by Molly Macrae
They all agreed and they further agreed when Christine declared it completely unnecessary for Janet to ask them in for tea. Janet thanked Christine for that. Maida and Janet were the only ones who said they hoped Daphne would reschedule.
Not many minutes after Janet had poured herself another cup of cream-laden tea and stood at the kitchen window wondering why they’d been stood up and where Daphne was, the latter question was answered. Daphne, with a long and heavy-looking duffle slung over a shoulder, opened the gate at the bottom of the garden. She and Rachel Carson came through. Daphne stopped and Rachel Carson sat down. While Rachel Carson yawned, Daphne put her hands on her hips and looked around as though she expected to find people waiting. Janet put her teacup down and went back out.
And if she acts exasperated, or if Rachel Carson yips at me in my own garden, I won’t be responsible for my own exasperation, Janet thought.
“I blew it, didn’t I?” Daphne called when she saw Janet coming. Rachel Carson yawned again.
“We did wait quite a while,” Janet said, “and called, texted, and knocked on your door.”
“I’m not good at these social things. Another reason I’m better off with trees. I let the photographer talk me into going on another photo shoot.”
“Tom Laing?”
“He has a high opinion of his talents.” She let the duffle down onto the ground and rubbed her shoulder. “I’ll do better with the newspaper interview. And a radio interview Gillian arranged for tomorrow morning. I’m supposed to mention the signing at your shop.”
“When is it? I’ll be sure to listen.”
“No one who matters will be listening to a wee local station at half-six in the morning.”
Janet was inclined to agree with her, but made a show of taking her phone out and setting an alarm. Daphne didn’t seem to notice.
“Are the swords in your bag?” Janet asked. “May I see?”
Daphne unzipped the duffel and handed one of the long wooden swords to her. Janet immediately loved the sturdy feel of it. Carved from a single piece of wood, this “sword” wasn’t at all thin and whippy like a fencing sword, nor would it slice like a saber. It was an inch or so thick, with a slightly curved blade, a handle but no hilt, and a blunt point at the tip. In all, it was a bit longer than a yardstick and didn’t weight more than a pound or two.
“It’s called a bokken,” Daphne said. “It’s a practice sword. Made of red oak.”
“Cool.” Janet couldn’t remember the last time she’d said cool like that, but she meant every oo of it. “Where did you get them?”
“You can get anything online.”
“Will you show me some of your workout?”
“Some other time.”
“Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”
“No.”
Janet swished the sword from left to right.
“Why does any one person like another?” Daphne asked.
Janet stopped mid-swish and looked at Daphne. Daphne wasn’t looking at her, though, and might not have been talking to her. She’d sunk onto her heels next to Rachel Carson and stroked the dog’s head.
“Here’s an example: Why does Gillian like me? She claims we’ve been friends since we were schoolgirls. But is that true? And if it’s true, why is it? Because I don’t know. I remember that I called her G.G. Why? I don’t know that, either. For the sake of expedience? To save my breath?”
“Because you liked her initials? Or maybe it was just fun, or cute.”
“I don’t remember being cute.” Rachel Carson rolled onto her back so Daphne could rub her belly, or possibly take a lesson in being cute.
“What did Gillian call you?” Janet asked.
“In our final year at school, I wanted to be called Laurel.”
“That’s a pretty name. Did Gillian call you Laurel?”
“I never asked her to. I never told anyone. It’s from a Greek myth. I used to read a lot of escapist stuff and that myth was the ultimate escape. A naiad named Daphne escaped the clutches of a rapacious Apollo when her mother turned her into a laurel tree. Or her father turned her into one. It depends on which story you believe. Or which one you like better.
“Schoolwork was another escape. I was always good at it, and I’ve kept at it. I’ve studied the flora and fauna around my cabin minutely, down to what some so wrongly consider to be the most trifling of creatures. Fairyflies, for instance, which are the world’s smallest flying insects. Imagine that; the world’s smallest. I feel very strongly about fairyflies. Do you know what I became as a result of my studies?” She turned intense eyes on Janet, but didn’t wait for her to answer. “A detective. That’s why I called one of my books The Deciduous Detective. Studying—investigating—every aspect of nature in the woods around my cabin has kept me sane.
“That’s why I’m interested in the murder of Sam Smith now. Studying it is going to help me through this. It will keep me sane during what I expect is going to be a very painful interlude. I had an academic understanding of how filled the world has become with heartless people. Now that I’ve witnessed the lack of outrage, the callous response to this man’s death, I’m seeing that heartlessness firsthand. I honestly had no idea it would be so painful.”
Daphne was still hunkered next to Rachel Carson, but she’d stopped petting the dog and brought her hands together in a fist beneath her chin.
Janet had no idea what to say. Any response—“the police are looking into it,” or “people do care,” or “I’m not heartless,” or if she gave Daphne a hug or shoulder squeeze—would come across as simple and inadequate. Saying nothing wasn’t adequate, either, but there was more going on with Daphne than she could fix. She started to put the sword back in the duffle.
“Keep it.” Daphne said.
“You’re sure?”
“Keep it.”
“Thank you.”
Daphne zipped the duffle and hefted it onto her shoulder. She and Rachel Carson left through the back gate without saying anything more.
Janet watched them go and thought about heartless people. But how do you know someone’s heartless? Maybe they’re unaware or oblivious. Or maybe they’re hurting and don’t have room for sympathy or empathy. Then Janet remembered Gillian’s reaction at the ceilidh supper, when Tom said he and Daphne were going to work together on a calendar, and another thought occurred to her. Is there such a thing as premeditated heartlessness?
13
Janet took a few more swipes with the sword, first at the air, then at a burdock that had infiltrated her flower border. She accidentally whacked some purple asters in the process.
“Bugger.” She tried to straighten the leggy things, but they were like gangly teenagers with a natural tendency to slouch. She gave up when she heard a twig snap and a snicker at the privet hedge between Ian Atkinson’s garden and her own.
“That was a heartless move,” Ian said. “They were so pretty, too.”
He stood sideways to the hedge, and spoke over his shoulder, almost as though he’d been casually walking the boundary of his property and happened to look over at the exact moment Janet slew the poor daisies. But in the months since she’d moved in—prime gardening months—she’d never seen him puttering outside at all. She thought it more likely he’d seen the “get-together” for Daphne’s workout demonstration and taken an interest in that. His calling her “heartless” made her wonder how long he’d been listening and how much he’d overheard.
“Any particular reason for your mad slash?” he asked.
“Hello, Ian.”
“Birth, marriage, and death.”
Janet waited, sure he wanted her to ask him what he was talking about, and knowing he’d continue anyway, without her prompting.
“My mother was big on plants with meanings, and she had those things you just tried to decapitate in her garden. They’re associated with birth, marriage, and death. That’s a lot to ask of something that falls over in the first good blow. Funny, I remember all
that about them, but never bothered to find out what they’re called.”
“Asters. Michaelmas daisies.”
“Asters?” He spread his hands and brought them together in an almost soundless clap. “Wonderful. Do you see what that means? You’ve reaped destruction and disaster for the purple aster. But no. Wait.” He held his hands up as though framing a movie scene. “You hold the sword of justice, but wield it only in symbolic display.”
Even knowing his ploy, she couldn’t help it; she had to ask. “What are you talking about?”
“You crushed the symbol of death, but you’re left under the crushing weight of the unresolved mystery of who killed the lad behind Nev’s. I know that you know that you want to know whodunnit. So does she.” He nodded toward Daphne’s house. “I say repent your heartless ways. Give in to your inner sleuth before it’s too late. Speaking of which, you’ll love the title of the new book. I’d planned to call it The Dirk in the Distillery, which fits the pattern I’ve established for the series. But last week I had the most splendid jolt of inspiration and the dirk and the distillery flew right out the window. Or rather, I tucked it away in my file of future titles. The new title is splendid.”
This time, Janet did wait. Judging by the puff of Ian’s chest, the wait wouldn’t be long. She was right.
“Joining The Bludgeon in the Bothy, The Halberd in the Hostel, and The Claymore in the Cloister on bookshop and library shelves and bedside tables worldwide next summer will be The Shillelagh in the Shed. A shame you got rid of yours.”
They looked toward the empty corner at the bottom of Janet’s garden where her shed had stood. Curtis’s shed, she reminded herself. Her ex-husband had bought the ugly thing. She’d never liked it. And when Summer had discovered a body there shortly after they’d arrived in Inversgail, Janet had vowed to get rid of it.
“You truly are heartless,” Ian said. “You should have warned me you were having it taken down and carted away so that I could have snapped a picture while I had the chance. Then I could have sent it to the cover artist and your shed would have been famous, as well as infamous.”
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda,” Janet said while thinking, Bugger. “How is the book coming along, Ian?”
“Still working out a few sticky plot points.”
“Then don’t let me keep you.” She tucked the sword under her arm like a major general’s swagger stick and stalked back to the house.
That afternoon, Janet gave in and indulged herself with a stop at Paudel’s Newsagent, Post Office, and Convenience. Basant Paudel, owner of the small business, had emigrated from Nepal to the UK and bought the shop so he could afford to bring his younger sisters over for schooling. He’d succeeded in that, and the girls had thrived in the Inversgail schools. One sister was now finishing a nursing course in Glasgow and the other was reading history and languages at St. Andrews in Aberdeen.
Basant stood behind the shop counter reading a book when Janet opened the door. His carefully chosen stock surrounded him, sitting on shelves on either side of him, behind him, running down both walls of the long, narrow space, and on both sides of a tall shelving fixture running down the middle of the shop.
“How are you, Mrs. Janet?” he asked.
“I’m well, Basant. How are you?”
“Very well on a beautiful day.”
Janet looked back out the door. Had she really not noticed it was beautiful? Basant’s eyes returned to his book. Janet went down one aisle and found a bottle of mango chutney. She came up the other aisle and stopped for a package of naan from a refrigerated case. She took both back to the counter and added a bar of Oban ginger and orange dark chocolate from the display next to the cash register. The chocolate was what she’d really come in for. She refrained from taking a second bar.
“Curry tonight,” Janet said, “and a bite of chocolate for the walk home.”
“The BBC and I approve. They say curry is good for your brain and chocolate will chase away your blues. If you’ll forgive me, the hummingbird feet at the corners of your eyes give your blues away. Can I help?”
“Calling them hummingbird feet helps more than you might know,” Janet said. “T. rex feet is more accurate for the way I’m feeling, but no one with hummingbird feet can really be heartless, can she? So thank you for that, too.”
Basant’s eyebrows went up. “Heartless? You?”
Janet nodded.
“Who says you are? I’m genuinely puzzled.”
“Thank you for that, too. I’ve heard it twice this morning from two different people. Actually, the first time it was more of a collective condemnation of all of us in Inversgail.”
“Ah.” Basant turned to the shelves of jars on the wall behind him. “I’ve met our visiting author and her dignified wee lion,” he said over his shoulder.
Janet echoed Basant’s ah and watched as he touched one, then another of the jars. Each one held a different kind of old-fashioned sweet. “Daphne’s obviously been upset by the murder, which is completely understandable,” she said. “And that’s on top of whatever emotions she’s feeling about being back here after however many years it’s been.”
“Decades of living amongst the weasels and the moose. And snacking on them.”
“You heard about that? Well, she’s bound to be feeling stressed, but I don’t need to let her stress turn into mine.”
“There,” Basant said. “What you just said proves my point. You empathize with her. You aren’t heartless.” He took a jar from a shelf and put it on the counter, and then picked up the book he’d been reading. Janet saw that it was The Sasquatch Squad, one of Daphne’s novels for children.
“Funny and exciting,” he said, when he saw her interest. “I’ve also read some of her serious nonfiction. Her books are enjoyable.” He shrugged. “In person, she’s another story. But you said there were two. Who else called you heartless?”
“Ian Atkinson.”
Until that moment, Janet had never heard Basant guffaw.
“But now I’m being heartless,” he said, regaining control. “Ian writes smashing books and I enjoy talking to him about them. He’s brilliant at manipulating the interpersonal relationships of his characters, but he’s absolute rubbish at handling his own.” Basant opened the jar he’d taken down. It was full of red and white heart-shaped candies. He scooped some into a white paper bag and handed it to Janet. “You were not heartless when you came in, and you are less so now.”
Janet woke to her phone alarm the next morning. She felt groggy but virtuous when she padded down the stairs to the kitchen to hear Daphne’s interview. She could have listened while lying in bed or curled in a more comfortable chair in the family room, but bolt upright in a hard kitchen chair insured that groggy wouldn’t triumph over virtuous.
The station had news of the tides. They were either coming in or going out. Janet knew it was one or the other, but her eyelids were drooping, taking her Scots comprehension quotient down with them. A roads report followed a fishing report interspersed with fiddle tunes livelier than Janet. She listened to an interview with a weaver from one of the islands. She was beginning to think Daphne had gotten the time or day wrong when Tallie came downstairs.
“Coming for a run?” Tallie asked.
“Trying to avoid a snooze.” Janet explained why she was up.
“Shh,” Tallie said. “I just heard Daphne’s name.”
They listened, only to hear the announcer give his regrets and tell them that Daphne had been unavoidably delayed, and they would reschedule the interview for another day. Janet switched off the radio. Tallie started the coffee, stayed until it was ready, and poured a cup for her mother.
“It’s not like we were depending on her interview to whip up enthusiasm for the signing,” Janet said after a sip and a sigh for her missed sleep.
“You didn’t get up just to hear her plug the shop, did you?”
“Partly.” Janet took another sip. The coffee was really still too hot. “Partly as a friendly
gesture. There’s something sad about Daphne. Her moods flip. Have you noticed that? Up, down. Back, forth. Swash, buckle.”
“Swash, buckle?”
“Like fencing,” Janet said. “Maybe swash is the same as thrust and buckle is like parry. Or the other way around. Anyway, Daphne was sure no one would listen to the program, so I thought I would.”
“She made sure no one listened,” Tallie said.
“The friendly part of me wants to be fair and say we don’t know why she missed the interview. But the unfriendly part of me tuned in and stood by, ready to start damage control, in case she said something about the murder or something unpleasant about Inversgail like she did at the ceilidh. My unfriendly part is also wondering what her excuse is this time and what flips her switch from up to down.” Janet held the coffee under her chin, fogging her glasses and picturing herself getting a steam treatment with tendrils of caffeine caressing her cheeks, her brow, and every last tiny nerve ending.
“If you see her, are you going to ask her why she missed the interview?” Tallie asked.
“Probably not.”
“I don’t blame you. I’m heading out, but here’s a useful tip, before I go. If they reschedule the interview, you don’t have to crawl out of bed for it. It’s a with-it kind of station; they stream their programs, so you can catch it later, when you’re fully awake, with coffee or wine ready at your elbow.”
“Or both?”
“Now you’re thinking. Don’t think so hard about Daphne that you lose your swash, though. Or your buckle. Or whichever makes you so nice to be around. See you later.”
Daphne was up again when she stopped by Yon Bonnie Books that afternoon. Janet, straightening the picture books in the aftermath of a three-year-old’s escape from his parents, hadn’t heard the door jingle.
“Do you want to bop her with a bokken, or shall I?” Daphne asked.
Being on her knees, Janet couldn’t quite jump at the suddenness of the question, but her heart hurdled a rib or two to make up for it. Too much caffeine, she wondered, or too much Daphne? She got to her feet, one hand on her heart, the other on the back of her neck, which hadn’t had a twinge of pain until that minute. Daphne must have come in through the tearoom.
