‘And how did you find all this out?’
‘I found her,’ I told him.
‘You just asked me how the search was going-’
‘I found Miss Beauclerc,’ I said. ‘She was hiding at P- Well, in a local guesthouse, waiting for Miss Lipscott to send word to her.’
‘Paterson’s farm!’ said Reid. ‘I chapped their door on Saturday asking all about did they see the corpse go in and did they ken where Miss Lipscott was.’
‘They didn’t, to be fair,’ I said.
‘Splittin’ hairs, that! Right, well, I’d better get round there and talk to her. There’s somethin’ gey queer about all this runnin’ away.’
‘Ah, well, as to that,’ I said. ‘She’s not there now. She was only waiting for Fleur and when I told her Fleur was gone, there was no reason for her to hang around any more.’
‘That’s a pity,’ said Reid very sternly, quite obviously blaming me for her departure. (If he knew that I had fetched her bags, he would have a fit. If he knew where she was going, he would have a heart attack.)
‘But to be fair,’ I said, ‘she knew nothing of No. 5 or of Fleur’s change of plan or where Fleur might have gone.’
‘She must ken where they were both headed to begin wi’,’ he said.
‘Miss Lipscott’s family home,’ I said. ‘But unless her family is lying, Fleur’s not there now.’ I was determined not to tell him where Jeanne Beauclerc was off to; I had assured Hugh there would be no policemen following her there.
‘Aye, you’re doubtless right,’ said Reid. He reached under the counter and drew out his hat. ‘At least, I can come and get her bags. Eh? Might be something in them, like a wee clue.’
‘Ahhhhhh,’ I said. ‘Yes, Miss Lipscott’s bags, actually, are gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Yes, I um, yes.’
‘But you found them. Where did you put them?’
‘I left them where they were,’ I said. ‘Yes, I let it be known that I was sniffing around the luggage room where the bags were sitting and then I just left them there. Someone – Miss Shanks is my guess – must have spirited them away overnight. Not my finest hour, I’ll grant you.’
‘But why would anyone want to hide the bags except for to make it look like somebody left when really she’s-’
‘In a barrel of brine in the larder?’ I said. ‘Or hidden under a pile of coke in the boiler room?’
‘If I was a sergeant and had ma own say-so I’d be up there with a warrant. Ask that wee Shanks woman what the devil’s goin’ on.’
‘You couldn’t persuade Sergeant Turner?’
The noise Reid made was expressive if rather sickening.
‘Him!’ he said. He took his hat off again and threw it under the counter. ‘He cannae see there’s anything to bother about. Even though I’ve never smelled a rat like it since the Pinminnoch Burn flooded and one the size o’ a dog washed in tae ma Auntie Margaret’s privy.’
‘You paint a vivid picture,’ I said, shuddering. ‘Cissie will return to you for your silver tongue if nothing else, I’m sure.’
And so to Stranraer library, to sneeze and itch my way through a morning with the newspapers of nine years before looking for the death of ‘Charles’ who was auditioning for the part of No. 3.
It was not one of Andrew Carnegie’s bequests, but was easily as solid and massive as if it had been, heavy with pillars and porticoes without and even heavier with marble and gilt banisters within, and I swept into the reference room blithely confident that they would have exactly what I was seeking.
The woman behind the reference desk, however, soon took the wind out of my sails.
‘The Times, madam?’ she said. ‘The London Times? The English one? No, there’s no call for that here.’
‘But it’s…’ I said, and stopped myself before saying that it was the newspaper. A reference library not keeping The Times was like a cheese shop which did not sell cheddar. ‘Which national newspaper do you carry?’ I finished.
‘The Scotsman,’ said the librarian and dared me to comment on it.
‘Ah, excellent,’ I said, not convincing her for a second. ‘Could I see The Scotsman for 1919, please?’
‘Which month?’ she asked, drawing a slip towards her and raising her pencil.
‘All of them,’ I said, as she well knew.
‘Let’s start with Jan to Mar,’ she replied, scribbling, ‘and we shall see.’
This remark, impertinently hinting that I had no sticking power, made me determined to read every issue of the damned thing from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve, even though I had been quietly wondering how newsworthy a motorcar crash (even one in which a fine young man was burned to a crisp) could possibly be. Would such an event in Dorset or London trouble the doughty Scotsman?
As the porter was summoned and sent to fetch the first volumes, I turned back the cuffs of my coat and tied a silk scarf over my hair (I am without vanity when it comes to old newspapers these days, after many a mite and a ruined shingle) and when they were plonked down on the table in front of me with a puff of musty dust which would not have put a conjuror to shame, I was ready for them.
The first few took an elephant’s age as ever, until my eyes adjusted to the type and I began to see the pattern in the pages, the classified advertisements giving way to the political news, the society pages, the sporting triumphs and tragedies. By the time I was halfway through February I was so adept at finding the pages where such human interest snippets as a motorcar crash might be that more than once the librarian looked across and lowered her spectacles at me, concerned for the paper as I whipped it through my fingers in a blur.
And so, slowing down, I started to see the news I had been ignoring: the brand new National Socialist Party in Germany gathering steam even as the Treaty of Versailles lumbered towards its signing; the first reports of Herr Hitler’s Italian counterpart – the one whose name I always thought sounded like some new delicious pudding – joining him at his game. Hugh’s voice sounded in my memory again and, at least partly to silence it, the pages picked up speed once more. I turned aside a little to avoid the librarian’s eye.
It was not until almost the end of March that I spotted something to arrest my progress and when I saw the headline – TWO KILLED AT LOCH BROOM – the faint bell which had rung when Aurora said the name ‘Charles’ clanged again, this time more clearly.
I remembered that young man dying, although I could not have produced his name before the newspaper reminded me. As far as I could recall, he was a youngster who, after a riotous party, had attempted a Highland road in a borrowed and unfamiliar motorcar and had driven it into a forest of pine trees where it had burst into flames. The Scotsman said as much and not a great deal more, in its sober way.
In the early hours of Sunday morning past on the road at Corrieshalloch Gorge, Charles Leigh, 23 yrs old, and his fiancée Leigh Audubon, 18 yrs old, were instantly killed when their borrowed motor collided with a tree trunk, which happening caused an engine fire. The victims were identified by means of their pocket watch and cigarette case respectively. The motorcar, a Bugatti of racing type, was destroyed. No one else was hurt.
I shuddered, reading it, remembering the cigarette case and watch now that I had been nudged; everyone regaling everyone else with that detail in horrified delight or genuine horror according to disposition.
So this could not be the Charles Aurora had meant. For one thing, his fiancée had not killed him and become a schoolmistress: she had died with him, leading some hard-hearted sorts to murmur that perhaps a lifetime of being called Leigh Leigh was worth escaping.