by Molly Macrae
“And the four of you will be,” Pamela said with a smile for Janet. “Although it’s a shame you’ve got off to such a rocky start in the community, what with the murder in your house, and all.”
Janet choked on her last bite of scone. “She wasn’t in the—”
“Now then,” Kenneth said, “didn’t we agree we weren’t going to bring up Ug and that terrible business?”
“And I haven’t, Ken. It’s you who’re being disrespectful to the dead by calling her Ug. I’m just saying how sorry I am to Janet.”
Janet accepted pats on the back from Pamela, and if she could judge the depth of Pamela’s sorrow by the zeal of those pats, then she had no doubt the sorrow was very real. She also had no doubt that Pamela and Kenneth had arrived early with every intention of bringing up the murder. And why not? It was shocking news. If Constable Hobbs was right, and this was the first murder in decades, then it was also extraordinary news. She thought of the times at the library when she’d listened to and fielded questions about unsettling events, feeling sometimes like a community ombudsperson and sometimes like a bartender. The Lawries would be bucking human nature if they didn’t want to talk about the murder. And it was only natural they would come in to find out what she knew about it. Because of the dratted garden shed, she was part of the news.
“But there’s an end to the subject,” Pamela said with a final, unnecessary thump on Janet’s back. “And an end to Una Graham, too. She was a nosy bisom, God rest her soul.”
“Wheesht, woman.” Kenneth’s rebuke didn’t seem to ruffle Pamela. It apparently didn’t apply to himself, either. “She provided a service to the community through her weekly advice column. She listened to problems and provided answers.”
Like I did in my position as librarian cum ombudsperson cum bartender, Janet thought.
“People like that,” Pamela scoffed. “She caused as many problems as she solved. She was an agony aunt, nothing more. What do you suppose she was doing in your house?”
“Shed,” Janet said. “She was in the shed, at the bottom of the garden, a bit of a walk from the house, and I don’t know why she was there.”
“Are you sure?” Pamela asked.
“Yes! I have absolutely no idea why she was killed there, or what she was doing there at all, or how anyone got into the shed. It should’ve been locked.”
“I meant are you sure about it being the shed. I heard from someone, who is ordinarily a quite reliable source, that it was your house, not the shed.”
The soft burr of Pamela’s r’s did make her source sound unimpeachable, but Janet corrected her calmly, clearly, and firmly. Then it occurred to her that, if people were saying Una was killed in the house, they must also be wondering— Good Lord. “Do people think I killed her?” That hadn’t come out calmly at all and she must have looked as alarmed as she sounded. Kenneth hastily gave her another scone.
“You specifically?” Pamela shook her head in a pooh-poohing way.
“Who, then? Tallie? No. Absolutely no. None of us—not one of us— had anything to do with that woman’s death. Period.”
“Full stop, now you’re living here,” Kenneth said, “and we believe you. After all, they do have Jess Baillie in custody.” He turned to Pamela with an accusing eye. “I told you it was unkind to come and spread gossip.”
“No,” Janet said. “I’m glad you told me. If that’s what’s being said, then I need to know.”
“Forewarned and forearmed, eh?” Kenneth asked.
“As long as it doesn’t lead to foredoomed,” Janet said. Then, seeing what might be a look of contrition crossing Pamela’s face, she decided to press her advantage. “So people don’t believe Jess is guilty?”
“Hard to say.”
“What do you know about Una?”
“Not much,” Pamela said.
So much for the power of contrition, Janet thought.
Kenneth offered a bit more. “Her family wasn’t local, you see. They first arrived about thirty years ago, but they never quite settled. They came and they went. Had a caravan for some of the years. Some sort of tent or another.”
“Were they Gypsies?” Janet asked. “One of the traditional traveler families?”
“No. Hippies,” said Kenneth.
“Unwashed, tatty, and tie-dyed.” Pamela’s lip lifted at the memory.
“At some point the parents moved on, or were asked to move on,” Kenneth said, “and Una stayed.”
“But she was never a regular customer,” Pamela explained. “That would have been the best way for us to get to know her.”
“She and I were on one of the literature festival committees for the past several years,” Kenneth said. “Judges for the writing contest. We read the entries on our own, though, and only met to compare notes and choose winners. It wasn’t the sort of committee where you share personal information. Husband or children or pets to mourn her?” He answered himself with a shrug.
“Not knowing makes it sadder and more awful,” Janet said.
“No husband.” Pamela held up her left hand and touched her wedding ring.
Janet looked at the gold band stuck on her own finger, stuck because of a stubborn arthritic knuckle and her own stubbornness in not wanting to pay for it to be cut off. The ring cut off, she liked to remind herself, not the finger. “Una was writing more than the advice column, though, wasn’t she? She was here yesterday to interview us,” she said. “And she was doing some investigative reporting. I’m sure I heard that somewhere.” Where had she heard that? From Jess, who thought Una wanted to ruin her business . . .
But Pamela was laughing. “What did you think of Una’s reportorial skills?”
“She needed some practice or polish,” Janet said. She didn’t see the humor in that, but she threw in a few heh-hehs to keep the conversation and information flowing. “What do you know about Jess?”
“The trouble with these business types,” Kenneth said, “is that they’re so often caught up in chasing success that they don’t know how to relax with a good book.”
“Speaking of books,” Pamela said, “have you met your neighbor yet? Ian Atkinson? I had no idea it was your house he’d moved next door to. He’s bit of a hermit, mind you. He’s another who hardly comes in the shop nowadays.”
“He’s hardly a hermit,” Kenneth said. “A recluse, more like.”
Janet’s comprehension stumbled when she thought they were calling Ian Atkinson a hairnet, but she recovered nimbly enough, realizing they’d said “hermit,” which they pronounced “hair-met.”
“Hermit, recluse—he spends most of his time alone, so it’s the same thing,” Pamela said. “Always claims to be writing, but he hasn’t had but the one new book since he moved here.”
“The Bludgeon in the Bothy?” Janet asked. “I haven’t read that one.”
Pamela looked scandalized and went to get a copy from the shelf. “You’ll have to do better than that in keeping up with trends.” She handed the book to Janet.
“You’ll enjoy it,” Kenneth said. “I’ve enjoyed him the few times I’ve run into him in the pub. He says he likes to ‘muse and schmooze on or about the booze.’”
“His love affair with whisky, he calls it. He should watch who he keeps company with, in that case,” Pamela said.
“Is he drinking too much?” Janet wondered what kind of neighbor he’d be if that were true.
Pamela intercepted a look from Kenneth and backtracked unconvincingly. “Oh, I really couldn’t say.” Then, with a sly look of her own, she added, “Mind you, Una might have known. She certainly aimed to find out.”
“Did she?” Janet asked. “How do you know?”
“Wheesht,” Kenneth said. “She knows nothing of the sort. The man likes a drink and there’s nothing wrong with that. If Una was up to anything, it was her own ugly business and none of ours.”
Said the man who obviously knows more than he lets on, Janet thought. But again, why not? Why should they share all with a v
irtual stranger, and an incomer to boot?
Janet checked the clock. Time to unlock the door and open for business. She was glad to step back from the Lawries’ bickering. She was equally glad when they stepped aside and let her greet the customers. Remembering Pamela’s admonition not to jump at people, and to let them browse, she found herself greeting them in a subdued manner. She couldn’t help feeling that her style and movements were being scored by a panel of Olympic bookselling judges, but she refused to be totally cowed. She smiled and said hello to everyone who came in. And when a tourist couple came in looking for a guide to the geology and landscape of Scotland, she felt a solid ten was within reach.
They were dressed for the soft smirr of rain coming down now, said they were in the area from Lancashire to spend the week hillwalking. They’d seen the book in a shop in Glasgow and regretted not buying it. And although they couldn’t quite recall the title, they knew there was a lot of blue on the cover, and the author’s name was . . . on the tips of their tongues. At that, Janet knew she had the gold. Not only did she know the book—The Landscape of Scotland: A Hidden History, by C. R. Wickham-Jones—but she found a copy on the ornate antique shelf to the left of the fireplace, put it in their hands, and gave them directions to the standing stone alignment at Ardnacross on Mull mentioned in it.
“But did you remember to slip a bookmark between the pages before you handed the book to them?” Pamela asked when the couple had gone. “Because you know your sale isn’t really complete unless you do.”
The smirr under the gray skies might last all day. Janet knew it wouldn’t necessarily keep people indoors, though. At any time the smirr might progress to a drizzle, or move on to a shower, or develop into a downpour. Unless tourists were woefully ignorant of Scottish weather, they would have come raingear-prepared. Or should have. Wet weather back in Illinois had often meant more patrons in the library, rather than fewer, and Janet saw that the same might be true for the bookshop. The smirr did indeed turn into a drizzle, followed by a corresponding spate of visitors who didn’t mind shop-hopping. Janet could see that the tearoom was going to be a hit on such a day. They expected the decorators the next morning, and if all went well, they’d be serving tea by the next weekend.
Tallie came in, her hair pulled back in a neat, if somewhat damp, braid, and her cheeks still pink from the run.
“Didn’t mean to be gone so long,” she said. “Sorry. The trail along the river was harder than I expected. I’ll start earlier next time, or not go as far. My calves might give me an idea which that’ll be.”
“Pretty?” Janet asked.
“The bluebells? And the water splashing down the hill? And everything? Heaven. Oh, and I took a detour. It looks like Jess Baillie’s home and no longer in custody.”
Janet was relieved to hear it. “She’s in the clear?”
“I don’t know that. They might be digging deeper to prove a better case. Or they might be building a case against someone else.”
7
Tallie handed Janet several folded sheets of paper. Janet said nothing and made no move to look at the papers. Tallie removed the papers from her hand, unfolded them, and wafted them back and forth in front of her mother’s staring eyes. When Janet blinked, Tallie put the papers back in her hand. Janet glanced at them— the notes they’d worked on and Summer had typed. She refolded them when Kenneth came over.
“Good news about Jess, eh?” Kenneth opened the bag of scones and offered them to Tallie. When she hesitated, he wafted the bag under her nose the way she’d wafted the papers under Janet’s. “Your mother declared them worthy of a place in the tearoom.”
Tallie took one and was suitably impressed.
“Glorious, aren’t they?” Kenneth asked. “Now it’s time for your crash course on VAT and other taxes.”
Tallie looked suitably chagrined. “I’ve been had. That was bait and switch.”
“It’s no use complaining to me,” he said. “As it will be no use complaining to the queen herself when it comes to paying them.”
Tallie gave in with good grace, but not before taking a second scone.
Janet wished her luck but had no doubt she was up to the tax task. Tallie had taught tax law for ten years back home. She settled on the stool behind the desk as Tallie and Kenneth disappeared into the office area. In truth, she was glad Tallie was going to be otherwise occupied. She needed time to think through—and worry about—what it might mean that Jess wasn’t being held. That she could at last move into the house? That she or Tallie or one of the others was under suspicion? No, she refused to believe that. Rumors were one thing. Facts were another. The four of them had been together between the time Una had left Yon Bonnie Books and the time they’d found her dead. Except. Except for the hour or so Christine ran home to have a meal with her parents. But that time would be accounted for, too. It could be proved. If. If Christine’s parents remembered. Janet felt a tightness creeping into her shoulders. She rolled them, lowered them, took a couple of slow, deep breaths. And nearly jumped out of her skin when Pamela cleared her throat behind her.
“I didn’t want to sneak up on you,” Pamela said. “But I wanted you to know that we still have a few personal bits and bobs in the office to clear out.”
Janet refolded the notes.
“We’ll pack them up this afternoon,” Pamela continued. “And there’s the ordering process still to go over, but then I really don’t think you need us for much of anything else. I said before, and I meant it, you’re naturalborn booksellers. We should be getting out of your hair and leaving you to it.”
“Do you think we’re ready?” Janet looked at the rows and ranks of bookcases, and over at the window displays—her new domain. Shelves and shelves of books, and all of them bright and crisp and new. Buying the building, the business, and making this move had been a bigger leap of faith than the one she’d made when she married Curtis.
“Do you think you’re ready?” Pamela asked.
“I do.”
Pamela reached past Janet, fumbling for a tissue. “It’s been a good life. But to be perfectly honest, I can’t wait to be shot of it. Can’t wait to be shut of this place and the everlasting cold and damp. I can’t wait until I’ve had so much bloody sun that I weep buckets of tears for a breath of air-conditioning.” She laughed, then blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “Not that I don’t wish you the best. Inversgail’s a bonny town, and there’s nothing like the book business. It’s just . . .”
“Cold and damp,” Janet said. She handed Pamela the tissue box.
“I hope you didn’t think we were gossiping earlier on, or that I was prying when I asked if you’d spoken to Ian Atkinson after the . . . last evening. It’s just we don’t get this kind of crime here. It’s unsettling.”
“To say the least.”
“I suppose in America you get—”
“We don’t,” Janet said. “I didn’t, anyway.” She fanned herself with the folded pages of notes, then thought better of it. She folded them a second time and slipped them into a back pocket. “You said something about Una knowing if Ian Atkinson has been drinking too much, or aiming to find out. Do you really know if she was? Because that might explain why she was in my garden. If she was spying on him, if she was looking for a scandal . . .” She let that dangle and watched while Pamela thought it through. Pamela glanced at the office and checked for customers before answering.
“There’s no knowing what she was up to. She couldn’t be content to answer letters from the desperate and the daft in her column. She should have stopped there, but you’re right, she started calling herself an investigative journalist. She was a nosy bisom, and interested in anything that crawled or stank or bled. But no one deserves to die like that, and I’m sorry that she died in your house.”
“In my shed—my ex-husband’s shed. Not my house.”
“In the house is a rumor Una would have enjoyed starting herself.” Pamela glanced toward the office again. “Americans like bottom
lines, don’t they? Bottom line, then. I said I didn’t know her well, and I didn’t. But it didn’t take knowing well to know she was a vile woman. A vile creature. It’s a terrible thing to say of anyone, but someone did the world a favor. Now, I’ll tell myself wheesht and save Kenneth the bother in case he’s heard.”
“He doesn’t agree with you about Una?”
“He doesn’t like any sort of negative talk in the shop when it’s open.”
“It’s a good policy to remember,” Janet said. “It was the same at the library. Bad manners are bad for business.”
“He carps on about it, but he’s right. Now, you really don’t need me hovering or havering, but if you don’t mind a body in the reading nook—” Pamela stopped at an intake of breath from Janet. “Sorry, hen, sorry. It’s a common phrase, but awful under the circumstances. Forget I said ‘body.’ I’ll be over with the picture books. This business with Una is making me ill. I need the sweetness of kittens and fairies.”
Janet could think of any number of fairy tales that had nothing to do with sweetness, but she saw no point in adding to Pamela’s discomfort by saying so. She sat back on the stool, and between customers she read the notes Tallie had given her. The four of them had collaborated on the notes, but in the end, typed and printed, they took only a single page. The second sheet was just a copy for Norman Hobbs. Janet hoped that reading the notes—the facts they knew, and the few impressions they’d included—might calm her nerves. It didn’t. The notes only prompted more questions than she’d already voiced to Pamela—questions she felt compelled to write in the margins.
What was Una wearing? The same clothes she had on when she came in the shop? The same ridiculous heels? If she was wearing the same heels, were the heels on those heels clean or muddy? Why does anyone walk around in heels like that? What was she doing in our garden? In Curtis’s dreadful shed? Snooping? Snooping into what? Or into who? (Whom?) Jess? Ian Atkinson? Us? Was she meeting someone? Who? Why would she be meeting someone in our garden shed? What about the renters? Who are they and where are they? Who killed her? Who? Who? Who?
