A Small Death in the Great Glen

by A. D. Scott

  “Fine. I’ll think about it. If I come up with an idea, I’ll tell you. Promise.”

  “At first I was really excited about working on a murder case. We never get anything like that around here. But now, every time I think of that wee soul, I feel ashamed. I want this solved, but we seem to be getting nowhere and, well, I feel we’re letting him down.” She was closely examining the swirls of pattern on the Formica tabletop as she spoke. “Rob, we have to find whoever did this.”

  The silence was about five seconds. And for once, Rob had nothing to add. Ann rescued them.

  “Anyway, as per usual, I’m breaking the rules—passing on police information, and especially to you.” She had him now. “All I’ll say is”—she grinned—“ask Gino about the convoy.”

  “Convoy?”

  “It’s driving Inspector Tompson nuts. And it’s a great story.”

  “That’s Inspector Tompson. …” They sang out together: “Inspector Tompson, without an H, with a P.”

  “Tell me more.”

  Ann shook her head and repeated, “Ask Gino.”

  Joanne had felt a presence—No, she thought, an absence—as she walked down the path to the McLeans’ front door. Wee Jamie disappeared from here. She was glad when the door opened and she could step out of the dark and the shadows.

  She and Margaret sat by the fire and chatted. No more, no less; no deep and serious discussions, no philosophizing, nor revelations, unless they were amusing. Joanne loved the novelty of a good listener who was genuinely interested in her work at the Gazette and her dreams of a career. Margaret in turn enthralled Joanne with stories: Paris in the thirties, Edinburgh society, Highland balls, staying with stuffy relatives in freezing baronial castles for New Year parties.

  “I wore woolen underwear—long johns and vest—under a Fortuny gown on one particularly cold Hogmanay in a castle where it was colder inside than out.”

  The gin and the stories were working well.

  “Speaking of gowns, what are you wearing to Chiara and Peter’s wedding dance?”

  Joanne confessed she was planning on wearing her matron of honor dress or even her Highland dancing dress and sash.

  “You may remember, last time I got dressed up, it didn’t go down too well with some.” The recollection still hurt, but a smidgen of revenge had been exacted. The face of Mr. Findlay Grieg as he peered down her cleavage was the least of the unpleasant memories. And who’s had the last laugh, Mr. Grieg?

  Margaret squinted down the long slim ivory holder she habitually used, and peering through the cigarette smoke, she sized Joanne up.

  “I think it would be about right. Come on, let’s see.”

  The small room, off a large bedroom, was filled down one side with dresses and ball gowns, hidden in protective bags. Opposite, a table was laden with makeup and unguents of the most expensive variety. Lights set around the mirror made Joanne think of a dressing room of some famous star of stage or opera.

  “This one, I think.” Margaret held up a floating, shimmering dress of pale blue silk, studded with star clusters of beading, looking critically at Joanne, then back to the dress. “No, not that one. Let me see. Aha! This one.” She held it up. “This one definitely.”

  Joanne looked doubtfully at a most peculiar garment. It hung straight. No form, no shape. Delicate uneven pleats ran from shoulder to hemline, with a deep V neckline front and back.

  “And this.” She threw a cape at Joanne. The soft, deep, glowing fur made her want to bury her face and hands in the pile.

  “I’ll be back in a minute. Try the dress on. And put on a pair of the highest heels you can find. Luckily, we’re the same size.”

  Joanne wriggled into the gown. It fitted. More than fitted: it hugged every contour of her body. Her breasts were clearly outlined, the cleavage accentuated. The deep ruby silk set off the red in Joanne’s hair. The silver fox-fur capelet, much lighter than it looked, draped gracefully over her shoulders. She breathed in its warmth. She pirouetted. The gown rippled with a soft swooshing sigh. Catching herself in the mirror, she was amazed at the transformation. For the first time, she glimpsed her own beauty.

  “Margaret.”

  Joanne tiptoed through to the sitting room, three inches taller in a pair of snakeskin sandals.

  “Oh, my dear.” Margaret clapped her hands. “Perfect.”

  From the sitting room doorway, four other hands clapped in appreciation.

  “Rob. Mr. McLean. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Rob grinned. “You look a complete smasher. Doesn’t she, Dad?”

  “Absolutely! Couldn’t agree more.”

  Joanne laughed and did a mock catwalk prance toward him. He opened the record player, put on a Viennese waltz, bowed and, still in his leather motorbike jacket, asked, “May I have the next waltz, Princess Cinderella, or are you a Highland Mata Hari?”

  “Idiot.” Joanne mock-punched him, then curtseyed—“Thank you, kind sir”—and they waltzed around the carpet, Margaret and Angus McLean joining in, laughing, smiling, good friends together.

  Later, Joanne snuggled under the eiderdown with the hot water bottle Margaret had insisted on filling for her. Tired, emotional, happy, she was halfway down the spiral to sleep when a stray thought, insistent as a wasp after the jam, dragged her back to consciousness.

  “What was it Annie had said about the hoodie crow? Where did she say she had seen it?” But it refused to come to her. Thoughts of new beginnings, a single life with two children, working full-time on the Gazette, her mother-in-law’s reaction and her sister and brother-in-law’s, the condemnation from town and kirk, the challenge of living up to her own expectations, how she would tell Bill and the girls, and what would McAllister think. … She heaved the quilt right up to her nose. The frost could be sensed, smelled almost, hard, bright and clean. She smiled. Her breathing slowed again. Her last thought in the strange bed was, Well, I won’t be able to say my life is dull anymore.

  That same night, across the river, in his own bed again, McAllister was sleeping the sleep of the completely exhausted. Angus McLean had visited and stayed briefly, conversation being limited. The solicitor had brought books, magazines and week-old English newspapers. The London papers were full of politics. The Suez Canal continued to dominate the news. The books included one gem, the new Evelyn Waugh. The magazines brought a vivid variety of writing, especially the Spectator.

  His incapacity in the speech department had reminded him of his true skill—writing. He started after Mr. McLean had left and remembered how much he enjoyed it. I should write more, he thought. A short story, maybe a color piece for a magazine; this is the twilight of the Celtic race, surely I should be recording the demise of an ancient culture. Keith McPhee has his Scottish history and stories of the Traveling people, I could record the ordinary, the people who still live as they have for generations, never going anywhere, except to war, lives and language and the land unchanged until now; they are the keepers of the lore. Nineteen fifty-six, the winds of change have reached us, he thought, we’ll not be able to shelter from them.

  He reached for the em rule, laid the large sheets of paper out on the dining table and started to lay out his ideas for a new dummy for the Gazette. Local news first of course, two columns of national headline stories, features and in-depth articles, op-ed and letters and the Godspot, a section for women readers, a nature column maybe, the classifieds, then sport on the back three pages.

  He penciled in ideas, made lists in the margins, New Year, a new paper—maybe. A Highland Gazette fit for the second half of the twentieth century. He hummed a discordant version of “Coming Through the Rye,” another favorite Rabbie Burns song. Finishing up, he looked over his work and pronounced, “This is going to be exciting.”

  Under the layers of eiderdown, drifting off, wisps of thoughts, like mist on a peat bog, floated images of Joanne through his whisky sleep; Joanne frowning over the typewriter, Joanne pedaling her bike against the gale, Joanne laughing and m
ock-fighting with Rob, and a bruised and subdued Joanne limping up the stairs to work. But the image of her sitting quietly, lost in a daydream, with a half smile, and her humming a tune, that was what accompanied him into his own dreaming.

  Rob always fell asleep instantly. A thought flitted around as he got ready for bed. What was Ann trying to tell him? He turned out the bedside lamp, pulled the blankets up to his nose. The faint smell of smoke that he had noticed as he put away his motorbike was still there. Was it coming from next door? Can’t be. He turned over. There it was, definitely. An odd smell—burning wool? Singeing blankets? He’d investigate. In the morning. And he was asleep.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Rob ran into Gino, literally, outside the station bookstall.

  “Sorry, Mr. Corelli. I didn’t see you.” It was on the tip of his tongue to say because you’re so short. But he didn’t. “I was looking for you, I wanted to ask you about the convoy.”

  “Convoy? What is a convoy?”

  Rob explained.

  “I don’t know nothing about no convoy.” Gino was puzzled. “Maybe you mean about our friends from all over Scotland, and some from England, driving up for the wedding. Sí? And some, the older ones, they come by the train, that’s why I’m here. You come to my house later, sí?”

  “Sí. I mean, aye, I will.”

  Rob saw a story in this, and the offer of coffee he would never refuse. In a tea-drinking nation, coffee was a novelty, real coffee a rarity. Rob had had to learn to like the stuff. It was part of his self-education to become a sophisticated man of the world like McAllister.

  When he arrived at the Corelli household the final, final finishing touches to the wedding dress were being made. This time, it was the veil that needed adjusting.

  “To match the necklace,” Chiara said.

  “What necklace?” Rob asked. But no explanation was given.

  Gino was glad to see Rob. “Come into the kitchen, I’m making the coffee.” The fuss over—to him minor—details was exhausting. He thought the dress looked perfect five fittings ago. He was also exhausted by the logistics of accommodating such a large group of wedding guests. Weeks had been spent sorting out hotels and boardinghouses. He had to make sure the landladies understood that locking up for the night, indeed locking the guests out, at nine in the evening would not be acceptable.

  “This is a good Christian household, Mr. Corelli. The doors are locked at nine o’clock sharp. No exceptions. No, no keys are available,” more than one landlady had declared. That eliminated those particular guesthouses. A no alcohol sign in the foyer eliminated others. Gino was shocked to find that some landladies were reluctant to take children. Accommodation was found in the string of boardinghouses along the riverbank for most of the guests; the rest would cram into Gino and Lita’s house. Gino poured another coffee.

  “Rob, my boy, maybe you can help me, you and your motorbike. Maybe you make a convoy, sí?”

  Rob agreed, even before he knew what he was agreeing to.

  “Many guests, they drive here. I tell them to meet you in Nairn, sí?”

  “Nairn?”

  “Aye. They rendezvous for lunch. At the Napoli, my friend’s chip shop.”

  “Best fish and chips in the north. Excepting yours, of course,” Rob added quickly.

  “That’s a right. Mine’s is the best. You go, no?”

  “Sí.”

  As he was about to turn onto the bridge to go back to the Gazette, he remembered he had forgotten to investigate the smell of smoke from the house next door. “Later.” He revved the engine to get up the hill, sending a flock of seagulls screeching skyward.

  Next day, Rob wheeled his bike out of the shed to a bright blue sky with not a cloud and only the scent of frost to cause concern. Snow still lay on the hills and the mountains but the town was dry.

  “It’s a brilliant day for a bike ride.” Margaret tucked in his scarf and kissed his cheek. “I do like a man in a leather jacket.”

  “Marlon Brando’s got nothing on me,” Rob yelled back, then opened up the throttle.

  Once clear of the town, the road ran parallel to the railway line for most of the way to Nairn. A flat straight seven-mile stretch was interrupted only by a level crossing. The temptation to speed was too great for a young man with a big red motorbike; the Triumph fairly flew. Glorious winter sunshine so bright that it hurt the retinas and dry, still cold made for a very short journey. It was a small, prosperous merchant farming town. A substantial area of Victorian and Edwardian houses, complete with a park and bandstand, enhanced the air of prosperity. On the southern end, a fishing village settled on the river mouth. The Nairn, a clean gentle river, ran down from mountains and moors, waylaid by a distillery and fishermen, and could be added straight into a glass of whisky. Across a wooden bridge was a particularly windswept golf course that followed the clean white sands of a beach that stretched mile upon mile along the shores of the firth and what seemed like mile upon mile out into the firth at low tide. When the sea retreated, the water was barely visible from the high sand dunes. And as long as you didn’t mind the biting North Sea winds, and the Presbyterian Sabbath, this was a fine wee town.

  The fish-and-chip shop and ice cream parlor stood opposite the high harbor wall in a converted tackle shed. It opened only on weekends at this time of year. In summer it did a roaring trade with day-trippers and holidaymakers staying in one of the many boardinghouses or at the town campsite. Now the only crowds were flocks of marauding seagulls.

  Turning off the main road Rob wound his way through narrow streets lined with whitewashed fisher cottages that opened directly onto the pavements. As he came into the cobbled square, he stared at the corral of multicolored vehicles. He hadn’t expected so many. Across the river, he spotted yet more vans all lined in a row. Fish-and-chip vans—seven, no, he counted again; eight. With the serving sides closed, and no smoke pouring from the chimneys and without their omnipresent smell, they could have had the forlorn look of a deserted funfair, but the fluttering bunting more than compensated. The brightly painted ice-cream vans, at least a dozen of them in every variety of color, diminished the northern winter. From a charabanc hung red, green and white flags at every window. Along the sides ran the emblem of the Scottish-Italian Friendship Club, Glasgow chapter. Cars, from smart saloons to Ford Prefects and Morris Traveler estates and old jalopies, were flying more Italian flags and at least one Saltire.

  “Would you look at thon!” marveled a local, pushing his flat cap back in astonishment. “I haven’t seen that many Eyeties since Sicily.”

  Inside the café, outside the café, seated on the seawall, were Italians; old women in black; young women flouncing by in pairs, their floating dirndl skirts filled out by layers of paper-nylon petticoats, waists cinched in by broad patent leather belts. Like prancing show ponies they tossed their pageboy haircuts in the wind. Others held on to beehives of teased and lacquered hair-dos, shrieking at every gust that threatened to collapse the startlingly high edifices. Old men in gaiters all seemed to have bandy legs; young men in tight trousers all seemed descended from storks. Children darted in and out, under and through, winter swallows gathering sweeties and lollipops and pieces of salami. The adults kept talking, with only an occasional swat with the back of the hand being necessary to calm an overexcited child.

  Rob walked into the café and introduced himself. He was welcomed by a small round woman in a white apron over a black dress, with olives for eyes and hair in a bun pulled so tight she could have been mistaken for a person of Asiatic lineage.

  “Gino told me about you. A fine young man, he says. You must be hungry after the drive. Sit down over here.”

  “I’ll not say no.” Rob was always hungry.

  “We’ve no fish and chips. You’ll have to eat the same as us.”

  “Anything’s fine, thanks.”

  She reappeared with an enormous white ashette, heaped high with hams, salamis, sausage, cheeses, pickled vegetables, fish, olives and dried t
omatoes. A plate of bread and coffee was placed in front of him with waved instructions to “eat, eat.”

  “Bianca?” the woman shouted to the back of the café. The waitress—or was it her daughter—came over with the cutlery. A sweet smile and a shy hello were all it took. Rob was smitten.

  “Thanks—Bianca, is it?”

  She smiled.

  “Are you coming to the wedding?”

  “Of course. She’s a bridesmaid,” her proud mother told him.

  A shrill whistle stopped further conversation. Laughing, shouting, in Italian of course, the milling groups gradually formed a semblance of order. Rob bolted the last of the food and went to get the bike.

  “See you at the wedding, Bianca.”

  “Aye. See you there.” She waved.

  Rob, returning her wave, walked backward right into another very short, very round man in a strange black hat with the Italian colors stuck in the band.

  “Excuse me, I’m so sorry,” he apologized.

  “Yes, she is a pretty girl, no?”

  “No. I mean yes.”

  They laughed. They introduced themselves. He was the convoy’s commandant. He showed Rob the whistle to prove it. He also had the newest and brightest of the ice-cream vans and, as Rob was soon to find out, the loudest of the chimes. They discussed tactics. Rob would be motorbike scout, escort, navigator and communications officer.

  It took twenty minutes for the vehicles to gather their cargo of wedding guests and another twenty minutes of backing up and three-point turns that were often seven- or nine-point turns in the narrow streets, then getting into formation. The commander, a Neapolitan, shouted one final instruction, which was relayed down the line, then they set out of the fishing village, on through the town, out onto the main north road.

  The flags and bunting snapped in the wind. The cacophony of jingles from the passing panoply was returned with cheery waves from the astonished denizens of Nairn. Shopkeepers stood in doorways, arms folded over their aprons, amazed. Children and a stray dog ran behind cheering. The police, having been alerted by their colleagues from previous town and county forces along the convoy route, saluted as the vehicles sedately passed out of the town limits.