A Kind of Grief

by A. D. Scott

  “And?” Hennessey asked.

  I’m no better than Mrs. Mackenzie, she didn’t say. “And this leads to me talking to Dougald Forsythe, who then uses what I emphasized was background information in an article in a national newspaper. He also reveals the whereabouts of Alice Ramsay, the artist.”

  “Not your fault,” Hennessey interjects. But Joanne does not accept his opinion.

  “Forsythe’s article leads to someone”—“persons unknown” was a police phrase that always made Joanne smile—“discovering her. Perhaps killing her.”

  “And now we are here to investigate.” Hennessey did not respond to the last sentence.

  Ann McPherson intervened. “Sir, the appointment with the chief constable is at three o’clock, and it’s now half past two.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” He stood. As did Joanne and Ann.

  The three of them were of an almost equal height, and Joanne was reminded that Alice too had inherited those tall northern genes.

  “Is treason still a hanging offense?” She shuddered as the word escaped into the air, polluting the already abysmal day. The thought was haunting her. Although abolished for all other crimes, capital punishment was still the sentence for betraying your country.

  He looked at her in surprise. She saw his eyes were like her eyes, that muddy green common in the north.

  “Technically, yes. But it is unlikely to come to that.”

  Because it is unlikely it will ever come out, she thought, or it will be dealt with in other equally secretive ways.

  “Thank you, Mrs. McAllister, for being so helpful. And for the magnificent scones.”

  “Sorry for the gruesome question.”

  “I’ll need to take seven pages from the manuscript and these loose sheets with the numbers.” He ended by writing out an official receipt, with Ann McPherson cosigning as witness. “Good luck with Miss Ramsay’s manuscript. To have it published would be a wonderful homage to a fascinating woman.”

  Joanne made a fresh pot of tea, then sat and thought. It had been intense, and too much thinking gave her a headache. So she went to the piano, and almost an hour later, in the middle of a tricky passage in the Shubert, the girls came home.

  From the kitchen came Annie’s voice. “Who ate all the scones? There’s only one left.”

  Joanne smiled. Caught out by a twelve-year-old, Mr. Hennessey. “I’ll make pancakes instead.”

  That night, even McAllister was too tired to talk. “So, to summarize, a talented forger and artist, but was Alice a traitor?”

  Joanne was shocked at that suggestion.

  “We’re meeting tomorrow, probably for the last time. We’ll know more then.”

  “Oh, really?” Joanne asked. “This is the secret intelligence service. Why would they tell us anything?”

  “Because, dear wife, no professional spy would be unwise enough to leave a nosy journalist and a budding author with unanswered questions.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be fed a plausible story. True or otherwise.” Joanne sighed. “I know Mr. Hennessey and Superintendent Westland are the best we could hope for. But all I want is to find out what happened to Alice.”

  CHAPTER 21

  He meant those threats. Didn’t work. Then he tried charm, tempting me with the Hermitage. I laughed. Exposure means little to me, but it would devastate my maiden aunts. What fun!

  Then I considered the loss of freedom to walk the glens, to paint under a great open sky, to hear the skylark. Those I will not risk losing.

  “Please,” he’d asked, “give it to me as a keepsake.”

  “I don’t have it,” I said. “I burned it.”

  But he knew I was lying. That was my best work. I did it in a frenzy of lust, wine, and inspiration, and it is good. “My version of The Last Supper,” I told him. Which it turned out to be; not a last supper, exactly, but the last of those summer evenings amongst friends. He, they, knew what I had seen—even if I didn’t. Not then. Drinking, laughing, talking until dawn, reading poetry with the moon reflecting on the river, we were friends, family—with a side serving of betrayal.

  That drawing might be dangerous, but it is my only keepsake of those intoxicating times.

  Calum Mackenzie was lost in his new home. The streets in the center of town he’d conquered. He recognized the names of the outlying suburbs, thanks to the book of maps Elaine bought him. He and Elaine had gone out to the Holm Mills to buy him a jumper, a red one, so he knew the road to the south side of Loch Ness.

  “A change from all that blue your mother buys you,” she’d said. He’d told her his mother insisted red did not suit him. Elaine laughed.

  Now, in his red jumper, underneath a tweed jacket more suitable for an octogenarian than a twenty-two-year-old, he watched as McAllister went into his office, Don and Rob and Hector following.

  “What’s going on?” he whispered to Lorna when they were alone.

  “Search me.” She shrugged her shoulders and grinned. Her black-lined eyes sparkled and her pale lipstick shone as she teased, “Feeling left out, are ye?”

  “No, but there’s been lots o’ comings and goings. We’re reporters on the Gazette, so . . .”

  “So?” she asked. “If you want to impress the bosses, get out, talk to people, don’t wait for information to come to you.”

  “Oh. Right. Thanks.” He’d never met anyone like Lorna. He wanted to say, But I don’t know anyone down here. Without his mother to keep him abreast of the gossip, the developments, the traffic, and the farm and glen and sea news, he had no contacts and no ideas. In this town of strangers and strangeness, he was lost. But he didn’t share that; Lorna was only seventeen, and a girl.

  “Talking of which, I’m off to the hospital. There’s an introduction to the new head surgeon come up from England, plus a graduation ceremony for the nurses in the specialist unit.”

  “My Elaine’s one o’ the nurses; maybe I should cover that.”

  “Too bad. I asked for an invitation, so it’s my story.”

  He knew he should have followed up. Elaine had told him of the event a week ago. Even Hector would be there. He was staring at the phone, in a dwam of self-pity, when it rang. “Highland Gazette.”

  “Calum, I’ve—”

  “Mum, we agreed. I phone you after six o’clock. No phone calls to the office.”

  “Well, if you don’t want to know about the police going back to search Miss Ramsay’s house and the byre, I’ll just keep ma mouth shut.”

  He sighed, reached for his notebook, and began. “Tell me. But it’s unlikely to be used, as the story is local to Sutherland.”

  “You’ve been offered your old job back.”

  “Mum, we’ve been over that.”

  “Fine.” She sniffed. “I know when I’m not wanted.” He was about to hang up when she said, “I was thinking about the car that hit me. I’m certain it was black, but I couldn’t see the person behind the wheel. It was in here one time for a flat tire, and right muddy it was, so your dad washed it. The driver, this English fellow, he paid cash, said he didn’t need a receipt, but you know me, always efficient, so I wrote down the numberplate.”

  Much like trainspotters, his mother often whiled away a slow afternoon writing down the registration number of passing cars. Calum saw it as a harmless hobby, until Elaine had joked that Mrs. Mackenzie could use the information to point out that someone was not where they should be and could lose their job, marriage, and reputation if discovered. “Mum would never do anything like that,” he’d said.

  “Calum? Calum? You there?”

  “Give me the number. Then I have to go. I’ve an appointment in ten minutes.”

  He scribbled it down, made a promise to come back on Saturday. “Just this once,” he said, and escaped.

  There was no appointment, no story, no work—or at least none he thought Don McLeod would be interested in. So he left for the Italian café that was all the rage amongst the young professionals of the town.

 
He was walking through the Victorian market when he admitted to himself that he didn’t like coffee. As there was no one he wanted to impress, he made for the tea shop Rob had introduced him to. Best bacon rolls, Rob told him, and as Calum chewed on one, he agreed.

  It also had the best view of the station car park, and this Calum enjoyed. His father had hoped his son would follow him as a mechanic, taking over the business one day. But Calum preferred trains—big, puffing, spitting, gleaming steam engines. And Calum liked people watching—running for trains, coming out with luggage; happy alone, happy with family, unhappy with family; on a visit to the capital of the Highlands for the doctor, a solicitor, or the courthouse. People watching was something he and Joanne had in common.

  He was counting out the coins to pay for his lunch when he saw the car arrive. Just another big black car, he thought, but I may as well check.

  With little enthusiasm, he walked towards the car, where someone, hat on, overcoat also, was sitting with a newspaper open over the steering wheel, smoking, waiting.

  The numberplate was the one his mother had given him, the same number he’d asked his policeman pal back home to investigate. Inquiring about it had raised questions. Brought forth officials. And intrigue. And maybe, possibly, perhaps, that same car and driver had knocked over his mother.

  Calum’s breath wouldn’t come. The bacon roll and two industrial-strength cups of tea weighed down his stomach, slowing his legs. He turned away. Lost.

  He returned to the Gazette. There was nowhere else to go.

  “Mr. McAllister, I—”

  “Not now, Calum.”

  “Don’t look at me either, laddie, I’m away out,” Don said before he even asked.

  “Sorry, Calum. Catch you later, yeah?” Rob was off and running down the stairs in a clatter of boots and a jangle of keys.

  Lorna was still out. Hector also. Frankie Urquhart was no help, as this was editorial, not advertising, and conversations with Frankie needed to be in ten-second bursts between phone calls. Friends and colleagues in Sutherland wouldn’t take him seriously, not when he mentioned the inquiry involved his mother.

  Still, Calum couldn’t shake the fear that the car was important. So he did what he knew he shouldn’t do. He called his mother.

  Joanne put the pie in the oven, then decided to invite Don for supper, promising him an apple pie for pudding. It took him five minutes for the ten-minute drive from his home on Church Street to their home off Crown Drive.

  Two extra helpings of pie later, he and McAllister were sitting either side of the fire, saying little and, so full, moving less. “No update on the Stuart fellow, him who was impersonating a spy?” Don asked.

  “Who calls himself Stuart,” McAllister reminded him. “None. Only speculation on our part. After all, Hennessey has never stated that Stuart is an imposter.”

  “A right tricky lot, them spies.” Don had never believed that the earlier revelations of a spy ring in the British secret services told the full story. And accepted he would never find out. “So we won’t be having him as a front-page scoop. Pity.”

  “There is a story we might be able to use. Dougald Forsythe, the art expert, is in a spot of bother.”

  “Him who beat you to the drawing?”

  “Don’t remind me!” McAllister paused. “A second opinion is saying that his very expensive drawing is a master forgery.” How they could run the story in the Gazette was problematical. So he explained to Don what had happened and the dilemma of how to make it relevant to their readers. “We need to word it so it not only connects to the Gazette but is syndicated to the Herald and other newspapers with our byline,” McAllister began.

  “Our intrepid reporter Joanne Ross discovered the drawing, and—”

  “I’m not having my wife splashed about on the front page of—”

  “Since when did you make decisions for me?” Joanne came in carrying a tea tray. She bumped the door shut with her hip and said, “Put another log on the fire, McAllister, it’s winter. Or hadn’t you noticed?” She put down the tray, turned her back on her husband, and asked Don, “So what’s this about?”

  He told her.

  “I like it. Forsythe is not connected with spies, so the gentlemen from the government can have no objections.”

  “As far as we know,” Don agreed.

  “But the publicity?” McAllister asked.

  “Joanne Ross believes in the public’s right to know. It’s Mrs. McAllister who wants a quiet life,” she said. “Use the auction as background, then reveal the drawing is fake.”

  “Yes, but how did we discover it is fake?”

  “Blame Hector,” she said.

  “Now, that is a brilliant idea,” Don said, mentally composing a headline for an article yet to be written.

  Superintendent Westland knew the geography of the town and knew the senior staff on the Gazette. He well remembered Don McLeod. “A useful man to have on our side,” he remarked to DI Dunne.

  “And the reverse,” the policeman replied.

  The superintendent met Don in the pub on Baron Taylor’s Lane. After a sip of the excellent draft beer, he asked Don, “Would it be possible to leave for the Baltic countries from here without anyone knowing?”

  “Aye. Danzig always did good trade with Scotland. As for all thon Soviet countries, you could ship out from here no bother. What your reception on arrival will be depends.”

  For both of them the idea of a spy escaping from this small town to fame and fortune, or infamy and a Soviet pension, was intriguing. Thrilling, even.

  “Didn’t thon traitors escape via France? Maybe on documents forged by Alice Ramsay?” Don was enjoying the thought. Not that he approved of traitors and spies, but the machinations of governments he had no time for.

  “On a cross-channel ferry via France.” The superintendent sighed. “Pretty embarrassing for the spy agencies. Thank goodness I’m just a mere police officer sent to escort the expert from Westminster.”

  Don thought “mere police officer” was twaddle, and he doubted that escorting a senior spy was all the superintendent was here for. Here sits a very senior policeman, who is accompanying a very senior spy, Don thought, and I will never be allowed to publish the story.

  “Can you ask if anyone knows anything at the harbor?”

  “I have already, and no, no one saw nothing out of the ordinary.”

  The police officer laughed. Whether at Don’s convoluted grammar or that the journalist was one step ahead of him was not the point; if there had been an escape by boat, Don McLeod would have heard.

  “Mrs. McAllister, thank you so much for allowing me into your home again.”

  The sentiment was meant to reassure. But Hennessey’s voice, dark with hidden power, made her wary. Plus, she was annoyed; she had had to bake again and vacuum the house, interfering with her newfound lust for writing.

  “I have some good news. There is no objection to you keeping Miss Ramsay’s versions of the Leonardo drawings.”

  “So Hector was right—they are fakes.”

  “Not exactly fakes,” Hennessey said. “I believe ‘executed in the style of’ is the term.”

  “Good enough to fool some of the experts.” Joanne smiled.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Our Alice was the best.”

  He took a seat at the table, where Joanne had laid out the manuscript, divided into chapters, making eight piles of paintings and commentary. In a separate pile, she’d put out the miscellaneous notes, partial paintings, and fragments of paper with Alice’s various handwriting styles. Then came a bundle of documents, official-looking—they seemed to be for reference. Finally, still in a cardboard box, were stacks of paper, cut-up notebooks, cannibalized old books, pages from parish registers.

  Hennessey was an organized searcher and a fast reader, but it took close to two hours before he finished.

  Joanne left him at his task and went on with her own work—making a pot of soup, preparing pastry, all the boring househol
d chores that she chose to enjoy, using the monotony to think about her own writing. What if the postman is a bearer of information but not in a gossipy way? A man or woman who binds a community together, not divides? What if he too is subjected to an injustice, just as Alice was? Just as I was—and maybe still am. Perhaps the postie is a foreigner? Perhaps he writes poetry? She wrestled with plots, with character, with how to link the ideas, and two hours vanished.

  She knocked on her own sitting-room door. “Mr. Hennessey, a cup of tea?”

  “Love one.” He stood, stretched, saying, “I’ll join you in the kitchen, if I may?”

  The scones were cooling on a wire rack. “Cheese scones, raisin scones, and over there are plain old-fashioned tattie scones.”

  “My granny made tattie scones and served them with Ayrshire bacon.”

  “So you are Scottish.” She laughed.

  “Wheesht,” he said in a Highland accent. “That is a state secret.”

  She half-believed him.

  “I’ve finished with the manuscript. As I said, I’ll need to take a few pages for examination by the experts, but only two of the pages are important to the work.”

  “The bird’s nest is the one I particularly want back. But what will happen with the finished manuscript, I’ve no idea.”

  “I could contact some publishers who might be interested in the project.”

  “Mr. Hennessey,” she began, and seeing those eyes, the watchful missing-nothing looking-right-at-you eyes, she hesitated.

  He waited.

  “If you tell me what you’re looking for, I might be able to help.” In her nervousness, it came out in a rush, and she laughed a little gurgle of a laugh. “Sorry, maybe it’s too important for me to know.”

  “No.” He was still. Very still. It was as though the cogs were turning. Or the scales balancing. As though he was giving every consideration to why she should, or should not, know. “I can’t tell you everything. Actually, I can’t tell you much at all. And I promised your husband you would not be exposed to danger.”