The Nickum Read online

  She clapped her hands. ‘That’s very kind of him. I’d be very grateful.’

  ‘He says be ready for twelve o’clock.’

  On Sunday morning, however, Emily had an even worse shock. She had decided that she wouldn’t have time to go to the kirk with Jake and Connie, and was brushing down her coat when someone knocked at the front door. It was such a loud knock, like a summons for something terrible, that she was timid of answering. She was even more shaken when she beheld a policeman with bicycle clips on his trouser legs and a notebook in his hand.

  ‘Mrs Fowlie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mrs Emily Fowlie?’

  ‘Is it … has something happened to Willie?’

  ‘Willie?’

  ‘My son. He’s in hospital.’

  This piece of information was noted down. ‘What is your son’s name and how old is he?’

  ‘Willie’s ten – eleven in September.’

  ‘Oh.’ The word seemed to hold a touch of disappointment. ‘Do any other males live in the house?’

  ‘Just my husband. Jake.’

  ‘Ah.’ This was also recorded.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Emily couldn’t understand the reason for the questions. ‘What’s my husband supposed to have done?’

  ‘I never said he’d done nothing.’

  ‘Why are you asking about him, then?’

  He looked at her sadly. ‘I’m nae used to this, you ken.’ He had lost his official way of speaking. ‘In a’ my twenty year in the force, I’ve never had to deal wi’ naething like this.’

  Slightly irritated now, Emily snapped, ‘Like what?’

  He shook his head wearily. ‘Would it bother you if I sat doon?’ At her sign, he plumped down on one of the old kitchen chairs and laid his peaked hat on the table. ‘I never thocht I’d ha’e to … solve a murder!’ He sat back, plainly enjoying her astonishment at the bombshell he had dropped.

  ‘A m … murder? But nobody ever gets murdered round here.’

  ‘Somebody has, though,’ he said, with quiet satisfaction. ‘Somebody definitely has.’

  ‘But you surely don’t think my Jake had anything to do with it?’

  ‘I’m nae sayin’ that.’ He took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped his brow. ‘My God, I dinna like this for a job.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about the m … murder? I’d really like to know, for I can’t believe …’

  ‘It’s true, though, as sure as I’m sitting in this chair. I was tell’t – oh, it must’ve been aboot half seven last night.’

  ‘Who phoned you? Are you sure it wasn’t somebody playing a trick?’

  ‘It wasna a phone call. Me an’ Johnny McIntyre was in the Tufted Duck – we aye ha’e a drink an’ mebbe a game o’ darts, ilka Sa’urday – an’ he says, “I some think you’ve a murder on yer hands, Jeemsie.”’ As an afterthought, he added, by way of an explanation, ‘Me an’ him was at the school thegither.’

  ‘So we’ll take it that this wasn’t a joke, then? But what did he say, exactly?’

  ‘He said he was gan hame fae furrin’ up his tatties, that’s the park next the neeps, an’ he noticed this great big puddle o’ bleed. He ken’t he’d be seein’ me in an oor or so, so he didna think it was worth phonin’.’

  ‘But where was this puddle of blood?’ Emily persisted. ‘And why come bothering me?’

  ‘It wasna you I was wantin’ to bother, though. It was Jake.’

  ‘I still can’t understand. Why Jake?’ ‘Well, it’s like this. The bleed was on the track comin’ up here.’

  Emily’s anxious face cleared. ‘Now, I see. Well, I can explain that. My Willie hit a stone with his bike when he was coming home from the village on Friday afternoon and was thrown off. It’d been his blood Johnny McIntyre had seen on Saturday.’

  The policeman looked a little happier now, too. ‘That’s good news, Mrs Fowlie. Oh, I dinna mean good news aboot your Willie … Is that why he’s in the hospital?’

  ‘Yes, he hurt his foot pretty badly.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Now, just to get my case done and dusted, as you might say, where did young Willie say he had his accident?’

  ‘He said he was very nearly at the top. Just about home.’

  Jeemsie Cooper’s lined brows had plummeted. ‘Oh, now! That pits a new look till it. Johnny says it was right aside the gate into his neep park. A good bit further doon than your Willie was hurt.’

  They looked at each helplessly for a few seconds, and then he said, ‘I did think the loon must’ve lost an affa lot o’ bleed when you said he’d just fell aff his bike. There’s still a real big puddle, you see.’

  ‘So you think somebody’s definitely been killed?’

  ‘I’m certain sure somebody’s definitely been killed.’ He eyed her sadly and then said, ‘I’m sorry, Missus, but I’ll need to speak to Jake. Can you tell me where I could find him?’

  ‘He said he was just going to check the beasts were all right. He shouldn’t be long, for he’s going to the kirk, and I’ll be going out in a wee while, for Mr McIntyre’s coming to take me to the hospital to see Willie.’

  ‘That’s all right, lass, I’ll go an’ meet Jake, and I’m sure he’ll ken naething aboot this business. Off you go now, and tell the bairn I hope he’ll soon be fit again.’

  It was only the second time that Emily had been in a motor car, but even the luxury of the dark green padded seats and the novelty of the walnut dashboard with its dainty clock and hidden ashtrays did not really register with her. All she was interested in was to hear the farmer’s account of what he had seen, but his version differed in no way from that of the constable.

  ‘I’ve seen plenty bleed in my time,’ he said, ‘havin’ killed as mony beasts as I’ve lost coont, but I’ve never seen as much outside o’ the shed we use for a killin’ hoose. An’ it fair gi’ed me a queer feelin’ in my bel … I’m sorry, my stomach.’

  Emily could understand that, for wasn’t she feeling the same at that very moment? It was awful to think that a murderer had been so near her home, and even worse to think that he might have been lurking somewhere on the track when Willie had been coming up it on Friday. It made her blood run cold. Needing reassurance, she said, ‘D’you think the bobby’ll be able to catch the killer on his own?’

  ‘Jeemsie Cooper?’ Johnny roared with laughter. ‘He couldna catch a cauld even if he stood bare naked in a howlin’ gale.’

  In spite of her fears, Emily couldn’t help a little giggle. ‘You’ve known him a long time, of course.’

  ‘Since we were little bairns, and he’s aye been slow in pickin’ things up like his brain was clogged up wi’ dust through nae bein’ used much. God kens how he ever got into the police force.’

  ‘He must have hidden reserves,’ she suggested, smiling.

  ‘They’ll need to send in the big boys, though. Aberdeen, likely. They’ve mair experience for there’s aye somebody getting murdered there. They’ll soon find the bu …’ He stopped the swearword coming out and went on, ‘They’ll get the blighter and string him up.’

  Shivering, Emily considered that this man must be a bit vicious himself, but in the next minute he was making general conversation and showing so much humour that she realised that he’d been joking before – with perhaps a thread of seriousness. He left her at the hospital, where she found Willie relishing his status as a patient, and as the only person there at the time under sixty, being thoroughly spoiled.

  She asked him first about how he was feeling, what the doctors said about his foot, and was suitably impressed when he said, ‘They put a stookie on my leg, fae my taes richt up to abeen my knee, so I couldna bend it even if I was allowed up.’

  ‘Are you in much pain?’ she asked, guessing that he wouldn’t be so chirpy if he were.

  ‘Just now an’ again, but it’s fine in here. I just need to ask for something an’ a nurse gets it for me. I think I’ll get hame next week, but I�
�ll ha’e to bide aff the school for a puckle weeks.’

  ‘That’ll not worry you much,’ she smiled, although it did cross her mind that having him at home, incapacitated, for so long would be all the more work for her.

  ‘It’ll be great,’ he boasted.

  ‘You needn’t expect me to run after you like all the nurses do here, though.’

  She suddenly remembered that she had something to tell him, something that should arouse his curiosity and stop him thinking of himself so much. ‘I had the bobby up seeing me this morning.’

  Her son’s face straightened, apprehension appeared in his eyes. ‘I havena been doin’ naething bad, Mam.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t about you. It was your Dad he asked to see, but it’s nothing to do with him, either. Um, did you see any strangers, men, hanging about on our track on Friday afternoon – the day you fell off your bike?

  ‘I didna see naebody, Mam.’

  ‘I just wondered, because it seems … oh, I can’t really believe it, but it seems somebody was murdered, on our track, but likely it was on Friday night, or early Saturday.’

  ‘Did you say murdered?’

  ‘Aye, that I did. I just can’t fathom …’

  ‘Who was murdered? Have they found the body?’

  ‘No, they haven’t, so they don’t know who it is, but Johnny McIntyre says they’ll likely send detectives from Aberdeen, so they’ll not be long in solving this.’ Willie fell silent, and didn’t appear to be interested in anything else she told him; about Becky’s trips to the city, about Connie’s romance, plus all the gossip that had come her way.

  She left when her allotted hour was almost up, but the matron beckoned to her as she went out of the ward. ‘I wanted to congratulate you, Mrs Fowlie, on your son. He’s such a well-behaved boy, a proper angel, and always very polite. All the nurses are simply besotted by his darling curls and dark brown eyes and flashing smile. You must be very proud of him.’

  On the point of telling her the plain unvarnished truth about the proper angel, his mother decided not to end his reign of glory. It would stop as soon as he was discharged from here. ‘He says he should be coming home next week sometime?’

  ‘Yes, hopefully on Wednesday, and we shall all miss him. He’s been a ray of sunshine in our ward.’

  ‘Thank you for looking after him so well,’ Emily said, sorely tempted to disillusion this stately woman about the ray of sunshine, but she turned and walked away. The farmer was only about three minutes in turning up, and she was on her way home, answering his questions about her son and making him laugh about Willie’s transformation into an angel. For the most part of their journey, however, they discussed the murder, wondering who the victim could be. Had either of them ever heard of any local person being missing? Had any strangers been seen in the area?

  Willie didn’t know what to think. There couldn’t have been a murder? Not on their track? In any case, how did they know about it? His mother hadn’t told him that. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to scare him. She said no body had been found, so there must have been something else. His heart almost stopped as it occurred to him what that something could be. The blood? It must have been the blood! He hadn’t gone back to look at it, but the Daftie had put quite a lot in the pail. Yes, the boy decided, it must have been the pig’s blood, and the bobby or whoever had told him hadn’t known the difference. That was a relief, anyway. Nobody knew the truth except the old man, and he was that dottled he likely wouldn’t remember if anybody asked him. Malcie knew, as well, of course, but he wouldn’t tell.

  Yet, no matter how hard he tried to assure himself of that, there still remained a modicum of doubt. For all other lies – little, white lies, mostly – that he’d told, something always tripped him up. Somebody said something, or something happened, that proved him a liar. He’d usually been punished, but not very severely. This, though, this wasn’t a white lie. It was a whopping great lie, for hadn’t he hidden evidence as well as giving a wrong description of the place the accident happened? It likely wouldn’t be one of his parents dishing out the punishment, either. It would be the Law. The Long Arm of the Law, it was called.

  He would have to confess. He should confess. The thing was, had he the courage to confess? He knew he hadn’t. He would have to hope that he was never found out. He hadn’t caused an awful stir, really. Just one local bobby asking questions. It would all blow past. Of course it would. The ’tecs from Aberdeen wouldn’t investigate a few traces of blood that had likely vanished by now, anyway. When suppertime came, he wasn’t able to eat anything. The youngest nurse, Nannie her name was, did her best to coax him to take a few spoonfuls, but had to report back to Matron that he was off his food.

  Jake Fowlie was puzzled. He had sworn to Jeemsie Cooper that he knew nothing about the blood on the track, but the two Aberdeen detectives who arrived on Monday morning did not believe him. They had questioned and questioned, twisting what he said until it sounded like he wasn’t telling the truth. Eventually, he had gone on the defensive, as if he were really guilty, which made things even worse.

  After they left, Emily told him that she had overhead the older one saying, ‘We’d best get reinforcements to comb the area. We can’t do anything till we find the body.’

  That had provided him with, at the very most, only a paper-thin veneer of hope. Jeemsie Cooper’s one-track mind had thought that blood on the track meant blood on the hands of the tenant of the first house he came to – in other words he’d put two and two together and made five – but thank the Lord, the two ’tecs had the sense to see further than that.

  ‘You ken, Emmy,’ Jake observed to his wife that night, ‘I hope they find a body, for then they’ll surely see I’d naething to dae wi’ it.’

  Because his temperature had remained high, Willie wasn’t allowed home on Wednesday, and the nurses, including Matron, were really anxious about this unexplained relapse. Willie himself was living through a vile nightmare in which he could picture dozens of policemen marching into the ward, placing him in handcuffs and carrying their prisoner out triumphantly. The cruel thing was, apart from a tiny untruth about how he had lost the egg money and hiding the fact that he’d lost nearly a pail of pig’s blood that his mother would have been delighted to get, he had done nothing wrong. Surely that wouldn’t count against him on the Day of Judgement that his Gramma McKay often spoke about? The angel that watched over the Gates of Heaven would surely make allowances for him being so young. They couldn’t not take him in … and send him to hell?

  Then further news filtered through the grapevine of the little community, which, spread out though it was, was actually quite tightly knit together. The first to hear was Jeemsie Cooper, whose chest swelled with pride. ‘I ken’t fine there was something,’ he crowed in the public bar of the Tufted Duck. ‘And it’s stained wi’ bleed. Nae jist a wee drappie, a spirk or twa, but like it was soaked in it. Aye that’s the murder weapon, right enough.’

  He was the centre of the group of men all keen to know more. This was the first real proof, wasn’t it? Nobody had really believed Jeemsie before. He liked making mountains out of molehills in his attempts to show how important he was to the force. It wasn’t an empty boast this time.

  The news was passed round, spreading like wildfire – or ‘Like the clap on the docks in Aiberdeen,’ as Frankie Berry, the barman, put it. In the gales of mirth that followed this, the local bobby graciously accepted all the drinks that were being laid out for him.

  As is generally the case, the person on whom the news would make most impression was the last to hear, and so it was with Jake Fowlie. It was the following morning that Jeemsie came up in person to tell him. ‘The fork o’ an aul’ bike,’ the policeman beamed. ‘I bet you’d never’ve thocht on that.’

  ‘No,’ Jake agreed, ‘that’s true enough.’

  ‘Jist covered wi’ bleed.’

  ‘So you’re sure that’s what it was used for?’

  ‘Dead sure. It’s been sent to th
e toon for examination, to be sure it’s human bleed, or else I’d have let you see for yoursel’.’

  ‘An’ it was close by the scene o’ the crime?’

  ‘Weel … no,’ Jeemsie said, a touch doubtfully. ‘It was up a good bit, in the moorie, nearer your hoose.’

  Even this was expanded upon during the course of the day, when the various other parts of the discarded bicycle were turned up by the searchers. Around five o’clock that night, Jake was summoned by Detective Sergeant Bruce to come and inspect the finds.

  ‘We want to know if you can identify anything,’ the officer told him.

  Shaken to the marrow when he looked down on the pieces of rusty metal, buckled but still recognisable, Jake said quietly. ‘It’s a bike my son and his chum cobbled thegether from bits they found on dumps.’

  Excitement stirred through the uniformed men. The case was getting somewhere at last.

  ‘Your son being … how old?’

  ‘Ten, but he’s been in the hospital for a while. He’s naething to dae wi’ the murder.’

  ‘But Mr Fowlie, you say these items belong to him?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I said.’

  ‘They’re covered with blood. How do you explain that?’

  Jake felt trapped, although he was sure that he had no reason to be. He couldn’t understand, any more than the sergeant, how there could have been so much blood. Granted, Willie had fallen on rough ground, he’d had a lot of scratches and scrapes, but nothing to cause bleeding like this. ‘I couldna tell you that.’

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to speak to the boy himself, then. Is he fit to be interviewed?’

  ‘To be honest,’ Jake stated firmly, ‘he’s nae that great. Mrs McIntyre of Wester Burnton phones the hospital every day to find oot how he is, and lets us ken what they say. He’s had a high fever for a puckle days noo, an’ there’s nae change the day.’

  ‘He’ll be able to speak to us, though.’

  ‘Can I come wi’ you?’ Jake pleaded, sorely afraid for his son although he was convinced that Willie had absolutely nothing to do with the murder.