Blog Time 7th September 2024

It’s been a while since I blogged so here’s a quick update.

Book No.4  – PENITENT is on Amazon, in British bookstores nationwide, and online at the usual places. It was also longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, the Scottish Crime Book of the Year, 2023.

Meet Hector Lawless. As a brilliant Edinburgh lawyer, Hector has a reputation for untangling the cases that no other lawyer can handle. But the obsessive-compulsive behaviour that’s made him a master of the law has also left Hector a pariah amongst his peers – a social outcast with crippling anxiety. The man with the perfectly ordered desk, the pristine notebooks, the strictly regimented working day and rituals that make sense only to him. When Hector is approached by his boss, Lord Campbell, with a highly sensitive case that reaches from one of Edinburgh’s most exclusive private schools to 10 Downing Street, he relishes the chance to bring true evil to justice. Hector must call on every one of the skills he has cultivated over a lifetime of being an outsider to survive. Justice will be served. The Penitent must accept their penance. As Hector’s enemies are about to discover, it really is the quiet ones you have to worry about.

Book No.5 – SILVERSKINS – Fantasy/Magical Realism, High Concept, International Thriller
 
SILVERSKINS is a high concept magical realism thriller, ranging from Manhattan to London, Paris and Bohemia, all centred around Celtic and Bohemian mythology.
 
In 1921, Catriona MacGregor, a young American rebel hunted by the dictators of the US and UK governments, has returned home from Manhattan to the Scottish Highlands to search for her faerie mother and to find a young man, Robbie Jamieson, who holds a dangerous secret, which if unleashed, could destroy her faerie realm, and kill millions in the human world.
 
Catriona claims her faerie life as a Selkie and is now able to move between the real and faerie worlds as both a seal and a young woman. She traces the origins of the secret through London and Paris, then the Orient Express to Bohemia, with her enemies one step ahead at every stage. She must untangle the mystery behind the terrible power and risk everything to turn and fight against all the odds.

Book No. 6 – COLDWATER, a bookclub/murder mystery novel.

In the shadow of Coldwater Castle, a crumbling, gothic Gatsby-esque mansion off Long Island, Lucy Tavendale leaves her unconscious lover behind in a burning cabin, fills her pockets with rocks and walks into the sea.

Then Ruby Kinraddie returns home to Coldwater. Lucy, her childhood friend, is blamed for the murder of her lover. But Ruby’s mother is convinced that Lucy was innocent, and that there is a murderer on the island.

Coldwater Castle is falling apart, as are the alibis of its occupants while the number of deaths rise. And as Ruby investigates, she unearths her own traumatic memories that threaten to destroy the web of dreams and lies she crafted as a young girl, but which now may uncover a killer.

Coldwater provides patronage for five impoverished artists, and Ruby is convinced that one of them is a double murderer. By murdering Lucy’s lover, they caused the suicide of Lucy. These artists all have secrets, and over the course of one night, as the recrimination and rancour intensify, one of them must kill, and kill again to hide their guilt.

 

Book No. 7 – ALL THE BRIGHT ROOMS, Literary Fiction.

A work in progress.

Chapter 1

Vincent told me he loved me today. He thinks I didn’t hear him. Now he is softer in his movement and slower in his words. Now he’s sitting back in his chair and thinks I cannot see him, turned away from the glare of the sun, with his eyes closed and his chin in the air. He hasn’t done that since I arrived. He looked at the food, but does not dare touch it. It will spoil soon in the heat. We had a sunshade over the veranda that rolled out from high on the wall like an old shop front. But they took that too. So now we stand in the sun and look out to the sea.

I think he’ll go now. I do not know where. His mother has a house a few hours down the coast towards Marseilles.

He won’t go back to his father, not for a few days, even though he could walk there. Yesterday, he said, that if he looked out from his father’s balcony, in the house perched high up on the rocks, facing west down the edge of the water, he would think he could see me on the beach and the dunes, below this house.

No, Vincent, I said, it’s over three miles.

But it’s only water between us, he said. On a clear day I can see all along the coast to the border with Spain. A mile, a foot, what does it matter? I’d know you were there.

I might be in the house, right here, I said, or in the forest. Then you can’t see me.

I’d wait, he said.

Maybe that’s all he needs. I hope it makes him happy, if I care. I’m not sure that I do. We are no longer clumsy children in the dunes below the house. My heart is here, but my life is in another country. Or it was. I no longer know my future.

Gabriel came down from Paris for the funeral. But I know what he did there. If he touches the food I’ll snap his neck like a twig.

Only three children of my childhood remain, myself included, then Vincent and Gabriel. But now I am alone, even with these voices around me, I realise I can’t hear the words. I must look at them as they speak. And I don’t want to look at Gabriel.

He says he is an abstract painter in Paris. He’s not. His holiday will end soon and he’ll go back for good. He has no reason to return here. He knows he could never return for me. No matter how much he wants to, no matter how much it eats his heart.

I know what he did in Paris. And what he didn’t do. He could have helped when we wanted to bury my Uncle in the graveyard of the old chapel in the forest, but the priest and the Town Hall said no. Gabriel waited for that to happen then wrung his hands, saying there was nothing he could do. But he could have made a difference, by not pretending to be a painter and artist and act as Gabriel the lawyer.

The last thing my uncle wanted was to be buried beside a church, except in the forest, where only the spire of steeple remains, and where the gravestones of his family are buried under sand and mud of the old flood that dragged their bare white bones down the bank and into the river and on to the sea.  

So they buried him in a small cemetery owned by the Town Hall, and that was that. Then we came back here. Why, I don’t know, but I want them all to go away.

The food is untouched and I didn’t buy any wine.

Teresa stands close to me. “Mademoiselle Sinclair. I have swept the house,” she said. “Come and stay with us.”

Her respect and honour almost made me weep. I’d known her since I could crawl. After my disgrace, I’d left a girl and came back a woman. The house was once the symbol of my uncle. Now it is me.

I smiled. “I’m still your little Jean. Thank you for making the food.”

“Jesús and I will eat it tonight. He worries about you.” She pointed to the main door of the house. For a moment I was surprised they hadn’t it them too. “You know there is no bed.”

“I know that.”

“Then I will bring a blanket and pillow.”

“Not in the same room, please.”

She closed her eyes and turned away.

They found him in the bedroom, on the blanket on the floor.

We buried him the day I arrived. He had told me nothing, but now, blinded by the sun where I had once dozed in the shade, listening to the sea, it was becoming clear. His messages said nothing about that happened, and now I know why. Here, with the midday heat and light almost roaring in my ears, all was unbearably hot and clear. Teresa says he stopped eating and then one morning she went in and he was lying dead on the blanket.

I think he died of shame.

And now, all that shame is mine. The sun was high and hard and bright on the white painted stones of all the walls of the house, as if no part could escape the glare of the humiliation.

I love this house. That will never change, no matter what is to come.

 

Chapter 2

Gabriel is wearing my sunglasses and sketching the houses in mid-air on an imaginary canvas. Yesterday he came to lunch in a tweed suit, like some English gentleman of old just off the boat. He was slick with sweat and I possessed him. He could not look at me. He mumbled nonsense about his life in Paris, working for the bourgeoise only to support his art. He’s lying.

In Paris he says his name is Gabril. He haunts the cafés of Montparnasse alone and dropped a vowel in his name to try to sound cool. It was so sad I couldn’t laugh.

The day I learned to laugh at that would be a beginning. But he will not come back here again. The funeral gave him an excuse. There will not be another. Nor will I give him one.

No, I’d forget him. That I had learned.

I’d forget them all.

Vincent pushed himself up from the chair. The sun had dried the sweat on his face and it had burned on his cheeks and chin. He sidled up to me, his hand half-covering his eyes even though the sun was behind him. “Jean, please don’t be angry with me. I’m so happy you’re back, but I had hoped…”

“You hoped it wouldn’t take someone to die to make me return?”

“No, it’s just…”

I said nothing. I let him try to find the words. His weakness disgusts me.

“I can try to find some tables and chairs, perhaps my father…”

I leaned forward so he could see my eyes and stared at him. His face was sweating again. “You mean my chairs. My table. My bed.”

“That was the deal, Jean. That was the deal your uncle had with my father. It had nothing to do with me. My father owned everything in the end.”

I nearly turned towards the empty house, and all the white walls, and the holes where the shutters had been torn out from the wall the sun streamed in through the open windows across the red tiled floor. 

“Jean, despite everything, he would like to see you again. You were so close.”

Teresa began to take the unused napkins and cover the food. I walked over to help her.

“I will keep it in my fridge for you,” said Teresa. “I kept some aside and placed it in your old pantry on the stones shelves. I kept the door closed it is cool. It would spoil so quickly. You know, I can try to find you tables and chairs, or perhaps you can use this when we have…”

“Teresa, these are your kitchen tables and chairs, I ate from them when I was a child. You need them. I’ll be fine.”

Her husband Jesús approached from the cottage. She had sent him back to take off his jacket that no longer fitted him, and he was in his working demins and vest, his body much older now, but bronze and strong. He stopped before the steps and bowed, then lifted his chin into the air. The sun never blinded Jesús. As a child I had cried in his arms when I was stung by jellyfish on the beach, and he had held me up on the back of his hand  and carried me through the water when I pretended to swim. He smelled of sweet wine and kept dried honey and orange peel in his tobacco tin.

If anything made me feel less fragile, it was the scent of that honey and orange and the memory of him holding me high above the waves, both my feet in his right hand, my arms stretched to the sun and then diving into the bright water.

Terese beckoned him forward. “My love, take one end of the table.” She pushed the plates together into the centre.

“Terese, did anyone Marie?”

“I don’t know.”

Jesús looked up. “I was in the forest yesterday to gather firewood. I did not see her. Or the Stranger.”

He was no stranger to me. “Thank you.”

Terese took one end of the table. “Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t hear the church bells. She works so hard.” Jesús nodded. It was a comfortable lie amongst friends.

They picked up the table. I reached out and touched Jesús’ arm. “Thank you.” Then they shuffled towards the steps.

Gabriel was halfway down the path to the main road of the village and Teresa’s cottage on the corner. He didn’t have the grace or courage to say goodbye.

Vincent stood to the side, his hands over his eyes pretending to look out over the Mediterranean.

I turned away and stepped towards the house. Now the wooden shutters were gone all the windows were open or it would have been impossible to enter in the heat. They had taken the carved wooden door, and replaced it with an unvarnished panel on hinges against the summer rain that would fall in the night. I hauled it open and faced the empty hall of bare walls that led to all the bright rooms.

I didn’t look back. “It’s over, Vincent. Go to your father.”

 

Book No. 7 The Coward and The Flag

Another work in progress.

Lochee, near Dundee.

It was the first time that I had heard my father sing. I reached down and held on to my wee sister’s nightie as she clambered onto the bunker and stuck her head over the window ledge, straining to see our father and the other soldiers in the dark blue evening sky, their shirt collars open, tunic buttons undone, dandering down the Lochee High Street. I’d been at work when I heard the pipes play The Black Bear, and knew he was home.

Tenement windows pushed up on either side, and old biddies in their nightclothes leaned out to hear Jamie McGarry sing. A warm west wind lifted the mill stack smoke into the air towards Dundee, and the late sun shone through the gas lamps and gleamed off their foreheads, wet with whisky sweat, and not the rain of Ypres. More faces appeared at the windows, auld men in their simmets, or bleary-eyed bairns gazing down at their neighbours. 

My father’s baritone lifted high into the air, and the last words of ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ slipped away down the soot streaked walls and into the dark closes. And then they started to clap their hands. A few croaky voices shouted their appreciation from the top floor of the tenements. No-one had thought they would hear Jamie McGarry sing again. 

His mates from the 51st, the hackles on their Tam O’Shanters askew, slapped his back as he headed for our close, a wee bit unsteady on his feet, where the whisky had taken its toll. He looked up and caught my eye, and smiled his lopsided smile, then disappeared into our close.

I shooed my wee sister to bed, and listened for his boots on the stair. My mother would be home from the mill in the early morning, and would laugh at the thought of my father singing on the High Street, and feigning to be mortified, but would know that the other women in the close would hug her for it, and forever bring it up when they needed to smile.

I could almost see their lips move amongst the roar of the bobbins on the spinning frame.

She would hear about it in the morning, when the kettlebilers awoke to make breakfast for their wives. I looked up to the mantelpiece, where the clock used to be, and to the spaces on the shelves where my father’s books had lain. The array of classics, that he used to read aloud to us, huddled around the fire. Every year, more gaps would appear between the books, when someone needed clothes. We knew which book it would be, when my father would sit down on the Saturday night and read it cover to cover, even though we had long fell asleep at his feet. I stayed awake until the end, my head bobbing and then helped him carry the bairns to bed. Then my father would make us tea, and we would talk until the morning when my mother would come home from the mill. Next day, when I awoke, my father would be away into Dundee, and there would be another space on the shelf, but warm clothes for the bairns, and food on the table. 

My father came into the parlour and held me tight. “Away to your bed, son. I’ll have a kip and wait on your mother.” He kissed me, then sat down in his chair, straightened his legs and folded his arms across his chest. He was snoring before my head hit the pillow. 

My mother found him in the morning, in his chair, his boots still on, his face calm and his arms folded, just as they had been when his heart had came to rest. 

The next day, when the mud of Ypres had been cleaned from his boots, and the leather burnished to a sheen, they carried him from the close, and they leaned out the windows once more, and sang ‘Ae Fond Kiss’, as they bore him down the High Street to the chapel. 

My mother looked out, a borrowed lace shawl around her, her hair pinned up and her face white and still. Then I saw her shudder as they stopped his coffin and covered it with a Union Jack. She began to breathe hard, but said nothing. 

The other women from Cork and Kerry, and their Lochee neighbours looked up at the window. My mother turned away. 

A Sergeant of the Black Watch filled the doorway. My mother stood before him, then leaned down and picked a bit of lint from his kilt. The Sergeant’s eyes were red and wet. She placed a hand on his cheek like she had when he was a bairn. “C’mon, Kenny,” she said. “Let us put him to peace.”

I stood in my work suit before the peat fire, and took the unopened brown envelope from the mantelpiece. It was addressed to me. I looked down at my father’s Tam O’Shanter in my hands, then dropped the envelope on the fire. I watched it burn.

I turned and held out the Tam O’Shanter to the Sergeant. “Bury it with him, Kenny. I’ll not wear it. I’ll not fight for that flag.”