25

Janet hesitated before unlocking the shop’s front door, but only because she wasn’t up for listening to Ian. On the other hand, Hobbs didn’t know if Ian had been involved in the arrest, and if he had, they just might hear details before the constable did. Also, it was time for Yon Bonnie Books to be open. Summer said she would open the tearoom so Christine could stay to hear what brought Ian so painfully to their door.

“Morning, Ian,” Janet said. “What have you done to your ankle?”

“Twisted it.” He limped to the counter. “Doing my duty.”

“What duty would that be?” Tallie asked.

Ian glanced around. “Are there customers?”

“You just saw me unlock the door,” Janet said.

“They might have come through from the tearoom.”

“I’ll check.” Tallie made a quick circuit of the shop and came back. “Clear. What duty?”

“The apprehension and arrest of Lynsey Maclennan for the murders of Malcolm and Gerald Murray and her own husband. The crime specialists and I joined forces last night. I sustained an injury, but I’m not in too much pain, I’m happy to report. She used you, by the way, the night she came to your house. Creating a sympathetic audience.”

Janet wanted to wipe the smugness from his face and the condescension from his voice. Christine opened her mouth but closed it again, and her fingers curled into fists.

“She couldn’t have done it without an accomplice,” Tallie said. “Not possibly.”

“Her husband,” Ian said. “She killed him when she found out he’d talked to Gerald, and then she took care of Gerald. We were ahead of you on that, too.”

“We weren’t in a competition, Ian,” Janet said. “This has never been a game.”

Summer alerted the other three to the official statement when it was released later that morning. It told them nothing beyond Ian’s news. It made no mention of the police being assisted by a bestselling crime writer. Even that official snub of Ian’s role didn’t lighten the mood in the bookshop or tearoom.

During a lull in business after lunch, Isla called Janet. “You’ve heard? About Lynsey?”

“Yes. It’s awful. I’m stunned.”

“I couldn’t comprehend it at first. Rhona’s shattered.”

“How are you doing, Isla?”

“I don’t want to believe it, but I think I do. Rhona’s shattered. Did I tell you that? It’s hard to keep it all straight. But that’s why I called. To tie up loose ends. I’ve got one. I have what you’ve been looking for. The zhen xian bao.”

“You have—how did you know—”

“I’m going to throw it off the bridge.”

In her head Janet shrieked, What? But she forced her voice to be calm. “Why?”

“Malcolm never wanted it found.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“Loose ends. So you’ll know the answer. I know what it’s like to not have answers.”

“What question will it answer?” Janet asked.

“Police thought something was missing, aye?”

“Have you called them?”

“I’m not an eejit.”

“Why do you trust me not to call them?”

“It’ll be your word against mine that I ever had it, and it’s long gone.”

“Don’t throw it off.”

Isla said nothing.

“May I at least see it before you do?”

“I’m at the bridge. Not for long.”

“Wait for me.” When Janet disconnected, Tallie stood in front of her. “Will you be all right here by yourself for a while?” Janet asked her.

“You aren’t going anywhere by yourself,” Tallie said. “Not even for a little while.”

“I’m not. Call Rab—”

The bell above the door jingled. “He’s shimmering in even as you speak,” said Tallie.

“Rab, good. Can you help out in the tearoom? Tell Christine I need her and the car.”

“Do you need Ranger?”

“I don’t think so.” I hope not. “That’s an incredibly kind offer, though.” And if anything happened to him I would never forgive myself. “Tallie, call Norman. Tell him we’re making a welfare check on Isla. At the Beaton Bridge.” Janet thought for a moment. “And call Rhona. Make sure she’s okay.”

“What’s Isla throwing off the bridge?” Tallie asked.

“The zhen xian bao. We’re going to get it back for Florence.”

“What are the chances the police got it wrong and Isla’s the accomplice or did it all on her own?” Christine asked as they got in the car. “What are the chances this is going to end badly?”

“Tallie’s calling Norman.”

“You’re awfully calm.”

“It was her voice,” Janet said. “It reminded me of the kids when something would happen—fell off a bike or cut a finger. They’d teeter at the edge of tears and panic, watching my face, trying to hold on. If I stayed calm, sometimes they could back away from that edge.”

“You hate edges.”

“That’s why I asked you to come with me. If I start to panic, I’ll look at you.”

When they came over the last hill before the bridge, they saw Isla and her bike in the middle of the span. She leaned against the stone wall, propped on her elbows, looking down the burn toward the rocks where Malcolm died.

“We’ll keep the panic out of our approach, too,” Christine said, slowing down. Nearer the bridge, she pulled onto the verge and stopped. “There’s a liquor bottle on the wall beside her elbow. Looks like whisky. That might be what you heard in her voice.”

As they walked toward the bridge, Isla straightened, putting one hand behind her back. With the other, she took a drink from the bottle. When she put the bottle back on the wall, Janet saw that it was Dalwhinnie.

“Two against one?” Isla said.

“Let’s say it’s three together,” Janet said. “How are you, Isla?”

“Rhona and Lynsey and I were three and now that’s gone. Malcolm and I were two until Florence moved in. It would have ended anyway. That’s my luck. And now he’s gone, too.”

“But you have the thread book—the zhen xian bao,” Janet said.

“He said he’d leave it to me in his will. I knew he never would. I doubt he could. It meant too much to him.” Isla mimed tucking something in the inside pocket of a jacket. “He always carried it with him.”

“But you have it now,” Christine said.

“I shouldn’t.” Isla looked over the stone wall then looked at them out of the corners of her eyes. “I worried, during the ride, when I rode back and didn’t find him with the stragglers. He was fit for seventy.” She trailed off for a moment, then shook herself and went on. “Fit for an old man. I sent the stragglers on their way and rode back farther. I stopped here. And found him.”

“I saw him when I stood here on the bridge,” Janet said.

“He loved this bridge. Loved the views. Loved the thistles.” She pointed down the burn. “I saw him and went down. Couldn’t do anything for him. He was already dead. I took it from his pocket.”

“But you didn’t tell the police,” Janet said.

“And be accused of stealing? I knew how it would look.”

“But you didn’t call them?”

“He was gone.”

“I’ve heard the thread book is quite pretty,” Christine said.

“Not pretty. Beautiful.” Isla took another drink of the Dalwhinnie. “I haven’t had much that’s beautiful in my life. I had him. He had a beautiful life.”

“I’d love to see the book,” Janet said.

“What do you mean?” Isla squinted at them. “I don’t have it.”

“You might be holding it behind your back,” Christine said. “You were holding it over the edge of the wall when we got here.”

“When you phoned, I asked if I could see it,” Janet said. “We were hoping to convince you not to throw it off the bridge.”

“You saw me throw it off the bridge Monday morning. Did you not wonder what that was?”

“You said that was juniper.”

“Did it look like juniper? Some detective.”

Janet knew her calm was slipping and looked at Christine. Christine put a hand on her shoulder.

“Throwing it in the burn was an interesting choice,” Christine said. “Why did you do that?”

“He never wanted it found.”

“What are you holding?” Christine asked.

Isla brought an envelope from behind her back. She looked at it as though she’d forgotten why she had it, then handed it to Janet. “It must be for you.”

“It hasn’t got my name,” Janet said, turning it front to back.

Isla shrugged.

The envelope contained a folded sheet of paper. Janet took it out and held it so Christine could read, too.

What’s the good if all that’s good is gone?—Isla

When Janet looked up from the note, Isla hadn’t moved, but tears streamed down her face.

“The world’s a dark place when we lose good people,” Janet said. “I’m so glad you called, Isla. We’re here with you and for you.”

“Calling was a good thing to do,” Christine said. “We can get you help.”

Still crying, Isla dug for something in her pocket. “You should take this. It was in the zhen xian bao and belonged to his mother. Malcolm said he’d leave it to me in his will, too.”

“You didn’t throw it in with the book?” Janet asked.

“It didn’t belong in the book. He only kept it there to keep it from Florence. The book is just folds of paper. It has a chance to disappear in the water. But this is silver.” She handed Janet a small pin in the shape of a thistle. “He loved thistles. He was a thistle.”

“Were you going to jump?” Janet asked quietly, looking at the pin cradled in her hand. When Isla didn’t answer, Janet glanced at her and then back at the pin. “The pin is beautiful, too, and you’re right. It didn’t belong in the book or down there in the water. But you don’t belong down there, either.”

“I thought I belonged with Malcolm,” Isla said. “I thought I belonged with friends. What kind of friend kills?”

“Do you believe Lynsey’s guilty?” Christine asked.

Isla curled her hands around each other. She held them against her cheek and then her mouth, breathing hard for a few moments before speaking again. “I’ve been a district nurse, in and out of people’s houses, for twenty-three years. I see the worst in folk, and the best, and all of it turned upside down and backward from what you see and hear when you’re chatting with them down the pub. I’ve learnt I’m no judge of character or other people’s lives.”

“That’s a lesson we have to learn over and over again, aye?” Christine said.

“And sometimes it’s bloody discouraging,” Janet said. “But I always hope I’ll find more good in people than bad. And more hope than discouragement. If you’d already thrown the zhen xian bao into the burn, why did you call me, Isla?”

“You were my second choice. Rhona and Lynsey would tell me wheesht for saying that. But I called Rhona, and she was that shattered over Lynsey I couldn’t see adding to her misery. And I thought you might come to save a book. I wasn’t sure you’d come to save me.”

“Hope,” Janet said, and she and Christine held their hands out to Isla.

“We got her to call Rhona again,” Janet told Hobbs on the phone as she and Christine drove back to the shop. “Rhona came to collect her and her bike and told Isla she’s staying with them for a few days.” Janet listened for a moment, asked Hobbs to hold on, and then muffled the phone against her chest. “He wants to know why we agreed to meet her at the bridge.”

“Hold your phone so he can hear me.” When Janet turned the phone, Christine shouted, “Norman, if you trust that your colleagues arrested the right person, then you’ve no need to fash yersel over who we choose to meet and where. Or you could have intervened.”

Janet put the phone back to her ear. “You’re right, Norman, reporting a welfare check isn’t the same as reporting an emergency. It was a fair question, though. Do you think they arrested the right person?” Janet pointed at the phone and shrugged for Christine’s benefit. “Pardon me, Norman, but we’ve been extremely careful to avoid interfering, and if you want our continued cooperation, you’ll watch your tone.”

“He doesn’t think it’s Lynsey?” Christine asked after Janet disconnected.

“He said he hasn’t been privileged to read all the reports.”

“A stodgy porridge answer if ever I heard one. This outcome, this case, they’re weighing down on me, Janet.”

“Not on me. They’re making me boil. When I found Malcolm, I didn’t know anything about him. I judged him by his age and his clothes as much as anything, but I can think back and imagine I saw goodness in him and felt sad at his passing. Now, the more I hear about him, the angrier I get. He was a bully as a child, and a mean-spirited man, and instead of compassion for him, I’m angry and I blame him for Lachy’s death and Gerald’s. He’s the villain who limped through life and I want to know why.”

“What will we do with the thistle pin?” Christine asked.

“Give it to the lawyer handling his estate. Will you hold onto it for now, though? It makes me angry just to think about him hiding it and teasing with it, and I don’t want to take my anger out on it. It’s another innocent bystander.”

“What will we do with your anger?”

“I’m going to take it and those books full of secret messages home. Maybe I’ll find some answers. Maybe I’ll find a more useful frame of mind.”

Janet sat at the kitchen table with paper, pencil, the Culpeper, Gerald’s The Sword in the Stone, and Malcolm’s Swallows and Amazons. Tallie put a mushroom omelet and salad in front of her for supper, a cup of tea sometime later, and a glass of sherry before saying goodnight and reminding her not to stay up too late. The cats took turns sitting on her lap.

The coded notes in the novels read like short diary entries. They covered a range of activities—games, hiking, other books, school. There was nothing so neat as a list of mean acts or gloating over clever stunts. Notes in the Culpeper were more like a dialogue between them, but sporadic at best. A message in Gerald’s hand read, false accusation! Below it, Malcolm had added a quotation, Calumny is a little wind, but it raises such a terrible tempest. Hall Caine. There was nothing to tell her, though, if they were real complaints, or brotherly banter, or barbs.

The lack of context for the messages made Janet angry, too. She wanted obvious clues and a despicable boy, but found neither. She found no mention of Florence, either, and that made her even angrier.

But there’s nothing wrong with going to bed furious, unless it upsets the cats, she decided. She fell asleep listening to the tempest of Butter and Smirr purring, curled beside her, and a little wind beginning to blow in from the sea to the west.