I always loved visiting Struan’s house, when we were growing up. His family were all such fun

Fiona headed for Mark’s table next. He was sitting beside a small elegant woman with cropped white hair and they were face to face, engrossed in each other’s conversation. She tapped his back. “Hi, Mark, how are you doing?” “Oh, Fiona, dear girl.” He gave her a kiss on both cheeks. “This is Bunty Mackenzie, your Dad and I went to school with her.

“We’ve not seen each other for, what did we say, 45 years?”

“Something like that, but if you hadn’t gone off to work in Bermuda, then, what might have been, Mark!”

The woman smirked then reached out to pat Fiona’s arm. “How are you doing? We met outside the church, but not properly.

“Mark’s been filling me in on what you’re up to and that gorgeous son of yours. And I’m so sorry about your husband. What an untimely death.”

If another person mentioned Iain, thought Fiona, she would scream.

Today was about her dad, not her husband who had died several years before.

“Thanks, Bunty.”

Another woman arrived at the table and shrieked loudly, “Bunty Mackenzie, you’ve not changed a bit!”

“Yes, well apart from the colour of the hair,” said Bunty, getting up from her seat to speak to the other woman.

Escape

Fiona sat down next to Mark and watched him finish off a dram. Not his first, Fiona presumed, judging by the alcoholic fumes around.

He turned round at the sight of a waitress passing. “Another whisky, please. And, Fiona, a sherry? Wine?”

“Just a Diet Coke please.” She had been persuaded at Iain’s funeral to have a stiff drink and found herself unable to control the tears. So today she decided to stick to Coke.

“I always loved visiting Struan’s house, when we were growing up. His family were all such fun, especially for me, being brought up by such strict parents.

“My mother was from Lewis and was a Wee Free and she ran a tight ship. Going to Magdalen Yard Road was an escape for me.”

“Dad always said it was a happy house.”

“Oh, it was. Stru’s Grandpa, a wonderfully eccentric old man, lived with them. He’d inherited the house from his older brother and sister when they died or emigrated or something.

“He had been brought up by an aunt, I think. His bedroom was downstairs, where Stru’s study is now. Stru and I used to love going in there, listening to his stories and tales.”

Mark chuckled then drew back as the waitress brought the tray of drinks.

“I remember one day Stru and I had been digging in the garden and come across some foundations so we went to ask Grandpa Archie what it was.

“He said that it was already gone when he was growing up but he’d been told about the summer house by his older siblings.

“It hadn’t been that big but it had been a thing of beauty, post-Palladian style. God knows what possessed them to demolish it.

“Why get rid of a fine summer house?

“But then I think beautiful buildings, whatever their size should .... ”

“Fiona, sweetheart, the Morrisons are going, come and say bye!”

She turned to see her mother beckoning her over to the door.

“Sorry, Mark, got to go. Let me know if you remember anything else?”

He nodded, wrapped both hands round his tumbler, gazing into the whisky as if for clues.

Slammed

Fiona slammed the car door shut and watched Jamie run ahead to the house, the key swinging from his hand.

“How did you think it went, Fi?”

“Okay, I suppose. But I don’t know why you keep asking that, Mum. And why d’you need to know how many folk were there?”

“Well, it seemed to me like hundreds, so I asked the funeral director and he said about 300. Not bad going for an only child of only parents.”

“God, Mum, its not a competition,” Fiona muttered, walking into the kitchen.

Jamie was sitting at the table with a piece of paper in his hands. He was very still.

“What have you got there?” Fiona asked as her mother brushed past her, mumbling about having been desperate for the toilet for hours.

Jamie looked up at her and held it out. “It’s a letter for me. It’s from Pete.”

Monday January 12 1880

Robert’s body slumped to the ground. Ann stared at it, eyes wide. Dead.

He was dead and she had done it. Ann looked around; there was no one to be seen. She had to follow her plan through.

Taking out her handkerchief, she wiped Mattie’s needle clean then pierced it through the cloth again.

She shoved it into her pocket then looked up as a cloud shifted, revealing a sliver of moon in the black sky. Something glistened in the silvery light. Blood, a pool of it. She pressed her handkerchief over his heart, to try to stem the flow.

The sooner she got his body into the fast-flowing river the better. The stab wound would not be noticed after the body was swept onto the rocks out there.

Ann wrapped her handkerchief in the larger one in her pocket, Alfred Johnston’s.

She knelt down and lifted her husband’s legs and began to pull. Good God, how on earth could such a thin man weigh so much?

But she had carried heavier weights, like the bundles of jute she used to lug from the delivery area into the mill.

That was where she and Alfred, both aged 12, had become friendly. It had been obvious that he liked her from their first meeting and soon he had fallen under her spell.

She gave her first kiss to Alfred Johnston, and the rest sometime later.

Storm clouds

Ann dragged the body towards the riverbank and looked up. Dark storm clouds were scudding across the sky.

She sniffed the air. Rain. It was driving east along the river. Thank God, she thought, as she thrust the body down the slithery slope.

It caught on something on the bank, so she ran back to the bench and picked up Robert’s walking cane.

She jabbed at his shoulders and back until he suddenly came loose and shot down the slope, hitting the water with a splash.

She looked around again.

Nothing. A flash of moonlight glinted on the silver top of the walking cane in her hand.

She saw the body jerk a little as the strong current picked it up and Robert drifted away into the dark.

More on Monday.