Quiet Neighbors

by Catriona McPherson

  “What note?” asked Lowell, sounding very stern.

  “Someone pushed it through my door last night,” Jude said. “But I’ve left it in Macaulay’s essays. In the cottage. I’ll go and get it tomorrow. Eddy, I told you I needed all the books.”

  “And what did it say?” Lowell demanded. “Describe it.”

  “Well,” Jude began, “it was cheap pape—”

  Eddy gave a long low snort that made her cough. “If you had a phone you could have taken a picture,” she said. “Get a bloody phone! Get a dealer’s burner if you don’t want to register, but for Christ’s sake!”

  “Cheap paper,” Jude said again, “sticky red biro—you know what I mean? Dark blobs?” Lowell nodded and Eddy rolled her eyes. “And it said, Let the dead rest. And then listed their names, like they’d signed it: Etta, Archie, Elsie, Norma, and Todd.”

  “In that order?” said Lowell.

  Jude squeezed her eyes shut. “Norma, Elsie, Archie, Etta, Todd.”

  “You’re sure?” said Lowell. Jude mouthed the names over to herself again and then nodded. “Because what I’m thinking is that whoever sent the note would put the most salient name first, do you see?”

  “No” said Eddy. “What’s salient mean?”

  “Norma Oughton,” said Jude. “Are there Oughtons still around?”

  “Oh yes,” said Lowell. “I should say there are. The Oughtons own a dairy farm over towards Monreith. Frank and Peter, the two brothers, run it between them. But when old Frank died he left his wife Norma in charge and she made a good age.”

  “Ninety,” said Eddy, who was studying her phone.

  “The brothers were itching to modernise, but the old lady stuck with the way her dear husband used to do things.”

  “You’re not seriously suggesting … ?” said Jude. “Seriously? Two men would kill their mum to get … ”

  “An automated milking parlour,” said Eddy. Then blew a raspberry at their looks. “I went to a lot of Young Farmers’ barbecues for the free cider.”

  “And does Jackie know them?” Jude said. “Would she have been likely to phone them yesterday and warn them that I was sniffing around?”

  “Jackie knows everybody,” said Lowell. “Well, everybody knows everybody, dear me, yes, but I think Jackie was a bit of a childhood sweetheart of Frank Oughton, in our schooldays. Young Farmers’ barbecues and all that, dear child, as you say.”

  “So, let me think this through,” Jude said. “That would mean … ”

  Eddy, impatient, interrupted her. “You freak out Jackie, she phones up Frank and freaks him out too. He freaks her back. She goes home and collapses. He comes into town and puts a note through your door.”

  “But I heard someone walking,” Jude said. “Not in a car.”

  “Well, he’d stash his car in case anyone saw it, wouldn’t he?” said Eddy.

  “And I think it was a woman,” said Jude.

  “High heels?” Eddy said. “Maybe he was in disguise.”

  “No, not high heels. It sounded like wellingtons, but small feet.”

  “But wellies!” Eddy said. “That’s pretty much a farmer’s dress code, isn’t it? What size are the Oughtons, Dad?”

  “Wiry,” Lowell said. “Not tall. And besides, there are wives. I remember one of the Oughton wives being rabid to get out of a cottage and into the farmhouse. The old lady wasn’t cold before they cleared it and got the decorators in.”

  “Shite!” said Eddy. She threw her phone down and ran her hands through her hair. Distracted as Jude was, she still noticed the heavy silk of it spilling over the girl’s hands and flowing down. “Forget it,” she said. “It makes no odds that Norma-Oh was first on the note. I just checked the engraving on the headstones and that’s the order they died in. Norma to Todd. The end.” She sighed. “Can I have one sip of whisky? God, never mind! The face on you.” She sighed again. “Why do you think Lorna McLennan’s name’s not mentioned?”

  “Good question,” said Jude. “I never noticed before because I’m working from Todd’s notes, and they stopped when he stopped. Obviously.”

  “One hundred reviews to write before you die,” said Eddy.

  “What do you mean, Todd’s notes?” said Lowell.

  “I’ll bring the books down and show you,” Jude said. “Todd Jolly wrote reading notes in his book club selections and they morphed into a sort of diary. But it stopped before Miss McLennan, of course.”

  “And then with her death, everything stopped,” Lowell said. “The end of an era. No more Dr. Glen in Wigtown.” He took a long swallow of his whisky. “It was a terrible time. My father in an interview room in Newton Stewart, answering questions. Oh yes, it got that far. Lorna’s family said he made an unscheduled visit the day she died. It was mischievous nonsense, but he was ashamed. He had nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of, but still he was ashamed.”

  “How did it get sorted out?” said Eddy. “If it got as far as the cops, the families backing out would make no odds.”

  “Mrs. Hewston gave him his alibi,” Lowell said.

  “Ahhhhh,” said Jude. “That explains a lot.”

  “Were they having a roll in the hay?” said Eddy. “Your dad and Mrs. H.?”

  “They were doing a stock take of the dispensary,” Lowell said. “My dear child, life is so very much less action-packed than you seem to be expecting. I hope you don’t find it dull as the years begin to roll by.”

  If he had known what was in store in the days to come, if anyone of them had known even a fraction of it, he wouldn’t have spoken so lightly of dullness, as though dullness were not welcome. When quiet days came again, it would be a long time before anyone found them unrewarding.

  Twenty-Four

  They weren’t exactly dreams. Jude was only half asleep while memories and visions rose and fell in her, twisting together and then unravelling. The photograph she had never seen of the still child and her trembling parents became the photograph of the dark Miranda, head thrown back and cherry-red mouth wide with laughter, her little friend against the light, glowing. Then Miranda became Raminder, lying on the floor while the baby cried, and Lowell’s voice said, The dead are lost and the living remain.

  She felt someone touch her hand. Max used to kiss her head when he went out on an early shift at five o’clock or came off a backshift at one. And she would kiss his when she slipped out of bed quietly the next morning to let him sleep. No one had ever woken her before by touching her hand.

  She opened her eyes to see Lowell at her bedside, in his dressing gown with the striped collar of his pyjamas sticking up and his hair snarled into a nest.

  “I’m going out,” he said. “I didn’t want to upset Eddy.”

  Jude took her hand away and sat up. “Going out where?” she whispered.

  “The cottage,” said Lowell. “Kirk Cottage is—” And then he astonished her by putting his arms around her shoulders and pressing her tightly to him. She could feel the grizzled grey hair on his chest scraping a section of her cheek and the incredible softness of his flannel pyjamas, like down, against the rest of it. And she could smell the staleness of his dressing gown and a hint of mothballs. She struggled free and stared at him.

  “The cottage is on fire,” he said. “The fire station rang me.”

  “My cottage?” said Jude, still not quite awake. “Jolly’s Cottage?”

  “Thank God you’re here,” Lowell said, and pressed her to him again.

  “I switched everything off,” said Jude, her voice muffled. “And I haven’t lit the fire.”

  “Thank God,” Lowell said again. “I couldn’t have borne it.”

  “I’m coming,” Jude said, pushing him away and sweeping back the bedclothes.

  “No,” said Lowell. “I need you to take care of Eddy and … Well, dear me, my dear, yes indeed, you see, the police are bo
und to be there.”

  Jude froze with her legs half out of the bed. “Eddy told you?”

  “She didn’t need to,” Lowell said. “And I don’t know any details, nor do I want to. I trust you.”

  “But you know I don’t want to run into cops.”

  “Eddy thinks everyone over twenty-five is a pensioner,” said Lowell. “She thinks it no stranger that you don’t possess a mobile phone than that I don’t. But I know better.”

  “So why do you trust me?” said Jude.

  “Because I have never known an O. Douglas admirer to be a scoundrel,” Lowell told her with a smile. “Now, go to sleep. I’ll come back as soon as I can. And don’t upset Eddy, please, will you?”

  Jude lay in the dark after he had gone with a swarm of unruly thoughts filling her head, deafening her. There was relief that he hadn’t gone upstairs and found his “grandchild” hanging on a hook by its shoulder straps on the back of Eddy’s bedroom door. There was the question of what he meant by couldn’t have borne it. Was it possible? Was it welcome? And there was cold hard reality nudging at her too. The end of the fairy tale. The police were at the cottage where she’d been living. And if it wasn’t that, it would be something else soon enough. A slip and fall and trip to Casualty. A traffic stop for a missing headlight.

  She pushed that thought away, put it behind a door, turned the key, and swallowed it. She couldn’t let herself think about that now. And it was easy. More than anything, her brain was filled with images of the cottage: those shelves and nooks in the headboard; the tiles on the coffee table; the handmade rack behind the kitchen door for everything from Clingfilm to clothes-pegs. She could see them all in sunlight and lamplight and couldn’t bear the thought of them disappearing under a cloud of smoke that was more like fog and hid footsteps no matter how fast she ran and how loud she shouted, the other person always managing to stay ahead of her, shrouded by that curtain of grey.

  Then Raminder was there, rummaging, just out of sight, taking bottles and blister packs of pills out of Jude’s bathroom cabinet and filling her suitcase with them, packing them in and shaking the case to make more room, while Jude was crouched by the bed, flicking and flicking a plastic Bic lighter at the edge of the bedclothes, whispering, Turn over. Max! Turn over! But the back of Max’s head, his hair snarled up from sleep, was too heavy for her to shift. It wasn’t his real head. It was monstrous, bloated and spongy, strapped on to his skull and weighing him down. Max! she whispered, terrified that Raminder would hear her, or finish packing the pills and come in and see her. Max! Wake up. Turn over.

  “Jude, wake up! What the bloody hell’s going on? Where’s Lowell?”

  Eddy opened the curtains, sending the brass rings screeching along the pole and letting a slice of cold light fall across Jude’s face. She put an arm up to hide her eyes and groaned.

  “He had to go,” she said, her dry throat clicking as she swallowed. “There’s been a fire.”

  “Jesus Christ? At the shop? All those books! The whole town’ll be gone. He should have had sprinklers. Why didn’t you wake me?”

  Jude waited until she ran out of steam and then told her.

  “The cottage,” she said. “He didn’t want you upset.” She felt the bed springs drop as Eddy sat down.

  “Oh my God!” she said. “Someone tried to kill you. No one knew you were here except Lowell and me. Jude, someone tried to burn you to death!”

  “And Mrs. Hewston,” said Jude, getting up. “She knew too.” She went to the window to tidy the mess Eddy had made of the curtains and was standing in full view when a white estate car with an orange light on top turned into the side drive and approached the house.

  “Who’s that?” said Eddy, sidling up beside her. On her other side, Jude caught a flash of movement: Mrs. Hewston’s garden gate opening and shutting and the high fronds of the asparagus bed swishing as she passed through.

  “Oh Jesus,” Eddy said. “The jungle drums have been on the go then.”

  They could hear Lowell in the kitchen when they were halfway downstairs, the cutlery drawer sticking as he tried to open it, spoons and forks clashing until it came free, and the sound of the kettle. There were voices too, but they quieted as Jude and Eddy entered.

  The visitors were firemen, one in his uniform, minus the outer layer, and one in civvies with just a regulation body-warmer on, holding a clipboard.

  “How bad is it?” said Jude. Lowell looked ten years older, grey and shaking. Eddy went over and hugged him hard, reaching up and smoothing his hair back. She must be pretty sure of the weight and texture of that strap-on belly, Jude thought. But Lowell, at least at this moment, was too distracted to register anything so subtle. He barely reacted to her touch at all.

  “The porch is gone,” he said. “And there’s smoke damage and water damage and the roof looks … poor little house.” He took a ragged breath that was almost a sob.

  Jude felt a wave of nausea; the thought of the cottage soaked and ruined was more than she could stand. To distract herself, she asked a question. “The porch? Where did it start?”

  One of the fireman, the older one with the clipboard, glanced at Lowell and he nodded grimly.

  “In the letterbox,” the man said. He had such a strong local accent that Jude struggled briefly. Litter box? Then she gasped. “Aye,” the man went on. “Crumpled newspaper and a firelighter. You were lucky, hen.”

  “Well, but I’d have been okay, wouldn’t I?” said Jude. “If it’s just the porch.”

  The fireman’s eyes hardened as he looked over at Lowell, who was spooning tea into the big pot, shaking so much that little scraps of loose leaves dropped from the spoon and sprinkled the worktop.

  “Dad?” said Eddy, peering up into his face. “Sit down and let me. You’re making a bloody mess.”

  “No smoke alarms,” said the fireman. “No upstairs exits. That suite’s too old to pass fire regs. There’s no way that house was fit to rent out.”

  “It wasn’t rented,” said Jude, coldly. “I was Mr. Glen’s guest and I’m not the suing type, so you can just calm down.”

  “Yeah,” Eddy said. “You can see he’s upset. Stop being such an old sweetie-wife. Hey!” she said, turning towards the back door. “Speaking of which, where’s Mrs. H.? She was on her way over.”

  “So,” Jude said. “Arson, eh? And you’re an investigator, aren’t you? What happens now?”

  “We’re not here to share information,” said the clipboard man. “I offered Mr. Glen a lift home as a courtesy since he wasn’t fit to drive, but we’ll pass on the tea.”

  Eddy poured water from the kettle into the pot and swirled it round.

  “I said we’ll pass on the tea,” the man repeated.

  “You’re not the only one with a mouth,” Eddy said, and Jude saw the other fireman, the one dirty and smoky from actual firefighting, suppress a grin.

  His boss stood and placed his chair under the table with a kind of fussy efficiency.

  “I’ll stop on,” said the sitting man. “I’m off shift now. I’ll get Sandy to come round and pick me up when I’ve had a cuppa.”

  His boss left without another word, picking over his keys and ignoring Eddy, who followed him.

  “I’m not seeing you off the premises,” she said, “so don’t get all humpty. I’m just checking out for our neighbour, see what’s happened to her.

  “Well,” she said, when she returned. “That’s a mystery. No sign of her. Do you want some toast, Dad? And how about—?” She turned. “Do you eat burnt food like toast? There’s cornflakes if not.”

  The fireman chuckled. “Toast would be grand,” he said. “Sandy was right. You’re a wee belter, aren’t you? You’ve got your hands full, Low!”

  “Who’s Sandy?” said Eddy, scowling either from natural bent or because she didn’t know she was being complimented.

 
“My wife. Met you yesterday at Billy McLennan’s.” He took a slurp of his tea. “That was a terrible thing and now this. What next, eh?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re married to that bitch of a care worker,” said Eddy.

  “Thankfully—given your complete lack of diplomacy, dear child—no,” said Lowell. He was beginning to revive and he turned with a look of interest as Eddy pushed two rough slices into the toaster and sent them down. “This is Frank Oughton.”

  Jude managed to keep her face neutral and Frank was facing away from Eddy, so he didn’t see her jaw dropping.

  “Frank and Peter are volunteer firemen,” Lowell went on.

  “Do you take it in turns?” Eddy said. “It’d be kind of shite if you both died in a fire you went to together.”

  “Too many films,” said Lowell, at Frank’s look. “Blame Bruce Willis.”

  “So,” Frank said. “Who’s behind this then? Who’ve you pissed off, Lowell? Or is it you …?” He turned to Jude.

  “Judith. Judith Crowther.”

  Lowell frowned, just a flicker, and then smoothed his brow again. “I’ve been wracking my brains,” he said. “The cottage lay empty for aeons, so it’s not a disgruntled tenant. And Judith’s new here and didn’t take anyone’s job or anything of that nature, dear me, no, so it’s rather hard to see a personal motive.”

  “And you’ve not left someone hacked off with you down in London?” Frank said, still looking at Jude.

  “Here!” said Eddy. “Isn’t this that other bloke’s job? What’s it to you?” She probably thought she was helping.

  “I’m a librarian,” Jude said. “We don’t make enemies, not now you’re allowed to talk.”

  “Barbarianism,” said Lowell.

  “So it’s not a running away type of thing?” Frank said. “No one looking for you? And no trouble since you got here?”

  Jude gave him a smile as she shook her head. “I’m helping Lowell with a big overhaul of his cataloguing system, getting the stock online and reorganising. He answered my advert in the Bookseller. It’s a trade magazine.”