Plaid and Plagiarism

by Molly Macrae

  “He and the dog went over?” Hobbs asked.

  “Christine thinks the dog found a way down,” Janet said.

  “I would’ve followed if I could,” Christine said.

  “I’m glad you didn’t. I’m going to help you climb back up, Mrs. Robertson. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “Hold your end and let me get closer to the edge first, so I can check on Reddick.”

  “No. If the edge gives way, I can’t hold you.”

  “I hope you’re not insulting my weight, Norman.”

  “I would never.”

  “Then help me up.”

  While they waited for the rescue personnel, Christine told Hobbs what Reddick had said. “A woman who wasn’t on the list. The list of suspects, I’d assume. But does that tell you enough to know who he was talking about? And did she come out here and spring the trap?”

  “I don’t know. Ian Atkinson might have had his own personal list.”

  “Let’s find out who was on his list,” Janet said.

  “Sorry to have included you in my dragnet,” Ian said when Janet called. “No hard feelings, I hope. That was Plan A, which was rather crude in detail.”

  “If by crude, you mean a fiasco, I agree. Reddick is—” Janet’s throat caught. “We may have lost him.”

  “That was never my intention. It was also a fiasco because the real culprit was getting himself sozzled in Nev’s and never read my text. I dropped in there to celebrate my success, found him blitzed, and realized not only had he never gone to the bothy, but he could hardly walk straight. That’s when Plan B hit me; and that’s B for pure brilliance. I got him in my car, drove to my place, and locked him in the garage. No muscle required on my part because he’d passed out, not that I couldn’t have supplied muscle, if he’d put up any kind of fight. This will be a brilliant piece of publicity—Author of Single Malt Mysteries Bags Villain for Police Scotland.’ He’ll know it’s brilliant, too, when he wakes up. I texted him with the whole scenario so he’ll know he doesn’t have a chance.”

  “Who are you talking about? Who have you got?”

  “Kenneth Lawrie. Oh, and I say, here comes a fascinating turn of events up my front path. A coincidence like this would never work in one of my books. I think things are about to get interesting.”

  Janet couldn’t tell if he’d disconnected or the phone had gone dead.

  29

  Ian Atkinson just set himself up for disaster,” Janet said. “He’s lured Pamela Lawrie to his house and doesn’t realize she killed Una. Norman, you need to get back there.”

  “You need to come with me. You can tell me along the way why I’m arresting her.”

  “Tallie, go with your mum,” Christine said. “She needs you. Summer and I’ll wait here for the responders. Go.”

  “Can you listen and drive fast at the same time?” Janet asked.

  “If the story’s good enough.”

  “Then, put the pedal to the floor, Constable. Ian sent his text to Kenneth as one of his suspects. But Kenneth didn’t get the text, because he didn’t have his phone. Pamela had it, and she read the text. She went out to the bothy, but there was no evidence, only Reddick. I don’t know what happened there, but something did, and Reddick went over the edge. And he told us who was responsible. Sort of. ‘You were on the list. She wasn’t.’ Pamela wasn’t on the list.”

  “Why didn’t he name her?” Tallie asked.

  “He could’ve been in shock. We don’t know how badly hurt he was before he fell the rest of the way.”

  “Jess might not have been on the list, either,” Hobbs said.

  “But it comes back to Pamela,” said Janet. She told them about Ian’s Plan B. “His plan is going to backfire. No question. But what’s ours, when we get there?”

  They pulled up in front of Ian Atkinson’s house, and for all the trauma and drama that had taken place in Argyll Terrace during the past week, everything appeared peaceful and calm. Another, or perhaps the same, warbler sang. The sun shone on the houses and gardens. Janet glanced at her own house and pictured Hobbs’s nana Bethia sitting in the family room knitting Loch Ness monsters.

  “I’m just saying, Constable, that you don’t know what kind of situation you’re walking into, and if you will just let me have your tire iron, and let Tallie have the jack, we can go in as your backup. You going in alone is just plain foolish.”

  “No weapons,” Hobbs said. Again.

  “Look,” Tallie said. “There’s Rab waving to us from Ian’s front door.”

  Pamela Lawrie sat in a chair at Ian’s kitchen table, staring at nothing. Maida Fairlie stood behind her with a cast-iron frying pan, flushed and triumphant, as though she’d aced all the lessons her ancestors had been whispering in her ears down through the years.

  “I always let myself in to make Mr. Atkinson’s tea,” Maida said. “Quiet as a mouse so I don’t disturb his writing. Only tonight when I came in, she was holding a knife on him, so I grabbed the frying pan and hit her. I must’ve left the door open, because the dog came in.”

  Ranger’s nose was raised; he smelled something on the kitchen counter.

  “Rab came over to get the dog after walking the old lady home to your house. He said you gave her free bed and board. That’s lovely, Janet.” She’d told the story when they came in with Hobbs. And told it twice more after he’d put handcuffs on Pamela and cautioned her. But the story put more life into Maida’s beady eyes than Janet had ever seen, so she didn’t mind hearing it again.

  “You did a brilliant job, Maida,” Janet said. “Pure brilliant. We’ll just go through and check in with Norman.”

  “Aye, you go on, then. I’ll keep an eye on this one.” Maida slapped the frying pan in her hand.

  “That’s the most I’ve ever heard Maida say,” Tallie murmured as she and Janet went to join Hobbs.

  “It’s either adrenaline talking or she’s found her niche,” Janet said.

  They found Hobbs with Ian, Rab, and Kenneth across the hall in the lounge. Neither Ian nor Kenneth looked well. Janet wasn’t sure what was wrong with Ian. Pamela hadn’t actually attacked him, so physical injury didn’t account for it. Kenneth’s brown eyes were bloodshot, and he was no doubt hungover. But he wanted to talk.

  “I’ve been carrying around a burden,” he said. “Hiding it. Letting it eat at me. Letting her get at me. Is she all right in there?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll blame me.” He told them that he and Pamela never got over the death of their daughter. “And my way of not getting over it was to have an affair with Emma.” He said he never knew Emma was pregnant. Never knew about Lucy. “When Una heard we were leaving the country, she said she felt she needed to tell me about the little mite.”

  He was shocked, then angry that he hadn’t been told, hadn’t been asked to do anything for her. “Una told me that’s because it was easier to hit up someone she didn’t see face-to-face. And she didn’t know which one of us was Lucy’s father, until I took the test.” He’d told Pamela about Lucy. And he told her maybe he wouldn’t go to Portugal after all. Maybe this was his wake-up call. “I thought it might be my way out.” The tartan fabric was some he’d bought for their daughter and put away for her wedding. Now he wanted it for Lucy.

  “We’ll get it back to you, Kenneth,” Janet said.

  “What’s he telling you in there?” Pamela called from the kitchen. “What are you telling them, Kenneth? I want to see him.”

  They heard a chair scrape and indignant sounds from Maida, and Hobbs was immediately there.

  “You’ve been cautioned, Mrs. Lawrie,” Janet heard him say. “I would advise you to wait.”

  “I want equal time. You let him talk. I’ll talk.”

  “He’s not under arrest.”

  “I want to see him.”

  Hobbs came back into the lounge with Pamela. His hand on her elbow would have looked like a friendly gesture if not for her wrists handcuffed behind her back.

  “She sh
ould’ve been under arrest,” Pamela said. “Ug should’ve been. She was going to ruin everything. She had ruined everything. She wouldn’t tell Kenneth not to stay. She wouldn’t tell him Lucy wasn’t his. I dug around and found out she had someone else paying for the child’s care. But Ug said it was too late.”

  “It was,” Kenneth said. “It wasn’t just Una’s word. I had the test. Lucy is my daughter.”

  “And Una had a copy and she waved it in my face,” Pamela said. “I only wanted to talk. To tell her to leave him alone. Because I knew she was trying to take Kenneth from me. I sent her a text from his phone, and she thought it was him, and we arranged to meet. She knew a private place.”

  “My shed?” Janet asked.

  “I didn’t know who’s shed. But she used to meet someone else there. And when she saw me instead of Kenneth, she laughed and said Kenneth would do anything she asked and she waved the test in my face. She gave me no choice.”

  “So you killed her, Pammy?” Kenneth said.

  “She gave me no choice,” Pamela repeated.

  “Did you take the letters from her, too?” Janet asked.

  Pamela looked at Janet, then looked away. She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t ask what letters Janet was talking about. She told them she’d been working on Kenneth, to wear him down.

  “So he’d come to Portugal with me after all. A few more weeks are all I needed. You’d have done it, wouldn’t you, Kenny?”

  Kenneth, head in his hands, made no response.

  “And you weren’t worried about someone else, someone you know being accused or convicted?” Maida asked. She sounded scandalized and tempted to use the frying pan.

  “No,” Pamela said. Then she made a guttural, dismissive noise. “Incomers and strangers. It’s a known fact they cause most of Inversgail’s problems.”

  Janet’s phone rang. It was Christine with the news that Reddick had been found, unconscious but alive, and expected to live, his fall broken by foliage. Quantum was by his side when the responders reached him. Janet relayed the news to the others.

  “Where is Quantum now?” Hobbs asked.

  “Christine is bringing him to you, Norman.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Constable,” Tallie said, stopping Hobbs after he helped Pamela into his vehicle, “now that it’s over, will you tell me what occurred to you the night of the murder that you didn’t want to tell us?”

  Hobbs studied Tallie’s face for a moment, and then nodded. “I hoped I might get together with Jess because I know she has a good heart. That she’s been visiting Una’s granddaughter is further proof of that. But it isn’t easy for a policeman.”

  “Especially one who just moons around and won’t speak up,” Tallie said. “Or one who lies and sneaks old ladies into other people’s houses.”

  Hobbs nodded again.

  “Pamela’s attitude is ironic,” Janet said as they watched Hobbs drive away with her, “considering the bookshop does well because of tourists, and her dream was to become a stranger and an incomer in another land.”

  “Mm,” Tallie said. “You know, though, after this adventure with murder, the book business is turning out to be more exciting than I thought it would be.”

  “That?” Janet said. “That was a typical day at the library. And a tame one, in some cases.”

  30

  One week later

  It’s a decent crowd,” Janet said as she and Christine surveyed the audience gathered in the library auditorium.

  “Nice to see,” Christine said. “And a nice culmination to the festival. But we’ll hope they don’t all get wind of the reception at Yon Bonnie Books and show up there this evening.”

  “We’ll cope if they do.” Janet gave Christine a nudge with her elbow. “She’s going to announce first place.”

  “I can’t believe she wouldn’t tell us beforehand.”

  “Wheesht. It’s more fun this way.”

  “And finally, as chair of the Inversgail Literary Festival writing contest, it is my great pleasure to announce the first-place winner. For his short story ‘Tea Time at the OK Corral,’ Rab MacDonald.”

  “A lovely gathering,” Ian Atkinson said to Janet and Christine that evening at the bookshop. “Thank you for inviting me. Ah, there’s Rab. Is he going to read his story?”

  “According to Sharon,” Janet said.

  “I must go congratulate him. See if he’d like any pointers.”

  “Rab saw him coming,” Christine said as they watched Ian try to catch up. “And there’s Danny coming in the door. I’ll just go say hello, shall I?”

  Janet heard the infectious laugh of her grandsons and turned to see Tallie and Maida playing peekaboo with them. Allen and Nicola had brought the boys up from Edinburgh for a long weekend. They were staying in the rooms above the bookshop. Maida waved at Janet and then picked up a carrier bag and brought it over.

  “Some books I’d like you to have,” Maida said. “I found them in a house one of my crews cleaned out. Payment was anything we liked that we hauled away.”

  Janet took half a dozen antique volumes from the bag and set them on the sales desk. She opened the first and then the second. “Oh, my goodness, Maida.” She opened each of the others. “Do you realize what you’ve given me? They’re first editions by Ian MacLaren and Lewis Grassic Gibbon.”

  “Aye, and I can’t think of anyone who’d like them more.”

  As Janet hugged her, she heard a familiar throat clearing behind her. Norman Hobbs, his grandmother beside him.

  “Nice to see you again,” Bethia said, smiling with a mouthful of teeth. She took two of the ginger pear scones Summer was passing. She ate one and gave the other to Jess.

  Janet saw Basant talking with Reddick. Reddick’s collie, Quantum, sat at attention by his side. The policeman was still convalescing but his doctors expected him to make a full recovery. Summer stopped and offered the tray of scones to the men. Basant took one and, after taking a bite, raised the scone to Janet.

  “Perfect,” he declared.

  Sharon Davis was the only one who didn’t look happy. “Where’s Rab?” she asked Janet. “I gave him a five-minute warning for reading his story.”

  “Change of plans,” Tallie said. “He and Ranger just went out the back door.”

  “It’s all right, though,” Summer said. “We’ve got this.” She and Christine passed cups of Atholl Brose for the adults and lemonade for the kids.

  “Mom,” Tallie said, “a toast?”

  “Me?”

  “No one better.”

  Janet looked at the smiling faces around her and reflected on the happily-ever-after dream she’d embarked upon. “To friends and books,” she said, raising her glass, “and friends in books, may our stories be long and our friendships longer.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Stories come from so many more places than just one person’s head. For this story, the elements span decades and continents, and for all I’m grateful. Thanks to Kristina Hoerner for the launderette; Evelyn Shapiro for the new paint in the tearoom; Cammy MacRae for the correct Gaelic (any incorrect Gaelic is my fault); Sharon Davis and James Haviland for their names and good humor; Basant, Arati, and Puja Paudel for friendship and amazing spirit; Ann Campbell and Caroline Wickham-Jones for reading with Scottish eyes; Linda Landrigan for the inspiration for the Single Malt Mysteries; Claiborne Hancock for taking a chance; Cynthia Manson for continuing to believe in me; Chris Thompson, Marthalee Beckington, and Nancy and Bob Lawson for Ranger, Quantum, and Sophie; and always for my Mike.

  This story takes place in Scotland, but it’s narrated through the eyes of a newly transplanted American and filtered through her American thoughts and vocabulary.

  PLAID AND PLAGIARISM

  Pegasus Books Ltd

  148 West 37th Street, 13th Fl.

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright 2016 © by Molly MacRae

  First Pegasus Books hardcover edition December 2016

 
Interior design by Sabrina Plomitallo-González, Pegasus Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-68177-256-1

  ISBN: 978-1-68177-296-7 (e-book)

  Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.