2 Reunited in Death

by Cecilia Peartree

  ‘It’s a shame though,’ said Big Dave thoughtfully. ‘Coming all this way and then only getting a couple of hours of research and networking in.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to start restoring order,’ said Mr Smith, turning on his heel. He looked back over his shoulder to say, ’Of course it goes without saying that none of you should leave the building either.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be done,’ said Mrs Stevenson, and heaved a heart-rending sigh. ‘It’s our own fault for thinking we could go on without Ms Farquharson. It was doomed.’

  ‘We’re all doomed,’ said Christopher, losing interest again, and wondering how he was supposed to restore order among all these long lost relatives, most very vocal.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ said Big Dave, suddenly and loudly. ‘We’re all doomed? That's what we need to think about! Christopher, thanks to you we can save this family history day.’

  Christopher shook his head sadly. He hadn’t realised Alzheimers could come on quite so suddenly. Before his eyes, Big Dave had gone right downhill and was now as mad as Mrs Stevenson, if not more so.

  ‘Jemima, what’s the name of that church round the corner again?’

  Mrs Stevenson thought long and hard. ‘St Something.... St Magnus?’

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ said Big Dave. ‘St Mary’s? No, I have in mind it’s a man’s name. ‘

  ‘Something Scottish?’ said Mrs Stevenson. ‘Christopher, do you know it?’

  Christopher didn’t take any notice of churches on principle. ‘St Ninian’s?’ he offered.

  ‘I think you’ve got it!’ said Big Dave. ‘Where’s that waste of space Andrew when you need him?’

  ‘He’s not a waste of space,’ protested Mrs Stevenson. ‘He’s made the Folk Museum into a - a must-see visitor attraction in the local area.’

  ‘Is that from the Council website?’ said Dave suspiciously.

  ‘The Fife Journal and Advertiser report.’

  Dave was already on his way into the Folk Museum to try and find Andrew.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ said Mrs Stevenson.

  Christopher shrugged his shoulders. He wondered where Amaryllis had got to. There was no knowing. Even by her own standards she was behaving unpredictably

  Dave came back with Andrew.

  ‘I think we can do it,’ said Andrew. ‘The only question is, do they have an internet connection? Most people seem to want that more than anything else.’

  ‘Do who have an internet connection?’ said Christopher.

  ‘St Ninian’s of course,’ said Big Dave, looking at him as if he was the dunce of the class. ‘Andrew knows the minister. We might be able to use the church hall. It’s only round the corner. Don't tell me you've never seen Dad's Army - they used to use the church hall for their Home Guard stuff. That's what gave me the idea. There was the young gormless one and the posh one and the old Scottish one who used to say we're doomed.’

  ‘I’ll give her a call,’ said Andrew. He moved away from them to use his mobile.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Christopher. ‘We can’t just decide to use the church hall at this point! Everything’s set up here. It would take all day to move things over. Everybody would get confused.’

  ‘We can do it,’ said Dave. ‘Andrew’s going to bring the library van round and load everything up. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘The police won’t let you do it.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Dave. ‘It’ll get all those tourists out of their hair. How much do you think it complicates things having this many people at the crime scene?’

  Andrew returned, smiling.

  ‘She’s fine with it,’ he reported. ‘Says it’s about time people saw the church as part of the community and not something outside it. Says not enough people use the church hall. Says she would welcome visitors from overseas. It’s all arranged.’

  Amazingly, it all came together, albeit, as Christopher observed, in a ‘let’s do the show right here’ kind of way. The police agreed, on condition that nobody left the group, that it moved as one, was escorted round the corner by police officers and that there would be opportunities to collect names and addresses while the family historians networked. Andrew agreed, so enthusiastically that Christopher wondered if he had his own reasons for wanting to spend time with his minister friend; he engineered the process so that Big Dave and Mrs Stevenson, although nominally supervising things, didn’t have to lift a finger. Grumpy Graham, re-appearing from the staff room after a break of record length, during which Christopher suspected him of falling asleep, agreed as long as he didn’t have to do anything. The minister agreed and Andrew said she had volunteered to wait for the library van and help to unload the computers, reference books and odd pieces of memorabilia which Christopher, Graham and Andrew moved from their temporary home in the meeting room. Christopher let Andrew and Graham take the van round to the church hall once it was full; he knew someone would be needed at the Cultural Centre to make sure the family historians actually set off before twilight and reached their destination safely.

  By now he was rather embarrassed at having been a dissenting voice in the first place and felt he had to work extra hard to make up for his earlier scepticism. Working hard also helped to keep his mind off Amaryllis, who would normally have turned up by now, especially if she had sensed a crisis. Mrs Stevenson tried to reassure him.

  ‘Don’t worry about her, son, she’s in the library. With the police. And the screaming woman. And that man with the handbag.’

  After a surprisingly short time they were ready to leave, and a crocodile of family historians, police escort at hand, walked out of the Cultural Centre and round the corner in an orderly fashion, only breaking ranks once they arrived in the church hall and could wander around enthusing about how quaint it was and asking where the toilets were.

  The minister, who couldn't possibly be young enough or attractive enough to interest Andrew in the way Christopher had imagined, entered into the spirit of things with great enthusiasm, raiding the Women’s Guild coffee cupboard for supplies – ‘I’ll replace them later, they’ll never know the difference.’

  ‘Isn’t this fun?’ she said to Christopher and Mrs Stevenson. Christopher felt he couldn’t say ‘no’ but he really wasn’t enjoying himself very much, partly because he was afraid something would go wrong and it would all turn out to be his fault, and partly because of the nagging worry at the back of his mind about where Amaryllis was, and whether she had got into trouble somehow.

  ‘I hope you’ve got enough bandwidth,’ said Mrs Stevenson doubtfully.

  ‘I expect so,’ said the minister. ‘I don’t really take much notice of that kind of thing – my son handles all that. I’m sure the Lord will provide.’

  Christopher saw Jock McLean struggling through the crowd towards them.

  ‘Where have you been?’ said Mrs Stevenson accusingly. ‘I thought you’d just gone into the library to change your books. I thought you’d had enough of family history.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jock. His hand went automatically to his pocket for his pipe. ‘Any chance of me being allowed a quick smoke in here? Or would it offend God or substitute deity of choice?’

  ‘No, you can’t smoke,’ said the minister, but not too snappily. ‘Not because God would be offended,’ she added hastily, ‘just health and safety, you know.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ said Jock. ‘It wouldn’t do to cross the health and safety gods either.’

  Christopher panicked in case the minister lost patience and threw them all out. He took Jock’s arm and steered him across the hall to where the urn bubbled away and the tea queue started to circle the interior.

  ‘Were you still in the library when it all kicked off?’

  ‘Kicked off? It isn’t like you to use football language. What’s wrong? Where’s your young lady?’

  ‘Amaryllis isn’t – don’t change the subject. Did you hear the screaming?’

  ‘It would have be
en hard to miss,’ said Jock. ‘I was just round the back of the shelves in Science and Nature when it started up. I managed to sneak out in the middle of the whole stramash, then I waited outside the building until all this lot started moving, and that’s all there is to it! What do you have to do to get a cup of coffee around here? Or will we adjourn to that Elgin place for a drink?’

  ‘Elgin place?’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t called that. Place by the harbour. We only went there the once, to get away from those awful quilting women.’

  ‘No, we can’t go there. It’s closed down.’

  ‘Any sign of the quilting women?’

  ‘I haven’t seen them for a while,’ said Christopher.

  Just as the words left his mouth – and a simultaneous ripple of premonition ran across his mind – a voice spoke at his left shoulder.

  ‘If it isn’t Christopher Wilson! I didn’t know you were interested in genealogy. Now, there’s a surprise!’

  It was Maisie Sue McPherson, Pitkirtly’s most vocal resident American.

  Chapter 11

  First contact

  Jemima talked to the minister for a few minutes more, just to be polite, and then wandered towards the queue for the computers. She was still concerned about bandwidth, picturing her fellow family researchers seizing the opportunity to download massive images, certificates, newspaper reports... On the other hand, many of them seemed to have arrived armed with vast armfuls of printed information. Jemima herself had so far only filled one small scrapbook with the story of her family. She supposed some people’s notion of family was more inclusive than hers. Some of the researchers she had communicated with online had definitely been more interested in quantity than quality: they would try and find every last one of their great-uncles and great-great-aunts, and try to follow each line down to the present day. Others were keen to go back into the past as far as possible and would display on their websites mostly fictitious family trees leading all the way from the original kings of Scotland – who were mythological anyway, in Jemima's opinion. She herself was more interested in how her ancestors and their families had lived, and she didn’t care whether they had been brought up in the poorhouse or the palace – which was just as well, since most of the ones she had found so far had been working class to the core. Though she was quite hopeful of her grandmother’s family – she censured herself for using the word ‘hopeful’, since she didn’t believe you should be judged on how posh your ancestors were.

  ‘Live by your own achievements,’ she said out loud.

  ‘Hey, that’s a great motto!’ said a cheery Australian voice.

  She blushed. ‘It isn’t really a motto,’ she explained. ‘I was just thinking about family research.’

  ‘I completely agree,’ said the jovial Australian. He looked so much like a stereotypical Australian that she glanced down at his legs, half expecting him to be wearing shorts. In fact he was sporting a rather bright red tartan kilt and a scary-looking sporran.

  ‘You live round here, don’t you?’ he continued.

  ‘Yes, I’ve lived here all my life.’

  He shook his head. ‘I envy you. You’ve got your whole history around you. I’ve had to come halfway across the world to find mine.’

  ‘Were your family from Pitkirtly?’ she enquired politely.

  ‘Yes. My grandma was a Murray. They lived in one of the houses halfway up the hill.’

  ‘Hillside Street?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Upper or Lower Terrace?’ asked Jemima, her excitement growing.

  ‘Upper, I guess.’

  ‘Bella Murray?’

  ‘That’s the one... How did you know?’

  ‘She was my granny too,’ said Jemima proudly.

  He took a step back, standing on the toe of the woman with the fluffy pink hat whose great-great-uncle had been swindled by Lachlan Farquharson. She glared at him and at Jemima, who presumably was guilty by association. Hmph! I’m guilty of nothing, thought Jemima, returning the glare with interest.

  ‘No kidding!’ said the Australian. He held out his hand. ‘Jim Halloran.’

  ‘Jemima Stevenson,’ said Jemima, shaking hands. She didn’t normally let people know her first name so soon, but she decided as he was a long-lost cousin, she could stretch a point.

  ‘Isn’t this great, Jemima? I must tell my wife. She thought she was the one with long-lost relatives here. So, let me get this straight. Your grandma was Bella Murray, and she had eleven children. Have you met any of the other descendants?’

  ‘Not yet. But I’ve got the family Bible. It came from my Auntie Mima’s house. Look.’

  At last! She opened her scrapbook and showed him the picture she had taken of the page of names inside the Bible. It was a bit blurred, because her hands had been shaking with all the emotion of it, and a bit over-exposed, because the sun was shining in through the curtains in just the wrong place. But he admired it effusively, called his wife over, forced her to admire it too, exchanged email addresses with Jemima and then vanished into the crowd again.

  Jemima couldn't help feeling a little deflated. So this was what it was like meeting long-lost cousins at last! Just at the right time, as often happened, Dave appeared at her elbow. She tried not to think of him as Big Dave, and liked to be the one person in his life who called him David, but sometimes in gatherings like this he did look particularly big and seemed to take up a lot of space.

  ‘All right, Jemima? I’ve got you a cup of tea and a biscuit.’

  ‘I hope the Women’s Guild won’t be annoyed that we’re using up all their supplies.’

  ‘Just drink up, Jemima. You look as if you need it.’

  When she told him the story, David was all for diving into the crowd to accost Jim the Australian and drag him back to engage in more conversation, but she managed to persuade him not to. She was particularly pleased she had stopped him when Jim’s wife, Lottie, suddenly reappeared with a message. Jim had managed to get on one of the computers and had something he wanted her to see.

  ‘I met another of our cousins today,’ he announced when they too had fought their way through to the computer. ‘And she’s famous – look at this!’

  He made a sweeping gesture with his hands to draw their attention to a website, where a picture of a woman of late middle age was in pride of place.

  ‘Local researcher writes about royal link,’ proclaimed a headline. Jemima pushed her glasses further up so that they were in a good position for reading, leaned forward and studied the web page.

  It turned out to be a local newspaper website for something called the ‘Garfield Gazette’. It must be American or at the very least Canadian, since the word ‘licence’ was mis-spelled several times and the woman’s hair was moulded into a set of waves that belonged in the 1950s. Not that Jemima had anything against wavy hair. Or Americans, on principle at least.

  It seemed that this lady, Lorelei McAndrew, who had qualified for her genealogists’ license, whatever that was, had traced the humble Murray family of Pitkirtly back through the mists of time until she discovered that they were really descended from one of the warrior kings of Scotland. It was nothing unusual, after all. She had started to turn away again when Jim said,

  ‘But then, you must have spoken to her yourself. She said she’d been speaking to another cousin before we linked up.’

  ‘No, I’ve never seen her before,’ said Jemima. ‘I didn’t meet any other cousins until I met you.’

  ‘Well, then, there’s another one out there somewhere!’ said Jim excitedly. ‘We’ll have to catch up with Lorelei again and check it out with her.’

  He scanned the crowded hall.

  ‘She had very blonde hair – much brighter than it looks on the web page – and she was quite big. The kind of woman you notice.’

  ‘No,’ said Jemima again. ‘I don’t remember her. Maybe I was busy on the computer when she walked past.’

  ‘Jim notices women like that,’
said Lottie suddenly. ‘He would never miss one – would you darling?’

  She ruffled his hair playfully but rather too roughly, Jemima thought as he winced and ducked.

  ‘We’ll keep a look-out for her,’ said David suddenly, grabbing Jemima’s arm and tugging. ‘See you later.’

  ‘What was that for?’ said Jemima as they crossed the hall again.

  ‘She had a face like fizz,’ said David. ‘I didn’t want either of us to be caught in the fall-out.’

  Jemima stared into the crowd. ‘I’m not sure if I would know Lorelei if I saw her again, though,’ she said doubtfully.

  ‘You can have too many cousins,’ said David.

  Chapter 12

  Interview

  Amaryllis paced up and down in the meeting room.

  She wondered when the police would start asking questions. She was looking forward to it as an essential first step towards being allowed to leave this claustrophobic room with its quota of annoying inhabitants. There was the sobbing woman, now reduced to whimpering occasionally like a dog waiting to get in from the cold; her husband, who stood there rock-like, still holding the handbag; the softly-spoken Canadian woman, whose soft speech and refusal to get cross were now starting to irritate Amaryllis intensely; the tartan twins, two middle aged women who might be sisters or even twin sisters, or might just be distant cousins who looked very alike because of some genetic freak. She had deliberately not asked any of their names: she didn’t want to have to store them in her memory for any length of time. Bad enough to have to recall this whole incident and to watch Clarissa, who stood so close to the wall that it was as if she wanted to disappear into it like a character from a fantasy novel in some magic universe instead of a relatively normal librarian in this one. The girl looked so limp and lifeless that Amaryllis wanted to run an electric charge through her. She tried to put that thought out of her head before the police questioning began.

  ‘Why didn’t they keep us in the library or at least leave the computers here?’ said one of the twins. ‘At least we would've had something to do while we’re waiting.’