The Tartan Ringers (12 page)

Before Shona drove me back to Dubneath for my things, we settled my job amicably. This means I listened to Elaine and agreed with whatever she said. My terms were a fraction of the profit and all found – free nosh and bed in a stableman’s loft among the outbuildings. They showed me a bare cube with a single bed, a cupboard, and one uncurtained window with a view of the barren fells. Great if you’re Heathcliff waiting for Cathy, but I played along. Duncan was there too, ruefully swigging what he conveyed was his first and last non-alcoholic drink.

‘We’re assuming Ian proves capable, Miss Elaine,’ he put in gently. That caffeine was getting to his brain.

‘Are
you capable, Ian?’ Elaine asked innocently, looking across at Shona, a tease. Shona turned aside, busied herself with the sugar for Duncan.

‘Your bills for plastic wood will take a turn for the better, Elaine,’ I said. Duncan had the grace to laugh at the jibe. Plastic wood’s the poor forger’s friend.

They came out to see us off, talking casually. I turned to admire the house’s clinging splendour, and saw the big ginger-headed bloke among the outbuildings. He was kilted, strong and stridey. Just as long as he was on our side.

‘I can trust Robert,’ Elaine said to answer my thought.

‘Thank God for that.’ I climbed into the van. ‘Back before evening, then?’

‘Ian.’ Michelle came to my window as Shona hung back saying so-long to Elaine. Duncan was already off, anxious to be at work. His wife spoke softly, perfume wafting in. ‘I’m so relieved you’re here. It’s time all was . . . resolved.’ Her fingers, probably accidentally, rested on mine. But the pressure and that faint scratch of her nails down my hand was communication. I swallowed, too near her large eyes to think straight. What was she saying?

‘Oh, er, ta. I’ll do what I can.’

‘We’ll make sure you
exceed
your potential, Ian,’ Elaine called. She rippled her fingers in a child’s wave. She must have hearing like a bat.

Shona marched up, flung in and revved noisily. She hadn’t liked seeing Michelle speaking to me in confidence. She reversed at speed with a crash of gears, but Michelle anticipated the manoeuvre and glided away in time.

We made Dubneath at a record run with Shona not speaking a word. Disembarking, I was jubilant at how things had gone. I was in. My thin disguise was holding. I was blood cousin umpteen times removed to this barmy load of clannites. Very soon I’d have the lion’s share of a sound antique fakery scheme, at least. Stupidly overconfident, I decided to buy some curtain material before phoning Tinker.

Now the bad news, as they say.

T
HE BEST ABOUT
little towns is that most things are crammed into a few shops. I found the drapery/general/household stores by spotting the only building in Dubneath with more than two parked cars. Women are the trouble, though. They immediately sensed I was curtain hunting and started eyeing the swatches. The stores lady, Mrs Innes, hung about itching to decide for me.

‘A pastel,’ I hazarded, playing it close.

‘You’ll be Ian McGunn,’ she said, smiling. ‘That converted loft’s a draughty old place.’

So much for secrecy. How the hell did they do it? ‘You shouldn’t know that. Naughty girl.’

She laughed, colouring. ‘I meant, Joseph was always complaining. No wonder the poor man drank.’

‘Joseph?’

Instantly she changed tack. ‘And that pokey little window. You’ll only get one pattern if you choose a large floral.’

‘Boss me about and I’ll go elsewhere.’

‘You can’t. The Wick bus left an hour gone.’

Her brass measuring rod was screwed to the counter. She fell about when I offered her eight quid for it and laughingly told other customers how I’d started to buy her out. I settled on a bright oriental print, bamboos and japonicas, and ballocked Mrs Innes for not knowing the window’s dimensions. We parted friends. I crossed to the tavern.

Joseph? Who had been my predecessor at Tachnadray. Something had driven the ‘poor man’ to drink. Not the draught, that’s for sure. I didn’t like the sound of all this.

I told Mary MacNeish I’d be leaving. By purest coincidence she already happened to have me booked out.

‘You guessed,’ I said dryly. If they introduce gossip at the next Olympics we’re a cert. Dubneath’ll get the gold.

‘Eat your fill before you go, Ian.’ It was the mildest of mild cautions, a very natural expression. So why the Mayday hint? ‘Tachnadray’s bonnie but can chill a man’s marrow.’

‘I’ll be slinking back for your pasties, Mary.’

‘I’ll be pleased.’

On the spur of the moment I tried a flyer. ‘Don’t suppose it’ll be easy taking good old Joseph’s place. Is he around? Like a word with him.’

She was shocked that I knew, and the cake stand just made it to the table. Her face suddenly went abstract, as women’s do for concealment. ‘Now what did I do with that butter dish . . . ?’ she said vaguely, and that was as far as I got.

Margaret finally landed Tinker for me in Fat Bert’s nooky shop in the arcade. I’d wasted a fortune trying different pubs. Absurdly, I was really pleased to hear his long rasp.

‘Where the bleedin’ hell you got to, Lovejoy?’ he gravelled out, wheezing. ‘ ’Ere, mate. We in trouble?’

‘Shut it, Tinker.’ Maybe he was only three-quarters sloshed, I thought hopefully. I hate to chuck money away on incoherence. ‘You sober?’

‘ ’And on me ’eart, Lovejoy. Not a drop all bleedin’ day.’

‘Listen. That driver who got topped. His name Joseph something?’

‘Dunno, Lovejoy.’

‘Find out from Antioch. I’ll ring tomorrow. Any news?’

‘Nar, Lovejoy. That bleeder’s still round the
Hook
.’ He meant Dutchie hadn’t returned on the
Hook of Holland
ferryboat. ‘But there’s some Eyties hangin’ round.’

‘Italians?’ My soul dampened.

‘Aye. Millie’s youngster Terry reckons they wuz circus rousters or summert. Two big buggers. They come soon after that tart.’ Millie’s a barmaid. Terry runs pub messages, bets for the two-thirty at Epsom and that. Terry’d know, if anybody would.

‘Tinker.’ I’d not had a headache all day. ‘Which tart?’

‘The one you used to shag down Friday Wood before—’

‘Tinker.’

‘—before that little blondie you had went for that shoe-shop manageress you fancied in the White Hart—’

That’s what I need, I thought bitterly, hearing Fat Bert roaring laughing in the background while Margaret lectured the stupid pair of them. Friends. ‘Clear them out, Tinker.’

Mutter, mutter. ‘They’ve pissed orf, Lovejoy.’ Tinker’s drunken idea of subtlety. ‘You remember her, lovely arse—’

‘What did she want?’ I’d already identified Francie.

‘She come in hell of a hurry, after midnight. Said nothing, only asked where you’d got to. Her nipper told me it’d been in bed on a train.’

All children are ‘it’ to Tinker. Betty Blabbermouth, my erstwhile helper at the Great Antique Roadshow. Francie must have hoofed into East Anglia on a night express, and reached Tinker a few millisecs before Sidoli’s killer squad came a-hunting. I swallowed. In spite of Joan, Francie still felt something for me and had rushed to warn.

Well, I didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to reason that various folk were cross, simply because I’d injured a few blokes, damaged a wagon or two, shambled a fairground’s livelihood and nicked their vastly expensive generator. And now they wanted repayment in notes of the realm, my blood or other equivalent currency. I quavered, cleared my throat.

‘Sure there was no message?’

‘Only she’d be at the Edinburgh Tattoo.’ A long pause. ‘It’s north of Selkirk,’ he added helpfully.

Francie’s way of saying steer clear of Edinburgh until that vast military Tattoo closed the festival? Well, I was already in Edinburgh’s black books, and there must be enough guns in two fairgrounds to make a jury think that one accidental shooting of a no-good scruff like me was a permissible average . . . No. Francie’s message was a very, very useful hint indeed.

‘News from Jo?’

‘That teacher bint? She visits Three-Wheel Archie.’

A glass clinked, Tinker finding Fat Bert’s reserve bottle.

‘And, Lovejoy. There’s money from your sweep. We made a killin’. Margaret says as she’ll send your slice to a post office if you’ll say where the bleedin’ ’ell you—’

Click and burr. I didn’t want anybody knowing my address after that lot. Escape’s like murder, a private business. I stood indecisively, then walked out of the tavern into Dubneath’s cool watery day for a deep ponder. Life’s got so many risks, you’re lucky to get out of this world alive. Wherever I looked, enemies lurked. Back home in East Anglia fairground heavies dangled ominously in the trees. The long roads between Caithness and my village were filled with irritated night drivers whose colleague had got done in. I strolled down Dubneath’s empty wharf to examine the vacant harbour.

Hell is people, somebody once said. He forgot to add that so’s heaven. The more I thought about it, the safer Tachnadray’s claustrophobic solitude seemed.

Two hours I walked about the somnolent town. For ten minutes I stood with Dubneath’s one layabout and watched the traffic lights change, really heady excitement. A tiny school loosed about four o’clock, pretty children much tidier than East Anglia’s, with twisty curling accents. I thought longingly of Jo, a lump in my throat. And of Joan. And Francie. And Ellen. And, a startling pang, little Betty. I felt deprived of all life. Maybe it wouldn’t be too long.

Dubneath was static. Not even a shrimp boat a-coming. The wind was rising, wetting my eyes. I tried the obstinate child’s trick of staring into the breeze until your eyelids give up of their own accord. Of course, I’d have to lie low. That much was plain. I didn’t relish this on-the-run bit, even though it’s the only rational course for a coward. It tends to throw you willy-nilly into weird folks’ company. Like that lot up in Tachnadray.

Six o’clock I went for my last meal – no blindfold or cigarette – at the MacNeish pub.

Providentially, the television was on in the snug, a pleasant girl giving out the news. I caught the last of it: ‘. . . the theft of a vehicle from an Edinburgh fairground. Six men are in hospital, two of them critical. A police spokesman today deplored the increasing violence . . .’

The surface of my beer trembled. The glass rim chattered on my teeth and I saw George MacNeish glance slowly along the bar from where he was wiping up. I tried to make my momentary quake resemble thirst.

‘Nice drop, George.’

‘. . . search moved north. The vehicle was found abandoned but undamaged at a roadside halt frequented by long-distance . . .’ She read it so chirpily, holiday camp bingo. I went to do the best I could with Mary’s calories.

Seven o’clock Jamie brought his van. Shona, he said, was tired. I left the tavern clutching my curtain material, a hermit to the wilderness. It could always make bandages.

‘Can we stop at the, er, klett, Jamie?’ I said as we trundled inland. ‘Lovely view.’

‘You’re keen on our bonnie countryside?’ Jamie waxed enthusiastic, changing gears. ‘There’s grand scenery beyond that wee loch . . .’

Ten points on the creep chart, Lovejoy. The trouble was I’d painted myself into a corner. Crooks in East Anglia trying to do me in. Maslow would put two and two together when the police report stimulated his aggressive mini-brain, and hasten into Edinburgh to help his neffie brother peelers. All the travelling folk on the bloody island were out. And here I was at the very tip. Hardly possible to run any further. That’s the trouble with being innocent. You get hunted by cops
and
robbers. Even the worst crooks on earth only get chased by one lot. No wonder people turn to crime.

H
OUSES ARE FASCINATING
, aren’t they? The house at Tachnadray was superbly positioned for light, setting and appearance. Grudgingly, during the first few days of labour on Duncan’s Sheraton lookalike, I came to admire the place. Catch it any angle and you get an eyeful. The old architect might have had delusions of grandeur, but he’d got it exactly right. Pretty as a picture, was Tachnadray. It brings a lump to my throat just to remember how it all was, in my serene encounter with the clan-and-county set. The surrounding moorland somehow seemed arranged for the purpose of setting off the great mansion’s style. Hardly ‘antique’ in the truest sense of the word, pre-1836, but lovely all the same. The creation of an artist.

Very quickly I learned that routines were almost Teutonic in Tachnadray. The first afternoon I wandered across the grand forecourt to chuck some crumbs into the stone fountain. Goldfish sailed in its depths. I’m always sorry for fish because they have a hard life, no entertainment or anything and scared of every shadow. I’d saved a bit of russell roll and was busy shredding it into the water livening up their wet world when my own dry world was suddenly inverted. I do mean this. It honestly spun a hundred-and-eighty degrees and I was crumbing the atmosphere.

‘What the fuck you doin’?’ a cavern rumbled in my ear. Giant hands had clutched my shoulder and spine and tipped me upside down.

‘Feeding the fish,’ I yelped. ‘Please.’

‘Who the fuck said you could?’ the cavern boomed.

‘Down, Robert.’ Elaine to my rescue. Wheels crunched gravel. ‘
Down
!’ Like you say to a dog. Then something in a language I didn’t understand, slidey smooth.

The world clouted my left knee. He’d simply dropped me.

Groggily I clambered upright. My trouser leg was ripped. The big kilted man stood skywards over me. Another McGunn, I supposed wearily, making yet more instantaneous assumptions about good old cousin Ian. He marched off on his great hairy legs. A knife hilt protruded from his stocking.

‘You came just in time, love.’ I was wheezing. ‘I’d have put him in hospital.’

She laughed, applauding. Robert turned his maned head, but kept going.

‘Don’t mind Robert, Ian. He’s big for the cause.’ She wrinkled her face at the scudding clouds. ‘Rain soon. The anglers’ll be out as far as Yarrow Water.’

A distant clanking tapped the air, Duncan calling work on the iron rod which hung by the workshop door.