by M. B. Shaw
She’d almost rung him a few times since their meeting in the pub, but on each occasion her nerve had failed her. Or perhaps common sense had got the better of her, depending on how you looked at it. The boy was half her age after all, and apart from an undeniable urge to jump each other’s bones, it was hard to imagine what they might have in common.
‘Right. OK.’ He looked crestfallen. ‘I should have called first. Then again, you never called me, about dinner.’
Iris’s stomach churned so violently she felt sure it must be audible.
‘I’m sorry. I meant to. I’ve just been really busy.’
‘Me too, as it happens,’ said Jamie. ‘I’ve been out a lot, on the boat.’
‘Right.’
A painful silence ensued. Oh God, thought Iris. Why was this so difficult? Why couldn’t she just talk to him naturally and go out for dinner like a normal person?
‘How are the fish?’ she blurted.
Jamie’s worried face suddenly cracked into a huge grin. ‘They’re well, thanks.’
How are the fish? Iris cringed inside. What on earth was wrong with her?
‘How are your paints?’ he teased her.
‘Good.’ Iris cleared her throat and blushed scarlet. ‘Thank you. Yes. The paints are, erm – excellent.’
‘So can I buy you dinner tomorrow night?’ Jamie asked, still smiling.
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Aye. As you’re busy tonight. How does eight o’clock at Maria’s sound? It’s the wee Italian opposite the Fisherman’s.’
Iris made a noise that could have been anything, but Jamie chose to take it as an affirmative.
‘Grand. I’ll pick you up here at seven-thirty. And I promise to take a shower first.’ He looked down apologetically at his smelly oilskins one last time, before quitting while he was ahead and disappearing into the twilight.
Closing the door behind her, Iris let out a wail of embarrassment, before walking back over to her dolls’ house, picking up her glass of wine and downing what was left of it in one gulp. Stuffing her mouth completely full of chocolate, looking and feeling increasingly like a nutcase, she poured herself a second glass and sat down to steady her nerves.
Dinner. That was all it was, she told herself firmly. Just a simple dinner. Now why was that so terrifying?
For the millionth time, Iris wished that her real life was as calm and under control as the world of her dolls’ house.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Ms Grey? Iris? Do you have a minute?’
Iris had just stepped out of the post office and was heading back to her car when an animated Stuart Haley flagged her down.
‘Are you off somewhere?’ he asked, looking at the Mini Cooper keys in her hand.
‘Just to the castle. Another portrait session,’ said Iris, blowing on her fingers against the cold. It was only the first week of October, but this morning’s frost had been as thick as snow. Even in her puffa coat, gloves and fur-lined boots, Iris felt underdressed. She glanced towards her warm car longingly.
‘We can talk in the car, if you like,’ said Haley, following her line of sight. ‘It won’t take long.’
Ensconced in Iris’s tiny car, with the ignition on and the hot air blasting, he got straight to the point.
‘I need your help.’
‘Of course,’ said Iris. ‘With what?’
‘With the case.’ Haley looked at her seriously ‘Off the record, obviously. If anybody asks, I never asked you to get involved, and we never had this conversation. But the truth is, I’m getting nowhere fast identifying these bodies. I was impressed by your thinking on those threatening letters.’
‘Well, thank you,’ said Iris. ‘But I’m really not…’
‘And I know how instrumental you were in bringing Dom Wetherby’s killer to justice,’ Haley interrupted her.
Iris held up a hand. ‘Hold on. That was different.’
‘Was it?’ asked Haley. ‘How?’
‘Well, because it was a one-off,’ said Iris, feeling increasingly flustered. ‘I happened to be there when it all kicked off, you see. So I sort of found myself drawn in. It wasn’t a conscious decision.’
‘You happen to be here, too, don’t you?’ Haley pointed out.
‘Yes,’ admitted Iris.
‘And you’ve already been “drawn in” with these threatening letters to Kathy Miller.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ said Iris. Was it just her, or had it suddenly become uncomfortably hot in here? ‘But it’s still different. I knew Dom. I was painting his portrait and living in his guest cottage. I saw him every day, so when he drowned, it was personal.’
Haley nodded understandingly. ‘I get it. You don’t know these victims, these women,’ he said. ‘But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Nobody knows them. Nobody cares. Whoever they were they’ve been forgotten. Their lives, and deaths, don’t matter to anyone at all. Except the bastard who killed them, of course, and who thinks he’s got away wi’ it. At this rate, unfortunately, he’s probably right.’ He let his words hang in the air for a few moments, watching Iris squirm as she wrestled with her conscience, and with the deep sense of empathy that Haley had noticed in her from the start and was now attempting to manipulate, with consummate skill. ‘I don’t mean to pressure you,’ he said softly.
Iris laughed. ‘Oh yes you do.’
‘OK, well, mebbe I do a little bit,’ he admitted, smiling. ‘But only because I know you care. And that you don’t like letting things lie. Also, you know, you’re actually pretty good at this stuff.’
‘Don’t try and flatter me.’ Iris’s eyes narrowed.
‘OK, OK,’ Haley said. ‘I won’t. Take a look at these.’ Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag containing the blue-green glass beads that Milo had so helpfully ‘removed’ from the bothy. ‘They’re blown glass, and we now think they probably came from a necklace belonging to one of the victims,’ he told Iris. ‘I’ve posted pictures on our public appeal website, in case anyone recognises them. But as about two and half people log onto that per week, I’m no holding my breath.’
‘May I?’ said Iris, opening the bag.
Haley nodded and she reached inside thoughtfully, rubbing her fingers over the smooth glass balls.
‘Remind me,’ Haley said casually. ‘How many people visited your Facebook page during the Wetherby case? Just… ballpark.’
Iris scowled at him. ‘That was different!’
‘So you keep saying.’
‘That case was national news.’
‘So might this be, if you got involved. Ach, come on, Iris, I’ve seen those online trolls of yours, and they’re only a fraction of the people logging on. If you were to set up a Facebook page, specifically for the Girls in the Wood, I bet you we’d have thousands of hits. You’ve got a far better chance of finding someone who recognises that necklace than I do.’
If this was DI Haley not pressuring someone, Iris dreaded to think what he was like when he decided to turn the screws.
It was working, though. Holding the pretty orbs of glass in her hand, she couldn’t help but imagine the necklace hanging around a young woman’s neck, each bead iridescent against her skin like a miniature glass earth. She pictured the necklace breaking, snapping, perhaps at the moment of the woman’s death; the beads scattering into the earth, just like her bones. Broken. Destroyed. Buried, deep beneath the rubble and the Scottish peat, never to be discovered. Or so the killer must have thought.
‘All right,’ she said, resealing the bag.
‘You’ll do it?’ Haley couldn’t hide his elation.
‘I’ll set up a Facebook page and post some pictures of the beads.’
‘That’s fantastic!’ Without thinking, he leaned over and hugged her.
‘Just the beads, though. And maybe a general press release about the bodies. Not the letters. I promised Kathy I’d keep them secret, and they’re probably not related anyway.’
‘Unde
rstood,’ said Haley.
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Iris pleaded. ‘I can’t make any promises, and for what it’s worth, I think you’ve greatly overestimated my powers.’
‘No promises,’ said Haley, reaching for the door. He knew how to quit while he was ahead. ‘And like I said, should anyone ask, you and I never had this conversation. Enjoy your painting.’
Just like that, he was gone. And for the second time since she’d got to Pitfeldy, Iris found herself sucked into helping solve a mystery.
Is it that I’m crap at saying no? she wondered. Or that I’m crap at admitting that I actually want to say yes?
She was still pondering the question ten minutes later, when she pulled into the drive at the castle.
* * *
The sitting went better than usual. Deciding it was probably safer to steer clear of the topic of Haley and the Girls in the Wood, at least for the time being, Iris happened to let slip that she’d been asked out to dinner by a local fisherman. Kathy’s gossip radar went into instant overdrive. She insisted Iris tell her every last detail about Jamie Ingall – how they had met, what he looked like, where he was taking her tonight. Usually, Iris would have bristled at being asked to reveal so much about herself, but on this occasion it was a relief to have Kathy distracted. And sitting still for once, happy to listen instead of talk. By the time Iris left, she’d almost finished the dreaded hair, which was looking a lot better. Both women felt that progress had been made.
‘You look happy, darling,’ Jock observed, walking up behind Kathy at the front door as she waved Iris off. The rain had just begun to set in, and a grey sheet had soon swallowed Iris’s little car completely. ‘Good sitting?’
‘It was,’ Kathy sighed, filling him in on the exciting developments in Iris’s social life. ‘Do you know this place, Maria’s? Maybe we should go out for dinner some time. I can’t remember the last time we didn’t eat at home.’
‘I’ll take you to Edinburgh or to London, if you want to go out.’ Jock smiled indulgently. ‘But I’m not about to sit in some dreary café in Pitfeldy frequented by trawlermen. We’ll both be poisoned.’
‘Don’t be such a snob,’ Kathy teased him, punching him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Iris said it looked really cute when she drove by. She’s playing it down, but I think she’s kind of excited.’
Jock pulled her to him, taking a stray strand of honey-blonde hair between his fingers and stroking it lovingly. ‘You’re fond of Iris, aren’t you?’
Kathy nodded. ‘She’s becoming a good friend.’
‘What is it you like about her?’ he asked, cocking his head curiously to one side.
‘I don’t know, exactly,’ admitted Kathy. ‘I suppose I like that she’s smart. And honest. And she doesn’t judge.’
‘Doesn’t she?’ Jock asked, still fiddling with the strand of hair. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’d say she’s already judged me pretty harshly.’
‘Well, you haven’t exactly been very warm towards her either,’ said Kathy, standing up on tiptoes so as to be able to reach her arms around his neck.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that you could make a bit more of an effort,’ said Kathy.
‘I don’t see why I should.’ Jock bristled.
Kathy pulled away abruptly. ‘For me. You should for me, Jock. Iris is the only friend I have here. The only one. Don’t you see that?’
‘That’s not true,’ he mumbled half-heartedly, because he knew it was. ‘It takes time to settle in when you move somewhere new, that’s all.’
‘Bullshit,’ Kathy retorted passionately. The last thing she’d intended was to get into an argument, but some lock inside her seemed to have slid open suddenly, and a torrent of suppressed emotions came gushing out. ‘This has nothing to do with time, Jock. Your children hate me because I’m not their mother. The locals hate me because I’m American, and a woman, and young, and because I have ideas of my own, good ideas, and I refuse to shut up about them. I mean, why shouldn’t I write my own vows, hmm? Why shouldn’t I?’
Jock opened his mouth to speak but Kathy wasn’t done yet.
‘Someone hates me enough to have spent the last three months writing me spiteful letters, designed to intimidate me and to get me to leave you.’ She jabbed a finger in Jock’s direction, her eyes welling up with angry, exhausted tears. ‘You have no idea what that’s been like, Jock. I turned to Iris because she understood. From the beginning, she was the only one willing even to give me a chance, the only one willing to listen.’
‘I listen,’ Jock objected, finally forcing a word in edgeways. ‘Be fair, darling. You didn’t even tell me about the letters till the other day.’
‘I know you were annoyed that I took Iris up to the bothy,’ Kathy went on, too caught up in her own emotions to be able to listen to reason. ‘But I wanted to show her what I was planning for the visitors’ centre. I wanted the opinion of the one person – one – who hadn’t already written me off.’
‘My darling, I never wrote you off…’
‘But of course, I never got Iris’s approval because we found those poor girls and – and –’ She broke off, exploding suddenly and spectacularly into sobs.
Shocked, Jock wrapped his arms around her. There didn’t seem much else to be done, at least not until she calmed down.
After a few minutes, once the worst of the storm had passed, he cleared his throat and risked a speech of his own.
‘Listen, my angel. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I think, with hindsight, we made a mistake picking a fight with the vicar and refusing to hold the fair up at the castle. I know, I know, it was my decision as well. And you have every right to write your own vows,’ he said quickly, holding up a hand to stop the torrent of objections he suspected were imminent. ‘But life isn’t always simply about one’s rights, is it? It’s also about feelings, and emotions and traditions. Tradition is very important in a place like Pitfeldy. I’m not saying it should be. Only that it is, and you must try not to take that so personally.’
Kathy looked up at him, astonished by this speech. It wasn’t like Jock to talk about ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’.
‘When did you get so wise?’ she sniffed. Even red-eyed and with a shiny nose from crying, she looked heartbreakingly ravishing.
‘I’ve always been wise,’ Jock grinned, ‘you were just too stroppy to notice.’
‘Stroppy,’ said Kathy. ‘That’s a great word. Do you think people here will ever accept me?’ she added in a rare flash of vulnerability.
‘Of course they will. They were miffed about the fair, and perhaps a bit about all the visitors’ centre stuff as well. But that’s all, and it’s easily fixed. We just need to do something to make it up to them. Host some sort of – event.’
‘A party!’ Kathy brightened. ‘That’s a great idea.’
‘Well, not necessarily a party, per se,’ said Jock. But it was too late for notes of caution.
‘A Halloween party,’ Kathy gasped, struck by sudden inspir-ation. ‘I mean, it’s October, and this place would be perfect for that. Spooky fun up at the castle. Oh my God, how awesome would that be?’
‘Hmm. Possibly.’ Jock sounded doubtful. ‘Halloween’s not really as big a thing here as it is in the States.’
‘Oh, sure it is, honey,’ said Kathy. ‘Or at least, it will be once we throw the party of the century, right here. Oh Jock!’ She kissed him passionately. ‘Thank you for suggesting it. And thank you for letting me moan. I’ll organise everything. Maybe Iris can help me –’
‘About Iris,’ said Jock, treading carefully. He didn’t want to risk upsetting her again. ‘I’m happy that you’ve found a friend.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Kathy asked archly.
‘Yes,’ Jock insisted. ‘But I would also ask you to be careful. Iris seems to make a bit of a habit of poking her nose into other people’s lives. There was that business in Hampshire, as you know, with that chap We
therby –’
‘You mean the “business” where she solved the guy’s murder?’ Kathy challenged him. ‘Isn’t that a good thing? I mean, wouldn’t it be a good thing if Iris helped find out who killed the women in our woods?’
‘Of course it would,’ said Jock placatingly. ‘Although seeing as no one even knows who those women were, it seems unlikely. But that’s not my point, dearest. All I’m trying to say is you haven’t known Iris very long.’
‘I’ve known her long enough to know I like her.’
‘Liking someone is one thing,’ said Jock. ‘Trusting them with your deepest secrets, or even sharing personal, private family matters? That’s something else. Like I say, I don’t doubt that Iris likes you too. But her feelings for me may be more complicated. Especially with that blasted Haley whispering in her ear.’
‘OK, honey,’ Kathy said kindly. She felt more willing to meet him halfway now that he’d been so sweet to her. Plus, now she had the distraction of a party to plan, as well as the wedding. She felt sure she was up to the challenge and that, this time, she’d win the prickly locals over and get them to like her, or at least to accept her before she became Lady Pitfeldy. ‘I’ll be careful with Iris. I promise.’
* * *
Maria’s turned out to be exactly as Iris had described it to Kathy – charming, friendly and intimate. A small room with whitewashed walls and scrubbed wooden floors housed a minuscule bar, an open pizza oven and ten modest tables set with cheerful red gingham cloths and mismatched china. There were paper menus, plus a long list of daily specials handwritten on the chalk board behind the bar, most of them simple pastas and salads. The place was full, which made for a good atmosphere, if a little more noisy than Iris would have liked. All the bodies also served to raise the temperature, especially combined with the heat blasting from the pizza oven. Jamie peeled off his sweater the instant they arrived, revealing toned but pasty-white arms beneath his grey T-shirt. Meanwhile, Iris slipped out of her raincoat, feeling relieved that she’d chosen a more summery cotton dress to wear underneath and not the slinky cashmere number she’d almost gone for, but had rejected for being too sexy. In fact, it would have made her look like a boiled lobster, so that was one bullet dodged at least.