Their Final Act

by Alex Walters

  'This is the right place then? It's been a long time.'

  Jack stared at the figure standing before him, conscious that the blood was draining from his cheeks.

  'Hello, Uncle Jack. Aren't you going to invite me in?'

  29

  This is my life now, McKay thought. Accompanying grieving widows to identify their husband's corpses. Exactly the job satisfaction he'd hoped for when he'd joined the police. 'You're sure?' he said.

  'Aye, quite sure,' Fiona McGuire said. 'That's Jimmy, that is.'

  McKay nodded to the mortuary attendant and led Fiona back out into the corridor. 'Do you want to get a coffee somewhere?' he asked. 'Away from this place.'

  She nodded, giving him a weak smile. 'That would be good.'

  They'd brought her up there earlier that afternoon after local officers had visited her at the flat she'd shared with her husband on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She'd already been concerned. 'He was supposed to be back here by now. He always phones if he's going to be delayed.' She'd been on the point of calling the police herself, but had delayed for fear of appearing foolish, 'I kept telling myself there must be a simple explanation. Something wrong with his phone. He'd travelled up on the train, so he couldn't have been in a car accident or anything…'

  She'd insisted on coming immediately to conduct the identification. McKay could tell, as they'd entered the mortuary, that she was silently praying the body would not be that of her husband. But she'd known immediately.

  There were no tears. But her face was ashen, her eyes dead. McKay felt as if Fiona aged ten years in the last few minutes.

  Unsure where else to go, McKay drove them to a nearby supermarket that he knew housed a café. The place was fairly busy but large enough for McKay to find them a table in a corner by the window away from the other customers. When he returned with two coffees, she was staring blankly out at the car park.

  'You don't need to say anything,' McKay said, pushing one of the coffees towards her. 'We'll have to interview you formally in due course, but that can wait for the moment.' Inwardly, McKay wondered how long they could afford to delay. In any murder case, a partner has to be considered a considered a suspect in the first instance. Given the coverage the case was likely to receive, they couldn't let things slide, simply through consideration of Fiona's feelings.

  'I need to talk,' she said. 'I mean, I'll probably just ramble but it's good to talk to someone about it all.'

  'If we take you back this afternoon, is there anyone who can stay with you?'

  She blinked, as if surprised by the question.

  Most likely, McKay thought, she won't have considered anything beyond this immediate moment. Whatever future she might have been expecting had been cancelled.

  'I can find someone,' she said. 'A friend, maybe.'

  'We'll get someone to help you sort that out.' He paused, wondering how to start the conversation. 'You were surprised your husband hadn't been in touch. Was that unusual?'

  'Very. Jimmy wasn't like that.'

  'When did he last call you?'

  'Just before the show. To let me know he'd got there safely and that it seemed to be a decent place, good crowd.' Her voice was toneless. 'I thought he'd call after he'd finished on stage. He often does that.' McKay could sense she was wondering whether to change the tense in what she'd just said, but instead she continued. 'I was surprised he hadn't. Particularly as it was his hometown. Then I thought he was probably just having a drink or two with someone and hadn't had a chance to call…'

  'You never accompanied him when he was performing?'

  'Not usually. Once or twice, if we decided to make a trip of it. We did that more when we first got married. But I didn't like taking advantage of what Jimmy was doing. It's work for him and I don't like to intrude on that. I think he preferred me to stay at home.'

  'How long had you been married?' McKay asked,

  'Five years this autumn.' She stopped, clearly thinking about the implications of what she'd just said.

  'How long had he been away?'

  'It was just a one-night stand. He's done a couple of tours over the last year or so, but this was just a single booking. So he was going to be away literally just for the night. That's why I got so worried.'

  'Did he do many one-off gigs? I don't really know how these things work.'

  She was silent for a moment. 'To be honest, Jimmy's not had the easiest time over the last few years. You know he had all that trouble? Or at least his partner did. It wasn't Jimmy's fault but he suffered as much as Jack did.'

  Not quite, McKay thought, given he hadn’t ended up in prison. 'That must have been difficult.'

  'It was long before we met. But, yes. They'd been on the verge of some real success. You never know how far they might have gone, but they were beginning to appear on the TV, playing bigger venues. It all vanished overnight.'

  'No one could blame your husband for what his partner did.'

  'You'd think not, wouldn't you? But it never seems to work like that. Because they were partners, everyone assumed they were in each other's pockets. So Jimmy must either have been doing the same things, or at least known what Jack was up to. Anyway, they were a double act. Without Jack, they weren't anything, even if Jimmy was really the talented one.'

  'Aye, I can see that.'

  'So Jimmy was left having to start from scratch. From what he'd told me, they weren't easy years. Jimmy had his own demons. Drank too much, just when he was trying to make a comeback. Funny, that had apparently been one of Jack's problems. He liked the sauce too much and couldn't really handle it. Jimmy could handle it okay – up to a point. But he knocked it back too much. Got himself a reputation as unreliable, difficult to work with. It's really only been in the last year or two he's started to claw it back–' She stopped suddenly. 'Christ, he's dead, isn't he? I mean, that's a stupid thing to say. I've just seen his body. But somehow I hadn't believed it. That he really is dead.'

  There was nothing McKay could say. He imagined it still hadn't really sunk in for her. It would, eventually, but there was no telling when or how. In his own case, it had been the sight of some childhood toy in Lizzie's bedroom. It hadn't even been a toy she'd cared for. Just a long-forgotten doll. Chrissie had found McKay sitting on the bed sobbing. The one time he'd really shown emotion about Lizzie's death.

  'Can you think of anyone who might have wished your husband harm, Mrs McGuire?' It was the fatuous question they were always obliged to ask. McKay couldn't recall an instance when he'd received a useful answer.

  'Jimmy? No. He wasn't always everyone's best friend, if you see what I mean. He'd got up a few people's noses over the years. But not to the point where anyone would actually want to harm him.'

  'What about Jack? His partner. Had your husband heard anything from him?'

  'Not for years, as far as I know. Don't think Jimmy ever really forgave Jack. When Jack went to prison – that was it. Jimmy just cut him off.'

  'He didn't go to see him in prison?'

  'That's what he told me. They'd never really been friends. It wasn't like some double acts where they've always known each other. This was a purely business thing. They'd realised the dynamic worked so they'd become partners. Jimmy always reckoned that Jack had been the perfect foil for him. He was funny enough on his own, but he worked best with someone to bounce off.'

  'You've no idea where Jack is now? We'll need to talk to him.'

  'I can't imagine he'll have anything useful to tell you.'

  'We have to investigate every possibility,' McKay said vaguely. 'We'll need to get a formal statement from you in due course, I'm afraid.'

  'There's nothing I can tell you, either.'

  'There may be, Mrs McGuire. There may be details about your husband that might be pertinent.' He was conscious of keeping his words abstract, skating around the risk of distressing or offending her. There was no point in creating barriers he didn't need to.

  'Nobody's even really told me how he died,' she s
aid, after a moment. 'The officers who came to see me gave me the impression it was a mugging, but they couldn't give me any details.'

  It wouldn't be possible to keep the full story from Fiona for long, but for the moment he preferred not to say more than he had to. 'We don't yet know the exact circumstances, Mrs McGuire. He was attacked in the street by person or persons unknown. It may have been an attempted robbery, but it doesn't appear that anything was stolen. That's something else we'll need to check with you in due course, but his wallet, credit cards, phone and so on appear not to have been taken.'

  'So why would anyone attack him?'

  'That's what we need to find out. It may just have been random, sadly. Someone who'd been drinking or was on drugs. As I say, it might have been a failed robbery.' He paused, wondering whether to continue then said, 'Or it might have been because your husband was targeted for some reason.'

  Her mouth was open, and he wondered if he'd gone too far.

  'I can't see why anyone would have wanted to hurt Jimmy.'

  'That's most likely the case, Mrs McGuire. But we have to explore every avenue.'

  'Someone must have seen it happen,' she said, as if changing the subject.

  'We're checking all CCTV cameras in the vicinity, and we will be appealing for any witnesses to come forward. It was in the city centre, not too late, so we're hopeful we'll find something.'

  'Why would anyone attack Jimmy?' she asked again, as if she hadn't heard his response.

  'We'll find out, Mrs McGuire.' He could sense that the reality was beginning to strike her. 'Let me take you back to the station. We'll help you find someone to come and stay with you, then we'll take you back home.'

  'I just don't understand why anyone would want to hurt Jimmy,' she said. It was as if, in the end, that was what she had to cling on to, McKay thought. That there was no reason for Jimmy's death.

  The more she said it, the more he wondered whether it was true.

  30

  Jane and Alicia spent the rest of the morning weeding the flowerbeds at the rear of the house. The beds were larger and more extensive than Jane had realised, and there was plenty of work to keep them busy. She supposed the task was worthwhile, though her unskilled eye could see only a minor improvement from the effort they'd put into it.

  Halfway through the morning, Netty Munro had appeared bearing glasses of the home-made lemonade, which the two young women had gratefully accepted. The day wasn't overly warm but it was dry and bright, thin white clouds drifting slowly across the otherwise clear sky. The firth was a deep blue, dotted with occasional whitecaps from the breeze, and the mountains were startlingly clear. This was heaven, Jane thought. Better than anywhere she had ever been.

  'I'll do some lunch for us about twelve thirty,' Munro said. 'Just something light.'

  * * *

  The lunch might have been light, but yet again it was different from anything Jane had previously eaten. There was bread which Munro said was home-baked sourdough, a platter of cheeses she mostly didn't recognise, and some sliced cold meat, fragrant with herbs. 'The cheeses are mostly local,' Munro said, as she set out the various platters. 'Apart from that one.' She pointed to a white cheese flecked with green. 'That's from the cheese shop in Cromarty. Dutch goat's cheese with sweet clover.'

  As far as Jane was concerned, Munro could have been speaking a foreign language. But she sat herself at the table, spread salty butter on a slice of the bread, and felt more content than she could remember.

  It seemed to be just the three of them for lunch – herself, Alicia and Netty Munro. There was no sign of Henry Dowling and still no sign of Elizabeth.

  'How are you both feeling now?' Munro asked when they were all seated. 'Have you had a chance to settle in?'

  It was clear Alicia wasn't going to volunteer any immediate answer. Jane said, 'I think so. It's all so different.'

  'In what way different, dear?' Munro helped herself to a slice of one of the cheeses.

  'I've never lived anywhere like this. I mean, I've only ever lived in the city.'

  'In Inverness?'

  'Yes.'

  'But you must have been up here… out into the country.'

  Jane felt confused for a moment. She felt that she ought to have done, perhaps as a child, maybe on school trips. If she thought about it, she perhaps had vague half-memories of passing through fields or visiting a beach. It seemed absurd she could have lived in a city as small as Inverness, surrounded by such extraordinary open countryside, and yet she'd never been out there. But that was how it was.

  Her dad had never taken them anywhere. He wanted to stay at home and spend what little spare cash he had on booze. Her ma couldn't afford to take them anywhere, and couldn't even afford to pay the small amount needed for school trips. She made some excuse and kept her at home on those days.

  She'd thought things might change when she married Iain. But almost nothing had. She just drifted into that, and had succeeded only in marrying a younger version of her dad with even less interest in taking her anywhere. She thought they must have had a few joint excursions when they were first going out together, but she couldn't recall anywhere more adventurous than some local pubs and nightclubs. Iain hadn't liked to drive, because if he drove he couldn't drink. There wasn't much more important to Iain than being able to drink.

  So, ridiculous as it seemed, she'd never got closer to the open country than the glimpses of the mountains between the city's buildings, an occasional sighting of the Beauly Firth from the Longman's Estate. The saddest thing was that she hadn't even known she was missing it. Of course, she'd known there was something else out there. But it had never occurred to her that it was something she ought to be desiring. She was a city girl and that was the countryside. As far as she was concerned, the two never needed to meet.

  Had she been brainwashed to think like that? In a way, she supposed. Her dad and her ma had always lowered her aspirations. She was a bright girl. She'd known that even then. She was hard-working, good at her schoolwork, not really interested in most of the silly stuff that obsessed her friends. She'd been seen as a bit of a swot. Oddly, the other girls hadn't despised or resented her for that. She'd felt herself almost protected by her schoolmates, like some rare and exotic creature who needed to be guarded from the tougher world out there. If anyone tried to bully her, someone would step in and prevent it.

  The teachers had wanted her to go and do Highers, even think about university but her dad had made it clear that wasn't for the likes of her. He wanted her out earning a living at the earliest opportunity. In any case, that just wasn't what you did if you were from her background. It was as if, by displaying any interest in things outside his ken, she was somehow showing contempt for everything he stood for.

  Maybe she was.

  She hadn't really even thought to challenge him. They'd had rows about many things, her and her dad, but that hadn't been one of them. It was as if she'd accepted he was right.

  So she'd done what was expected. She'd left school, got herself a job in one of the city stores, met and married Iain. Slipped into the routine that her mam had lived for years. She was beginning to realise what she'd missed.

  She realised she'd been silent too long, contemplating how to answer Munro's question. 'No,' she said finally. 'I've never been up here. I mean, I might have done but I've no memory of it.'

  Munro was staring at her, as if unable to believe what she was hearing. 'That's shocking,' she said. 'It would have been bad enough if you'd been brought up in London. But in Inverness, it beggars belief.' She turned to Alicia, who looked as if she'd been desperately hoping to avoid getting caught up in the conversation. 'What about you, Alicia?'

  'I don't know. I've been out to the country a few times. Not up here, really. But when I was small we used to go to Nairn sometimes. And out around Loch Ness. Not often, but sometimes.' She glanced at Jane, her expression almost shamefaced, as if her words implied a reproach. 'But they were just visits, you know. I've never
really stayed somewhere like this.'

  'It's as if you were both trapped,' Munro said. 'It seems incredible, in this day and age.'

  Not that incredible, Jane thought. Her own experience might have been more extreme, but she hadn't had the impression it was that different from a lot of her contemporaries. It occurred to her that it was possible for people to be living in relatively close proximity – geographically at least – but to have a very different understanding of how the world worked. Munro couldn't really begin to understand what hers or Alicia's background had been like. It wasn't exactly that Munro was privileged – though she no doubt was – but more than she was from a different world. A world where you had choices, could control your own fate. A world where you could make things happen rather than have to wait for it to happen to you.

  That was her overriding impression of Netty Munro, Jane supposed. This was a woman who made things happen, who controlled her own life. She'd implied she'd been a victim herself, that she had some understanding of what Jane and Alicia had experienced. Jane had no reason to question that, but she suspected that Munro's victimhood might have been different from theirs.

  'Still,' Munro went on, 'you're not trapped now. You're free. Free to do whatever you want.'

  Jane glanced across at Alicia hoping to catch her eye, but Alicia was staring down at the table, as if hoping not to be pulled back into the discussion. Jane had no words to respond to Munro. She hoped it was true. She hoped this was freedom.

  It didn't yet feel like it. Perhaps Jane didn't know what real freedom looked or felt like. Or perhaps she wouldn't know how to take advantage of freedom if she were offered it. But, for the moment, she still felt trapped. Trapped in a grander prison than she could ever have imagined, but still trapped.

  It wasn't Netty Munro's fault, she thought. It was her own fault. She was her own jailor, scared to step out even when the cell door was unlocked.