The Sunday Philosophy Club

She would miss them, in a curious way; they were contacts with a different world.

She stayed at the reception until it started to break up. She spoke briefly to Professor Butler himself. “My dear, I’m so glad that you enjoyed what I had to say. I have no doubt that I shall say more on the subject one day, but I shan’t inflict that on you. No, I shall not.” She appreciated his urbanity, so increasingly rare in modern academic circles, where narrow specialists, devoid of any broad culture, had elbowed out those with any sense of courtesy.

So many academic philosophers were like that, she thought.

They spoke to nobody but themselves, because the civilities of broader discourse eluded them and because their experience of the wider world was so limited. Not all of them, of course. She had a mental list of the exceptions, but it seemed to be shrinking.

It was shortly after ten that she walked up Chambers Street and took her place in the small queue at the bus stop on George IV Bridge. There were taxis about, prowling down the street with their yellow signs lit, but she had decided in favour of a bus. The bus would drop her in Bruntsfield, more or less directly outside Cat’s delicatessen, and she would enjoy the ten-minute walk along Merchiston Crescent and down her own road.

The bus arrived, and as she noticed from the timetable displayed in the bus shelter, it was exactly on time; she would have to mention this to Grace, but perhaps not, as it might provoke a tirade against the transport authorities. It’s all very well running on time at night, when there’s nobody about. What we want are buses that run on time during the day, when you need them.

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Isabel stepped into the bus, bought her ticket, and made her way to a seat at the back. There were few other passengers: a man in an overcoat, his head sunk against his chest; a couple with arms around each other, impervious to their surroundings; and a teenage boy with a black scarf wound round his neck, Zorro-style. Isabel smiled to herself: a microcosm of our condition, she thought.

Loneliness and despair; love and its self-absorption; and sixteen, which was a state all its own.

The boy alighted from the bus at the same time as Isabel, but went off in the opposite direction. She crossed the road and began the walk along Merchiston Crescent, past East Castle Road and West Castle Road. The occasional car went past, and a cyclist with a flashing red light attached to his back, but otherwise she was alone.

She reached the point where her road, a quiet, leafy avenue, ran off to the right. A cat ran past her and leapt onto a garden wall before disappearing; a light shone out from a house on the corner, and a door slammed. She followed the pavement down towards her house, past the large wooden gates of the house on the corner and the carefully tended garden of a neighbour. And then, under the boughs of the tree that grew on the corner of her property, she stopped. Further down the road, about fifty yards or so, two cars were parked. One she recognised as belonging to the son of one set of neighbours; the other, a sleek Jaguar, had been left with its parking lights on. She walked down, peered into the car, which she noticed was locked, and then looked up at the house outside which it was parked. The house was in darkness, which suggested that the owner of the car was not being entertained there. Well, there was not much she could do to alert him. The battery might last out a few hours, but beyond that he would need help in starting.

2 2 4

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Isabel walked back up the road towards her house. Outside the gate she paused; she was not sure why. She looked into the shadows under the tree, and saw movement. It was the striped cat from next door, who liked to lurk under her trees. She would like to have warned him of Brother Fox, who might take a cat if he were feeling peckish, but she did not have the words, so she willed a warning instead.

She opened her gate and began to walk down the path to her front door, in shadows, protected from the streetlight by the spruce and by a small stand of birches at the entrance to her driveway. And it was then that she felt the hand of fear upon her; an irrational fear, but a cold one. Had she talked that evening to a woman who might, calmly and calculatingly, have planned the demise of another? And had this woman uttered a warning?

She fished her key out of her pocket and prepared to insert it into the door; but then tested the door first, pushing gently against it. It did not budge, which meant that it was locked. She fitted the key into the lock, turned it, and heard the bolts slide within. Then, opening the door carefully, she stepped into her outer hall and fumbled for the light switch.

Isabel had an alarm, but she had grown careless in setting it, using it only when she went away for the night. If she had set it she would have been more confident; as it was, she could not be sure whether or not anybody had been in the house. But of course nobody would have been in the house; it was ridiculous to imagine it. Just because she had had that frank conversation with Minty Auchterlonie did not mean that Minty was watching her.

She made a conscious effort to put the thought to one side, as one should do with all fears. Living by oneself it was important not to feel afraid, as every noise made by the house at night—

every squeak or groan which a Victorian house made—would be T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B

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a cause for alarm. But she was feeling fear, and she could not suppress it. It was fear which made her go into the kitchen and turn on all the lights, and then move from room to room on the ground floor and light them. There was nothing to see, of course, and by the time she went upstairs, she was prepared to turn these lights out again. But going into her study to check her answering machine, she saw the small red light winking at her, which meant that there were messages. She hesitated for a moment, and then decided to listen to the messages. There was only one.

Isabel, it’s Minty Auchterlonie here. I wonder if we could meet up to have another talk. I hope that you didn’t think I was rude this evening. I’ll give you my number. Call me to arrange coffee or lunch or whatever. Thank you.

Isabel was surprised, but reassured by the message, and she noted the number on a piece of paper and slipped it into her pocket. Then she left the study, turning out the light behind her.

She was no longer afraid; slightly uneasy, perhaps, and still puzzled as to why Minty should wish to speak to her again.

She went into her bedroom, which was at the front of the house. It was a large room, with an unusual bay window and window seat off to one side. She had left the curtains pulled to, and the room was in complete darkness. She turned on the bedside lamp, a small reading light that made a tiny pool of light in the large, shadowy room. Isabel did not bother with the main light; she would lie on her bed, she thought, reading for fifteen minutes or so, before she prepared for bed. Her mind was active, and it was too early to turn in.

Isabel slipped off her shoes, picked up a book from her dressing table, and lay down on her bed. She was reading an account of a trip to Ecuador, an amusing story of misunderstandings and dangers. She was enjoying it, but her mind kept returning to her 2 2 6

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h conversation with Johnny Sanderson. He had been so helpful and reassuring, and he had told her that she could telephone him at any time. Anytime before midnight. It was clear to her that Minty had tried to put her off any further enquiries by suggesting that it was Johnny who was the insider trader. That was clearly outrageous, and she would not mention it to him. Or should she? If he knew that, then would his view of the situation differ? It is possible that he might revise his view if he knew that Minty was actively trying to discourage Isabel. She could phone Johnny now and talk to him about it; otherwise she would lie there and not get to sleep thinking of it.

Isabel reached over and picked up the telephone beside her bed. Johnny’s card was protruding from the pages of her pocket address book. She took the card out and looked at it in the dim light of the bedside lamp. Then she picked up the telephone receiver and keyed in the number.

There was a moment’s delay. Then she heard it: a distinctive, high-pitched ringing tone, coming from somewhere just outside her bedroom.

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F I V E

E

ISABEL FELT PARALYSED, lying in the bed, the telephone receiver in her hand. Because the large room was in semidark-ness, with only her small bedside lamp illuminated, there were shadows—from cupboards, curtains, the small dressing room off to the side. When she recovered her power to move, it might have been to lunge for the light switch, but it was not. She half leapt, half tumbled from her bed, the telephone falling to the floor behind her, and in one or two bounds she reached the door.

Then, holding the thick wooden banister to steady herself, she half threw herself down the stairs. She could have fallen, but did not; nor did she slip when she raced across the downstairs hallway and clutched at the door that separated the inner and outer halls. It yielded, and she flung it back upon its hinges, shattering the stained-glass panel which it contained. With the sound of falling glass, she screamed involuntarily, and a hand was laid upon her arm.

“Isabel?”

She spun round. She had a light on in the kitchen, and it shone through to the hall, making it possible for her to see that it was Johnny Sanderson standing in the hall beside her.

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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h

“Isabel. Have I frightened you? I’m terribly sorry.”

Isabel stared at him. The hand was tight about her arm, almost painful.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice sounded cracked, and she cleared her throat without thinking.

“Calm down,” said Johnny. “I’m terribly sorry if I gave you a fright. I had come to see you and I found the door open. I was a little bit concerned, as the house was in darkness. So I came in and checked that everything was all right. Then I went out into the garden, just to look round. I thought that there might have been an intruder.”

Isabel thought quickly. What Johnny said was just possibly true. If one found a house with an open door, and with no sign of the owner about, then it might well be that one would look about the place to check that all was in order. But what had his mobile phone been doing upstairs?

“Your telephone,” said Isabel, moving over to the light switch to turn it on. “I dialled it and it rang.”

Johnny looked at her curiously. “But it’s in my pocket,” he said. “Look.” He reached into the pocket of the jacket he was wearing, and then stopped. “Or at least it was there.”

Isabel took a deep breath. “You must have dropped it.”

“So it seems,” said Johnny. He smiled. “That must have given you a dreadful fright.”

“It did.”

“Well, yes, I suppose it would. Again, I’m sorry.”

Isabel pulled herself away from Johnny’s grip, which was dropped. She looked down at the broken stained glass; it had por-trayed the harbour at Kirkcudbright, the hull of the fishing boat tiny shards now. As she looked down, the thought came to her, a thought which overthrew all her assumptions: Minty was right.

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Minty was not the person they should have been investigating; it was Johnny. By coincidence they had gone right to the person who was behind whatever it was that Mark had uncovered.

It was a realisation that was sudden and complete. She did not have to reconsider it, as she stood there in her hall, confronted by Johnny Sanderson. Good was bad; light was dark; it was as simple as that. A road followed in faith was the road that led nowhere, because it stopped, suddenly and without warning, at a sign which said, unambiguously, Wrong way. And the human mind, jolted out of its assumptions, could either refuse the new reality or switch tracks. Minty might be ambitious, hard, scheming, and promiscu-ous (all rolled into one elegant package), but she did not push young men over balconies. Johnny Sanderson might be a culti-vated, sympathetic member of the Edinburgh establishment, but he was greedy, and money could seduce anybody. And then, when everything was threatened by the possibility of exposure, it would be such an easy step to remove the threat.

She looked at Johnny. “Why did you come to see me?”

“There was something I wanted to talk about.”

“And what was that?”

Johnny smiled. “I really don’t think that we should talk much now. After this . . . after this disturbance.”

Isabel stared at him, struck by the sheer effrontery of the response.

“A disturbance which you created,” she said.

Johnny sighed, as if confronted with a pedantic objection. “I merely intended to discuss the matter we were discussing the other day. That’s all.”

Isabel said nothing, and after a few moments Johnny continued: “But we’ll do that some other time. I’m sorry that I gave you that fright.” He turned and looked back up the stairs. “Would you 2 3 0

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h mind if I recovered my phone? You say that it’s up in your bedroom? Would you mind?”

A F T E R J O H N N Y H A D G O N E , Isabel went into the kitchen and fetched a dustpan and broom. She carefully picked up the larger pieces of broken glass and wrapped them in newspaper, and then she swept up the smaller fragments and carried them back into the kitchen in the dustpan. Then she sat down at the kitchen telephone and dialled Jamie’s number.

It took Jamie some time to answer and Isabel knew that she had woken him up.

“I’m very sorry,” she said. “I had to speak to you.”

Jamie’s voice was thick with sleep. “I don’t mind.”

“Could you come round to the house? Right now.”

“Right now?”

“Yes. I’ll explain when you come. Please. And would you mind staying here overnight? Just tonight.”

He sounded as if he was fully woken up now. “It’ll take me half an hour. Will that be all right?”

I S A B E L H E A R D H I S TA X I arrive and went to the front door to greet him. He was wearing a green windcheater and was carrying a small black overnight bag.

“You’re an angel. You really are.”

He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “I can’t imagine what you want to talk about. But still, that’s what friends are for.”

Isabel led him into the kitchen, where she had prepared tea.

She motioned to a chair and poured him a cup.

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“You’re not going to believe this,” she began. “I’ve had an eventful evening.”

She told him of what had happened and his eyes widened as she spoke. But it was clear to her that he did not doubt her for a moment.

“But you can’t believe him. Nobody would wander into somebody else’s house like that just because the door was open . . . if it was open in the first place.”

“Which I doubt,” said Isabel.

“Then what on earth was he doing? What did he have in mind? Doing you in?”

Isabel shrugged her shoulders. “I suspect that he might wonder about my intentions. If he’s the one we should have been suspecting all along, then he might be worried that I had some proof. Some documents linking him with insider deals.”

“This is what this is?”

“I assume so. Unless he was planning something else, which is rather unlikely, at this stage.”

“So what do we do now?”

Isabel looked at the floor. “I have no idea. Or not now. I think I should just go to bed and we can talk about it tomorrow.” She paused. “Are you sure that you don’t mind staying? It’s just that I can’t face being in the house by myself tonight.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” said Jamie. “I wouldn’t leave you by yourself. Not after all that.”

“Grace keeps one of the spare rooms made up,” she said. “It’s at the back. It’s nice and quiet. You can have that.”

She took him upstairs and showed him the room. Then she said good night, leaving him standing just inside his room. He smiled, and blew her a kiss.

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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h

“I’m just along here,” he said. “If there’s any attempt by Johnny to disturb your sleep, you just give me a shout.”

“I think that’s the last we’ll see of him tonight,” said Isabel.

She felt safer now, but there was still the thought that unless she did something, the issue of Johnny Sanderson was unresolved.

Jamie was there tonight, but he would not be there the following night, nor the night after that.

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S I X

E

IF GRACE FELT any surprise at finding Jamie in the house the next morning, she concealed it well. He was by himself in the kitchen when she came in, and for a few moments he seemed at a loss as to what to say. Grace, who had picked up the mail from the floor of the hall, broke the silence.

“Four more articles this morning,” she said. “Applied ethics.

No shortage of applied ethics.”

Jamie looked at the pile of mail. “Did you notice the door?”

“I did.”

“There was an intruder.”

Grace stood quite still. “I thought so. That alarm. I’ve been telling her for years, years, to use it. She never does. She never listens.” She drew breath. “Well, I didn’t actually think anything.

I didn’t know what to think. I thought that maybe you two had had a party last night.”

Jamie grinned. “No. I came when she called me. I stayed over—in one of the spare rooms.”

Grace listened gravely as Jamie explained what had happened. As he came to the end of the explanation, Isabel came 2 3 4

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h into the kitchen, and the three of them sat down at the table and entered into discussion.

“This has gone far enough,” said Jamie. “You’re out of your depth now and you are going to have to hand the whole thing over.”

Isabel looked blank. “To?”

“The police.”

“But what exactly are we going to hand over to them?” asked Isabel. “We have no proof of anything. All we have is a suspicion that Johnny Sanderson is mixed up in insider trading and that this may have had something to do with Mark Fraser’s death.”

“What puzzles me, though,” said Jamie, “is the fact that McDowell’s must have had their own suspicions about him. You say that Minty explained that this is why he was asked to leave.

So if they knew, then why should he be worried about your finding anything out?”

Isabel thought about this. There would be a reason. “Perhaps they wanted the whole thing hushed up. This would suit Johnny Sanderson, of course, and he would not want anybody from the outside—that is, you and me—finding out about it and making a fuss. The Edinburgh establishment has been known to close ranks before this. We should not be unduly surprised.”

“But we have last night,” said Jamie. “At least we have something more concrete on him.”

Isabel shook her head. “Last night proves nothing,” she said.

“He has his story about why he came in. He’ll stick to that and the police would probably just accept that. They won’t want to get involved in some private spat.”

“But we could point out the link with the allegations of insider trading,” said Jamie. “We could tell them about what Neil told you and about the paintings. There’s enough here to give rise to a reasonable suspicion.”

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Isabel was doubtful. “I don’t think there is. The police can’t demand that you explain where you get your money from. They don’t work that way.”

“And Neil?” Jamie persisted. “What about the information that Mark Fraser was frightened of something?”

“He has already declined to go to the police about that,” said Isabel. “He would probably deny that he’d ever spoken to me. If he changed his story, then the police could accuse him of misleading them. He’s not going to say anything, if you ask me.”

Jamie turned to Grace, wondering whether she would support him in his suggestion. “What do you think?” he asked. “Do you agree with me?”

“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”

Jamie looked at Isabel, who raised an eyebrow. There was an idea forming in her mind. “Set a thief to catch a thief,” she said. “As you say, we’re out of our depth here. We can’t prove anything about these financial goings-on. We certainly can’t prove anything about a link between all that and Mark Fraser’s death. In fact, it looks as if that probably isn’t the issue—there simply isn’t any link. So what we need to do is get the message to Johnny Sanderson that we’re no longer involved in any way. That should keep him from me.”

“Do you really think he might . . . might try to harm you?”

Jamie asked.

“I felt pretty frightened last night,” said Isabel. “He could. But then it’s occurred to me that we could get Minty to tell him that she’s fully aware of his visit here. If she gets the message to him that she knows that he’s been leaning on me, then he would presumably not try anything further. If I came to any harm, he would have at least one archenemy who would point the finger at him.”

Jamie sounded doubtful. “So we should talk to Minty?”

Isabel nodded. “Frankly, I can’t face it. I wondered if you . . .”

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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Grace rose to her feet. “No,” she said. “I’ll do this. You tell me where this Minty woman is to be found and I’ll go and have a word with her. Then, just in case there’s any doubt, I’ll go and have a word with this Sanderson person. I’ll leave him in no doubt that he’s not to come round here again.”

Isabel glanced at Jamie, who nodded. “Grace can be very firm,” he said, adding quickly, “Of course, I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

Isabel smiled. “Of course,” she said. She was silent for a few moments, and then went on. “You know, I feel that I’m showing an appalling lack of moral courage. I’ve looked into a very unpleasant world and have simply drawn back in fright. I’m throwing in every towel in sight.”

“What more can you do?” said Jamie crossly. “You’ve already interfered. Now you can’t do anything more. You’re fully entitled to look after yourself. Be reasonable for once.”

“I’m walking away from it all,” said Isabel quietly. “I’m walking away because somebody has given me a bad fright. It’s exactly what they want me to do.”

Jamie’s frustration was now palpable. “All right, then,” he said.

“Tell us what you can do instead. Tell us where we go from here. You can’t, can you? That’s because there’s nothing else for you to do.”

“Exactly,” said Grace. And then she went on, “Jamie here is right. You’re wrong. You’re not a moral coward. You’re the least cowardly person I know. The least.”

“I agree,” said Jamie. “You’re brave, Isabel. And we love you for it. You’re brave and good and you don’t even know it.”

I S A B E L W E N T T H R O U G H to her study to deal with the mail, leaving Jamie and Grace in the kitchen. After a few minutes, T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B

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Jamie looked at his watch. “I have a pupil at eleven,” he said. “But I could come back this evening.”

Grace thought this a good idea, and accepted on Isabel’s behalf. “Just for a few more days,” she said. “If you don’t mind . . .”

“I don’t,” said Jamie. “I wouldn’t leave her by herself in the middle of all this.”

As he left the house, Grace followed him out onto the path, catching him by the arm. Glancing behind her towards the house, she lowered her voice as she spoke to him.

“You’re wonderful, you know. You really are. Most young men wouldn’t bother. But you do.”

He was embarrassed. “I don’t mind. I really don’t.”

“Yes, well, maybe. But here’s another thing. Cat’s got rid of that fellow with the red breeks. She wrote to Isabel about it.”

Jamie said nothing, but blinked once or twice.

Grace tightened the pressure on his forearm. “Isabel told her,” she whispered. “She told her about how Toby is carrying on with another girl.”

“She told her that?”

“Yes, and she was mighty upset. She ran out, sobbing her eyes out. I tried to speak to her, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

Jamie began to laugh, but checked himself quickly. “I’m sorry.

I’m not laughing at Cat’s being upset. I was just so pleased that now maybe she knows what he’s like. I . . .”

Grace nodded. “If she had any sense she’d get back to you.”

“Thank you. I’d like that, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen.”

Grace looked into his eyes. “May I say something really personal? Would you mind?”

“Of course I wouldn’t. Fire away.” He had been instantly buoyed by the news which Grace had imparted and now he was ready for anything.

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“Your trousers,” whispered Grace. “They’re very dull. You’ve got a great body . . . sorry to be so direct, you know, I wouldn’t normally talk like this to a man. And your face is tremendous.

Tremendous. But you have to . . . you have to be a bit more sexy.

That girl is, well, she’s interested in that sort of thing.”

Jamie stared at her. Nobody had spoken to him like that before. She undoubtedly meant it well, but what exactly was wrong with his trousers? He looked down at his legs, at his trousers, and then he looked at Grace.

She was shaking her head; not in disapproval, but in sorrow, as at missed opportunities, potential unfulfilled.

JA M I E R E T U R N E D S H O RT LY before seven that evening, bringing with him an overnight case. The glaziers had been that afternoon and the stained-glass panel in the inner hall door had now been replaced with a large sheet of plain glass. Isabel was in her study when he arrived and she asked him to wait for a few minutes in the drawing room while she finished off a letter she was drafting. She seemed to be in good spirits when she let him in, he thought, but when she came through, her expression was more sombre.

“I had two calls from Minty,” she said. “Do you want to hear about them?”

“Of course I do. I was thinking about it all day.”

“Minty was really angry when Grace told her about last night.

She said that she and Paul would go round immediately to have a word with Johnny Sanderson, which they did, apparently. And then she called back and said that I need not worry anymore about him, that he had been well and truly warned off. Apparently they have something else on him that they could threaten him with, and he backed down. So that’s it.”

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“And Mark Fraser? Was anything said about Mark’s death?”

“No,” said Isabel. “Nothing. But if you ask me, I would say that there’s still a chance that Mark Fraser was pushed over the balcony by Johnny Sanderson, or by somebody acting on his behalf. But we shall never be able to prove it, and I assume that Johnny Sanderson knows it. So that’s the end of that. Everything has been tidied away. The financial community has tucked its dirty washing out of sight. A young man’s death has been tucked away too. And it’s business as usual, all round.”

Jamie looked at the floor. “We’re not very brilliant investiga-tors, are we?”

Isabel smiled. “No,” she said. “We’re a couple of rather help-less amateurs. A bassoonist and a philosopher.” She paused. “But there is something to be cheerful about, I suppose, in the midst of all this moral failure.”

Jamie was curious. “And what would that be?”

Isabel rose to her feet. “I think we might just allow ourselves a glass of sherry on that one,” she said. “It would be indecent to open the champagne.” She moved over to the drinks cabinet and extracted two glasses.

“What precisely are we celebrating?” asked Jamie.

“Cat is no longer engaged,” said Isabel. “For a very brief period she was in grave danger of marriage to Toby. But she came round this afternoon and we had a good cry on each other’s shoulders. Toby is history, as you people so vividly put it.”

Jamie knew that she was right, one should not celebrate the end of a relationship with champagne. But one could go out to dinner, which is what he proposed, and what she accepted.

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S E V E N

E

ISABEL DID NOT LIKE to leave things unfinished. She had engaged in the whole issue of Mark Fraser’s fall on the basis that she had become involved, whether she liked it or not. This moral involvement was almost over, except for one thing. She decided now to see Neil, and tell him the outcome of her enquiries. He was the one who had effectively asked her to act, and she felt that she should explain to him how matters had turned out. The knowledge that there was no connection between Mark’s apparent disquiet and the fall could help him, if he was feeling unhappy about his having done nothing himself.

But there was something more that drew her to seek out Neil. Ever since her first meeting with him, on that awkward evening when she had seen him darting across the hall, she had felt puzzled by him. The circumstances of their meeting, of course, had not been easy; she had disturbed him in bed with Hen, and that was embarrassing, but it was more than that. At that first meeting, he had been suspicious of her and his answers to her questions had been unforthcoming. Of course, she was not entitled to expect a warm welcome—he could easily, and under-T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B

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standably, have resented anybody coming to ask about Mark—

but it went beyond that.

She decided to see him the following day. She tried to telephone him to arrange to go round to the flat, but there was no reply from the flat number and he was unavailable at his office.

So she decided to risk an unannounced visit again.

As she walked up the stairs she reflected on what had happened in the interval between her last visit and this. Only a few weeks had passed, but in that time it seemed that she had been put through a comprehensive and thoroughly efficient emotional wringer. Now here she was, back exactly where she had started.

She rang the bell, and as last time, Hen let her in. This time, her welcome was warmer and she was immediately offered a glass of wine, which she accepted.

“I’ve actually come to see Neil,” she said. “I wanted to talk to him again. I hope he won’t mind.”

“I’m sure he won’t,” said Hen. “He’s not back yet, but I don’t think he’ll be long.”

Isabel found herself recalling the previous visit, when Hen had lied to her about Neil’s absence and she had seen him dash naked across the hallway. She wanted to smile, but did not.

“I’m moving out,” said Hen, conversationally. “Flitting. I’ve found a job in London and I’m going down there. Challenges.

Opportunities. You know.”

“Of course,” said Isabel. “You must be very excited.”

“I’ll miss this place, though,” said Hen. “And I’m sure I’ll come back to Scotland. People always do.”

“I did,” said Isabel. “I was in Cambridge for some years, and America, and then I came back. Now I suppose I’m here for good.”

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“Well, give me a few years first,” said Hen. “Then we’ll see.”

Isabel wondered about Neil. Would he stay, or was she going to take him with her? Somehow she thought that she would not.

She asked.

“Neil’s staying here,” said Hen. “He has his job.”

“And the flat? He’ll keep it on?”

“I think so.” Hen paused. “I think he’s a bit upset about it, actually, but he’ll get over things. Mark’s death was very hard for him. Hard for all of us. But Neil has taken it very badly.”

“They were close?”

Hen nodded. “Yes, they got on. Most of the time. I think I told you that before.”

“Of course,” said Isabel. “Of course you did.”

Hen reached for the wine bottle which she had placed on the table and from which she now topped up her glass. “You know,”

she said, “I still find myself thinking about that evening. That evening when Mark fell. I can’t help it. It gets me at odd times of the day. I think of him sitting there, in his last hour or so, his last hour ever. I think of him sitting there listening to the McCunn. I know that music. My mother used to play it at home. I think of him sitting there and listening.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Isabel. “I can imagine how hard it must be for you.” The McCunn. Land of the Mountain and the Flood.

Such a romantic piece. And then the thought occurred to her, and for a moment her heart stood still.

“You knew what they played that night?” she asked. Her voice was small, and Hen looked at her in surprise.

“Yes, I did. I forget what the rest was, but I noticed the McCunn.”

“Noticed?”

T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B

2 4 3

“On the programme,” said Hen, looking quizzically at Isabel.

“I saw it on the programme. So what?”

“But where did you get the programme? Did somebody give it to you?”

Again Hen looked at Isabel as if she was asking pointless questions. “I think I found it here, in the flat. In fact, I could probably lay my hands on it right now. Do you want to see it?”

Isabel nodded, and Hen rose to her feet and riffled through a pile of papers on a shelf. “Here we are. That’s the programme.

Look, there’s the McCunn and the other stuff is listed here.”

Isabel took the programme. Her hands were shaking.

“Whose programme is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Hen. “Neil’s maybe. Everything in the flat is either his or mine or . . . Mark’s.”

“It must be Neil’s,” said Isabel quietly. “Mark didn’t come back from the concert, did he?”

“I don’t see why the programme is so important,” said Hen.

She gave the impression now of being slightly irritated, and Isabel took the opportunity to excuse herself.

“I’ll go downstairs and wait for Neil,” she said. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

“I was going to have a bath,” said Hen.

“Well, you go ahead and do that,” said Isabel quickly. “Does he walk back from work?”

“Yes,” said Hen, getting to her feet. “He comes up from Toll-cross. Over the golf links there.”

“I’ll meet him,” said Isabel. “It’s a gorgeous evening and I’d like the walk.”

*

*

*

2 4 4

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h S H E W E N T O U T S I D E , trying to keep calm, trying to control her breathing. Soapy Soutar, the boy downstairs, was dragging his reluctant dog to a patch of grass at the edge of the road. She walked past him, stopping to say something.

“That’s a nice dog.”

Soapy Soutar looked up at her. “He disnae like me. And he eats his heid off.”

“Dogs are always hungry,” said Isabel. “That’s what they’re like.”

“Aye, well this one has a hollow stomach, my mum says. Eats and disnae want to go for walks.”

“I’m sure he likes you, though.”

“No, he disnae.”

The conversation came to a natural end, and she looked down over the links. There were two people making their separate ways up the diagonal path, and one of them, a tall figure in a lightweight khaki raincoat, looked as if he might be Neil. She began to walk forward.

It was Neil. For a moment or two it seemed as if he did not recognise her, but then he smiled and greeted her politely.

“I came to see you,” she said. “Hen said that you would be on your way home, so I thought I’d meet you out here. It’s such a wonderful evening.”

“Yes, it’s grand, isn’t it?” He looked at her, waiting for her to say something else. He was uneasy, she thought, but then he would be.

She took a deep breath. “Why did you come to me?” she asked. “Why did you come to talk about Mark’s worries?”

He answered quickly, almost before she had finished her question. “Because I had not told you the whole truth.”

“And you still haven’t.”

He stared at her, and she saw his knuckle tighten about the T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B

2 4 5

handle of his briefcase. “You still haven’t told me that you were there. You were there in the Usher Hall, weren’t you?”

She held his gaze, watching the passage of emotions. There was anger to begin with, but that soon passed, and was replaced by fear.

“I know you were there,” she said. “And now I have proof of it.” This was only true to an extent, but she felt that it would be enough, at least for the purpose of this meeting.

He opened his mouth to speak. “I—”

“And did you have anything to do with his death, Neil? Did you? Were there just the two of you left up there after everybody else had gone downstairs? That’s true, isn’t it?”

He could no longer hold her gaze. “I was there. I was.”

“I see,” said Isabel. “And what happened?”

“We had an argument,” he said. “ I started it. I was jealous of him and Hen, you see. I couldn’t take it. We had an argument and I gave him a shove, sideways, to make my point. I had no intention of it being anything more than that. Just a shove, hardly anything. That’s all I did. But he overbalanced.”

“Are you telling me the truth now, Neil?” Isabel studied his eyes as he looked up to reply, and she had her answer. But then there was the question of why he was jealous of Mark and Hen.

But did that matter? She thought not; because love and jealousy may have many different wellsprings, but are as urgent and as strong whatever their source.

“I am telling the truth,” he said slowly. “But I couldn’t tell anybody that, could I? They would have accused me of pushing him over the edge and I would have had no witnesses to say that it was anything but that. If I had, I would have been prosecuted.

It’s culpable homicide, you know, if you assault somebody and they die, even if you had no intention of killing them and it’s only 2 4 6

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h a shove. But it was an accident; it really was. I had no intention, none at all . . .” He paused. “And I was too scared to tell anybody about it. I was just scared. I imagined what it would be like if nobody believed me.”

A man walked by, stepping onto the grass to avoid them, wondering (Isabel imagined) what they were doing, standing in earnest conversation under the evening sky. Settling a life, she thought; laying the dead to rest; allowing time and self-forgiveness to start.

“I believe you,” said Isabel.

Philosophers in their studies, Isabel reflected, grapple with problems of this sort. Forgiveness is a popular subject for them, as is punishment. We need to punish, not because it makes us feel any better—ultimately it does not—but because it establishes the moral balance: it makes a declaration about wrongdo-ing; it maintains our sense of a just world. But in a just world one punishes only those who mean wrong, who act from an ill will.

This young man, whom she now understood, had never meant ill.

He had never intended to harm Mark—anything but—and there was no reason, no conceivable justification, for holding him responsible for the awful consequences of what was no more than a gesture of irritation. If the criminal law of Scotland stipulated differently, then the law of Scotland was simply morally indefensible, and that was all there was to it.

Neil was confused, Isabel thought. Ultimately it was all about sex, and not knowing what he wanted, and being immature. If he were punished now, for something that he had never meant to happen, what point would be served by that? One more life would be marred, and the world, in this case, would not be a more just place for it.

“Yes, I believe you,” said Isabel. She paused. The decision was really quite simple, and she did not need to be a moral T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B

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philosopher to take it. “And that’s the end of the matter. It was an accident. You’re sorry about it. We can leave it at that.”

She looked at him, and saw that he was in tears. So she reached out and took his hand, which she held until they were ready to walk back up the path.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phe-nomenon The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. This novel is the first of a new series, The Sunday Philosophy Club. He spent his childhood in Zimbabwe and has worked in Botswana and Swaziland. He lives in Scotland, where he is a professor of med-ical law at Edinburgh University.

Document Outline

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty -four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

About the Author