Free Alexander Mccall Smith - Isabel Dalhousie 05 by The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday Page A

misjudged. That he would never have run a terror.”
    Isabel laughed. “One cannot expect objectivity from a spouse, I suppose. But then I have somebody else’s view to go on as well. That cardiologist I sat next to at the dinner told me that he was convinced that Marcus was innocent. He didn’t tell me at the time what it was that he was supposed to have done, but he did tell me that he thought he didn’t do it. That’s two views in favour of innocence.”
    They had reached the end of the reservoir, and Jamie now glanced at his watch. “We should go back now,” he said. “We’ll need to settle him.” He planted a kiss on the top of Charlie’s head, on the tiny tam-o’-shanter he was wearing. Then, when they had started to retrace their steps, he said to Isabel, “I’m sorry I sounded so discouraging. You want to do this, don’t you?”
    â€œYes,” said Isabel. “I do.”
    â€œThen I’m proud of you,” said Jamie. “Really proud.”
    And with that he leaned over towards her and kissed her. She touched his hair. She breathed in. I am so in love, she thought, so deeply in love; and love of one is love of another, and another, until all humanity is embraced and the heavenly city realised, which will never happen, not even in your lifetime, Charlie, she thought.
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    WITH CHARLIE PUT TO BED, Jamie said, “I’ll cook.”
    It was now almost nine in the evening and Isabel had not thought much about supper. She had a vague idea that they might have a plate of the moussaka that she had made the previous day and needed to be finished off, but she had done nothing about it and Jamie’s offer was particularly welcome. He would make pasta, he said; he had discovered some porcini mushrooms in the larder and some cream. “Not very adventurous,” he said.
    â€œDelicious,” said Isabel. “And thank you. I want to look at some things in my study.”
    She left him in the kitchen and went through to her study in the front of the house. She had a fax machine there, and there was often a small pile of papers disgorged at the end of the day, waiting for her attention: scribbled notes from the printers, queries from the copy editor, and, in this case, a report from a reader. That was what she had hoped for, and she caught her breath when she saw it.
    She had sent Dove’s paper on the Trolley Problem to two referees, as was normal with any unsolicited paper. She had been scrupulously careful in her choice of referees; it would have been easy to pick a harsh one—and she knew at least one professor of philosophy, himself a seldom published man, who delighted in finding fault with the work of others and recommending against publication. Isabel would not use him as a referee, although when Professor Lettuce had been in charge of the board he had taken to doing so off his own bat. This man, whom Isabel had nicknamed the Harsh Critic, was friendly with Lettuce. Two peas from the same pod, thought Isabel; Lettuce seemed to attract vegetable metaphors, she admitted—the great turnip. No, she would not send it to the Harsh Critic because he would reject it more or less automatically—or would he? If he, the Harsh Critic, was friendly with Lettuce, then might it not be possible that he would be on good terms with Lettuce’s acolyte, Dove, the oleaginous one? In which case he would probably recommend in favour of publication, as he would not like to cause Lettuce to wilt. This made matters more complex. If she decided against the Harsh Critic, then she was taking away from Dove a chance that he would otherwise have, and she wanted to treat him with scrupulous fairness. But no, he would get a random referee, one chosen by her when she opened her address book at random…like this, and there he was, the obvious choice, her friend Iain Torrance. Iain, a theologian with a