Chapter Four
Fraser checked the address on the email twice once he arrived at 6 Thistledown Lane on Thursday afternoon.
He hadn’t spent much time in Dean Village since returning to Edinburgh, although he knew its picture postcard prettiness had made the area an Instagram sensation and a must-visit for tourists. Certainly, he’d seen plenty of fashionably dressed teenagers posing for pictures on the bridges that spanned the canal on his journey from the eastern side of the city.
Leith, the part of the city where he now lived, was a world away from the old-world quaintness of the village – new developments seemed to be springing up every day and the docks were surrounded by glitzy new shops that felt slightly at odds with the traditional, centuries-old tenement buildings that had been home to the dockers and their families. On one hand, Fraser could see the developers were trying to appeal to a different demographic, with fancy penthouse apartments and enviable views over the Firth of Forth, but they had also created family-friendly homes and the area was very sought-after. For the time being, he and Naomi were renting, but he could imagine himself living there full time, if they decided to make the break from London permanent. Although Naomi was going to take some persuading. Her work as a model hadn’t suffered with the move but her social life had. As she’d observed on more than one occasion, Fraser had a ready-made network of old friends to fall back on in Edinburgh whereas she was starting over. He couldn’t really argue with that but he was quietly confident she would come round, in time.
Parking on the narrow cobbled street, Fraser took a moment to study the property before him. It was one of several terraced houses, all dressed in the distinctive red sandstone that graced the nearby splendour of Well Court. Each property had a garage on the ground floor and a front door to the right, which Fraser guessed led up to an apartment. Number 6 had vibrant green double doors on the garage that matched the front door and a cluster of terracotta pots that suggested flowers in the warmer months.
Maura’s instructions told him to ring the bell beside the garage and wait for her to answer. After a few moments, a smaller door cut into the middle of the left-hand side of the garage opened and Maura’s glossy black head appeared. She had her hair tied back today, although several strands had escaped the ponytail and were coated with white. ‘Hello,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Come on in.’
She pushed the door wide and Fraser climbed through. The studio was long and narrow, which made sense considering it was situated in a garage. The walls had been lined with board – presumably for insulation in the colder months – and a number of strip lights were attached to the ceiling. Two electric heaters stood sentry at either end of the workbench and he spotted three or four portable heat guns dotted around. But it was the shelves along the right-hand wall that caught his eye the most. The range of pots was surprising – everything from slightly misshapen mugs to jugs and vases, small pottery animals to soap dishes, and one or two items that Fraser was at a loss to describe.
One set of shelves stood out from the general mismatch and clutter of items, however, and Fraser immediately understood that this where Maura stored her own pieces. It wasn’t that the work on the other shelves was bad; on the contrary, much of it looked very accomplished and it was certainly better than anything Fraser could have produced. He’d seen some of Maura’s creations on Artsy, had found more when he’d searched further online, but he felt he would have recognized the supreme technical and artistic skill involved in producing these elegant pieces as belonging to a master potter even if he hadn’t known who made them.
‘I must say, your order came as a huge surprise,’ Maura said, heading to the sink to wash her hands. ‘To be perfectly honest, I didn’t realize I’d made quite such an impression. Or did you just feel sorry for me after Archie kindly redecorated my shoes?’
Fraser grinned. ‘I thought you could do with the cash to replace them,’ he said. ‘But seriously, I was intrigued. Who wouldn’t be, upon discovering they went to school with someone so talented?’
She turned round, rubbing her hands on a faded scrap of towel, and he saw she was blushing. ‘You’re very kind,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t wrapped the bowl yet – thought I’d let you see it up close and give you the opportunity to change your mind.’
He raised both eyebrows. ‘I’m not going to change my mind. If anything, I’ll be lucky to get out of here without buying more.’ His eyes flickered back to the shelves and came to rest on an oversized pale green platter carved with swirling fronds of seaweed. ‘How much is that?’
She threw him an apologetic look. ‘That one’s not for sale, I’m afraid. At least, not at the moment – it’s for a gallery show I’m doing next month.’
Fraser’s gaze lingered on the dish. ‘It’s a real beauty,’ he said. ‘But perhaps no bad thing that it’s not available. Naomi would kill me if I came home laden with pottery, no matter how amazing it was.’
Maura watched him curiously. ‘She doesn’t like pots?’
‘She doesn’t like stuff ,’ he explained, looking rueful. ‘Which makes life a bit tricky sometimes because I do like stuff. Especially beautiful stuff.’
‘Ah,’ Maura said with understanding. ‘I can see how that might be a problem. Have you been together a long time?’
Fraser considered. How long had it been since he’d been at the TV Soapstars awards and met Naomi at the crowded afterparty? Two years? Three? ‘A while,’ he said. ‘Long enough to appreciate we’re fundamentally unsuited to each other.’
Maura laughed, as he’d meant her to. It wasn’t until he’d said the words that he realized how they might sound to someone who didn’t know him very well. He and Naomi had got along fine back in London, spending time at each other’s flats without actually living together. It was only now that they were occupying the same space twenty-four seven that their differences were coming to the fore. But that was relationships for you, he thought. Differences in taste and opinions were to be expected. No one wanted to date themselves, did they? ‘Does she know you’ve bought this piece?’ Maura asked. ‘It’s not small.’
‘I showed her the pictures on Artsy,’ he said, and decided not to mention Naomi’s arched eyebrows when he’d told her who had made the bowl. ‘She loves it.’
‘That’s good,’ Maura said, moving towards a large box stashed beneath the workbench. ‘I’d hate to think of you buying it only to keep it in a cupboard or under the bed.’ She paused to throw him a mischievous look. ‘Or worse still, the loft. I think there’s probably a mountain of my efforts from school and college in my parents’ attic, gathering dust and wondering what they did wrong.’
He smiled at the thought of a cluster of abandoned pots holding a meeting about how they could improve their languishing fortunes. ‘We don’t have a loft. We’re renting a brand-new apartment over by Leith Docks – they don’t come with much storage space. But don’t worry, I already know where your bowl is going to go. It’s going to have pride of place in the living room.’
Maura lifted the box and placed it on the bench. ‘There you go. Take a look, check you’re happy and then I can wrap it for you, to make sure it survives the journey.’
Reaching into the layers of cushioning newspaper, Fraser carefully lifted the bowl free so that the glaze caught the light. If anything, it was more beautiful in real life than it had looked on the website. The rim had been carved to represent the rise and fall of waves, smooth but somehow hinting at texture. It seemed to his uneducated eye that more than one glaze had been used; a dark, almost midnight blue had mingled with its azure and forget-me-not siblings to settle in the dimples of the inlaid sea-inspired design. They looked like tiny puddles of liquid but, when he tilted the bowl, they did not move. He brushed a wondering finger across the surface, half-expecting his skin to come away wet. ‘How did you do this?’
‘Trial and error, mostly,’ she admitted, without embarrassment. ‘I have an idea of what I want to achieve, obviously, but I’ve found it doesn’t do to get too attached to an outcome in pottery. This one turned out well.’
The implication was that there were other pieces that hadn’t passed muster – he wondered what she did with them. ‘Recycle them, if they’ve cracked or warped,’ she said when he voiced the question. ‘Or give them to my mother.’
Fraser laughed. ‘If I had to present my mother with every project I’ve starred in that didn’t turn out the way I expected, she wouldn’t be able to move for evidence.’ He stared at the bowl in rapt admiration. ‘Thank you for this. Will you wrap it for me?’
‘Of course,’ she said, lifting the bowl back into its box. After a moment or two of rustling paper, she glanced up at him. ‘I should probably admit I looked you up too. You’ve been in some really successful shows.’
He supposed he should have expected as much – his on-screen murder at the hands of national treasure Penelope Keith was enough to tempt anyone into a Google search – but the idea that Maura had been as curious about him as he’d been about her came as a pleasant surprise. ‘With more than a few I’d rather forget,’ he said, even as he processed the fact of her interest. ‘But I learned something from all of them, so I can’t complain.’
‘Even the chicken advert?’
‘Especially the chicken advert,’ he replied gravely. ‘What I learned from that was to ask for more details when my agent said she had a juicy audition for me.’
She snorted then, which pleased him more. Naomi disapproved of his tendency to laugh at himself, although his time as Louis the Chicken had been long before he met her and he knew she pretended not to know about his less illustrious roles. She had suggested more than once that casting directors would take him more seriously if he took himself more seriously and Fraser had to admit that she might have a point. But Maura wasn’t someone he needed to impress with his acting credits. He could be himself around her.
‘Still, I bet it was a role you could really sink your teeth into,’ she said, and now it was Fraser’s turn to grin.
‘Literally,’ he said. ‘They treated me to a full Big Bang Bucket when we’d finished filming. I definitely got my teeth into that.’
Again, Maura laughed. ‘Sounds like it was worth the feather costume, then.’
He nodded. ‘It was. I still get the occasional royalty payment.’
Maura finished wrapping the bowl and folded the lid of the box closed. ‘That should be secure enough, as long as you don’t throw it down any stairs.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Fraser said, and when she looked a little alarmed, he went on. ‘It’s going in the car, and then into the flat. It should be safe enough.’
She relinquished her hold on the box. ‘Great. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this but the bowl shouldn’t be used for food – the glaze is earthenware and purely decorative. And don’t put it in the dishwasher or the microwave.’
Fraser tried to imagine a situation when he might be tempted to put such a beautiful thing into the dishwasher and failed. But he supposed it was a fair enough warning; Maura didn’t really know him, after all. He might be a total heathen. ‘Noted,’ he said, and glanced around again. His eyes came to rest upon the shelves. ‘This isn’t all your work, is it? Some of it looks like your style but the rest…’
He trailed off, aware that there was a strong chance he might somehow insult her if he continued. What if he was wrong and the wonky mugs were hers? But thankfully, she understood what he was getting at. ‘No, it’s not all mine. I have a few amateur potters who come in and work in the studio each week. They tell me what they want to make, I give them a bit of advice – if they need it – and then I fire the pieces once they’re ready.’
He frowned. ‘Doesn’t that interfere with your own creative process?’
‘Not really,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘Most of them have been coming for years; they don’t really need much from me but I like helping them. Occasionally it’s a bit of a juggling act to fit everything in the kilns but we manage. And it helps to have a regular income.’
That was something Fraser totally understood; despite his relative success, he’d occasionally gone months with no earnings and he knew a lot of the creative industries were the same. He drifted closer to the assortment of pottery. Now that he was paying attention, he could see that some were quite accomplished, with decoration that suggested a lot of effort had gone into them. And all of them were more than he could achieve. ‘Do you ever accept commissions?’
She blinked. ‘Sometimes. It depends on who’s asking and what they want.’ There was a pause. ‘And maybe how much they’re paying.’
‘Sensible,’ he said approvingly, then hesitated, unsure whether to voice the proposal that had been swirling around his head from the moment he’d woken up on New Year’s Day. Perhaps Maura would think it was a terrible idea, or even beneath her, given her evident talent. But in either eventuality, she might be able to recommend someone else who could help him, although he’d much prefer to work with her. ‘Listen, after we met at the party, I had this idea that I wanted to sound you out about. Have you got a few minutes now?’
Maura eyed him curiously. He had her attention, at least. ‘I’ve got time. What’s on your mind?’
Fraser took a breath. ‘I don’t think I mentioned my new business venture when we talked the other night. I mean, it’s not that new – I started it in September, when we came back to Edinburgh – but it’s new in that I haven’t done it before.’ He stopped, aware that he was babbling, but she was watching him with a patient expression. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I wanted to do something different, something that wasn’t acting but that still made use of those skills because I’m sort of a one-trick pony in that regard.’
And now Maura was biting her lip. ‘You’re a chicken and a pony? Impressive.’
The gentle ribbing caused some of his apprehension to lift. ‘I told you, I’m an actor with range . Anyway, I was looking around for the right opportunity and a friend of a friend told me about a ghost walk business that was up for sale. To cut a long story short, I bought it and I’ve been running it for the past four months.’
Her jaw dropped a little. ‘Ghosts,’ she repeated. ‘Do you mean those walks around the city that revel in all the horrible things that have happened here?’
‘Exactly,’ Fraser said. ‘People love a supernatural story – the more terrifyingly bloodthirsty the better. I was in a stage production of The Highgate Hauntings and you wouldn’t believe how fast it sold out. Some people came two or three times.’
‘So you’ve been doing the walks yourself?’ Maura asked, her forehead crinkling. ‘Or do you pay people to do them?’
‘There’s two of us,’ he replied. ‘Me and another guy called Tom. We split the walks between us – he does the stories he’s always done and I researched a few others for my own route, to mix things up and offer something a bit different.’
‘Go you,’ Maura said, shaking her head. ‘I hope you’ve got a big umbrella. You must be out in all weathers.’
‘I have. It’s got our logo on it. In fact, I’m thinking about adding them to the website so people can buy them.’ He shifted his weight and studied her hopefully. ‘Which sort of brings me to the point. When I was looking into taking on the business, I investigated a few other ghost-themed companies, to see what seemed to be doing well. And I found a company in York that really trades on their reputation as the most haunted city in England. They don’t just tell stories – they sell the ghosts to go with them.’
She stared at him for a long moment. ‘Erm…’
Reaching into his pocket, Fraser pulled out a small black and white box. He held it out to Maura. ‘Here. Take a look.’
With an expression of bemusement, she took the box and examined the ornate decoration. A few seconds later, she flipped the lid back and slid the contents into the palm of her hand. ‘It’s an old map of York,’ she said, examining the fine print on the tissue paper bundle.
‘Uh-huh,’ Fraser said. ‘Their overall aesthetic is really great. Peel back the paper.’
She did as he suggested and revealed a slender ceramic ghost, no more than ten or eleven centimetres high. It was matte black, with two oval holes for eyes and a cluster of greenish-yellow powder where a face might have been. Its robes trailed behind it as though made of silk, with fine lines hinting at folds in the material. Maura turned it over in her hands, examining it with professional interest before glancing up at him. ‘It’s lovely – really well made. They’ve used a slip case so they can produce in bulk and each one looks the same. But the decoration is applied by hand. It’s a really original idea.’
He nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. They have a shop on The Shambles but seem to do a lot of business through their website, with limited editions that sell out in minutes. It’s crazy – a real battle to nab one. Anyway, what I was wondering was whether you’d be able to do something similar for me.’
Her gaze jerked up from the ghost in her hand. ‘Copy it? Sorry, I don’t think that’s—’
‘Not copy it,’ he said quickly. ‘I’d like to commission you to design a uniquely Scottish version. An Edinburgh ghost that I can sell on my tours.’
She looked far from convinced. ‘I don’t use slip cases. I hand build or throw everything I make here.’
‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘It would be up to you how you make them and I wouldn’t need a huge number. In fact, I’d want them to be completely different to the York ghosts.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s not really my thing. My work is all about the sea and nature, not the supernatural.’
Fraser could see he was losing her. ‘So create a sea-themed ghost – I don’t know, like a pirate or a siren. I can come up with a story to go with it.’
She was turning the black figure over and over in her hands, frowning down at it. ‘A sea ghost,’ she said. ‘Maybe.’
‘Or maybe a sea witch,’ Fraser offered. ‘Sadly, there’s no shortage of Scottish women who were persecuted for witchcraft back in the day. I talk about them on one of the tours.’ He fixed an earnest gaze on her. ‘But you don’t have to decide now. Think it over and let me know. You could even come on one of my walks, if you like. Get a feel for the stories I’m telling.’
She was silent for so long that he was certain she was going to say no. But she surprised him. ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘And if you did fancy coming on one of the tours, they start at 7.30pm from the Mercat Cross by St Giles’ cathedral on the Royal Mile. I do Wednesday to Sundays – no need to book, in your case. Just turn up.’
Maura offered him the ghost but he didn’t take it. ‘Why don’t you hang on to it for now? Just don’t keep it beside your bed. The face glows in the dark – gave Naomi quite a scare when she woke up for a wee.’
‘I can imagine,’ Maura said wryly.
Fraser lifted the box containing the bowl. ‘I’ll be on my way then. Thanks for this, I can’t wait to get it home.’
She saw him through the door and back onto the street, and Fraser got the impression she was checking to make sure he stowed the box securely in his car. Evidently satisfied, she stepped back into the studio and leaned against the open door. ‘Drive carefully,’ she called as he climbed behind the wheel.
‘I will.’ As he drove away, he couldn’t resist glancing in the rearview mirror for a final glimpse of her. He wasn’t sure whether it was Maura’s connection to his school days or the business opportunity she represented but he found himself very much hoping that he’d see her on one of his ghost walks.