A Double Death on the Black Isle

by A. D. Scott

  “Janet Ord Mackenzie,” Rob smiled. “I never thought I’d be thanking that woman, but the Ord Mackenzie clan have supplied us with another great front page.”

  The adrenaline buzz ran around the table and they settled down to chase the story and compose another edition of the Highland Gazette.

  It was not an easy phone call to make. Joanne waited until late afternoon, when the reporters’ room was empty, before she dialed the number.

  “I knew it wouldn’t take you long to call back,” Patricia said.

  “I’m calling because I’m concerned about you.” Joanne hated the way Patricia made her feel guilty.

  “Are you sure you’re not calling for the inside story so you can impress your precious editor?”

  “Patricia, if it’s a bad time, I’ll call back.”

  “Of course it’s a bad time. In a few days it will be worse as the news spreads around the community. But at least I won’t ever again have to share a house with my mother. She is having difficulty finding a solicitor to represent her, so she is being kept in custody overnight. With any luck, she won’t be given bail.”

  “I see.” Joanne didn’t know what to say. “No, sorry, I don’t see, but it is none of my business.”

  “Oh Joanne,” Patricia laughed, “you’re hopeless. If you’re going to do that job of yours, you must make it your business.”

  Joanne didn’t know how to reply.

  “Tell you what,” Patricia said, “I will be at the hospital in town tomorrow for a checkup, let’s meet. I will tell you all I can. I’d rather you tell the story than have some other newspaper make it up. Agreed?”

  “Thank you.”

  Joanne walked across the landing to McAllister’s office. The door was half-open and she knocked.

  “Enter.”

  He had his back to her and was reading some reports typed on yellowing bits of paper that looked old enough to be papyrus sheets from the time of Moses.

  “I’ve spoken to Patricia Ord Mackenzie. We’re meeting tomorrow.”

  “Good,” he said, indicating she take a chair, “and I’ve been reading a report from forty years ago on the marriage and settlement of marriage between Janet Ord and her Mackenzie husband. It seems she brought a substantial amount of land and Achnafern Grange to the marriage. He contributed a largish and prosperous farm to form the estate, but she kept her share in her name only.” He handed the papers to Joanne. “This was all about the land and estate, wasn’t it?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Joanne said. “I think it was all about preserving their name and reputation. Plus Janet Ord Mackenzie seems to believe in the divine right of the landed gentry to own her workers in much the same way as she owns the livestock.”

  “Not an uncommon attitude.”

  “No,” Joanne replied, “but as you have often pointed out, we are in the middle of the twentieth century, and no longer a feudal society.”

  “It’s highly unlikely we can publish the feudal complexities of this story, but talk to Patricia, write a news story, then take your time and write it up with the background nuances explained. Then I will see if I can place it in a national newspaper.”

  “No! Really? I couldn’t. No. I mean—yes, I’ll try. But I’m not a writer.” Joanne stared at him, marveling at the very idea of it.

  “Never know till you try.”

  She had the distinct impression he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t, so she left saying, “Thanks, McAllister. I’ll do my best.”

  Patricia and Joanne met in Arnotts tearoom. They took a table in the window and watched the Tuesday morning traffic along Union Street, mostly pedestrian, mostly coming and going from the covered Victorian market. Joanne was glad of the view—it gave her somewhere to look when Patricia’s story became too embarrassing.

  “I didn’t think one way or another about the Land Rover,” Joanne said when Patricia finished explaining about the car.

  “Neither did I,” said Patricia, “but that was where the whole debacle started: Mr. M., seeing the Land Rover disappear round the corner, believed I was driving and covered up for me; Mrs. M. eventually found out, thought I could have . . . Oh God, it is horrible! How could my mother do that to me?” Patricia shuddered as though a ghost had passed by.

  “But Mr. and Mrs. Munro now know the truth,” Joanne reminded her, “and Mr. Munro must care for you very much to cover up for you.”

  She looked up and Joanne saw the dark smudges under her eyes. “It helps to know that, especially after your own mother has declared how much she hates you.”

  “Your father cares.”

  “I know. It was Daddy who told the police.”

  “Really?”

  Patricia’s lips narrowed imperceptibly. Joanne remembered the expression well. She remembered it as the face that was about to deliver some cruelty or cutting remark.

  “Isn’t this the moment you whisk out your little notebook and write down everything I say? Or haven’t you mastered shorthand yet?”

  Joanne blushed.

  “Sorry, sorry, it has been an exhausting few days.” Patricia reached for the pot and poured a second cup of tea, her sandwiches, on the silver tray in the middle of the small table, still uneaten and beginning to curl at the edges.

  “I wish I smoked,” Patricia began. “Right, yesterday. After the confrontation on Sunday, I went back to the farmhouse and stayed there. Early on Monday morning, Daddy arrived. He told me that he and Mr. Munro had an appointment with Calum Sinclair. Daddy said I needn’t come with them, but I wanted to. So we went in my car.”

  The journey to Dingwall was as though they were off to the cattle market or any other everyday farm business. Her father had chatted about the Alvis, admiring it, telling her what good judgment she had in cars, as in everything else, and she remembered that all she could think of was the road, concentrating on a road she knew so well she never had to think of the turns and twists and blind corners.

  “Calum Sinclair listened to Allie Munro,” Patricia told Joanne. “Mr. M. had trouble at first, he kept hesitating. Daddy urged him on, told him to tell Calum every little detail, everything he had seen and heard. I told Calum—and Daddy confirmed it—how controlling my mother was over her car. How it would be easy for Mr. M. to believe I was the driver.

  “Then Calum called the police, and a sergeant came over to take our statements. By then it was late morning and when they said they were going to Achnafern to arrest my mother, we all stayed in Dingwall until the police telephoned Calum and said my mother was in custody. For some odd reason, I called you. I needed to tell someone. It was only after I put down the receiver that I regretted the call. But it was done. You would have found out anyway, as Mrs. Munro told your mother-in-law.”

  “Do you mind if I write this up for the Gazette?”

  “Honestly, Joanne? I am so tired I am beyond caring. All I ask is that you protect the Munros as much as possible.”

  “I will do what I can.”

  “And please get word to Mrs. Jenny McPhee, will you? I’m not up to that either. I want to keep on the right side of the tinkers. It would be hard to harvest the tatties without them.”

  The change of subject threw Joanne and she agreed.

  “I’ll ask Rob to find Jimmy and let him know.”

  “I knew that the whole idea of going on a honeymoon with Sandy was ridiculous,” Patricia began. “That morning, before it was even light, we had a dreadful fight. And on the drive from the Black Isle, and on the drive to Dores, he kept on and on about money. He refused to believe we don’t have limitless amounts of cash. He’d never heard of money being locked up in investments. He thought you wrote out a cheque and that was that. When he realized I was telling the truth, he said we could sell off a field or some woodland, we’d never notice he said, as the estate is so big. Also his driving was scaring me senseless, and he blew up when I asked him to stop and swap places.”

  “Patricia, I am so sorry you’ve had to endure all these
terrible events, especially in your condition.”

  Patricia looked at Joanne. “The difference between us is that when you found out what your husband was really like, you put up with him for what, ten years?”

  “Bill is not a bad person—he’s too fond of the bottle, that’s all.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Joanne, you don’t have to pretend with me.”

  They were both quiet for a moment.

  “Go on, ask me.” Patricia was angry in a quiet simmering anger. “You been dying to ask, haven’t you?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Here we go again, Miss Goody Two Shoes, or should I say Mrs. Perfect, hiding all your troubles, putting on a brave face. You, who were off to university, destined to marry a minister of the church . . . having to marry a common soldier . . . a man completely beneath you in class and education . . . disgracing your family, running away to the Highlands so you wouldn’t have to face the shame of a baby after six-months of marriage. You are so self-righteous.”

  “Patricia!” Joanne was appalled at such a bald, but factual summary of her life.

  “You think I killed Sandy, don’t you?”

  “No matter what anyone else has implied, I have always defended you.”

  “Joanne. Don’t you see? That is what is so unbearable about you. You are always so nice! And by defending me, you’re implying I need defending. Joanne, please, I don’t need your condescension.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Munro defended you even when they thought you had killed their son.”

  Patricia waved dismissively. “They had good reason to think I was guilty. They thought it was me driving the Land Rover.”

  “I have never thought you had anything to do with Sandy’s death.” Joanne was reeling after Patricia’s accusation and could not manage any conviction in her voice. The words came over as lame—even to her.

  “Really? Well, whatever happed to Sandy Skinner was an accident and I really don’t care if you believe me or not.” Patricia reached into her purse and took out her share of the bill with nothing allowed for a tip.

  Joanne would never forget Patricia’s parting words.

  “Joanne, stop being such a martyr, I’m sure I’m not the only one who can’t stand it.” She rose to leave. “I know my family’s story is all over the front page of the Gazette, but don’t expect me to read it.”

  They didn’t know it, but this was the last time Joanne would meet with Patricia, apart from the usual Christmas cards and the occasional phone call. This was their last real conversation. Friends since they were seven and alone and abandoned at their boarding school, this was the last time they would ever really talk.

  As Joanne walked back to the Gazette, taking the shortcut through the lanes, although Patricia’s words would never leave her, she realized she was not upset at the passing of the friendship—she was relieved.

  The freshly printed copies of that day’s Highland Gazette lay scattered on the reporters’ table. Joanne was looking at Hector’s photograph of Achnafern House. He made it look like a Black Isle version of the House of Usher. And seeing the Ord Mackenzie name on the front page, seeing the story as others would see it, Joanne knew that the scandal would pass down through the generations, or as long as the Ord Mackenzie name was remembered—exactly what Janet Ord Mackenzie had been fighting to avoid.

  Rob was cutting out his writing to paste into the portfolio of work he was accumulating, ready to show future employers when he made his break for the big time.

  Hector was sorting through various envelopes, some small, which he used for negatives; some medium, which he used for proof sheets; and one large one, which he kept for prints to be filed in the Gazette photo library.

  “Here,” Rob reached into his drawer and took out a manila envelope. “You might as well have this back.” He pushed the envelope towards Hector. “It’s the photo of the Falls of Foyers I was going to have framed for Joanne.”

  “Don’t you like it?” Hector asked.

  “I haven’t looked at it,” Rob told them. “I thought Joanne might not appreciate having a framed photo of the scene of a crime hanging on her wall.”

  “For the last time, Rob, it is not the scene of a crime. Sandy’s death was an accident.” Joanne said this with more conviction than she felt. “But thank you both for the idea, I’d love one of your pictures, Hector.”

  “The bull with his dangly bits?”

  “Rob!” she laughed.

  “Come over to ma studio,” Hec said, “choose a photo for yourself.”

  “I will.” She added her finished copy to the tray in the center of the table then rolled her shoulders asking, “Anyone fancy going out for a coffee?”

  “Me.” Rob stood.

  “I’ll see you there,” Hec said.

  “I want to finish filing this lot.”

  With a pencil, he was marking the file number on the back of the prints, filling in the corresponding numbers and a brief description in the photo ledger. He worked quickly; in this and only this, he was neat, tidy, accurate.

  He picked up the envelope Rob had given back and took out the print from his May Day jaunt to the Falls of Foyers. He looked at it carefully, trying to decide whether to file it or not.

  No, he thought, I’ll keep it—if it were printed in a newspaper, those two wee figures standing next to each other on the edge of the falls would look like dirty smudges. Pity, he thought, they give perspective to the photo, show the height and the depth and the magnificence of the falls.

  You really can’t make out the figures clearly, he thought. I never even saw them when I took the shot. That person is standing far too close to the edge, makes it look really scary. But no, Hector decided the focus isn’t good enough. A pity.

  He put the photograph back into the envelope, and hesitated. Was it a three? Maybe a two? No—a three for third rate, he decided and wrote the date on the envelope.

  He put the envelope into his satchel, to file later in his private collection of over five thousand prints, and like most of the photographs in the file marked “three,” it would be forgotten about.

  Even after Hector was famous, and his work sought after, it would not be archived along with his more famous portraits—like the one of the Aberdeen Angus bull in all his glory.

  EPILOGUE

  Highland Gazette

  October 27, 1957

  Mrs. Janet Ord Mackenzie of Achnafern Grange, the Black Isle, Ross & Cromary plead guilty to the manslaughter of Fraser Munro of Achnafern Estate on April of this year.

  Mrs. Ord Mackenzie was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

  Highland Gazette

  November 16, 1957

  Births

  Mr. Iain Ord Mackenzie of Achnafern Grange is pleased to announce the birth of his first grandchild. A daughter, Morag Agnes, was born to Patricia Skinner née Ord Mackenzie at Raigmore Hospital on the 3rd November. Mother and baby are well.

  Highland Gazette

  December 18, 1957

  Engagements

  Mr. Iain Ord Mackenzie of Achnafern Estate is pleased to announce the engagement of his only daughter, Patricia, to Mr. Calum Sinclair of Thurso, Caithness. The marriage will take place in March of next year.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my friends in Cat Cat View Hotel, Sa Pa, Vietnam, for looking after me as I write. To Pete Wilkes for his love, his wise words, and for always dropping everything to go on a bike ride. To Dilh Khac Tiep, a true artist and inspiration. To Glenn McVeigh, dear friend and “handbag,” thanks for the encouragement, the wine and cups of tea, and for listening. To Tran Duc, chef extraordinaire at Mango Mango, Hoi An, and to Le and little Mai for the love and friendship and excellent food. To Ian Munro, best barman ever. To my friends in Cat Cat View Hotel, Sa Pa, Vietnam, for looking after me as I write. To Tom Greenwood, thanks for the always interesting insights into the manuscript in progress.

  A special thanks to Indica Nolan for being such a wonderful compani
on.

  Thank you as ever to Sheila Drummond, of the Drummond Agency, agent and good friend, thank you for all the hard work you put into caring for your authors. Peter McGuigan of Foundry Media was his usual self—patient, funny, encouraging, and, most of all, he believes in his authors.

  To all the team at Atria, especially Sarah Cantin, whom all work away quietly in the background, your efforts and hard work are much appreciated.

  Most of all, I owe a huge debt of thanks (which seems such an inadequate word) to Sarah Durand, my editor. Sarah, throughout the most difficult year of my life, you showed me love, patience, encouragement, and never stopped believing this book would be completed. I could not have done it without you.

  Finally to Hugh, light of my life, who never got to read the ending.

  A DOUBLE DEATH ON THE BLACK ISLE

  A. D. SCOTT

  A READERS CLUB GUIDE

  QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. Joanne and Patricia’s friendship is based on their shared history, but no longer translates as clearly to their present. Look closely at their interactions. How does their relationship evolve over the course of the novel? What moments in the text serve as particular turning points?

  2. Were you familiar with the Tinkers (or Travelers) before reading this novel? Are there other minority groups that you find them similar to?

  3. Rob is offered a job at the bigger, fancier newspaper in Aberdeen, but he decides to stay at the Highland Gazette. Did you agree with his decision?

  4. As Rob thinks through Joanne’s excuses for her bruises, he hits upon the truth: “Joanne, it’s simple. Take him to court, have him locked away. And to his almost twenty-year-old thinking, it was that simple.” To the narrator and Joanne herself, however, it clearly isn’t. What do you think?