‘It seems a remarkably effective strategy,’ said Alec. ‘It got rid of you.’
‘Hmph,’ I said, almost jollied out of my temper by his tone. ‘Well, I’m glad she has to live in a smelly pub and do her laundry in a beer cellar full of fumes. I’ve no patience with the girl, Alec, none.’
‘And does your impatience extend to going along to the police station and telling tales on her?’ asked Alec.
‘Absolutely it does,’ I said. ‘At least, I’ll ask whether they’ve got anywhere themselves with the identity of X, but if not then certainly I’ll tell them I think Joey Brown has an idea, and possibly Shinie Brown too. Or you tell them, Alec. After our experiences with the inspector I think perhaps the information would carry more weight coming from you. And I’ll wait outside and make daisy chains.’
It was just as well that he had teased me back into humour in this way and that we had elected to play by the inspector’s rules and let Alec do all the talking; if I had stood outside the police station boiling with impotent rage or if Alec had stood there fussing with his pipe while I went in to report or if we had both gone in and bearded the sergeant together, we might never have solved the case at all.
As it was, Alec entered the inner sanctum alone and I sat placidly outside on the wall, perusing the notice-boards. There was one official one with close-typed signs regarding licensing hours and motor car lights, names and telephone numbers and office hours for all the officials one could ever need in a long lifetime, notices regarding customs and excise, immigration and emigration, emergency procedures for fire, flood and power failure; all very dull. As well as this, though, there was another much more interesting noticeboard where the less official, more home-made signs could be found: a lost cat with a red collar and a bounty of two shillings on its head; a found headscarf ‘real silk, pattern of horseshoes, rather stained and mended’ which I doubted, after that description, anyone would have the courage to claim, real silk or no. There also were the new Fair notices, one proclaiming the grand total of the police station’s collection in aid of the Ferry Fair fund – £7 10s 3d – and a list of winners of the Fair events, including, I was proud to note, the name of Doreen Urquhart opposite the new high chair and the towel bale donated by the Co-operative Store Drapers.
Alec was taking his time and soon I had enjoyed all that there was to enjoy of the human side of the noticeboard and was back with the regulations and procedures. I noticed that the library hours seemed especially designed to prevent anyone from ever being able to borrow a book without taking a day off work or school to do so, and that the rules about how long a catch could stay harbour-side and in what kind of container at what times on what days seemed to be a signal to the fishermen to have a taxi waiting as they moored so that they could throw each fish into the back seat without its scales ever touching the ground.
And then I saw it.
Almost as soon as my eyes had registered what I was seeing, or my brain had heard what the voice in my head was reading, the door of the station opened and Alec was at my side.
‘What is it?’ he said. Goodness only knows what expression I must have had on my face.
‘Look,’ I said, putting a finger on the notice. He bent close to read the small and rather smudged black type.
‘“… will remain open on all bank holidays between the hours of ten o’clock and three, and on all local holidays between the hours of nine o’clock and five, and will close in lieu upon the following Monday except where…”’ He shifted my finger off the paper where it was hiding the print underneath, and said: ‘Passports.’
‘Passports,’ I said. ‘Edinburgh and Leith Emigration Agents. Passports, ticketing, travel documents prepared.’ My mind was racing, or not so much racing, nothing so linear as racing, more as though my thoughts were schoolchildren who had been inside all morning while the snow fell and were now released to gather it up, roll it together and throw it all around. ‘He was getting a passport. He was going to run away.’
‘From what?’ said Alec.
‘Or not run away,’ I corrected. ‘But he was going to leave. They both were, on the quiet, for some reason, and on Thursday afternoon Mrs Dudgeon saw this sign, read that the office was closed on Monday and – look here – it’s closed every Saturday and on Sunday, obviously, and so Friday – the Burry Man’s day – was the only chance.’
‘Why not Tuesday?’ said Alec. ‘Or some other day? And where were they going? And why?’
‘I have no idea why,’ I said. ‘But where, I think I can hazard a guess. At least there’s a possibility that also explains why a later day was no good. There was a ship leaving Leith on Tuesday bound for New Zealand. I read about it when we were going through the papers last night. He would need to get the passport before the ticket and the tickets were on sale on Friday. Alec, this must be right. Remember I said Chrissie Dudgeon was so very keyed up, looking at the clock, looking at the door and then suddenly she just seemed to relax for no reason? It was around ten o’clock last night and I’ll bet my eyes that she was sitting there watching the clock tick round to the moment of sailing, thinking about the plan and about how if she had the nerve she could still go, alone, if she dared. Then all of a sudden it was too late; she hadn’t gone. The chance had passed and it was almost like a relief to her. Terribly sad, but a relief.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Alec. ‘She couldn’t have got there in time without a magic carpet and she would have had to go through customs and everything.’
‘I didn’t mean literally,’ I said. ‘You can be very prosaic sometimes, darling. I meant that she sat there while the other path of her life was being bricked up – Oh, don’t look at me like that, you know I’m right. And it also explains why she was so worried about the police going through Robert’s things. She was frightened they would find the passport and the tickets and begin to wonder what was going on.’
‘As am I,’ said Alec. ‘What on earth would make them suddenly up sticks to New Zealand without telling anyone?’
‘Once again we come up against my conviction of the Dudgeons’ basic honesty. The only likely reasons in general don’t seem at all likely for them.’
‘No matter,’ said Alec. ‘We don’t have to offer a motive. We can check the facts with the greatest of ease.’
‘The passport office would never let us trawl through the records,’ I told him. ‘And aren’t these emigration agents a rather shady bunch? Oughtn’t we to hand it over to the police?’
‘Not the passport office, Dandy,’ said Alec and, seeing my puzzled glance, he rolled his eyes. ‘There really should be a basic training course,’ he said, ‘for all budding detectives. We can go to Leith to the shipping line and look at the passenger lists. Or rather look at the ticket-booking receipts. They won’t be on the passenger lists, of course, since they didn’t go. Some pair of lucky adventurers waiting on the quayside on the chance of a space will have got a windfall on Tuesday night, Dan.’
‘Just imagine,’ I said. ‘Imagine bundling up all one’s belongings and going to wait, not knowing whether one is off to the other side of the world for ever or whether one will be trailing the same bundle back through the dark streets to more of the same.’
‘Yes, said Alec. ‘Just imagine. But walk quickly while you’re at it, won’t you? And you drive, darling. I’ve never been to Leith.’