Scot on the Rocks

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Not the cops,’ said Lenny. ‘The Feds. From now on we call her Svengalice Capone.’

  It was me who went to tell Bran. Todd and Kathi took the tax form to show Mike. Lenny went to the boat to explain the situation to Blaike. Noleen went to look at wedding plans with Della and try to care. Diego and Devin went for fro-yo. Maybe every mid-twenties single mum of a six-year-old only child should marry a college kid. Two birds, one stone.

  Bran looked terrible. He had dropped ten pounds at least, five of them off his face, leaving him haggard.

  ‘Have you found her?’ he said, when he answered the door.

  ‘No,’ I told him. ‘Can I come in?’ It was weird asking, when I used to live there.

  At the two couches facing each other, where Bran had been sleeping judging by the nest of blankets, I took a deep breath and told him straight.

  ‘It was a smokescreen, Bran. She’s left you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ll find her,’ he said. ‘I got another robo-call from that rib joint, by the way.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Replace Your Rib. Powerful Patriarchs for Worried Women. Think that’s anything worth looking into?’

  ‘No, as it turns out,’ I said. ‘A complete red herring.’

  ‘But I want you to keep looking,’ Bran said.

  ‘I don’t need to,’ I told him. ‘The FBI are going to be looking. Something to do with Al Capone? I didn’t understand it fully. I haven’t told anyone you faked the note and nail, by the way.’

  He thought about denying it, but let the breath go as a sigh, in the end.

  ‘Did you fish it out of the wheeliebin?’ I asked him. ‘Or nick it from a nail spa?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Only because you got closer than you’ll ever know to pissing off some really dodgy blokes.’

  Bran frowned and mouthed the words.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake: sketchy dudes! Dicey guys! Get a Britbox subscription!’

  He scowled.

  ‘I want you to swear one thing to me,’ I added, once I’d calmed down again.

  He nodded.

  ‘Swear you haven’t’ – Bloody Noleen! – ‘chopped her up and fed her to the hogs.’

  ‘Of course not!’ he said. ‘What hogs?’

  ‘It’s only an exp—’ I began. Then I bit my lip. Because, was it? Or was the Last Ditch just bone-deep in me now? ‘And here’s another thing,’ I said. Then I ran dry. It felt too much like kicking a man when he was down. ‘How do you feel … answer honestly … about … Blaike?’

  His shoulders slumped. ‘Blaike?’ he said. ‘I thought you were going to say “me”.’

  ‘What about you?’ I said. ‘Oh! Me? No.’

  ‘Right. Blaike? Why?’

  ‘Because his dad’s turned up. Lenny Kowalski?’

  ‘Doesn’t exist. This must be more of the smokescreen.’

  I shook my head. ‘He does exist. He looks exactly like Blaike and he knows too much for there to be any doubt. I’m sorry, Bran. She’s been telling quite a lot of lies, for quite a long time.’

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ Bran said. I wasn’t sure what he was referring to. ‘But Blaike. Does he want to stay with his daddy?’

  ‘I think he might, yes,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing …’ Bran said. ‘You’re the last person …’ He scrubbed his face and gave me a smile brave enough to break a heart of stone. ‘Well, send me your final bill.’

  ‘We will,’ I said. ‘There’s a car hire and there might be a bit of maintenance on it. We had to go off-road and it wasn’t an off-roader.’

  ‘Sounds exciting,’ Bran said. Another smile, this one more rueful. ‘You’ve landed on your feet, haven’t you? Life’s good?’

  ‘Life’s …’ I said. ‘Good, yes. Thank you. If I’d never met you, and all that.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Bran. ‘Lex …?’

  I waited but he was never going to say any more. It was up to me to respond to that. Or not. I thought about it. I thought about my six friends – three couples, now – and the blink of time I thought I might be fostering Blaike until Lenny turned up. I thought about Dirtball Doug and even Earl the Earhole. And I thought about the nine months that I had been with Bran.

  ‘Look out for that bill,’ I said, standing. ‘Terms strictly thirty days.’ Then I left the Beige Barn, closing the door gently behind me.

  Standing outside, trying to recover from the skin-crawling awkwardness of it all, I found myself looking at the house of the blind rose-grower across the way and I headed off in that direction, greatly cheered, to give her the news. I would call it good news, but I wasn’t sure how it would hit her ear. I’d have to go gently.

  As before, her son answered. He was wearing a khaki waistcoat with approximately forty-nine pockets, each with two zips. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Hi! How are you?’

  ‘Great, good, fine,’ I said. Why was I babbling? ‘Taylor, right? How’s your mum?’

  ‘In mourning for Doris Day,’ he said, leaning comfortably in the doorway, as if settling in for a chat.

  ‘Still?’

  ‘Rosa “Doris Day”. Scented yellow hybrid tea. And we still don’t know what happened.’

  ‘That’s what I came to tell you,’ I said. ‘It was sabotage. Deliberate vandalism. Roundup, probably. But if she replants she’ll be fine. The FBI are hunting the perp down.’

  ‘The FBI are?’ he said, raising his eyebrows so high his aviator specs slipped down his nose. He was wearing aviator specs. ‘That’s gratifying.’

  ‘Isn’t it just?’ I said. ‘So. Tell her from me. From us. Trinity Solutions.’ I fished out a card and handed it over, like Todd’s always telling me to.

  ‘Le …?’ he said. ‘League Sadie?’

  ‘Lexy.’

  ‘“Counselling and investigations”?’ he said, still reading. ‘Interesting work.’

  ‘I’ll never be rich,’ I said. ‘But I’ll never be bored.’

  ‘It’s a problem, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I followed my heart too. I’m an ornithologist.’ Of course he was. ‘Down at the wetlands.’

  ‘That must be fascinating. It was one of the weirdest things about moving over here, suddenly not knowing what any of the birds were.’

  ‘How many do you know now?’ He had stopped leaning against the door jamb. Mentioning bird identification was like jiggling his mouse, obviously.

  ‘Oh, well, you know,’ I said. ‘Blue jays, orioles, hummingbirds, those shiny black ones with the red bit.’

  He smiled. ‘Would that be the greater shiny black one with the red bit, or the lesser shiny black one with the red bit?’

  I smiled back, but found my smile fading as I saw him, for some reason, start to change colour.

  ‘I could take you to the hide and teach you the water birds,’ he said. ‘If that would be a thing you would ever want to do, one day, when you weren’t busy.’

  ‘Uh …’ I said.

  ‘Except God knows when,’ he said, ‘because – like I told you – it’s not well paid and I’ve got this second job at the Verizon store, which I hate, but what you gonna do?’

  I stared. ‘At the Verizon store downtown?’ I said. ‘Yeah, I think I saw you going in there the other day. Va–Valentine’s Day?’

  ‘Yeah, you did,’ he said. ‘I saw you too.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘But I ignored you because … I’m forty-four years old and I work nights in a phone store.’

  Forty-four years old, passionate about something and honest, I thought. And, from the back, I had quite liked the look of him, in his phone-shop trousers, with only four pockets and no zips. In fact, I had literally fancied the arse off him. The front – aviator frames and all that – could wait.

  ‘Instead of a trip down to the wetlands,’ I said, and I knew I was changing colour too, because in this moment of heightened awareness that sounded filthy, ‘why not a cup of coffee on your break, one night? I live quite near th
e phone shop. I could meet you.’

  ‘A cup of coffee?’ he said, still smiling. ‘That’s a modest enough plan.’

  ‘Or,’ I said, suddenly remembering, ‘what about a wedding? Not ours. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!’ For God’s sake, Lexy, I said to myself. But, you know what? He didn’t slam the door. He didn’t go white. He didn’t run away.

  FACTS AND FICTIONS

  Beteo County, the city of Cuento, its houses, businesses, streets, and residents are all fictional. But there are some Easter eggs in the Last Ditch books which residents of and visitors to Davis, CA, might have fun spotting. A list of these can be found on my website, www.catrionamcpherson.com

  The statues of Mama Cuento, Sacagawea, Hope, and Liberty that get embroiled in this story are fictional but there are beautiful monuments to Sacagawea all over the west. The touching statue of Phyllis Wheatley in Boston and the awe-inspiring Dignity in South Dakota are well worth a look.

  Patriarchyville, OR, is fictional. Thank God.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank: Lisa Moylett, Zoë Apostolides and Elena Langtry at CMM Lit Agency; Kate Lyall Grant, Carl Smith, Natasha Bell, Jem Butcher, Penelope Price, and all at Severn House; the many booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and reviewers who have helped get the Last Ditch mysteries into readers’ hands; and my family and friends for always knowing whether it’s patience, enthusiasm or commiseration I’m after.