A Double Death on the Black Isle (20 page)

She stood and left so quickly it was only when she was gone he realized there was more. But what?

The room was empty when Joanne returned to her typewriter.

“Joanne, my dear. Just the person I want.” Mrs. Smart came into the reporters' room like a lugger in full sail. “I have just signed up Arnotts for some advertising and they want a mention of their summer frocks.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Mrs. Smart hesitated. Her promotion from secretary to business manager was a rise in status, but she wasn't sure how
far her authority stretched. A story on summer frocks, while unusual in the
Gazette
, would be lovely in Mrs. Smart's opinion, and the advertiser promised a regular commitment if they were given a picture or a story each week.

“I wondered if you could speak to the lady in the fashion department to talk over ideas for an article.”

“It's a lovely idea, Mrs. Smart, but perhaps we should mention it to McAllister first.”

Rob came in, in a clutter of scarf and bike jacket and noisy boots and notebooks.

“What did McAllister want with you?” he asked Joanne.

“He said that as I am now a full-time reporter, you have to answer the phone, and I no longer have to make the tea.”

“That's right.” McAllister was leaning in the doorframe, making a diagonal slash with his long body. “I'll find the budget for a secretary to free you up for reporting duties. And she, or he, can make the tea.”

Don came in, pushed McAllister out of his way, and spread the layout on the table.

“What are you all on for next edition? I need to fill these extra pages.”

No one noticed Hector sitting in the corner, on the floor, next to the top hat, desperately trying to add up a column of figures. The total turned out different every time.

“Since everyone is here, let's nut out some ideas,” McAllister said. He was still in his proselytizing mood.

He and Don immediately lit up—they were journalists, they could not possibly think without a cigarette or twenty.

Mrs. Smart sat erect on an extra stool, giving the appearance of a carved masthead on a ship's prow; Joanne and Rob were side by side at the large, black typewriters, looming out in the fug of cigarette smoke like monsters in the mist.

“I want to interview Jimmy McPhee,” Rob said, “see what he has to say about the charges against his brothers.”

Joanne mentioned their solicitor, Calum Sinclair. “Ask your father if he knows him.”

McAllister turned to Joanne. “The Black Isle?”

“I thought I might talk to Mrs. Munro,” she said.

“And Patricia? Why don't you see what's happening with the fatal accident inquiry.”

Joanne did not think that was a good idea and dreaded the thought of asking Patricia for information for the
Gazette
. But she said nothing.

“What about
The Good Shepphard
?” Don asked. “Who's doing that? Graham Nicolson from the west coast called. He's tracked down the crewmen from the Skinner boat. He also mentioned there is an interesting story involving a west coast boat builder.”

“I could take a trip over there,” Rob offered.

“Phone first, see if it's worth your time.” McAllister was grinning, pleased with the buzz of enthusiasm in the room. “Next up, I want to congratulate Mrs. Smart on the spectacular rise in advertising sales. We wouldn't have a new
Gazette
without her hard work.”

Everyone clapped.

Clearing her throat, a trick she had learned from the Women's Guild public speaking event, Mrs. Smart began. “Thank you for your kind words, Mr. McAllister.” She looked at her notebook. “I have an idea for a feature that would interest our lady readers. I mentioned it to Joanne. We thought we'd ask your opinion.”

“Fill me in,” McAllister asked.

“Arnotts have booked six, half-page advertisements. They will commit to a long-term contract if we write a regular feature
on their fashion, new furnishings, and the like.” She looked around, aware of the looks passing between the journalists. “I thought it would be nice. . . .” She finished off her sentence and softly deflated like a birthday balloon with a slow puncture. Rob looked uncomfortable. Joanne was puzzled. Hector was pleased.

“Can I take shots o' lassies in swimming costumes?”

“Shut up, Hector.” Rob glared at him.

“Don?” McAllister's eyebrows signaled the question.

“It's like this,” Don began, lighting up a Capstan full strength. “There's advertising and there's reporting . . .”

“And never the twain shall meet,” Rob said.

“And this is the back door. . . .” Don continued.

“The thin end of the wedge,” Rob added.

“Enough,” Don told him. “Mrs. Smart . . .” He smiled at her. He thought she was a grand woman. “I'm as pleased as anyone with all you've done for the
Gazette
, but give those greedy so-'nsos an inch and we'll be having endless requests for ‘just a mention' from the fishmonger and the ironmonger. . . .”

“Butcher, baker, candlestick maker . . .”

“Rob!” Don paused. “He's right though, Mrs. Smart. There'd be no end to it.”

“They said they might take a full page if we could give them a mention.” Mrs. Smart was scoring thick lines through her notes, deleting all her ideas.

Don could see she was upset. “What you do is promise them a good position, front part of the book, right-hand page,” he told her, “but only if they sign a contract.”

“Thank you, Mr. McLeod.”

Joanne was upset too.
I should have thought of that,
she told herself,
I should have known.

“Next edition,” McAllister brought everyone back to the point of the meeting. “Obviously we have to cover the other usual
stuff. The problem is these news stories—there is too much happening.”

He looked around the table. “Rob, Joanne, make up a tentative list of stories with dates due. The fatal accident inquiry into Sandy Skinner's death—find out when. Who threw the petrol bomb and why—we need an update. Yes, Rob?”

“Sandy Skinner's financial affairs seem shifty,” Rob told everyone.

“He's dead,” Joanne snapped him. “Have some respect.” As soon as she said it, she wished her words back.
Impartial,
she told herself,
try to be impartial.

“Sandy's financial situation may be the motivation for the fire,” McAllister observed. He did not mean this as a rebuke, only as an idea to investigate. She felt it keenly all the same.

“Finally, the trial of the McPhee brothers is weeks away, but it does no harm to find out more. Joanne?”

“I'll get on to it.”

“Thanks everyone.” McAllister rose to go. “Let's turn out another humdinger of a paper.”

Next day, Mrs. Smart told McAllister she had found an editorial secretary.

“Mrs. Buchanan is qualified, and it's good to promote someone who already works here, even if she was only taking the classifieds.”

“It's your decision, Mrs. Smart.”

“Find me a secretary” had been McAllister's instructions. Mrs. Smart's choice was a woman in her early thirties, a war widow. Although McAllister approved the appointment, he had slight reservations—the woman, Mrs. Betsy Buchanan, made him uncomfortable, and he had no idea why.

Blond hair that seemed to encase her head like a chrysanthemum, eyes as blue as a painted china doll's, she had an hourglass shape, which she showed off in a seemingly modest tweed skirt, twinset, and pearls—the standard dress of a respectable Scottish woman. That the skirt was a little too little, that the twinset was bought a size too small, that her walk—that well-shaped behind swaying independently of the rest of her—had taken a lot of practice to achieve, these were not things he could possibly know.

McAllister went to the reporters' room.
Soon we'll be needing more space—the room seems smaller, or we've all grown in a mysterious Alice way. Or maybe it is because we have that much more to do.

“Mrs. Smart has found a secretary for the
Gazette
,” he announced. “Mrs. Betsy Buchanan.”

“Busty Betsy?” Rob asked.

“I remember her when she was just plain Betty and she bought her jumpers the right size,” Joanne commented.

“I've been told her shorthand and typing are excellent,” McAllister said. “And mind your tongue, young man. No names like that around here.”

“You'd better get Don to tell the printers then,” Rob told him.

Don looked up from the form guide. “I'm telling the printers nothing,” he said. “Her name is Betsy. She has a big bust. They're men. What do you expect?”

Everyone went on with their Friday. Rob was on the phone, arranging a trip to the west coast for the next day.

Don made calls to his bookie for the weekend races.

Hector handed in his expenses. Mrs. Smart re-added his figures and came to a different total.

McAllister spent the morning researching the recent sighting
of UFOs over Wigtownshire. He was planning some mischief for the next
Gazette
editorial.

Joanne wrote up a routine story about the hospital, but her thoughts kept straying to the talk with McAllister.

She had had little sleep that night. Time spent with him was always exhilarating. To talk properly with a man, to be respected, to be listened to—it was lovely.

There was something about the man that could give you the shivers,
she thought,
but a man like him couldn't possibly be interested in me. Failed marriage, but still firmly married, two children, ignorant about the wide world out there. . . . But still,
she thought,
maybe it's possible. . . . Stop it. This isn't a true-romance story—this is the Highlands of Scotland. One thing McAllister had right—I need to be my own person. Someone's child, someone's wife, and a mother, I've never been independent.

At lunchtime, Joanne took her favorite walk up to the forecourt and lawns in front of the castle, where the statue of Flora MacDonald stood plumb in the middle. The view up and down the river, across to the northern hills, east to Ben Wyvis, and west to the road to Loch Ness never failed to inspire her.

“Flora, there's no use looking westward,” Joanne muttered as she passed the plinth. “He's long gone, like most of them. And he was never there when you needed him, like most of them.”

The scudding clouds held a threat of rain. Capricious late-spring weather as always. She pulled her coat tight, remembering the old adage, “Ner'e cast a cloot till May is oot.”

Joanne felt guilty whenever she thought of her girls. How could she work full-time, yet give them the attention they needed? Annie had retreated into her books. Wee Jean was clinging. They had to be forced to go to Sunday school. They were no longer happy to go with their grandparents on the Sunday walk.

“We want to stay at home,” they said.

“We can play in the garden,” they said.

“We don't want to go anywhere,” they said.

“You'll miss your Sunday ice cream,” Joanne told them.

Even that failed to change their minds.

“I have no idea what to do,” she said to the passing seagulls. “They are not happy children.”

Her words flew west on the wind and she turned her gaze back to the river. On the opposite bank, the new green of the trees and hedges shimmered with a color almost unnatural in its virulence. Beyond the town the gorse and broom, undistinguishable at this distance, made a strip of bright yellow delineating the canal banks. The asylum, crouching in the hills above the town, seemingly closer in the moisture-laden air, was as constant a reminder as the graveyard of Tomnahurich. A reminder of
what
, Joanne asked herself.
Of folly
, she concluded.

McAllister is right,
Joanne told herself over and over.
The job will solve most of my problems, or at least give me an alternative to going back to my husband, my prison. But this newspaper game—I'm not sure I'll ever get the hang of it.

Various bells went off for the three-quarter-hour mark, all a few seconds off from one another.

Joanne gave one last look at the river, took a deep lungful of oxygen to fortify her against the smoke in the reporters' room, and—hair flying, brain no clearer—she strode off down the hill to the challenge of being Joanne Ross, reporter, the
Highland Gazette.

R
ob left not long after dawn to drive the seventy miles down the Great Glen to meet Graham Nicolson at his shop in Fort William. McAllister had approved the trip, but told Rob he would have to ask Mrs. Smart to sign the expenses chit.

“I'm taking my motorbike, so it's the same cost as a trunk call,” Rob told her. That did the trick.

Arriving at Graham Nicolson's newsagent's shop, Rob stretched his legs and studied the sky before going in. For once, it wasn't raining. As he went inside, the door gave off a
ping,
and a man bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy, Highland cow appeared.