The Back of Beyond

by Doris Davidson

  ‘They haven’t done very much so far, have they? Look, I’ll put in a full description. Somebody must know where he is, even if he’s changed his name.’

  She couldn’t catch Nancy’s enthusiasm. She wasn’t keen on finding her father … not after what he had done to her … or what she thought he had done to her. She had read once that a dream meant the opposite of what had happened or was going to happen, so maybe her nightmares didn’t mean a thing. She had never actually remembered a face, or anything definite, and she could be wrong. She had taken a sleeping tablet, and it could all just be her imagination. ‘All right, Nancy,’ she mumbled.

  ‘You want me to go ahead? I’m sure it’ll work, Lexie, I know somebody’s going to get in touch with me, and I’ll let you know the minute they do.’

  Disconnecting the line, Lexie guessed that Nancy would have carried out her plan whether or not it had been agreed on. As she had said, it was worth a try, and no harm would be done if nothing came of it.

  Chapter 30

  If she hadn’t left a note saying that she was going away and didn’t know when she would be back, Marge Finnie and Peggy Pryor would have been extremely worried about their sister. As it was, they couldn’t understand her reason for it.

  ‘What does she mean she needs to get some peace?’ Peggy wailed. ‘We weren’t going to pester her.’

  ‘She should have known that. I told her we’d leave her alone, if that’s what she wanted, and we didn’t go near her.’ Marge looked pensively at the small sheet of paper. ‘Should I let Alistair know she’s gone?’

  ‘It’s up to you, but I don’t think he’d care – not the way he was when we left.’

  ‘He’s had time to think, though. He’ll blame us if anything happens to her.’

  Peggy scowled at this. ‘It’s not our fault. She’s thirty-six, for goodness’ sake … old enough to look after herself.’

  ‘That’s just it.’ Marge shook her head sadly. ‘She’s never had to look after herself. She’d Mum and Dad at first, then she’d Alistair, and it was up to me in Forvit.’

  Casting her eyes heavenwards, Peggy sneered, ‘You didn’t make a very good job of it, did you? You said yourself she wouldn’t have gone out with that Ken Whatsit at all if you hadn’t made her.’

  Stung by her younger sister’s sarcasm, Marge spat back, ‘Well, if you’re going to start casting things up, there’s no more to be said, is there?’

  They flounced back to their own homes and tackled their household chores with much vigour but little awareness of what they were doing, and it took Marge only about ten minutes to think better of her high-handed attitude. Gwen had every right to be alone if she wanted to; she certainly had a lot to think about, and she probably felt hemmed in having a sister living on either side of her, not that they would have pressurized her in any way, Marge assured herself. But it was easier for her. She had come off lightly, after all. Dougal was still a fraction cool towards her, but she was practically sure that he would understand the reason for what she did and would come round soon. He hadn’t discussed it with her yet, of course, hadn’t even mentioned it, but it was early days, and at least he hadn’t changed towards young Nicky. That was the main thing.

  As she so often did, Marge made an abrupt decision. What was the point of falling out with Peggy when they couldn’t do anything about anything? What was done couldn’t be undone, as their Mum used to say. If Gwen didn’t want advice from her own sisters, that was that! They’d have to let her take her own time to come to terms with herself, wherever she was … which was a mystery, for she didn’t have Ivy to run to now.

  Marge was about to pick up the telephone when it rang, making such a pang of guilty fear shoot through her that her hand hovered in the air for a second before she lifted the receiver, and she had never felt as thankful as she did when Peggy’s voice said, ‘I’ve just made a pot of tea … are you coming round?’

  Alistair’s mind could cope with only one thing, and no matter how many angles he viewed it from, he couldn’t bring himself to excuse his wife for what she had done. If only he’d had more time to talk it over with Dougal … though Dougal was bound to be biased. Gwen’s adultery had given him the son he had longed for, so he wasn’t likely to condemn her. He hadn’t even condemned his own wife, in spite of her trying to shoulder the blame … and she did have a lot to answer for, both before and after the event, which, of course, could only be laid at Gwen’s door.

  A customer interrupted his thoughts at this point, and he gladly entered into a discussion about the watch she had brought in for repair. ‘It hasn’t varied a minute in the three years since my mother gave it to me for my twenty-first,’ the smart young woman told him, ‘and it just stopped with no warning, and I didn’t overwind it. I’ve always been very careful about that.’

  ‘It could be a speck of dirt,’ Alistair suggested. ‘That’s the usual reason for a watch stopping. Or … what line of work are you in? It might be …’

  She gave a wry laugh. ‘You’ve probably hit the nail on the head, Mr Ritchie. I’ve only been teaching for six months, but I suppose it could be the chalk.’

  Alistair forced a reassuring smile. ‘Quite a few teachers come in with their watches clogged with chalk dust, and it’s easily remedied. I’ll give it a good clean and blow out and you can collect it in … say thirty minutes?’

  ‘I’m on my dinner hour, so is it all right if I come in after school?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I’ll be here about ten to four, then. I say, I like what you’ve done to your shop. It’s much brighter now. See you.’

  With the click of the door closing, his smile faded, and he looked around him with little interest. It was Leila who had gone at him for weeks about the front shop looking dingy. Neither he nor David had noticed; men didn’t set the same store by appearances. The fittings were as they had been when he bought the place – previously a small wool shop – a solid wooden counter, wooden shelves on the walls, and it really had been dingy compared with what it was now.

  It had all happened so quickly. Less than a month ago, a customer had happened to mention that another jeweller was about to retire and was letting all his glass cases go cheap for a quick sale. Leila had bullied him into buying the lot, and Barry and his cousin, an apprentice joiner, had worked the miracle. After painting the doors and walls, making the place look 100% better already, they whipped out the old wooden counter and shelves and fixed up their replacements over one Saturday evening and Sunday morning, and stayed all afternoon to help get all the glass cases spotlessly shining. Mickey, the cousin, had then gone off, whistling, to meet his girlfriend, but Barry had helped to set the stock of timepieces and jewellery out on display. It was a great improvement, Alistair conceded now, though it was a pity Gwen had never seen it.

  He was kept fairly busy for the rest of that day, so it was not until he was home in Benview, and both Leila and David had gone out, that he had the chance to get back to his problem … though he didn’t look on it as a problem. Problems needed to be worked out, answers had to be found, decisions had to be taken, but … he had already taken the decision, which was why he was sitting by himself in this remote cottage, sick to death of his own company and wondering if there was any point to life. Maybe he should have a night in the bar, drink until his brain was so pickled it wouldn’t be able to think at all. But it probably wouldn’t help. Nothing would help. That was the bloody awful thing!

  He kept brooding for some time. He needed somebody to talk to, somebody who would listen and sympathize, somebody who could be objective, but he wouldn’t find anybody like that in the bar. There was always Lexie, of course, but had she got over the shocks she’d had herself recently? In any case, wouldn’t this give her the chance to sneer at him? His beloved wife giving herself to another man as soon as his back was turned?

  But was it true? Marge had said she was the adulterer, and Gwen, being the older, had wanted to shield her. That was it, wasn’t it
? That was the kind of thing Gwen would do, and Marge had always been … the flighty one, going dancing, having a good time. Marge wouldn’t have pleaded guilty just to save her sister’s marriage.

  It was over an hour later, his mind having gone round and round so many times that he hardly knew what to think or what to feel, before it touched on something he should have remembered before. He hadn’t long come back to Forvit to live, he had gone to the shop for cigarettes, and Lexie had flung it at him that she had once seen Gwen lying with a soldier up at the tower. When he refused to believe it, she had quickly said it might have been Marge, but he knew now. It had been Gwen.

  He’d been a bit annoyed at Lexie for telling him at all, had put it down to yet another attempt to get him back – that was why he had buried it as deeply as he could – but she had only wanted him to know the truth about his wife. So that was it! No more touching on the possibility that she was innocent and he should ask her to come home; no more dreaming of a loving reconciliation; only the prospect of a long, lonely life without her.

  He banked up the fire with dross, put on his jacket then remembered that he should leave word for Leila and David to let them know he had gone for a walk … in case they got home before he did. If he came home at all.

  * * *

  Downhearted because she had heard nothing from either Nancy Lawrie or Roddy Liddell for a couple of days, Lexie wondered if the latest rumour she’d heard was true. It all stemmed from the postie claiming to have seen Dougal Finnie and his family early one morning that week in a car going towards Aberdeen. This in itself was strange, since Dougal had told her himself, when he came to buy some groceries, that they’d be here for the last week of his holidays and they’d brought Marge’s other sister with them. What was even more peculiar, though, was what else Sandy Mearns had told his wife.

  ‘He says there was twa cases strapped to the roof,’ Aggie reported, ‘an’ the door o’ the boot was held doon wi’ string, so it had been packed that full they surely couldna shut it. Dougal’s wife was sitting in the front, an’ the youngest sister was in the back wi’ Dougal’s laddie in the middle, atween her and …’ She gave a quick glance round to make sure that no one else had come into the shop before whispering, with obvious delight at having such juicy news to impart, ‘… atween her and Alistair Ritchie’s wife.’

  She paused to give her listener time to digest this, then added, ‘Sandy says she could hardly see ower the top o’ the bag she had on her knee, so me an’ Lizzie Wilkie thinks she’s left Alistair … for good.’

  She had waited expectantly for a reaction, and then, disappointed at getting none, she had dropped her purse into her shopping bag and left, no doubt to pass on her gossip to the first person she met. But, Lexie thought now, it couldn’t be true. Gwen wouldn’t leave Alistair, and she certainly would never leave her bairns. Besides, if the car was as packed as Sandy had made out to Aggie, they couldn’t be going as far as London; they wouldn’t have room to move. Dougal must have been giving Gwen a lift to Aberdeen to do some shopping, that was all. As Nancy had complained the other day, gossips – and in particular, Forvit gossips – nearly always got things twisted.

  The whole business was queer, though. Why would Dougal leave so soon? He had mentioned a row the other night – between him and Alistair? It couldn’t have been the sisters, not when they were all squeezed in the car together. Had Alistair found out about Gwen’s supposedly-non-existent baby and thrown her out? It was the only thing it could have been, and Marge had made Dougal take her back to London with them …

  Lexie was mulling this over – she’d always been sure it was Gwen she had seen with a soldier – and feeling sorry for Alistair, when someone came to the door. With him uppermost in her mind, she jumped to the conclusion that he had come to confront her about what she had said, and wondered if she should let him in. There would likely be no reasoning with him, he might attack her. He might …

  Her old nightmare returning, her heart palpitated wildly. She was back in that awful night, when another man – about the same age as Alistair was now – had raped her. That was why she couldn’t bear anybody to touch her.

  She didn’t push the half-memories away now. She mentally laid them out and confronted them. She had to know all the whys and wherefores, but it was so long ago, it was difficult to separate fact from imagination. She had been in bed, that was fact. She had been naked … but was that imagination? It had seemed to her at the time that there were dozens of hands, touching, poking, prodding … then that thing … No, face up to it. She was old enough now to know what had been rammed inside her, that was fact, also the excruciating pain she had suffered. No one could imagine that!

  She still couldn’t picture a face, because she hadn’t been able to open her eyes. Recreating the scene, she closed them now, and that was when she heard the hoarse whisper.

  ‘The sins of the fathers shall be …’ She couldn’t make out the next bit, but it had ended, ‘until the third and fourth generation.’

  What did it mean? Had her father been chanting about the sin he was in the act of perpetrating at the time? He’d certainly known the Bible inside out.

  A chill seemed to settle over her; it wasn’t only her limbs that were trembling. She pulled her cardigan closer round her and huddled nearer to the fire but still felt cold, and when she heard another knock, she had to suppress a scream of terror. Unable to make any move, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the door handle as it turned, and flung her arms over her head as the door itself was pushed open.

  ‘Lexie! I’m sorry if I’ve scared you. I did knock a few times. What …?’

  She lowered her arms with relief. ‘Roddy! Thank God it’s you.’

  He hurried forward as if to take her in his arms, but her stony expression halted him in his tracks. ‘What is it, my dear? What’s happened?’

  He sat down at the opposite side of the fire while she told him why she’d been afraid to open the door, ending by saying sorrowfully, ‘But Alistair’s not really like that and I don’t know what came over me.’ She couldn’t possibly tell this man about the loathsome memories that had flooded back to her. ‘I was just being stupid.’

  He kept looking at her so enquiringly that she burst out with it. ‘I was remembering the night my father went away …’

  Slowly and painfully, he got it out of her, not interrupting in case the confidences dried up, but when she stopped speaking, he said, gently, ‘You can’t be sure it was your father, though?’

  ‘It must have been, and he ran away because he was ashamed of what he did.’

  Roddy’s mouth twisted. ‘We’ve had no luck with our search for him.’

  She wondered fleetingly if she should let him know that Nancy had already sent letters to two Scottish newspapers, the Scotsman and the Daily Record, but decided against it. Time enough if anything came of it. ‘Are you any nearer finding whose body it is?’

  ‘No, but that reminds me. We did find a ring just below where the body was lying – that’s what I came to tell you.’

  ‘What kind of ring was it? Wedding? Engagement?’

  ‘Just a plain signet ring, but it has an inscription inside, which should help us to identify her. The initials M.M.McL, and the date 30.6.1906, which may be a special birthday or anniversary of some kind. Whoever buried her may have removed any other rings but had, perhaps, not known about this one.’

  To enable her to pass on the information to Nancy, Lexie made a mental note of the initials then offered her visitor a choice of tea or something stronger to drink, but Roddy pleaded pressure of work and left shortly afterwards. With peace to think, she tried to remember if there had ever been anyone living in the neighbourhood with the initials M.M.McL., but the only two she could think of had to be ruled out. Old Maggie McLennan had died a natural death about fifteen years ago at the age of eighty-three, and Molly McLaren had been killed in one of the air raids on Clydebank during the war. It was a terrible tragedy, for she’d only bee
n eighteen and just started her training as a nurse.

  When Lexie called Edinburgh to tell her about the ring, Nancy had important news of her own to pass on. ‘I’ve just finished speaking to a Mrs Chalmers in Aberdeen, and I’m still all excited. She saw my advert and said she wanted to ask me some questions about it. She wouldn’t tell me anything, but she must know your father, or she’d known him at some time. She’s coming to see me tomorrow forenoon, and I’ll give you a call as soon as she leaves, and let you know what’s happened.’

  Lexie did not hold out much hope of learning anything from such an unlikely source, but she urged Nancy not to forget to mention the ring that had been found, in case there was some sort of connection.

  When Roddy Liddell walked into the shop the following morning, she felt somewhat annoyed – she wouldn’t feel free to talk to Nancy if she phoned while he was there – but what he had to tell her left her reeling with shock.

  ‘We’re on to something at long last. I’ve just heard from Glasgow that a Thomas Birnie has contacted them.’

  ‘Doctor Birnie?’ She could scarcely credit it. ‘But why? He wouldn’t know where my father is.’

  ‘He told them that his wife had run off with another man many years ago, and he’d been shocked when he called at Police Headquarters yesterday to ask about an attaché case which had been stolen from his car, and saw a photograph of this same man on a Missing poster. “Alec Fraser ran off with my wife,” he told the desk sergeant.’

  Lexie’s gasp was genuine. ‘I don’t believe him. He told Nancy and everybody here that his wife went to Stirling to look after her sick mother, and she forced him to give up his practice and move down there to be with her.’

  ‘Like I suggested once, he was too ashamed to let people know she had left him, and he spun that story when a patient said she hadn’t seen his wife for a few weeks.’

  Lexie leaned forward so that her midriff was supported by the counter, then looked accusingly at the detective. ‘He’d been pulling the wool over their eyes, the Glasgow police, I mean. Nancy said he could make his lies sound like the gospel truth. Mrs Birnie wasn’t the kind to run away with anybody, and no more was my father. They knew each other, of course, she was in his choir, but that was all.’