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a half-sleepwalking half-dreaming in dressing gown and pajamas state, Alice discovers there is no milk—she and Joanne finished it.
    â€œDamn and blast and drat,” she mutters. “Oh, well, it’s my day at the Old People’s Home. I’ll buy some at the Co-op, anywhere to avoid Mrs. Mackenzie.”
    After black tea, the routine with the hens, a quick sweep of the floor, she reaches for her portfolio, the one containing the watercolors for her book on the flora and fauna of the Highland glen—singular, her glen—a book she hopes to have published. One day.
    She spreads a selection on the kitchen table. Then puzzles yet again if she should include the drawings of skeletons and skulls. She remembers the trial, “that trial of a trial,” as she calls it, and the sheriff’s twisted face as he looked at the drawings, the way he drew out the word “art” when asking rhetorically, “Is this really aaart?”
    â€œHa, what a fine mess that got me into,” she says to the wee dog still there, still on the rug, going nowhere.
    She is remembering Dougald Forsythe. She was scared he might come up the glen. The thought of his patent-leather shoes stepping over puddles attempting to find safe ground and failing makes her laugh.
    The wee dog cocks his head.
    â€œDon’t want him examining our pictures,” she tells the dog. “Though why I thought it a good idea to call Dougie as a witness I’ll never fathom. Still, he does recognize a piece of real art when he sees it. And he says good things about my work—so he can’t be a complete knave.”

    â€œHello, the McAllister household.”
    â€œJoanne. Or should I say Mrs. McAllister?”
    â€œSandy. Or should I say My Lord Editor-in-Chief?” When at last, after many a story, Joanne had met McAllister’s best friend and fellow conspirator, she had been apprehensive, nervous even. She compared herself—unfavorably—with female journalists on the Herald , women she was certain were worldly and sophisticated, in clothes bought in expensive stores, not run up on an old treadle sewing machine.
    Her first and only meeting with Sandy Marshall, editor of one of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers, was at her wedding. She liked him, liked his wife, liked his children too.
    At the wedding, Sandy was best man. He’d asked Joanne for a dance, and taking off his jacket, turning his sporran to the side, he’d led her onto the floor to join the eightsome reel. Kilt swinging, wheeching and skirling with celebratory cries worthy of warriors, he linked arms with her, throwing her around the dance floor, and she’d laughed till her jaws ached.
    His wife, Morag, had said, “Whew! Thanks, Joanne. It’s usually me who’s the victim of his dancing.”
    â€œSo how’s that husband o’ yours?” Sandy asked now. “Still playing that screeching he calls music?”
    â€œHe is.” Try as she might to like them, some of the more esoteric tracks from McAllister’s beloved jazz recordings bewildered her.
    â€œThere should be Saint in front of your name,” he said. “Listen, I’m calling about the so-called witch trial. I spoke to McAllister. He said you’ve met this woman . . .”
    â€œAlice Ramsay.”
    â€œI understand she doesn’t want publicity, but Dougald Forsythe, who spoke for her at her trial, writes for us.”
    â€œIsn’t he a lecturer at the Art College?”
    â€œHe is, and he’s also our art critic. To cut a long story short, I owe him a favor.” Sandy would never reveal the story of the previous art critic cum junior reporter caught plagiarizing copy from a London art journal. Dougald Forsythe had shown Sandy the original article, saving the editor and the newspaper much embarrassment and perhaps a court case.
    Then Forsythe had brazenly claimed the art column for himself.