by Emma Fraser
‘But why disappear? Actually, that part I do understand. So embarrassing to be the wife of a murderer. But why take a different name? Why practise under an assumed name when you must have known the risks you were taking? Made me wonder if William Bannatyne knew where you were. Surely a daughter doesn’t take her children and run from her parents? Especially when those parents are the Bannatynes. The very people who could best protect her from the press and the scandal. Unless they were complicit. So I made some more enquiries. Didn’t take me too long to discover that there was bad feeling between you and your father.’
‘Did you see him?’ Margaret’s head was spinning. If Sinclair had, her father could be here at any moment. Images of the children being pulled from her arms, her in gaol, or in an asylum, flooded her head. She couldn’t let that happen. She needed to get away. But how? There wasn’t a ferry off the island until tomorrow.
‘No. I did try. Unfortunately he was too poorly to receive visitors, or so the maid said. Quite insistent she was.’
Her father was ill? Ill enough to stay at home? She’d never known him to take time off before. She chased away the feeling of unease. Her father didn’t deserve her sympathy and she had more pressing matters to consider. But for whatever reason, thank God, Sinclair hadn’t managed to see her father. If he had, she had no doubt, her father would have turfed him out on his ear – and then come here himself. Or, more likely, started proceedings to have the children removed from her.
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
‘Really? Are you sure?’ When she was quiet, he continued, ‘On my way back, I began to think. Here we have a Bannatyne hiding in our midst. And the Bannatyne family have more money than they know what to do with. Your father’s shipyard is busier than ever, I understand. Something to do with events in Europe?’
‘Why don’t you just say what you’ve got to say?’
‘I can’t imagine he, or you, would be too happy if I went to the GMC and explained there was a doctor, being paid a salary, who was working under an assumed name. They take a pretty dim view of things like that, you know. You’d almost certainly be struck off. Maybe even go to prison. Then what would happen to those children of yours? Elizabeth and James, I believe?’
‘What do you want?’ she asked through frozen lips.
‘I thought I should offer to come to some arrangement with you. As you know doctors here are paid a salary, but it’s a pretty poor one. Unfortunately I had to give up private practice, an unfortunate incident you understand, and this was the only job I could get. Why Dr MacLean chooses to work here when he doesn’t have to, is beyond me.’ He contemplated the end of his cigarette. ‘I do like the finer things in life. Particularly decent holidays and fishing. And all that tends to cost more than a simple doctor like me makes.’
‘You’ve come here to blackmail me?’ She could hardly believe it. Exposing her through legitimate indignation because she was practising under a different name was one thing, blackmailing her was quite another. The man was despicable.
‘I wouldn’t call it blackmail – such a nasty word – more like us helping each other out.’
‘I don’t have money, whatever you think.’
‘No, perhaps not, but your father does. I might not have managed to see him, but I could still write to him.’
All at once she felt flooded with rage. She’d been harassed from pillar to post by men and she’d had enough. She wanted to stay here, with the people who had become her friends. The thought of ripping her children away from the people they’d grown to love, only to go into hiding somewhere else, and with no money and no way to earn more was unthinkable. This man, with his supercilious smile and sleazy manner, would not get the better of her.
‘I won’t be giving you a penny,’ she said. She sat down on the chair and looked him in the eye. ‘You may be aware there is a young woman who lives here who was raped recently. She won’t, as yet, identify her attacker. But I think she will. It’s fairly easy to persuade her of things.’ She hoped God would forgive her for saying this. ‘She did say that the man who raped her was well dressed, like one of the men who come to the island to shoot or fish. In fact the man she described sounds a lot like you. And, if I remember correctly, the day you visited me to tell me about Caroline, you told me you came down to this side to fish whenever you got the opportunity. Perhaps you were in Lochmaddy the day Kirsty was attacked?’
He laughed. ‘You can’t be serious! I’ve never found a reason to take a woman against her will.’
‘But will people believe that? Especially if this woman points you out as her attacker. And as I said, I think she could be persuaded.’
Now she had wiped the smile off his face. ‘But that’s outrageous. You know as well as I do, I had nothing to do with any attack on any woman.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said mildly. ‘But even the accusation will taint your reputation, won’t it?’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Oh yes, I would. You’ve already discovered that I’m a woman who is prepared to bend the rules for my own purposes.’
‘No one would believe a woman who has deceived everyone.’
‘Aye they would.’ The voice came from behind her. Margaret whirled around. Dolina stood in the door, her arms folded over her chest. ‘Especially if I tell them I saw you with this woman one day.’ The older woman had clearly been listening through the slightly open door. How much had she heard? ‘People would believe me. And if they believe me, they’d believe the doctor here.’
Dr Sinclair laughed again but this time it was without conviction. ‘Why would they take the word of an old crone and an about-to-be-disgraced doctor over me?’
‘It’s a funny place, this island. People can give their neighbour an earful, they can fall out with each other, but in the end we look after our own. And if I say you were the man I’d seen talking to this young woman one day, then I’m as certain as I can be that one or two would back me up.’
Dr Sinclair’s hands were shaking as he lit another cigarette. ‘You’d perjure yourself? Don’t you know you could go to prison for that?’
‘I’ve been in worse places,’ Dolina said grimly.
Dr Sinclair stumbled to his feet and tried to smile. ‘It was only a friendly chat. A quid pro quo, if you like. But if nothing’s doing, then,’ he shrugged, ‘it was worth a try.’
Margaret stood too, unsure of whether her legs would support her. Something wasn’t right. He’d given up too easily.
‘What is your first name?’
‘What the hell do you want to know that for?’
She took another step towards him. He was standing directly under the gas light. ‘It isn’t Richard, by any chance?’
‘It’s Roderick, as it happens.’ But he had paled. She took a step closer until she was only a foot or so in front of him. She’d never noticed it before but now she could see he had one green eye and one blue. It was very rare. Could she have stumbled across the truth?
‘The victim said the man had funny eyes. And you have heterochromia.’ Her mind was racing. It was entirely possible he’d given Kirsty a different name. Indeed if he’d intended to rape her all along that is exactly what he would have done. But Sinclair was a doctor! It was unthinkable. Nevertheless, she recalled their conversation about Caroline. His dismissal and contempt for the islanders – the way he viewed them as less than human.
Dolina walked across to the door and flung it open. A gust of damp evening air rattled the windows. ‘Now you’d better leave before I take you by the scruff of the neck and throw you out. I may not look strong, but these arms are a lot more used to hard work than yours.’
Dr Sinclair stared at Dolina as if she were from another planet. He straightened the lapels of his jacket and, with a shake of his head, let himself out.
As the door closed behind him, Margaret started shaking and couldn’t stop. Dolina said nothing, but placed the kettle on the stove and calmly began to make a pot of tea.
‘How much did you hear?’ Margaret asked.
‘Enough to know that that man knows something about you that you wish he didn’t.’ Dolina heaped tea leaves into the pot and set it on the stove. ‘I’ve known about you for a while now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was laying the fire with some old newspapers. There was a photograph in one of them of a man who had been arrested for murder. I recognised him immediately. The same man that’s in your wedding photograph.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘What was I going to say? You’d taken a different name for a reason. Either he was guilty of murder and you were trying to protect your children, or he wasn’t and you had other reasons for coming here.’
‘He’s innocent.’
A ghost of a smile crossed the older woman’s face. ‘I’ve no doubt he is. I can’t imagine you’d be keeping letters under your pillow from a man guilty of murder. Neither would those children be the way they are if they were fathered by an evil man.’
‘But you didn’t tell Dr Alan?’
‘I thought about it. I knew if I did he would have to let you go. And that man needed your help.’ She cleared her throat. ‘The folk here like you. Say you treat them kindly. That counts for a lot in my book.’
‘And knowing all that you would still lie to save me? I can’t be sure Sinclair did what I accused him of.’
‘Aye. If it came to that.’
‘Oh, Dolina, why?’
The housekeeper cleared her throat. ‘Because you and the bairns are the nearest thing I’ve got to a family. Because I know what it is like to be down on your luck and to have no one to turn to. I’m no’ daft. I saw that something was troubling you since the very day you arrived.’
‘I thought you didn’t approve of me.’
‘Aye, well, to be honest, I didn’t, not at first.’ She sighed again and took the chair recently vacated by Dr Sinclair. ‘The thing is I never had much truck with women doctors – all doctors come to that. With the exception of Dr Alan, that is. Now there’s a real gent.’
‘You had a daughter, didn’t you?’
Dolina looked at her sharply. ‘Not so daft either, are you?’ She exhaled deeply. ‘How did you know?’
‘A few things. But it was when you gave the dress to Libby I really guessed. No one holds onto a dress belonging to a child for years unless it means something to them. And it was beautifully knitted and put together. Anyone could see it was made with great love.’
Tears flooded Dolina’s eyes and she wiped them away impatiently with the back of her hand. ‘That lass meant everything to me.’
Margaret couldn’t be sure if, even now, Sinclair was planning to go to the police or to her father. He couldn’t go to Dr Alan, who wouldn’t be back from his honeymoon until tomorrow afternoon – if the ferry even managed to sail. She had tonight to decide what to do. In the meantime, she owed this woman so much, she could at least listen to her.
‘What happened to your daughter?’ Margaret asked gently.
‘It’s been a long time since I spoke about her. To be honest I’m not sure I ever spoke about her. That’s the worst of it. With no one to remember her with it’s almost as if she never existed. It’s almost as if I dreamt her.’
‘Tell me, Dolina. Tell me. We’ll remember her together.’
Dolina sat down and stared into the distance for a long while, a small smile hovering on her lips. ‘She was a lovely wee thing. Not that she lived very long.’
Margaret stayed quiet, sensing that Dolina needed to recount her story in her own time. ‘I was one of ten,’ she said eventually. ‘We lived on Barra.’ It was a small island off the coast of South Uist. ‘We didn’t have much. My father was always poorly and struggled to provide for us, so as soon as I was fourteen I went to Glasgow to take up a post as a housemaid. I know I don’t look like much now but back then I was pretty. Pretty and big-headed. I imagined that Glasgow was like people think of New York or London – I thought it was made of gold. I had no intention of staying a housemaid forever. I believed that something,’ she smiled wanly, ‘or someone would come along and I’d make my fortune. Then I’d come back or at the very least send lots of money home. I imagined myself stepping off the ferry, dressed in the best money could buy,’ she shook her head slightly. ‘In those days the best meant something shop bought and not hand-knitted or passed down from one child to the next. I was the fifth sister so you could imagine my clothes were pretty worn by the time they got to me. My mother was a great knitter, but we didn’t even have sheep in the end to get the wool.’
A spatter of rain hit the window and Margaret hid a shiver. She had a good idea of what was coming.
‘And I did like Glasgow – at first. Everything about it amazed me – not that I got to see that much of it. The house I was sent to was in Kelvinbridge, not as grand as some, but grand enough. There were only two maids, so we had to do all the work between us. We got up at five and often weren’t in bed until after ten. We had one afternoon off a month and I’d go out and wander the streets no matter the weather. The pay was poor too. I knew I’d only have a few pennies to send to Mam and Dad but I still believed something better was going to come along.
‘I met him in Kelvingrove Park. My hat blew away and he chased it for me and brought it back. He was so handsome, so well dressed, I knew immediately he wasn’t for me. But we got talking and he was kind and he didn’t try anything funny. We met a few afternoons after that and I told him that I wasn’t happy at my place – not that the people there weren’t kind enough, but that the pay was so low and I wanted to do better. Of course he agreed – a pretty girl like me, he said, should have the world at her feet.’ She paused, a wry smile hovering over her lips. ‘I can hardly remember the girl I was back then. One who would believe whatever she was told.’
Margaret said nothing, knowing that if she interrupted, Dolina might never finish her story and knowing at the same time that it was important for the older woman to do so.
‘There was no job. But I kept meeting him. I was in love and I thought he loved me. I was certain that we would marry. Of course, when I told him I was pregnant he disappeared. I didn’t know what to do. I was ashamed. Then Mam wrote to say they were all going to Canada. They’d get help with fares and the boys had been promised jobs. She wanted me to come with them. How could I? I was going to have a baby. I should have told her but I couldn’t. I didn’t want anyone to know. So I told her I was going to stay, that I had met someone, that we were going to get married. I thought he might still come back for me. I couldn’t believe that he’d been lying all that time.
‘They went. I looked everywhere for Michael – that was his name – but I couldn’t find him, nor anyone who knew him. I doubt now that was even his real name. I tried to hide the fact I was going to have a baby from my employers and I managed for longer than I’d hoped, but of course they found out and I was dismissed. I only had a small bit of money saved —’ She shook her head. ‘You don’t need to know what I did to survive. I knew I had to keep the little money I did have for when the baby was born.’
She smiled. ‘Dawn – that’s what I called her – was so beautiful. I loved her straight away and I knew I would do anything and everything to keep her safe. But I couldn’t. Not for long. I ran out of money and then there was only one thing for it. I had to take her to the poorhouse. They took her in but they wouldn’t take me too. I got a job as a maid. I had to pretend I didn’t have a child. They wouldn’t have taken me on if I’d said. I saw Dawn sometimes, but not as often as I wanted. For three years I kept thinking and thinking of what I could do so we could be together again. I thought if I could save somehow I could get enough together for a small place for the two of us.’ She shook her head. ‘I started knitting the dress, imagining Dawn wearing it when she was older – when we’d be together again. I know I was dreaming, but I had to make myself believe it.’ Tears were running down her lined cheeks. ‘Then one day I went to vi
sit Dawn and they told me she was dying. They hadn’t even sent me a note to tell me she was sick.’
Margaret’s heart ached for her. She took Dolina’s hand and for once the older woman didn’t pull away. ‘It was a woman doctor who saw her. She didn’t realise how sick she was to begin with. Dawn was still alive when I got there, but only just. The doctor wouldn’t let me see her. Said she couldn’t be upset. By me! Her mother! I couldn’t even say goodbye. If she had to die she should have died in my arms. I should have been with her. I’ll never forgive myself or that doctor for that. Most of all I’ll never forgive myself. Me and my stupid pride. I should have told my Mam as soon as I knew I was going to have a baby and that the father had run off. She would have been disappointed, but she would have taken us in. We would have been all right.’
‘You did the best you could,’ Margaret said gently. She thought of the dress Dolina had given Libby, the love and care that had gone into every stitch and how the older woman had kept it with her all these years.