nor anything really; it was a cold part of the country, a place of fishermen and offshore oil people, used to sea and biting winds and hardship.
“I’m looking for Miss Dalhousie,” he said. “I rang the bell, but thought that she might be out shopping. I’ve been waiting.”
Jamie wiped at Charlie’s now-streaming nose. “I’m afraid that you’ve missed her. She’s working today. She helps somebody out in a delicatessen.”
“I’d like to see her,” said the man, reaching into his pocket for a card. He proffered the card to Jamie, who took it and read it.
“David McLean. You’re a lawyer.”
“Yes. I was hoping to have a word with Miss Dalhousie today, if at all possible. I have to go down to London next week for several days, and I thought I might just be able to catch her on a Saturday.”
Jamie shrugged. He knew that Isabel had dealings with various lawyers over financial matters, and he assumed that David McLean was one of these. “Saturday’s their busy day, but you can go along and see if she has a moment.”
Jamie explained where the delicatessen was, and David McLean nodded. “I know the place. We use it from time to time. We don’t live far away.” He paused. “Thank you. Nice wee boy. He is a boy, isn’t he?”
“He is.”
“What’s his name?”
“Charlie.”
“Hallo, Charlie.”
Charlie looked at the lawyer with that intense scrutinising stare of the very young. David McLean looked away, as if he were embarrassed by something; Jamie noticed this. Then he thanked Jamie and walked off, back to his car. Jamie hugged Charlie to him; the smooth cheek felt cold against his skin, and he reached for the little hand in its mitten. Even in summer, a small child was such a scrap of humanity that he might so easily be chilled by a breeze. And Scottish weather was so unpredictable; a warm, clear day could become almost Arctic if a wind blew up from the wrong direction. He needed to get Charlie inside and put him down for a sleep, in his warm room, where the afternoon sun came in the window. For a moment he wondered whether he should telephone Isabel in advance of David McLean’s reaching her, but then he put the thought out of his mind. Charlie had started to complain; a cold wind was one thing, waiting for his lunch quite another.
“NO,” SAID EDDIE. “You can’t return cheese.”
The customer, a young woman wearing a knitted hat, held out the offending parcel. “But smell it. Go on, smell it.”
Eddie took the cheese and sniffed it, watched by another, slightly amused customer. The woman in the knitted hat watched him, waiting for the confirmation of her complaint.
Eddie lowered the parcel. “But that’s how this cheese always smells. It’s called Pont l’Eveque. It’s French. French cheese smells. They like it that way.”
The woman snatched the parcel back from him and sniffed at it herself. “You’re telling me that this is how it’s meant to be? I bet that if I took a culture from it, it would show all sorts of things. There are European Union regulations about that sort of thing, you know. This cheese should be called salmonella.”
“It’s not called salmonella,” said Eddie. “It’s—”
“I know it’s not called that,” interjected the woman. “I said that’s what it
Isabel had come up behind Eddie. She glanced at the cheese and whispered to him, “Take it back.”
Eddie cocked his head to listen to her, but then turned back to face the customer. “If you don’t like smelly cheese you should get something different. Cheddar, maybe.”
Isabel intervened. “I think we can do a refund,” she said. “Or we can give you another cheese. Have you tried this one? This is an Italian cheese, Grana, which is just like Parmesan, but much cheaper. Here, try a little bit.”
She cut a small piece of cheese from a block on the counter and handed it, on the knife, to the young woman. Eddie glowered, but the young woman, mollified, nodded enthusiastically. “I really like that,” she said. “And it doesn’t stink.” She threw a glance at Eddie as she made the last remark, and he blushed.
Eddie watched as Isabel cut the Grana for the young woman. From a corner of the shop, David McLean also watched, and when Isabel had finished attending to the customer he came forward to the counter.
“Isabel Dalhousie?”
Isabel was surprised to be addressed by name in the delicatessen, where she thought few people, other than the most regular of customers, knew who she was. “Yes.” It was guarded, as if she might assent now to be Isabel Dalhousie, but reserved the right to be somebody else if necessary.
David McLean fished for a card from his pocket and passed it over to her. “I wonder if we could possibly have a quick word,” he said, nodding in the direction of the coffee tables, none of which was occupied.
Isabel looked at the card. “We’re very busy,” she said. “And there are just two of us at the moment.”
Eddie, standing just behind her, interrupted. “That’s all right. I’ll cope.” He spoke with a sense of injured innocence; Isabel might refund cheese unnecessarily, against his better judgement, but
She looked at Eddie. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Isabel turned back to face David McLean. “As it happens, I’m ready for a coffee. Would you like one?”
