by A. D. Scott
She and McAllister looked around at the crowd, some of whom were bidders and some of whom were just plain curious. The very ordinariness of the crowd struck her. Yet some of these people condemned Alice as a witch. Joanne shivered at the thought. Then, looking at the individuals in the crowd, seeing the ruddy-cheeked Highland farmers, the women out for an enjoyable morning’s entertainment, she was more charitable. Don’t be so judgmental, she lectured herself. Gossip can’t kill.
The roof on the barn was obviously new, the concrete floor clean. She found herself gazing at the wooden beams, fancying she could smell the wood. The thought came like a poisoned dart. She hanged herself from one of these beams. Panic flashed from her stomach to her throat. She dug her fingernails into her palm. Remembering her doctor’s advice, she took a conscious breath and swallowed.
The realization that panic tasted of bile distracted her. She needed tea. Or water. There was no one she recognized to ask, and she certainly wasn’t about to ask McAllister. Then, from across the room, standing between two wardrobes and a sideboard, she caught Calum Mackenzie waving at them. She waved back.
He gestured to an open space near the kitchen equipment, then pointed with his forefinger to the pictures stacked on the dresser. She nodded and began to edge towards him. “Excuse me. Sorry.”
McAllister followed. The crowd parted to let them through, though not without some curious looks and some muttering. Strangers this far up the glen were unusual.
A wee round woman was sticking to Calum like a limpet mine. Joanne recognized his mother from their brief encounter at the garage. When Calum was in conversation with friends, acquaintances, and professional contacts, his mother had the good sense to say little, but she would watch the speaker, follow Calum’s replies with an “aye” or “that’s right” or, most frequently, a smile and a chuckle that said, That’s ma boy, isn’t he grand? It wasn’t that Calum didn’t notice, just that he accepted that she was his mother and this was how she was.
A pretty young woman—too healthy and capable-looking to be called beautiful—a few inches taller than Calum, also caught the wave. Joanne smiled back. With a flutter of a raised hand, Elaine introduced herself as Calum’s fiancée.
“How are you, Joanne?” Calum asked when at last she made it over to them.
“Where’s your manners, Calum?” his mother hissed. “It’s Mrs. Ross to you.”
“Actually, it’s Mrs. McAllister.” Joanne smiled. “But as Calum is a friend, I told him to call me Joanne.”
To Mrs. Mackenzie the idea of friendship between a man and a woman of differing ages and differing social status was outside of her understanding. Therefore somehow wrong. She said nothing, but Elaine, who’d overheard the exchange, knew that later much would be made of Joanne Ross McAllister.
“Elaine.” Calum’s fiancée formally introduced herself. “Calum’s told me a lot about you.”
“And you. He’s really proud of you,” Joanne said. “This is McAllister.”
“Your husband?” Mrs. Mackenzie asked. She looked up at him. Seeing no indication of status, she was about to dismiss him. Then she remembered he was the editor of a newspaper. “I’m Calum’s mother,” she said. “My Calum’s done right well for himself. When he was at school, he passed all his exams wi’ top marks. An’ one o’ his essays was printed in the paper an’ him only fifteen. Then he was champion o’ the junior golf team. That’s before he was made chief reporter and—”
“Next lot, number ninety-seven, cameras and equipment,” the auctioneer announced.
Hector pulled at the editor’s sleeve as if he were a wee boy trying to get the attention of his granddad. “Will you bid for me? I’m scared I’ll mess it up.”
Thanks, Hec, for saving me from that woman, McAllister was thinking.
Calum spoke up. “I’ll bid. None o’ the locals will go against me. What’s your limit?”
“Who’ll offer me five pounds?” the auctioneer asked.
“Five pounds is fine,” Hec said.
“Wait,” Calum told him.
“Come on, ladies and gentlemen. An excellent wee camera, German-made. And lots of equipment, extra lenses. Three pounds? No? Who’ll start me at one pound?”
“Ten shillings!” Calum shouted.
“Come on, the bag’s worth more than that.” Still no reply. And the sound of rain on car roofs drumming a tattoo made the auctioneer want to finish before the pubs closed. “Ten shillings. Sold to Calum. Now, this nice mirror, antique, looks like . . . five shillings?”
“Ten shillings?” Hector’s eyes were popping.
“Wheesht,” Joanne told him. But she could see him trembling and the raindrops coming off his mackintosh like a dog shaking off the rain. “Maybe you should bid for me too, Calum.”
“What do you want?”
“The drawing of the bird skeleton, the one in the plain wood frame.”
“The one used in evidence in court?”
“Was it?”
“Nasty old thing, thon,” Mrs. Mackenzie muttered. Calum nudged her with his elbow. “But there’s no accounting for taste,” she added.
“I’ll bid for it,” McAllister said.
They waited as a few more items were presented—an Edwardian water jug and bowl, brass fire tongs and dustpan set, a half tea set. “Royal Doulton,” the auctioneer said, but still couldn’t raise more than five shillings. “Sold to Nurse Ogilvie,” he announced.
A prosecution witness at Alice’s trial, Joanne was thinking. She watched as the nurse made her way to the bookkeeper to pay for the china. With her was a young man, tall and very thin, his skin white in a redhead way. She sensed a nervousness about him, reminding her of a highly strung greyhound, one that had been overraced and was now on its last legs. Then, as though sensing someone was watching, he turned around, scanned the crowds, and seeing Joanne, one of the few strangers at the gathering, he paused.
She could feel him trying to place her. And almost smiled as if to say friend. Then he was gone.
Next came a set of tools—hammers, a hand saw, a bow saw, various screwdrivers and pliers, all in a nice folding wooden box with compartments of various size. The auctioneer expected brisk bidding, as they were all of superior quality. Three competing bidders dropped out when they saw who was determined to have them.
“Twa pund an’ five shillings? Do I hear ten? No? Sold to Mr. Novak.” Bang went the hammer.
Calum leaned closer to Joanne. “Mr. Novak, it was him who had helped Miss Ramsay renovate the house.”
Mrs. Mackenzie heard her son even though he had spoken quietly to Joanne. “Another one o’ they foreigners,” she commented loudly. “And, so I heard, she and him spoke German thegether.”
“Mum.” Calum was smiling when he chastised her. She took no offense. Or notice.
“Next, this wee drawing—some o’ you will recognize it.” The auctioneer’s assistant was holding it high. A murmur ran around the steading. “Nice frame, though no so sure about the picture.” That raised a laugh. “Five pounds? No? Three? One pound?”
A local antique dealer nodded.
“One pound thirty shillings?”
Now McAllister joined in.
“Two pounds?”
Another figure, male, standing in the gloom of the far corner, raised a hand.
The auctioneer continued. “Three pounds?”
McAllister.
“Four pounds?”
The stranger.
“Five?”
McAllister.
Joanne was staring at the other bidder. There was something about him. “Calum, do you know that man? The other bidder?”
Calum stared, then whispered, “Aye, it’s Dougald Forsythe, the man from the Art College. But why would he be here?”
McAllister didn’t hear. Thank goodness, Joanne thought. She was uncertain how her husband would react but knew it would be on the high end of the wrath scale.
The bidding had reached twenty pounds in about fifty seconds. The
n forty pounds. There had been a buzz of conversation amongst the onlookers and not a few comments on the reappearance of the art critic, but when the bidding reached fifty pounds and kept climbing, the intakes of breath over every ten-pound rise in the bidding was as clear as the hissing from a flock of geese.
At eighty pounds, Joanne said, “Stop, McAllister, I don’t want it that badly.” But her husband was dogged when he wanted something. He had his hands in his pockets, she knew his fists would be clenched, and his voice had dropped to almost a growl. She knew when that happened to let him be.
At one hundred pounds, he dropped out.
“At one hundred and ten pounds, to the gentleman in the far corner . . .” The auctioneer looked at McAllister, who shook his head. “Going once, twice, sold.”
A huge upswell of voices greeted the price. Even the auctioneer had to pause to recover his breath. He took out a large spotted hankie, wiped his forehead, and nodded at the equally astonished spectators. This was a tale he and they would be telling for a long time to come. One hundred and ten pounds for a scribble o’ a deed bird that they ca’ art—that would be the least of the comments. Already one wag had called out, “Aa’ daft them southerners.”
“Psst, Hec.” Joanne bent over to whisper to him, right in his ear, as she sensed Mrs. Mackenzie’s interest. “Get a photo of the man who won the bid. But don’t let him, or McAllister, know what you’re doing.”
“I won’t.”
When it came to his profession, she trusted him absolutely and knew from past experience that once Hector was decided, he was as obstinate as her husband.
“What is it about that drawing?” Elaine asked, stunned by the price.
“Absolute nonsense, if you ask me,” Mrs. Mackenzie replied.
Elaine had put herself deliberately between Calum’s mother and Joanne and had addressed the question to McAllister.
He shrugged. “No idea.” Then he went out to stand under the barn eaves, light a cigarette, and ponder on the same question.
“Lot one hundred and seven, some oil paintings and three watercolors o’ the glens, nicely framed.” They were being sold as a job lot, as the auctioneer had earlier decided they were too hideous to fetch a decent price. The antique dealer joined in at five pounds, and Joanne put up her hand.
“Seven pounds I’m bid on my right. Sir?” the auctioneer asked the dealer. He shook his head. “Seven pounds to the lady.” The hammer fell.
“Eight pounds.” A voice came from the back.
“Too late,” said the auctioneer.
Joanne was pleased. She at least wanted a reminder of that afternoon.
“They’re nice, those pictures.” Elaine smiled at her.
“I couldn’t bear them being thrown out, seen as only worth the price of the frames.”
“Next lot. Writing box, pens, and inkwell.”
McAllister bid and won.
Joanne said, “No more; we haven’t room in the car boot.” She then turned to Calum. “Maybe you could introduce us to Mr. Forsythe. And I’d like to meet Nurse Ogilvie.”
“What would you be wanting to meet her for?” Mrs. Mackenzie asked.
Calum frowned. “This is work, Mum.”
“I’ll introduce myself to Mr. Forsythe.” McAllister had come back and immediately wanted to escape again. “And I’ll pay for the pictures. Coming, Calum?”
Elaine jumped down from the bench where she had been sitting with Joanne. “Come on, Joanne, let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
Naturally, Mrs. Mackenzie had to say what Elaine and Calum and most of the crowd knew but would not say, not to a stranger. “I heard it was on thon beam over there, right above Mr. Duncan the auctioneer’s head, that she hanged herself.”
Joanne had had to look up the word “schadenfreude” when she first came across it in a book. Confronting an example here, in real life, made her shiver.
“Come on.” Elaine tucked her arm through Joanne’s. “You and me can check the farmhouse kitchen for the nurse. There’s tea and biscuits set up over there.”
With everyone deserting her, Mrs. Mackenzie looked lost. Poor soul, Joanne thought. She’s no idea how she comes across. But as she followed Mrs. Mackenzie’s stare and saw the woman’s look of malice fixed on the back of Elaine, her future daughter-in-law, making her way through the crowd, Joanne’s sympathy vanished. Oh dear, there’s trouble brewing there.
Joanne and Elaine dashed across the yard to the back door leading into the kitchen. The stove had been lit, and a tea urn and pink fishy-smelling paste sandwiches were there for people to help themselves. It reminded Joanne of an after-funeral spread. And depressed her just as much.
Elaine said, “Thanks. You handled the old witch well.”
Joanne had no doubt to whom she was referring. “Divide and conquer.” She smiled at Elaine, seeing a pleasant young woman. She has gumption; she’ll make Calum a good wife, as long as she can cope with a mother-in-law who will never let her son have his own life. As she was thinking this, she was scanning the empty hooks where the paintings had hung. And the room itself, empty except for a trestle table where the kitchen table and chairs had been, was just that, a small farmhouse kitchen, practical but with no charm. And no life.
An immense sense of loss overcame her. “Sorry, Elaine, I have to sit. It was a long drive up, especially in this weather.” Joanne took a chair at the table.
“You just need a cup of tea,” Elaine told her.
Again Joanne was reminded of the universal—at least in Scotland—remedy for trouble, a nice cup of tea. She sighed. The only time she had been here in this glen, in this room, it had enchanted her; it had given her an immediate sense of home, of refuge. It had been warm, not just in temperature but in the love put into a collection of bric-a-brac and furniture and rugs and pictures. All the objects, old, new, and found, made the house a home. It was a place where you could dream, find inspiration, she thought.
Now, with no rag rugs, their color breaking up the grey of the stone floor, the boot marks and mud offended Joanne. Alice would never allow that, she was thinking, when she noticed the dog. Standing alone but not lonely, not wet, clean and brushed and obviously well cared for, the Skye terrier was observing the many visitors, not at all what he was accustomed to in the home of Miss Alice Ramsay.
“Hello,” she called to him. “Come here, boy.”
He did. He stood looking up at her. She saw the collar, blue for a boy. She tickled him behind the ears.
“So you’ve met Rover,” a voice behind her said.
Joanne turned and looked into lovely warm brown eyes and a lovely smile in a pale face.
“I call him Rover because he is always wandering.”
“I thought he was Miss Ramsay’s dog.”
“Oh, no, he lives with me. But she did take him in one time. Not that I had ever been up here before now, so goodness only knows how he found his way.” The woman took the seat beside her. “I’m Janet Ogilvie, but everyone calls me Nurse.”
“Joanne Ross. Sorry, McAllister. Och.” She was shaking her head at still not being certain of her own name. “Just call me Joanne.”
Nurse Ogilvie smiled back. “Yes, Mrs. Mackenzie filled me in on the confusion over your name.”
“I bet she did.” Elaine was there with tea and a plate of scones for herself and Joanne. “Can I get you tea, Nurse Ogilvie?”
“Thank you, dear, that would be lovely. Nice girl, that,” she said as Elaine left. “Now, you wanted to talk to me?”
“I did, but . . .”
“But not now,” Nurse Ogilvie finished for her, looking towards the doorway.
Mrs. Mackenzie had just bustled in like a hen in search of a lost chick. “Have you seen Calum?” she asked.
“He’s in the storage place out the back,” Elaine told her.
“He’s—” Nurse Ogilvie looked up at Elaine. “Thank you for the tea, dear.”
“I know, I know, he’s in the other room,” E
laine whispered. “I couldn’t help myself.”
“Listen, we’re supposed to be off to a golf match this afternoon, so how about we all get a sandwich at the hotel?” Joanne asked Elaine. “Then we can talk.”
“Better still, Calum can sign us in at the golf clubhouse. His mother won’t follow us there. She thinks she’s so important that she shouldn’t have to pay the annual fees.”
“I’ll round up my husband, then. And Hector the photographer. If we squash up, we can go in our car.”
Arrangement agreed, Joanne turned back to Nurse Ogilvie. “Do you mind if I ask you a bit about Miss Ramsay?”
“Not at all.”
“She visited the residents in the hospital?”
“Aye, but we’re not strictly a hospital, we’re an old people’s home. Alice would visit the residents, mainly the ones who have nobody or are a bit doolally. She would sit with them in the common room, listen to their stories, sometimes sketching them—though I don’t know why, because there are none o’ them any oil painting.”
“And Miss Ramsay made them herbal tea?”
“Miss Ramsay would make them ordinary tea, herbal tea, cocoa, sometimes Horlicks. She baked Victoria sponge cakes for the residents—seeds and fruitcakes are no good with their false teeth.”
“So is that how the rumors started? Of her poisoning people?”
“Oh, no! Whoever gave you that idea? No, the poor lassie, or at least her man, they made the accusations. To be fair, she’d lost a baby, her third miscarriage—although no one knew that at the time—and she was right depressed. But the husband, he’s . . . well, a bit o’ a bully, so I heard.” She’d heard more than that but, unlike some, wouldn’t repeat it.
Joanne could see Nurse Ogilvie was flustered and was trembling when she put down her teacup. Whether it was from passion or anger or perhaps grief, Joanne couldn’t yet distinguish, and she was loath to ask the next question but went ahead. “And Mrs. Mackenzie, didn’t she say Miss Ramsay had poisoned the woman?”
“Mrs. Mackenzie—you mustn’t pay any heed to her havering. A woman in her situation, I’m surprised she . . . people in glass houses and all that.” The way the nurse spoke almost made Joanne laugh. Nurse Ogilvie would have been more charitable to the cannibal Lizzie Borden. “Who told you about Mrs. Mackenzie saying that?”