by Molly Macrae
“No-o-o.” Ian drew the word out as though they were playing a guessing game. “They finished their activities there this afternoon.”
“Then it’s Maida and she has every right to be there without being spied on.”
“Nor is it Maida.”
“Really? If it’s someone who shouldn’t be there, we should call Norman Hobbs.”
Ian patted the binoculars and, with another of his insufferable smiles, pushed past Janet. “I knew you’d be interested,” he said on his way to the door.
“Ian, who is it?”
Nose in the air, he said nothing and kept walking.
Janet hated herself for it, but she followed him. “Ian!”
He let himself out, but before closing the door poked his head back in. “No, dear neighbor, no. I will not tell.”
After he closed the door, Janet gave it a good kick. Then she remembered she still had the digestives. Reveling in that minor victory, she poured the tea and put three biscuits on her saucer. She’d just made herself comfortable, when her phone rang. It was Gillian, sounding as though she was calling from the bottom of a deep well.
“I can hardly hear you, Gillian. What is it?”
“Tom. It’s Tom. He’s gone missing.”
23
Gillian’s voice crawled back up from whatever depth it had sunk to, and now came through clearly in the short, staccato bursts of someone close to panic. She said she’d rung Tom after leaving Janet’s the night before and he hadn’t answered. She’d left a message, assuming he’d return the call or that they’d talk in the morning before school.
“But he didn’t ring back. He didn’t answer this morning, either. I went by his house. His car was gone. I thought he’d gone on to school. I wasn’t overly worried. It’s not like we’re in each other’s pockets. But he wasn’t at school. I asked in the office if they’d had a message. They hadn’t. Then I went to his office. The message light was blinking on his phone. I listened. It was Daphne. It was like listening to a ghost. A nasty, malevolent ghost.”
Daphne’s message had been demeaning and rude, completely rejecting Tom’s suggestion that they work together on a calendar or any other project.
“But working together was her idea. Not his,” Gillian said. “And then, just before she disconnected, there was something in the background. A noise. Knocking. I don’t know what. And she said, ‘So that’s why you’re not answering. What a waste of good invective.’”
“She had a nasty streak,” Janet said. “I’ve tried to think of it as tone-deaf, but in the end, it doesn’t matter why she said things like that. If you were on the receiving end, it was nasty. What did you do after hearing the message?”
“I lied. I told the office he was home sick and needed a substitute. No one questioned it.”
Gillian’s biggest worry was that Tom had reacted by taking himself off on a photo shoot that turned into a drinking binge, that he’d had an accident and lay somewhere in the wilderness needing help. Janet thought that was either a sweet and touching worry, or a naïve one. Or maybe I’m projecting, she thought. But with Daphne dead, the author program ruined, and Tom missing, shouldn’t her biggest worry be that Tom killed Daphne and ran?
“Gillian,” Janet said, “you need to call Norman Hobbs.”
“Tom Laing,” Christine said the next morning, after Janet told her business partners about Ian’s visit and Gillian’s call. “We need to know who Ian saw. I bet it was Tom Laing.”
“Why?” Janet asked.
“Retrieving incriminating evidence.”
“Surely the police have someone watching Daphne’s house in case something like that happens.”
“They might not for any number of reasons. Limited manpower? Limited imagination?”
“Or they have a pretty good idea about what happened, and we haven’t heard yet,” Tallie said. “Why was Ian spying from our living room, anyway? He could’ve done it from the backyard or sneaked over and looked through the windows.”
“He was showing off,” Janet said. “He’s a silly man and he wants us to think he’s up to something.”
“Like trying to solve the crime himself?” Summer asked.
“Lord love a duck,” Janet said. “A sense of doom is settling over me.”
“That’s exactly why we need to know who Ian saw,” Christine said.
“If he saw anyone at all,” Janet said. “But I’m not asking him. He annoys the hel—the haggis out of me.”
“Maybe he’ll fall for the same kind of malarkey you did last night,” Tallie said, “with a phony, neighborly story. We must have some of his books that he hasn’t scrawled in yet. Let’s ask him to come in and sign stock.”
“I don’t fall for malarkey,” Janet said. She wanted to stamp her foot, but had the feeling that would only further convince them that she did.
“Catch up to us, Janet,” Christine said. “You had information within reach yesterday and lost it—”
“Through no fault of my own.”
“Absolutely right,” Christine said. “Entirely through the fault of the conniving horse’s arse next door, and now we’re making plans to recover that information.”
“Lure him with books and soften him up with tea?” Summer asked.
“What do you think, Mom?”
“It’ll get him in the shop, but I’m not sure he’ll answer our questions.”
“Not our questions,” Summer said. “Mine. You lure and leave the rest to me.” She took her tablet from her purse and poised her fingers. “You want to know who he saw. Anything else, while I’m at it?”
“He said he saw a man leaving with Daphne in her truck last Monday night,” Janet said.
“That might have been Martin.” Summer entered notes on the tablet without looking up. “He spent a lot of time with her when he was working on the interview.”
“Or was it Tom?” Tallie asked. “Poor Gillian.”
“Speaking of Tom, or Toms,” Christine said, “there might be another explanation for Ian’s behavior. Perhaps he did stop by to be neighborly, but only thought of it on his way home from using his binoculars somewhere else. Maybe he’s found his true calling as a Peeping Tom.”
“We don’t know he is one,” Janet said. “It seems like an odd thing for Maida to know.”
“Odd people know odd things,” Christine said.
“True. I guess it’s nice to know she’s good at keeping secrets,” Janet said. “Half-secrets, anyway.”
“Nonsense,” Christine said. “Half a secret is as bad, or worse, than finding half a worm in an apple. They breed distrust and could lead to paranoia. And not knowing for sure that Ian is a Peeping Tom is all the harder for us, because we’re so firmly on the side of all that is good. It means we can’t ask everyone we meet if they know what Ian has done to be labeled a Peeping Tom. Talk about worms; that could open a can of the worst. It wouldn’t do at all.”
“It wouldn’t,” Janet said. “That’s why I didn’t ask Norman about Ian specifically when I asked about Peeping Toms. But that pest seems to know an awful lot about the comings and goings at Daphne’s house.”
“Here’s a new theory, then,” Christine said. “There might have been an evolution to this hobby of his. As a writer, he probably stared out his window a great deal. Being observant, he might have developed a habit of watching the neighborhood go by. He showed up on Janet’s doorstep to kick it up a notch.”
“Or he’s just plain nosy,” Summer said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“And if it works,” Tallie said, “then we can try the same thing with Maida and find out how she knows what she knows.”
“We did it,” Tallie said, nudging Janet later that morning. “Here he comes.”
Janet looked up from the review journal she was reading. The door jingled and Ian stepped in. Janet took it as a good sign that he’d worn another of his “author outfits.” Today, it was a dark turtleneck, black jeans, and his chukkas—author casual. Tallie went
to meet him.
“Thanks for coming in, Ian,” Tallie said, putting her arm through his. “Why don’t we take the books into the café, where you can be comfortable? Maybe Summer can give you a cup of tea.”
Janet thought taking the arm might be going a tad far, but Ian seemed pleased. The suggestion of tea pleased him further, so good. Also by plan, Tallie stayed in the tearoom to help Christine with customers, so Summer could take tea and a plate of scones to Ian and then “help” by handing him books to sign one by one.
While the plot unfolded in the other room, a man approached Janet at the sales counter. “I wish to lodge a complaint.”
Drawing on her years of dealing with the public, Janet met the man’s supercilious eyebrows with a calm, steady gaze. She smiled, but felt her cheeks grow warm with the effort not to laugh. The man, unusually tall and wearing a tan trench coat, looked and sounded so much like John Cleese, she half-expected him to plunk a birdcage with a dead parrot in it on the counter.
“How may I be of assistance?” she asked. And now she was talking like someone out of a BBC sitcom. Her cheeks grew warmer.
“Was that a scone from the tearoom you were eating a moment ago?” the man asked. “If it was, then I think you’re taking unfair advantage by flaunting baked goods in the faces of your customers.”
A woman came over and put her arm through his. When he opened his mouth to say more, she pulled his arm firmly to her side. “Sorry,” she said. “I hope you’ll excuse my husband. He thinks he’s funny and he’s just been put on a diet. Not the best combination.”
Her husband harrumphed, but reached over and patted her hand.
“Do you have any of those coloring books for grownups?” the woman asked.
“The Highlands and Islands Colouring Book is popular,” Janet said.
“Something like that might take his mind off the diet.” She put her free hand up in a mock aside and whispered, “Or mine.”
“Something like a good single malt would do it faster,” her husband said.
Janet led them to the arts and crafts section, but along the way they passed too tantalizingly close to the local guide books. These included several on the history and making of whisky.
“We’ve found my alley,” the man said, slowing down. “And the books right up it.” He stopped in front of an oversized photographic history of the whiskies of Islay. Leaning toward it, he drew in a breath with his mouth slightly open. “The proper way to nose whisky,” he said. “Nosing allows you to actually taste the aroma.”
“We’re cutting back in this area, too,” his wife said with an apologetic smile for Janet. She tugged on the elbow still tucked in hers, got her husband moving again, and towed him along in her wake.
When they reached the display of coloring books, Janet pointed out their bestsellers, the markers, and a new line of colored pencils they were trying. The man was clearly not interested. He wanted to know why they’d come at all if so much of the Highland experience was off limits. His wife shushed him.
“Do you like crime novels?” Janet asked in a moment of inspiration. “Let me show you a series by a local writer that should also be right up your alley. Have you heard of Ian Atkinson and his Single Malt Mysteries?”
Half an hour later, the couple came back to the counter to pay. The woman had two coloring books, a set of markers, and one of Daphne Wood’s books. The man had a full set of the Single Malt Mysteries.
“A stroke of luck arriving while this fellow was having tea here,” the man said, “and jolly nice of him to sign them and chat with us for as long as he did. I told him that if I can’t have my dram, I’ll bloody well read about it. He said he might use that line in the next book.”
“Wonderful,” Janet said. She hoped the pleasant encounter had further softened Ian up for Summer’s questions. She slipped a Yon Bonnie bookmark into one of the mysteries.
“Free?” the man asked. Janet smiled and nodded. “One for each then, if you don’t mind.” He helped himself from the stack next to the register.
“He’s big on free souvenirs,” the woman said.
“How nice.” Janet wondered whether the woman was apologizing or bragging.
Summer appeared shortly after the couple left, and she was definitely apologizing.
“He knew exactly what we were doing,” she said. She’d opened all the books for him. Then, he’d made a huge production out of talking to his “newest number one fan.” He’d had the nerve to ask for more scones, and then she hadn’t gotten beyond asking him who he’d seen the night before when he hit her with a counterproposal: “He’ll tell us who he saw, if we tell him what we know about a secret whisky society.”
Janet felt slack-jawed. “What?”
“I told him that huh? is the sum total of what we know. I could tell he didn’t believe me. He played along with it, though, and then said that we can just tell him what we find out. Sorry, Janet.”
“Don’t even think about apologizing for something that horse’s—” Janet stopped when she remembered there were children in the bookshop. “You told Christine and Tallie?”
“Christine finished what you were just about to say. Quietly, but with feeling.”
Not long after that, Janet had a chance to hear Christine say it herself, and shushed her.
“He’s just so incredibly irritating,” Christine said.
“I hear you. But here’s something to take your mind off him. I got another postcard from Sharon.”
“I had no idea you two were such great pen pals,” Christine said.
“It’s news to me, too.”
“Where is she now?”
“In Amsterdam. She says she’s being delightfully shocked by the red light district.”
“That’s what I’ve always said about you, too.”
“You’ve said what?” Janet asked.
“That librarians know how to get wild.” Christine held out her hand. “Or maybe they don’t, and that’s why she’s shocked. May I see it? I haven’t been to Amsterdam in decades.”
“Hang on, I’ll bring it back up.” Janet handed her phone to Christine.
“Electronic? This isn’t nearly as much fun as getting a picture of the red light district through the post and picturing the postie going goggle-eyed. Besides, I thought she was going someplace warm and sunny.”
“Maybe the girls in the red light district have sun lamps,” Janet said.
Gillian called while they were closing for the day and reported that Rachel Carson wasn’t eating. “I think she’s in mourning, like Greyfriars Bobby,” she said, and then she burst into tears.
Janet hushed rather than shushed her, and Gillian eventually calmed. Janet asked if she’d heard from Tom, and though tears threatened to erupt again, Gillian said no. She also hadn’t called Norman Hobbs.
“Gillian, you must,” Janet said.
“I know. I will.”
“Please don’t put it off. What are you going to do about Rachel Carson?”
“I don’t know. Can you—”
Janet jumped in before Gillian finished. “I’ll see if I can find someone else to take her, Gillian. In the meantime, see if she’ll eat lentil soup. Or haggis balls.”
“Problems with the dog?” Christine asked after Janet disconnected. “Why don’t you take her? She’d be a companion for you.”
“She’d be a dog,” Janet said. “I want a cat.” It was the first time she’d said it aloud and she suddenly realized it was true. “I always had a cat back home. But the last dear old guy died right before my marriage did, and it’s taken this long for me to want to commit to another.”
Summer, on her way to the office, did a double-take. “I know you didn’t, but for a second there, for a nanosecond, I thought you said, ‘It’s taken this long for me to want to commit murder.’”
Tallie had been counting down the cash drawer during Gillian’s phone call. She chuckled with the others over Summer’s mistake. When she finished counting, she asked Janet wh
at the rest of Gillian’s call had been about.
“She hasn’t heard from Tom and she hasn’t called Norman. I told her she needed to.”
“Good,” Tallie said. “And if she doesn’t, we need to.”
“Agreed,” Christine said.
“My thinking, too,” Janet said. “I’ll call him when I get home. I’ll tell him I told her to call, and see what he says.”
That evening, Tallie and Summer went to a talk at the library about supernatural water creatures in Scottish folklore. They invited Janet to go with them, and another time she would have been happy to, but the problems of encountering water kelpies seemed less pressing than her more immediate worries. Finding another home for Rachel Carson didn’t make the grade, either. Calling Norman Hobbs came first, and she did that after waving Tallie off.
“Thank you, Mrs. Marsh,” Hobbs said when she told him why she’d called. “Ms. Bennett told me you encouraged her to contact me.”
“She told you about Tom?”
“I’m sure you know our conversation was confidential, but you should also know that Tom Laing is now officially missing.” Hobbs hesitated. “This next information is not yet official; Tom Laing is a suspect in the death of Daphne Wood. I’m advising you and your business partners to be careful, Mrs. Marsh. We don’t know where he is, but he knows where you are. If her death is connected to her supposed investigation, he might have heard of your supposed involvement.”
They were both silent for a moment.
“Mrs. Marsh?”
“How long before it’ll be official that he’s a suspect?”
“I don’t have that information, but I shouldn’t think long.”
“There are a couple of things I should tell you, Norman. The first is that Ian Atkinson says he saw someone in Daphne’s house last night. He wouldn’t say who it was. I told him he should call you. I should have called you, but he treated it like a game and there’s no knowing what that infuriating man is ever really up to, or if what he says is true. The second is something I hadn’t thought important before, but now I wonder.”