The Interpretations

  ‘Oh no, not quite that much,’ Miss Crystal corrected him. ‘Just a wee bit pocket money, to supplement my pension from the Gas Board.’

  Twenty minutes later, when the fifth bottle of whisky had been opened and Jim had finished half of the orange juice on offer, Miss Crystal decided to leave. In fact, he wasn’t very much more drunk than before but he declared himself in need of a nap. ‘With the moon in Scorpio,’ he explained, ‘you just can’t be too careful.’ Jim offered him a lift home. This was gratefully accepted.

  When they reached Miss Crystal’s house – a detached bungalow in North Treshie – it was Jim who carried the still unwrapped leaving present in from the car. ‘Come in, come in,’ Miss Crystal said, opening the front door. ‘I could do with a cup of coffee and you might even want one yourself.’

  Half a dozen black plastic bin liners, full and heavy, had been placed along one side of the hall.

  ‘A bit of a clearout, Bob?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Aye, damn right. All my books and charts and magazines and God knows what else.’

  ‘A clean break, then?’

  ‘That’s it, exactly.’

  Miss Crystal lived alone. His wife, Irene, had died shortly after he joined the staff of the Herald. She had survived only four months after being diagnosed with liver cancer. He had nursed her for most of this time but still managed to do his job. As Bloomingfield said, though he wasn’t editor then, Miss Crystal never missed a deadline.

  At the time, such dedication to his daily column prompted mixed reactions among his colleagues. While admiring his tenacity, his organisation, they thought that he was taking the job just a bit too seriously. None of them, not even Jim, would have minded doing the horoscopes for a few weeks. Wasn’t time with his wife, now that everyone knew there was so little of it left, of greater importance? But he said he had lost the ability to sleep. It was as if, between himself and his wife there was a fixed allocation of sleeping time. The more she drew upon this quota the less there was available to him. During the night, to occupy himself during hours of sleeplessness, to distract him from the ever-deepening sleep of his wife, he composed his column, carefully and meticulously.

  He never remarried. He stayed on in the same house and kept it as clean and tidy as his wife had. When Jim went into the kitchen to help with the coffee, he noticed by the back door a wooden shoe rack which held three pairs of shoes, two black and one brown. They were highly polished. The second pair of brown shoes, which completed the set, were on Miss Crystal’s feet.

  ‘Dreadful pain,’ Miss Crystal said. ‘Agony. Yes, ex­cru­ciating pain. Terrible.’

  He had left the kitchen and was sitting on the brown three-seater sofa in the living room, not so much sitting as flopped down. Jim came in from the kitchen with two cups of coffee. ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  ‘I was saying. Irene. There.’ He pointed. A portrait of his wife hung on the wall. A colour photograph. A woman of forty-five or so in three-quarter profile. She had dark red hair taken up at her neck in a loose bun.

  ‘Cancer,’ Miss Crystal said.

  Jim knew the story. Miss Crystal had told him several times, often after alcohol had been consumed. An apology usually followed, as it did now.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Miss Crystal said. ‘I’m just blethering. I’m not exactly sober.’

  ‘No problem.’ Jim set the coffee down on the low glass-topped table that sat in front of the sofa.

  ‘It finished everything, you see,’ Miss Crystal went on. ‘Any faith I ever had in anything.’

  ‘Not surprising,’ Jim said as he sat down on one of the two armchairs that completed the suite.

  ‘What amazes me now is that I actually believed all that stuff. I believed it. Oh yes.’ He leaned forward to take a sip of coffee then relaxed back into the sofa. ‘Well, anyway,’ he said.

  ‘But how did you keep it going?’ Jim asked. ‘I mean, how did you keep on with it for so long?’

  ‘It doesn’t leave you all in one go,’ Miss Crystal said. ‘The practice kind of lingers on. Like an atheist in church who can still mouth the words to a hymn he learned as a child. It can be done. Glad I’m out of it now, though. Finally.’

  Jim said, ‘I’d like to ask you a wee favour.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘I believe you know a bit about handwriting.’

  ‘Graphology. A sideline you might say. Fraught with danger, too, by the way. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Just let me get a couple of things from the car.’

  When he got back three minutes later Jim placed two items on the table in front of Miss Crystal. One was the postcard signed by Peter Clinghurst. The other was the book he’d borrowed back from the Reverend McFarren, ‘Island Years’. This book had been a present from Tom Kingsmill. Jim lay the book open so the front flyleaf was visible on which had been written: ‘To Jim on his twenty-seventh birthday. Enjoy this tale of island life. All the best, Tom.’

  ‘Now, don’t tell me anything,’ Miss Crystal said as he leaned over the coffee table and examined what was before him. ‘Just let me take a look. Oh, by the way . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  He pointed. ‘Sideboard. Top drawer on the left. Magnifying glass.’

  Jim fetched the magnifying glass and Miss Crystal began to scrutinise the two hand-written messages. ‘When were they written?’ he asked.

  ‘This one,’ Jim said, pointing to the book, ‘in 1980, and this one in 1982.’

  ‘Right.’ Miss Crystal crouched over the two items again. After a minute or so he sat back in the sofa and laid his magnifying glass aside. ‘A man of strong convictions, I’d say,’ he said, pointing vaguely towards the inscription in ‘Island Years’. ‘Doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Likes to see things done right. That is, if there’s anything at all in this graphology business.’

  ‘It wasn’t really a character description I was after,’ Jim said.

  ‘No? That’s what graphology’s supposed to be about, isn’t it? Deriving character from handwriting.’ He reached forward and picked up his cup of coffee again.

  ‘Well, yes, but I wanted something else actually.’

  ‘Right, well. What is it?’

  ‘Was the person who wrote the postcard the same person as wrote the inscription in the book?’

  ‘Tom and Peter,’ Miss Crystal said. He took a sip of coffee. ‘The same person, without a doubt.’

  Half an hour later Jim Fisher was in Flemings, greengrocers, on Dalmore High Street. Somerled Fleming, the man who’d set up the business forty-three years earlier, was just about to close up for the day.

  ‘You’re cutting it fine,’ he said as Jim came in. ‘It’s . . . let’s see . . .’ He looked at his watch. ‘. . . a minute past five. Christ, I’m on overtime.’

  ‘Just give me half a dozen peaches,’ Jim said.

  ‘Peaches? Peaches?’ Fleming stroked his chin as if this word was something new and unknown to him. He was a tall man and quite stout, his body encased, tightly, in the green linen coat he always wore when in his shop. ‘And what’s wrong with apples?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Jim said. ‘Nothing at all. It’s just . . .’

  ‘My Braeburns not good enough for you any more, is that it?’

  ‘Braeburns?’

  ‘Five Braeburns. That’s what you always ask for.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Without fail. Oh, I’ve tried to interest you in other things over the years, as you know. I mean . . .’ He gestured to the trays of fruit on display. ‘. . . It’s not as if you’re short of options, is it? Melons, strawberries, raspberries, oranges, dates, bananas . . . let’s see . . . nectarines, apricots . . . Yes, I’ve tried to tempt you with all of them but no. No, Mr James Fisher of the Dalmore Herald will have none of these. Braeburns, he says, every time. Braeburns or nothing. And five of them. Not four, not six. Five. And then one day he comes in and asks for, of all things, peaches. What’s the world coming to? Eh?’

  ‘So, have you got a
ny?’ Jim asked.

  Fleming sighed. ‘As a matter of fact, at this point in time, no.’

  ‘None?’

  ‘None whatsoever. Not a peach to be had north of Aberdeen.’

  ‘They’re not actually for me,’ Jim said.

  ‘Of course they’re not for you. They’re for Mike Delvan, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they are.’

  Fleming shook his head. ‘The man who’s in hospital and doesn’t like grapes. How is he, by the way?’

  ‘They’ve glued him together and it seems to be holding.’

  ‘Good, good. Well, give him my regards, won’t you. Oh, and give him these as well.’ Fleming took a brown paper bag from one of his trays and handed it to Jim.

  ‘Not peaches?’ Jim said.

  ‘No.’

  Jim opened the bag and looked in. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘What the hell are these?’ He took one out and raised it up to get a good look at it.

  ‘Star fruit,’ Fleming informed him.

  ‘Looks like someone’s carved bits out of it.’

  ‘Well, exactly. I keep those bits and turn them into jam.’

  ‘How much are they?’ Jim asked as he replaced the fruit he’d examined.

  ‘On this particular occasion,’ Fleming said, ‘they’re free. Just let Mike know that when he’s better I expect him to come here and spend enormous amounts of money.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll let him know.’

  ‘Star fruit?’ Mike said.

  ‘That’s what he said,’ Tom replied. ‘They’re all the rage, apparently. And just like peaches.’

  ‘Are they? Well, they don’t look like peaches.’ He held one up and examined it.

  ‘Well, I’m with you there,’ Jim said. ‘But why don’t you try one?’

  ‘How do you actually eat them? Do you peel them?’

  ‘Haven’t the faintest idea. Why don’t you just take a bite out of one?’

  Mike did this. Some considerable strength of purpose was involved. He chewed slowly.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, they’re different,’ Mike said. ‘Not altogether unpleasant. But I think I’ll leave the rest till later.’ He put the star fruit with the bite out of it back in the paper bag with the others and placed the bag on the bed.

  He wasn’t in the bed himself but sitting beside it. He’d got up for the first time that morning and had already walked round the ward several times unaided. It was a small ward. Bits of him were still in plaster or wrapped in bandages but fewer bits than before. He was feeling much better.

  Andy, the only other occupant of the ward, had managed to hobble through to the TV lounge where he was watching the early evening news bulletin.

  ‘So, you’re a lot better then,’ Jim offered.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I am but, God, it’s just so boring.’

  ‘You’ve got a few books, haven’t you?’

  ‘Can’t concentrate.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about TV?’

  Mike looked disgusted by the idea. ‘Daytime TV,’ he said, ‘is even worse than evening TV which is shite.’

  ‘Right. OK. In that case . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How about doing some serious thinking?’

  Mike smiled. ‘If it involves my brain . . .’

  ‘Oh, just a wee bit.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Well,’ Jim began, ‘I now know who Peter Clinghurst is, or was.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes.’ He took the postcard from his pocket. ‘And believe it or not it was the Reverend McFarren who told me. Take a look at this.’ Now he took out the dedication page, written by the minister, unfolded it and handed it to Mike.

  Mike looked at it for a few moments and said, ‘Of course, yes, the suicides. I should have remembered.’

  ‘So, what’s the story, then?’

  ‘Well, don’t you remember it yourself? Tulloch’s daughter. Remember?’

  ‘Tulloch who had the butcher’s shop?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Eileen Tulloch,’ Jim said. ‘She committed suicide. I remember that. Her name’s there on the list.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘And it was her boyfriend . . .’

  ‘See, it’s coming back to you,’ Mike said as he handed the dedication page back to Jim. ‘It was big news at the time. Tulloch was very strait-laced, pillar of the kirk and all that. He sent his daughter off to some religious college in Glasgow and when she came back she brought with her someone she’d met there, a young chap called Peter Clinghurst.’

  ‘It’s coming back to me now,’ Jim said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, by all accounts Tulloch hit the roof and either threw her out of the house or threatened to. Anyway, she ran off with Clinghurst. She was only sixteen, I think. Or seventeen. They got as far as . . . I don’t know . . . maybe Spain or Italy. But she was back home within three weeks. The story at the time was that they’d split up. She was in quite a state, I believe. Nobody really knows exactly what happened between her and her father but it was obviously not very pleasant.’

  ‘How long did she stay at home?’

  ‘Oh, only a few hours. Not even a day. And the next thing we knew was that her body was found on the beach underneath the bridge. And that’s how she got on McFarren’s list.’

  ‘And Peter Clinghurst did the same thing.’

  ‘Apparently so. When he heard she was dead he was so grief-stricken he came straight up here, went to the bridge and jumped off too.’

  ‘I remember,’ Jim said. ‘I remember it all now. It’s just the name I missed.’

  ‘Clinghurst?’

  ‘Yes. But the story . . . I fell out with McManus about it.’

  ‘Who’s McManus?’

  ‘Editor of the Herald. Well, he was then. He wanted to turn it into some romantic Romeo and Juliet rubbish. McGibbon wrote it up, I remember. I fell out with him, too.’ He shook his head. ‘Peter Clinghurst, of course. Eileen Tulloch’s boyfriend.’

  ‘But what’s he doing sending a postcard to McCall? That’s what I don’t understand,’ Mike said.

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘Now you’ve lost me.’

  ‘Peter Clinghurst didn’t send the postcard,’ Jim said, ‘because when the postcard was sent, he was already dead. The postmark is April the sixteenth. I can’t remember the exact date he died but it was before the bridge race, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. And that was in March.’

  ‘That’s right. So, a couple of months before.’

  ‘So who did send the card?’

  ‘Tom did.’

  Mike didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then, ‘Tom? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean Tom. He sent the postcard from Spain.’

  ‘Are you . . .’

  ‘I’m quite serious and not crazy. You always thought he was alive, didn’t you?’

  ‘For a while I did.’

  ‘Now we have proof.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying,’ Mike said. ‘I really don’t . . .’

  ‘Look,’ Jim began, ‘I had the handwriting checked. The handwriting on the postcard is the same as Tom’s inscription on a book he gave me. No question about that. The same person wrote both.’

  ‘But Tom . . .’ Mike was still overwhelmed by the idea.

  ‘This is how I see it,’ Jim went on. ‘Archie Gilfedder’s the key here. We know this because of what McCall arranged about the shoe and the postcard. Now Archie wasn’t on the scene when Donnie got shot because he was in jail at the time. I remember because I asked about him later, at Donnie’s funeral. He was still in jail then. Remember that Archie was even more of a hard case than Donnie.’

  ‘Difficult,’ Mike commented.

  ‘I know. But he was. So . . . I’m guessing here but what if Archie decided to get revenge on Tom? What if he decided that it was Tom’s fault that his brother was dying i
n hospital? If that was the case then McCall would have sussed it out and maybe said to Tom, why not go away for a while? Why not just disappear?’

  ‘You’re suggesting McCall got Tom to fake his own suicide?’

  ‘Yes. McCall was best placed to help him. Remember, to make it convincing, Tom would have to leave everything behind, including his passport. But McCall found a passport for him.’

  ‘Peter Clinghurst’s.’

  ‘That’s right. Again, I’m only guessing but McCall was probably the investigating officer in the case so he had access to everything.’

  ‘A lot of guessing,’ Mike said.

  ‘I agree. But how else do you explain McCall’s instructions about the package – wait till Archie Gilfedder’s dead?’

  ‘It’s just so complicated,’ Mike said. ‘I remember talking to McCall about Tom’s disappearance and he said it was the simplest explanation that was almost always right and that my theories were just far too complicated. Then, after a while, I came round to that point of view myself.’

  ‘OK, OK but let’s put it this way, which of the two, Tom or Peter Clinghurst, do we know for sure is dead? Eh? Are we absolutely certain that Peter Clinghurst is dead? Yes, because his body was found. And Tom? What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mike said slowly. ‘I thought it was all over. I thought everything was complete and rounded off.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want it all opened up again.’

  ‘Too late. McCall decided it had to happen. He wanted to set you a puzzle, you see – you were trying to be a detective yourself then, weren’t you? So here’s the evidence, he’s saying. Figure it out. Tom’s still alive and now that Archie Gilfedder’s dead it’s safe for him to come home again. All you have to do is find him.’

  ‘Find him?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Even supposing all this is true, how the hell do we find him?’

  ‘That’s what I want you to think about,’ Jim said and he stood up. ‘Think about it while you’re eating your star fruit.’

  20

  Jim Fisher still lived in the flat above the Army Surplus Store that he’d bought twenty years before. The Army Surplus Store was now Pauline’s Pick’n’Mix but its opening hours were the same so this change of ownership made little difference to Jim’s sleeping patterns. The owner of Pauline’s Pick’n’Mix was a forty-five year old Glaswegian fed up with city life who had decided that Dalmore was the place to be and it badly needed a cut-price dried foods store. And she really was called Pauline. Jim liked the open trays of rice, cereals, nuts, raisins, dates and all the other foodstuffs that you could stock up on, filling brown paper bags using little tin shovels. And not a barcode in sight.