The Woman on the Cliff Read online

  “I was thinking of going to a kibbutz,” Lucy said. We all made polite noises. Nobody really believed that Lucy was serious. She seemed the sort of person who was full of grand ideas only to bottle out when it came to the crunch. She’d probably stay at home all summer and work in her local supermarket.

  Everyone looked at Moira. “Actually, I’m thinking of staying here.”

  “Are you going to be working?” Lucy asked.

  “I’ve got a job at one of the caravan parks. They’ve offered me accommodation in a little caravan on site. Should be fun.”

  She was staying in St Andrews to be near Andrew Kelso, I imagined. I glanced at Elspeth and guessed from her look of annoyance that she was thinking the same.

  “Why don’t you and I go somewhere in September?” Shona said to Moira. “I have a couple of weeks after my job ends. We could go travelling together.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I’ll do that.”

  I noticed no one thought to invite Lucy along on their trip. She sat there staring at her lukewarm tea, probably wishing she hadn’t mentioned going to a kibbutz.

  Moira accompanied us back to North Street to view the house. It had three bedrooms on the first floor and two on the second. Downstairs there was a small kitchen at the back and a living room at the front. Elspeth nudged me and whispered. “Let’s make sure we get here first in October, so that we can have the top floor. I don’t want to be anywhere near Moira.”

  “I hope you’re going to make an effort to get along with her, Elspeth,” I said. Elspeth pulled a face. “It’s going to be really crap if you cause an atmosphere just because you’re jealous of her shagging Andrew Kelso.”

  Elspeth never liked her faults being pointed out to her. “I’m not jealous.” Her face softened a bit. “I’ll try. For you. But don’t expect me to worship at her feet like the rest of you.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” Shona asked.

  “Nothing,” Elspeth assured her. “Just saying how much we’re looking forward to sharing with Moira come October.” She smiled sweetly.

  “To new friends,” Moira said, pretending to hold up a glass.

  “New friends,” we all echoed, though I suspect Elspeth’s words were uttered through gritted teeth.

  Chapter Seven

  It is almost dark by the time I cross the bridge spanning the Firth of Forth and leave Fife behind. Ahead of me, the lights of South Queensferry twinkle in the gathering dusk. Overhead, the clouds form a shifting montage of dark and light. I think of Izzy and a lump comes to my throat. It feels like I am leaving her far behind on another continent, and not just a bridge’s span away in Fife.

  Back in Edinburgh, Elspeth greets me with a hug. Her son really is on another continent, I remind myself. Pull yourself together, Ros.

  “You’re later than I thought you’d be. Couldn’t tear yourself away?”

  I wish I could tell her about the strange coincidence of my meeting with Innes Nevin. He hasn’t sworn me to secrecy, but I know I must honour my promise to keep it to myself, at least for now.

  “You’ve got time for a shower if you want one,” Elspeth says. “Table’s booked for half past seven.”

  The spare bedroom seems vast and empty now that I don’t have Izzy to share its space. It is also cold. Someone — Elspeth? — has opened a window and the evening air sneaks in, carrying with it the distinctive smell of hops and a chilly draught. I pull down the sash, pausing a moment to take in the view of rooftops and hills.

  The brooding Pentlands put me in mind of Innes Nevin. He is a big man, tall and bulky but it’s muscle, not fat. There is nothing left of the slender, chiselled boy he had been back when he was investigating Moira’s murder with Inspector Menzies.

  It had taken some time for me to recognise him on the beach, but when we were close and I caught sight of his eyes, something clicked immediately. I remembered how astute he had been on his first visit to our house on North Street. He had picked up on the slightest nuance of silent communication between Elspeth and me.

  I shower quickly and change into a black shift dress and heels. I add a few pieces of silver jewellery, and I’m ready to go.

  “Are you nearly ready?” Elspeth calls up the stairs.

  “What’s Duncan doing this evening?” I ask, noticing his absence.

  “He’s playing tennis with a friend from work. He’ll be home in an hour or so. He’s going to pick us up later.”

  “That’s kind of him.”

  Elspeth has ordered a taxi. “We could walk there in twenty minutes in our flats,” she laughs, “but not in these heels.” Elspeth is only five foot two, so she wears scarily high heels to compensate. I remember her practising how to walk in them years ago. She was determined to gain the extra height as a way of asserting herself in what was still a male dominated profession back in the eighties.

  The taxi driver deposits us at the top end of the Royal Mile, near the Castle.

  “The Witchery by the Castle?” I say, unable to suppress my delight.

  Elspeth grins. “My treat.” She knows I love this famous old eatery. It’s where Doug proposed to me, and where we celebrated when I discovered that I was pregnant with Izzy. It’s a faintly gothic establishment with oak-panelled walls hung with tapestries, and leather seating, deeply romantic and atmospheric.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, knowing this wouldn’t be Elspeth’s choice of venue at all.

  “Well, you aren’t in Edinburgh that often. I can eat at the Tower any time.”

  An excited voice calls out our names. It’s Shona. The first thing I notice about her is that she looks tanned and healthy. She’s spent the last five years in Australia. Her short, spiky hair is white, without a hint of grey. It suits her.

  “You look stunning,” Elspeth says, kissing the air around Shona’s cheeks.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself,” Shona says, hugging Elspeth but not too closely. She winks at me over Elspeth’s shoulder. Elspeth picks up on Shona’s Australian twang.

  “’Struth, Shona. You’ve turned into a right Aussie. We’re going to have to call you Sheila from now on.” Her accent is execrable.

  Shona ignores her and holds her arms out to me. “How long has it been?” she asks. I’ve done the calculation in advance, and I suspect Shona has too.

  “Far too long,” I say, smiling.

  I imagine I can taste the salt sea air of St Andrews in Shona’s hair. When it comes to making associations with people, my senses seem to go into overload. With Elspeth, it’s the scent of musk from the cheap perfume she wore before she began her professional life and could afford the more expensive brands. With Lucy, it would be the sticky sweet aroma of patchouli from the joss sticks she burnt to mask the smell when she was smoking dope.

  With Moira, it would probably be the taste of malt whisky, which she introduced me to one evening at a pub on the Scores. And Doug? The velvety feel of his shorn hair after an unforgiving haircut.

  “This where we’re eating?” Shona asks, nodding at the entrance to the Witchery. She turns to me with a twinkle. “I take it this is your choice?”

  “Actually, Elspeth booked it,” I say.

  “Oh well, nothing like eating within a hair’s breadth of where they used to routinely burn women for being different.”

  It was an unsavoury fact that the Witchery overlooked the place on Castle Hill where hundreds of women had been burned at the stake during the witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

  “Come on, or they’ll be thinking we’re not coming and cancelling my reservation,” Elspeth says, ushering us along the pavement and through a gap between buildings, into a close, where the restaurant’s entrance is concealed, off the Royal Mile.

  I give a deep sigh as I sink into one of the red leather seats at the table our waiter has shown us to. Of course, this place reminds me of Doug, but the memories are happy ones, and I feel my gloomy mood — a mixture of sadness at saying goodbye to Izzy and unease over my grim
conversation with Nevin — begin to lighten.

  There’s a lot of catching up to do. Working in Australia has been good for Shona, it appears.

  “So, I’m thinking of moving back here on a more permanent basis,” she says. “I miss the seasons here. It might sound crazy to you, but I can’t wait to wear woolly jumpers and boots again. And a cardigan in the middle of summer. It’s so relentlessly hot out there.”

  “Any hot men?” Elspeth jokes.

  “No.” There’s a pause before Shona adds. “But there is a hot woman.”

  This is news to Elspeth and me. I suppress an ‘Oh,’ but Elspeth isn’t quick enough. She squeals. “What?” A few heads turn in our direction, then look away.

  Shona shrugs. “What can I say? I’m a dark horse.”

  “But you were married. For five years,” Elspeth points out.

  “Yeah, well. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Well, good for you,” Elspeth says. “This woman — are you and her serious?” Her eyes flit around the restaurant, as though expecting Shona’s lover to jump out from behind a chair and join us.

  “Her name’s Henrietta. And yes, we’re serious. Serious enough for her to be happy to move here to be with me. Though,” she smiles a little self-consciously, “as far as I’m concerned, we could live anywhere, just as long as we’re together.”

  “I’m really happy for you, Shone,” I say.

  “Me too,” Elspeth adds. She signals to the waiter and asks for a bottle of champagne. “My treat,” she says for my benefit.

  I feel a twinge of embarrassment. Both Elspeth and Shona have more successful careers than me. I have the house that Doug and I bought together, and a modest, if not always frequent, income from my art work, but I can’t afford to splurge on champagne.

  Shona asks how I feel about dropping my daughter off in St Andrews. “Does it feel weird when you go back? Maybe I should go sometime, just to see if the place still haunts me.” She has never been back.

  It is sad that our memories of our time at university are tainted by tragedy. Usually when we have a reunion like this, there’s a tacit understanding that we don’t dwell on that part of our past. Which has often meant that no one mentions Moira.

  The waiter arrives with the champagne and fills our glasses. We’ve already had a bottle of red and I’m feeling slightly drunk. Maybe it’s the fact that the three of us haven’t been together for a long time, or maybe it’s because it’s a conversation that is long overdue, but all of a sudden, we are talking about what happened that penultimate year at St Andrews.

  It’s Shona who sets the ball rolling. “So,” she says, pausing between mouthfuls of smoked salmon, “I was thinking about Moira the other day.”

  She drops it into the conversation casually enough, but I notice her fork quivers slightly as she conveys it to her mouth. Elspeth chews her steak slowly, as if by doing so she can put off acknowledging that Shona has said anything at all. I swig some champagne.

  “Oh, come on,” Shona says. “You guys! Stop acting like you haven’t heard me. We’ve pussyfooted around this topic for years. Don’t you think it’s time we talked about it? I for one am sick of having this giant woolly mammoth in the room whenever we’re together.” She pauses. “I think about her a lot. I suppose I was in love with her. Wouldn’t have acted on it in a million years in those days though.”

  Hearing her say that, right after her revelation about her sexuality, made sense. She’d been closer to Moira than the rest of us. How sad that she’d never felt she could tell any of us about her preferences back then. That she’d felt pressured into a conventional marriage to conform to a social norm.

  She’s right though. By not talking about Moira, we’ve made the subject one that cries out to be discussed. Maybe we should have cleared the air years ago.

  If there is a moment when it would be appropriate to bring up my encounter with Nevin on the beach, it is now. I say nothing, even when Elspeth, to my surprise, agrees with Shona.

  “We were so young and sheltered there, weren’t we? Moira’s murder was our first real taste of the big bad world.”

  Elspeth’s feelings about Moira are complex, because she hated her. It’s hard for her to pretend otherwise just because Moira was murdered. It’s no surprise to hear her generalise our experience.

  I think of what Innes Nevin said about Moira’s case still haunting him and say, “It was like the end of innocence.”

  I’ve had my share of tragedy in my life, I think. First losing Leah, then Doug. At least Leah had had a peaceful death, surrounded by the people she loved, and who loved her. Moira’s death by violence had seemed to pave the way for Doug’s. Opened my eyes to the latent evil in the world.

  Shona presses my arm.

  “We tried for closure once, didn’t we?” she says. When Elspeth and I look puzzled, she prompts us. “That ceremony? On the cliff path near the rock and spindle?”

  I remember. The four of us — Lucy, Elspeth, Shona and I — making a sad pilgrimage along the cliff path to the place where Moira’s body had been discovered. It had been Lucy’s suggestion. Of course, the word ‘closure’ hadn’t been fashionable back then.

  “Isn’t that what the funeral is for?” Elspeth had asked.

  “Funerals are for families,” Lucy had insisted. “We need something that’s just for us. Something . . . personal.” Despite her avowed atheism and her alleged anarchism, Lucy was a deeply spiritual person. Not that she’d ever have admitted it, but after Moira’s death, she seemed less inclined to suppress that aspect of herself.

  And so, for Lucy’s sake mostly, we had huddled together on the clifftop in the freezing cold of an unforgiving February day, the wind almost knocking us sideways and the roar of the North Sea drowning out our voices as we read out our eulogies. After a while it started to rain, a persistent, chilling drizzle that dampened our spirts and extinguished the candles that Lucy had brought along for us to hold.

  Afterwards, we traipsed back down the hill and along the East Sands, to dry out in the house on North Street.

  How did we all cope in the aftermath of Moira’s murder? Elspeth threw herself into working hard and striving for her goal of getting a good degree. She’d spent the following academic year in Germany as part of her languages course, obtained a First the year after that, and gone on to train as an accountant. Even now, she still works far too hard. But then, after the initial shock, she was the one least likely to be left grieving Moira.

  Shona went off the rails for a bit, drinking and having a crazy social life, but she got her degree and then discovered her passion for travelling. She landed herself a job where she could combine the two. You could say that she coped by never standing still for long enough to reflect on the past.

  And me? Well, I’ve managed by just getting on with my life, marrying Doug, being a parent. Being ordinary. But there’s something I don’t often admit, and that’s the all-pervasive feeling of dread I’ve carried with me since Moira’s death. A sense that life is cheap and fragile, which Doug’s violent death only seemed to confirm.

  I’m making it sound like all our lives have been blighted, even defined by Moira’s murder, when it’s really not like that. Affected, yes, but defined? Who knows? I’m not a psychologist. Elspeth is the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, and grew up imbued with a solid work ethic. It would be more of a wonder if she hadn’t become a driven individual.

  Shona’s Great-Great-Aunt Agatha had been one of those doughty Victorian spinsters who defied convention and travelled the world unaccompanied. Is it so surprising that Shona’s racked up enough air miles to go to the moon and back several times over?

  Admittedly, my life achievement report would probably read ‘should have taken more risks.’ But maybe it’s just in my nature to lack ambition. Moira was the sort to take risks, and look where it got her.

  Inevitably, Lucy’s name comes up.

  “I think about Lucy, too, every so often,” Shona says.

&nb
sp; “Who knows what became of her?” Elspeth answers with a shrug. She might as well have said, “Who cares?”

  “Funny how a person can just disappear like that,” Shona goes on.

  I think immediately of Nevin. Of what he’d said about Inspector Menzies, drowning alone at sea, after allegedly falling out of his fishing boat, and I wonder suddenly at the coincidence of two people connected with Moira disappearing.

  But Lucy didn’t disappear. She just stopped keeping in touch.

  “I’ve looked for her online a couple of times,” Shona says. She makes a circle with her thumb and forefinger. “Big. Fat. Nothing.”

  “I’ve looked too,” I say. We look at Elspeth, who shakes her head. She seems bored with the conversation. She gives the empty bottle of champagne a shake as the waiter walks past, and he stops to take her order.

  “We’ll have another one of these,” she says, winking at Shona and me. I would like to continue talking about Moira and that final term at St Andrews, but Elspeth deftly steers the conversation in a different direction.

  “So,” she says. “Who’s having dessert? The raspberry Pavlova here is to die for. And, Shona, I want to hear more about Henrietta after we’ve ordered.”

  And just like that, the past is buried again.

  Chapter Eight

  After the long summer break, we moved into the house on North Street, keen to begin our third year at St Andrews. Elspeth and I were not, after all, the first to arrive, and we ended up on the first floor, with Moira sandwiched between us. Lucy and Shona occupied the two rooms on the top floor.

  Inevitably, alliances formed. Shona grew close to Moira. Elspeth and I remained best friends. I suppose Lucy was always the odd one out. But she seemed content to tag along with any combination of the rest of us. From the start, I was nervous about how Elspeth would behave towards Moira. More nervous still when Moira made overtures of friendship towards me.

  Soon after we moved in, Elspeth insisted on drawing up a list of ‘house rules,’ which everyone had to sign. There were even financial penalties for infringing them. Fifty pence for leaving the bathroom in a mess, thirty pence for leaving dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, that kind of thing. The amounts were intended to reflect the severity of the offence. Elspeth wrote ‘Fines’ on the lid of an empty biscuit tin and left it on a shelf in the kitchen. Every so often, she’d empty the tin and we’d all go for a drink on the proceeds. Elspeth liked order and central planning that worked for the common good.