The Low Road

by A. D. Scott

  “This”—he was holding up a tea-stained, crumpled newspaper—“something about this picture or headline made Joanne faint in shock.”

  “Is she a’ right?”

  “No, she’s not. But the doctor gave her a sedative, and she’s asleep.” His hand and the pages and his knee were shaking. He had shut the sitting room door, not wanting the children and Joanne and whoever else might appear to overhear the conversation.

  “Joanne’s read it?” Don asked.

  “No. It was the picture. She recognized the man.” He tapped the front page with his finger, but there was no need, Don had already seen it.

  “It was a couple of years ago . . .” Don began.

  “A couple of years ago? So I was here?” He was staring at Don, doing his best to suppress his anger. But the fierceness in his eyes and the tap of his fingers on the newspaper made it clear; he was furious.

  “Aye. But you’d only been here—maybe nearly a year . . .” The deputy editor didn’t know how to lessen the guilt he was feeling. Not at deceiving McAllister—they had not known him well at that time, but he needed to lessen his own guilt, his sense that by not connecting the past with the present, he had let Joanne down.

  “If you knew, and Jimmy . . . ?” A thought hit him. “So Jenny must have known about whatever it was and that’s why she asked me to help Jimmy.” He was shaking his head. “So something went down up here in the Highlands, no one told me, and I’m expected to clear it up for you? So heaven’s sakes! Tell me!”

  Don couldn’t look at him. The accusation was fair. As calmly as he could he lit another cigarette from the glowing butt of the previous one and started. “It was a while ago, all sorted out and . . .”

  “How was Joanne involved? And Jimmy?”

  “He was the one who fixed it.” Don didn’t add, At my request. “It all started with Bill Ross . . .” Then he stopped. If he involved Joanne’s former husband, he guessed that McAllister might find him, and violence would follow. “Look, I’m not at all sure there’s a connection with recent events.”

  “What happened?” McAllister asked as though the words were in capital letters. “How does Joanne know this man? Why did she faint at the sight of his picture?” The sense of betrayal was what hurt the most. The sense he had been kept in the dark. And used. “People have died. I’ve put my mother and myself at risk—and Jimmy said nothing. And you, I thought we were friends but . . .”

  McAllister began pacing, wearing a path from fireplace to bookcase on the already threadbare Turkish carpet. “I want to hear everything, because if I later find out you’ve deceived me . . .”

  Don let the threat go. He could understand that McAllister might feel betrayed and had a fleeting thought that perhaps one of Joanne’s calm pills might be needed. “Sit down, man. I canny talk when you’re all over the place like a madwoman’s custard.”

  McAllister sat. The fury had drained him, too drained to even offer a dram, or take one himself. He smoked throughout the time it took for Don to explain. As did Don. Although the front door opened and closed twice, no one interrupted.

  “It was Bill Ross. His business was in trouble. He borrowed from a loan shark who was new to town, and trying to set up shop here. Then Bill Ross couldn’t pay the loan back—one o’ those compound interest scams. These men, they came after him. They threatened Joanne, and the girls. And she told me.”

  He took a deep breath. That time, when Joanne was at her most vulnerable, when she regularly had to hide the bruises, to hide what was happening to her and her children, when friends and family knew but did nothing, Don had not intervened. He had not supported her because, like most people of this time and place, he saw it as horrible, but not unusual, something women had to bear, separation and divorce being completely unacceptable. Till death us do part, he knew that was, is, what everyone believes.

  “Then it turned out these people, men, wanted more than Bill Ross’s debt, they wanted his building business. What with all the new road building contracts, a new bridge, and council housing schemes, there’s a lot to be made up here in the Highlands, if you’re in the building trade. These people from Glasgow, that’s their trade, amongst other things—not that we knew that at the time—and this was a way to expand their business. I told Jimmy. He knew them, said he’d had dealings with them in the past. He never told me the details. He saw them off. And as far as I know, Bill Ross’s debt was never repaid.”

  That was the bare bones of it. Don couldn’t bear to remember how terrified Joanne had been, how crushed by domestic violence. When it was over, when she began to make a life for herself in her wee prefab house, earning her own living, taking care of her children without the shadow of violence, he’d watched her change, blossom into the beautiful confident woman she was, until once again attacked, this last time by a violently insane woman. In Don’s estimation, apart from the physical injuries, the last attack was easier to recover from than the long insidious undermining violence of a husband ready to settle any perceived slight with his hands.

  “How much was the debt?”

  “A thousand pounds.”

  “That’s a fortune!”

  “It is.”

  “And where is Bill Ross?” McAllister asked.

  “I’m no’ sure,” Don replied.

  “Betsy, his new wife, is still in town. I saw her last week.”

  “Aye, but what with a new baby an’ all, Bill Ross was planning to leave for Australia first, to start work, find a house, and she’s joining him when he’s settled.”

  “Granny Ross hasn’t mentioned it.” McAllister now understood the woman’s heartache, but that didn’t excuse her son. “And if Bill Ross has gone, he didn’t bother to say goodbye to his daughters.”

  Don McLeod shrugged. He thought so little of Joanne’s former husband, that didn’t surprise him.

  “So with Jimmy stymieing a lucrative link between the building business in Glasgow and potential new contracts up here . . .”

  “And Jimmy showing the man up in front o’ his brothers . . .” Don thought loss of face was a much more likely cause for revenge.

  McAllister stubbed out a cigarette. His mouth felt raw and dry, and he was weary of the whole drama. “Will you call Mary from the office?” he asked. “Fill her in. It’s hard to make a private phone call here.” It was another matter about sharing a house that frustrated him; any other reason for not calling Mary himself he could not admit to.

  • • •

  It was mid-afternoon when Joanne came into the sitting room. “I’m sorry about today.”

  He hadn’t heard her; he was writing in a notebook, trying to decide which recording of Sidney Bechet he would order from the stockists in London, anything to stop himself agonizing over the perceived betrayal by Don and Jenny McPhee. And Jimmy. When he looked up and saw her, as insubstantial as a wraith half glimpsed across a lochan in the gloaming, McAllister felt sick.

  “Don told me what happened between Bill Ross and that man. You have every reason to be upset.” He could not use the word husband. Even ex-husband was too intimate.

  “So have you.”

  She took the armchair on the other side of the empty fireplace, opposite him. She took a deep breath, and the scent of the pinecones in the empty grate, pinecones she and the girls had collected from the forest around Craig Padraig, the ancient vitrified fort on the eastern flanks of the town, filled her with the memory of shadows and sunbeams piercing the gloom of the dense woodland, and the dark scent of the sticky pine secretions she loved to pick off and roll into balls, staining her fingers, and the shouts and laughter from the children echoing around the bowl of the fort. The memory tugged at the corners of her mouth and she smiled.

  It was quiet. She had the unpleasant feeling of having slept too much. She had a metallic taste in her mouth of the pills the doctor insisted she take. “Something to help you sleep.” She’d agreed, even knowing how much she hated the woozy after-feeling. But sleep was preferable to
the terrors swirling around her brain.

  “I’d really like a cup of tea.”

  He took her hand. “A cure for almost everything, a good cup of tea.”

  She wished he meant it; whisky was not her favorite form of comfort. One drunken husband was enough, she thought.

  The kitchen was empty. And the garden. He had no idea where all the women had gone. But he was grateful they’d left him alone with Joanne.

  After the tea, and after the shortbread had taken away the medicinal aftertaste, Joanne began, “That man in the newspaper, he and his brothers threatened me. And my girls . . .”

  “Forget them. You’re safe now.”

  “Don’t patronize me. I might not be fully well, but I’m not stupid.”

  The sharpness in her voice, the flash in her eyes, startled him. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “McAllister, we need to talk.”

  If it were anyone other than Joanne who had said this, he would shut down. He hated the phrase we need to talk. It made him think of endings—end of a love affair, a friendship, a job. We need to talk rang as clearly as the tolling of a funeral bell.

  “It takes time to recover from an operation on the brain,” she began.

  He was listening and watching, and her opening remark forced him to see that underneath the pallor, the dull hair, the thin body, Joanne, the Joanne he loved, was still there, mostly intact.

  “My optic nerve was damaged but hopefully will mend. I need rest. I need to eat more. Worry is the bad for me, but trying not to worry when you don’t fully comprehend what is going on is impossible.” She said nothing about the headaches so incapacitating that she could not see, or stand. The hallucinations she put down to the tranquilizers she hated but depended on.

  He was nodding, waiting for her to say what she needed to say.

  “At the time, we—Don and I—had no idea what to do. Bill couldn’t pay. He said they wanted to take over his business, and he would never let that happen.” He’d put me and my girls in danger rather than let go of his precious business. “So we asked Jimmy to help. And he did. After they left, I tried to deny it, but there was always a possibility they would return. It’s an awful lot of money.” She stopped. This was the most she had spoken in a continuous stream since the operation, and she was exhausted.

  McAllister nodded. “This is not just about the money. I’ve been thinking about it and I’m sure there is more.”

  “Meaning they want revenge on Jimmy?” When McAllister said nothing, she answered her own question. “Maybe this will only end when they kill Jimmy. Or he . . . She couldn’t complete the thought it so horrified her. “I met that man. He came to my house. He is pure evil.”

  They were quieted by that thought. Then the tick of the carriage clock and the groan of the oak tree across the street as the night wind rose and the faintly nautical sound of an old house, the sounds of minutely shifting windows and floorboards and roof slates and ill-fitting doors, surrounded them, unheard yet there, comforting them.

  “Would you like more tea?” he asked eventually.

  “I’d love some,” she replied.

  When he returned she asked, “What now?”

  “Sandy Marshall has Mary Ballantyne and a colleague at the Herald searching for details of Councilor James Gordon’s businesses. They think he’s involved in corruption with council contracts.” He knew he had to be honest. “But no word of Jimmy.”

  “You need to find him.” She saw him about to protest. “No. Listen to me. If I could, I’d be in Glasgow searching for him myself. You need to do this for Jimmy. For his mother. And for me.”

  “I can’t risk leaving you alone.”

  “I won’t be here. Don’t worry”—she was smiling at his reaction—“we loved our few days camping so much, Margaret suggested we take a cottage in Portmahomack for a week or so—the girls don’t go back to school until mid-August, and your mother can come with us.”

  “You’ve thought this through.” He didn’t ask about their wedding scheduled for the thirty-first of July, three weeks away. He knew nothing about the preparations, or lack of preparations—that was women’s business. He knew he would be there. Knew he could not, would not, let Joanne down.

  “I have. No one will know where we are, so we’ll be safe. And the girls will love it.”

  He could see it was settled and he was relieved. But the thought of Glasgow was no longer enticing: His mother’s flat, he needed to clear out; Jimmy, he needed to find; Councilor Gordon, that was a Herald investigation; and Mary Ballantyne, he was embarrassed to face. But he had no choice. He was now even more obligated to help Jimmy McPhee, whether Jimmy wanted his help or not.

  “Find Jimmy,” Joanne said.

  “I’ll try.” He did not say what they were both thinking—alive or dead.

  “Start with your old pal Gerry.” She saw his wonderfully expressive eyebrows shoot heavenwards—something that usually made her laugh. Not this time. “I know he’s a criminal, but there is a history between you. Your mother told me about the holiday in Millport when you were boys, your fathers working together, so start with him. Then come home when it’s over.”

  He would never know how terrified she was that he wouldn’t return. Never know how clearly she saw his doubts, his ambivalence about marriage, this town, this life. She knew he loved her, so she was prepared to wait. Fight for him if necessary.

  “When this is over, we will talk about our future. In the meantime, all I want is for my hair to grow back over my scars.” She was proud of her thick nut-brown hair. “And I do not want to wear glasses.” She stood, came over and kissed him lightly on his head, saying, “I really need to eat. My tummy is grumbling something rotten.”

  Her kiss was a benediction, a release, a kiss of thanks. And trust. He felt unworthy.

  When she left the room, he stood, looked around the room, thought about this house, a house he owned. And he made a decision; when he went back to Glasgow to make one last effort to find Jimmy, he would repay the debt. He was not a rich man, but without quite knowing how, he had money. Over the years, when he had only himself to support, his salary had accumulated, and his flat in Glasgow had sold for much more than he’d paid for it. It would almost empty his bank account, but it was not in his nature to resent the loss of cash, not if it protected Joanne. And assuaged his conscience.

  NINETEEN

  This time he drove to Glasgow. His mother was with him. Nothing he’d said could dissuade her.

  “I need to see my home,” she said. “It’ll need a good clean.”

  More than that, he thought. “I can see to it,” he protested.

  She’d rolled her eyes at that suggestion. It was not so much her son she distrusted; in her way of thinking, no man knew how to properly scrub a floor.

  “Mother, it’s a mess, it’s . . .” Heartbreaking was the word he wanted to use, but daren’t.

  “I know. Mrs. Crawford told me. Besides, I’m coming with you to talk to Mr. Dochery—and I’ve an idea where to find Wee Gerry.”

  As the road south unwound, he was glad his mother was with him. She revealed the familiar landscape anew, pointing out landmarks that in his anxiety at returning he would have driven past without noticing. And with his mother in the front seat, he daren’t speed.

  Along the Great Glen; past Loch Ness, Loch Lochie, and Loch Oich; under Ben Wyvis; through and over the Pass of Glencoe, as they waited for Ballahulish ferry, finally reaching Ben Lomond and the “bonnie, bonnie banks.” Along the loch, familiar territory for Glaswegian day-trippers, she had commented, “It’s right bonnie” so many times, he had stopped responding. For it was, this sparsely populated Highland landscape, this Scotland of history, of clans, and battles, and clearances, of mountain, river, loch, and glen, it was indeed bonnie.

  They arrived in the outskirts of the city in the early evening.

  “You can’t stay in the flat until it’s cleared,” he said. “So we’ll stay in a wee hotel near St. Enoch’s Sta
tion.”

  “You do that, Son. I’m staying wi’ Mrs. Crawford. Then her and me, we’re going to make an early start on the cleaning.” He had seen the letters arrive, but had no idea the old friends had everything planned. “She was biding wi’ her sister but couldn’t stand it, so now she’s home.”

  Since his mother’s visit to the Highlands, and the time spent with Joanne and the girls, he had commented on how much more outgoing she had become.

  “It’s the children,” Joanne explained.

  And adversity, he thought. My mother knows how to deal with adversity. It’s only afterwards she falls apart.

  McAllister took the first boardinghouse he could find. It was near Kelvingrove Park, deliberately away from Blythswood Square. Next morning he was at the Herald early—nine in the morning—hoping Mary would not be there. He knew he would have to meet her sometime, but not yet, he told himself as he walked in the big doors and past reception.

  An older woman whom he’d known from his time on the newspaper smiled and said, “Mr. McAllister, there’s a message for you,” and handed him a folded piece of lined paper.

  For a moment his heart raced as he thought, Jimmy. Then he saw another scrawl, another uneducated hand. Stop being such a snob, he told himself as he read the bad grammar with little punctuation.

  Its nothing to do with me. So call off the Mary woman or it will get bad for you and him A frend

  He was engrossed in the note. It was from Gerry Dochery, of that he was certain. The its nothing to do with me he took to be a denial. Of what, though? Call off Mary . . . that was clear. But how? If anyone knew Mary they would know it was impossible. For you and him? Did that mean Jimmy was alive?

  “Hello, stranger.” Mary had come up behind him.

  He jumped. Then quickly put the note in his pocket. She was grinning. He smiled back. But a faint sweat broke out on his lower back.

  “How’s Joanne?” she asked.

  So that’s how it’s going to be, he thought, and was immensely grateful to Mary Ballantyne.

  “She’s well. She and the girls are going on holiday with Rob McLean’s mother, Margaret.”