by Pat Young
‘It’s obvious you’ve never met my boss. He’s the man to blame for this.’ She gestured vaguely around Liz’s living room.
Norma looked at her, puzzled. ‘Sorry? What did you say?’
‘Nothing. Never mind. I’ve no idea why I said that.’
‘Well, if you’re sure you’ve nothing more to add, that’ll be all for now, thanks, Miss Scott, except to say how very sorry I am for the loss of Miss Douglas.’
Sheila smiled, acknowledging the young woman’s kindness. With one last regretful look round the room where she’d spent so many happy hours with Liz, she turned to leave.
At the front door, she heard Norma’s voice. ‘Miss Scott?’
The young policewoman was holding out an envelope. ‘I almost forgot. This was found beside your friend’s bed. It’s addressed to you.’
‘Hold on a sec, PC Wallace. I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.’
Norma blushed. Whoever this guy was, he was her superior officer. ‘Sorry, sir. Miss Scott, this is DCS McCallum.’
The man was offering his hand. As Sheila shook it, he said, ‘Miss Scott, I’m very sorry about your friend.’ He looked at the envelope in his left hand. She could see her name on it, written in Liz’s trademark fountain pen. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to hang on to this. The Procurator will want a wee look at it.’
‘But it’s meant for me. That’s Liz’s handwriting. She always uses,’ Sheila stopped for a moment, pressed her lips together and opened her eyes wide, blinking to prevent tears. Her voice was shaky when she spoke again, ‘She always used a fountain pen for her personal correspondence. I’d like to have it please.’
The detective’s reply was gentle but firm, ‘I’m sorry, Miss Scott. We need to follow procedure. I shall make certain the envelope is returned to you in due course, but we can’t give it to you at this moment in time.’
Sheila’s sadness turned to indignation. In her best teachery voice she said, ‘Excuse me, Norma was about to hand me that envelope and had you not arrived, I would be opening it now, as Liz clearly intended.’
‘Well, yes. PC Wallace and I will need to have a wee chat about that.’ The young policewoman looked at her feet. McCallum gave Sheila an apologetic smile, but his tone made it clear he would be keeping the envelope.
‘We don’t know what’s in it, of course, but Liz owed me thirty pounds for a concert ticket. She always put notes in an envelope and wrote my name on the front. Can I check the contents, then leave it with you?’ As Sheila spoke she realised how awful she must appear to these strangers, as if her only concern was getting her hands on the money her dead friend owed her.
The policeman smiled. ‘You don’t give up easily, do you?’
Sheila smiled in return, hoping to get her own way, but it was clear this man wouldn’t give an inch and she was certainly not about to beg. ‘Very well, DC McCallum.’
‘It’s DCS McCallum, Miss Scott.’ He held out a business card. ‘Maybe you’d like to take this, in case you want to get in touch. From what the constable at the gate told me, we have no reason to suspect anything untoward happened to your friend, Miss Douglas, but we won’t know until we find out a wee bit more. And in the meantime, I’m sure you’d want us to be doing everything we can, in the correct manner?
Sheila noticed he had been diplomatic enough to avoid the word post-mortem.
***
CHAPTER 15
When Sheila woke she looked at the little clock on her bedside table and realised she’d slept through the alarm. Then she remembered the reason. She’d been awake till five am. She tried to get up but Liz’s loss was a heavy weight, pinning her down. She had no idea how she could carry on without her friend. She and Liz had been so close for so long, they were more like sisters than best pals. They had a getaway booked for Christmas and an Easter trip to the States planned. She’d have to cancel both. And arrange a funeral. And see to all of Liz’s belongings. Including Jaffa. She wondered if the cat had returned home yet or if she had traumatised him into running away. A sudden mental image of Jaffa squashed flat on the bypass jolted her into a sitting position and she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She couldn’t lie around in bed all day; she would go mad.
At the risk of being as patient as Medusa with PMT, she’d have to go into work. School was such a busy place it would take her mind off things for a little while. If she stayed here she’d be haunted by the guilt and regrets that had kept her awake all night. Not to mention the spectre of a dead cat.
With her attaché case in one hand and a pile of mid-term reports in the crook of her elbow, she finally managed to open the door. She was turning to lock it, trying very hard not to drop everything when someone appeared at her shoulder.
‘Good morning.’
Sheila shrieked and burst into tears. The postman handed her a pile of mail and joked, ‘Sorry, was it something I said?’
‘No, no, it’s me. I’m all wound up this morning.’
While she stood and watched, the poor man gathered up the reports she’d dropped, chasing a couple that took off across the lawn. She thanked the postie for his help and went back into the house. She shut the door behind her and stood leaning against it. Dropping papers, case and letters to the floor, Sheila let the tears run freely down her cheeks. How could she possibly have believed she could get through a day in school? As if they couldn’t bear her weight any longer, her knees buckled and her back slid down the door until she was sitting, legs splayed like a broken doll.
When Sheila woke for the second time that day, she was completely disorientated. Why was she lying on top of her bed, fully clothed? The sun was pouring in the window on to her face and she lay for a few seconds, enjoying the warmth on her cheek. Then it hit her, like a fist slamming into her chest.
Liz was dead.
Lovely, kind, gentle Liz, who had started to enjoy life to the full, freed, at last, from the restraints of elderly parents. She and Liz had talked about taking early retirement and going on a world cruise. Now it had all turned to dust. Her own future loomed bleak and lonely without her best friend.
She sat up and caught sight of herself in the dressing-table mirror. She looked ghastly. Her greying hair stuck out in spikes on one side of her head and was flattened to her skull on the other. Her blotchy, tear-stained face was streaked with the remains of the make-up she had applied this morning in an effort to hide her lack of sleep. She resembled a zombie. On the outside she looked alive but inside she was dead.
A shower soothed, at least superficially, and she hoped some food might help a little with the sick, empty feeling in her stomach. On the way to the kitchen she came across the papers scattered round the front door and her briefcase lying, discarded, in the middle of the hall. She was collecting the report sheets, stacking them into some semblance of tidiness, when she noticed the bundle of mail. She squirmed as she recalled her encounter with the postman that morning. There was the usual collection of junk, a brochure for a cruise line and appeal letters from three charities. The last item was a white envelope and when Sheila turned it over Liz’s handwriting stared up at her. She clutched it to her chest, then, dumping the other papers on the hall table, she went into the kitchen and laid the envelope on the work surface. She put the kettle on and stuck a bagel in the toaster, knowing she was putting off the moment when she had to open Liz’s letter.
The kettle shrieked at her till she pushed it off the heat. The bagel leapt from the toaster and lay where it fell. She took a knife from the drawer, lifted the letter and sat down at the table. Suddenly impatient, she discarded the knife, and ripped the envelope across the top, revealing a sharply folded sheet of paper.
Dearest Sheila,
Here’s a line I never thought I’d find myself writing - If you are reading this, I am dead. Unless I’ve managed to mess that up too. My suicide, I mean. Yes, dear Sheila, I’ve taken the coward’s way out, but perhaps you know that already? I left a letter for you, a suicide note, I suppose, beside my bed
, assuming you’d be the one to find me. After I had written it, I realised I hadn’t thought things through properly. There was no guarantee you’d be the one to read that letter, hence this one you’re now reading.
You see, I haven’t been planning my demise. In fact, suicide only occurred to me as an option when I woke up on Saturday morning. When I woke to the realisation that I had turned into an awful person. A head-teacher who deserts her post and spends the afternoon drinking. If I’d been in the army I’d have been executed for that trick. I deserve to be executed for what I did next. You probably know by now, but just in case you don’t; I got behind the wheel of a car, a lethal weapon, and I drove home, so blind drunk I have no memory of the journey. Except for one part of it. Please don’t hate me when I tell you that it gets worse, much worse. I was stopped by the police and breathalysed. Eventually, when I had sobered up a bit, they let me go home, but there’s no doubt I’ll be convicted of drunk driving. Oh God, Sheila, I’m so ashamed. What if I had taken some innocent person’s life? A child’s life? I can’t face the world knowing what I’ve done. Not on top of everything else.
Blinded by tears, Sheila stopped reading. A huge teardrop landed on the paper, blotting the ink as it ran down the page. She rose and fetched a tissue, dried her face and read on.
What a rush it was to get everything sorted out before you appeared at the door. I’m sure you did your best to get in, to see I was okay, so you must promise me that you won’t punish yourself. There was nothing you could do to stop me. My mind was made up, you see, but I was too big a coward to tell you face-to-face.
It’s no secret that life has been getting me down lately. I still miss Mother terribly. Then that dreadful man at the gate, that awful stuff he was putting on Facebook, getting other parents to join in his smear campaign against me. And the physical assault, so violent, so unexpected, so undeserved. That shook me to my very heart. And all the time a feeling that I was getting no support from my employers, the people who have a duty of care to protect me in my workplace.
But the final straw? That last meeting with Mr Smeaton, the terrible things he said, telling me there was no smoke without fire, saying I was incompetent at my job and that children were suffering because of me. Said he had a moral obligation to make sure the inspectors got to the bottom of things. Moral? Interesting choice of word, under the circumstances. Going to the pub and getting drunk seemed the best option at the time - something I’ve never done in my life; but I’d have done anything to mute that man’s voice in my head.
I have to go now, dearest Sheila, or I shall run out of time. If you appear at the door with that smile of yours, you might cheer me up enough to keep on going for another wee while, just like you’ve done since Mother died. This time it’s different. I don’t want to keep going. I can’t bear the thought of people finding out what happened yesterday. Just imagine, the Facebookers will have a field day. I can’t cope with the humiliation of this plus an inspection of my school. I know I will be found lacking. That’s if I don’t get the sack first, which is the very least I deserve.
I can’t go on, Sheila. Sorry. I’m too afraid of Thomas Smeaton and what he will do when he finds out.
***
CHAPTER 16
Marty could not think of a single good reason to get out of bed until a bark from downstairs asked if she was awake. She looked at the alarm. She’d been daydreaming for an hour. Chance was right, she should have been up ages ago, but some days it took a real effort to rise and face the empty hours that stretched ahead of her.
The dog was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, his head moving from side to side with the force of his tail-wagging.
‘Morning, Chance. Want your breakfast?’
The dog gave a woof of reply. Marty was convinced he understood everything she said, but David was scathing about her theory. As if to prove her right and David wrong, Chance padded through to the utility room and stood looking at his empty bowl. David would have said this was a Pavlovian response, but she preferred to believe in Chance’s intelligence. She obliged him by reaching up to the shelf and tipping the box until his bowl was full of kibble. Polite as always, he waited, eyes fixed on her face, till she gave him permission to eat. ‘Go ahead,’ she said and went to make herself some toast.
By the time she sat down he was under the table, still hoping for scraps, despite his full belly. She looked him in the eye and said, ‘No chance, Chance.’ Giving up, he brought his two front paws together and laid his chin on them.
Toast in one hand, she shook the newspaper flat with the other and laid it on the table. She ran her fingers across the page to smooth it, ignoring banner headlines about recession and austerity. They might have to tighten their belts a bit now she had lost her salary. She smiled at the memory of an elderly aunt who used to say, ‘To hell with poverty, boil the canary!’
She had just taken a defiant munch of her butter-laden toast when she noticed the article in the right hand column.
Primary head-teacher lies dead for days. Mr Thomas Smeaton, on behalf of Logiemuir Council, was quoted as saying that Miss Elizabeth Douglas was a ‘much-loved and highly respected head-teacher who will be sorely missed by pupils and colleagues.’
Marty felt the greasy half-chewed dough stick somewhere between her mouth and her stomach, not sure if it was going down or coming back up.
Liz Douglas? Dead? She was the sweetest, kindest woman you’d ever meet.
Sheila Scott would be devastated.
Marty fetched her phone from the charger and scrolled through recent calls till she found David’s number. He answered with his usual, ‘Hello, Darling. I was just talking about you, telling Peter you’ve volunteered to help with that panto after all.’
‘Have you seen the paper?’
‘No, why?’
‘I have to talk to you.’
‘Calm down.’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down.’
She caught the sound of embarrassed laughter in the background.
‘Marty, can you tell me what’s happened?’
‘He’s done it again.’
‘Who?’
‘Chrissake, David. You know who. Smeaton.’
Marty was sure she heard a sigh and a muffled remark followed by male voices, laughing.
As if he was playing to an audience, David said, ‘Okay, what’s he done now?’
Marty chose to ignore his dismissive tone. You’d think she was phoning to tell him about some cute thing a toddler had said. Not the latest atrocity performed by a madman.
‘You know Liz Douglas? The primary head who’s doing all that wonderful anti-sectarian work with kids?’
‘Not really.’
‘David, you do!’
‘Anyway, what about her? Marty, I’m about to sink a winning putt here. Can’t this wait till I get home?’
‘I thought you’d want to know. If you hadn’t seen it in the paper yet.’
‘Seen what, sweetheart?’
She imagined his mates rolling their eyes. She thought she heard one mutter, ‘Come on, Dunlop.’
‘She was found dead in her house.’
‘What?’
‘Overdose apparently. This is Smeaton to blame. I’d heard he was giving her a hard time but this is beyond the pale.’
David laughed. He actually laughed. She shook her head in disbelief, afraid of his next words.
‘Darling, I know you think he’s the devil incarnate. But I hardly think the man’s to blame for this woman’s suicide.’
Her voice icy, she said, ‘This isn’t suicide. It’s murder.’
***
CHAPTER 17
‘I’d like to speak to DCS McCallum, please. My name’s Sheila Scott.’ Sheila wasn’t sure if it was okay to phone but the man had encouraged her to get in touch if she wanted.
‘Hello, Miss Scott? How have you been?’
‘Awful.’
‘I’m not surprised. It’s a dreadful situation. How can I help
you?’
‘I wanted to let you know I got a letter from Liz.’
‘Well, that’s most unusual.’
‘She was an unusual woman. Very special.’ Sheila’s voice broke. With her lips pressed closed, she tried to collect herself.
‘I’m sure she was. Is there some way I can help you?’
This man must be very busy solving crimes and yet he was making her feel like he had all the time in the world to listen to her. Sheila told herself to get on with it. ‘Liz was a very organized person and she anticipated that I might not get to read the letter beside her bed.’ She stopped then checked, ‘It was a letter in the envelope, wasn’t it? A suicide note?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘I knew it wasn’t money, I just wanted to read Liz’s letter.’
‘I’d worked that out and I understand.’
‘Anyway, I’m calling to tell you I don’t need to see it anymore. Liz sent me one in the post. I imagine they’re very similar.’
‘I see what you mean about organized.’
Sheila smiled. ‘Yes. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?’
‘I should tell you that I’m not officially involved in your friend’s case. In fact, I just happened to be passing last night. I was on my way home when I saw the blue light and came in to see if I could help.’
‘Oh. Does that mean you can’t answer my questions?’
‘Go ahead and ask me, Miss Scott, and if I can give you answers, I will.’
Sheila took a deep breath. ‘Liz didn’t hit a pedestrian on Friday, did she?’
‘That’s a strange question.’
Sheila said nothing, waiting for him to fill the gap.
‘I can tell you that there were no serious road traffic incidents in the area on Friday.’
‘Thank goodness.’
‘Yes, quite.’