Of Books and Bagpipes

by Paige Shelton

“Delaney, we’ve just received a pauchie of books,” Rosie said from behind the front desk. She placed her hand on a canvas bag, making me interpret “pauchie” to mean bag, or perhaps pouch. Hector stood on all fours on the desk and panted excitedly in my direction. His love for books was almost equal to his love for the humans he hung out with, so I couldn’t tell if his delight was because of me or what was in the pauchie.

  I looked over at Hamlet, who’d stuck his head out from behind the back corner wall to greet me.

  “A bundle,” he said.

  I nodded and smiled. “Am I late?”

  Rosie was usually the first one into the shop. Lately and because of school obligations, Hamlet rarely arrived before I did, and on those infrequent occasions that he did he never seemed to have already delved into a project, which looked to be the case today.

  “Not at all,” Rosie said. “We were both wanting tae get tae work since yesterday was interrupted by that foul-smelling man.” She shook off her irritation at Gordon. “Such a tragedy, that poor lad.” She cleared her throat and sniffed once.

  “Yes, it was. You okay?”

  “Och, I’m fine. Just back and forth, upset and angry all night long.”

  I nodded and stepped to the desk, where I scratched behind Hector’s ears. “You really had never met him before?”

  “Gordon Armstrong? No, never met him, but I’ve heard many a story. He, Edwin, and Leith were a trio of troublemakers, I believe, back at university.”

  “I can’t imagine Edwin as a … actually, I can imagine him as a troublemaker. Not in any sort of cruel way, but silly pranks maybe.”

  “Aye,” Rosie said with a doubtful huff.

  I shared a look with Hamlet. He lifted his eyebrows, shrugged, and then joined us at the desk. He looked much less Shakespearean today in jeans with no holes, and a dress shirt. He either had an appointment with a customer or a class presentation.

  “I’ve never even heard any stories,” he added. “I didn’t like Gordon Armstrong, though, and I don’t trust that he was honest about much of anything yesterday.”

  “Me either,” I said.

  “Och, no, I imagine Edwin didnae believe some of what he said either. I didnae believe him,” Rosie said. She looked at me. “I’m sorry ye had tae find that poor lad’s body. I’m certain that Edwin feels badly aboot that too.”

  “I’m okay, but I question Gordon’s claim that the police told him that Billy had been murdered. I can’t imagine why he’d lie about something like that, but I’d like to be sure. I might call the police on my own and ask. What do you two think of me doing that?” I said.

  “Whatever ye want tae do,” Rosie said.

  “Let me know if I can help,” Hamlet said. “And I’m sorry too. That had tae be terrible.”

  “I’m just sorry for … them all, I guess,” I said.

  “Aye,” Rosie said.

  Actually, I’d already been in touch with the police. After we found the dirk and the business card, Tom drove me directly to the station at the bottom of the Royal Mile where Inspector Winters worked. We took a bunch of pictures of both the weapon and the card, though we tried to be careful about additional fingerprints, before we took them inside. The night officer on duty took a brief statement from us and said he would take care of the items. He said he’d call Inspector Winters and that someone would be in touch soon. I thought maybe I’d get a call last night, but I still hadn’t heard from anyone.

  And, I was okay, but I was becoming attached to Billy Armstrong, albeit in a weird posthumous way. Or, probably more appropriately, I was speculating things about him, which was giving me a sense of knowing him.

  “What books do we have?” I asked.

  “Och, they’re delightsome, for certain. Two different authors,” Rosie said as she opened the bag and reached inside. She retrieved two hardback-bound green books that seemed identical until you read their titles.

  “Penny Wheep and Sangshaw,” I said. “Hugh M’Diarmid.”

  “MacDiarmid,” Rosie corrected my pronunciation.

  “Of course. That’s the Mac sound,” I said.

  “Aye.”

  “I’ve heard of him. Poetry. First editions?” I said.

  Of great meaning in slight symbols, the heavily accented voice said in my head. I focused on it, hoping it would give me more; maybe where the words had come from or when they’d been written, or what words followed.

  “Delaney?” Rosie said a moment later. She’d said other things too, but I’d missed them.

  I blinked. “A poem titled ‘Scotland.’ He wrote a poem about Scotland that included the line ‘Of great meaning in slight symbols.’ Right?” I said.

  “I dinnae ken,” Rosie said. “I wouldnae be surprised.”

  “That’s correct, Delaney,” Hamlet said with a smile. “It’s an extraordinary poem. He wrote a number of extraordinary poems. How did you know ‘Scotland’?”

  I shrugged. “Not sure. Must have read it somewhere along the way.”

  “Lovely,” Rosie said.

  Hector sat and looked up at me with suspicious eyes under today’s blue-barretted fountain of bangs. I smiled at him and scratched his ears some more. The small dog seemed to question my bookish-voice moments more than anyone else.

  “I don’t know if that poem is in one of these books. I don’t remember. We’ll check. If not, I’ll find the complete version. You’ll love it,” Hamlet said.

  “Aye, weel, these are two first editions and they’ll be sought after the moment Hamlet lets the world know they exist. Mr. MacDiarmid was a much-loved Scottish writer,” Rosie said.

  “They’re in great shape,” I said.

  They were in great condition but faded with age. The simple, dark covers weren’t badly worn, and each was emblazoned only with the book titles and an imprinted design.

  I lifted the cover of Penny Wheep and my heart gave a tiny happy jolt. The title page was there and intact; in wonderful condition. It read: William Blackwood and Sons Ltd. Edinburgh and London. 1926. A further quick inspection uncovered a small smudge of something on the front board, but nothing else seemed to mar the book, other than a corner of the paper having been worn from the passing years. Sangshaw was in equally good condition.

  “Extraordinary. Who’s the other author?” I asked.

  “Ah. Ian Hamilton Finlay,” Rosie said.

  “Never heard of him,” I said.

  “A bit of a rebel, I believe,” Rosie said.

  “Well, I guess he could be looked at that way. He was an intellectual, considered controversial at times,” Hamlet said. “A voice of the 1960s in Scotland. You should read him.”

  “I will,” I said. “Is it a valuable book?” I lifted the cover of Midway: Letters from Ian Hamilton Finlay to Stephen Bann. This title page was also intact, but I didn’t know who Stephen Bann was either.

  “I don’t think so,” Hamlet said. “Not much. We can research though.”

  Rosie’s excitement regarding new acquisitions always showed in the pink of her cheeks. I’d become familiar with each of my coworkers’ expressions of excitement when something new and wonderful came into the shop. Rosie’s cheeks matched her name; Hamlet grew wide-eyed, quiet, and pale; and Edwin’s eyebrows came together skeptically as he made a couple of harrumph noises while lifting covers and turning pages.

  I looked at Hamlet. “You’ll have a buyer quickly, you think?”

  “Aye, for MacDiarmid, certainly. Don’t know about the other one though. I’ll put the word out today and let you know what I hear.”

  “I dinnae think ye’ll have much tae do tae get them ready,” Rosie said to me.

  “I’ll give them both a good look,” I said with a forced enthusiastic rise to my voice. I loved my job, but today the ideas of researching the bagpipe shop and the pictures of the dirk on my phone were my real reasons for wanting to lock myself in the warehouse. Hamlet blinked at me.

  “What broke yesterday? What were you sweeping up when I walked in?�
�� I changed the subject.

  “Oh,” Hamlet said. “It was a small glass, left on the ground outside the front door. I suspected it was from Tom’s pub or another one close by, but I wasn’t sure. I brought it in tae either return it tae Tom or just throw it away, but I dropped it.”

  “Someone just left it outside the door?”

  “Aye. Someone had too much to drink, I suppose. They probably walked out with it, got this far, and didn’t want tae go back.”

  It wasn’t an unlikely scenario, and it pinged something in my memory. I couldn’t get to the specifics, but I filed it away for later contemplation. I had more important things on my mind, or so I thought.

  Rosie reloaded the bag with the books and handed everything to me. I hesitated; I should have told Rosie and Hamlet about what we’d found on the roof of the castle. I should have called Edwin last night after finding them. I hadn’t done either of those things, and I didn’t want to quite yet, even if I didn’t completely understand why.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Aye. Lass … Hamlet, wait,” Rosie said before I could turn around.

  Hamlet and I waited as she took almost half a minute to gather her resolve.

  “Do ye think that when Delaney calls the police, she should tell them that Gordon is alive? I ken ye’ve befriended an inspector, Delaney. Do ye think ye should tell him?”

  I had considered it, but only briefly.

  “I’m sairy,” she continued before I could speak. “It’s that I’m worried about Edwin and his decision not tae let the police ken about Gordon. I dinnae think it’s a good idea. ’Tall.”

  I looked at Hamlet, who lifted his eyebrows.

  “Are you sure he won’t?” I asked. “In fact, maybe he has.”

  “No, he willnae,” Rosie said. “He’d never do anything tae put Gordon Armstrong in jeopardy. Because he’d never do something tae jeopardize Gordon’s wife—Fiona, I believe. It’s just a guess though. I didnae ken Gordon or Fiona, but those stories.” She shook her head.

  “Were they stories about bad things, maybe illegal?” Hamlet asked, as he and I shared a look again.

  “Just of their wild youth. Confusing at best at this point,” Rosie said. “But I think the police should know aboot Gordon, that we ken he’s alive.”

  “Confusing how?” I asked. If I was reading her correctly, there was more than wild youth or confusion to Edwin’s stories.

  “This is serious business. None of us want tae be involved,” she said.

  “Rosie, tell us some of the stories,” I said.

  “I cannae tell ye. I cannae. Not now.”

  It was the innocent victim, Fiona Armstrong, who I hadn’t even met, that also kept me from wanting to tell the police about Gordon, but a trail of goose bumps had ridden up my arms when Rosie said we were dealing with serious business, particularly in the grave manner she’d spoken the words.

  “Tell you what,” I said, “let me see what I can figure out about Fiona first. I don’t think the three of us are at risk of being in trouble with the law, Rosie, if that’s your concern. Not yet at least.” That wasn’t the complete truth, but we were still at a point we could fudge the truth enough to get away with it. “Give me a day or so.”

  Rosie’s mouth pinched as her eyes moved back and forth between Hamlet and me. She gathered Hector into her arms.

  “Weel, awright,” she said a moment later. “And I have tae add that I hope Gordon will not come back into Edwin’s life ever again. I dinnae like that man, and I dinnae want him in our lives either.”

  “Edwin can’t be influenced by Gordon, by anyone, Rosie,” Hamlet said.

  Rosie shook her head. “No, not influenced by. Hurt maybe.”

  “Rosie, please, what happened? What aren’t you telling us?” I asked.

  She pinched her mouth and shook her head. “No, I cannae, but I remember the fire that kil’t Leith and supposedly Gordon. Edwin told me that he wondered if the fire had been Gordon’s fault, meebe that he set it on purpose tae kill Leith, and Gordon accidentally died too.”

  On cue, some dark clouds moved over the sun and the light in the shop diffused, casting shadows in corners. The hair on my arms stood up.

  “Why would Gordon have wanted Leith dead?” Hamlet asked.

  Rosie shrugged. “I cannae be sure.”

  “Let me find out more about Fiona. Maybe we should tell the police that Gordon is alive, eventually, but I really wouldn’t want to do that without telling Edwin first,” I said.

  “Aye,” Rosie said, trying to hide her disappointment.

  Rosie might tell the police herself, but I could see her struggle. She’d probably hoped for support from us. I felt a tiny bit bad that I couldn’t agree with her yet, but I just couldn’t.

  Hector whined and looked around at the three of us. We all responded with appropriate pats or ear scratches, glad for something to break the tension.

  Interrupting the moment, the front door opened with a noisy gust of wind. We all jumped and Hector barked once. A cold pocket of air that smelled like home came in with the well-wrapped woman, and I looked out the front window to see if it was snowing. It wasn’t even raining, but the crisp scent had unmistakably reminded me of a Kansas winter.

  “Hello, can we help ye?” Rosie said as she sat Hector back on the desk and then stepped around it.

  The woman unwrapped a scarf from around her head, exposing her short gray hair and strained green eyes. Her wrinkled but regal face held high cheekbones, a short but impossibly straight nose, and thin lips.

  “I’m not here for a book,” she said, her accent slight and peppered with something other than Scottish but I couldn’t tell what. “I’m here to see Edwin MacAlister. Is he available?”

  I noticed that her green eyes were rimmed in red, and her straight nose was raw. She’d been crying.

  “Not at the moment. Can we help ye?” Rosie repeated.

  “My name is Fiona Armstrong. I would be ever so grateful if you would ring Edwin and ask him tae come in and talk tae me immediately. He’ll do as you ask if you tell him my name. I … lost his number years ago.”

  I have no idea how we kept our cool, but we did, giving Fiona Armstrong no indication that we’d just been talking about her, just like when Gordon came to see us at the same time Edwin had been talking about him. It seemed we’d conjured them. We did not immediately mention that we knew that her son was tragically gone.

  And that her husband wasn’t.

  SEVEN

  “Why would she want to talk to Edwin?” I whispered loudly to Hamlet.

  We were in the kitchen on the dark side, by ourselves, so there was no need to whisper, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

  Hamlet shrugged.

  “Wow,” I said. “Rosie didn’t miss a beat.”

  “She was very good.” Hamlet frowned as he handed me the coffeepot. He grabbed some mugs.

  “What are you thinking?” I said.

  Hamlet hesitated. “At the risk of sounding unsympathetic, I don’t trust any of them, Delaney. Fiona Armstrong included. They removed themselves from Edwin’s life and now they seem to be trickling back in, and Billy Armstrong is dead.”

  “I can’t imagine a mother … I can’t even go there,” I said.

  “Aye, and though I’m suspicious, I don’t want tae cause her any more pain either.”

  “We’ll tread carefully.”

  “Aye. I hope Rosie does the same.”

  Hamlet had a sensitive, artistic soul. His empathy was one of his best qualities, though I had a feeling this might conflict with his intuitive suspicion and cause him some inner turmoil.

  “Let’s have a signal; if we think someone’s getting too close to spilling some unwanted beans or Fiona says something we think needs extra attention, we can pull on an earlobe or something,” I said.

  Hamlet smiled and his concern dissipated a bit. “That works.”

  Rosie had been gracious to our visitor, guiding her to the back
table and then sending Hamlet and me to gather coffee and whatever snacks we could find. We hadn’t come upon even a stale container of biscuits but the coffee had been easy enough.

  “I hope Rosie got ahold of Edwin,” I said.

  “We’ll find out soon enough. Come on.” Hamlet led the way out of the small kitchen.

  * * *

  “I got the news late yesterday,” Fiona Armstrong said after another long and elegant sip of coffee. Without any prompting, she’d already given us a brief history of how she knew Edwin.

  Fiona and Gordon Armstrong had gotten married even before they’d gone to university. They’d moved to Glasgow when Gordon graduated. Fiona hadn’t finished school, but had devoted herself to being a mother to Billy, who had been born that last year at university. At one time, during those younger years in particular, Gordon, Edwin, and Leith had been “the closest of friends.” Fiona and Gordon had moved back to Edinburgh about ten years ago, but she said she hadn’t seen Edwin since their college years, not even at Gordon’s or Leith’s funerals.

  I got the impression that she hadn’t been as close to Edwin and Leith as Gordon had been, and from all indications after graduation the friendships between the three men lost steam. Obviously, something big had happened, but no matter how many times I interrupted and asked for further clarification, like Rosie, Fiona kept the secrets to herself. Hamlet pulled on his earlobe a couple of times when I asked the same question more than a few times in a row.

  I was sure he was as relieved as I was when Rosie didn’t tell Fiona about Gordon. If she truly didn’t know about her husband being alive, the ramifications of that reality were huge and the delivery of the news would, in itself, be earth-shattering, and not something we were prepared to deal with. I wondered if Edwin would tell her.

  No matter how often I looked toward the door, Edwin didn’t come through it.

  “My son was a grown man with a life of his own, but he was still my son,” Fiona said. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to survive this.” There was no question in her voice. She wasn’t looking for answers, just stating facts. Her voice hadn’t cracked with emotion, but was heavy and deep as if she couldn’t pull in the full amount of breath needed to speak. I didn’t know if I’d be able to even speak in the face of such a tragedy, let alone pull myself together and seek out someone I’d known long ago. She must have thought it was very important to talk to Edwin.