Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

H O C O L AT E

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Jamie reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, lightly.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

She said nothing. Jamie had made her sound like one of those people who intruded on the sorrow of others; those reporters from the gutter press who hounded the bereaved so that they could get a story or a photograph. It was not like that with her. She did not want to see these people out of curiosity; she did not want to see them at all. Did Jamie not understand that she was acting out of duty? That there were times when you just had to do that? The easiest thing to do would be to forget all about this; to tell Ian that she had been interested in his story but that she could do nothing about these visions of his. Yet that would be to ignore the fact that the family of the young man who had been killed might have a very strong desire to find out who was responsible for the incident. What might they say to her if they knew that she knew something and had not brought it to their attention?

Jamie sat down again. “Look,” he said. “I have to go. And I’m sorry that I said that. I’ll phone you soon. And I’ll help you do whatever it is that you want to do. Is that all right?”

“Yes. But you don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t, Isabel. But you seem . . . Well, let’s just leave it. We’re friends, aren’t we? You help your friends. That’s just the way it is. Sometimes I wish you were . . . a bit different, but you aren’t.” He stood up again, picking up his bassoon case as he did. “And I actually rather like you the way you are, you know?”

Isabel looked up at him. “Thank you,” she said. “You’ve been a very good friend to me.”

He left, turning round and waving to her as he went out of 1 2 4

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h the front door. She returned his wave and then, after treating herself to a Danish pastry and a quick cup of coffee, she left too.

Outside, at the end of George IV Bridge, where the road sloped down to the Grassmarket, a small group of tourists stood about the statue of the small Scottish terrier, Greyfriars Bobby. Isabel walked past them slowly and heard the guide intone: “This statue commemorates the loyalty of a dog who sat by his master’s grave in the Greyfriars Kirkyard for fourteen years. He never left his post.”

She saw the expression on the face of one of the members of the group as he heard this. She saw him lean forward, shaking his head in disbelief. But such loyalty did exist, and not just amongst dogs. People stuck by others for years and years, in the face of all the odds, and it should be relief, not disbelief, that one felt on witnessing it. Jamie was loyal, she thought. There he was remaining devoted to Cat, even when there was no hope. It was touching, in a way—rather like the story of Greyfriars Bobby. Perhaps there should be a statue of Jamie somewhere in Bruntsfield. This young man stood outside his former girlfriend’s delicatessen for fourteen years, the inscription might state. Isabel smiled at the ridiculous idea. One should not smile about such things, she thought, but what was the alternative? To be miserable?

C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

E

SHE HAD NOT INTENDED to visit the house in Nile Grove until a few days later, but after an evening of thinking about it, she decided that she would go the next morning. It would be difficult to explain over the phone what she had in mind. That would be difficult enough to do face-to-face, but still easier, she thought.

Nile Grove was a Victorian terrace, built in honey-coloured stone that had turned light grey with the passage of time. It was an attractive street, a number of the houses having ornamenta-tion on their facades. Small, well-kept gardens separated the fronts of the houses from the street, and on many of the houses creepers, ivy or clematis, climbed up beside the high sash windows. It was an expensive street; a quiet place to live; a street untroubled by commerce or passers-by. It was not, thought Isabel, a street through which one would imagine a reckless motor-ist careering; nor one which would host the tragedy of Rory Macleod’s death.

Isabel found the house and opened the small painted ironwork gate that led to the front path. A few moments later she was standing outside the front door. There was a bell pull—one 1 2 6

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h of the old-fashioned ones—connected to a wire that caused a tinkling sound somewhere deep inside the house, just audible from without. Isabel pulled this and then waited. She had no idea if anybody was in, and after a minute or so she felt inclined to walk back up the path and give up—with some relief—the idea of seeing the Macleod family. But then the door was suddenly opened and a woman stood before her.

Isabel looked at the woman. This was the Rose Macleod who had been mentioned in the Evening News. She was a bit older than Isabel—perhaps very late forties—and was wearing a rather shapeless shift in light blue. The face was an alert, intelligent one, a face that was immediately striking and which once would have been described as beautiful. While much of the beauty, in the conventional sense, might have been lost, there remained a quality of peacefulness and calm. This was the face of a musician, perhaps; a violinist, Isabel guessed.

“Yes? What can I do for you?” Rose Macleod’s voice was very much as Isabel had imagined it would be: quiet, with the slight burr of south Edinburgh.

“Mrs. Macleod?” Isabel asked.

Rose Macleod nodded, and smiled uncertainly at her visitor.

“My name is Isabel Dalhousie,” said Isabel. “I live round the corner—or farther down, actually. In Merchiston.” She paused.

“I suppose I’m a sort of neighbour.”

Rose Macleod smiled. “I see.” She hesitated for a moment.

Then, “Would you care to come in?”

Isabel followed her into the hall and through a door that led into a downstairs living room. It was a comfortable room, on the street side of the house, with bookshelves up one wall. It was typical, Isabel thought, of the rooms one would find in any of the houses along Nile Grove: a room which spoke to the solid, edu-F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E