Shadows of Death

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Maybe someone had simply moved them. A rearrangement of the museum, now that it would certainly be taken over by a new curator. That would seem possible, if hardly likely. Undoubtedly the police would be in touch with Larsen about that. Eventually.

  I turned my attention back to the gathering, which had now reached a different topic of disagreement: where was Norquist?

  The strident tones of the volunteer rose to drown out the others. ‘I say he’s hiding somewhere on this island, and has been the whole time.’

  I ventured to speak. ‘But where, Mrs … um, I’ve forgotten—’

  ‘MacKenzie, and it’s Miss, thank you very much. How should I know where? Some cave, probably. He dotes on caves.’

  ‘The police have searched all the likely ones and found no sign of him.’

  ‘Well, then, they’ll just have to search the unlikely ones, won’t they?’ She stood. ‘The rest of you may have time to sit around and tittle-tattle all the evening, but I have not. Good day.’ She strode for the door, heedless of the paws and tails in her path, and slammed it on her way out.

  ‘Well!’ Isabel, the cat lady, said with an expressive gesture. ‘I’ve always said that Janet MacKenzie is the rudest person I’ve ever known, but this is too much!’

  ‘I didn’t invite her, you know,’ said Ruth, ‘but of course she knows everything that goes on in this town.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘Is she …?’ I began nervously. ‘That is … does she … er … take liberties with the facts?’

  ‘Is she a liar, do you mean?’ That was Isabel the forthright again. ‘I’ve never known her to tell a lie. “Tell the truth and shame the devil” is her motto. She especially enjoys spreading unpleasant truths about other people.’

  The others nodded. A quiet woman I didn’t know at all said, ‘Her other favourite expression is “I thought you ought to know”. What follows is always something nasty. “I thought you ought to know that your husband’s seeing a lot of that new woman at the co-op” or “that people are talking about that short skirt you’ve been prancing about in” or “the things they’re saying about that cake you brought to the last fête” or … you can supply others.’

  ‘But is it always true?’ I persisted.

  ‘It’s always true that people are saying what she passes on. Of course it’s usually just ill-natured rumour with no basis, but on occasion she hits the nail on the head.’

  ‘The one about the woman at the co-op?’

  The women looked at each other. Finally Ruth said, ‘I suppose we can tell you. They’ve all left now, and you don’t live here. Yes, a new couple moved to Stromness from … Aberdeen, was it?’ She looked around, and there were nods. ‘A young couple. He came to work on the construction they’re doing down at the harbour. She wanted something to do herself, so she got a part-time job at the co-op. She was very pretty, in a flashy sort of way. Lots of hair, lots of make-up, tank tops a size too small, you know the sort of thing.’

  I groaned. ‘And her husband was working long hours and leaving her alone a lot. I see where this is going.’

  ‘And spending a lot more time and money than he should at the pub after he finished work for the day,’ said one of the other women. ‘So, of course, she was bored and went looking for other amusement.’

  ‘She didn’t have to look very hard,’ said Isobel. ‘Half the men in town had their eyes on stalks from the time she first sashayed down The Street. Most of us know how to keep our menfolk home nights, but – I’d better not say her name – the librarian was a strait-laced sort who didn’t … well, anyway, she was a plain woman, poor thing, and hardly ever at home, and her husband—’

  ‘Had a taste for candy,’ Ruth finished. ‘He started doing all the family shopping. And his wife thought he was being considerate of her, taking some of her work off her shoulders.’

  ‘She should have known,’ someone snorted. ‘First time he’d ever volunteered to do anything for her.’

  ‘But she was a trusting soul, and never suspected a thing. Everyone else in Stromness knew, but we weren’t going to tell his wife. And then Janet told her one day. After chapel, too, right in front of everyone. She didn’t believe it, but she wasn’t a stupid woman, and she started paying attention. He admitted it in the end, didn’t even act guilty about it.

  ‘And then the other husband, the young man, came and told him … well, said he’d better get out of it or he’d be sorry. And all of them moved away, and I don’t know what happened to poor Anne.’

  ‘And the saddest thing of all is, it all would have blown over if it hadn’t been for Janet’s meddling.’ That was Isobel again. ‘You can’t tell me that young trollop would have kept her eyes on a middle-aged man like Jack for much longer. She’d have found greener pastures soon enough.’

  ‘Miss MacKenzie doesn’t seem to be a very popular person in the village,’ I ventured.

  ‘Oh, the woman is pure poison,’ said Ruth, ‘but we’re used to her. And she does work hard at the museum.’

  ‘And we’re all afraid of that tongue of hers,’ said Isobel, with that call-a-spade-a-spade frankness. ‘She’s a snoop and a meddler and we all know it, but we don’t dare cross her. Everyone has a few secrets.’

  ‘That reminds me,’ I said, snapping my fingers. ‘Ruth, this morning at the shop, you were about to say something when the vicar came in. Something about Norquist killing … but you stopped there, and you’ve been killing me with curiosity ever since.’

  One of the other ladies laughed. ‘You must have been thinking of the hen, Ruth.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ She laughed, too. ‘I suppose it really wasn’t funny, but it was just so typical of the man. It was in the spring sometime, April, I think—’

  ‘May,’ said a woman, ‘because, don’t you remember, it was all about May Day.’

  ‘So it was. You see, May Day is a very old festival, with pagan roots. And people on these islands have all sorts of religious beliefs. I suppose it’s natural, coming from different backgrounds as we all do, and with the Neolithic influence so strong. At any rate, quite a number of different groups celebrate May Day every year. May poles, bonfires, that sort of thing.’

  ‘But surely,’ I interrupted, ‘the roots don’t go back into prehistory.’

  ‘No. And that’s what Charlie Norquist kept saying. He used to get livid about the people who insisted on having their rites at some of the standing stones. Called it sacrilege.

  ‘So, when one of them was going to sacrifice a white cockerel at one of the rites, he went absolutely spare, and stole the poor creature he thought they were going to use.’

  ‘Stole it from his next-door neighbour,’ said Isobel with relish. ‘And wrung its neck before they could get the chance.’

  ‘Only, you see, it was a hen, not a cockerel.’ Ruth took up the tale again. ‘A good layer, too, and the neighbour was furious. Made Charlie pay for it. He denied he’d done it, but everyone was sure he was the one. And of course no one let him forget his mistake. There was a good deal of joking about the man not knowing the difference between a hen and a cockerel.’

  ‘And some of it wasn’t very kind,’ said the quiet woman, in a gentle voice. ‘Not everyone in this community is tolerant of anyone who’s different. They suggested there were reasons why he still lived with his mother. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Most of us don’t give a hoot whether a man is gay or not,’ said Isobel, ‘but Charlie was so peculiar in every way, I’m afraid he came in for a lot of teasing, or worse.’

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘I didn’t like Mr Norquist much when I met him, but I’m beginning to feel quite sorry for him.’

  ‘If you’d ever met that mother of his, you’d feel sorrier.’ That came from a gruff-voiced woman with cropped grey hair who reminded me a bit of Jane Langland. ‘Talk about peculiar! She belonged in an asylum long before they put her in one, and I for one hope they see she stays there. She’s a public danger.’

  ‘And so, ladies, will my hus
band be if I don’t get home soon and put a meal in front of him.’ The woman who stood started a mass exodus, everyone stopping to nod or shake my hand and make polite noises. Isobel, Watson, and I were the last to leave.

  ‘Your husband seems to have vanished,’ she said. ‘Do you know how to get home? Round to your right till you come to the stairs, then straight down will take you to The Street. Mind how you go. This passage needs repairing. Here, I’ll come with you.’ We negotiated the somewhat treacherous stairs together, and reached The Street safely. ‘Now, your way lies to the left and mine to the right. Did you get what you needed from the meeting?’

  I paused to think about that for a moment. ‘It raised a lot of interesting questions, at least. I’m not sure there are any answers hidden in there, but one never knows. And I’ll be very wary of Janet MacKenzie.’

  ‘You do that. Good night.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Watson and I made our way home, and as I walked I replayed the evening in my mind. I couldn’t wait to get home and make notes of all I’d learned. I hoped I could remember everything.

  That was an odd story about the hen. The oddest part about it, which no one at the meeting had seemed to recognize, was that Norquist had denied killing the bird. I could see him being embarrassed about the mistake as to its sex, but given his obsession about historical accuracy, I’d have thought he would, before the mistake was bruited about, have made a dry little public statement about doing his duty to the ancients, or some such thing.

  That was odd.

  And there was something else tugging at the back of my mind, trying to get my attention, but for the life of me I couldn’t bring it out into the open. May Day … pagan rituals … sacrifices …

  It irritated me like a half-remembered tune that one can’t quite complete, or a face one can’t place. I tried talking to Watson about something else, hoping that ignoring it would bring it forward, but it wouldn’t come, and I decided to stop forcing it. It would surface eventually. Meanwhile the women’s mass departure from the meeting had reminded me that I had to do something about dinner, and I wasn’t sure there was anything much at the flat.

  I thought about stopping at the bakery to see if any of their small stock of meat and cheese and groceries looked appealing. I thought about swinging past the museum to see if there was any police activity there. But neither was on my way home, and the few extra steps seemed just too much. Despite my afternoon nap, I was exhausted. ‘I am,’ I told Watson, ‘getting old.’

  He whined in what I swear sounded like sympathy.

  Alan was back at the flat, and he had, bless him, brought in some Chinese take-away. ‘I didn’t think you’d feel like cooking.’

  ‘You’re right about that, and I’m not sure there’s anything to cook, anyway.’

  ‘You look just about done, my love. Sit down and I’ll pour you a drink and heat up the food.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve had plenty to drink. You could make some tea to go with dinner if you wanted.’

  He wouldn’t talk about our problem until we’d eaten. Then he poured himself a small measure of Highland Park, sat back, reached in his pocket absent-mindedly for the pipe he hadn’t smoked in years, and said, ‘This time I get to go first.’

  ‘I hope it’s riveting, dear heart, because I’m about to fall asleep.’

  ‘I know. I’ll keep it short. I called the police, as you know, and managed to reach Baikie, for a wonder. They haven’t found any bombs at the terminal, so for the moment that scare is damping down, and he was back in the office. He knew nothing about any theft at the museum, but he sent some of his people to check. I met them at the museum, and it’s true enough. I can’t say I cared much for Mrs MacKenzie—’

  ‘Miss,’ I said. ‘She makes a big point of it.’

  ‘Ah. For Miss MacKenzie, then, but she was quite right. The odd thing is that it’s only the one case that’s been emptied. And the lock wasn’t forced. It was quite obviously unlocked with a proper key.’

  ‘And they didn’t find any of the things? I had a vague idea that someone might simply be preparing to rearrange the exhibits.’

  ‘Not a sign of them anywhere in the museum.’

  ‘What were they, anyway?’

  ‘Pots, mostly. Quite important ones, I was given to understand. Larsen came with us and said they were very fine examples of Unstan ware, which is unique to Orkney. He was quite upset about their disappearance.’

  ‘But they wouldn’t be of any particular commercial value?’

  ‘Not unless someone had a link to a collector of Orcadian Neolithic pottery. Which is of course possible. Baikie will check, I’m sure, when he can. He has quite a backlog of work to catch up on just now.’

  I sighed, and Watson came over to sit on my feet. He wants his people to be happy, and thinks keeping them warm is one means to that end. ‘Alan, we just don’t get anywhere with this mess. We’re going in circles. Strange things keep happening, and we learn little bits and pieces, but nothing seems to lead anywhere.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, love. And it makes me wonder. Often, when I was in active police work and that sort of thing happened, it was because someone was making it happen, was creating blind alleys and red herrings to distract us from the main point. Once we worked that out, the murky waters usually cleared and we could see our way.’ He chuckled. ‘Have I mixed enough metaphors for one evening, do you think?’

  ‘Enough for a week, at least. Do you think someone’s manipulating events in this case?’

  ‘I do, but I don’t know who. Let’s leave it for the moment, and you tell me what happened after I left that rather odd little gathering.’

  ‘I haven’t sorted it all out yet, but I did learn what Ruth meant when she said she thought Norquist killed something.’ I related the story about the hen.

  Somewhat to my relief, Alan didn’t laugh. ‘Poor chap,’ he said. ‘Even if he did do it, the village reaction was cruel. And if he didn’t, then someone else did it to make him look foolish, and that’s crueller still. He really couldn’t seem to do anything right, could he?’

  ‘You’re speaking of him in the past tense.’

  ‘And you think he’s still alive.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I sighed again, and Watson looked up at me. I reached down to pat his head. ‘It’s all right, dog. Mama’s puzzled, that’s all. It doesn’t seem fair, somehow, to assume he’s dead when we don’t know that.’ Watson realized the last comment wasn’t addressed to him and laid his head back on his paws. ‘However. There was one other thing that struck me, or raised some vibrations somehow, only I can’t pin it down. I think it had to do with May Day, but …’ I raised my hands in the classic gesture of frustration.

  ‘May Day. May pole. Dancing. Ribbons. Morris dancing?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. Ignore me. It’ll come, or it won’t. I think the only other thing that mattered at all was that Janet MacKenzie is apparently heartily disliked by almost everyone in the village, because she spreads rumours.’

  ‘That’s interesting. She fabricates stories, does she?’

  ‘No, actually not. The woman said that all the things she passes along are things she has heard, but she never bothers to verify anything, and she spreads the stories maliciously, where they’ll do the most harm. She was the one who spread the story about the hen, for example. I didn’t ask who started it, but one almost never knows where such things start.’

  ‘That’s the damnable thing about rumour. It can do so much harm, and the guilty person usually gets off.’

  ‘That’s so true. There was one other bit of gossip she spread that did a lot of harm, only in this case the whispers were true. The husband of the village librarian, I think it was, was having an affair with a much younger married woman, and everyone except the librarian seemed to know about it. The women at the meeting thought it would have ended soon with the wife none the wiser. They’d actually sort of conspired to keep her from knowing. But then Janet MacKen
zie “thought she ought to know”, and that blew it wide open.’

  ‘What happened to the people involved?’

  ‘No one seems to know. They left Orkney, all of them.’ A thought struck me, and I sat up straighter. ‘Alan, you don’t suppose it could be Janet MacKenzie who’s behind the … I don’t know what to call it … the manipulation of this case? It’s the sort of malicious thing she might do. Oh, and remember what she said just as you left?’

  ‘I don’t think I heard her.’

  ‘It was a taunt. I don’t remember the exact words, but something about Norquist stealing the artefacts. And it occurred to me that she could have stolen them herself, just to make him look bad! She’s a volunteer at the museum. She’d have keys to the display cases, or know where they’re kept.’

  ‘But not a key to the new lock on the door,’ Alan reminded me. ‘The Friends had those put on the day Norquist disappeared, and Baikie told me there’s only the one key.’

  ‘Oh.’ I sank back into the chair. ‘Another perfectly good theory bites the dust. I swear I’m going crazy over this one.’

  ‘What you need, my dear, is a good night’s sleep. Go to bed. I’ll take Watson for his walk.’

  ‘The dishes …?’

  ‘Will wait until morning. Go on, then.’ He gave me a kiss and a little pat on the fanny, and I trudged up the stairs and knew no more until morning.

  ‘Well?’ said Alan the next day, when I’d absorbed enough caffeine to be almost human.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Did you receive any startling illuminations in your sleep last night?’

  ‘Sadly, no. I don’t think I even dreamed, or if I did, I don’t remember anything. How about you?’

  ‘Nary a glimmer. I did, however, think about what we need to do today.’

  ‘And what’s that, Hercule? I’m totally out of ideas, myself.’

  ‘Have some more coffee.’ He filled my cup. ‘As I see it, there are two people to be interviewed who might give us some fresh information. Neither conversation will be pleasant. I thought we might toss a coin for the honours.’