Free Billie's Kiss by Elizabeth Knox Page B

water in his ear, it was so abrupt a movement. He blinked and blinked, and glared at his friends, and then began to sob. He said that he’d seen a baby hanging within her skirts.
    Murdo walked away, walked back around the harbour and along the promontory to Kiss Castle.
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    AT DINNER James Hallow asked whether his cousin had remembered to write to Mr Betler’s kinfolk. Murdo lied. He hadn’t been able to finish the letter. He’d felt he needed to know more about the cause of the accident. ‘The locals who have been diving into the wreck found the boiler intact.’ Murdo thought that might deflect his cousin’s interest. It seemed to, but not in the way he expected. He’d imagined that his cousin would begin to speculate, would launch a flotilla, a fleet of theories about the sinking. But James said, ‘Indeed.’ And then attended to his food.
    Murdo was forced to understand that he’d run out to look at his suspect and had forgotten his duty. He excused himself from the dinner table before dessert was served and went to his room to write his letter, only one, to Geordie Betler, Ian’s older brother.
    On his bed Murdo found a parcel, wrapped in brown paper. Brushes and combs, macassar, soap and shaving tackle, a pig’s bristle brush, a razor and strop. He sat on his bed and handled the gifts – then carefully laid away the razor. His razor had been an object that, for the last several years, would sometimes shine at him a steely invitation. Murdo considered his hopelessness . Considered the silence of his room, a silence not only of privacy, but of neglect. He saw Ian beating up shaving foam in a cup, Ian’s care, his hand testing the bathwater, his form crouched at a hearth laying a fire in a humble room, his figure wrapped in blankets on the far side of the fire and near the picketed horses. Murdo saw Ian sleeping, sleeping and there ,his apt attention, his ready ear.
    Murdo covered his face with his hands.

4

The Elder Betler
    I T WAS Meela Tannoy, his employer’s wife, who stopped Geordie Betler. When he reached for the door handle she leaned forward and placed her hand on his arm. She gently pressed him back beside Tannoy and put up the heavy leather blind that covered the carriage window. It was around ten in the morning, and the sun was out, but mist still pushed against the blind arches of Carrick’s Folly and poured over its rim.
    Meela Tannoy told the men that she would take the footman – to beat off thieves, or curiosity-seekers – and walk up to the high street. Her eyelids were heavy and her look droll. She said that since she was in Oban she might as well take a look at its little shops. She opened the door, and the footman was there, folding down the steps before her stout boots. Quayside idlers stirred and stared. Mrs Tannoy fished two folds of her silk sari out of the collar of her long Paris coat and drew them up over her head. She paused to look back in, not at Geordie, but at her husband – a quick look that carried several clear instructions, and her confidence in him. Then she left, the footman following her figure in its weird mix of nipped-waisted wool and amber gossamer.
    Andrew Tannoy raised the other blind and a long halt of sunlight ran through the carriage. The dust looked lively.
    Geordie and his employer regarded the ship. It was still taking on cargo and signing new crew, three of whom had paused, canvas sacks on their squared shoulders, facing the cargo that was still waiting its turn, a collection of empty boxesthat had to go on top, couldn’t take too much weight, or sit too close to other goods and contaminate them. Contaminate with bad luck, for the cargo the new crew stood and eyed waited stacked in four hearses – coffins for Stolnsay, whose own coffin-maker hadn’t enough seasoned timber to house the Gustav Edda ’seighteen dead crewmen and passengers.
    â€˜The wind is sharp,’ said