Finding Fraser (18 page)

“I must have been in watching the movie. You
know—the one about the massacre on the battlefield? I thought she’d left
to give me some space, because … well, just because,” I said. “So it wasn’t
just me she stole from?”

The special constable shook his head. “She
pretty much cleaned out the pockets of everyone in the place,” he said. “She’s
good, I’ll give ‘er that. No one felt a thing.” He nodded at his colleague.
“She lifted a wee trinket for herself, too—a Celtic cross on a necklace,
was it?”

“An anklet,” said Garda. “I’m surprised she
took so little, but there wasnae much time, aye?”

“She didn’t want to go back inside for
lunch,” I said, walking through it again in my mind. “I went in, and bought us
both lunch—she’d given me such a good tour and I felt bad when I saw how
little she’d brought to eat.”

I looked over at Sergeant Garda. “You’re
right. I even bought her lunch. I
am
a feckin’ eejit.”

Dosanj’s eyes widened, and Garda held up
both his hands. “Now jes’ a minute, lass—I niver said …”

I smiled weakly. “You didn’t say I wasn’t.”

He shrugged. “Did you keep the paperwork
from the cash cards, at least?”

“I wrote the pin numbers and everything all
down. I knew I was supposed to keep the information separate from the card in
case I lost it. But I had it in my …”

“Let me guess,” Garda interrupted. “In your
sponge bag wi’ the contact lenses?”

I nodded miserably. “Do you think I could
put a stop-payment on it online?”

The senior officer shrugged. “You can try,
of course. We have Internet access at the outer office desk. But if she’s
cashed it out already, you’ll be out of luck.”

He stood up. “I’m right sorry, Miss,” he
said, formally. “We’ll do the best we can to catch her. This is a small
country, and as a rule the Americans stand out, particularly in this season.
With luck we’ll nab her. But the truth is, she’ll likely head south and become
a thorn in the side of the Yard.”

“They’re welcome to ‘er,” muttered Dosanj.
He held the door open for me, and I left without another word.

Filthy Fiasco…

1:30 pm, March 16

Inverness, Scotland

Last day in Inverness. I’m sorry to
report my trip is at an untimely end——in an unfortunate incident, I
have been robbed of my cash, my contact lenses and all my faith in human
nature. I’m typing this at an Internet cafe, as my laptop was taken, too.
There’s nothing for it but to see if I can move up the date of my ticket home.

Thanks to you all for your support. This
trip would not have been the same without you.

- Emma

Comments: 0

I
typed the last word, and logged off with a sigh.
Forty-five seconds to spare on the hour-for-a-pound deal they had for
out-of-season webheads like me. Just me, actually, since there was no one else
in the place, except the granny who had taken my money. When I walked in, she
had barely looked up from her book to accept my coin.

“Good book?” I had asked, automatically.

She crinkled her eyes at me and held up the
cover. THE SCOTTISH PRISONER.

“Ay loveth the short ones,” she lisped, a
result of there not being a single tooth remaining in her head. “They keep me fired
up for when the next good thized ‘un comes along.”

 
I slung my pack over my shoulder and
headed for the door. Inverness had its own small airport, and I needed to catch
the bus out there to talk to an airline person about trading in my ticket. The
granny at the door didn’t lift her head as I left. She chuckled and muttered to
herself as I opened the door.

“‘… I swallowed a gnat.’
Ach, Jamie my boy—I do love ye so.”

“You and me both,” I said sadly, and headed
out onto the muddy street.

I had to put the cab fare to the airport
on my credit card. So, yeah, yeah, I knew there was a bus I could catch. Right
from downtown Inverness straight out to the airport. But after spending my last
pound coin on Internet access, I literally did not have any cash on me. I’d
have had to go to a bank machine for a cash advance on my credit card, anyway.
And if I was going out, I might as well go in style.

Fortunately, the taxi driver had nothing to
say. He grunted when I asked to be taken to the airport, and sped off so fast
that my head snapped back and bounced off the headrest in the rear seat.

Tiny beads of sleet spattered the window as
I slumped against the door, watching the river Ness wind away into the
distance. Flowing away. Like my money. Like my once-in-a-lifetime trip to
Scotland.

All my losses, though, paled against having
to face my sister when I got home. I took that thought and tucked it in with
what happened the day I met Herself, and resolved never to think of either of
them again.

The taxi driver disgorged me at the airport
with a handwritten credit receipt and a grunt. I scampered inside to get out of
the weather and looked around for the correct airline desk. The airport was a
fairly small one and there was hardly anyone to be seen. I finally found the
desk I was looking for. A young man stood behind it, lifting a bag of trash out
of a bin. A tag pinned to his lapel read: My name is Matthew. How can I help
you?

“Hi,” I said, gloomily. “I need to change a
ticket—can you do that here?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, Miss. I’m just
closing down. Ye’ll have tae come back tomorrow.” He finished tying a knot in
the trash bag with a tidy little snap.

I stared at him, completely without words.
Everything in me—every drop of plasma, every cell, every follicle—wanted
to scream my frustration into his neatly groomed face.

Instead, I did what I have vowed to never do
since I read Gloria Steinem’s autobiography in seventh grade.

I burst into tears. “Everything-I-own-was-sto-ho-ho-len,”
I sobbed, “and-I’m-living-on-my Vi-hee-hee-sa-card.”

“Oh dear,” Matthew said, looking desperate for
someone to take the sniveling wreck off his hands. Unluckily for him, the place
remained pretty much deserted.

He took a deep breath and pulled a pristine
handkerchief out of his pocket.

“I’m afraid we’re out of tissues,” he said.
“I’ve just thrown away the empty box.”

I accepted his handkerchief, wiped my eyes
and then took a deep breath. It seemed to help. “I’m sorry,” I said, shakily.
“I’ve had kind of a rough week.”

“Look,” he said. “I can see you’re very
upset and I wish I could assist. But I am not authorized to reschedule flights.
You can try doing it online …”

“My—my laptop was stolen, too,” I
said, teetering.

“Deep breath,” he said, hurriedly. “Try
another deep breath.”

By this time my glasses had completely
fogged up. I pulled them off and used the only dry corner remaining of his
handkerchief to wipe them. “I don’t even wear glasses in public, as a rule,” I
said, pointing at my face. “But she even stole my conta-hac-hact lenses.

“Your contact lenses?” he said, sounding
truly horrified for the first time. “What kind of monster steals someone’s
contact lenses?”

Exactly. I sniffed and held up the hankie
enquiringly.

“Go ahead,” he said, looking resigned. “You
can keep it.”

I blew my nose into his handkerchief and
took several more deep breaths. Something inside me felt broken. I had no idea
what to do next.

A steady clicking noise coming from the
other side of the desk made me look up at last. The young man’s fingers were
flying across his terminal, his brow furrowed in concentration. After a few
moments of unbroken typing, he smiled, and leaned over the desk.

“Look,” he whispered. “I’m not authorized to
change your flight—I just don’t have the codes. But I can at least do a
quick refund of your return flight cost, so you can rebook on your own. Do you
have your credit card?”

I did. Still in my hand from paying the taxi
driver. I slid it over the desk at him.

“Not that way, not that way,” he hissed.
“Down here.” One of his hands emerged from around the back of the desk, out of
sight of the CCTV cameras.

Trying to affect an innocent face, I slipped
the card into his hand.

“This is the card you paid your initial
booking on?” he whispered.

I nodded.

“And you swear you’ll rebook your return
flight with our airline as soon as humanly possible?”

I swore. In the legal sense.

“Because I am NOT supposed to do this. If
anyone asks me, I’ll have to tell them there was a mix-up or the machine failed
or … something.”

Mechanical error as the go-to excuse for an
airline did not make me comfortable. But comfort was not going to put a refund
on my credit card.

“Works for me,” I whispered.

“Punch your PIN in now,” Matthew hissed.

After a few seconds, he slipped the card
back into my hand and turned the key on his terminal.

“I’m afraid we are closed for the evening,”
he said, in a suddenly loud and somewhat stilted voice. “You’ll have to return
tomorrow, Madam.”

“I’ll do that,” I replied equally loudly.
“Thank you, sir.”

The only person who could possibly hear us
was the man rolling his cleaning trolley down the broad aisle between the empty
waiting room seats. It didn’t matter. The deed was done.

Matthew winked at me solemnly, picked up his
bag of trash and his keys and flicked off the light that illuminated the
airline sign.

I shouldered my pack and ran for the nearest
bank machine. I had a withdrawal to make.

Sitting on a bus rocking through the Highland
darkness later that night, I contemplated my situation. I couldn’t see any
other word for it.

I’d become a fugitive.

Of course, technically the money was mine,
dogmatic airline rules aside. I hadn’t taken the flight yet, and I’d agreed to
re-book. Just when I’d be able do so, though …

Well, as soon as humanly possible. And in
order for that to happen, I had to have enough cash, right?

I looked down at the statement I’d printed
off from the bank machine. I now had four hundred pounds on my credit card.

Four hundred pounds.

Even with my pathetic math skills, I was
pretty sure that translated to nearly seven hundred American dollars. A person
might live a long time in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands on that kind of
money.

So, yeah. I decided that for the present, I
could live with being a fugitive, if it meant I could stay a little longer.
Keep trying to find my Fraser.

Maybe I was not so different from Susan
after all.