Bridge,” he said. “Like you, I went through the Evening News for the week that you talked about. And I found what I’m afraid you missed, Isabel. Not that I’m trying to rub it in . . .”
“You found something else about the accident?”
Jamie shook his head. “No. It had nothing to do with that accident. It was an entirely unrelated death—of a young man.
Tucked away in the death notices, on exactly the same day.”
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Yes, thought Isabel. It had been an obvious mistake on her part. She should have checked to see whether there was any other young man who died that day in the Edinburgh area. But she had not, and yet . . . She reminded herself that Angus had confirmed that the name of the donor was Macleod. So she was right; even if there had been another young man who had died that day, Rose’s son had been the donor.
“But we know that the donor was called Macleod,” she said defensively. “That rather suggests that my initial assumption was correct.”
“So was the other young man,” said Jamie simply. “Two Macleods.”
She stared at him open-mouthed. “Both . . .”
“Remember those stories about Hebridean islands where everybody’s called Macleod?” Jamie said lightly. “Well, Edinburgh’s not quite like that, but there are lots of Macleods, you know. And it just so happens that two Macleods unfortunately died on that day. The other Macleod, Gavin, lived just outside town, in West Linton. The death notice gave the name of his mother, Jean, and a younger brother and sister. No father was mentioned. But I looked up J. Macleod in the phone book and there’s a J. Macleod in West Linton. So that’s your answer.”
He finished speaking and sat back in his seat again. Then he spread his hands, palms outward, in a gesture of finality, as if to say that the case was closed. He tilted his head quizzically. “Are you going to leave it at that? Aren’t you going to have to accept that coincidences happen? And that some things are just inexplicable, or just meaningless—such as visions of faces by people who have had heart surgery? Can’t you just accept that?”
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2 2 3
Isabel made an immediate decision. “No,” she said. “I might in due course, but not just yet. I’d like to know a little bit more.
How did your Macleod die?”
“The death notice said that he died peacefully, at the age of twenty-two,” Jamie said, “ ‘after a bravely borne illness’—those were the exact words. So no accident. Nothing like that.” He paused. “Which makes your man with the high forehead a bit superfluous, doesn’t it?”
Isabel realised that she had much to think about, but for the moment she would say nothing more about it to Jamie, who would simply advise her to keep out of matters that did not concern her. He was clearly pleased with his findings, which made Isabel look a bit hasty. Well, he could enjoy his moment of triumph; she did not begrudge him that, but she had a duty to Ian to see things through, and she would.
She dodged his question. If Graeme was the man with the high forehead, then it was difficult to see where he fitted in. But he could not be the man. Graeme’s resemblance to the man whom Ian saw was purely coincidental, one of those highly unlikely chances that simply materialised to remind us that chance still existed. And Graeme’s irritation with her was purely an irritation based on his belief that she was interfering in things that did not concern her. And who could blame him? No, Graeme was irrelevant now.
“Well, you’ve given me something to think about,” she said.
“Thank you. And now, perhaps we can catch the waiter’s eye and order. There are other things to talk about. The London Symphony, for instance.”
Jamie beamed with pleasure. “The London Symphony!” he said. “Good, isn’t it?”
2 2 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Isabel tried to smile. Perhaps I’ve managed a down-turned smile, she thought, one of those smiles where the lips go down at the side. A rueful smile; full of rue, of sorrow.
“Where will you live in London?” she enquired. “Not that it’ll mean much to me. My geography of London is pretty shaky.
North of the river? South of the river? And don’t some people actually live on the river? Londoners and New Yorkers and people like that are so resourceful. They live in all sorts of caves and corners. Look at the Queen; she lives at the back of a palace . . .”
Jamie cut her short. “Some people live in houseboats,” he said. “I know somebody who has one. Pretty damp way to live.
No, I’m not going to live in London.”
“You’ll commute?” asked Isabel. “What about concerts finishing late? Don’t the trains stop? And what happens if you try to talk to your fellow commuters? If the silence gets too much for you? Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It’s the second biggest cause of death amongst the English in general. Sheer boredom . . .”
“I’m not going, Isabel,” said Jamie. “Sorry, I should have told you right at the beginning. I’m not going to take the job.”
It took her a moment to react to what he had said. Her first feeling was one of joy, that she was not going to lose him after all. It was simple joy.
“I’m so glad,” she said. And then, correcting herself, she said quickly, “But why? Why go for the audition if you didn’t want the job?”
Jamie explained that he had wanted the job, and that he had spent half the rail journey back thinking about when he would move and where he would live and so on. But the other half, from York onwards, was spent making up his mind to decline the offer.
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“By the time I reached Edinburgh, my mind was made up,”
he said. “I decided to stay.”
There was a tone of finality in his voice. Isabel hesitated for a moment; the simplest thing to do would be to say that she thought this was a good idea and leave it at that. But she was curious as to why he should have changed his mind. And then it came to her. Cat. He would not leave Edinburgh as long as he entertained a hope that Cat might change her mind about him.
“It’s Cat,” she said quietly. “It is her, isn’t it?”
Jamie met her eyes, but then looked away in embarrassment. “Maybe. Maybe . . .” He trailed off. Then: “Yes,” he said.
“It is. When I faced up to it, as I did on the train, that was what I decided. I don’t want to leave her, Isabel. I just don’t.”
From the heights of the elation she had experienced when Jamie had announced that he would not go to London after all, Isabel now descended to the depths of doubt. Once again the problem lay in the fact that she was a philosopher and that she thought about duty and obligation. From the selfish point of view she should say nothing; but Isabel was not selfish. And so she felt compelled to say to Jamie that he should not turn down something that was important to him in the hope, the vain hope, she had to say, that Cat would come back to him.
“She won’t come back to you, Jamie,” she said softly. “You can’t spend your life hoping for something that is never going to happen.”
Every word of her advice went against the grain of what she herself wanted. She wanted him to stay; she wanted things to remain as they were; she wanted him for herself. But in spite of this, she knew that she had to say the opposite of what she wanted.
She could tell that her words were having their effect, as he 2 2 6
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h remained silent, staring at her, his eyes wide. His eyes had in them a light which seemed to dim now, to change its quality.