The Charming Quirks of Others by Alexander McCall Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

scandal—you do see that, don’t you?”
    Isabel said that she understood that reputation was important. But this did not seem to satisfy Jillian, who returned to the theme. “I can’t stress enough how important it is to avoid scandal,” she said. “Education is competitive these days. Parents have a choice. A whiff of something not quite right and we would lose students—we really would.”
    “I understand. But, really, what do you expect me to do?”
    Jillian lowered her voice. A young couple had come into thedelicatessen and had taken a seat at a neighbouring table. The woman was looking at them in a way that suggested more than casual interest. “We need a very discreet person—and I gather that you are just that. We need somebody to make enquiries and find out which of these three has … well, has a past.”
    “We all have a past.”
    Jillian brushed this aside. “There are pasts and pasts.” She paused. “Please help us. The last thing we could do is to get professional enquiry agents involved—imagine if that ever got out. So we need somebody like you—somebody who knows her way about Edinburgh, who understands the issues. You’d never be suspect. And I
have
done my homework on you—you have a reputation, you know, for helping people.”
    Isabel stared down at the table. She had more than enough to do over the next few weeks. And yet she had never turned down a direct plea for help. Jillian was not to know it, of course, but Isabel found it very difficult indeed—practically impossible—to say to somebody in need of help that they would get no assistance from her.
    “All right,” said Isabel.
    Jillian reached out and took Isabel’s hand and squeezed it. “You’re an angel.”
    I’m not, thought Isabel. I’m weak.
    “Look,” said Jillian. “I’m not sure how you do these things, but why don’t I send you a photocopy of each candidate’s application? There’s a curriculum vitae with each of them—that’ll tell you all you need to know.”
    “And more than I
should
know,” said Isabel.
    Jillian looked blank. “I don’t see …”
    “Confidentiality,” said Isabel.
    Jillian laughed dismissively. “Oh, we never bother with that.” She paused. “Do you?”
    Isabel looked at her in a bemused fashion. “But you yourself said that you wanted me to do this because you didn’t want it to get out. That suggests that you attach at least some importance to confidentiality.”
    Jillian was brisk. “Where necessary,” she said. “But not otherwise.”

CHAPTER FOUR

    J ILLIAN MACKINLAY,” said Isabel from her chair at the kitchen table.
    Jamie barely looked up from the stove. He was cooking dinner that night, and with Charlie safely tucked up in bed and asleep by now—he had been tired out by five o’clock and had had been given an early supper and bath—the house seemed quiet. Any sudden absence of children, Isabel noted, made the normal silences of the evening seem more pronounced; a small child could be a centre of noise, like a cyclone moving across the weather map, until suddenly, at bedtime, the storm subsided and quiet returned.
    “Jillian who?”
    “Mackinlay,” said Isabel. “We met them at the Stevensons’. It was some time ago …” She thought quickly; in the lives of most of us, there is a time before our partner and a time after our partner: in her case, BJ (Before Jamie) and AJ (After Jamie), although AJ suggested that Jamie was in the past, which he was not, and so DJ (During Jamie) might be more appropriate. Shewas sure that this meeting at the Stevensons’ had been in the DJ years.
    “Can’t remember,” muttered Jamie.
    Of course he could not, thought Isabel; they met so many people on the social round—such as it was—and one could not be expected to remember every conversation at every drinks or dinner party. Most such conversations were instantly forgettable anyway, merging into one another, smoothed out by banality.
    “There’s no reason for