North Sea Requiem (3 page)

The phone rang. “Mrs. Ross, Mrs. Bell is in reception.”

“I'll be right down.”

Rob, who had returned from covering the magistrate's court five minutes since, asked, “What's going on?”

“A story . . . and I'm not sharing.” She stuck her tongue out at him and ran down the stairs.

Joanne was watching the stranger from the foot of the stairs. Sideways on, she appeared a strikingly good-looking woman, blond—rich, old-gold blond—and tall for a woman, about the same height as Joanne, who stood five foot nine in her bare feet. Mrs. Bell was reading the letter.

What Joanne noticed next were her clothes: the costume in an expensive wool fabric, well cut, snug fitting—Joanne recognized the design from the
Vogue
magazines her friend Margaret McLean, Rob's mother, passed on to her.

Mrs. Bell's high-heeled shoes were completely unsuitable for February in the highlands of Scotland—unless you took taxis—which Mrs. Bell did. Her nylons, seams perfectly straight, had no
runs stopped with nail varnish—something Joanne had to resort to when she couldn't afford a new pair.

Most of all, the beautiful camel hair coat, in a perfect shade of caramel, draped over her shoulders, and the silk scarf, casually and only semi-concealing the single strand of pearls, made Mrs. Mae Bell the epitome of a fashionable woman in her thirties on her way to have tea with Princess Margaret.

“Hello, you must be Mrs. Bell, I'm Joanne Ross, a reporter on the
Gazette
. I'd like to ask you about the notice you put in the newspaper.”

“Well, if it helps me find some of my late husband's friends or colleagues, I'd be happy to talk with you,” Mae Bell replied. Her voice, the accent—American but with a hint of somewhere else in it—the way she was cocking her head to one side as though everything a person said was interesting, immediately endeared her to Joanne.
She's a heroine out of an American film.

“As I'm in your town, I thought I'd have lunch here. Won't you join me? We can talk more easily over a drink.” She saw Joanne hesitate. “My treat.”

Joanne was about to protest but thought,
Why not?
The woman could obviously afford it.

Mae Bell managed the cobblestones of Castle Wynd with ease, high heels being her usual form of footwear. Joanne felt clumsy as she walked beside her.

“Do you mind if we eat at the Carlton? I enjoyed the lunch there last time I was in your charming town.”

Joanne was conscious that she was not dressed for the only smart restaurant and cocktail bar in town; she was wearing slacks—partly because they were so much easier on a bicycle, but also because she had decided newspaper reporters were absolved from the dress code of twinset and pearls, the unofficial uniform of middle-class matrons of Scotland. McAllister had given
Joanne a book by Martha Gellhorn, and the American writer and journalist was her new role model.
Martha probably wears slacks,
she reassured herself as they went up the stairs to the first-floor restaurant.

The waiter handed over the menus. Mae Bell said, “Before we choose, I'll have a martini. Mrs. Ross, won't you join me?”

Joanne was staring, her mouth open like the proverbial goldfish; she had never drunk a martini in her life, and never ever had alcohol at lunchtime.

“I . . .”

“Oh, go on . . .” Mae Bell laughed. “A friend of mine owns newspapers; I know all about the afternoon after publication.”

Joanne noted the plural,
newspapers,
and said, “I must be one of the few Scots who don't drink. Well, not much anyway . . .”

“Two dry martinis,” Mae Bell ordered.

“Oh no, I couldn't possibly drink a martini . . .”

“Go on—let your hair down.”

It was Mae Bell's eyes that initially won her over—so dark the brown was almost black, and gleaming like wet coal. It was the way Mae Bell laughed, the gurgle like whisky pouring from the bottle, rich, brown, warming, life-enhancing, which persuaded Joanne she was not being mocked. The drink came, and when they had toasted each other and she had taken her first sip and had managed, just, not to choke, she began to enjoy herself and the conversation. The widow of Robert John Bell was exotic, funny, sophisticated, and clever; Joanne liked the woman immensely. And after the food and the martinis—two for Mae Bell—Joanne was surprised how fast time had vanished; how little time it had taken for Mrs. Bell to endear herself to Joanne.

Joanne Ross knew many people and was liked by many but had only one close friend, Chiara Kowalski—a woman who, like Joanne, was a newcomer to the town. Joanne always thought it
was the shame of her violent marriage that made friendships difficult. In moments of introspection, when she considered how small was her circle of true friends, she acknowledged she appeared self-sufficient; her outward image was of a woman in full control, whilst inwardly she had the self-confidence of a caged wild bird.

Mae put a cigarette into a holder, lit it, blew the smoke towards the ceiling, and came to the point of their meeting. “Thank you for agreeing to write about Robert.”

Joanne could not recall agreeing to any such thing, but a single martini had made her think she would agree to almost anything on a drink that strong.
And at lunchtime too!

“When the telegram came, I couldn't open it. I called Charlie, my husband Robert's brother.” Mae was speaking as though their conversation had been taking place over a week, not just the last hour, as though Joanne was aware of all the protagonists, the background, the time and place. “He came immediately, read it, and it was as I feared: Robert, my husband, my love, had gone down with his aircraft in the middle of the North Sea. There were no survivors. And the aeroplane was never found. No bits of wreckage surfaced. No explanation ever given. Even after a full inquiry, where the experts had so many theories but no facts, the verdict was ‘cause unknown.' Not easy to live with—‘cause unknown.' No body, no funeral, no final farewell . . .” Her voice trailed off. She stubbed her cigarette into the ashtray, causing it to tilt and almost spill onto the whiter-than-white tablecloth. Mae didn't notice.

“But we sure had a wake. In Paris.” She closed her eyes. Whether to remember or to hide her emotions, Joanne couldn't tell.

“Yep, three days and nights, and the music . . .” She sighed. “After that—shock, grief, I couldn't sing. For the first time ever . . . since I was a little girl, I've always been singing, humming, but after Robert disappeared, it was nearly three years before I
could sing again.” Mae recalled the little bird in a gilded cage; one of the Frenchmen who adored Mae Bell bought it at the market and presented it to her and it sang all day long, and before long she was singing with the little bird, to the little bird, harmonies, trills, arpeggios, repetitious phrases where she and the bird competed to outdo each other.

Joanne was quiet, hearing the words and listening between the lines.

“So this is a pilgrimage for me,” Mae continued. “I want to visit the places he wrote to me about. See the cathedral in Elgin, the places he described in his letters, and the river there. I want to walk where he walked. To see what he saw. He loved Findhorn, near where he was stationed, thought it an almost perfect place if only the temperature were twenty degrees warmer.”

Joanne laughed. “I agree. But ten degrees warmer. Scottish people couldn't survive the heat.” She was wondering how to raise the subject of the note, but no need; Mae Bell was ahead of her.

Taking the note from her handbag, Mae smoothed it out on the table. “This is interesting.” She touched the paper and traced the writing with a perfectly manicured finger, the polish a sinful shade of red. “A woman wrote this, don't you agree?”

“It's neatly written—the block capitals are elegant—but I couldn't say for sure.”

“And it raises the point that the writer must know about my husband's fate . . . don't you agree?” From the coolness of Mae Bell's voice, it was obvious she had thought about the note or, more importantly, the writer, many times.

“Possibly . . .” Joanne looked again at the note.

“A note like that is an invitation for a good journalist to investigate further. Yes?”

Mae Bell's statement and Joanne's need for a good story that was hers alone collided.

“You're right. And I will. Investigate.” A quick glance at her watch and Joanne saw that an hour and a half had passed.

Mae called for the bill, paid, tipped, gathered her bag, her cigarettes, and lighter, and said, “Let's do this again.”

As the women made their way out onto the street, Joanne almost walked in to Mal Forbes, who was about to go into the downstairs bar.

“A bit posh for you here, isn't it?” Mal said.

He was friendly. He was joking. Just stating the obvious. Joanne knew that. But was offended just the same.

Then he saw Mae Bell, who was buttoning her coat to be ready for the onslaught of winds funneling down the streets straight from the North Sea.

“Hello, and who have we here?” The voice changed to a purr; the body changed from slightly too short Scotsman to suave lounge lizard. He raised his hat, held out the other hand, and said, “Malcolm Forbes.”

Mae Bell ignored the hand—but gracefully, with an I'm-tangled-up-in-coat-and-handbag-and-scarf gesture—said, “I'm a friend of Joanne's . . . Oh my, is that the time? My train is in five minutes . . . Joanne, point me to the station . . . Oh, of course . . . I'll call . . . good to meet you, Mr. Fraser . . . so long, my dear, that was lovely . . . let's do this again . . . soon.” And she was gone in a trail of scent and smiles, leaving a beaming Joanne and a curious Mal in her wake.

“Who is that woman?”

Joanne, taking her cue from Mae, said, “A friend,” and walked away, but in the wrong direction; the effect of her first-ever martini made her doubt she would make it back to the office. She went for coffee instead and took an hour over two cups, replaying again and again the conversation with the exotic Mae Bell, daring to think that she and Mae Bell might possibly end up friends.
Good friends.

•   •   •

Next Monday at the news meeting, Joanne said, “I have a story.”

She explained about Mae Bell and her search for her husband's friends. Joanne finished outlining the article, but for reasons unknown even to her, she left out the anonymous note.
Wait and see,
she was thinking,
surprise McAllister with a story worthy of the front page.

“I like the idea,” Don said. “I remember the story of that aeroplane disappearing. There was a huge search-and-rescue operation. Nothing was found. And at the Fatal Accident Enquiry, there was no evidence as to what happened. To this day it's a mystery.”

“Human interest stories, that's what a local paper does best,” McAllister added.

Joanne smiled. “It may not turn into much but it's a nice story . . .”

“Aye, it's a nice wee story, just right for the Wimmin's Page.” Mal smiled at Joanne. She blushed. Her hands were trembling. She put them under the table. And not one of the men in the room noticed anything untowards.

H
ighland Gazette
.” Rob listened. “Witches did it? Any proof? Your mother-in-law? Name?” The caller hung up. And this was one of the more moderate of the suggestions about how a severed leg had shown up in a local woman's washing.

The story had run in the newspaper for a second week because Don McLeod wanted to string it out as long as possible. Him being a shinty man and the town team the archrival of his beloved Skye team, skullduggery involving rivals he welcomed greatly. The theories as to what had happened were as convoluted as a paperback thriller. And as far-fetched as a faerie story. He loved a story that gave him plenty of opportunities for a good headline.

When the phone went for the fifth time in half an hour, Rob answered, “Highland Hauntings, how may we help?”

“Rob, it's Frankie. Listen. My mother has gone spare about the story in the paper. So many folk have been teasing her about it, she's likely to strangle Hector. She blames him for all the gossip about her finding the leg.”

“Nothing could stop the story getting out. Even in shinty circles, this is bizarre.”

“I know, but can you leave her name out o' it if the story runs next week? And warn Hector to hide if she sees him. Thanks, Rob.”

Rob remembered Frankie's mother best from his
primary-school days. Children and teachers throughout the town knew her as Nurse Urquhart, the Nit Nurse. That she took children's height and weight and checked their general health besides looking for nits was overlooked. And the shame of a letter home pronouncing that you had the wee beasties haunted many a child for the rest of their lives.