A Double Death on the Black Isle (38 page)

“When did you first notice that Fraser had not come home?”

“I didn't. My Allie told me.”

“Your husband?”

“Aye.”

“And what time was that?”

“Nearly eight o'clock. See, I don't go and wake our Fraser like I used to. . . .” She paused, recalling how, one time, he had yelled at her when she had taken him a cup of tea at half past six, expecting him to be up, ready to join his father and his brother in the fields. The language had horrified her, so once was enough.

“Sorry?” She hadn't heard the next question.

“When your husband informed you that Fraser wasn't home, what did he say?”

“He said, there's been a terrible accident, and he had phoned for the doctor. Then ma husband said that the doctor wouldn't be any help because our Fraser . . . he died.”

Her husband hadn't told her that the doctor insisted on calling the police; that piece of information she had overheard when the doctor came to the farmhouse to wash. After climbing into the ditch, his hands and his shoes and his trousers were muddy.

A nice man, our doctor,
she thought.

A tear trickled out, but she wasn't crying. It was something that happened regularly since she lost her son, and she didn't notice anymore.

Calum Sinclair paused. “I'm sorry I have to ask you these questions. I realize how hard this is, so I'll try to be as brief as possible.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

Joanne felt Mrs. Ross tense. Jenny McPhee shifted in her seat—it may have been her sons on trial, but she felt for Agnes Munro.

“Mrs. Munro, you said that that night, you heard the others from the farm return.”

“Aye, that's right.”

“You said you heard nothing more that night.”

“Aye.”

“That morning, the morning Fraser was found, did you hear anything
unusual
?”

There was a long pause.

“No, I heard nothing unusual.”

Calum went to his table, ostensibly to pick up another sheet of paper, but thinking rapidly how to put the next question.
What had Jenny McPhee said? “She's no telling everything”? What had Mrs. Munro just said? “I heard nothing unusual.”
He had it.

“Mrs. Munro, earlier that morning, you heard nothing unusual.” He looked at her. “Did you hear or
see
anything, an everyday event perhaps, something so normal that you forgot?” He spoke slowly, carefully pausing between the commas in his questions.

“I don't know what you mean.” But Agnes Munro was incapable of lying. She sat with her arms tight into her sides, her hands clutching onto the life raft that was her handbag.

Joanne, along with everyone else in the courtroom, was watching Mrs. Munro and what she saw was a woman in her late fifties looking like Wee Jean caught out in a lie.

“Before you heard the news about Fraser, what did you hear or
see
that was
not
unusual? That was completely ordinary?”

The only sound was of Mrs. Munro, repeating in a voice punctuated by sniffs, “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”

She opened her handbag. She rummaged in the depths. She
found a clean hankie. It didn't help. She couldn't stifle the sobs or stop the tears.

“We'll will take a fifteen-minute break,” the sheriff announced.

The sigh from everyone in the courtroom was as soft and loud as a gust of wind through a pine forest.

Calum Sinclair sat in his chair, not happy about the break.

So close,
he thought,
so near. When I question her again, I will seem like a monster . . . but it has to be done, she knows something.

Thinking exactly the same as Calum, Rob joined Joanne as she was leaving the court saying, “Drat, just as it was starting to get interesting . . .”

“Rob.” Joanne gestured to her mother-in-law just ahead of them.

“Ooops, sorry, I hope she didn't hear me,” he whispered. “Joanne, what did you make of all that?”

“I can't talk now, my mother-in-law is really upset.”

“Later then.” Rob watched Joanne as she went to comfort Mrs. Ross. Whatever it is that Agnes Munro is hiding, Mrs. Ross knows too, he realized. But will Joanne have the nerve to ask her?

Rob returned to the courtroom, taking his place on the bench.

“Mum, is there anything I can do?” Joanne was surprised how tightly her mother-in-law clutched her arm. She looked down at her and noticed how all this had aged her.

You poor soul,
Joanne thought,
family means everything to you.

Mrs. Ross looked up at Joanne, “I need to see how Agnes is doing.”

“I don't think they'll let you into the chambers. Why don't we find a bench and wait.”

Sitting close, ignored by the steady stream of passersby
chatting in whispered excitement, Joanne instinctively took her mother-in-law's hand, and Mrs. Ross squeezed back.

“You're a good lass.” Mrs. Ross's words were murmured down into her lap. And Joanne was all the more overwhelmed as she knew the words were truly meant.

They continued to wait, nothing more was said, nothing more needed to be said.

I know I should ask her what's going on,
Joanne thought,
but some things are more important than a job.

Five minutes later Joanne returned and told Rob, “The sheriff has allowed the doctor to see to Mrs. Munro. I'm not sure if the poor woman is ready to answer questions yet.”

“Joanne, she has no choice.”

“I know.”

They were silent while all around, the murmur ebbed and flowed like the tide on a shingle beach. Thirty minutes passed and nothing changed. Forty-five minutes passed and the clerk of the court appeared. The defendants returned. The procurator fiscal and Calum Sinclair came in together. The sheriff was announced. The court rose. The sheriff sat. The court sat. The sheriff nodded to the fiscal. The fiscal rose.

“Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, additional testimony has been given, and therefore the prosecution wishes to withdraw the charges against George Williamson McPhee and William Stewart McPhee.”

The fiscal sat.

A babble of voices filled the courtroom, echoing off the high ceilings, disturbing the pigeons sitting on the stone window ledges—a babble that could be heard throughout the administrative offices in the castle and down the hill to the police station.

It took the threat of clearing the courtroom before the sheriff
could continue. He thanked the jury, told them they were dismissed, thanked the two opposing councils, stood, and left.

The noise level soared again. Then a lone voice cut through the confused murmur.

“Ma, can we come hame noo?”

“Aye boys,” Jenny McPhee used her singer's voice. It echoed through the courtroom. “You can come hame.”

“What the hell was all that?” Rob asked no one in particular.

“That was the sound of ma brothers being let out o' gaol,” a voice came from behind.

Rob turned. “Jimmy, what's going on?”

“No idea,” Jimmy McPhee said. “But I'm happy.”

“Joanne?” Rob asked.

“Search me,” she replied.

“Come on,” Rob said, grabbing her arm “we have a front page.”

“Well?” McAllister asked when Joanne and Rob rushed in.

“We have a front page,” Rob told them. “Trouble is we have only part of the story.”

“Something more is about to happen,” Joanne said. “I feel it in my bones.”

“When? I need this story now.” Don was standing with what few pages he had ready for the typesetters.

“The fiscal dropped the charges against the McPhee brothers,” Rob announced.

“He what?” McAllister stared.

“I wasn't expecting
that
.” Don was equally surprised. “What happened?”

Rob had their attention. “I don't really know. Maybe Joanne can explain.”

She did.

“Let me get this straight,” McAllister said when she had finished, “Mrs. Munro was asked what she saw or heard that was absolutely ordinary and she wouldn't answer the question?”

“Couldn't,” Joanne said. “She started sobbing and couldn't stop. A doctor was called.”

“So what happens now?” Rob asked.

“You go straight round to the fiscal's office and get a statement,” McAllister told him.

“And don't come back until you have the full story.”

Rob left.

“Joanne,” McAllister continued, “you write up this morning's events. You have two hours.” She had a flash of panic, followed by a flash of pride. She took out her notebook, glanced at it, and started to type.
Don't think about it
, she told herself,
just picture it, and write it
.

McAllister turned to Don. “You have Rob's copy for the first two days of the trial?”

“Aye,” Don told him, “subbed and set.”

“Fine. What else needs doing?”

“A bottle or two will sweeten the printers if we have to run late,” Don informed him.

“Aye, but it would need much more than a bottle to delay the trains and the buses and the ferries so we can get the
Gazette
out to the Highlands and islands.”

“True,” Don said. “The only other solution is to fall down on yer knees and pray we have the full story in the next three hours.”

“We will,” McAllister said firmly, more to reassure himself than from certainty.

“You want to bet? Five shilling for each hour past five o'clock.”

“A pound if we have the full story before five o'clock?”

Don considered the odds. “Done,” he said. They shook on it.

No one from the office of the procurator fiscal would speak to Rob, nor to any of the other reporters.

“We will be issuing a statement tomorrow at midday,” the clerk announced.

“That's your deadline gone,” the skinny fellow from the Aberdeen daily reminded Rob.

Sergeant Patience was on desk duty at the police station when Rob arrived. He had been told that no information was to be given out regarding the case, especially to the gentlemen of the press.

When Sergeant Patience looked at Rob, he remembered writing
that
letter. He had not and never would recover from having to apologize to Hector Bain. Then there was the lecture from DI Dunne.

How did the inspector put it? “We must maintain good relations with the
Highland Gazette”?
So, I've been told, “no reporters,” but on the other hand . . .

The policeman looked around. No one was near. He beckoned Rob closer. Rob smelled engine oil on the sergeant and was momentarily distracted.

“Hang around outside,” the policeman muttered. “I'll see what I can do.” He turned back to his paperwork.

“Great,” Rob grinned. He spotted the ingrained oil in the cuticles around the nails of the sergeant's big hams of hands. “I can see you're a mechanic.”

“What? Oh right.” The sergeant was flustered. He spent hours scrubbing the oil off, but no use, some always remained. “I'm restoring a bike.”

“A motorbike?”

“A BSA. One o' the first ones ever made.”

“Really? Can I come and see it? I love bikes.” Rob was genuinely interested.

“Aye, I've seen you and your Triumph around the place.” The sergeant thought it over. “I could show it to you on Sunday.”

Rob walked out to the Castle Wynd to wait.
One more triumph for me, he thought, Police Sergeant Patience is my new best friend.

Rob waited an hour and a half. He didn't mind. Sergeant Patience appeared on the steps. He beckoned. WPC Ann McPherson was at the reception desk.

“Hiya, Ann. What's happening?” Rob was pleased to see her. He had gone out with her a few times, but she was too much the policewoman for it to work.

“Detective Inspector Dunne will speak to you now.” She had gone formal on Rob.

“Aren't there any other journalists with you?” the chief inspector asked when Rob walked into his office. Then he smiled. “Don't worry, Rob, you're the local press, you're the first to be told, as I know you have a deadline. The others can get the information from the procurator fiscal's office tomorrow.”

He switched to his professional persona.

“Mr. Alistair Munro of Achnafern Estate, the Black Isle, Ross & Cromarty, has confessed to hitting his son Fraser Munro. Fraser Munro subsequently died. Alistair Munro pushed the body into the ditch, where he pretended to discover it an hour later.”

Rob stared at the policeman and the policewoman. “Are you sure?”

“That is Mr. Munro's statement.”

“Has he been charged?”

“Not yet. The fiscal's office is finalizing the charges. Mr. Alistair Munro is in custody. He is being represented by Calum Sinclair. That's all I can tell you.”

“Will Mr. Munro be allowed bail?” Rob asked.

Inspector Dunne was a decent person. He felt nothing but pity for Mr. and Mrs. Munro.

“I hope so,” he replied. “Patricia Ord Mackenzie is going assurance for him. I hope it can all be sorted before the day's end.”

Rob ran the short distance to the office. He charged into the reporter's room.

“Allie Munro has confessed to hitting Fraser and putting him in the ditch.”

“Never!” Joanne was shocked. Mr. Munro was the last person she suspected. But it made a kind of sense. “Poor Mrs. Munro.”

McAllister looked at the clock. It was seven minutes to five.

“You owe me a quid,” he told Don.

“Don't I know it,” Don replied. “Right, boys and girls, let's get going. Joanne, where's your copy? Rob, get on wi' it. McAllister, you finish the last o' the sports pages, I haven't the time.”

Another deadline, another issue of the
Highland Gazette
, and another scoop—but there was no rejoicing.