I expected I was going to grow old and die, or, if I was unlucky, just die, but I didn’t say that to her because it wasn’t what she wanted to hear and instead I mumbled something inarticulate and she grabbed the nearest missile she could lay her hands on – a copy of
Cranford
, although I don’t think the choice of book was significant – and threw it across the room at me. Her aim was, as usual, poor, the throw executed more in exasperation than aggression, and
Cranford
hit the back wall of her room, dislodging a rather frightening Frida Kahlo print. If it had been Philippa McCue throwing she would have hit me smack between the eyes and then caught the rebound off Frida.
‘I want that essay on my desk at ten o’clock on Friday,’ Maggie Mackenzie said sharply, ‘or else. You’ll thank me for this later, you know.’
I doubted that I would, but I kept quiet as there was no point in antagonizing her further, and at least she seemed to be giving some thought to my future which was more than anyone else was, including myself.
As I hurried away I heard an odd lowing sound coming from Martha Sewell’s room. I paused to listen and detected more animal noises, followed by some distressed sobbing. I hesitated outside her door, and then knocked.
It was opened by Jay Sewell. Behind him I could see Martha sitting at her desk. She was wearing a grey poncho that seemed to have been made out of felted squirrel fur and was holding her hand to her forehead in an attitude of despairing grief.
‘We lost Buddy,’ Jay explained.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said politely. Buddy had been sick a couple of days ago and now he was dead. It seemed a rather sudden demise. I still didn’t understand who Buddy was, of course.
‘We have no children of our own,’ Jay said, tears welling up in his eyes, ‘and Buddy was like a son to us.’ I didn’t really want to be this intimate with the Sewells and the sight of a distraught Martha, not hitherto prone to any emotion at all, was unnerving. Jay had somehow manoeuvred me into the room by now and at the sight of me Martha started sobbing even more. I put out a reluctant hand and patted her on the shoulder and said solicitously, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
She stood up suddenly, knocking me to one side, and shrieked at her husband, ‘We have to find him, we have to find Buddy.’
‘He’s not dead, then?’ I asked cautiously.
Martha looked at me in horror. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘What does Buddy look like?’ I said hastily. ‘Maybe I’ve seen him.’
‘He’s very handsome,’ Jay said.
‘And he has beautiful blue eyes,’ Martha added, calming down a bit and dabbing delicately at her nose with a tissue.
‘Well, green, really,’ Jay corrected gently.
‘Nonsense,’ Martha said, ‘they aren’t green. Perhaps a hint of green,’ she conceded. ‘Aqua might be a more accurate word. I could compromise on aqua.’
Jay didn’t seem willing to compromise. ‘Not aqua exactly,’ he said frowning, ‘cerulean maybe.’
‘Cyan,’ Martha offered, like a bridge player making a last, rather outrageous, bid.
‘Cyan?’ Jay said contemplatively. ‘How about glaucous?’ Whoever Buddy was, he was going to have crumbled into dust before Jay and Martha managed to decide on the colour of his eyes.
‘Let’s just say bluey-green, shall we?’ I suggested helpfully.
‘Greeny-blue,’ Jay Sewell said, making a final stand.
Professor Cousins put his head round the door. ‘I heard a commotion. Is there anything I can do?’ He caught sight of me and smiled and said, ‘I would introduce you, but I can’t remember your name.’ He laughed at Jay. ‘I can’t even remember my own name, let alone hers.’
‘Cousins,’ Jay said seriously, ‘your name is Cousins.’
‘I was joking,’ Professor Cousins said, somewhat abashed.
‘They’ve lost Buddy,’ I explained. ‘He’s like a son to them. And he has bluey-green, greeny-blue eyes.’
‘And a gorgeous coat,’ Martha said.
‘A Crombie? I had a Crombie once,’ Professor Cousins said nostalgically. ‘It
was
gorgeous.’
Martha wasn’t listening, she was growing lyrical. ‘It was like melted milk chocolate. We almost called him Hershey,’ she added sadly.
‘Really?’ Professor Cousins said politely.
‘A little light-hearted fun,’ Jay said solemnly.
‘You could ask the Salvation Army,’ Professor Cousins said. ‘I’m told they’re very good with missing persons.’
Jay and Martha turned to look at him. ‘Buddy’s a dog [or dorg],’ Jay said carefully.
‘A pedigree Weimaraner,’ Martha elaborated.
‘Weimaraner,’ Professor Cousins said, ‘as in Weimar Republic?’
‘I’ve got an essay to do,’ I said, beating a quiet retreat.
‘Keep an eye out for Buddy,’ Jay shouted after me and I heard Professor Cousins murmur, ‘Oh, what a horrible idea,’ as I shut the door behind me.
‘Go on, get in,’ he said in a way that he must have thought persuasive. Getting in a car once with him was foolishness, twice might have been from necessity, but to get into the Cortina a third time was nothing short of lunacy.
‘I’m supposed to be doing an essay on George Eliot,’ I said, climbing into the cold, smelly car.
‘Oh yeah, who’s he?’ Chick asked, pulling away from the kerb in a nasty grinding of gears.
‘
She
’s a woman.’
‘Really?’ Chick said. ‘I knew a woman once called Sidney, she worked as a stoker on the White Star line, can you believe that?’
A greasy fish supper sat on the dashboard. ‘Chip?’ Chick offered, holding up something cold and limp. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said to himself when I waved it away. He ate the chips as he drove. ‘How’s the Prof? Nice guy, that. And the Yank?’
‘Terri.’
‘That’s a man’s name,’ Chick said.
‘She’s not a man.’
Chick finished his poke of chips, threw the paper out of the window and wiped his hands on the knees of his trousers. We were covering Dundee in an apparently random fashion on a route that took us along the Hawkhill and up the Hilltown and then back to the Sinderins and the Hawkhill again. This route took us to a newsagent, two different betting shops, a phone-box, an off-licence, a slow, mystifying drive past the Sheriff Court and a short tour of the docks. I noticed Watson Grant coming out of one of the betting shops. ‘Look,’ I said, giving Chick a dig in the ribs because he was absorbed in reading his
Sporting Life
(although, interestingly, still driving the Cortina), ‘there’s Grant Watson.’
‘Who?’
‘Watson Grant, you’re working for him, remember? Following his wife?’
‘Not any more,’ Chick said, ‘he couldn’t pay his bloody bill. Mr middle-class university lecturer,’ Chick said with some disgust, ‘he’s a bloody compulsive gambler.’
‘No?’
‘Yep.’
‘Maybe that’s why his wife’s having an affair,’ I said, remembering Aileen Grant’s rather sorrowful features.
‘Bet your bottom dollar she’ll leave him,’ Chick said, ‘then he’ll be in a
real
pickle.’
‘Why?’
‘Insurance policy,’ Chick said, ‘on his mother-in-law.’
‘Mrs Macbeth?’
‘You know her?’ Chick said suspiciously.
‘So, Grant Watson has an insurance policy on Mrs Macbeth?’
‘No, his wife has one on her, what’s-her-name?’
‘Aileen.’
‘Aileen, she’s got the insurance policy, but it’ll walk when she walks.’
‘I
think
I see. If Mrs Macbeth died
now
, or indeed if Aileen Grant died now, Watson Grant would get the money. But if Aileen divorces him he won’t get any money when Mrs Macbeth dies?’
Chick rolled down the window as she drew nearer and I wondered if I shouldn’t shout out a warning, especially when he took out a packet of Polos and offered one to her. Chick looked exactly like the kind of person who starred in public information films about not taking sweets from strangers. The girl took the mint, bent down, kissed Chick on the cheek and said, ‘Thanks, Dad,’ gave him a little wave, and carried on walking.
I was astonished. ‘
That
was the “mingin’ little bastard”?’
‘One of them,’ he said gruffly, driving off in a horrible grinding of gears. He drew level with the girl and said, ‘I suppose you want a lift?’
‘No thanks,’ she said, ‘I’m fine.’
‘Just as well,’ Chick said, ‘because I’m not a bloody taxi service.’
The girl laughed.
‘You must have quite weak genes,’ I said to Chick.
‘Just anything fishy,’ Chick said. Within seconds he was snoring.
I followed him into the funeral parlour, where we were greeted by a businesslike undertaker. What a shame Terri wasn’t with us, she would have thoroughly enjoyed this kind of visit. Undertaking was probably the perfect profession for her. The bland atmosphere in the funeral parlour would have disappointed her, though – it felt more like the Haze-freshened front office of a plumbers’ supplies merchant than a house of death.
‘Come to see the deceased,’ Chick said to the undertaker.
It turned out that the funeral parlour was affording temporary shelter to several deceased and Chick was unsure which one he was visiting. ‘The one from The Anchorage,’ he tried. The undertaker was polite but wary and it was only when Chick flashed his defunct warrant card that we were finally allowed to visit our chosen corpse.
‘This had better not be anyone I know,’ I warned Chick. I had never seen a dead body, never known anyone who had died—