A Small Death in the Great Glen

by A. D. Scott

  “Aye, they come to town with nothing, straight out of the camps some of them. And look where they are now—taking over the place.”

  It would be a long time before there would be any Christian forgiveness for the former enemy. Midwar, released from the camps where they were interned, quite rightly as she saw it, some had just walked into cafés and chip shops throughout Scotland, so she said. No matter that no Scotsman knew how to make ice cream, nor coffee, no matter that the men and women had spent years in cold windswept camps, laboring in fields trying to turn the tide of stones that appeared after every plowing, planting potatoes, working the land. Some were farmboys from another impoverished region, albeit warmer and with no midges; some were fellow Scots detained for being of Italian ancestry. The hard work, the loss of their businesses, their land, and country, and language, the death of their families; that meant nothing to Mrs. Ross. To be fair, Grandad thought, the Scottish regiments suffered horrendously in Messina, Monte Cassino, all through the Italian campaign. Their son, their only bright laughing boy, had come home from Italy a haunted, damaged man.

  Granny Ross’s rant came to an abrupt halt. She had spied the pale pink and white splats on Wee Jean’s coat.

  “Will you look at the state of you?” she cried.

  And, dragging the sniveling child by one hand, nagging her husband over her shoulder and calling to Annie to keep up, she marched them past the war memorial, past the municipal flower beds with only the sad remains of fading wallflowers and chrysanthemums showing, marched them over the suspension bridge, past the infirmary, home, to a cup of tea, the wireless and a rest.

  They were sitting comfy by the fire in the study, Joanne’s feet resting on the fender, Duncan’s opposite, a cup of tea and Dundee cake on a tray between them. Elizabeth was snoozing on the sofa in the sunroom; the children were out in the garden again, enjoying a late burst of autumn sun.

  “That was a nice sermon today. A comfort.” They reflected on the subject never far from anyone’s mind that day. “Those poor parents.”

  Duncan nodded, then started cautiously on his mission.

  “What’s happening with Bill? We never seem to see him these days.”

  “What’s happening? I’d like to know that myself.”

  The bitterness in her voice made him deeply sad.

  “Joanne, I’d like to help; I’m uncle to your daughters so I feel I have a right to speak. The girls are being affected by all this tension.”

  She looked down. The criticism hurt. Wee Jean was having nightmares, Annie had started wetting the bed again—at nearly nine years old—but Joanne had no idea that the cracks in her marriage were so visible.

  “I hate seeing you unhappy … in my job I see more of it than I care to. But that is what I’m here for, to listen, to help if I can.” He sighed. “It’s over ten years since the war ended, but it’s not ended for some. Men scarred by war, yes, but families scarred too, women, children, parents, all affected to a greater or lesser degree.”

  “I’m trying my best with a husband who never talks, never shares, never shows his feelings. I don’t even know if he loves me. I feel sometimes that he resents me and the children for tying him down. We were too young to be married. He can’t forgive his daughters for not being boys. And why does it always have to be me, the woman, that’s in the wrong? What am I supposed to do, pray tell me?”

  This silenced him. It was all too familiar.

  “I know, I know. I’ve made my bed and all that. That’s what my father, my parents—your in-laws—said. No Christian forgiveness there!” Like a hole in a dam, Duncan’s concern had penetrated the carefully constructed wall around her emotions. Enough, she chided herself. She took in his concerned expression and smiled.

  “My friends, they keep me going. And my job, it’s exciting, a challenge.”

  Joanne knew the expression “Confession is good for the soul” but had never quite believed that. Confession, she thought, was plain embarrassing. But she couldn’t stop herself.

  “I need the work at the Gazette. It’s not the money, though that helps, but the escape, the company, using my education, having others respect my opinions. What I get at home is ‘A husband and children not good enough for you?’ Bill can’t take the disgrace of having a wife who works. He says it shows him up. His mother makes it clear she’s on his side.”

  “Perhaps he’s jealous.”

  “What of?”

  “Your abilities, your education, the way everyone likes you.”

  “He’s told me in no uncertain terms that he thinks I’m above myself. The list of my deficiencies is long indeed, according to him; love of classical music, books, plays on the wireless, fancy food—by that he means coffee—foreign friends, and he goes on about me wearing slacks to work. If men wore the kilt to ride a bicycle they’d soon understand.” She tried a wan smile. “But that’s his mother talking.”

  There was a comfortable silence for a moment or two while they both pondered the dilemma.

  “It’s just that … I’m tired,” Joanne started again. “I’m tired of Bill’s anger.”

  To Duncan, no matter how sympathetic he was, leaving an unhappy marriage could never be countenanced. For the sanctity of marriage, there could be no compromise.

  “I’m going to talk to Bill.” He was decided.

  “Please, don’t.”

  “You are my parishioner as well as sister-in-law, I have to try.”

  “I’m the one who will suffer if you do.” She rose. “It’ll soon be dark, I must away and fetch the girls.” Her neck was stiff from tension. She needed to walk. “Bill’s asked me to go on his next trip out west, a wee break on our own. I’ll try to talk to him then, tell him how I feel. Give it a try anyhow.” She turned in the doorway. “Thanks for listening.” She gave a little wave with her fingertips, leaving Duncan fixed in his chair by a weight of sadness and outrage and helplessness and admiration.

  And they had both entirely forgotten about the little boy.

  SIX

  Monday morning, not his favorite time of any time, McAllister woke to a sky that seemed to have dropped from the weight of unshed rain, so low he felt that if he reached up and poked it, the hole would never be plugged. The day did not improve. Watery gray light persisted; a fitting shroud for the horrifying news that leaked through the town.

  It had been confirmed midmorning by the procurator’s office; the boy had been dead before he went into the canal lock. It was now a murder inquiry. The police would have summoned the parents for questioning; McAllister knew that family was always first in the suspicion stakes. He believed their story. It had to be checked, probably had been already, but they had both been working, on a public bus, so they were probably covered.

  Wait, he reminded himself, see what unfolds, no use speculating; an unexplained death is seldom simple, often a combination of events, and McAllister knew how to wait.

  Rob was busily typing the football news; Joanne was trying to decipher the handwriting of a contributor who reported on the state of the Gaelic-speaking nation of the Highlands and Islands, a report that seemed to be a list of roadworks and ferry delays and not much else. Don was dealing with all the “fiddly bits,” and proofing the cricket team’s annual report was one of the more tedious jobs. In his view, the only reason the town had a cricket team was solely because they had an Anglican cathedral that had a cricket pitch, and you couldn’t have one without the other. It was in the bylaws of Anglicanism, he declared. The three worked steadily, comfortable company.

  Joanne kept returning to the chat with McAllister, wondering if she should broach the subject with Don, ask what he had heard. Rob had no such inhibitions.

  “What did McAllister want, the other afternoon?”

  “None of your business,” Joanne snapped. Then she felt guilty. She typed somehow louder than usual.

  “Serves me right for being nosy.” Rob was incorrigibly cheerful.

  “I heard a certain WPC is keeping you comp
any,” Joanne said to get him back. Rob always brought out the wee girl in her.

  “A coffee, that’s all. Besides, she’s too old for me.”

  “She’s younger than me.” Joanne knew as soon as she said it she’d walked into it and grinned.

  “That’s what I mean.” He licked his finger and marked one in the air for him.

  Rob wondered, should he risk another question, should he ask her about her daughters’ weird story? A murder inquiry was so unusual, a child murder at that. So what if the girls had seen something?

  Woman Police Constable Ann McPherson had been adamant she wouldn’t talk about her job. “I’ll be fired on the spot if Inspector Tompson thinks I’ve been talking to you.” She did tell him, to share a laugh she said, the story of Joanne’s daughters and the hoodie crow. He hadn’t laughed. Something about a hoodie crow sent shivers through him—it was the kind of thing his Gaelic grandmother would talk of, or sing about, scare him with, as a wee boy. He had often laughed with Joanne about his paternal island grandparents’ collection of stories and songs about murders, drownings, treachery, bastard bairns, young girls betrayed, endless heroic defeats at the hand of the English and of course witches, spells and the faeries. And hoodie crows.

  No. Wait. In poor taste. We’re still in shock, he thought, caution winning for once. Rob looked across at Don. “What will happen next with the hunt for whoever … you know, the wee boy?”

  Don looked up. “This is a rare event for the Highlands, so they will probably get an expert detective from down south to take charge.”

  “Has this ever happened here before?” Joanne asked.

  “No, lass. Not that I know.”

  And since he knew everything, that meant not in living memory.

  Inspector Tompson was in a vile mood. He was being replaced as head of his first and only murder inquiry. That made him all the more determined to arrest somebody before an outsider came waltzing in to grab all the glory. He was the man on the spot. He, who had put up with years of slow-witted, silent, stubborn Highland folk, he who was from Glasgow, who had been somebody in the army, who had reached the rank of sergeant by his own merits before accepting promotion and a transfer to this cut-off backwater, he would show them. He knew who had done this, stood to reason, he knew as soon as he had heard it was a murder. No, he had no proof, none whatsoever. But he’d find some.

  As for Mr. Angus McLean … Inspector Tompson fumed as he remembered. The solicitor might think he had gotten the better of him with Peter Kowalski and the Polish sailor, but no, not this time. And last but by no means least, he’d somehow see those tinkers charged with something—anything.

  “WPC McPherson,” he yelled out his office door. “Here. Now.”

  “You’d think I was his sheepdog,” she muttered. But being only a WPC and knowing, never mind her five years’ service, that she was only allowed to work on a high-profile case because no one else wanted to work with Tompson, she was wise enough to keep this thought to herself.

  After the long distance between them, Keith was delighted that his mother, Jenny, was on visiting terms with himself and Shona. His brother Jimmy had ignored their mother’s prejudices and had been a frequent caller.

  Keith, Shona, Jenny and Jimmy had been going over the old family stories, all afternoon they had been, with much laughter and an occasional somber “Aye,” followed by a silence, then back again to more mirth and the occasional burst of song from Jenny. Karl, still staying in Keith and Shona’s spare room, was watching, enjoying but unable to understand most of the time. Even their English was incomprehensible to him. Jenny, speaking in Gaelic most of the time, would start, “Do you mind when … ?” singing, “Oh rowan tree, oh rowan tree … ,” sitting back dreamily. “I mind camping up near Ardgay one summer. …” They were gathered to help Keith. Compiling the legends, the sayings, the superstitions of the Traveling people was his newfound passion.

  “Why you want to know all this is beyond me,” Jimmy teased, but he too enjoyed reminiscing on times past. The McPhee family still traveled, but these past three years, they had camped in benders by the river in Strathconnon for the winter months.

  “I know.” Keith laughed tolerantly. “When we were wee, you couldn’t see the sense of joining the Dingwall library, far less getting an education, and as for going to university …”

  “We even had to get the doctor in Beauly to stand guarantor in case we used the books to wipe our arses,” Jimmy told Shona. He laughed, but he regretted that his reading and writing were of the basic, learned-in-prison level. Still, he could read the form guide and that was enough. “But Ma is certain you’re the first tink to graduate from Glasgow University.”

  Keith was notoriously backward in coming forward, but this pleased him. Now he was a schoolteacher, collecting the lore and the songs—“tinkers’ tales,” as some would have it—from his mother, her mother, the old folk, black tinkers so-called, the river pearl fishermen, the itinerant farmworkers, and around campfires, in the back of wagons, picking the berries, at the tatties, at the agricultural shows, at the horse fairs, he asked questions and he listened.

  “Who better to record tinkers’ tales than a tinker?” he told his brother.

  “Who will be interested?” Jimmy replied. “All that stuff is for bairns—faerie circles and clootie wells and what time o’ the moon the lassies collect dewdrops to wash their face. Anyone who buys a book on that must be awfy keen on nonsense.”

  The banging on the door brought the cheerful blethering to a halt.

  “Polis,” Jenny sighed.

  Shona was about to ask “How do you know?” but thought better of it and went to the door. Before she could even say “Come away in” the inspector had pushed past her, followed by an apologetic WPC Ann McPherson. She was only there because she had to be, and to take notes.

  Inspector Tompson went over and over the same points for a good hour, getting nowhere.

  “Who picked up the Polish man?” He didn’t even glance at Karl. Spoke of him as though he wasn’t in the room. Who had taken him where on the night of his escape? He was in the camp by the shore, wasn’t he? And they had hidden him from the authorities, hadn’t they? And who had told Peter Kowalski?

  The “no” and the “don’t know” and the “no idea” and the “no I never” or the shrugs and the silence and the looking down or away or up at the ceiling should have had the inspector in an apoplectic fit. But WPC Ann watched carefully as each refusal to give information, instead of infuriating him, drove him on, made him more sure of himself, leaving her puzzled, then deeply worried.

  How did the man know about them? How had he gotten here? Why had they hidden him in this very house? Didn’t they know they were harboring an illegal alien? Didn’t they realize that if Keith McPhee was charged, the education board would be the first to find out? He himself would make sure of that. Shona was the only one distressed by the barrage. The idea that Keith could be reported and lose his job, his reputation, terrified her.

  “It wasn’t him, it was me, I gave him shelter,” Shona blurted out.

  “Lass, lass,” Jenny sighed. “Never say anything to anyone. Now you see why I’m feart for you. Marrying into a Traveling family is no easy.”

  “Enough.” Tompson stood. “Jimmy McPhee, with your past record, the sheriff would no look kindly on a charge of helping a fugitive. As for you, Keith McPhee, be grateful I’m not charging you either. But don’t think this is the end of it.”

  He pulled himself to attention and announced in his best parade-ground voice:

  “Karel Cieszynski, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not—” The rest of his words were drowned out in the uproar from the McPhees. Karl looked around, bewildered, with no idea what was going on.

  Tompson produced his handcuffs. Ann McPherson stood gaping and wondered, What on earth is that idiot of an inspector up to? But she had no choice. She helped her boss rush the arrested man down the stairs and into the police car before a
riot erupted.

  Joanne got the story from Chiara—the phone had rung in the reporters’ room in the late afternoon just as she was about to leave. As ever, no one else was about to pick up the phone.

  “Gazette,” she sighed. “Chiara.” She listened. “Slow down.” She held the receiver out, flicking her hair from her ear. “I can’t. Not tonight. Tomorrow?” She listened again. “What?” Then a sound like the chatter of a flock of starlings came out of the phone in a long burst. “Never!” By now the other three in the room were interested. “I can’t believe it!” Joanne sat down. “Aye, I’ll tell them. And if we can help, call”—she looked around—“McAllister.” She put down the phone. “Chiara Corelli.”

  She shook her head, not knowing what to think. “They’ve arrested Karel what’s-his-name, Karl—the Polish man. He’s been arrested for murder.”

  That afternoon, a larger-than-usual gathering of mothers waited outside the school. Shifting and re-forming, restless, chatting in that hushed tone reserved for funerals or really meaty scandals, they stood in a herd waiting for the bell. In a place where five-year-olds walked to and from school unaccompanied, where children played, alone or in small groups, in streets and parks and fields and woods, their only fear being bullies or bogeymen or ghosties, where everyone knew everyone, strangers were not a danger because they hardly ever saw anyone they didn’t know, or know of.

  Bill was the only man waiting. He hated that.

  “Where’s Mum?” Wee Jean stopped still when she saw his van outside the playground gates, anxious. “Is she a’right?”

  “Course your mum’s all right,” he snapped, irritated that Joanne wasn’t there being a proper wife and mother and annoyed at the implications in the question.

  “You’re going to Granny and Grandad’s. Mum’ll be there by teatime.”