North Sea Requiem

by A. D. Scott

  “With whom?”

  “Whoever can hurry up the papers.” She saw Joanne’s blank look. “The divorce papers.” As she said this she leaned towards Joanne and whispered the word divorce as though it was the dirtiest swear word in the world.

  “But why?” Joanne was not being deliberately obtuse, just not thinking clearly, wary as to what Betsy wanted from her; she understood well what a stain it was to be born out of wedlock—another phrase Joanne could remember her father uttering from his pulpit.

  “Look, Joanne . . .”

  Joanne recognized the tone; she had heard Betsy Buchanan in full warrior-in-marshmallow-coating mode before.

  “Bill stood up in court and admitted living with me. He took full responsibility for the end of your marriage, even though it wasn’t his fault, and you’re living with McAllister—Bill could easily have brought that up . . .”

  “I am not!” But Joanne was blushing.

  “That’s not what everyone’s saying . . . ask Fiona, she’ll tell you the gossip . . . not that that girl gossips . . .”

  Joanne never quite understood how Betsy, with her limited education, her never-having-left-a-small-town life, could and did come out the victor in almost every encounter between them. She knew Betsy needed a favor and she was surprised to find that she didn’t mind. More than that, she admitted to herself later, Betsy was her protection against Bill’s rages. He won’t be bothering me again, she thought.

  “Betsy, what do you want?”

  “Your help.”

  Betsy explained. Joanne listened. Joanne agreed to help. Betsy was delighted.

  • • •

  “McAllister, let’s take sandwiches to the Islands.” It was twelve thirty. Joanne had parted with Betsy an hour earlier and needed to tell McAllister about the conversation.

  As they crossed the first bridge, Joanne watched rays of sunshine, filtered through the green of budding beech leaves, dance on the swaying suspension bridge. Upward reflections coming off the river collided with the flickering above. The water was high, the weir unsuccessful in holding back spring as it flooded towards the firth and the fish and the dolphins and freedom. Joanne felt she was suspended in an impermanence of light.

  They took a bench in the heart of the cathedral of trees. They didn’t speak for minutes, letting the susurrus of wind and water and leaves envelope them.

  Calm her. Enrapture him.

  He had never had much time for nature before courting Joanne. A city, any city, Glasgow, Paris, London, Barcelona, Madrid, was his natural habitat. But the majesty of mature beech and oak and elm and ash and sycamore worked a magic he now appreciated. His nearly three years in the Highlands was changing him.

  When Joanne explained Betsy’s mission, he laughed. “I’m only a small-town editor, not God.” But he was delighted the divorce was finally happening.

  Joanne sighed. “I know. I told her we couldn’t help.”

  She opened the greaseproof paper and handed McAllister a sandwich of wholemeal bread, homemade potted hough, and the last of last year’s apple chutney.

  “This is bliss.”

  She thought he was speaking of their refuge under the trees in the middle of a tree cave in the middle of the river at lunchtime with no passersby. But he was speaking of the sandwich, holding it in the air, his other hand holding tea in a cup from the top of a thermos flask. A drip of chutney splattered onto his trousers.

  She laughed. “You’re worse than the children.” She leaned forwards to rub the mark on his trouser leg. Her hair parted at the back of her neck, revealing white skin that seldom saw sun. He thought this the most erotic sight he’d ever seen.

  “Betsy’s dilemma.” The solution came to him as he was trying to think of something, anything, to distract himself. “I’ll call Angus McLean. Surely the town’s foremost solicitor can hurry the paperwork along.”

  “That will cost. Bill won’t like that,” she pointed out.

  “I’ll pay the solicitor’s fee.” He considered it worth it to be rid of Bill Ross and married to Joanne as soon as possible.

  Joanne guessed what he was thinking. It wasn’t hard. A small cloud passed over the Islands. She shivered. And it wasn’t from cold.

  Out of the frying pan into the fire, she’d joked to McAllister once when, without asking, he’d assumed a wedding would follow a divorce. She’d meant it in a positive way. She liked fires. She liked being warm and loved. But still she felt a chill.

  He loves me. I love him. He will look after me and Annie and Jean. So no second thoughts, my girl.

  • • •

  Once again it was Fiona’s face that told them the news.

  “Someone tried to attack Mrs. Bell at her hotel. But she wasn’t there.”

  “No,” Joanne cried out. “Why would . . . The letters!” Now she was scared for Mae Bell.

  “Damn and blast him—the miserable coward.” McAllister was furious.

  They could hear the sound of fire engines from across the river the moment they stepped back out into Castle Wynd.

  “Come on.” He took Joanne’s arm. “Quicker to walk.” As they hurried across the bridge, they could see the red of engines and men in uniform. A ladder was reaching up to a top bedroom window.

  “That’s Mae’s room,” Joanne told him when they arrived at the scene of controlled chaos. There were firemen, policemen, and onlookers, but Joanne could see no sign of Mae Bell. “Thank goodness she’s not here.” She spotted Rob in full reporter mode, notebook out, questioning the porter.

  “Hiya.” He waved when he saw them. “Someone threw acid on Mae’s bed.” He sounded almost cheerful; he had a story and no one was hurt.

  “Where’s Mae Bell?’ Joanne asked.

  “No idea.”

  Rob went to join Hector, who was taking shots of the upper floor, where a fireman atop the ladder was half in, half out of the smashed window.

  “It never caught fire,” Hec explained, “thon mess is the fire brigade’s doing.” He was pointing to drips and runnels of foam and water staining the stonework.

  “But no one will let me inside.” Hector was quivering like a wasp in the raspberry jam, a sight Rob knew well. He agreed with Hec. A shot of the inside of the room would make a great front page.

  The woman who managed the hotel was in the foyer with the police. No way past them. The porter? Looking at the man, who was obviously ex-army and a “more than my job’s worth” type, Rob rejected that idea.

  “Hector, there’s bound to be a back stairs. If I keep everyone busy, why don’t you saunter—” He stopped—that might be too difficult a concept for Hector. “Why don’t you sneak round the back and in through the kitchen and upstairs and take a picture of the damage?”

  “What if anyone catches me?” Hector liked the idea but was afraid his archenemy Sergeant Patience might catch him.

  “The police are taking statements from the owners.” Rob pointed through the reception doors, and sure enough, the bulk of the sergeant filled up most of the space. “If it all goes wrong, we can blame McAllister.” He pointed back towards the river, where McAllister was leaning against the railings, talking to Joanne.

  • • •

  The plan worked.

  The Gazette published a spectacular front-page photograph of a bed where the acid had burnt through to the mattress in an imprint not unlike that of a body—if one had been lying there. Sergeant Patience was furious.

  On Thursday morning, with three copies of the paper spread on the reporters’ table, they all—Don, Rob, McAllister, Joanne, and Hector—discussed and admired their work.

  Mal Forbes was in the office briefly. He poked his head in the door of the reporters’ room, said, “Brilliant front page. Great for circulation.” And was gone before anyone could say anything. Which was just as well because Joanne thought the remark insensitive, and was about to say so.

  “I never found out what the last letter threatened, but I agree with Mr. Forbes. This is brilliant.” Rob
was pointing at the shot of destruction.

  “Rob, that’s a horrible thing to say,” Joanne said. “You’re as bad as Mal.”

  “It was a right mess,” Hector told them, pointing an index finger at one of the prints. “Mrs. Bell’s clothes, her other things . . .” He meant underwear, a word he couldn’t say in company. “They were scattered everywhere. There was broken lipsticks, and pots of face-cream opened, and talcum powder over everything . . .” He pushed another outtake at Joanne. “Someone was feeling very mean.”

  Joanne listened to Don and McAllister and Rob sending the ideas back and forth. “They must have known she wasn’t there,” she said.

  “Where is Mae Bell?” Rob asked, but no one knew.

  “A warning, you think?” Don hoped the intent was no more than that.

  “How did the person get past reception?” McAllister asked.

  “The same way as Hec?” Rob remembered how easy it was for the photographer to sneak in.

  Joanne was shuffling through the photos again. It was like a children’s’ comic-book game, Spot the Odd One Out. There was something off that she couldn’t identify.

  Rob was the one to voice the obvious.

  “Anonymous letters sent to Nurse Urquhart. Then, anonymous letters sent to the Gazette addressed to Mae Bell . . . now this.”

  Joanne said nothing about the letter addressed to her.

  “Don’t forget the leg.” Hector was the only one who had seen the leg and was not likely to forget it.

  “Who’s telling the story?” Rob nudged him.

  “A list.” McAllister was about to write on a sheet of foolscap when Joanne took it from him.

  “Here, I’ll do it; no one can read your writing.”

  They’re definitely like an old married couple, Don thought.

  The list when completed, fifty minutes and a lot of bickering later, read:

  Boot with foot in a shinty sock found by Nurse Urquhart

  Letters to Nurse Urquhart (dates unknown)

  Letters to Mae Bell

  Attack on Nurse Urquhart

  Nurse Urquhart dies

  More letters to Mae Bell and Gazette

  Here Joanne paused. The letter addressed to her she had told no one about and didn’t add to the list. She continued writing: Mae Bell’s hotel room attacked.

  When the list was passed around, Don said, “We know the writing on the notes was neat and grammatical. This list tells us the sequence. There’s not much else we know for sure . . .” He remembered. “The other note, the one that was posted?”

  “Nothing to do with this.” McAllister put that note down to a personal feud, and DI Dunne agreed.

  “We know one thing for sure. Nurse Urquhart is dead.” Joanne was speaking more to herself. But everyone heard.

  The meeting broke up. They all were preoccupied by the list, could see it as clearly as a photograph, and no one had any ideas, bright or otherwise. What was clear was that Nurse Urquhart’s death was only a milestone in the ongoing drama, and Mae Bell was now the target; the connection between the women was still a frustrating, frightening mystery.

  Where is she? Joanne was thinking. Is she safe?

  I hope she’s safe, McAllister was thinking, I like that woman—and what a voice.

  What’s she doing here? Don thought for not the first time. Why is she in this town when her husband was stationed in Morayshire?

  This is a great story—as long as Mae doesn’t get hurt. Maybe I’ll make the national papers with it, Rob was thinking.

  Smashing picture—that was all Hec ever considered.

  • • •

  On Friday night, in McAllister’s kitchen, the photos in the Gazette office so she couldn’t check, Joanne realized what she hadn’t seen through the initial haze of fear. Plimsolls. Black school plimsolls.

  “I’ve thought of something.” She walked into the sitting room, a dish towel in her hand.

  “So have I,” McAllister said.

  “You first.” She was unsure of her ideas and wanted to hear him out.

  “The story you wrote about Mae Bell’s search for her husband, Robert. Did the anonymous letters start before or after the article was published?”

  “Mae Bell’s letters came after. And I think Nurse Urquhart’s letters came before the article.”

  “That’s that theory shot down.”

  “The ads were published. The first letter addressed to Mae came in answer to the ad.”

  “Makes no sense.” McAllister was shaking his head and drumming with his fingers in frustration.

  Joanne sat down.

  “Your idea?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing.” She blew her hair out of her eyes. “What?”

  “Your ideas are never nothing.”

  “Don’t lecture me.” She heard the sigh he couldn’t hold back. “All right. In the photos of the room, there was a pair of school plimsolls. Why would Mae Bell have them? As far as I know she doesn’t do running or sport.”

  At first he silently agreed that the idea was nothing. But he knew her judgment was good.

  She took his silence to mean he thought her observation silly. She stood. “Do you want tea?”

  He read her well. “No. This requires a glass of wine.” As he was taking the glasses out of the cabinet he said, “Plimsolls, did you know they are named after Samuel Plimsoll, him of the Plimsoll line?”

  “Yes, Mr. McAllister. I did it in school. But how they came to name shoes after him . . .” She saw he was about to get up. To get the encyclopedia, no doubt. “Later. Look it up and tell the girls.” She was laughing at him. He grinned back, thinking, She knows me so well.

  “Don’t you think Mae Bell and plimsolls seem incongruous?” Joanne asked.

  “I agree it’s out of character for Mae Bell to have school gym shoes . . .”

  “Right. Well.” Now she needed to work out what only a passing thought could mean. She sat down on the arm of McAllister’s chair and took his wine, sipped it, then began, “From the beginning I was interested in the story of Robert Bell. His plane disappearing in the North Sea. Bodies never recovered. It’s like a John Buchan novel . . .”

  “Or a thriller film . . .”

  “It’s fascinating.”

  And so are you, he was thinking, so are you.

  “But Mae Bell said the Fatal Accident Enquiry found nothing, no explanation, nothing to indicate what happened, so I can’t for the life of me see how it all connects.”

  “Unless someone somewhere knows different.” It was only a thought. McAllister had nothing tangible. Joanne considered the thought.

  “If she knows something, or has discovered new information about the accident, it would explain why Mae Bell is staying on for so long. Explain her absences.”

  The enigma remained with them all evening. Putting the girls to their separate beds. Putting themselves to bed. Awake. In their dreams. Robert Bell. The North Sea. Acid. A requiem—for a husband, a brother, a man lost forever in a cold, cold grave.

  Yet in their hearts, neither of them able to say it aloud, they both felt that grief, loss, the end of love, could bring about a state of hope, and illusion, and fantasy. The accident inquiry had taken months, every aspect of the loss examined in minute detail. Nothing had been found. No plane part recovered. No bodies found. Five men had gone missing. Five families grieved. Mae Bell was asking what they all were asking. Still. Asking for a resolution. For an end of uncertainty. And pain.

  THIRTEEN

  Mae Bell did not turn up until the day after the fire. She went straight to her hotel, not looking up to the second floor, so did not notice any change on the outside. She certainly noticed a change in the reception.

  “You’re back,” the owner, Mrs. Hardie, said.

  “I am.” Mae smiled, knowing any small kindness would not work; the owner had disapproved of her from the instant she saw Mae Bell, but she needed the custom. “My key?”

  “Oh, it’s a key you’re wanting. T
hat’s fine then. A key. But don’t be expecting a bed. There is none. And we need to have a wee talk about the damage you caused. Beds are not cheap, you know.”

  Mae Bell had had enough of the woman.

  “Explain,” was all she said.

  “Your room was attacked with acid. The mattress was burnt beyond saving and your stuff was ruined by the firemen.”

  “Glad I wasn’t there,” Mae said.

  She sat down on the sofa that was even harder than the train seats, crossed her legs, lit a cigarette, and blew the smoke at the No Smoking sign, glad to see Mrs. Hardie looking as though she would combust at any minute.

  Smoking with harder, longer draws, the tobacco calmed her. Her normally pale skin had now a corpselike grey tinge. Her eyes, although carefully made up, were betraying her age. She uncrossed her legs, not wanting to give Mrs. Hardie the satisfaction of seeing the tremble in her knees. All she could think was, I need a drink.

  “As I said, your things are beyond rescue, and we need to settle the bill for the damage . . .”

  “Always take all I need with me.” Mae pointed to the substantial suitcase the porter had taken from the taxi. “Never know when you might need a ball gown, don’t you agree?” She waggled her head in perfect imitation of an Indian sage. “As for the compensation for the damage to my things, it’s very kind of you but I can’t accept damages.” She knew full well that was not Mrs. Hardie’s meaning. Mae Bell had endured much worse when she married Robert; the disapproval of a Highland landlady was not anywhere in the same league.

  The porter cum doorman cum factotum coughed and said in a sweet deep Scottish Louis Armstrong growl, “The police said for you to call the minute you showed up.”

  He liked Mae Bell and thought the news should have been broken gently. It was a vicious attack, no getting away from that. “Maybe your friend Mrs. Ross can explain more.”