The Burry Man's Day by Catriona McPherson Page A

The baby could not have been more than six weeks old, still with the elfish look of the newborn, the look which I am sure is responsible for all those fairy tales about changelings. As her mother loosened the shawl further, a tiny fist sprang out and spread like a starfish in front of me. I bent closer and put my finger to her palm, expecting her to grasp it – my fingers had been grasped and sucked and even nibbled all along the line – but Doreen, looking past my face, sank her fingers deep into my fox fur. She was too tiny to chuckle, but she gave a small purr like a nursing cat and smiled faintly.
    ‘A taste for the finer things in life,’ I said to her mother, who gave a weary echo of the same faint smile, but said nothing. I had a cursory look at the rest of the creatures in the line, but my mind was made up.
    ‘The prize for the bonniest baby of all these very bonny babies,’ I said, ‘goes to little Doreen. Congratulations.’ Doreen’s mother beamed and nodded but all around were rumblings.
    ‘Wee Doreen Urquhart?’
    ‘She’s a poor wee scrap of a thing.’
    ‘She wouldnae make half of my Andrew here.’
    Too late I remembered what Daisy had said about picking the fattest one or at least the one with the rosiest cheeks.
    ‘Yes,’ I went on, rather defensively. ‘Doreen Urquhart. There’s an enormous personality inside that little frame and, mark my words, she will grow up to be a great beauty.’ And I clapped my hands decisively, ignoring the glares.
    This minor blunder of mine aside, the day seemed to be going off quite well. Cadwallader and Buttercup were circulating assiduously like a pair of diplomats at the very top of their game and from what I could tell they were managing to strike the right note. For one thing, Buttercup is such a darling close up, so chummy and unaffected, that people can’t help but take to her one-to-one; it is only when she is given a large arena that she causes affront. As for Cadwallader, he shied balls at coconuts with the best of them, but when he missed he gave a rueful shrug as though respect for the Dudgeons might have put him off his stroke. Similarly, Buttercup clapped and hurrahed at the races but handed over the prizes with a pat on the arm and a smiling sigh. The townspeople themselves, too, had that natural impulse to respect the dead which meant that some of the bawdy raucousness of the previous evening was missing; this even though the precise manner of respecting the dead in a Scottish village meant that any man sufficiently affected to be wearing a black tie and armband was likely to be quite seriously drunk.
    So, it was not exactly decorous but it was far from the Bacchanalia that Mr Turnbull feared and I stuck it out for some considerable time. By two o’clock, however, Daisy and I began to wonder when we could decently make our way back to the motor car and retire for the day. I had purchased more cheap hatpins and sewing cases than I had housemaids to give them to, and Daisy wanted only to find a suitable small child to honour with the garish teddy bear she had won by lobbing coloured balls into goldfish bowls, and she too would be ready to go.
    I craned around for Cad or Buttercup, preparing my excuses, but when I finally spotted the golden head – Cad’s real gold, not Buttercup’s April Sunrise – my heart rolled over. Inspector Cruickshank and a dapper little man I took to be Dr Rennick had drawn Cad aside in the doorway of a hairdresser’s shop under the terrace – shut up for Fair day – and the three were talking with bowed heads and solemn faces. Daisy and I made our way over.
    ‘Mrs Gilver, Mrs Esslemont,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘Good news. Or rather as good news as possible under the circumstances. Death by natural causes and no need for an inquiry. We’ll be able to return Dudgeon’s body to Mrs Dudgeon this evening.’ Cadwallader’s expression was very hard to read.
    ‘What did he die of?’ I asked.
    ‘Heart