The Tartan Ringers (26 page)

Then I trotted away from Tachnadray. I’d miss it.

Distances contract during daytime. I’ve often noticed that. Maybe it’s because you know where you’re putting your feet. I had the sense to follow Dubneath Water from the bridge, moving on the stones and eventually climbing up where I’d been baulked by Ranter. The guard was standing on the skyline a half mile off, facing the house in a patriarchal pose. From there he could see the cars and all the activity. No dog, thank God.

Somewhat muckily I climbed out of the watercourse and moved left, getting the cottage between us before I made a direct move towards it. The main door was on the side facing the distant guard, as was that unlatched shutter. The rear door my side was virtually rusted in place. Using the chisel, I levered off the bolt, and did the old lock with my belt buckle. A push on the Suffolk latch, and I was in. Must, rust, dust. Just to make sure, I peered into the two downstairs rooms, a parlour and a kitchen. Unused for years. Grime was trodden shiny on the middle of the stairs. A trannie played pop music above my head. I went up, a bit scared – well, not really scared as such. More worried. Maybe I’d got it wrong.

But I hadn’t. Joseph was sitting in the upstairs room with that shutter ajar. They hadn’t even allowed the poor bugger a light, perhaps in case he signalled. He stood, jaw dropping and stared at me in the doorway with my hammer and chisel. One hand was manacled to the wall, a long chain, and his ankles were chained to a granite cube. He could move, but he’d be noticed in company.

‘Dear God,’ he said faintly, his face drained.

‘Wotcher, Dutchie.’

‘I didn’t kill the driver. Honest, Lovejoy. Please.’

‘I know you didn’t, silly berk.’ I tested the wall chain. With that broken I could at least get him away.

‘Lovejoy . . .’ His voice broke. ‘Is there a chance?’

‘Let’s make one,’ I said, and started on the damned thing.

I was past caring by now. He had a towel which I used to muffle the blows. The cold chisel through the wall link with me banging the two-pounder on it in great sideways swings. When the wall insert did go it nearly took my eye out, whizzing past my forehead and pitting the wall opposite.

Dutchie carried his chains over his shoulder, me humping his granite cube. We left
Shooters
and crawled to the gully. We must have looked a sight by the time we reached the bridge. Dutchie was exhausted. I shoved him so he was in the dry under the arch, and heaved myself up to join him. He tried to gasp what the hell were we doing but I shut him and whispered that our own private express service would be along shortly.

Cars were still passing overhead heading towards Tachnadray, but only intermittently. One of them would be Dobson and his five sociopaths.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon before that ancient engine came thumping down the track and arrested humming on the bridge. Even then I didn’t make a move until a gravelly cough temporarily muted the racket.

‘Come on, Dutchie.’ I tugged on his chain. We struggled up the bank. Tinker gaped from the Mawdslay.

‘Bleedin’ hell, Lovejoy. That Dutchie you got there?’

‘Shut it.’ I dumped the granite block in. ‘Drive. South.’

He blasphemed at the gears. ‘ ’Ere, Lovejoy. Why’s Dutchie in chains?’ We slammed forward, skidding wheels spraying earth. ‘Can we stop at a pub?’

W
E RAN INTO
Dubneath, veered south and started the long run. In the first few miles we hardly spoke, except for me once.

‘Give over hammering, Dutchie. The frigging floor’ll fall out.’

‘But I’m chained,’ he bleated.

Aren’t we all, I thought wearily. I’d lost all track of who I was being loyal to. The shyly elegant Michelle; the lovely Elaine inheriting the sins of her fathers, sic; teacher Jo; Shona the priestess-oracle of a McGunn renaissance; or this lout with whom I was now lumbered.

There hadn’t been much choice of direction. North or east meant splash. West was back to Tachnadray. Within ten miles Tinker drove me mad, complaining about the signs.

‘Kyle of what?’ he grumbled. ‘Strath of Kildonan? Here, Lovejoy. Funny bleedin’ names up here.’

‘Give us that wheel,’ I said irritably. We changed places. Cackling joyously, he fetched out a bottle, the old devil.

‘Give Dutchie a swallow,’ I told him.

He coughed long and harsh, giving himself time to think up an excuse. ‘Dutchie shouldn’t,’ he wheezed, with rheumy old eyes streaming. ‘On account of his chains.’

‘Tinker
.’ For half a groat I’d have slung them both out. I was sick of the lot of them. Everybody was safe except me, heading back into danger.

Morosely Tinker passed his bottle to Dutchie, whose glugs made Tinker squirm in distress. He decided to get at me for enforcing charity at his ale’s expense.

‘There wuz only two of them berks with Dobson,’ he said.

‘You sure?’ I felt my nape prickle. I’d banked on all five, plus Dobson, turning up at the auction. Dobson must have guessed I’d make a sly run for it.

‘I waited, Lovejoy. They went in. Eyes all round their heads.’

‘Dobson’s here?’ Dutchie sounded pale in the rear seat.

‘With five goons. Tough lot.’

Dutchie groaned. ‘We’ve had it, then. They’ll be on the road waiting for us, Lovejoy.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ I said bitterly.

‘Will . . . they all be safe at Tachnadray?’ He sounded like a bloke on his deathbed.

‘You mean your mother and dad? Certainly. I’ve got Trembler up. There’s a big auction on the estate. Paper job.’

Tinker belched, hawked. ‘Mam and dad?’

‘Michelle and Duncan,’ I explained.

‘Dutchie’s?’ His eyes widened. ‘You mean that bird you—?’

‘Shut it.’ Tinker always knows more about my affairs than I’d like. ‘And your sister is fine.’ Still nothing following in the rear mirror.

That took a minute to sink in, but he tried. ‘You know about that, then, Lovejoy.’

‘Only guessed. She did a painting, your mother Michelle and the laird. Pastor Ruthven gave part of the game away. The laird’s wife couldn’t conceive and he became obsessed with providing an heir for the crumbling clan. Dynasty delusion.’

‘He was always like that. Ever since . . .’

‘Ever since he arrived as plain James Wheeler.’ I adjusted the mirror to watch Dutchie’s face. ‘Even had his name changed to McGunn, by deed poll. I had it checked. Which makes Elaine Michelle’s daughter. You’re Elaine’s half-brother.’

‘Elaine and me always got on, in spite of all.’

Tinker’s brain buzzed. ‘Then what she have you chained up for, Dutchie?’

I answered for him. ‘Remember that bureau? The night of the fog, when the driver got topped? Dutchie was trying to nick it. You were hoping to make a killing of a different sort, eh, Dutchie?’

Tinker put his mouth near my ear to whisper hoarsely, ‘Lovejoy. If Dutchie kilt the driver, what you give him that frigging hammer for?’

‘Dobson clobbered the driver.’ I kept checking my accuracy on Dutchie’s face. ‘When me and Ellen reached the wagon the bureau had been offloaded. Dobson organized the twinning job knowing its value. Maybe the driver also realized, so Dobson did him, poor sod. Dobson told Robert that Dutchie’d shared in the killing. With the fog lifting during the night, Robert drove Dutchie to Tachnadray. Dobson had to do in Tipper Noone, who’d done the twinning. He knew it was Dobson.’

Dutchie said, ‘Robert came up just as Dobson clobbered me because I wouldn’t go along with the driver’s killing. I’d been unloading while he killed him.’

Tinker cackled. ‘Bet Robert got an eyeful. Lovejoy was in Ben’s hut shagging that Ellen. Biggest bristols you ever—’

‘Tinker
.’ One day I’ll replace the garrulous berk by a Cambridge MA. I’m always making these vows, never fulfil them.

‘There was no hiding place except Tachnadray,’ Dutchie said. He sounded really depressed.

‘Because one of Dobson’s goons is from Michelle’s home town in Belgium. The Continental connection, eh?’ I should have realized a million years ago, if only from Michelle’s accent. And Dutchie’s nickname: anybody from the Low Countries is called that indiscriminately in East Anglia. Thick as ever.

Dutchie was telling Tinker. ‘. . . friend of my mother’s side.’

The old drunk was delighted. ‘Hey!’ he exclaimed. ‘I know it! Nice little place. I blew a bridge there. Up to me balls in water. Lovely little Norman arch it had—’

‘One more word from you, Tinker,’ I warned him. He shut up. ‘Tell me if I’m right, Dutchie. Duncan and Michelle hid you at
Shooters
. You tried to escape, thinking you’d turn yourself in and tell the truth. Elaine supposed they were protecting you against yourself.’

‘I tried telling them.’

I said, readjusting the mirror, ‘Shona discovered my identity because I opened my big mouth about antiques. She claimed then to have deliberately sent a real antique to entice me to Tachnadray. Like a prat, I believed her. Here, Tinker, take a glance. Is that motor the one which Dobson and the goons had at Tachnadray?’

‘Eh?’ He screwed his eyes, peered. ‘No.’

It could have overtaken us twice, and hasn’t.’ I’d noticed it a mile since. ‘It has the legs on us.’

Dutchie sounded almost in tears. ‘There’s no way out, Lovejoy.’

‘Optimist.’ The trouble with some people is they’re not big enough cowards. Anyway, they didn’t want Dutchie any more. They wanted me. ‘There’s nowt they can do until we pass Dingwall. We’re going to double back north for a bit. The A890 to Achnashellach.’

‘Funny frigging names round here.’ Tinker started a prolonged cough, phlegm and spittle over the side. If his chest would mend we’d be ten miles faster.

The big blue Mercedes stayed on our tail. I took on petrol in Dingwall, as Antioch had told me to do, then left the Inverness Road and pretended to try to shake them off by over-desperate demonstration driving.

The day was fading. The road grew thinner and traffic lessened. An occasional car overtook us and a lorry or two passed going east, but that was about it. We left the security of towns as we hurried west. Countryside is rotten old stuff, lonely and ominous. The government really should do something. I was as worried what was happening up ahead as much as by that bulky saloon dogging me, and kept staring into the middle distance on every rise. The skies abruptly lowered on us, and a drizzle started. The Mawdslay was a tough old thing, booming up each slope with ease, but steering it through the twisting dips was hell. It had a will of its own. Tinker started snoring.

As we ran on and the day ended there was nothing but hills, and woods and lakes to the left. Dutchie started some lunatic suggestion: drop him off and he would nip down an incline, granite block and all. ‘I could reach the Strath Bran railway.’

‘Ta, Dutchie, but don’t be daft.’ He was only trying to help. Bravery’s more stupid than cowardice.

Tinker coughed himself awake and also made a contribution. ‘Here, Dutchie. How’d you manage to go for a—?’

‘The chain was long enough.’ Dutchie rattled it as proof.

We were a couple of miles past the chapel near Bran when we saw the man mending a motorbike by a lantern, thank Christ. He didn’t watch us drive past, made no move. I was beginning to worry I’d missed him.

‘Hang on, lads,’ I said, and cracked on speed. The old giant roared, fast as I could go in the darkening rain.

‘Here, Dutchie,’ Tinker was rabbiting on. ‘What percentage d’you give that Dobson . . . ?’

Here I was sweating, grappling with the controls, and this pair sitting yapping like at a tea party. The road curved, left to right. Down, then uphill. A slow bend, the Mercedes coming fast, its headlights on full beam. It’d be soon. I yelped, cornering too fast, wrestled up straight, cursing.

The tall lorry swept past in the opposite direction. I saw the Mercedes waver as its driver realized. A horn blared. The crash sounded actually in the Mawdslay and for one crazy instant I thought: Hell, it’s us they’ve got in spite of everything, before sense reasserted itself. I was still driving, unimpeded. Something burst. Air rushed along over the Mawdslay, blew on my ears. I slowed. Only the lorry’s tail lights in the rear-view mirror, nothing moving.

‘Gawd Almighty,’ Tinker croaked. ‘See that?’

Head out of the window, I crawled in slow reverse to where the man was standing by his lorry. I disembarked and stood looking over the edge of the camber.

‘Ta, Antioch. All right?’

He heaved a sigh, tutting. ‘No gumption, some people. If he’d braked, he might have got out of it.’

A car was ablaze down below among a haircut of young trees. Even as I watched another bit of it woomphed. The air stank oil, rubber. A big bloke arrived on a motorbike, somehow folded it and lobbed it into Antioch’s lorry’s tailboard with ease. He nodded at the fire on the hillside below, as if acknowledging the inevitable. ‘Well,’ he said in a singy Ulster voice, ‘they shouldn’t go round killing drivers, should they?’

‘Six in it, eh?’ I asked Antioch.

‘No. Three. They’re using a band radio. They’ve a rover block on the A87.’

‘What’s best, Antioch?’ Three from six leaves three.

‘No smoking, O’Flaherty,’ Antioch said absently. The man put away his cigarettes. He had the envious tranquillity of the professional. I’m only glad I’m not that tranquil. ‘Look, Lovejoy. I can see you safe part way, say Glasgow?’

‘I’ve a better idea, Antioch,’ I said. Lovejoy Know-all. ‘They’ll suspect I won’t touch Edinburgh.’ I didn’t give reasons. ‘Will you put us that way on?’

‘Right. I’ve things to do here, so O’Flaherty’ll see you as far as Perth. Then it’s motorway.’

The rain was worsening, but it made no difference to the fire below. A lorry chugged past. O’Flaherty waved.

With difficulty I turned the Mawdslay and followed O’Flaherty’s lorry. Antioch gave a distant nod as we passed. Aren’t people funny? He supports an orphanage in Affetside, then he goes and does a thing like that and stays cool. I kept having to clench my teeth to stop them chattering.

Dutchie’s voice wasn’t all that steady, either. ‘Where to now, Lovejoy?’

‘Down the middle, to Edinburgh.’