The Back of Beyond (39 page)

Roddy's mouth twisted. ‘We've had no luck with our search for him.'

She wondered fleetingly if she should let him know that Nancy had already sent letters to two Scottish newspapers, the
Scotsman
and the
Daily Record
, but decided against it. Time enough if anything came of it. ‘Are you any nearer finding whose body it is?'

‘No, but that reminds me. We did find a ring just below where the body was lying – that's what I came to tell you.'

‘What kind of ring was it? Wedding? Engagement?'

‘Just a plain signet ring, but it has an inscription inside, which should help us to identify her. The initials M.M.McL, and the date 30.6.1906, which may be a special birthday or anniversary of some kind. Whoever buried her may have removed any other rings but had, perhaps, not known about this one.'

To enable her to pass on the information to Nancy, Lexie made a mental note of the initials then offered her visitor a choice of tea or something stronger to drink, but Roddy pleaded pressure of work and left shortly afterwards. With peace to think, she tried to remember if there had ever been anyone living in the neighbourhood with the initials M.M.McL., but the only two she could think of had to be ruled out. Old Maggie McLennan had died a natural death about fifteen years ago at the age of eighty-three, and Molly McLaren had been killed in one of the air raids on Clydebank during the war. It was a terrible tragedy, for she'd only been eighteen and just started her training as a nurse.

When Lexie called Edinburgh to tell her about the ring, Nancy had important news of her own to pass on. ‘I've just finished speaking to a Mrs Chalmers in Aberdeen, and I'm still all excited. She saw my advert and said she wanted to ask me some questions about it. She wouldn't tell me anything, but she must know your father, or she'd known him at some time. She's coming to see me tomorrow forenoon, and I'll give you a call as soon as she leaves, and let you know what's happened.'

Lexie did not hold out much hope of learning anything from such an unlikely source, but she urged Nancy not to forget to mention the ring that had been found, in case there was some sort of connection.

When Roddy Liddell walked into the shop the following morning, she felt somewhat annoyed – she wouldn't feel free to talk to Nancy if she phoned while he was there – but what he had to tell her left her reeling with shock.

‘We're on to something at long last. I've just heard from Glasgow that a Thomas Birnie has contacted them.'

‘Doctor Birnie?' She could scarcely credit it. ‘But why? He wouldn't know where my father is.'

‘He told them that his wife had run off with another man many years ago, and he'd been shocked when he called at Police Headquarters yesterday to ask about an attaché case which had been stolen from his car, and saw a photograph of this same man on a Missing poster. “Alec Fraser ran off with my wife,” he told the desk sergeant.'

Lexie's gasp was genuine. ‘I don't believe him. He told Nancy and everybody here that his wife went to Stirling to look after her sick mother, and she forced him to give up his practice and move down there to be with her.'

‘Like I suggested once, he was too ashamed to let people know she had left him, and he spun that story when a patient said she hadn't seen his wife for a few weeks.'

Lexie leaned forward so that her midriff was supported by the counter, then looked accusingly at the detective. ‘He'd been pulling the wool over their eyes, the Glasgow police, I mean. Nancy said he could make his lies sound like the gospel truth. Mrs Birnie wasn't the kind to run away with anybody, and no more was my father. They knew each other, of course, she was in his choir, but that was all.'

‘That may have been all anyone knew about, but there could have been more.'

‘No, not here, not in a wee place like this. Whatever anybody does, however much they try to keep it secret, somebody else always gets to know about it.'

She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘D'you know what I think? Nancy said Tom Birnie wasn't pleased at my father for making him admit to fathering her child, so I'm nearly sure this is just a story he's made up to get back at him.'

‘What good would it do Birnie, though?'

‘I don't know, just the satisfaction of blackening my father's character, I suppose. In any case, whatever he said, it hasn't taken you any nearer to finding my Dad, has it?'

Roddy smiled wryly. ‘No, it hasn't.'

He had only been gone from the shop for five minutes when Nancy rang. ‘Take the chair round from the end of the counter,' she ordered. ‘You'll need a seat when I tell you the latest.'

Stretching as far as she could, Lexie managed to hook her toes round a leg of the chair provided for elderly customers and pull it towards her. ‘Right, hurry up and tell me, for I've got something to tell you, and all.'

‘OK. You know that woman from Aberdeen I spoke about? She's Mrs Birnie's sister. She says she didn't know Alec Fraser, but according to Tom, he was the man Margaret ran away with in 1929. She has never heard a word from her since.'

The wind having been taken out of her sails, Lexie mumbled, ‘I still don't believe it.'

‘What d'you mean still? Has somebody else told you the same thing?'

‘Roddy Liddell's been in to tell me the doctor contacted the police in Glasgow and told them that same story, but you said yourself he was a liar.'

‘Oh.' There was a wealth of meaning in the word, then silence.

Lexie waited for a few moments, then said, ‘Are you still there, Nancy?'

‘Yes, I'm thinking, and you're right. I wouldn't trust that two-faced swine supposing he'd a halo and wings – though he's more likely to have horns and a tail. Anyway, Mrs Chalmers gave me her mother's phone number – she was going to Stirling to see her after she left me – so I'll give her a tinkle there in the afternoon and ask if her sister ever divorced Tom. I wouldn't put it past him to have lied to me about her refusing, as well. He could have been free to marry me and never let on … though I'm glad he didn't, as things turned out.'

‘Did you remember to tell Mrs Birnie's sister about the ring and the initials?'

‘Oh, damn! I clean forgot, I was so surprised at what she was telling me. I'll mention it when I phone her at her mother's, though. I'll speak to you later.'

Lexie was kept busy that afternoon and old Mrs Wilkie came in just on six to complain in her best English, ‘All yon biscuits I bocht yesterday was broken, and I'd to crummel them ower my stewed rhubarb. You'll need to replace them … free.'

Fly to all Lizzie's mother's tricks, Lexie said, firmly, ‘If you haven't taken the other packet back, Mattie, I can't replace it, I'm afraid.'

The old woman stamped out in high dudgeon at being refused, and Lexie was locking up for the day when the telephone shrilled. Presuming that Nancy would only be ringing to vent her fury about Tom Birnie, whose wife had probably divorced him and thus left him free to marry whatever paramour he had by that time, Lexie plugged listlessly into the small exchange. Her eardrums were assaulted by the shrill voice.

‘Oh, God, Lexie, I wanted to ring you hours ago, but I knew you wouldn't have peace to listen. I've nearly bitten my fingernails right down to my knuckles waiting till you shut the shop.'

Knowing Nancy well enough by now to realize that she was excitable and prone to exaggeration, Lexie held little hope of hearing anything of importance. ‘If you'd stop yapping,' she said, quietly, ‘you'd be able to tell me now, whatever it is.'

Nancy's voice slid several points down the vocal scale as she held her emotions in check. ‘D'you know what Margaret Birnie's mother's name is?'

‘I've no idea, but I bet you're going to tell me.'

‘She's Mrs Tabitha McLeish.'

‘And …?'

‘She had two daughters – Mary, the oldest one, married a Bill Chalmers, and Margaret married Tom Birnie. Do you get it?'

Lexie felt quite exasperated by this guessing game. ‘Yes, I realize that Mrs Chalmers is Mrs Birnie's sister, and their mother's a Mrs McLeish, but …?'

‘Mrs McLeish's maiden name was Martin, and both daughters have that as a middle name. Mrs Chalmers was once Mary Martin McLeish. Now do you get it?'

‘Mary Martin McLeish?' Lexie repeated it slowly, taking time to consider what it signified, and then light dawned in a blinding flash. ‘Oh, I see now! Mrs Birnie would have been Margaret Martin McLeish! M.M.McL. It's her ring! Her body they found!'

‘The penny's dropped at last! Now, Mrs Chalmers said she would get on to Aberdeen police as soon as she stopped speaking to me, and arrange to go and identify the ring when she got home, which would have been around five. So you can expect a call from your friendly Detective Inspector some time this evening. Look, I'll have to go. Greig'll be home in a few minutes, and I've nothing ready for him to eat. I've been too excited to cook, so it'll be fish and chips, I'm afraid. Give me a tinkle as soon as you can, to let me know what's happening.'

Leaving her telephone exchange ready for other calls, Lexie went through to the house and tried to think how this new development would affect her. If the body did turn out to be Margaret Birnie, it meant that she had never left Forvit at all. She hadn't run away with any other man. The doctor had told lies about that, though he'd pretended it was to save his own face, so … was it possible … had he killed her? He must have!

Lexie was still going over and over this possibility, when Roddy Liddell arrived. ‘I suppose Nancy has told you what was going on?' he asked, plumping down on the vacant armchair. ‘It is … was … Margaret Birnie's ring. Apparently both sisters were given a signet ring on their eighteenth birthday, and according to Mrs Chalmers, Mrs Birnie had to wear hers on the cranny of her right hand when she was older. I believe that whoever killed her had removed her wedding ring, but hadn't known, or had forgotten, about the other one.'

‘She could have lost it herself … how can you be sure it's her body?'

‘Mrs Chalmers told us that her sister had broken her left leg just below the knee and her left arm just above the wrist in a cycling accident when she was about fourteen, and our surgeon has confirmed that it is definitely Margaret's body. All we have to do now, is to pick up the doctor.'

Without warning, a horrible thought struck Lexie. ‘What if it wasn't him?'

Roddy regarded her in some surprise. ‘Who else could it have been?'

Swallowing nervously, she muttered, ‘Suppose she
had
been having an affair with my father and he'd made her pregnant? Suppose he got angry when she told him?'

The detective stretched across the fireplace and patted her hand reassuringly. ‘From what I've heard of him from you and Nancy and other people I've spoken to, he was definitely not an aggressive man.'

‘But, he might have wanted to stop her telling anybody, my mother, or the doctor, and he could have killed her. Then he'd have had to bury her, and he wouldn't have been able to face my mother, and that could be why he disappeared.'

Her visitor sighed deeply. ‘Do you honestly think he had it in him to murder another human being?'

‘He hadn't meant to kill her. He could have given her a push or a shake that knocked her off her feet and she hit her head on a stone, or something like that.' She halted, then shook her head. ‘But if he hadn't meant to kill her, he wouldn't have buried her. He'd have reported it … wouldn't he?'

‘I'm sorry, Lexie, but I must point out that people who kill without premeditation, accidentally or otherwise, become so agitated that all they are concerned with is how to dispose of the body. Once they've left the scene of the crime and can think rationally, they are too scared to go back and own up to it.'

‘But …' Lexie's face puckered up and she held out both arms to the detective as if appealing for comfort.

‘Don't upset yourself, my dear,' he murmured, rising to pull her to her feet and then holding her tenderly. ‘At the moment, we're still guessing, and we can do nothing more until we hear what Doctor Birnie has to say.' He glanced at the clock. ‘I thought I'd have heard by this time. I gave them this number.'

Right on cue, the telephone rang, and dropping one arm, he pulled her through to the shop. She made the connection for him then stood by his side, her eyes following every movement of his lips.

‘What? Oh, no! For God's sake! It proves he did it, though, doesn't it? I take it the heat's on to find him? Let me know as soon as you hear anything.'

‘Birnie's vanished,' he announced as they walked back to the kitchen. ‘His wife says he told her he'd found somebody else, and went out on his round next morning and never came back. She says she doesn't know where he is, but they think the other woman was just a blind and that she's protecting him. Still, it's a good thing for us that he did take off, for it proves he's guilty. We'll find him, don't doubt that, Lexie.'

Her feelings having seesawed so much over the past hour or so, she couldn't hold back a sob of relief. ‘Thank goodness it wasn't my father.'

Liddell's arms went round her again, more purposefully than before. ‘My poor, poor Lexie. I had hoped the case would be finished tonight, everything solved, but …' He lowered his head towards her and brushed her lips with his. ‘I won't rest till Birnie's under lock and key, but I wish I could find your father for you. I'll do all I can to trace him, believe me.'

‘Roddy, you've been so kind …'

Her voice was so tremulous that it came as no surprise to him when she burst into tears, and his arms tightened round her. ‘Let it out, Lexie. It'll do you good.'

He held her until she calmed, and then looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Will you be all right on your own tonight, or would you like me to stay with you?'