Beneath the Abbey Wall (5 page)

“I do.” Joanne sat down. “So tell me what needs doing.”

“I'll visit our major advertisers, and get the ads off them. Mrs. Smart always said the personal touch was best.”

And I bet you're good at that,
Joanne didn't say. “That's great, Betsy. I'll help with the layout and coordinate with editorial.” Joanne found she liked being decisive. They decided that McAllister would sign off on any major financial contracts Betsy recommended, and in less than an hour they had decided who was to do what.

“One thing, Joanne. Mrs. Smart paid me a commission on the advertising I sold. I'm happy to stay on the same wages if I get paid the extra.”

Betsy was not the most educated of women, having left school at fifteen, but she had no doubt that she could do very well with a commission-based career.

Joanne laughed. “Ask McAllister. But I can see the
Gazette
will do very well with you in charge of sales.”

“I'll need a title. I was thinking ‘Advertising Manager.'”

Manager?
Joanne thought, and then saw that it was only a title. “How about Advertising
Executive
?”

“I like it.” More than anything it was the idea of a title and a business card that thrilled Betsy Buchanan—and the extra commission she was sure she would make.

When Betsy left, Joanne was pleased with the way she had handled the situation—professional and businesslike. Plus she had achieved her aim—to make sure that helping Betsy did not
interfere with her job as reporter.
I can do both,
was her thinking.
After all, I'm a working mother, able to do half a dozen things at once.

*  *  *  

Mortimer Beauchamp Carlyle was seldom surprised by human nature, but the news he was about to convey to the staff at the
Gazette
had disturbed and dismayed him and his sister.

As he walked into the reporters' room, seeing the bent heads, hearing the clatter of the ancient Underwood typewriters, he fancied he felt the air vibrate as the words formed on copy paper, waiting to be edited, typeset, proofread, printed, the black type making the news and stories real, ready for the denizens of town and county to digest, to discuss, to sense that they were part of the Highlands of Scotland 1957. This was their world—a world changing too rapidly for many.

They needed their local newspaper to touch on the changing postwar world, but mostly the readers wanted reassurance, wanted to know that the schools were educating their children, the hospitals tending their sick, that the auction marts were busy, that the roads were being mended, and that the Church, of whatever denomination, still ruled their community.

Rob sensed the presence of Beech in the doorway. He looked up and grinned at the tall angular figure. “Hiya.”

“Good morning, young man. Picking up the lingo from our American cousins?”

“And the music. You must come and hear our band next time we play.”

Beech had heard the new American music that was sweeping Great Britain and found a startling resemblance to the chanting and singing of the tribes of Abyssinia and the Sudan.

“I'm not sure I would appreciate it.” Beech remained standing
in the doorway. “No, I'm here on a much less pleasant matter, I'm afraid.”

There was a sudden lull in the chatter of typewriters. “I have information about Mrs. Smart's funeral.”

“When is it?” Joanne asked.

“Today,” Beech replied.

“Today? Where? When?” McAllister, Joanne, and Rob and Hector were speaking all at once.

“It was held this morning.” He saw the looks of astonishment. “I've only just found out myself.” Beech apologized. “My sister went next door to ask about the arrangements. Sergeant Major Smart said the body was released late yesterday afternoon and taken directly to Assynt, where Mrs. Smart is being interred in the family plot.”

McAllister was the first to ask the obvious. “So why is the man still here in town when his wife is being buried on the other side of the country?”

“Ah. Yes. My sister asked the same. The sergeant major told her it was a private funeral. That he was unable to go all that way . . . ” Sergeant Major Smart had also said that it was none of anyone's business and had shut the door in Rosemary Sokolov's face. Beech told this to McAllister later, in private.

“Does she have family over there?” Joanne asked.

“No one still living—as far as I know. Her mother died when Joyce Mackenzie was a child, her father died some fifteen or so years ago.”

No one knew what to say, except Hector.

“That's no' right,” he said, voicing everyone's thoughts. “No one should go to their grave alone.”

“Why would her husband do this?” Joanne was shocked; funerals were big affairs in the Highlands, the size of the send-off giving comfort to the living and respect to the deceased.

Beech too was keenly aware of the breach of etiquette. He was aware of a second wave of bereavement, hurting Joyce Smart's colleagues and friends.

“When the time is right . . . ” Everyone looked up at Beech, his voice and stance those of an elder statesman. “We'll find her grave. We all will go there, and hold our own commemoration.”

“Yes, we will.” As McAllister spoke, murmurs of agreement filled the room, and he knew the time would be right when the
Highland Gazette
had published the name of Mrs. Smart's killer across the front page.

T
he lack of progress in the police investigation infuriated McAllister, and the reading of the will obsessed him; the death of Mrs. Smart came about because of her life, not some random act committed by a madman, of that he was certain.

I owe it to her,
he told himself when he started delving to better understand why she was killed. But really it had been that terrible night when he couldn't remember her Christian name that had stabbed his conscience. And McAllister had a deep conscience—when it mattered to him.

“I'm off to see your father,” McAllister told Rob.

“What about?” Rob asked knowing that his father, a respected local solicitor, would never divulge information on his work or clients.

“Mind your own business.”

“Really? I thought a journalist's job was just the opposite.”

McAllister stepped out into a grey September day, an opalescent grey, not a slate-grey, so, for this part of the world, at this time of year, a good day. The cheeky grin from the bright-young-going-places-self-styled-star of the
Gazette
had cheered him.
That young man will go far. I hope we can keep him a year or two more.

He hurried to the solicitor's office, only a short walk away. He was curious about the meeting, and had no idea why he, albeit editor of a newspaper, should be invited to the reading of Mrs. Smart's will.

*  *  *  

From all his years as a prominent local solicitor, Angus McLean was used to strange wills. It was his opinion that many, from beyond the grave, wanted to influence the living out of jealousy.
They are alive, I must be dead, so let's loose some mischief,
Angus imagined the soon-to-be-deceased thinking. But he could not imagine such pettiness from Mrs. Smart. So, he concluded, there must be good reasons for her having made the bequests she did.

The will was businesslike. Not drawn up by himself but by a solicitor in Edinburgh. He had been named sole executor. He was about to discharge his duties—he glanced at the carriage clock atop the solid cabinet where he kept his law books and the whisky decanter and glasses—in ten minutes' time.

McAllister was the first to arrive. He came in, took a seat, the one that would give him the best view of the other attendees at the reading of the will.

Next to arrive was Jenny McPhee, accompanied by her son Jimmy. The three of them acknowledged each other, and the surprise on McAllister's face made Jenny laugh.

“I know no more than you, McAllister,” she said. “All I know is this letter asking me to turn up, here and now.”

“But we're right curious,” Jimmy added.

Jimmy helped his mother settle in to her chair, treating her with the deference due a duchess—or the matriarch of the Traveling people that she was. Her small wiry body and dark skin showed her many years on the road. Her coat and her scarf and her rings showed a woman who kept the traditional life but was not averse to a bit of luxury.

The sound of a kerfuffle and a well-bred-commanding-the-troops voice came from the reception room. The secretary
opened the door, announced “Sergeant Major Smart,” then stood to one side with the look of a woman whose cat has just presented her with a rat.

A small, wiry, hazelnut-brown man, in neatly pressed khaki trousers and shirt, pushed a wheelchair into the room. There sat Sergeant Major Smart with what remained of his legs covered by a tartan blanket. He did not introduce his companion but looked at the others sitting in a semicircle, and took in the sight of Jenny and Jimmy McPhee.

He tried to cover his shock and, McAllister fancied, his fear, by blustering, “Damned if I can see why we couldn't have conducted this meeting at my house.” He glared at Angus McLean, blaming him for the presence of the tinkers. He would never admit to knowing a Traveling person, far less the legendary Jenny McPhee. And he was scared of Jimmy McPhee.

“How are you, Archie?” Jenny McPhee asked in a sugar-and-spice-voice, the spice being the dominant flavor. “Joyce's house—are you sure it's yours now?”

“Why is this
person
here?” The way the sergeant major screwed up his face, the way he spat out the word “person,” made Angus McLean worry he might be having a stroke; a person of the former soldier's status would never expect to be questioned by a tinker.

Angus McLean ignored the sergeant major. “There is one other person expected, and then we can begin the reading of the will.” He had recruited his son to make sure Don McLeod appeared, but was uncertain he would succeed.

But a noise in reception announced their arrival. Rob ushered another almost-invalid to a chair. He was startled to see, but knew not to comment on, the attendance of Jenny and Jimmy McPhee. As he was leaving, Rob looked at the secretary, then changed his mind; no one in the solicitor's office would tell him
anything, not his father and especially not the office gorgon, so he would have to wait.

I'll find out soon enough,
he said to himself.
McAllister will fill me in. Or Don—providing he's drunk enough.

McAllister had not seen Don for almost two weeks, leaving his deputy to do whatever he needed to, to recover from the shock of Mrs. Smart's death. Don's solution was to search for, and not find, the answer at the dark end of a whisky bottle. Sober or not was hard to distinguish with Don McLeod. McAllister watched Jenny McPhee close the gap between her chair and Don's, seemingly without movement, and he was glad.

Don had seen Jenny and Jimmy when he came in, but to wonder why they were there was beyond him, and nodding to acknowledge their acquaintance would hurt his head. But he was grateful they were there.

Angus McLean picked up a document. Everyone came to attention. “This is the last will and testament of Mrs. Archibald Smart, née Joyce Eileen Mackenzie,” he began.

“As far as you know,” the sergeant major interrupted.

“Do you know of the existence of another will?” Angus asked. But both he and Sergeant Major Smart knew it was a rhetorical question; the late Mrs. Smart had been meticulous in keeping her affairs in order.

“The will is a straightforward list of bequests with no extraneous codicils. Firstly: the sum of one hundred pounds per year is bequeathed for a scholarship, to be used for the training and education of a young journalist at the
Highland Gazette
. The terms state that the person must be under twenty-five, be from a disadvanted family . . . ”

“You mean poor,” Jimmy McPhee said. He had no time for those who didn't call an elbow an elbow.

“Precisely. And be a native Gaelic speaker. The editor of the
Highland Gazette
will choose the candidate in an open competition, held to coincide with the annual Mod.”

“Most gracious.” McAllister nodded towards the sergeant major. He also tried to catch Don's eye, but Don's eyes were closed, his body motionless, as though any movement might set off a hangover, or worse.

“Second. All jewelry and a set of Highland dancing swords are bequeathed to Mrs. Jenny McPhee.”

“Never!” Sergeant Major Smart shot up in his chair, his legs making a distinct clank. His Nepali caregiver stepped forward, then retreated back into the corner, watching his master like a guardian temple dog from his Himalayan kingdom. “Some of that jewelry is worth a fortune. Make note, McLean, I shall be contesting this.”