North Sea Requiem (39 page)

Neither the police nor the procurator fiscal could yet connect either of the Forbeses to Nurse Urquhart's death, but they knew Moira Forbes had written the letters.

“I never tried to kill anyone. And it was Moira locked them up.”

“You admitted dragging Mrs. Ross into the air raid shelter.”

“Well, I couldn't leave her lying out in the garden, could I?”

“She could have died,” WPC McPherson said. “Your wife sent
threatening letters to Nurse Urquhart, then threw acid at her, Nurse Urquhart died. That's murder.” They both knew that the charge was probably manslaughter but weren't going to tell Mal Forbes that. “Your wife could well have killed Mrs. Ross if she wasn't found in time—a second murder.”

“Moira never killed anyone. Rob McLean killed
her
—that's murder.” He was sobbing again, a sound Ann McPherson was sick of.

“So it was you who threw the acid at Nurse Urquhart to shut her up?” she asked.

They had been over and over the acid attack on Nurse Urquhart, and Mal still continued to deny any knowledge of it.

DI Dunne made a
calm down
gesture to his colleague. The WPC sat back, let out a breath, and left the next round of questioning to the inspector, knowing he was right, she was losing her temper.

“Could your wife have attacked the nurse without you knowing?” he asked. Again he got the same answer as before.

“No. Never. She'd never . . .” This time he conceded, “I don't know. But there was no acid in the bottle she had wi' her, it was only an empty Milk of Magnesia bottle she used to keep thon American wifie quiet.” He was looking at the inspector, as he was afraid of WPC McPherson. “That shows she has a kind heart, shows she'd never really harm anyone. She only wrote thon letters to scare folks, keep them out o' our private affairs. Moira, she'd never harm no one.” He was back in his own dialect, a strong Moray dialect, and the officers had trouble catching every word. But his sobbing was understandable.

“We only kept the boy hidden because of his looks.” Mal spoke to DI Dunne, his voice so reasonable, stating the obvious, “You know there's many a person would never understand.”

When Mal Forbes was saying this he had a vision of his
mother—what she would say if she saw a wee black baby. “None o' it is Moira's fault. She was right depressed after the boy was born.”

He remembered coming home from work when the boy was about six months old. Moira was in the kitchen giving the baby a bath in the sink. Or at least that was what she said she was doing. But she was holding his head in the water and the wee soul had such a strength in him, wriggling like an otter, and slippery like an otter too, so she couldn't keep him under. He took the boy from her and after he'd stopped bawling, the baby had smiled at Mal, a smile he would never forget.

“So you kept the child hidden?” DI Dunne asked.

“The American, he was a decent enough fellow. I saw him a few times when I worked on the base. He was right friendly.” Mal said nothing about his own friendship with Bobby Bell, about him always hanging around the American airmen, enjoying their company, their way of life oh so different from that of a man from Elgin. “Moira took a shine to Mr. Bell, and when she was in one o' her high moods, there was no resisting her, she was that persistent.”

He smiled and leaned towards the inspector, one man to another. “Our Moira was a right bonnie lass when she were young.” He stopped. Remembered. He started to cry. “It's no fair, it should o' been me Rob McLean hit, no' her.”

Ann McPherson couldn't stop herself from interrupting. “Rob thought your wife was going to throw acid.”

“I keep telling you there was never any acid. Only water.”

So we're back to that,
DI Dunne thought. They had taken the bottle, tested it. It was water. No acid or trace of acid could be found in the Forbes household.

“Moira read the classified in the
Gazette
. The one that was asking for information about Robert Bell,” Mal
explained.
My Bobby, she'd called him,
but Mal wasn't going to tell the police that. “An' ma Moira thought the idea o' it being acid in the bottle would scare the life out o' the American woman. She was right. It did.”

Mal Forbes admitted keeping the boy in the shelter but denied the conditions were dangerous. “It was only at night. He was fed well, Moira always made him his favorite porridge and ham sandwiches. He had plenty milk, he had water, he only stayed in the shelter during daylight when we were away or when there were people around who might see him. Maureen, she played wi' him. We took him out in the garden nightimes.”

Like taking your dog for a walk of an evening,
Ann thought.

“The letters, why did your wife send the letters?” DI Dunne asked.

“That was stupid,” Mal Forbes said. “She thought it would keep Nurse Urquhart from poking her nose in. Maureen told the nurse about her brother when she was checking for nits, said her brother had them too. She called round to our house. Moira told her the boy was in an institution. Then the nurse checked the hospital in Elgin and could find no health records—you know, his jabs and checks and suchlike, and no records of the boy at the institution in Aberdeen or anyplace else. That made her come round again an' then . . .” He was once again shaking his head at the interference of outsiders. “Then the American woman turned up. And Mrs. Ross. They all were nosing around . . .” He looked up at the inspector. “Why couldn't they just leave us be?”

The whine, the self-pity, the complete lack of awareness incensed WPC McPherson. “My father keeps his pigs in better conditions than you kept that child.”

“The letters, Mr. Forbes. Explain to us what happened.” DI Dunne's gentle questioning made Mal want to explain.
He understands,
Mal thought,
not like thon harridan next to him
.

“I didn't know at first. Moira put them in the
Gazette
mail
when she brought ma morning flask o' tea. She had a wee job wi' the council, only part-time, then she was too sick to go to work. But not too sick to look after me. A right good wife is Moira.”

“Who took the acid from the
Gazette
print room, you or her?” WPC McPherson asked.

“I keep telling you”—again the answer was directed at the inspector—“there was never any acid. Moira got the idea to write about it from reading the newspaper, but we never had any acid.”

“Aye, but your print was on the bottle.” DI Dunne seemed surprised. “How did that happen?”

“I canny remember. Maybe I used it or picked it up, or more like tidied it up. Thon young fellow Alan Fordyce is right untidy.”

He's lying. He knows something. He'd be no good at card games,
the policewoman thought, as she saw him look at his fingernails, which were dirty, with earth or perhaps old blood caked underneath.

“Did your wife ever visit the print room?” she asked.

“Maybe. I can't remember.” His voice was fading, his body sliding down in the chair.

“Did your wife ever talk to the men in the print room? Make friends with any of them?” Ann asked.

Mal was still staring at his hands, seeing what the policewoman saw. And, for a usually immaculate man, he'd ceased caring about dirt and blood and grease. He had given up. “Maybe. I don't know.”

They left him to the guard, the inspector saying, “We'll be back.”

Later, when they were discussing the interview, DI Dunne told his colleague that he was inclined to believe Mal Forbes knew nothing about the acid.

Ann McPherson disagreed. “The acid, I can see Moira Forbes doing that. What I can't see is Moira digging up a grave, opening
a coffin, sawing off a leg, and putting it in a shinty boot. Not without Mal's help.”

The inspector groaned. “We've enough to think about. I was hoping all that business was long finished.” He had considered a link in the two cases but could find none. “I'm certain that prank is down to the shinty boys.”

“Fine.” She agreed with her boss. Coming from the glens herself, she knew no trick was too far-fetched for the shinty boys—
a wild lot if ever there is one
. “So what about Mal Forbes's print on the bottle of acid?”

DI Dunne was weary of the whole case. There was a resolution of sorts, but both deaths had been horrific, deaths none of his constables should have had to witness. Yes, Moira Forbes had kept Mae Bell prisoner by using the threat of an acid attack, but that didn't prove she had thrown acid at Nurse Urquhart. There were still too many imponderables in the case, and he was weary to the bone.

“We'll go over it all again in the morning.” He stood. “I'm away home. You should go too.” He took his hat, fingered the brim until the shape was satisfactory. Before putting it on he asked, “Constable McPherson, aren't you due to sit your sergeant's exams?”

She went slightly pink.
He's been keeping track,
she thought. “Next month, sir.”

“Make sure you pass. We need a senior detective on the team.” He put his hat on, “Good night, Ann.”

•   •   •

“Queer suit for a missionary,” the ticket collector said to the guard as they watched the passenger alight from the train and stroll down the platform as though on his way to the opera.

“Maybe that's what they wear in Africa,” the guard replied.

The gentleman also had the strangest shoes—
looked like
they were made from the skin o' some kind o' big snake,
he told his wife, who, after every shift, asked him who was on and off the trains, particularly interested if someone from the town was with someone they shouldn't be with, or if someone was departing to or arriving from destinations they had no known connection with. The comings and goings of the American woman had kept his wife entertained for weeks on end, the guard remembered.

When Mrs. Ross Senior answered the door, she had no idea what to say—or do. As she told Granddad Ross later, “I've never seen an African in real life. An' I never knew they wore clothes. Well, not clothes like thon.”

When the stranger smiled, his teeth impressed her too. “Really beautiful they are,” she told Granddad, who was busy thinking what excuse he could find to go over to McAllister's for a visit and see the gentleman for himself. “An' right polite.”

When she showed the gentleman into the sitting room where Mae Bell was lying on the sofa looking through magazines that Margaret McLean had left for her, Mae looked up and for the first time in too long she smiled with all of herself. “Charlie.”

Mrs. Ross was taken aback at the way the two of them hugged, but she was right glad, she told Granddad Ross, the way Mrs. Bell perked up.

“I got the telegram,” Charlie Bell said. “But it wasn't easy getting here. Those mountains were built to keep people out.”

“You'll be wanting a cup o' tea,” Mrs. Ross told him, and left them alone.

“Tea? I thought they only drink Scotch.”

“Charlie, tea is the national drink, and whisky—never Scotch—is a close second, along with horrible warm flat beer.” She was laughing.

He was sitting back examining her. He hated what he saw. Her hair looked as though she was molting. Her skin was hanging off
her bones. Her eyes, her flashing laughing eyes, were so deep in the sockets he thought they might disappear inside her head.

She could see what he was thinking. “If you think this is bad, dear brother-in-law, you should have seen me a week ago.”

“Aye, she's doing well.” Mrs. Ross came in with the tray and sandwiches and a plate of scones. “I don't know what foreign gentlemen eat, but there's home-made corned beef sandwiches—not thon stuff out o' a can—an' I've left a jar o' ma homemade chutney, so help yourself.” She smiled at him, hoping he would smile back. He did. It was a smile that made her heart glad. And after a week of Mae's company, she was happy to see the “lass” happy.

“Thank you, Mrs. . . .” His eyes opened in a question.

“Mrs. Elsie Ross,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Pleased to meet you too, Elsie. I'm Charlie.”

She left them alone. Standing in the kitchen, hearing the murmur of voices, the big laugh from the big man, she was lost, didn't know what to do with herself.
Elsie, he called me Elsie.
She was trying to remember when she had last been called by her name.
Not since our Bill was born.

“I was certain something had happened to Robert's plane,” Mae was saying. “You know I never accepted that an air force plane could just disappear off the map. So when I finally tracked down Robert's possessions and the letters . . .”

“That must have been a shock.” Charlie held her hand, squeezed it.

“Yes, then no. I was glad I'd been proved right. He was afraid someone was out to get him.”

“Then you found his son, my nephew. Another shock.”

“I've been around enough to know these things happen. I never doubted Robert. I know I was his only real true love.” She accepted his light and puffed on the cigarette, blowing smoke to the ceiling. “Men? Alone? Pretty girls? What can you do?”

“So Bobby put his name on the certificate? That must have caused quite a stir.” Robert Bell was only Robert to Mae. To his brother, Charlie, to everyone, he was Bobby.

“No one knew. The Forbes family kept the child hidden. The mother, she's the one I wrote to you about, and her husband, this guy Malcolm—Mal—he forgave her. I know now he loved the boy. That's why they kept him.”

“A very funny way of showing love, keeping the kid hidden all these years.” Charlie was shaking his head. “When I got your letter I couldn't believe what you found out. Sabotage. And yeah, I knew Bobby might have had a fling, but you were the only one for him. But a son . . .” His fingers were caressing the back of her hand as though caressing his saxophone. “I lost Bobby, I was terrified I'd lost you when you stopped writing. When the telegram came . . . Mae, honey, I can't tell you how scared I was, I had to get Max to open the envelope.”