Shadows of Death (16 page)

‘Yes, dear. So we’ll just have to think of other avenues to explore.’ I lifted my glass of bourbon. ‘
Skoal
.’

In Scotland, and even in Orkney (whose residents view it as almost another country), very few businesses are open on a Sunday, so I couldn’t begin my planned gossip tour until the morning. But I set out bright and early, Watson in tow, alert for any signs of a softening in local attitude toward me.

There was no outright cordiality. But no one was actively unpleasant, either, and one or two stopped to pat Watson. Encouraged, I made for the bakery. Telling Watson to sit by the door, and stay – an order he usually obeys – I went inside and smiled at everyone I saw.

‘Good morning!’ I said cheerily. ‘Lovely morning!’

There were murmurs of acknowledgement. ‘I’m needing some good bread for our morning toast,’ I went on. ‘You bake your own, don’t you?’

‘Yes. There’s white, and wholemeal, and oat bread.’

‘Oh, the oat bread, please. A friend told me it makes wonderful toast. Is it sliced?’ I could see that it was not. While they sliced it for me I chose some pastries we didn’t need, and as they were wrapping all my purchases, I asked, ‘Do any of you happen to know when the museum will be open? It wasn’t on Saturday, and I wondered …’

‘Have you not heard that Mr Norquist’s gone away?’

‘Yes, I did know that, actually.’ Better admit that; they probably knew already that my husband had been asking for him all over the place. ‘But I thought they might have found someone else to run the museum while he’s gone.’

‘Not that I’ve heard,’ said the oldest of the three women, who was apparently the proprietor.

‘They say,’ said a younger woman (a daughter?), lowering her voice, ‘that he’s no coming back at all. That maybe he’s done away wi’ himsel’.’

‘Kirsty!’ said the older woman, glaring, but the other young woman took up the tale.

‘I heard that maybe he’s stolen what’s in the museum and made off wi’ it!’

‘That’s enough, girls! You’re speaking rumour and scandal, and I’ll not have it repeated to a visitor.’ The mother – I was sure by now she was their mother – was too polite to call me a ‘foreigner’, but that was plainly what she meant. ‘It’s true enough, though, that no one’s seen him since the day before yesterday.’

‘My husband and I saw him on Saturday, twice actually.’ They probably knew that, too. ‘We wondered then why he wasn’t at the museum.’ I hesitated artistically before adding, ‘We thought his manner was a little odd, to say the least.’

‘The man’s gone daft!’ said the mother. ‘And before you turn my own words against me, me girls, that’s not rumour, that’s fact. He’s been acting more and more peculiar ever since he took over the museum.’

‘And it’s no to be wondered at, is it, with his mither the way she is. And Mum, that’s no rumour, neither, you know where they’ve had to put her, and no before her time, either. I used to be that scared of her, the wild way she’d talk, and wavin’ that cane around like a battleaxe.’

I was eager to hear more, but several customers had come in, and the ‘girls’ (who looked to be in their forties) had to serve them, under Mum’s eagle eye. I was tempted to wait around, but the shop was small, and several other people came in needing to do post office business, so I waved a cheery goodbye that I don’t think the girls saw and edged my way past the displays to the door. One of the women waiting at the post office counter turned to me and spoke to me. ‘If it’s Mrs Norquist ye’re wantin’ to know aboot, the shop across the way is the place to try.’ She pointed. ‘They know her there.’

I thanked her and managed to get out the door without dropping my packages.

Watson was getting bored, so I thought I’d better take him home before I went to another shop he couldn’t enter. The place in question sold yarns and clothing, and I couldn’t imagine that he’d be welcome there. He’s well-mannered, but he has an exuberant tail, and the yarn I could see from the window was displayed on low tables. Besides, we hadn’t had our breakfast yet, and the oat bread smelled really good.

I woke Alan, who for once had slept in, scrambled some eggs, and had just popped the bread in the toaster when he came down.

‘Any luck?’ he asked, pouring us coffee.

‘Some. Ouch!’ I licked my fingers. ‘That toast is hot!’

‘Well, if you will insist on putting bread in close proximity to a heating coil …’

‘Hand me a plate, dear, and stop being sententious! And butter mine while it’s hot, will you? I went to the bakery, and got us this stuff, and gossiped a bit about Mrs Norquist, the mother, you know?’

Alan nodded and took the toast to the table.

‘It turns out that she’s been pretty crazy for a long time, and the women in the shop think her son takes after her. They also think he’s either killed himself or robbed the museum and run away with the loot.’ I sat down with the plates of eggs, and we dug in.

‘He hasn’t done that, at least. That was one of the first things the police checked when they couldn’t find him. Not that it was very likely. Those antiquities are priceless in terms of scholarly interest, but very few of them would bring much on the open market.’

‘Not to mention the fact that Norquist would probably rather lie down in front of a bulldozer than sell the least of them. Anyway, as soon as we’ve had breakfast I’m going back up to The Street and visit that shop opposite the bakery, the one with the gorgeous yarn and sweaters and things. And I think I’d better leave the d-o-g here.’

Said d-o-g learned how to spell that particular word long ago, but he’d fallen asleep under the table and only twitched an ear.

‘Then I’ll take him with me. He’ll love a ride in the car. I’m going over to Kirkwall, for want of any better idea, and see if I can unearth anything interesting.’

The word
ride
penetrated Watson’s consciousness. He yawned, stretched, scratched one ear, and went to Alan’s side smiling his endearing doggy smile.

‘Patience, mutt! I’m going to finish my breakfast first. And no, you are
not
going to get a bite.’

He did, of course. If there’s any man who can resist the pleading of a pair of liquid brown eyes, I don’t think I want to know him. Alan gave him the last few morsels of egg on his plate, and then we finished clearing up quickly, and I set off for the yarn shop while Alan and Watson made for Kirkwall.

As I half expected, my reputation had preceded me. I walked in the shop and the shopkeeper said, ‘And where’s your dog, then?’ She was a comfortable-looking woman of about fifty, her grey hair a little flyaway.

I gestured at the tables full of luscious yarns. ‘I thought it was safer to leave him behind. He’s quite happy; my husband’s taking him for a drive to Kirkwall.’

‘Oh, well, then, he’s a lucky dog, isn’t he? Is there anything I can show you, or did you just want to ask me about Lillian Norquist?’

‘I love most of this yarn, but it’d be wasted on me. I’m the world’s worst knitter. I might buy some for a friend who’s really good, though. She’s our next-door neighbour, and she’s cat-sitting for us while we’re here in Orkney, though she’s really a dog person. Bulldogs,’ I added. ‘Lots of them.’

‘Now there’s a sensible breed,’ said the woman approvingly, as she straightened a pile of sweaters.

‘And Jane’s a sensible person, much like her dogs. In fact she looks a lot like a particularly nice bulldog. Sort of round and jowly, you know?’

The woman turned around and stared at me. ‘Where did you say you live?’

‘In Sherebury. Belleshire, you know, not far from—’

‘Fancy! I thought you were American.’

‘I am, but I’ve lived in Sherebury for quite a long time now. Why?’

‘Is your neighbour Jane Langland?’

It was my turn to stare. ‘You know Jane?’

‘She’s my godmother. I was born in Sherebury and went to school there. Miss Langland was my favourite teacher, and when I was baptized – I was a teenager – she stood godmother to me. My own parents were gone by that time, and she rather took me under her wing.’

I nodded. ‘That’s her specialty. I used to think it was a pity she never had any children, until I realized she’d had far more than any biological mother.’

‘Well, well, fancy meeting a friend of dear old Jane’s. We lost touch when I moved up here back of beyond, but I knew who you were talking about the minute you described her! My name’s Ruth, by the way, Ruth Menzies. Ruth Bingham back then.’

‘Dorothy Martin.’ I held out my hand. ‘It’s a real pleasure to meet you.’

‘I never did believe what they were saying,’ Ruth said. ‘I’d seen you with your dog, and I said you weren’t the sort of person who’d murder an animal.’

‘You’re right. I’m not. Especially not a cat. I adore cats. Though I have to admit that this one wasn’t my favourite. You know, I simply cannot call him by his usual name. It seems wrong to be rude about him, now that the poor thing’s dead.’

‘Call him Sandy. That’s what Celia Freebody named him. She was the only one in town who had a kind word for him. She’s a goodhearted soul, even if she did start that story about you.’ She perched on the edge of a counter. ‘Now, sit down and tell me why you want to know about Lilly the Loop.’

‘About who?’

‘Lillian Norquist. Loopy.’ She made the classic circular gesture at her temple. ‘That’s what a lot of us call her.’

‘It’s not so much Lillian who interests me as her son. My husband is a retired policeman, and Mr Baikie’s asked him to see if he can pick up any hints about Mr Norquist’s whereabouts.’ I knew she either knew that already, or soon would. Might as well be frank about it.

‘Ooh! Did he really steal from the museum, then?’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ I lied, ‘but I believe the police are a little concerned about his mental state, and are eager to find him.’ That at least was the truth, if not quite the whole truth. ‘And of course you know that they’ve got their hands full at the moment with the Flotta situation. So I thought, if I could find out a little about his mother, it might give us a clue as to where he is. And you know, sometimes women will pick up on little things that it would never occur to a policeman to think about, much less talk about.’

‘That’s true enough, though I think you’re wasting your time. The man’s dead, I’m sure.’

‘Why do you think so?’

‘He’d become as barmy as his mother, and she went round the twist years ago. If you’ve talked to the man at all, you know he has – had – all sorts of crazy ideas about the old religions. People around here didn’t like it. I’m C of E myself, though I don’t go to church as often as I ought. But a lot of the people here are stout Church of Scotland, with strong ideas about pagan practices. It’s all very well to dig up the old houses and temples and that. It’s
interesting, and it brings tourists. But when it comes to talk about worship and sacrifice and all, well, that’s too much for the good folk of Stromness.’

‘And he was talking about worship and sacrifice?’

‘He was. And I’ll tell you what I think. I’m quite certain he was the one who killed—’

‘G
ossiping again, Mrs Menzies?’ The man who walked in was rather thin, slightly stooped, and dressed in clerical grey. I recognized him as the rector of St Mary’s, the Episcopal Church in town. And I fervently wished he hadn’t interrupted just then.

My new friend got to her feet. ‘Just passing the time of day with a friend of a friend. You’ve met Mrs Martin, have you, Mr Tredgold?’

He gave me his hand. ‘We haven’t met, formally, but you were in church yesterday, were you not? I’d no idea you had connections here in Stromness.’

‘I didn’t either, but it turns out that Mrs Menzies used to know my next-door neighbour quite well.’

‘In America?’ He frowned, and I had to repeat the whole story. ‘Ah. I see. Well, then, I won’t keep you, Mrs Menzies. I just dropped in to see if you have any more of that green yarn my wife bought the other day. She thinks she won’t have quite enough to finish the shawl for our new grandson, and as he’s due to make his appearance very soon, she’s anxious about it.’

‘I have some, but I’m not sure it’s the same dye lot, and greens are hard to match.’ She rummaged in a bin of fine, soft baby yarn. ‘Here, take this, and if it’s not right, tell her to bring it back and we’ll find something in a nice contrast for a border. No, don’t pay me now. We’ll sort it out later.’

He took the yarn and, leaving, held the door open for four women entering. ‘Oh, Judy, I’m sure this is the right place! See, there are those darling little sweaters for little girls that Eunice told us about, and just look at the gorgeous yarns!’

The American tourists swarmed over the shop, and Ruth turned to me and shrugged. ‘It’ll probably be like this the rest of the day. I don’t close until six-thirty in summer, but would you like to come over for a drink after that? I’ll ask some of the other women, and we can sit and talk to your heart’s content.’ She gave me directions to her house.

‘I’d love to. Thanks for the invitation.’

‘Oh, and bring your husband, if he wants to come to a hen party and will promise not to behave like a policeman.’

‘I’ll tell him.’ Ruth bustled away to deal with the tourists, and I spent a little time trying to decide which yarn Jane might like best. She is rather large, and dresses in subdued colours herself, but most of her knitting is for friends. I finally hit on a blue heather mixture with flecks of green in it, and caught Ruth’s attention long enough to ask her to set aside enough of it for a generous cardigan. ‘I’ll come back later for it,’ I promised, and she nodded and turned back to one of the women, who was wavering between two sweaters costing a king’s ransom.

I left the shop congratulating myself on the first real stroke of luck we’d had in Orkney. Ruth was now firmly enrolled on my side, and would certainly pass along any information that came her way. And that meant I now had a finger on the pulse of the village. But oh! How I wanted to know how she’d planned to end that sentence. ‘He was the one who killed …’ Carter? The cat? Both of them? Someone or something else entirely? Maybe some project had been shelved because of some action or protest by Norquist. Something to do with the museum?