CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BEA ANSWERED the telephone breathlessly. “I can’t talk for long, Isabel,” she said. “I have sixteen people coming to dinner—sixteen!—and I haven’t done a thing yet. I’ve got hardly any of the stuff I need, and I’ll have to go to Mellis for some cheese and then…”

At the other end of the line, Isabel gave a silent sigh. “And I’m about to add to your list.”

This was greeted with silence.

“I’d like to meet you for coffee,” said Isabel. “We’d need fifteen minutes—no more.”

Bea struggled. She was, as she had explained, extremely busy, but as a socialite in her inmost being, she had very rarely, if ever, turned down an invitation. “It’s not the best of days for that…”

“I know,” said Isabel. “But a break will help you to catch your breath.

“Oh, all right. But where?”

Isabel asked her whether she needed to go to the fishmonger, and Bea replied that she did. “I’m planning scallops for the first course, and I haven’t checked up to see whether anybody’s got them in. What am I going to do if there aren’t any? I’ll have to think of something else for the starter, and I’m having sixteen people in—did I tell you that? Sixteen.”

“Take a deep breath, Bea,” said Isabel. She remembered how when they were at school together, there was a gym mistress, Miss Gilchrist, who told them to take a deep breath before they did anything. “Anything at all, girls—take a deep breath before you attempt it.”

One of the girls in the back, a sultry girl called Frances McMannion, sniggered, as she often did.

“And you, Frances McMannion,” the teacher responded, “can go and stand in the corridor until the end of gym, and while you are there, you may contemplate what a disgrace you are to Edinburgh.”

A disgrace to Edinburgh…it was Miss Gilchrist’s strongest condemnation, a reproach reserved for a few fitting targets: from the lazy, who put insufficient effort into vaulting, or whose efforts on the ropes and bars were desultory; to the sloppy, who tucked in their blouses without due care; to those who walked rather than ran the cross-country course, hoping not to be noticed; to those who were caught smoking or arranging clandestine meetings with boys. It went without saying that most boys were, in Miss Gilchrist’s eyes, a disgrace to Edinburgh unless proven otherwise.

Bea said, “Take a deep breath…Now who said that? Miss Gilchrist, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” replied Isabel. “So, how about eleven o’clock? At the deli? You can go to Hughes the fishmonger beforehand. He’ll have scallops, and it’s just a few doors down the road. You can kill two birds with one stone.”

“What’s it about?” asked Bea.

“Connie,” said Isabel.

“Oh no,” said Bea. “I’d forgotten all about her.”

“You haven’t been worrying? I thought you were worried sick.”

“Oh, I was worried sick, but then you know how it is, you go on to the next thing to worry about.”

Isabel struggled with her feelings of resentment. Bea, it seemed, had simply transferred her anxiety onto Isabel’s shoulders. As she rang off, she wondered whether she would say anything to Bea about that. It was tempting, but she decided against it. Reproach and censure were powerful weapons, and should only be used when there was no alternative, as their effect could so easily be to cut the ties of good will that kept people together. A relationship that had taken years to establish, built up through a thousand acts of encouragement and support, could be irretrievably damaged in an instant by an unduly harsh word.

When Isabel arrived at the delicatessen, fifteen minutes before the time arranged for her meeting with Bea, she was greeted by Eddie.

“Cat and her new friend have gone off for coffee elsewhere,” he said. “Our coffee’s obviously not good enough for Miss Pi…” He stopped himself. “I mean for Peg.”

Isabel ignored this. “I’m meeting somebody at eleven. I can give you a hand until then if you like.”

“I’ll be all right,” said Eddie. “It’s very quiet. I’ll make coffee when your friend comes in.”

She sat down at the table with a copy of that day’s Scotsman. There was an article about research that had rehabilitated eggs: we could eat them again, she read. Not only that, but if we ate several eggs a week, our risk of a range of conditions would diminish significantly. She glanced up at Eddie.

“Eggs are good for you, Eddie,” she said.

“You can choke on an egg,” he said. “I knew somebody who did that. And I knew somebody who swallowed an olive the wrong way. It went into his lung, and they said it was too dangerous to remove. He still has it. I’m always very careful with olives.”

“Oh well, everything has its dangers, I suppose.”

“I knew somebody who ate too many green olives,” Eddie continued. “He really loved them. He ate jars and jars of them. He turned a sort of green colour—I saw him. He was actually green.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He went to live in Glasgow, I think,” said Eddie.

Isabel looked at Eddie. It was a very odd thing, she thought: Eddie inhabited a slightly different universe. It was one populated by people who choked on eggs and turned green through eating too many olives; it was one that was full of strange beliefs, half-truths and the occasional superstition. It was not dissimilar, in a way, to Grace’s world, with its pillars of spiritualism and the belief that just beyond this world there was a dimension—the other side, as she called it—to which we would all in due course cross over and busy ourselves with sending enigmatic messages to people still on this side. What united Grace and Eddie? Was it a lack of formal education? Eddie had not distinguished himself at school and had left at the age of seventeen, as far as Isabel had been able to establish. He was literate and numerate, but he had had very little exposure to history or science, and his geographical knowledge was shaky, to say the least. Isabel had mentioned Malta in the course of a conversation a few weeks ago—it had to do with an order of Maltese olive oil, as it happened—and it had been apparent that Eddie thought Malta was in the Caribbean. But then there were probably many people who thought Malta was in the Caribbean, and indeed many who had never heard of it, who thought it was a hot milky drink or even an illness. People came down with Malta; they were healthy enough, and then they got Malta—such a pity.

Not being able to locate Malta, of course, was not Eddie’s fault. That was the schools, thought Isabel. It seemed to her that they taught less and less. Children were not taught to recite poetry, or learn capital cities, or commit to memory the names of the principal rivers of the world. How could people sit through years of education and at the end of it know practically nothing? One in five Britons, she had read, were functionally illiterate. This meant that they had difficulty reading the instructions on a medicine bottle—and that could be as dangerous as swallowing an olive the wrong way.

“What are you smiling at?” Eddie asked from across the room.

“I was thinking about olives,” said Isabel.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re very odd, Isabel. You know that? You’re very odd.”

She wanted to say: That’s exactly what I think of you, but did not.

Eddie took off his apron and came to join her at her table. Leaning forward, he whispered, “I know it’s got nothing to do with me—like you said the other day. I know it’s none of my business, but I think that Cat’s gone off her rocker.”

Isabel glanced in the direction of the closed office door. “Why do you think that, Eddie?”

His eyes brightened at the prospect of disclosing the secret. “I’ll tell you. The other day I was stacking that shelf over there—the one near her door. I wasn’t eavesdropping—I swear I wasn’t—but I couldn’t help hearing what they were talking about. Cat was reading something to her and every so often she—that’s Peg—said, ‘Oh, that’s so true,’ and things like that.

“Okay, so I thought, Well, they’re sitting in there looking into one another’s eyes, and it’s none of my business, like you said. So I didn’t do anything, but when they went out at lunchtime, I went into the office just to have a look around. I found the book they were reading, and it was really weird. It was called The Prophet, by somebody with a really odd name—Cowhill Gibron, or something like that.”

“Kahlil Gibran,” said Isabel. “He was a Lebanese mystic. People used to love reading him.”

“Maybe, but why sit around and read it to your friend? Don’t you think that’s odd?” He tapped the side of his head. “Don’t you think it’s mental?”

“No, I don’t, Eddie. I think that people have different tastes. There are some people who like reading Lebanese mystics to other people. It’s just the way they are.”

He looked at her incredulously. “She used to read trade catalogues. She used to read those all the time. Articles about cheese and cured meat and so on. Now it’s this Kahlil character.”

“Well, perhaps that represents progress.”

“I think she’s in love with her. I think Cat’s gone nuts over her. That’s what I think, Isabel.” He seemed slightly surprised by his own directness, and blushed.

Isabel looked down at the floor. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe they’ve found one another, and if they have, then I’m pleased.”

“I’m not,” said Eddie.

“You’re not pleased that Cat’s happy?”

Eddie defended himself. “I didn’t say that.”

“Is it because you don’t want her to be happy in that way? Is that it?”

Eddie replied with a sullen look.

“Because if that’s the way you feel,” Isabel went on, “then you’re wrong, Eddie. People have to be happy in the way they want to be happy. We can’t set out the conditions of their happiness.”

Eddie was on the point of answering this when the main door of the shop opened and Bea appeared. She was carrying several large shopping bags, which bulged under their load, and she looked flustered.

“Your friend,” said Eddie. “I’ll make coffee for both of you.”

“We can talk later, Eddie,” said Isabel. “You and I can talk later.”

“Don’t tell me to take a deep breath,” said Bea, as she took her place at the table. “Just don’t. In eight and a half hours sixteen people—sixteen!—are going to turn up for a meal that I haven’t even started to prepare.”

“I shan’t,” said Isabel. “All I shall say is that I’m sure you’ll be ready in time—as you always are. You were never…” She paused to allow for greater effect for her next pronouncement. “You were never a disgrace to Edinburgh.”

Bea’s mouth dropped open, and then broke into a smile. “She said that, didn’t she? She was always saying that. ‘You’re a disgrace to Edinburgh!’ ”

“Yes, I hadn’t thought about it for years until earlier this morning, when I told you to take a deep breath.”

“Well I did,” said Bea. “And now I’m here.” She glanced at her watch. “But I’ll have to watch the time. This is about Connie, isn’t it? Connie and that MacUspaig man.”

Isabel nodded. “Connie is not in any danger,” she said. “You can stop worrying about her.”

Bea frowned. “Are you sure?”

Isabel explained about her visits to Andrea and Tricia. “Both of them had nothing but praise for Tony MacUspaig. Only one of them had an affair with him—that was Andrea. Tricia said that she and he were just good friends.”

“And the money? What about the money they gave him?”

“A donation in one case—for his clinic in Morocco. And in the other case, it was a payment for a painting—a Peploe, properly valued and all above board. The money for that was also going to the clinic.”

“I’m going to take another deep breath,” said Bea. “There. That’s it. Are you sure about this?”

“As sure as I can be,” said Isabel. “I’ve already made some enquiries to check up on what I heard.”

“How did you do that?”

“I asked a couple of questions—just to make doubly sure that Tony MacUspaig was doing what he claimed to be doing. I checked with the charity regulator. And he does have a registered charity that runs a clinic in Morocco. They file accounts with the charities office—and the accounts are all in order.” She paused. “And I checked, too, that the Peploe he sold was the real thing. I spoke to Guy Peploe himself, who confirmed it. He gave me the details of when his grandfather had painted it and who had owned it. The painting definitely has its papers.”

“You’ve been very thorough,” said Bea.

“It’s better that way,” said Isabel. “And so at the end of the day there seems to be no evidence—nothing at all—to suggest that Tony MacUspaig is anything other than a rather kind plastic surgeon who gives his time to helping children with hare-lips in places where that help is needed. Nobody has a bad word for him, it seems, except…”

They both uttered the name at the same time: “Rob McLaren.”

“Why?” asked Bea.

“Why did Rob make the accusation?”

“Yes,” said Bea. “Why was he so specific? It wasn’t as if he was just passing on tittle-tattle—he made it unambiguous. He presented it all as fact.”

“People can do that,” said Isabel. “They can treat surmise as certainty. They can fail to mention a lack of proof. They can promote speculation to fact.”

Bea was unconvinced. “I still don’t see why he’d be so firm.”

Isabel was thinking. “Did Rob know Connie before that dinner party of yours? Or did they meet there?”

Eddie delivered coffee, and then returned to the counter. Bea thanked him and reached for her cup. “Let me think…Yes, I think she did. In fact, now that I come to think of it, she said something about him. What was it?”

Isabel waited. Bea took another sip of her coffee. “I could phone her,” she said. “I could phone her right now and ask.”

Isabel thought this a good idea. “Just ask her whether she knows much about him.”

Bea extracted her phone from her bag and dialled a number. Connie did not take long to answer.

“Connie,” said Bea. “Just a quick question. I’ve got sixteen people coming for dinner this evening—sixteen!—and I have to get back. But I’m sitting here with Isabel Dalhousie, and I was telling her about Rob McLaren. I seem to recollect that you said something about him to me, but I can’t remember what it was. Was it about how well you know him? Something like that?”

Isabel could not make out what was being said at the other end of the line. But she did hear what Bea said next, which was, “That’s very interesting, isn’t it?”

There was a further tinny indistinguishable sound. Isabel had always thought that the sound of a distant caller on another person’s mobile phone was the sound that ants would make if they talked. Then Bea brought the conversation to an end, rang off and replaced the phone in her bag.

“That was very revealing,” she said. “Would you like to hear about it?”

“Of course,” said Isabel.

“Apparently Rob has had a thing for Connie for some time. At first she encouraged him, and then she went off the idea because she thought he was a gold-digger. He kept asking her about her investments. She didn’t like it.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, and she feels that he still hasn’t given up. She keeps away from him, but she thinks he still feels he has some sort of chance.”

Isabel sat back in her chair. Of course, of course! When we criticise the behaviour of others, we often accuse them of doing the things that we ourselves do or would like to do. So if Rob accused Tony MacUspaig of being interested in other people’s money, it was because that was exactly what he himself was interested in. And then she remembered her own conversation with Rob over lunch in the Café St. Honoré; his interest in her financial affairs had been revealed by his prying into her funding of the Review. She had felt at the time that his questions were perhaps a bit personal, but she had not put two and two together. Now she had.

Isabel explained her theory to Bea, who nodded as she spoke. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? We should have seen it.”

“Well, we didn’t,” said Isabel. “And now the question is: Do we have to do something about it?”

“I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“Is he dangerous?” asked Isabel.

“I don’t think so. He’s been a bit persistent with Connie, perhaps, and he’s tried to sabotage Tony’s relationship with her. Is that dangerous behaviour?”

“Yes,” said Isabel. “It could have harmed Tony. It could have been very upsetting for Connie.”

“So what do we do?”

“We tell him,” said Isabel. “We tell him that what he said was not only wrong but was actually potentially harmful. My impression is that he’ll slink away. I don’t think he’ll cause any further trouble, especially if he knows that people know what he’s been up to. I get the impression that he’s a rather sensitive, unhappy man underneath. He’ll learn his lesson.”

“Poor Rob,” mused Bea. “You know, I think he’d make a good husband for somebody—when all is said and done.”

“Don’t,” said Isabel.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t matchmake for him.”

Bea laughed. “You think not?”

“Definitely not.”

But Bea had further ideas. “What if I matched him up with somebody who had very little money,” she said. “Then, if he fell for her, even in spite of her indigent circumstances, we’d know that it was real love, not cupidity.”

“Leave that to Cupid,” said Isabel.

They both laughed.

Eddie watched them from the counter. “Laughing over nothing,” he said to himself. “Listen to them.”

—

IT WAS TEMPTING to put off a further meeting with Rob, or even to leave it to Bea to speak to him, but she did not. Immediately after Bea had left the delicatessen, Isabel telephoned him and announced that she was coming to see him. He had tried to put her off, saying that he was about to go out, but she brushed his objection aside.

“I’ll take no more than ten or fifteen minutes of your time,” she said firmly. “And this is something that can’t wait.”

He did not live far away—in a street behind the Dominion Cinema—and she was there within twenty minutes of making the telephone call. He looked anxious as he let her into his flat, and she imagined that he knew exactly why she was there.

“I have to talk very frankly to you,” she began, as they sat down in his living room.

He was staring down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know why you’re here, and I’m sorry.”

He did not meet her gaze, and she understood that he was ashamed.

“Why did you do it, Rob?”

He looked up and their eyes met, but only for a moment.

“Desperation,” he said.

“Emotional desperation?” she asked. “Or financial?”

This stung him into a response. “Not financial. Definitely not financial.”

“Are you sure?”

He had been slouched in his seat—now he drew himself up. “Yes, of course I’m sure. Did you think that…” He seemed wounded, and it seemed to Isabel that he was telling the truth.

“It crossed my mind,” she said.

“That I’m a gold-digger?”

She hesitated. “Frankly, yes.”

“Well, I’m not. I’m comfortably enough off. I don’t need anybody else’s money.”

She made a gesture of acceptance. “Then why?”

“Because I fell in love with Connie, and that man took her away.”

Isabel was silent for a moment. “You need to take a more mature view of these things, Rob. And that man, as you call him, Tony MacUspaig, could have been harmed by what you did. In fact, he was harmed—his reputation was called into question.”

Rob shook his head. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Well, you did. But it’s going to end, isn’t it?”

He nodded miserably.

“You’ll meet somebody,” said Isabel. “Look at yourself. You’re a very attractive man. You’re intelligent. You’re a good listener.”

He was staring at her in what seemed like incomprehension. “Me? Attractive?”

“Of course you are.”

She remembered their lunch. “Though that doesn’t mean anything to me,” she said hurriedly. “But there are plenty of women who would be very pleased to go out with you.”

Isabel watched him. It was almost unbelievable, but there were people who slipped through the net; people who had never had anything nice said about them, and Rob, she decided, was one of those. It was perfectly possible that nobody had ever said anything to make him feel good about himself, and now this inconsequential remark on her part seemed to be having a profound effect on him.

“I’m not just saying this, Rob,” she told him. “I mean it.”

His eyes said everything that had to be said, she decided, and so she stood up to leave.

He saw her out wordlessly, and she began to walk back to the house. That had not been too hard, and she was glad that it was done. In fact, she was glad that the whole matter was now safely settled. It crossed her mind that she could have avoided everything by simply not getting involved in the first place—but had that option really been available to her? She had applied her own test to the issue of involvement in this case—the moral proximity test—and it had pointed to a duty to intervene. But perhaps the test itself needed calibration, because whenever she applied it, she tended to get the same answer—that she should get involved. She would have to think about this further before she did anything the next time…and then she thought, Why should I assume there’s going to be a next time? She answered her own question: there would be a next time because of something that John Donne had famously said about being an island and she was the way she was and the world was the way it was. That was an end to the matter; it just was.

—

SHE AND JAMIE shared the cooking that evening. With Charlie and Magnus safely in bed, Isabel searched her recipe books for something suitable. She leafed through Delia Smith and her mother’s copy of Julia Child. She consulted Jamie Oliver and Elizabeth David, and eventually decided on a cheese soufflé. Jamie would make a starter—a rather complicated terrine involving tomatoes and chopped olives.

They sat at the kitchen table together, two glasses of wine in front of them, the recipe books spread out over the scrubbed pine surface.

“Eddie was going on about olives this morning,” said Isabel.

“Oh yes?”

“He said that he knew of somebody who’d turned green by eating too many olives.”

Jamie laughed. “Eddie has an imagination. And he believes everything he hears. He really does.” He took a sip of his wine. “I went to the doctor this morning, by the way.”

Isabel held her breath. “And?”

“And it’s not gout.”

She exhaled. “Oh, Jamie—that’s wonderful.” And then she asked. “What is it then?”

“He thinks I may have broken a bone in the toe. He says that can happen. The problem was that I told him I hadn’t injured it at all. That’s why he didn’t suggest an X-ray.”

“Good. That’s such good news. I never thought it was gout; I just didn’t.”

“The blood tests,” Jamie continued, “showed that my uric acid levels are quite normal. Apparently if you’re prone to gout, they’ll be higher.”

“So that’s it?”

“That’s it. Everything is back to normal.” He paused. “You know, I felt quite euphoric on the way back from the doctor, and I did something rather odd.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Treated yourself to something?”

“Yes, I suppose you could call it that. I went into the Camera Obscura, near the castle. I hadn’t been there since I was about seven.”

She imagined the seven-year-old Jamie. “I wish I’d known you then.”

“And I watched the show. I watched the whole town being projected into the table in the middle. Our city. It gave a wonderful view…”

“A distant view of everything?”

“Yes.”

She thought for a moment. “That’s what we need.”

Neither spoke for a few minutes. Then Isabel said, “I was in the deli this morning. I had two important chats. One with Bea and one with Eddie.”

“Have you sorted out the business of that chap—what’s his name—the one with the odd surname?”

“MacUspaig. Yes. All sorted.”

“And he’s not after that woman’s money?”

“No, he’s not. In fact, he’s the opposite of what I thought he was. He’s a good man.”

“Oh well, that’s a relief.”

“But there’s something going on with Cat,” said Isabel.

Jamie shrugged. “There’s always something going on with Cat. She’s one of these people who attract things.”

Isabel struggled to put her question delicately. Jamie and Cat had been together—years ago—although the relationship had not lasted long. Isabel had never discussed this, and had certainly never quizzed Jamie on what had happened between them. She did not intend to start now. But the new situation could hardly be ignored; sooner or later Jamie would hear something and would be surprised if Isabel had not mentioned it to him.

“Do you think it possible that Cat is not all that interested in men?” she asked.

Jamie looked surprised. “Cat? Not interested in men? No, the opposite. I think Cat is seriously interested in men. I think men are her hobby.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred per cent.”

“You see,” Isabel continued, “she has a new assistant. She’s a girl called Peg.”

“Oh her,” said Jamie. “I know about her.”

“You’ve met her?”

“Yes. Once or twice.”

“Cat wouldn’t tell me where she met her,” said Isabel. “And nor would she.”

“Peg wouldn’t?”

“No, they both were deliberately vague. So I assumed that it was online. Perhaps on a dating site.”

Jamie gave a start. “What?”

“On a dating site. You know how it is. Everybody seems to meet these days on a dating site. It’s how people find their partners.”

Jamie tossed his head back and let out a peal of laughter. “No, no, no…You’ve got it all wrong, Isabel. Cat met her in prison. She told me.”

“Cat was in prison?”

“No…well, yes, in a sense. Cat’s been doing prison visiting. It’s her good work. I knew about it because a flautist I know does it too. She met Cat at an induction course for new prison visitors. They help prisoners with their education, with problems of various sorts—it’s pretty useful if you’re in the jug.”

“Why was Peg in prison?”

“Cat said it was something to do with drugs. She did three months. Often users supply other people, and that gets them into trouble. But Peg, apparently, is clean now and is enrolled on all sorts of support schemes. I saw Cat the other day, and she told me all this. She’s proud of what she’s been doing for her. She’s really proud. They’ve been reading things together, and Cat has been helping her do some sort of life-review book that will help her to see her life in perspective. Apparently Peg’s really talented, but just got mixed up in the wrong, druggy crowd.”

“So they’re not lovers?”

Jamie laughed again. “It would be simpler if they were, I think. Cat’s had so much trouble with men that it would somehow simplify matters if she found out that men weren’t for her after all. But I’m afraid they are.”

Isabel wondered why Cat had not told her about this, but perhaps she had wanted to keep it to herself. Then Isabel thought of something else. “Could you go and explain all this to Eddie? You know what he’s like. He listens to you. You could explain things to him and get him to be a bit…a bit kinder.”

Jamie said he would try.

“And now I’m going to start on the soufflé. How long will your terrine take?”

“Forty minutes,” said Jamie. “If I start right now.”

“So I shall sit here while you do that. I shall sit here and think. Then I’ll start the soufflé.”

“Timing is all when it comes to soufflés,” said Jamie.

“And to so many other things in life,” observed Isabel.

She watched him as he chopped olives. There is nobody else in the world I would like to watch chopping olives more than you, she thought. My beautiful man. My kind man. My friend. My lover.

She allowed her gaze to drift—to drift out of the window, to the garden, where the evening sun had touched the wall, the tops of the rhododendrons, the ornamental giant thistles, with gold, with gold. Her other friend, the vulpine one, the cunning one, had appeared on the top of the wall, and he, too, was bathed in the golden light of evening. He raised his nose into the air, as if picking up a scent—and then, quite unexpectedly, he did a somersault off the wall, to land, perfectly, on his feet on the ground below. “Bravo,” whispered Isabel. “Bravo.”