A Kind of Grief Read Online Free PDF

him. “Unusual,” he was later to testify. “No normal,” he was later to say.
    â€œMiss Ramsay,” he begins.
    She sees how uncomfortable he is and doesn’t help. Just waits, arms crossed.
    â€œThere’s this woman claims she knows you, a Mrs. North.”
    â€œYes, I’ve met a Mrs. North.”
    â€œAnd she claims you gave her some tea, herbs . . .”
    â€œFor her morning sickness. Yes.”
    â€œAye. Right.” He has his notebook open, his pen poised, but is looking down at his boots, seeing how the mud has splattered the usual high shine and thinking they need a good clean, thinking why wasn’t there a woman around who could ask the uncomfortable questions. Constable Harris’s knowledge of the internal workings of women’s bodies was still at fifteen-year-old-schoolboy level.
    â€œMrs. North,” Alice prompted.
    â€œShe lost the baby.” He says this without looking at her.
    Alice knew already. “That’s sad.” She remembers the timid wee woman, how desperate she was to have a baby, a son. And she remembers the fading bruises on the woman’s left arm.
    â€œI fell over,” Mrs. North had said.
    Alice had pretended to believe her.
    â€œTrouble is,” the young constable says, “she—well, mostly him, her husband—they’re saying it was your fault. You made her this potion, and that’s why she lost the bairn.”
    â€œWhy on earth would I do that?”
    He remembered the husband saying that because she had no man and no children, she was jealous of those who did. “I don’t know,” he says.

    At the end of the farm track, then the single-track road with passing places, Joanne turned right for the main road south. The meeting with Alice had been oddly tiring. The drive home, with the last hour in the darkest dark, she acknowledged might be hazardous. “Blast McAllister for being right,” she muttered as she changed down to second gear and drew into a passing place to allow a large lorry full of frantic sheep, heading for the abattoir, and late, to speed past. The chorus of terrified bleats upset Joanne. Pulling out onto the main road again, she realized how exhausted she was, how unsafe it would be to drive nearly four hours, half of that after sunset.
    Four months ago she had been shut in a cellar by a madwoman for days, and the dark was still a challenge. It would be hours until the light faded, but the final stretch on a twisting, challenging drive around two firths, over bridges narrow and humpbacked, and under the doglegs of the railway line would be nerve-racking.
    She saw the signpost for the town, followed by a sign for a hotel in town, and it seemed a good alternative. And exciting. Joanne could not remember ever having spent a night alone in a strange bed in a strange place.
    The reception desk had a brass bell with a sign saying “Ring.” She did.
    â€œHello. How can I help you?” The woman was middle-aged, with brown middle-length hair, dressed in a middle-aged matron’s uniform of tweed skirt and Shetland jumper and a single strand of freshwater pearls. Then she smiled with a much younger smile.
    â€œDo you have a room for tonight?”
    â€œWe do. Lucky there’s no golf tournament right now, else we’d be booked out.” The woman opened the register. “One night?”
    â€œYes, please. Mrs. Joanne McAllister,” she said, then asked, “And can I use the phone? It’s a trunk call; I’ll reverse the charges.”
    â€œDown the corridor, next to the snug bar.”
    â€œYes, operator, we’ll accept the charges,” Annie answered. “Mum, where are you? Why aren’t you home yet?”
    â€œI’m fine.” It was like speaking to her former mother-in-law, Granny Ross. “Just don’t fancy the drive here and back in one day. Can I speak to McAllister?”
    â€œMcAllister!