by A. D. Scott
“Dr. Mitchell,” he said, “is it not possible that the original blows, which the victim suffered the previous evening, caused the bleeding to the brain?”
“Yes,” the doctor said, “it is certainly possible. But not probable.”
There it is. Calum almost shouted his pleasure on hearing the statement—the sacred tenant of Scots law was “the balance of probabilities.”
And in uttering the qualifying adverbial phrase beloved by all Scots, “certainly possible,” Dr. Mitchell had stated his opinion loudly and clearly. In any other version of English, “certainly” meant the man was certain, sure, without a doubt. In Scots English, “certainly possible” equals not very likely. That a blow from eight hours earlier had caused the death was “not probable” in Dr. Mitchell’s opinion—an opinion that could never be doubted, so the man himself believed.
“Thank you, Dr. Mitchell. No further questions.” The fiscal said. He knew when he was on difficult ground.
As soon as he uttered the words, the man was gone. Only his statement lingered—“. . . certainly possible. But not probable.”
It took Calum a moment to regather his thoughts. Not that that mattered, the procurator fiscal and the sheriff and the jury were also busy considering the import of the pathologist’s testimony.
Douglas Donald was next for the defense. Calum prayed the McPhee boys wouldn’t wave at him, or call him Duggie the Dummy. He had put the fear of Jimmy into them, and so far, it was working.
Initially, Calum had not expected much from Duggie, seeing him as at best a distraction. Now however . . . Calum thought.
“Douglas Donald,” came the announcement.
At the battle of Messina, a piece of shrapnel had removed Duggie Donald’s tongue. The scars on one side of his face and mouth had ruined not just his face, but also his chances of marriage and family. But his hearing sharpened. He hated daylight and the looks from strangers and children, so he lived for the night. Owls were his favorites, and foxes—he admired foxes.
What brains Duggie had been born with remained intact, but had been modified by the constant company of the creatures of the forests and woods and hedgerows and ditches of the Black Isle.
After Duggie swore the oath, which took a good four minutes, Calum began. Having an interpreter signing Duggie’s answers slowed the proceedings.
“Where were you on the night Fraser Munro died?” was Calum’s first question.
A flurry of hand gestures, and the reply was spoken by a young, fair girl who looked sixteen, but was twenty-seven and a teacher of sign language.
“The Black Isle, the road across Mount Eagle to Culbokie.”
The sheriff suspected the woman had shortened the reply and was grateful.
“Did you see or hear anyone on that road that night?”
The teacher watched Duggie closely. “The McPhee brothers,” she interpreted.
“How did you know it was them?”
“I heard them talking.”
“Did you see or hear anyone else?” Calum continued, keeping his questions short.
“I didn’t see, but I heard Fraser Munro and three others. I don’t know their names, but they live on Achnafern Farm.”
“Where was this?”
“On the farm road.” The sweet voice of the interpreter gave the answers innocence that did the McPhee brothers’ case no harm.
“How do you know it was Fraser Munro?”
“He was shouting and swearing and walking on his own. The others were up ahead of him.”
Now we get to it, and I hope to God those boys were telling the truth, Calum thought.
“May I?” he turned to the procurator fiscal and borrowed the pointer.
“Here is the road to Culbokie and here is the schoolhouse. Here are the woods where you were . . .” Leave that out, Calum thought, we don’t want to know he was probably poaching. “Here is the farm road and this is the bridge and the Devil’s Den, where Fraser was found.”
Duggie was nodding throughout this.
“Now, on that night, did you see or hear the McPhee brothers on the farm road?”
“No,” replied the interpreter. She needn’t have said a word—the violent shaking of Duggie’s head was enough.
“Did anyone else go through the woodland that night?”
This time the interpreter saw she needed say nothing. Duggie shook not just his head, but his shoulders and the whole upper body.
“Were you in the woodland all night?” Calum asked.
“No, I left just before first light.” Back to the sweet voice.
“In that time, did you see or hear anyone apart from Mr. Fraser Munro and the farmhands at the Devil’s Den?”
“No.” A pause. “Fraser was there all night,” Duggie signed.
“How do you know that?”
“I could hear his snoring,” the interpreter told them.
“One final question. Did you see or hear Mr. Alistair Munro arrive next morning?”
“No. I was back in my bothy before first light.”
The fiscal had no questions. He was yet to recover from the testimony of Dr. Mitchell, consultant pathologist.
“The court will reconvene tomorrow morning,” the sheriff announced, and the day was over.
It was almost five o’clock when Rob and Joanne and McAllister returned to the Gazette. Tomorrow—deadline day—would be more than busy, so they continued working.
Rob was typing up his notes from the trial, McAllister was working on his editorial, Don was subbing copy, Joanne was staring at a blank piece of paper perched between the rollers of her machine.
“McAllister, rein in Mrs. Smart or we’ll have an advertising ratio that’ll make us look ridiculous,” Don said as he took another look at the blank spaces in the dummy.
“I agree,” Joanne said. “I have to write five hundred words for what you so kindly call the ‘Madame Defarge column,’ and I’m stuck for an idea.”
“What, no death-by-knitting story?”
“Ha ha.” Joanne made a face at Don.
“When I was a cub reporter, I lifted ideas from the local school magazines,” McAllister told her.
“I’ll call in to the academy first thing tomorrow. Thanks McAllister, you’re a genius.”
“I know,” he said.
Rob was in a dilemma as to how much he should write given that the trial was still in progress.
“The facts. Only the facts,” Don reminded him.
“Yes, but if I write up today’s events and something more interesting happens tomorrow, you’ll massacre my copy with your wee red pencil.”
“Such is the lot of a reporter,” Don said. “Tell me, how did this afternoon go?”
Rob filled Don in on the testimony of the pathologist. The testimony of Duggie Donald, he described with hand gestures, voices, and much waggling of the head. “So at the end of day two, the verdict is looking good for the defense, but . . .” Rob finished, “you never know.”
“You’re right,” McAllister told him when he had finished his performance, “you’re lost on a newspaper—you’d definitely be God’s gift on television.”
Across town, in the small hotel where he was staying for the duration of the trial, Calum Sinclair was discussing the day with Jenny and Jimmy McPhee. Listening to what Jenny had to say, he did not like all he was hearing.
“I couldn’t for the life ’o me think what I was forgetting about that morning, but it’s so obvious I’m kicking maself for no thinking o’ it earlier,” Jenny started.
She was a woman who never missed much and whose opinion and intuition Calum had come to respect. He watched her coal black eyes, and her sun-dark skin and the way she sat—completely relaxed, as though the room in the small hotel were open to the sky and all the stars were shining in their glory.
“Sandy Skinner,” Jenny continued, “died the same day as Fraser Munro. We all know that. Didn’t Patricia say him and her left on their wee jaunt in the early morning?”
“Yes, she d
id,” Calum agreed. “They left before dawn.”
“Fraser Munro died around that time. So maybe she noticed something?” Jenny McPhee looked at Calum, and he could not hold her gaze. She knows, he thought, she knows I have messed up. I should have thought of that. I should have checked. I have read Patricia’s statement, but I should have asked Patricia again, not relied on the police report.
“I have the copy of Miss Ord Mackenzie’s statement here,” Calum said. “I’ll recheck it.”
“Aye, you do that,” Jenny told him. “And as far as I know, Patricia is still Mrs. Skinner.” She looked at him as she said this, her eyes seeming to see into his soul. Calum had to look away.
“Another thing,” Jenny continued, “Allie Munro is hiding something.”
“I felt that too,” Calum was now certain Jenny had the sixth sight, “but he is a difficult man to question.”
“Aye, you’d no get much out o’ him if he doesney want you to. His missus though, she’d be a different matter.” Jenny looked at Calum again. “If you could harden yer heart to the poor soul, I think you could find out what her and her man are not saying.”
Jimmy had been watching from a corner of the room and knew that, after this exchange with his mother, whatever needed to be done, Calum would be on to it.
“That was magic this afternoon,” Jimmy was smiling, “worth every penny of his fee thon manny from Edinburgh was. Creepy sort o’ a fellow though—I suppose it must be all them dead bodies he cuts up.”
Calum was grateful for Jimmy’s intervention. “Yes, his evidence will make it hard for the fiscal to prove his case.”
“But we’re not there yet,” Jenny reminded them.
“No,” Calum agreed. “We are not.”
They said their goodnights. Jenny and Jimmy McPhee disappeared into the gloaming of a perfect summer night, and Calum was left with the thought of the task to be done.
He turned the thought over and under and sideways until his brain felt as thick as silage. The thought stank like silage too.
It was true, Patricia and Sandy Skinner had left very early that day. Calum knew that Patricia had said they had driven down the drive from Achnafern Grange to the main road. They had no reason to drive past the farmhouse and along the back road, past the Devil’s Den. It was not a shortcut—it was a road used on farm business.
He checked the copy of her statement for the third time. Patricia’s interview was short and succinct; she and her late husband had left before dawn, taking the driveway—not the farm road—from Achnafern Grange to the main road. They saw nothing. Witnesses? None.
Telephone her, he told himself, ask her outright. If you don’t, it will always be there, an unasked question like a splinter in the thumb.
He smiled, remembering his mother telling him not to be such a baby as she came at him with the iodine and her sewing needle to remove the splinter deep in his hand after he and his dad had been stacking firewood for the winter. How scared he had been. And in the end it hadn’t hurt at all, and his mother had told him, “See—making yourself scared aforehand is worse than the doing of it.”
He checked the time. Twenty past nine. He dialed the number.
“Ord Mackenzie household.”
“Calum Sinclair here, I know it’s very late to call . . .”
“Not in the least,” Patricia said. “Do you need me as a character witness tomorrow?”
“I don’t know yet.” He paused. “Please forgive me for asking, but I’ve been rechecking statements. . . . Did you notice anything or see anyone the morning of Fraser Munro’s death? Anyone hanging around the farm perhaps?”
“I don’t mind you asking,” she said, “you are only being thorough. As I said to the police, we took the road from our house, not the farm road. Sandy was driving. I was half-asleep, and it was barely light, and no, I didn’t see anyone.”
“Thank you.” Calum was hugely relieved that Patricia had not been offended by the question. “I would appreciate it if you were available tomorrow—just in case.”
“Of course. I will be in court anyway to support Mrs. Munro.”
They said their goodnights. Calum poured himself a dram. Now he could sleep.
TWENTY-THREE
Highland Gazette.”
“Early bird. I knew I’d catch you.”
“Patricia,” Joanne said. “You’re right, but I like being in first, gives me time to get the annoying jobs out the road. How are you? I was expecting to see you at the trial.”
“I haven’t been needed,” she said, “but Mrs. M. will be appearing today, so I’m here to support her. Also, I am on standby in case Calum needs me as a character witness.”
Joanne noted the “Calum,” not “Mr. Sinclair,” not “Calum Sinclair,” just plain “Calum.” Another man Patricia has managed to twist round her little finger, she thought.
“I see.” Joanne’s voice was flat, noncommittal, waiting to find out what Patricia wanted.
“Can you pop out for a coffee?” Patricia asked.
She sounds very bright, Joanne thought. “It’s not easy to leave on deadline day, and today we’re having to make two front pages in case the trial doesn’t finish so . . .”
“Joanne, surely you can spare time for your oldest friend?”
“All right, I can manage a quick coffee in fifteen minutes—if we meet in the Castle Brae café. Then I am going to the trial.”
“Me too,” Patricia said. “We can go together.”
Joanne put down the phone. “Drat that woman, she always gets the better of me.”
“That was Patricia, I take it.” Rob came in.
“However did you guess?”
“I’ve the second sight. Talking of Patricia, I noticed it hasn’t come up so far,” Rob began, “but she and her late, not-so-lamented husband were up and about early on the morning Fraser Munro was lying in the ditch.”
“What are you suggesting?” Joanne was fed up of Rob continually having a go at Patricia. Patricia could be a nuisance always wanting a favor, but she was kind, she was generous, and she had to live with that mother. Joanne was certain she would never do anyone any real harm.
“Hold your horses. I’m not suggesting anything—just cynical about coincidences, that’s all.”
Eight thirty—the half hour rang out from the steeples across town.
“Is that the time? I have to go. See you in court.” Rob ran down the stairs. Knowing there was an hour before the final day of the trial began, he took the chance to grab a quick coffee. He liked the idea that he was one of the tiny coffee-drinking set in the town, if not the whole of Scotland. Coffee bars were seen as louche, not quite respectable; tea was the national drink, second only to whisky.
He walked through the back alleyways. He liked the cobbled lanes, the back doors chained and padlocked, the high walls concealing who knows what, and the sense of history hidden behind the High Street and hurrying housewives shopping with that grim sense of purpose.
Coincidence. Rob’s thoughts kept returning like a criminal to the scene of the crime. Two deaths, two funerals, same farm, same day—why, he thought, was I the only one interested in the coincidence?
Because, he thought, Miss Patricia Ord Mackenzie said she, they, had left before Fraser had been discovered and she saw nothing. And she, Patricia, said Sandy Skinner fell into a waterfall all by himself. And no one questions the word of Patricia Ord Mackenzie.
He turned down a lane with no idea where he was going.
Who could contradict her? Certainly not her husband. Was there any evidence? Any facts, as Don always said, to prove Patricia’s version of events? Nothing, Rob thought, not one eencyweency smidgen of a suggestion that Patricia was being anything other than truthful. So why do I not believe her?
Rob found himself at the end of the Victorian covered arcade. He saw the station clock. He had half an hour before the trial would restart. He changed his mind about the coffee and went into the splendidly plain, unadorned—except for a wr
inkled calendar featuring Castle Urquhart at sunset, tearoom in the covered market. He took a stool at the high bench in the window. He ordered a tea—perfect with bacon roll. He sat staring at the traffic, feeling vacant. When Patricia appeared, center stage, on the steps from the Station Hotel, he registered her companion.
Well, well, he thought, I have to hand it to you Patricia, you’ve managed to entice Calum Sinclair into your web.
He watched her stumble. Deliberately, Rob thought. He saw Calum hold out his arm for support. He saw them cross the station car park. He saw Calum hold the car door open—nice car, Rob noticed—and he watched, and Calum too watched, as Patricia drove away.
Rob grinned to himself. Poor man, he will never know what’s hit him. Rob would love to share the incident with Joanne, but thought she would disapprove of his cynicism.
“Don, I’m taking a fifteen-minute break, that OK?” Joanne asked.
“You’re a big girl now, you don’t need teacher’s permission.” He didn’t look up from the copy he was marking.
Joanne took the flight of steps down to the Castle Street car park. The café where she was meeting Patricia was across the road. Halfway down the stairs, she noticed Patricia climbing out of a sleek, black car.
“Hello,” Joanne called out and waved. She’s noticeably pregnant now, she thought.
Patricia turned, saw Joanne, waved back, and waited.
“What do you think?” Patricia asked. “My new car.”
“Goodness, it’s very smart,” Joanne said. Very expensive too, she thought. “So your mother relented at last.”
“Oh no. This car is all mine, bought with my own money.” Patricia linked arms with Joanne and, steering her across the road, said no more on the subject of the car.
They took a table in the window. A waitress, in an old-fashioned black dress and white frilly apron, appeared.
“Tea for me,” Patricia said. “Coffee makes this little fellow kick.”
“Coffee for me,” Joanne ordered. “I need it on deadline day. So, how are you keeping?”
“I’m so healthy it’s ridiculous,” Patricia grinned. “Also running around like crazy. I am doing most of the work on the farm, as poor Mr. and Mrs. M. have to be here.”
