is why it’s called the Devil’s Den,” Rob informed Wee Hec. “The island is between two streams, where the Devil can’t get to you, as he doesn’t cross water.”

  “Like ‘Tam O’ Shanter.’” Hector loved that poem.

  Taking his cameras from the car, Hec scrambled around the banks of the twin streams, looking for angles to maximize the shafts of light dappled by reflections from the water. The burns were swift and noisy, the water divided by a large rock at the top of the small valley, funneled into narrow channels under each of the small bridges. The keystone of the larger one, covered in rust-colored moss, would photograph beautifully.

  The sun disappeared. The now-heavy light, the thick forest, the ferns, dark green and moist from the tumbling burn, made Rob shiver. It was indeed a place of the dead, and perhaps the Devil.

  Hector jumped onto the parapet of the bridge. “I’m a troll, fol-de-roll. I’m a troll.”

  Rob watched Hector giggling like a thing demented, and was grateful for the diversion.

  “Aye, I can see the resemblance, but you’re not scary enough.”

  The funny thing was, Hector did look like a troll with his bobble hat and his wee, short legs.

  “Hurry up, Hec, I’m cold.”

  “Me too.”

  Rob walked a few yards up the road. “That isn’t where Fraser was found, you know, it was farther up, in the ditch.”

  “Aye, but a ditch is ditch, and this here looks great. Very spooky.” Hector was putting the lens cap back on. “Besides, Devil’s Den reads much better than roadside ditch.”

  Rob stared at Hector. “I never knew you could read.”

  Watching Hector chortle at the insult, Rob started laughing too.

  “Let’s get the heck out of here, Hector,” Rob said in his best John Wayne voice. “Come on . . . Hector. . . . It’s not that funny.”

  Still chortling, they got into the car.

  “Right,” Rob decided, “let’s collect Joanne from Achnafern Farm.”

  It took a long ten minutes to drive the car out of the Devil’s Den—Hector had never mastered the skill of hill starts.

  Joanne had walked up the garden path to the farmhouse noticing that the daffodils were finished, the narcissus too. But there was a fine display of violets, lilies of the valley, and the azaleas were in fine bloom.

  She noted how prosperous Achnafern Farm was: the neat cottages, the well-kept byres and steadings, the very shiny new-looking tractors, and, in the distance, the cows fat and gleaming. A lot of them too, she thought.

  Joanne had knocked on the front door and waited. She had knocked again after a minute or so. It was not unusual. People seldom used their front doors—they were reserved for formal guests, visitors of importance, so she walked round the back.

  The door to the porch was open, the door to the kitchen ajar. Voices could be heard, not clearly, drowned out by the sound of clattering pots and pans and running water.

  “Mrs. M, I hate seeing you upset, but we can’t interfere . . . Joanne. Hello.”

  “Hello,” Joanne’s voice was loud, embarrassed she had walked in on an argument. “I knocked, but you mustn’t have heard.”

  “Goodness, I lost track o’ the time. Come in, come in.” Mrs. Munro was upset that a visitor was seeing her in a state.

  “Patricia, how are you?”

  “Couldn’t be better. It’s Mrs. Munro who is rather out of sorts.”

  “That’s no’ fair, Patricia. I can’t stand by and let the McPhees take all the blame. . . . This shouldn’t be happening.”

  Joanne had no idea what Mrs. Munro was talking about, but she had clearly taken offense at Patricia’s dismissal of her unease. The phrase “high dudgeon” came to mind. Joanne loved the word “dudgeon,” but had never quite known what it meant—until now.

  “I’ll make the tea.” Mrs. Munro went to the sink, her shoulders still carrying her anxiety.

  Patricia and Joanne discussed Patricia’s health, the weather, the best place to shop for wool. The conversation was running down. Mrs. Munro rescued them with tea and Dundee cake.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” Patricia shook her head like a pony tossing away bothersome flies, “we may as well tell Joanne. She will find out sooner or later.”

  “I don’t want you putting this in the newspaper,” Mrs. Munro warned. The unexpectedly fierce voice surprised Joanne.

  “Joanne, this is completely confidential. It will come out at the trial, but . . .” Patricia turned to Mrs. Munro, “it is better Joanne writes it nicely than some horrid reporter in another rag.”

  “I know,” Mrs. Munro sighed. She knew there was no avoiding more newspaper headlines.

  “Calum Sinclair, the solicitor, informed Mr. and Mrs. Munro that he asked for another opinion on the postmortem report. It seems Fraser was injured a second time, and some time after he left the hotel.” She spoke in one long stream, in a factual, head-prefect-giving-a-speech voice. “It is possible Fraser died as late as six o’clock that morning.”

  Joanne didn’t know what to think. “How will this affect the case against the McPhee brothers?” she asked.

  “This is only one expert’s opinion. It doesn’t change anything. Not yet anyway,” Patricia said.

  “Our Fraser was always one for fighting. . . .”

  “Best not tell anyone that, Mrs. M.” Patricia said it lightly, but her glance was towards Joanne.

  “More so since the army.” Mrs. Munro was off on a tangent of her own. “It was an accident, I’m thinking—too much to drink, he fell, he hit his head, then he . . . Forgiveness . . . that is what the Lord teaches us.”

  Joanne and Patricia looked at each other. Patricia gave a slight shrug, but said nothing.

  “It’s terrible no one found our Fraser earlier. Maybe then he’d be alive . . . but only us uses the farm road . . . and no one went looking for him until morning.” Mrs. Munro had said the same to Allie, and to her cousin Mrs. Ross. It was a thought that she couldn’t leave alone.

  “He was a grown man, Mrs. M., and a soldier. You couldn’t look after him all the time.” Patricia leaned over and covered the older woman’s hand with hers.

  Joanne watched the tenderness between them. She envied that touch. She could not remember when last someone had touched her with love.

  The sound of Hector’s car meant the end of the conversation. All three women, all for different reasons, were relieved it was over.

  “Bye, thanks for the lift.” Joanne waved at Hector from the ferry.

  “I hope nobody sees me on the bus,” Rob grumbled when the ferry was halfway across. “Not good for my image.”

  “You could have gone to the football with Hec.”

  “Never!” Rob shuddered at the thought of another mile with Hector Bain at the wheel. “So, a worthwhile trip?”

  “Yes, but with more questions than answers. You?”

  “The same.”

  “Patricia was there,” Joan
ne said casually.

  “How is she?”

  “Getting big. She said it’s a sure sign it’s a boy.”

  “Really?” Rob said carefully, not wanting to put his foot in it again. “If she does have a son, it will be the first time in many generations for that family. Maybe that’s why Patricia went for Sandy—to stir up the gene pool.”

  “Oh Rob!” Joanne elbowed him, laughed, then ran ahead towards the gangplank. “Race you to the bus stop.”

  They arrived at the office. Everyone had gone except Mrs. Smart. Joanne fetched her bike, Rob wheeled out his motorbike.

  “Fancy a cup of tea, swap notes?” he asked.

  “Love to, but I have to get home. Granddad Ross will be dropping off the girls.”

  “Tonight?”

  “A Saturday night? Haven’t you got better things to do than sit with a middle-aged married woman and drink tea?”

  “I could steal some of my mother’s gin.”

  After the girls had gone to sleep, and that took much longer than usual because they loved seeing their uncle Rob, he and Joanne settled down to talk. Rob had tried tuning in to Radio Luxembourg to hear the latest music, but there was so much static he gave up.

  They settled down with a pot of tea. Rob enjoyed Joanne’s small bungalow, with the mismatched furniture and the pots of lush ferns and trailing plants and shelving full of books and annuals and magazines and knitting patterns and boxes overflowing with felt and fabric and rolls of butcher paper. Children’s paintings, posters, postcards, and drawings filled one wall. Opposite hung a variety of mirrors in round, oval, square, or long and narrow frames in gilt or plain or wood or rococo, reflecting the light and the artwork and the greenery, making the room seem twice the size and twice as interesting. The very untidiness felt artistic.

  “Next time I’m at Hector’s washhouse-cum-studio, I’ll ask him for a picture for you,” Rob said. “Some of his work is really interesting.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Never.” Rob laughed. “Which reminds me . . .” He described Hector’s troll dance and was glad to see Joanne laughing.

  “Where Fraser died is gloomy, well-hidden, and yet only a short distance as the crow flies from the farmhouse. An ideal place to commit a crime.”

  He smiled, but he had been spooked by the Devil’s Den and glad of Hector’s clowning. “Your turn,” he finished.

  “Well,” she started, “I walked in to a discussion between Mrs. Munro and Patricia. When they saw me they immediately went quiet.”

  She told him most of what she had found out.

  “Remember, not one word to anyone about the uncertainty over the time of death.” Joanne shook her finger at him.

  “Scout’s honor.” He gave the three-fingered salute. “Interesting that Fraser was alive until early morning.”

  “That’s still a matter of opinion. But what does it mean exactly?”

  “No idea. Could have been the other lads on the farm did for him, could have been anyone, even the tinkers. It’s interesting and frustrating—yet another piece of information we can’t publish.”

  “I think Mrs. Munro is hiding something. She also has this deep vein of forgiveness, and doesn’t think the McPhee brothers should be on trial.”

  “Great headline that, ‘Mother of Victim Forgives Accused.’”

  For once Joanne didn’t chide Rob for being flippant—she was getting the hang of the newspaper culture.

  He stretched his arms and legs and yawned. “I must be off, all that country air . . . Joanne, I’m glad you decided to stick at the job. You’re a good reporter.”

  “Early days yet,” she smiled at him, pleased with his praise. “I have no idea what I’m doing a lot of the time. McAllister said he’d teach me.”

  “Better watch out. He fancies you.”

  “Rob!” She looked away to cover the hot prickly rush of blood to her face.

  As he was leaving he asked, “Do you want me to sneak out the back garden? I’ve left my bike well up the street.”

  “I . . .”

  “Consider it done.”

  As she was locking the doors, something she had never done before the problems with Bill, Joanne felt a sudden sadness.

  Yes Rob, she thought, I really do want to be a reporter. And I want to be happy. But it’s hard when I have to sneak friends out the back door, and I jump at every noise in case it’s my husband come to threaten me, or worse.

  Cycling to work on Monday morning, Joanne knew she should have spoken to Granny Ross before now, but she’d never found the right moment. The trial was starting soon—that had been her excuse. So today was the day she would preempt her mother-in-law. The thought gave her and her bicycle the wobbles.

  A double-decker bus pulled into a stop in front of her. She waited, not wanting to cycle past it only to have the bus overtake her on the narrow bridge. This is the exact spot I thought I saw Mrs. Ord Mackenzie’s car.

  As she reached the Gazette building, the smell of acid and ink and newsprint and damp stone walls hit her—as it did every morning. If I had known when I started what I know now, would I still want this job, she asked herself as she climbed the stairs. Yes, I need this job if I am to be me.

  The reporters’ room was empty except for the smell of stale cigarettes and men and the fountain of crumpled copy paper issuing from the top hat. It took Joanne a moment to realize what was missing—the constant ringing of the telephone. Betsy Buchanan was now in charge of the downstairs switchboard.

  Joanne was yet to decide which was worse—continually answering the phone or the sound of Betsy’s “Hold please, I have a phone call for you, Joanne, oops, sorry, Mrs. Ross.”

  Joanne also suspected that not all calls for editorial were getting through, with Betsy making her own decisions as to who was important enough to speak to a journalist, and who was to be dropped into a disconnected netherworld.

  She picked up the receiver.

  “Good morning, Joanne,” Betsy Buchanan chirped.

  “It’s Mrs. Ross at work, please.” Heavens I sound childish, Joanne thought, “Could I have an outside line, please?”

  “Give me the number and I’ll connect you.”

  “An outside line, thank you, Mrs. Buchanan.”

  Joanne was feeling cross by the time she got through to her mother-in-law for the first skirmish in Margaret’s battle strategy of “dazzle them till it hurts.”

  “Dochfour 251.”

  “Hello, it’s Joanne.” Her voice sounded unnaturally bright. Calm down, calm down, she told herself.

  “Is anything wrong?” Mrs. Ross sounded anxious.

  “Not at all,” Joanne reassured her. “I’m phoning to say that as Mrs. Munro is staying with you the Wednesday of the trial, the girls will be going to my friend Chiara’s.”

  There, I’ve said it. Joanne was finding it hard to breath. She was phoning her mother-in-law, scared that if she were alone with her, she would say something she would regret. Every time she thought of Bill and his mother scheming to take the children from her, she trembled at the betrayal.

  “I see . . .” Mrs. Ross was suspicious, waiting to hear the catch.

  “Only for that week, though. The girls love staying over, and they’ll really miss their night with you and Granddad.”

  “It’s no trouble having them,” Mrs. Ross replied, again sounding as though she was waiting for a punchline.

  “I’m pleased to hear it.” This is it, tell her. Now. “In fact, just the other night, Wee Jean was saying how you told them they could always live with you and Granddad if anything should happen to me.” Joanne ignored the stifled noise at the end of the line. “It’s so good of you to think of that. Very reassuring for me . . . and for the girls . . . to know you and Granddad are there.”

  Joanne managed a laugh, which she was certain sounded completely false. “I’d better watch myself crossing the bridge on my bike. Don’t want anything to happen that might put me in hospital again. Mind you,
young girls can be quite a handful, even for fit and healthy grandparents like yourselves.”

  “Aye, it would be hard but . . .”

  “Anyhow, I must get on with my work. Thanks for the thought about taking care of the girls. We’ll talk later about the trial, maybe go together to show cousin Agnes our support.” Stop blethering Joanne, she told herself. “Cheerio Mum. See you soon. Thanks again.”

  Joanne barely heard the “cheerio” returned.

  As she was about to put down the phone there was a click on the line, but Joanne was so relieved the call was over to give it much attention.

  Next, Joanne thought, I will have to tell her that I’ve arranged for the girls to go to Chiara’s house on weekdays after school. But that will mean one less accusation of neglect Bill can throw at me. And the girls will love it.

  TWENTY

  Jimmy McPhee was sitting in a bar, thinking deeply, drinking moderately—for him.

  “Can anyone join the party or are you waiting to be turned into a pumpkin. Or, in your case, a turnip?” Rob had been standing unnoticed at the end of the table.

  “You do come up with a load of shite sometimes.”

  He and Jimmy grinned at each other. Rob took a seat.

  The corner was dim. The early summer sun attempted to penetrate a window opaque grey with grime. The bar was part of an old inn on the north road, part of the town’s history. Frequented now by railway men and bus drivers, in its day it was a resting place for coachmen, and drovers in for the cattle auctions. It was said to be haunted—perhaps by a clansman fleeing Culloden—if he had had the time to stop for a drink. More likely the ghost was a customer unhappy with the beer, coming back to haunt the landlord.

  “Since I’m staying on the Gazette, leaving my break for the south another couple of years, I want this to be a good story,” Rob told Jimmy.

  “Wise move, staying for a whiley more.”

  “You think so?” He was pleased to have Jimmy’s opinion. He was also one of the few who understood that beneath the rough, menacing exterior there lay a very rough, menacing interior. But intelligence with it.

  “Aye. You know what they say about big fishes and small lochs. I suppose you’re wanting information?”