‘Would she have been one of the couple in the bracken?’ asked the officer sceptically.
‘No, not at all,’ said Murray. ‘She is of excellent character.’
Mr. Macduff nodded slowly.
‘And could she give you a good picture of the man?’ he asked.
‘Little enough of one,’ said Murray, ‘beyond his being tall, with his shirt open, and wearing dark gloves. She says she scratched his bare chest.’
‘Now, wait,’ said Blair excitedly. He jumped up from the bench and began to pace about the small room. Murray and the Sheriff’s officer waited. Blair waved his hands about. ‘Do you remember,’ he said to Murray, ‘that you went to ask questions in the village based on Effy’s – Effy is the kitchenmaid, or one of them, you know,’ he explained to Macduff, ‘- Effy’s description, and you came back with a list of names of possible men who were tall and not accounted for one or another time? Now, who was on it?’
‘I was coming to that,’ said Murray patiently. He referred to his notes. ‘There are eight men listed: Kenny the schoolmaster, Kennedy, Melville at Hill of Letho, McClure, his farmhand, Mr. Helliwell and Mr. Gilbert Helliwell, Mr. George and me. None of us has any witness to say we did not kill the pauper woman, though Kennedy and I are accounted for by Blair when Effy was attacked.’
‘But listen, but listen!’ Blair went on. ‘You went bathing with two of that list – surely you saw whether or not they had scratches on their chests?’
Murray, struck by the forgotten thought, tried to remember. So much had happened after the bathing expedition that the memory of the actual swimming part of the day had grown somewhat faint. He closed his eyes and began to find pictures of the event in his mind: Mr. George galloping towards the sea ahead of them all like a man half his age; Kennedy keeping his distance from the others and leaving the sea first, everyone racing for the gritty towels and snatching on their clothes. It was no use: he had not noticed. He shook his head.
‘Anyway,’ he said, going back to the matter of the second attack, ‘since that day Nan Watson has not been seen by anyone in the village.’
‘And who is she?’ asked Mr. Macduff.
‘The Fairlies’ kitchenmaid,’ said Blair, ‘but a girl of bad character so everyone assumes she is just away on a frolic. A fragment of her gown was also found by us in the rough woodland. But she is expecting a child.’
‘Doesn’t stop some of them,’ remarked Macduff cynically. ‘Well, I’ll make a note of all this, gentlemen, with thanks. Is there anything else?’
‘Yes,’ said Blair, ‘the locket.’
‘What about the locket?’ asked Macduff.
‘Well, I wrote a letter to an acquaintance of mine in Edinburgh,’ said Blair, ‘and he says that the locket was made there in 1800 and by Cunningham on South Bridge Street.’
‘Oh, aye?’ said the officer, with an odd little smile.
‘Yes, indeed. We do not yet know for whom, but I hope to send my man to discover for us.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Macduff, ‘no real need for that, I think. The locket was made for a merchant named Archer, and engraved for his wife Katherine, eight years ago in Edinburgh as you say, by Cunningham. I traced Archer and his wife at last up to Peterculter, and found that they had come on hard times and sold the locket – empty, I might add – to a jeweller nearby in Aberdeen. There I lost it: the jeweller’s son thinks his father sold it soon after – that would be four or five years ago, but the old man’s shop burned down with all his ledgers and it drove the old man daft. So, there we have it. I began enquiries in the Aberdeen parishes for a missing pauper, but I am not sure in myself that she was a pauper at all, and we have no other idea of her background. And that, gentlemen, is all the time I can spare you, I fear.’ He rose, and Murray, too: Blair was still fidgeting on his feet. ‘I am much obliged to you for coming,’ said the officer.
‘And I for your help,’ said Murray.
He fought his way out through the busy hallway and into the street, hardly less thronged, then found that Blair was not with him. He looked about, bewildered, and after a moment or two saw Blair appear back in the dark hallway, struggling to catch up as he simultaneously tucked some roll of paper into his waistcoat pocket. When he reached Murray, they began to walk slowly back to the market place.
‘Aberdeen again,’ remarked Blair at last, impatient for a reaction.
‘Indeed,’ said Murray. ‘This will take a little puzzling. Can we find somewhere quiet to sit for a little?’
‘The kirkyard may do,’ said Blair, surveying an elaborate pastry stall as they edged past it. ‘Wait a moment, if you please –’ He plunged through the crowd to the front of the stall, and Murray watched him, big-eyed like a schoolboy, pointing to a tray of iced sugar biscuits in bright colours and nodding as the stall holder set quite a number of them into a folded paper. Money changed hands, and Blair rejoined Murray. ‘The kirkyard,’ he repeated, waving a hand towards it. With Murray cutting tall through the crowd and Blair scurrying in his wake, they reached the kirk and were able to find a space on the wall to sit while Blair unwrapped his poke of biscuits.
‘Yum, yum!’ he muttered, offering one to Murray.
‘Right,’ said Murray, swallowing his first bite, ‘we have a woman whose clothes all seem to date from four years ago. She is wearing a locket that was sold four or five years ago in Aberdeen, to person or persons unknown. On the locket is the letter K, which was put on it for the wife of the merchant that had the locket made, but almost certainly had some significance for the later purchaser, too, or why buy it? The same initial appears signing a letter which you found in a book in the manse, a letter written four years ago in Aberdeen, perhaps from a woman to a man of whom she was fond. The woman wearing the locket died in the manse. All correct so far?’
‘Oh, I think so.’
They both eyed the crowds, and thought, Blair munching noisily.
‘Mrs. Fairlie is from Aberdeen, her sons went to University there – Marischal College, I believe – and her kitchenmaid has disappeared,’ added Murray eventually. ‘Her kitchenmaid has disappeared and mine was attacked. Do you think the dead woman was also a kitchenmaid?’
‘No,’ said Blair absently, ‘her hands were wrong.’
‘Oh, yes, you’re right.’ Murray decided privately that he would not forget the possibility, all the same. ‘Now, you said there was something else that had happened four years ago. Have you remembered what it was yet?’
‘No,’ said Blair again. They both caught sight of Mr. George in the crowd and waved, but he did not see them. ‘Yes,’ said Blair suddenly, ‘you said that Kenny, the schoolmaster, had come to the parish four years ago, in your father’s time.’
‘You’re right!’ said Murray. ‘And what is more, he came from Aberdeen, because Mr. George found him there and brought him down here!’
‘And his name begins with a K!’ said Blair. ‘And he is one on your list of those unaccounted for on both nights!’
‘And yet,’ said Murray, ‘he seems like a respectable man, on the Kirk Session and all. And I like the man.’
‘Mmm,’ said Blair sadly. He reached his hand into the paper poke for another biscuit, and stared at it dismally. ‘You know, I saw these on the stall and they looked so delicious, and I bought them all up like a greedy old man, and now they are not very exciting, are they?’
‘Good day to you again!’
They looked up from the biscuits to find Mr. George standing in front of them.
‘Mr. George,’ said Murray, pleased, ‘why do you not come and join us for dinner?’
VII
‘There!’ said Mr. Helliwell with satisfaction, ‘all the communion tokens distributed, according to your excellent lists, Mr. Jack, and all your hard work in the examinations, the rest of you, and we shall have three tokens left over. I thought we should be clear.’
‘It always pays to be sure, aye,’ said Ninian Jack, managing to sound as if he was agreeing with the minister
as usual. ‘How are we off for the preachers for Saturday and Sunday, sir?’
‘We have been exceptionally blessed,’ said Mr. Helliwell, ‘for they have all agreed to come.’
‘Now,’ said Mr. Kenny, ‘that’s nice.’
VIII
Minutes of the Kirk Session meeting held at Letho parish church, the 3rd. of July, 1808. Meeting opened with prayer.
Today the minister preached on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, Chapter Two.
A Communion Service is to be held on the 10th. of July, next Sunday, here at Letho. Preaching will take place on the Saturday and the Sunday. After examination by the elders, communion tokens were distributed. The following were acknowledged to be fit to be admitted to Communion for the first time: Mary Fairlie, Joan Fenwick, Agnes Hossack, Agnes Melville and John Melville.
The poors’ funds were counted and distributed.
Meeting closed with prayer,
Ninian Jack,
Session Clerk.
Chapter Eight
I
Blair shrugged the edges of his tight-sleeved coat back over his shoulders, and stood waiting patiently for his man Smith to ease him out of it. Tight-lipped, Smith ignored the creased silk shoulders and started tugging gently at Blair’s long cuffs, one at a time.
‘I have a task for you, ah, Smith, which will unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately, as far as you are concerned, for who am I to say? – take you away from your daily duties here for a little while and require you to travel some distance.’
‘And how far would that be?’ asked Smith politely.
‘Oh, all the way as far as – Aberdeen?’ said Blair, as if the destination were open to negotiation and this were his first tentative bid.
‘Very good, sir.’ Smith freed one arm but was ready to hold the coat steady against Blair’s inevitable jiggle of liberty. ‘When would you like me to start?’
‘Oh, as soon as possible!’ said Blair.
Smith thought of his waterproof emergency pack, and did a quick mental review of its contents, nodding to himself with satisfaction.
‘There’ll be no coach until tomorrow,’ he remarked, ‘and I’ll have to meet it at Perth.’
‘That will do excellently, excellently, Smith. You will be there by dinner time on Tuesday, and that will be plenty of time. Indeed, quite fast enough.’ He fell into a kind of abstraction, his lips working and his gaze miles away, perhaps even in Aberdeen. Smith disengaged a second, inanimate arm, and shook out the coat, laying it over the back of a chair. He began to unbutton Mr. Blair’s waistcoat, and noted that one of the buttons was missing. He had already found the escaped button on the drive after church. He laid the waistcoat aside. Blair began to sing absently to himself, periodically making faces at the long mirror before him.
‘And what would you have me do in Aberdeen, sir?’ Smith asked at last.
‘Do?’ Blair looked puzzled. Smith took away his neckcloth and brought closer the basin of hot water he had standing by, draping a towel over his arm. Blair took a great scoop of water and splashed it over his prickly bare head. A pint or so also went over Murray’s Turkish carpet, and Smith discreetly dropped a cloth over it to soak it up. The impact of the water seemed to bring Blair’s thought processes back to life. He blew water from his lips and wiped his eyes vigorously with the towel Smith handed him.
‘What would I have you do in Aberdeen, you mean?’ he asked. ‘Well, it is really quite complicated. I shall write it all down and you may take the instructions with you.’
II
Dunnet, commenting morosely that it would put his whole day out, had a trap ready at half past four on Monday morning, and drove Smith to Perth to meet the Edinburgh post to Aberdeen. Smith was still three-quarters asleep, and Dunnet’s surly company did not inspire him to become more wakeful. Wrapped up against the morning chill in layers that they would not need later in the day, they both slouched in their seats like a couple of potato sacks, scarcely more animate than the waterproof bundle on Smith’s lap. The pony trotted on oblivious in the long morning light, passing west on the endless bridge of its own stretched shadow.
Once rid of Dunnet, and woken enough by the procedure of finding himself a perch on the top of the mail coach, Smith began to appreciate the liberty of being out on the road north on his own. His seat was made unexpectedly comfortable by the presence of a bale of cloth, tartan on urgent passage to the barracks at Aberdeen from Messrs. Wilson of Bannockburn. Smith made himself a smooth dent in it and, drawing from his shirt Mr. Blair’s written instructions, settled down to read them.
The jerking of the coach did not help, but the instructions of themselves required careful study. Smith had in his time seen the handwriting of several people and knew that Mr. Blair’s was considered particularly elegant and clear, so it could only have been the mode of expression that made his prose a challenge. In letters and notes he could be obscure: in instructions he verged on the incomprehensible. Parentheses within parentheses, clauses dependent on future imperfect possibilities, all these were lost on anyone whose Latin and Greek grammar were less than perfect. In order to compensate for Smith’s lack of education in these useful languages, Blair had further confused things by the introduction of neatly drawn arrows and lines of dots which showed, he had explained, how Smith should follow his instructions. It took from Perth to Dundee for Smith to render the orders down to a few main actions: Smith was to examine the registers of the town’s churches, looking for a marriage between 1803 and 1806, involving a Mr. Francis George or a Mr. Peter Kenny. In order to help him obtain this access, Blair had given him a letter of introduction which was folded in two sheets of paper to keep it clean. Failing success in this venture – or even once he had found what he sought and noted the details – he was to try to find a woman called Everett, likely to be in a situation as a housekeeper, and ask her one or two pertinent questions, which Blair had underlined in his instructions and which had several arrows pointing to them. It did not make much difference, for Smith had committed them to memory, anyway. He had been to Aberdeen before, and he knew where he was going to begin.
III
Mrs. Helliwell kept her head well down amongst her herbs and weeded with concentration and with care. She was quite a slight woman, she was kneeling down, despite the rheumatic pains she knew would ensue, and if she were very lucky and resisted the temptation to look up at him, her husband might never notice that she was there. He had been in a bad mood for several days, since his worries over little Anna had been laid to rest, but this morning his temper was foul and she had praised Heaven that the continuing fine weather allowed her to escape into the garden. She had been peaceful out here for an hour, now, but just a few moments ago a step on the stone path that led from the front of the manse had alerted her to his approach. The herb beds she was tending lay behind a trellis of sweet peas, which might have been adequate further protection had it been a better year for them, but the flowers were scarce and the foliage thin. Her mind strayed to the parallel failures in the peas and beans so far this summer – not enough rain at the right time, perhaps, or some damage from the late frosts. Forgetful, she let out a grunt at the tenacity of a dandelion root, and her husband discovered her.
‘Here you are, then,’ he announced abruptly. ‘Did you not hear me calling for you? I have just been talking to Melville, and he says that Murray has been asking questions about where everyone was the night that woman was stabbed, and the night Effy Duff was attacked.’
‘Oh, aye,’ Mrs. Helliwell nodded. ‘Had you not heard that? There is a list of men out late each time and not accounted for.’
‘You did not think to mention it to your husband, then?’ The minister’s mood had not improved, evidently. Mrs. Helliwell rose carefully and wiped her hands on her apron. She had heard about the list from Miss George, and for that reason had excised it from her conversations with her husband.
‘There was a possibility that it was just a rumour,’ she explained. ‘
If all the men I heard named are really on Mr. Murray’s list, he’s no nearer to finding the attacker than he could find a particular spear amongst the hosts of Midian.’
Mr. Helliwell scowled.
‘But I am on it, and so is Gilbert. How do you feel about that?’
‘Well,’ said his wife sensibly, ‘if Mr. Murray is approaching his problem reasonably, as a good laird should, he would have to notice that indeed neither of you is accounted for fully on either night.’ It was true that Gilbert had been behaving oddly recently, but for Gilbert, odd behaviour constituted cheerful behaviour, and she thought it unlikely that committing murder would cheer anyone up. ‘And if Mr. Murray continues reasonable,’ she went on in the face of a potential explosion from her husband, ‘he will know that neither of you had the least cause to attack Effy Duff or that poor woman, and will take you off his list again. If, indeed, you are on it in the first place.’
Mr. Helliwell turned sulkily and stared at the path.
‘I suppose we have to go to the ball on Monday, do we?’ he asked at last. Mrs. Helliwell contained a sigh with long-practised skill. She was not going to give up the ball.
‘Yes, my dear, I believe we must. We accepted the invitation long ago.’
‘And that man George will be there, I suppose.’ The minister spoke as if the whole world were united against him. ‘I wonder is he on the list?’ he added with sudden venom. Mrs. Helliwell looked shocked, but as it happened she knew from Miss George that Mr. George was indeed on the list. She chose not to pass on this piece of information, either.
‘I am sure there are all kinds of names on the list,’ she said, ‘if Mr. Murray is to do his job properly. And somewhere in the parish, more than likely, there is a poor soul with more cause to worry about his name on this list than the rest of you.’
An Abandoned Woman (Murray of Letho Book 4) Page 23
