“It was designed to be served at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. I can’t imagine why this dish was chosen for her big celebration, but perhaps she asked for it,” Vera said. “Perhaps it was a taste of home in a very turbulent world when she was about to take on massive responsibility.”
While we were waiting for our food to be delivered, Helen took Miss Gloria to the shop next door to peruse gifts for her friends back home. They seemed to have bonded in the biggest way.
“Anything with Outlander on it, Mrs. Dubisson will go crazy for,” I heard her telling Helen. “She watches that over and over, and then we discuss the characters.”
I met Vera’s gaze and snickered.
“She herself is a big character,” said Vera with a wide grin. “When Nathan told me you were bringing your octogenarian housemate on your honeymoon, I admit to being puzzled. But she is completely lovely. Like the grandmother I never had. And Nathan seems to feel the same.”
I could only nod in agreement. Inhaling a deep breath, I braced to ask the question I had been dying to launch. There was a blanket of tension between Vera and her mother, and I didn’t believe she’d reveal anything with Helen at the table. I worked hard to keep my voice friendly and level so she wouldn’t feel like I was pushing too hard or, even worse, accusing her of something.
“The photo that the police officer showed us this morning. Are you certain you didn’t recognize him, this Joseph Booth? Your face had a funny expression, so I couldn’t tell for sure.”
She began to rearrange the silverware that our server had brought to the table, knife next to fork next to spoon. “He looked like a man I knew in college,” she admitted after a beat of awkward silence. “The Mr. Booth I knew was a teaching assistant, but there was some kind of scandal, and he left the university unexpectedly, and I’m quite certain he moved to Canada. I don’t see how it could be the same person at all. Hearing the name took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“You didn’t recognize him?” I asked.
“No. But it doesn’t actually matter, does it? Even if I’d met the man years ago, none of our group had anything to do with the tragedy. It was a horrible coincidence. Still, a man died violently in our proximity, and that’s hard to accept. It shook me up, that’s all.” She looked greatly relieved when the waitress returned with our lunch. At the same time, Miss Gloria and Helen burst back into the café, laden with packages.
“You won’t believe the cute things I found, including a scarf made from the MacDonald tartan. Not that there will be much use for a wool scarf in Key West, but I bought one anyway since it’s family history, and one for each of my sons too. They live in Michigan,” she explained to the others. “With their long winters, a scarf is always welcome.”
“It’s the first shop you visited—hope you saved room for some other treasures,” I said.
“I’m counting on lots of space in Nathan’s suitcase,” she said with a wink. “He’s not much of a shopper.” She leaned back so the waitress could slide our orders onto the table.
My plate was piled high—a mound of creamy chicken salad loaded onto a baked potato, with a green salad on the side. The usual eyes-bigger-than-stomach problem. I would need all my food critic skills to eat with moderation, enjoying the dish enough to describe it and remember it, but not one bite more. Miss Gloria was equally delighted with her pie. The meat stuffing steamed as she broke into the crust, filling the air with a delightful oniony scent. I took a few quick photos before we destroyed the perfect arrangements.
As we were tucking into our lunches, I saw the other members of Vera’s book team walk by outside. Ainsley noticed us and beckoned the others into the café and over to our table.
“Good morning. Or good afternoon, I suppose I should say. Hope you all had an easy drive up and a pleasant morning.” She pasted on a smile that could not make up for the fact that her body was tight as a wire and that Glenda and Gavin were hanging several feet back.
“Won’t you join us?” Vera asked, gesturing at the table nearby, where diners appeared to be finishing up. “We could ask the waiter to put the two tables together?”
“Oh, we made a little lunch stop on the way up,” Ainsley said. “Gavin wants to scope out the best views to take photographs of the parade.”
“He has the most amazing shots in mind,” said Glenda, tucking her arm into her husband’s and gazing up at him.
“And we’re meeting for dinner, right?” Ainsley asked.
Vera said, “Yes, I made the reservation for eight o’clock at the hotel.”
Ainsley winked at her, smiled at us, and followed the other two out the door to the street.
“I hope no one kills anybody before this project is over,” said Helen. She spread her white napkin on her lap and picked up her fork and knife.
“Why in god’s name would you say something like that?” Vera asked, glaring at her mother.
“I didn’t mean it literally,” said Helen. “I was merely commenting on the obvious tension.” She looked as if she might add more, but instead sighed and cut into her sandwich.
We ploughed through our lunch in silence until Miss Gloria brought her packages out from under the table and began to show each of the gifts she brought and tell us why she’d chosen them.
“The Outlander cookbook is for Phyllis,” she said. “She’s the only one of our mah-jongg group who does any serious cooking—aside from Miriam, and she’s in the loony bin for poisoning one of our pals with peanut butter cookies.” My in-laws looked horrified, but Miss Gloria rattled forward. “She sort of had it coming, even though the murder was definitely taking it too far. I’m a big fan of talking things out if you’re mad about something.” She wrapped the cookbook back up in its polka-dotted paper and turned to me.
“I figure Phyllis can whip up a Scottish dinner for the whole group and then we’ll watch a couple of our favorite Outlander episodes again. Hayley, maybe you can help, because some of the recipes look complicated and the print is tiny for an old lady’s eyes.” She cackled with delight. “The stuffed sheep is for Mrs. Dubisson. She desperately wants a cat but she’s allergic. She comes down the finger to visit our boat at least once a week, but by the end of tea time, she’s wheezing from Sparky and T-bone and Hayley’s Evinrude. And of course, as I mentioned, the scarves are for my boys.” She held up the packages of plaid wool.
Once everyone had finished lunch, we walked back to the hotel to rest before the evening celebration, as Vera suggested. In our room, she took her shoes off and stretched out across her bed.
Now or never. “I’m sorry things feel tense between you and your mom,” I tried.
“Do you know,” Vera said after an uncomfortable silence, “it sounds like you and your mother have a lovely friendship. But mother–daughter rifts tend to accumulate over a lifetime until finally the weight of miscommunications begins to fray and sometimes severs the tie. In our case, that happened after my so-called ‘incident’ as my parents referred to it. I’m sure they meant not to upset me, but by not calling it an abduction, they only made me feel more alone.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “If it helps, she did talk to me about it. I think she’s open to—”
Vera cut me off. “You didn’t see her after the abduction. It was all chipper, chipper, let’s get back to life as normal, and so on. Except I could feel the waves of anger radiating underneath. When there are problems in my life, she’s not the person I feel I can turn to in order to talk them out.”
She curled up into a little ball and pulled the sheet around her shoulders, and I got the message. She needed some alone time. And she did not need me crowing about my developing friendship with her mother.
On my way out, I heard her voice again, muffled by the bedcovers. “Don’t worry a bit about Trudy. She was a girlie girl, and Nathan has always been attracted to that kind of thing, taking care of her, watching her whirl in social tailspins, and all that. Even if he was drawn to her, they weren’t a good fit, and i
t wasn’t sustainable in the long run.”
Chapter Fourteen
Beauvoir had never liked dark chocolate. It seemed unfriendly.
—Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery
Since I was not feeling sleepy, especially after Vera’s last comment, I carried my iPad to scope out a library or other comfortable spot for reading. Did Vera mean Nathan wished I was a girlie girl, that’s what he really wanted? I hated feeling jealous of his ex-wife, because he’d assured me over and over that he had moved on from that relationship and chosen exactly where he wanted to be. With me. The lingering jealousy left me feeling unmoored, insecure, and a little silly.
Afternoon tea was being served in the lobby, but in spite of my best intentions, I had finished off my plate of coronation chicken plus a baked potato the size of a Highland cow, and all that sat a little heavy in my gut. And eight o’clock would come soon enough for dinner. I did pause by the door of the restaurant to check out tonight’s menu, which was front-loaded with salmon starters, a mackerel pate, duck and chicken terrine, and an Arran whiskey cheddar beignet that sounded irresistible.
I settled in a little nook in the lower level, in a comfortable upholstered chair near the Gin Palace aka bar that served hundreds of kinds of gin, but far enough away to avoid distraction by the cocktail chatter. First order of business: google Joseph Booth. I had suspected this would be a common enough name that the search would not be very helpful. There was a Joseph Booth, Dublin master clockmaker; a Joseph Booth, missionary in the early 1900s; and a small news item about the fall from the Falkirk Wheel.
I clicked on that link and began to read.
Mr. Joseph Booth of Glasgow, England fell to his death from the Falkirk Wheel in Falkirk on Tuesday. Mr. Booth, 43, was employed as a senior software engineer. He is survived by his mother Mrs. Joseph (Violet) Booth Senior, and an aunt, Bettina Booth, of Peebles, England, who were known for winning the British Baking Show, Scone Edition, last fall. Said Bettina Booth, “he was clever and fit and never would have taken such a risk, nor suffered such a fall without some help.” She called for the local police to treat this as a criminal incident.
Police are investigating the fall as suspicious and encourage anyone who observed the incident or has any information to call the station.
The fact that Joseph Booth’s relatives lived right in this town was simply too much of a tempting coincidence to ignore. The signs that Vera was somehow in trouble were mounting up, starting with what Nathan had told me about her husband’s concerns before we even came to Scotland. And culminating in the fall from the Wheel. My instinct told me that Joseph Booth was an important part of the mystery. Vera had definitely recognized him when the police officer showed her his photo. Or to be more specific, she had startled as though he was someone she knew. And she did tell me that the man reminded her of someone she’d known in college, but that that Mr. Booth had moved to Canada, so she didn’t see how it could be the same person. I thought it was possible they were one and the same. Didn’t people move from Canada to the UK all the time?
Perhaps his family would be willing to share more about why he’d left the university and why he might have shown up at the Wheel the same day and time that our party did.
The most difficult problem was how I could explain stopping into someone’s home to ask questions of recently bereaved relatives about his murder. The answer, I thought, might lie with the prize-winning scones. I Googled “Bettina and Violet Booth scone recipe” and learned from the Peebles Observer that although the sisters had declined to share their prize-winning recipe for cinnamon scones, they’d alluded to the secret lying in very cold butter and eschewing cinnamon chips. There was an adorable photo of two older women with matching gray bobs, arms around each other’s waists and grinning, in front of a pile of fluffy scones. A big blue ribbon lay on the table next to the baked goods.
I easily found the address for Violet Booth, then clicked on the maps app on my iPhone and put in the location. The app told me her home was about a mile and a half from the Peebles Hydro, on the other side of town. I didn’t see how I could get to the house and back to the hotel in time to meet up with the others for the solstice festivities. But I would be able to trot across town, visit with Joseph Booth’s family, and then join Vera and Miss Gloria and Helen downtown.
I was starting to type this plan into an e-mail—only my plans to meet in town, not the reason for the change—when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I startled, feeling guilty as though I was doing something wrong. The tapping finger belonged to Ainsley.
“So sorry,” she said, with a friendly and apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m interrupting something, aren’t I?”
I surely wasn’t going to tell her what I was planning without knowing whose side she stood on, if in fact there were sides. The relationships between these old college friends who were working together felt like a big snarled ball of ominous awkwardness.
“Not at all,” I said, waving at the club chair angled next to me. “Come sit for a minute. I was reading about that poor man who fell from the wheel yesterday. It was so unexpected and so tragic, and poor Vera seems torn up about it.”
A series of expressions flooded over her face like fast-moving clouds: surprised, distressed, worried. And then she pulled on a cheerful mask. “Yes,” she said, “that was a terrible, terrible event. I can’t think what that man was doing up there. They clearly asked visitors to remain seated while the wheel was in motion.”
Either she knew nothing or I was being stonewalled. “The police came to Vera’s home this morning to ask if we knew the man or had seen anything in the moments leading up to his fall.” I waited for a few seconds to see if she was going to chime in without being pushed. She wasn’t. “Did they also interview you?”
“They did. But I had nothing to enlighten them with.” Her face looked stony.
“Did you recognize Mr. Booth?”
“I did not,” she said, adding a small smile. “But it appeared to be one of those early photos, so it was difficult to judge how old he was in actuality—what he would look like today. So tragic.” She reached over to lay her hand on mine, gazing steadily at me. It was hard to think she was lying about anything. “I’m only sorry that your visit is not more relaxing,” she said. “I know that Vera was looking forward to meeting you very much.”
“And I her. And it’s also lovely to meet her old friends. Sounds as though you’ve known her since she moved to Edinburgh.”
She nodded thoughtfully and pulled away to lean against her chair back. “We were so young. She didn’t know a soul and was so brave to move alone to a new country. I’m glad we connected, because sometimes when you’re that young, you don’t choose the friends that could last a lifetime.”
“That’s exactly what I was saying yesterday,” I said, and then moved doggedly forward with my questions. “Have there been any developments with Glenda and the food? Grace was terribly distressed about someone thinking she would try to hurt one of your friends. And she was sad about the wonderful meal getting ruined, though that of course is not nearly as important as Glenda’s health.”
Ainsley smiled and crossed her hands in her lap. “Grace is a real treasure, but she gets wound up about entertaining. Rightfully so, as she’s a professional and wants everything to be perfect. She will probably be grateful and relieved to have only my husband to cater to for a few days.” She smiled again, which I took to mean that she was done talking about Grace and the poisoned dinner.
“Tell me about Glenda,” I said. “Were you and Vera instant friends with her as well as each other? I hope you don’t mind me saying that it seems as though there’s a fair amount of tension between all of you right now.”
She sighed and smoothed the fabric of her skirt across her lap. “I’m afraid it’s the book. It’s starting to wear on us as we get closer to the deadline. Glenda’s a bit of a drama queen, as you saw at my dinner party. And managing a husband, especially her Gavin,
is not so easy.” Her eyes twinkled. “That sounds so old-fashioned, doesn’t it? I still believe that marriage is an art and that one must be a dedicated student. I’m sure you’re learning your Nathan’s ways.”
I smiled in return. Nathan would hate that description. And I was determined not to get derailed from my questions about Glenda. It felt like I was knocking on each door and window in her house. I could see her inside, but she was opening none of them.
“Do you mind saying more about the tension?” I asked. “I’m worried about Vera. And I know that she’s concerned about both the dinner and the terrible fall. But like her brother, she’s not a big talker.”
She slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes, as if too tired to keep up the cheerful pretense that everything was fine.
“We all met during her first year in Scotland, in a class on the history of Edinburgh. For Glenda and me, it was the same stuff we’d heard in school for years. But Vera was fascinated and horrified with the violence. I suppose every country has its low moments, but she was appalled at the battles between clans—people against people, and between Scotland and England, Scotland and Ireland, Scotland and France.” She focused her gaze on my face. “I always wondered whether her strong reactions and her intense desire to write this book were related to her own trauma. Isn’t that often where art is born? Anyway, she has been interested in Scottish history ever since she arrived. And as I’m sure you’ve heard, she wanted to showcase it in a way that would be unique. I was all in favor of that.”
She glanced at her watch. “Goodness, it’s getting late. I’ll see you at the parade—I need to run to my room and grab a sweater.”
Chapter Fifteen
A Scone of Contention Page 12