Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

  “Well,” she began, “we now know who that unfortunate young man was and where he lived. We know that the police appealed for information.”

  “And that’s it,” said Jamie. “We . . . you don’t know whether they ever found the driver.”

  Isabel conceded that this remained unknown. But now, at least, they had a description of the person who might have been responsible.

  “But what do you do with that?” asked Jamie. “Go to the police? What would you tell them? That somebody else is having visions of a face and here’s a drawing?” He laughed. “You can imagine the reception you’d get.”

  Isabel thought about this. She had not imagined going to the police—just yet. Jamie was right in thinking that it would be difficult to convince them to take her seriously and that they would be unlikely to pursue the matter further; unless, of course, the push came from the family of the victim. If they could be persuaded to do something about it, then the police could hardly refuse a request from them at least to consider Ian’s story.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Jamie. “Why are you doing this, Isabel?” he asked mildly. “What’s the point?”

  She looked at him. It was her duty, was it not? If this was really information about who was responsible for the hit-and-run incident, then surely she had a duty to do something about it—any citizen would have that duty simply because he or she was a citizen. And there was more to it than that. By listening to Ian’s story, she felt that she had been drawn into a moral relationship with him and his situation. Isabel had firm views on moral proximity and the obligations it created. We cannot choose the situations in which we become involved in this life; we are caught up in them whether we like it or not. If one encounters the need of another, because of who one happens to be, or where one happens to find oneself, and one is in a position to help, then one should do so. It was as simple as that.

  She shrugged. “The point is that I have to do this,” she said. “I can’t walk away from it. That driver needs to be called to account. And Ian needs to know why he’s seeing that face. In each case, the solution lies in the uncovering of the truth.”

  Jamie looked at his watch. He had another pupil—this time one who came to his flat in Saxe-Coburg Street on the other side of town, and he would have to leave. But he still wanted to find out what the next step was. Isabel may have been incorrigible in his view—and she was—but he still found everything that she did very interesting.

  “What now?”

  “I go and see the family,” said Isabel.

  “And tell them that you know who might have been responsible for their son’s death?”

  “Probably,” said Isabel. “Although I shall have to be careful about that. One never knows.”

  “I’ve said it before,” warned Jamie. “Just be careful. You can’t go charging into people’s grief, you know.”

  Jamie said that and then stood up. He had not intended to offend Isabel, but he had. She looked down at the table, which was of darkened pine board, with no cloth. It had been a refectory table somewhere, in a school perhaps, and was worn with age. She stared at it.

  Jamie reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, lightly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

  She said nothing. Jamie had made her sound like one of those people who intruded on the sorrow of others; those reporters from the gutter press who hounded the bereaved so that they could get a story or a photograph. It was not like that with her. She did not want to see these people out of curiosity; she did not want to see them at all. Did Jamie not understand that she was acting out of duty? That there were times when you just had to do that? The easiest thing to do would be to forget all about this; to tell Ian that she had been interested in his story but that she could do nothing about these visions of his. Yet that would be to ignore the fact that the family of the young man who had been killed might have a very strong desire to find out who was responsible for the incident. What might they say to her if they knew that she knew something and had not brought it to their attention?

  Jamie sat down again. “Look,” he said. “I have to go. And I’m sorry that I said that. I’ll phone you soon. And I’ll help you do whatever it is that you want to do. Is that all right?”

  “Yes. But you don’t have to.”

  “I know I don’t, Isabel. But you seem . . . Well, let’s just leave it. We’re friends, aren’t we? You help your friends. That’s just the way it is. Sometimes I wish you were . . . a bit different, but you aren’t.” He stood up again, picking up his bassoon case as he did. “And I actually rather like you the way you are, you know?”

  Isabel looked up at him. “Thank you,” she said. “You’ve been a very good friend to me.”

  He left, turning round and waving to her as he went out of the front door. She returned his wave and then, after treating herself to a Danish pastry and a quick cup of coffee, she left too. Outside, at the end of George IV Bridge, where the road sloped down to the Grassmarket, a small group of tourists stood about the statue of the small Scottish terrier, Greyfriars Bobby. Isabel walked past them slowly and heard the guide intone: “This statue commemorates the loyalty of a dog who sat by his master’s grave in the Greyfriars Kirkyard for fourteen years. He never left his post.”

  She saw the expression on the face of one of the members of the group as he heard this. She saw him lean forward, shaking his head in disbelief. But such loyalty did exist, and not just amongst dogs. People stuck by others for years and years, in the face of all the odds, and it should be relief, not disbelief, that one felt on witnessing it. Jamie was loyal, she thought. There he was remaining devoted to Cat, even when there was no hope. It was touching, in a way—rather like the story of Greyfriars Bobby. Perhaps there should be a statue of Jamie somewhere in Bruntsfield. This young man stood outside his former girlfriend’s delicatessen for fourteen years, the inscription might state. Isabel smiled at the ridiculous idea. One should not smile about such things, she thought, but what was the alternative? To be miserable?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE HAD NOT INTENDED to visit the house in Nile Grove until a few days later, but after an evening of thinking about it, she decided that she would go the next morning. It would be difficult to explain over the phone what she had in mind. That would be difficult enough to do face-to-face, but still easier, she thought.

  Nile Grove was a Victorian terrace, built in honey-coloured stone that had turned light grey with the passage of time. It was an attractive street, a number of the houses having ornamentation on their façades. Small, well-kept gardens separated the fronts of the houses from the street, and on many of the houses creepers, ivy or clematis, climbed up beside the high sash windows. It was an expensive street; a quiet place to live; a street untroubled by commerce or passers-by. It was not, thought Isabel, a street through which one would imagine a reckless motorist careering; nor one which would host the tragedy of Rory Macleod’s death.

  Isabel found the house and opened the small painted ironwork gate that led to the front path. A few moments later she was standing outside the front door. There was a bell pull—one of the old-fashioned ones—connected to a wire that caused a tinkling sound somewhere deep inside the house, just audible from without. Isabel pulled this and then waited. She had no idea if anybody was in, and after a minute or so she felt inclined to walk back up the path and give up—with some relief—the idea of seeing the Macleod family. But then the door was suddenly opened and a woman stood before her.

  Isabel looked at the woman. This was the Rose Macleod who had been mentioned in the Evening News. She was a bit older than Isabel—perhaps very late forties—and was wearing a rather shapeless shift in light blue. The face was an alert, intelligent one, a face that was immediately striking and which once would have been described as beautiful. While much of the beauty, in the conventional sense, might have been lost, there remained a quality of peacefulness and calm. This was the face of a musician, perh
aps; a violinist, Isabel guessed.

  “Yes? What can I do for you?” Rose Macleod’s voice was very much as Isabel had imagined it would be: quiet, with the slight burr of south Edinburgh.

  “Mrs. Macleod?” Isabel asked.

  Rose Macleod nodded, and smiled uncertainly at her visitor.

  “My name is Isabel Dalhousie,” said Isabel. “I live round the corner—or farther down, actually. In Merchiston.” She paused. “I suppose I’m a sort of neighbour.”

  Rose Macleod smiled. “I see.” She hesitated for a moment. Then, “Would you care to come in?”

  Isabel followed her into the hall and through a door that led into a downstairs living room. It was a comfortable room, on the street side of the house, with bookshelves up one wall. It was typical, Isabel thought, of the rooms one would find in any of the houses along Nile Grove: a room which spoke to the solid, educated taste of the neighbourhood. Above the ornate Edwardian fireplace, with its fin de siècle painted tiles, was a painting of a young man’s face in the style of Stephen Mangan—flat, almost one-dimensional, slightly haunting. A pair of Chinese bowls, famille rose, stood on the mantelpiece.

  Isabel was pleased that Rose Macleod had invited her in. It seemed trusting, these days, to ask a stranger in, but it was still done in Edinburgh, or parts of Edinburgh at least. She took a seat on a small tub chair near the fireplace.

  “I’m sorry to descend on you like this,” Isabel began. “We haven’t met, of course, but I know about . . . about your son. I’m so sorry.”

  Rose inclined her head slightly. “Thank you. That was some months ago, as you know, but . . . but it still seems very recent.”

  “Do you have other children?” asked Isabel.

  Rose nodded. “We had three sons. Rory was the oldest. The other two are away at university. One in Glasgow. One in Aberdeen. Both studying engineering.” She paused, appraising Isabel with piercing blue eyes. “I lost my husband some years ago. He was an engineer too.”

  There was silence. Isabel had clasped her hands together and felt the bony outline of her knuckles. Rose looked at her expectantly.

  “The reason why I came to see you,” Isabel began, “is to do with the accident. I was wondering whether the police had made any progress. I saw something in the Evening News—something in which they called for witnesses. Did anybody turn up?”

  Rose looked away. “No,” she said. “Not a squeak. Nothing. The police have said now that although the case remains technically open, it’s very unlikely that they will get anything further to go on.” She reached out and took a coaster from a table beside her chair and fiddled with it. “What they’re effectively saying is that we shouldn’t expect them ever to come up with an answer as to what happened. That’s more or less it.”

  “That must be difficult for you,” said Isabel. “Not knowing.”

  Rose put the coaster down on the table. “Of course it is. It leaves things up in the air—unresolved.” She paused and looked at Isabel again. “But, may I ask, why have you come to see me about this? Do you know something, Mrs. . . . Mrs. Dalhousie?”

  “Miss,” said Isabel. “No, I don’t know anything definite, I’m afraid, but I might have some information which could have a bearing on the incident. It’s just possible.”

  The effect of this on Rose was immediate. Suddenly she was tense, and she leant forward in her chair. “Please tell me what it is,” she said quietly. “Even if you think that it’s unimportant. Please tell me.”

  Isabel was about to begin. She had worked out what she was going to say, which would effectively be the story of her meeting with Ian and the story that he had told her. She was not going to say much about the other case—the case which Ian had told her about—but would be prepared to say something about that if Rose appeared unduly sceptical.

  She started to speak. “I met a man completely by chance . . .”

  Outside the room there was the sound of a door opening. Rose raised a hand to stop Isabel.

  “Graeme,” she said. “My partner. Could you hold on a moment? I’d like him to hear what you have to say.”

  She rose from the chair and opened the living-room door, which she had closed behind her when they had entered the room. Isabel heard her say something to somebody outside, and then a man entered. He was a tall man, about the same age as Rose. Isabel looked at him. She saw the high brow, with the scar, and the eyes, which were hooded, markedly so. And she knew, immediately and with utter certainty, that this was the man whose face had appeared to Ian.

  She took the hand which was proffered to her and shook it. The act of introduction, the formality of the handshake, at least gave her some time to think, and her mind raced through the possibilities. She could hardly go ahead and say what she had proposed saying now that Graeme had come in. She could hardly sit there and give a description of the man on the other side of the room. Nor could she suddenly claim that she had forgotten what she was going to say.

  For some inexplicable reason, Grace came to her mind, and Isabel knew what she would say. As Rose explained to Graeme that Isabel had come with some information, she refined her story. She would keep Ian out of this now, and would claim the vision herself.

  “I know you’ll think this rather ridiculous,” she said. “People often do. I’m a medium, you see.”

  She saw Graeme glance at Rose. He does think it’s ridiculous, thought Isabel. Good. But Rose declined his look of complicity. “I don’t think that,” she said softly. “The police have often used mediums. I’ve read about it. They can be quite useful.”

  Graeme pursed his lips. He clearly did not think so. But was he anxious? Isabel wondered. If he was the hit-and-run driver, would he be anxious about some eccentric medium coming up with something which might just throw suspicion upon him? And why, she asked, would he have left Rory in the street if he had knocked him down inadvertently? The answer occurred to her immediately. If he had been driving under the influence of alcohol at the time, then running somebody over could lead to a ten-year jail sentence. Everybody knew that. Of course one would panic in such circumstances.

  “Please tell us,” Rose said imploringly. “Please tell us what you’ve seen.”

  Isabel studied her hands. “I saw a man driving a car down a road,” she said. “And then I saw a young man walk out in front of the car and get knocked down. The man stopped the car and got out. I saw him bending over the young man. I saw that the man in the car was shortish, slightly chubby in fact, and had fair hair. That’s what I saw.”

  Isabel looked up from the study of her hands. She saw that Graeme, who had been standing when she began to talk, was now sitting down. He seemed to have relaxed, and was looking at Rose with a smile on his lips.

  “You don’t believe me, Mr. . . .”

  “Forbes,” he supplied. “No, please don’t be offended. I just don’t see how these things can work. I’m sorry. No disrespect intended to your . . . your calling.”

  “That’s fair enough,” said Isabel, rising to her feet. “I wouldn’t wish to impose my vision on those who do not want to receive it. That’s not the way we work. Please forgive me.”

  Rose was quick to get to her feet too. She took a step forward and reached out for Isabel’s hand.

  “I appreciate your having come to see us,” she said. “I really do. And I can pass on what you’ve said to the police. I promise you that.”

  Isabel now wanted nothing more than to leave. Graeme’s arrival had disturbed her greatly, and the subterfuge to which she had then resorted had hardly improved the situation. It was a serious matter to deceive a bereaved mother in this way, she felt, even if she had not had much alternative in the circumstances.

  “Please don’t feel that you have to go right away,” said Rose. “I haven’t offered you anything yet. What about a cup of tea? Or coffee?”

  “You’re very kind,” said Isabel. “But I’ve taken up enough of your time already. I don’t think I should have come in the first place.”

/>   “Of course you should have come,” Rose said quickly. “I’m glad you did, you know. I’m really glad you did.” She stopped, and then, releasing Isabel’s hand, she asked, through tears, “Did you see . . . did you see my son’s face in this dream of yours? Did he come to you?”

  Isabel took a deep breath. She had intervened in the life of this woman without being asked. And now she had compounded the potential harm by leading her to believe that she had seen her son. What had been intended as a quick response to an unexpected development—a story designed not to be taken seriously—had touched this woman in an unexpectedly profound way.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t really see his face. He didn’t speak to me. I’m sorry.”

  Graeme had now got up from his chair and had placed a protective arm round Rose’s shoulder. He glared at Isabel.

  “Please leave this house,” he said, the anger rising in his voice. “Please leave now.”

  ISABEL WENT THAT AFTERNOON to Jamie’s flat in Saxe-Coburg Street. She had returned home after her visit to the house in Nile Grove, but had been unable to settle. Grace had sensed that something was wrong, and had asked if she was all right. Isabel would have liked to have spoken to Grace, but could not. What prevented her was embarrassment over the ridiculous claim that she had made, the claim that she was a medium. She came out of that rather badly, she thought, even if it had been a lie dreamt up to deal with a totally unexpected situation. So she reassured Grace that nothing was amiss—another lie, although a very common one—and decided instead to see Jamie as soon as possible: that afternoon, in fact.

  It was one of Jamie’s afternoons for teaching in his flat. Isabel knew that he did not like to be disturbed while teaching, but this was an extraordinary situation that called for extraordinary action. So she crossed town on foot, walking down Dundas Street and stopping briefly at the galleries to pass the time before Jamie might be expected to be on his last pupil. There was nothing to interest her in the gallery windows, and nothing inside either; she was too uneasy to appreciate art.