Beneath the Abbey Wall

by A. D. Scott

  Rob watched as she peered into the mirror and started to outline her eyes in black, adding layers of mascara, then a pale pink lipstick. He watched her brush her hair, fluffing it out with her fingers, and remembered the other puzzle Mr. Brodie, QC, had asked him to investigate.

  “Mrs. Smart’s handbag went missing. You didn’t find it, did you?”

  “That horrible old-lady’s thing? Who cares what happened to it?”

  “We’d better go.” Rob stood, afraid he could no longer hide his repugnance.

  She locked up. They walked to his father’s office. He had his arm around her shoulder, reassuring her with murmuring nonsense, saying, “It’s so good of you to help Don. It won’t take long. Then you can go back and sleep. You must be exhausted. It’s hard work being a nurse . . . ”

  They walked up the steps and into the office. He said to Mrs. Andersen, the secretary, “We’ll be in the meeting room, could you tell my father? And my friend would like a cup of tea.”

  Forever after, he treated his father’s secretary with admiration and respect—one look at him and she knew that although she had no idea what it was about, it was serious. She even brought tea biscuits with the tea.

  “Dad, this is Eilidh,” Rob said when his father came in.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. McLean, I’m Rob’s girlfriend.”

  Rob marveled how she could still turn on the charm, her voice soft and her eyes too, and that imperceptible lean towards the person she was talking to.

  “Eilidh needs your help,” he told his father. “She has information about the night Mrs. Smart died, but she’s really worried no one will believe her.”

  They went back over the story again.

  “I’m so sorry Mr. McLeod is locked up, he’s a really nice man.” She smiled slightly at Angus McLean, her face full of concern.

  “I’m sorry about Mrs. Smart too.” She didn’t mention her quarreling with Mrs. Smart, her being all too ready to spy on her. And she left out the payment for said spying.

  “I’m really sorry I didn’t hand in the keys. I didn’t know it was important.”

  Rob watched her, marveling once again at her capacity for deception.

  “I’m really sorry I gave him the knife. I swear to God I never knew what he was going to do with it.”

  Her eyes flicked onto Rob. “I’ve no idea how he knew about the knife.”

  She sensed his doubt. “I know he’d been in the courtyard spying on Mr. McLeod when he was at work . . . ” Her voice was weakening, the energy to keep up the façade fading. “He must have seen it then, I don’t know . . . ”

  “You’re doing great, Eilidh.” Rob put his hand back on her arm. “Isn’t she?” He looked across at his father, who nodded and smiled. She smiled back.

  Angus McLean felt it was time to intervene. “I know how painful it must be for you to recall that night. But I’m not quite clear exactly what happened.” His voice conveyed the impression of some not-quite-on-the ball-elderly uncle.

  “He told me to wait inside the back gate to the churchyard. You know the place? The stone arch?”

  Angus said, “You must be a brave young woman to wait in a graveyard in the dead of night.” Again he gave his elderly-favorite-uncle smile.

  “No.” She smiled. “I grew up in a manse next to a churchyard, I’m not afraid of ghosts. Anyway, I was waiting for Mrs. Smart to come out, she always left about the same time, quarter past nine. She walked past, but she didn’t see me. A minute later he called me. I went into the churchyard, leaned over the wall, and he passed me up the knife, telling me to run and put it back in the hidey place.”

  How in Heaven’s name did she not see the body? Angus and Rob and Mrs. Andersen were thinking.

  “Didn’t you see Mrs. Smart lying there?” Rob could hardly control his disgust. His father frowned, and Rob quickly recovered the smooth soothing voice. “But of course it must have been really dark.”

  “It was. It was dark, and misty and cold.” She looked at him, eyes wide with gratitude. “He left me on my own, in the cemetery, with the knife, and next I knew he was gone. Then this man came down the steps. He was carrying a bicycle. I was terrified he’d see me so I hid behind a gravestone . . . it was horrible.” Nearly scared the life out of me, she remembered.

  Something must have penetrated her carapace of deceit. She looked at Rob and his father, and thought they were watching her as though she were an exhibit in the fairground freak show. “I’m so, so sorry.” Tears trembled in the lower lids of her blue, blue eyes. “I never knew he’d use the knife. I thought he was only going to scare her.”

  Now the tears began to roll down the cheeks, making tracks in the liberal application of makeup she had so carefully applied to impress Angus McLean.

  Angus said, “You’re a very brave young woman.”

  Rob was desperately racking his brains to find a way to get her to say the name. He? Who is “he”? She must say the name. Then he had an idea. “Neil Stewart is going back to Canada earlier than we thought; we’ll miss him.”

  Three pairs of eyes turned and stared at him.

  “I liked him, I can’t believe he was involved in a murder . . . ” Rob continued.

  “Was he?” Eilidh’s face, so childlike, looked at Rob. There was a slight hesitation. She bit her lip, then said, “I only met him at the dancing. Mrs. Ross who works with you is his girlfriend.”

  Rob let that go. But he remembered Eilidh saying she had shown Neil the empty house in her courtyard. “Isn’t that who we’re talking about? Isn’t Neil the person you gave the knife to?” Rob asked.

  “Don’t be silly, it was the sergeant who killed her.” She stared at Rob as she said this, daring him to disagree.

  “Sergeant Major Smart killed his wife?” It was Angus’s opportunity to ask the question, clearly. And his secretary’s opportunity to write down the answer, clearly.

  “Of course.” She gave a huge exaggerated sigh, shaking her head at how stupid they were. “He hated her. He’s been trying to work out how to do it for at least a year now.”

  She went still. Her eyes flitted from one face to the other. She was trying to read their faces, attempting to gauge if they believed her story. Rob and Angus and Mrs. Andersen, who was sitting silently in a corner taking notes in shorthand, simultaneously looked down, to hide their horror.

  “Of course I’m only guessing. I don’t really know.” There was no going back on the remark. She’d been spying, taking money, for at least a year. And everything she had told Rob and Angus McLean and the secretary was legal enough for any court of law.

  The phone in the reception started to ring. The sound broke the flow. The secretary excused herself. She came back, looked at Rob. “Mr. McAllister would like to talk to you.”

  “And I must excuse myself for a moment,” Angus rose. He wanted out of the room to breathe clean air.

  “Rob, don’t leave me.” Eilidh was on her feet looking like she wanted to run away.

  “I won’t be a moment. Mrs. Andersen will look after you.”

  Mrs. Andersen was as intimidating as the ward sister, so Eilidh sat.

  “I’m going to phone DI Dunne,” Angus said when he and Rob were alone. “Then I’ll phone Mr. Brodie . . . ”

  “QC,” they chorused, and smiled. “And thank you, Rob, well done.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think I can face her again.” He did not need to say who “she” was.

  They were not a demonstrative pair, so when his father reached over and hugged him, Rob was surprised. And grateful.

  “Only a few minutes more?” Angus asked his son.

  Rob looked up at the ceiling, noticing how cobweb free the office was—unlike the Gazette. He sighed. Then, taking a deep breath, he walked back into the room.

  From behind the closed door Angus could hear his son saying, “No, not much longer. Poor thing. You must be so tired.”

  Angus went into his office to make the phone calls, feeling even more proud of h
is only child.

  Fifteen minutes later, DI Dunne and WPC Ann McPherson were shown in to the meeting room.

  Eilidh looked at Rob. He could see her putting on her brave face, the one she must have learned as a little girl waiting for the wrath of her father to descend on her, beating her for some insignificant childish misdemeanor that he would turn into a sin.

  “Hello. It’s Eilidh, isn’t it? I’m Constable Ann McPherson. I hear you want to help us.”

  Ann was an old friend; her tall strong healthy face reminded Rob that she was once the school sport’s champion. And he admired the way she sat by Eilidh, putting herself at Eilidh’s level, smiling as though they were old school chums who hadn’t seen each other in ages.

  “I want to help.” The eagerness in the voice, the way Eilidh looked earnestly at Ann, mesmerized Rob. What a little liar. It shook his faith in his ability to read people. She had me completely fooled.

  “It was nothing to do with me,” Eilidh was confiding in Ann as though they were best friends, “and I’ll help you all I can.” The confidence was back; but she could tell lies upon lies and wriggle and squirm and flash her beautiful eyes and toss her beautiful hair and Ann McPherson would see through it all.

  Poor Eilidh, Rob couldn’t help thinking, she’s no idea how much trouble she’s in. But he couldn’t forgive her. “I’m sorry, I have to go,” he said.

  “You’ll still be my boyfriend?” Her eyes were huge and, for the first time, Rob thought, slightly mad.

  “I have a deadline,” he lied.

  “I’ll call you later.” She smiled up at him, waving that little finger wave that he used to find charming.

  It took him a huge effort not to run from the room.

  * * *

  When Rob walked into the office, Joanne was at the reporters’ table. McAllister joined them and asked, “Rob, you okay?”

  “For the first time in my life I understand why people drink whisky.”

  The bravado in his voice did not fool them. From the color of his face, pale grey; from his fingers silently tapping out the story on the table as he told them what had happened; from the way his eyes would occasionally look towards Mrs. Smart’s empty seat at the head of the table as though he was filling her in on the story, they knew he was shocked to his core.

  When he finished, McAllister was silent, but they could see his anger building as clearly as storm clouds gathering.

  Joanne let out a huge sigh. “Unbelievable.” She shook her head. “She seemed such a nice girl.” Another sigh. “What will happen now?”

  “I don’t know.” Rob meant it. The fragility in Eilidh had made it hard for him to credit she could be so involved in a murder. But the something else that he couldn’t put a name to—the tough, brazen way she would flirt, the promiscuous disregard for people, having so little concern over the fate of Don McLeod, and no remorse for her complicity in the death of Joyce McLeod nee Mackenzie—shocked him to the point of disbelief. This was the girl I’ve slept with, he kept thinking.

  “It’s her word against Sergeant Major Smart, so, who will a jury believe?” Rob stretched and sighed. He was drained, and it was only three o’clock in the afternoon. “Don is the betting man, but I’d say the odds were even.”

  “Fifty-fifty—aye, I’d say that’s about right.” McAllister stood and without another word, he left.

  When they were alone, Joanne asked, “Did you know that Neil has left?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s gone. Took the early train.”

  “But he didn’t say good-bye . . . ” Rob saw she was beyond tears. She looked so sad, so . . . older was what he saw. “I’m sorry, Joanne.”

  “Me too.” Then she realized—“Does this mean Don will be back?”

  “Hope so.” Rob knew that Joanne did not want to talk about Neil. But he needed to know. “Neil was here for a reason,” he started.

  “To do research for his book.”

  “I had a feeling there was something more . . . ”

  “To seduce a Highland lassie? To break her heart? To murder old ladies?” Joanne slapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”

  “I know. You’re hurt.” He wished he could help her but he too was feeling let down by Neil Stewart’s sudden disappearance. “Anyway, it was Sergeant Major Smart that killed Mrs. . . . ”

  “Mrs. Donal McLeod.” Joanne supplied the name. “It’s pretty unbelievable, isn’t it?”

  “Did you know Neil was adopted?”

  “He told me. He told me about his childhood, and the woman he called his mother. He loved her.”

  “So maybe he was here to find his real mother.”

  “Rob, I’m past caring what Neil was here for. He’s gone and . . . ”

  The ringing of the phone interrupted her, but she ignored it.

  Rob was watching her as she struggled to hide her loss, her guilt, her anger at her self-deception.

  The phone stopped for five seconds, then started again.

  Rob answered. “Gazette.” He listened. “Not again!” he hung up. “It’s McAllister. He’s gone to confront Sergeant Major Smart.”

  “The police should be there by now to arrest the sergeant . . . ” Joanne was speaking to herself and to the sound of Rob running down the stairs.

  Left alone, the shame of what she had done to McAllister—and of what she had lost—surfaced again; deep down, burning dark, red-hot waves of shame washed through her, momentarily paralyzing her.

  McAllister. How do I face him? Just looking into his eyes was impossible.

  I’ll have to resign. The thought of being without her sole source of pride—and income—dismayed her.

  I love my job. She was proud to say she was a reporter on the Gazette. It made her somebody.

  She saw it was time to leave for home, to see to her children, to prepare supper, to take in the washing that had been on the line since yesterday morning because last night she couldn’t summon up the energy to take it in and make a start on the ironing. There was little food in the house either; the effort to shop, to cook, to eat, to smile was beyond her.

  She waited another five minutes in case McAllister and Rob returned, then gave up. I’ll find out in the morning, she thought as she put on her coat.

  As she cycled through the early dark, all she could think, again and again, was, McAllister, I betrayed you. How can we ever be friends again?

  With McAllister, she could be herself. She never felt nervous—not like I did with Neil.

  It came to her as she cycled under the heavy elms at the end of her lane.

  Now I understand what Bill felt all these years; I made him feel the way that Neil made me feel—never quite good enough.

  But McAllister? He listens, he likes me as I am.

  The magnitude of her loss was beginning to sink in.

  CHAPTER 22

  Rob had heard the editor haring down the stairs but thought nothing of it. He was not noted for the second sight, he left that to Jenny McPhee, but suddenly he knew where McAllister was going.

  He jumped on his bike and drove down to the river. No sign of McAllister. He must have taken the footpath. He drove up onto the path, scaring a woman pushing a pram.

  He went slowly, not sure which mansion was which from the riverside view. He saw an open garden gate. He jumped off the bike and ran in.

  “Hello.” Beech was standing in the garden looking at the next-door house, the one belonging to the sergeant major.

  “Have you seen McAllister?”

  “I saw him climbing over the wall to next door . . . I’m concerned there may be trouble.”

  Rob did not tell him that Eilidh had accused the sergeant major of killing Joyce. Nor did he say that McAllister knew this—the explanation would take too long. Plus, he was busy examining the wall.

  The moss had been ripped away from the stone. There were plenty of toeholds and a soft landing in a flower bed. He took a short run, hauled h
imself up and over, landed in soft earth, then snuck up on the open French doors and the loud voices, until he was sheltered in the doorway and hidden by curtains billowing out in the river breeze. He was surprised to see the former soldier standing straight and tall and confident of his artificial legs, the wheelchair nowhere to be seen.

  “I’m calling the police,” Sergeant Major Smart shouted.

  McAllister was less than four feet in front of him, facing him, staring at him, defiant but absolutely still. “Go ahead,” he said. “Call them.”

  Smart made a slight movement. Rob caught a glint on metal in the mirror above the fireplace. A gun was aimed at McAllister—a big, heavy, old, unreliable sort of gun, to Rob’s untrained eye.

  “You say I killed her.” Smart was angry in the cold calm way of a man with a gun who knows how to use it. “Where’s your proof, eh? You’ve none.”

  “Eilidh is making a statement to the police as we speak.”

  “That trollop! She’s lying. Who’d take her word against mine?”

  “I would.”

  “And if I shot you, who’d convict me, a wounded war hero, who mistook you for a burglar—”

  When asked to recount what happened next, Rob couldn’t, not clearly. All he remembered was the bang. It was so loud his ears were ringing. He felt the windowpane next to him shatter. There was a flurry of movement, too fast for him to see clearly. The rain of sharp needles on his skull, the noise in his ears, the fear he might be deaf, and the terror of losing control of his bowels made him stagger into the room. He leaned against the wall but slid down to the sitting room floor, where he stayed, unable to move, unable to comprehend if he was injured or not. He saw McAllister slumped in an armchair, unhurt, but looking like Banquo’s Ghost.

  It seemed to Rob that the banshee shriek that followed or preceded or came at the same time as the shot—for he could not be sure—had come from some unearthly creature.

  Whether the scream came from Smart or McAllister—McAllister later denied it was him but he wasn’t certain, or from Smart as he fell, or from Bahadur as he launched himself on the sergeant’s back, one arm around his throat, the other with a knife to his ribs—Rob couldn’t say.