Escort to Adventure

by Angus MacVicar

  He was at a loss to understand this flight of fancy; but when they left the hotel a few minutes later, to have a look at Glendale, she was so happy and excited that he soon ceased to wonder at her odd remark.

  Despite the anxiety at the back of his mind, a holiday mood possessed him. He hadn’t felt the same for almost twenty years — not since he had been “a lump o’ a boy” at Campbeltown Grammar School and his main preoccupations had been fishing for trout in the slow, hazel-fringed burn and helping Wee Ned MacCullum with his rabbit-snares and lobster-pots.

  It occurred to him that by concentrating so hard on his work he had been missing something — the uplift of spirit, perhaps, which comes from an occasional surrender to the spell of the countryside. But now, as he showed Veronica Jane the deep, ale-brown pool where he had snared his first salmon, the limpet-covered rock near the river-mouth from which he had learned to swim and the flat field below the Manse where he and his school friends had played football and cricket, he felt his heart stirring with a boyish thrill of remembered pleasure.

  She listened to his stories with interest and surprise. It was difficult to believe that this was the same man whose pompous professional manner had so annoyed her at their first meeting. But as time went on her own sophistication began to fall away like a cloak, and she saw Glendale through his eyes, fresh and lovable as only one’s native place can be.

  On the bank of the river, near the old mill, they came upon a small stout man kneeling beside a rabbit-burrow. Wielding a stone like a hammer, he was knocking the pin of a snare into the ground. His whiskery cheeks were red with exertion and he was intoning gruffly the words of some ancient ballad.

  “Hullo, Ned!” exclaimed Kenneth, addressing the other’s substantial hindquarters. “How are you?”

  The song ended abruptly as the rabbit-catcher scrambled to his feet. He was about the same height as Veronica Jane, and his short legs were bowed like a cowboy’s. For a moment he stared at them without recognition, slate-coloured eyes cold and inimical. Then he pushed the greasy cap back from his forehead, revealing a fringe of unkempt grey hair. A smile stole out of the whiskers.

  “Kenny boy!” he growled, hoarsely. “It’s yersel’?”

  They shook hands vigorously.

  “This is Ned MacCullum,” Kenneth told Veronica Jane. “Ned — meet Miss MacKay. You remember the MacKays in Drumeden? She’s Fraser’s daughter.”

  Wee Ned studied her through half-closed eyelids. “Man,” he said, at last, “noo that ye mention it, she's as like Jane Dallas as two peas!”

  “Her grandmother, you mean? Fraser’s mother?”

  “Aye. Jane Dallas. What a lassie yon was!”

  Veronica Jane smiled. “Tell me about her, Ned.”

  “I mind her first at the dances. She was the miller’s dochter — small and neat, wi’ gowden hair like yersel’ — and och, the boys wad be roond her like flies. Big Erchie Mac-Sporran at the Smiddy; the minister’s son hame frae the University — that was afore yer faither’s time, Kenny; Hamish McKendrick, Dalaruan’s son, and guid kens hoo mony mair. But she kept them a’ on a string, dancin’ her way through life, and naebody had an ill word o’ her — except that she was a wee thing flichty!”

  Kenneth smiled vaguely; but Veronica Jane did not look in his direction.

  “Then Glendale got an unco shock,” proceeded Wee Ned, taking out a clay pipe and beginning to cut aromatic flakes from a block of tobacco. “Donald MacKay frae Drumeden was a man o’ about forty — gey dour and sullen, we thocht him — and wan nicht he cam’ to the dancin’ and afore oor eyes he picked on Jane Dallas. Next year he mairrit her.”

  “And were they happy?” inquired Veronica Jane.

  “As happy as larks.” He struck a match and lit his pipe with loud and enjoyable puffs. “She was a tonic to him. Ye could see him gettin’ younger-lookin’ every day. And the strange thing was — naebody was jealous o’ him. Big Erchie MacSporran and the minister’s son and Hamish McKendrick — on Setturday nichts they’d all go up to Drumeden for a ploy, bringin’ their new girls wi’ them. Jane was still as throughhither as ever, and she’d pull your grandfather’s leg something wild. But ye could aye see he was enjoyin’ it!”

  A dreamy look had come into Veronica Jane’s eyes. “What happened after that?” she said.

  “Weel — it’s a sad endin’. Efter a year, when yer faither was born, Jane died. Yer grandfaither was stricken sair. He hired an auld hoosekeeper and a nurse for the wean and went on wi’ his work at Drumeden. But the licht had gone oot o’ his life.”

  For a while no one spoke, and Kenneth saw that Veronica Jane, in spite of her sophistication, was on the verge of tears.

  Soon, however, they found another topic, and the conversation turned to Wee Ned’s job as official rabbit-catcher to a number of local farmers.

  “There’s just ae thing,” he remarked suddenly, spitting and looking about him with the air of a conspirator. “Are ye on duty here, Kenny boy? As a policeman, I mean.” “More or less.”

  “That’s a peety!”

  “Why?”

  “Weel — dae ye mind when ye were a laddie, the nichts we’d be up in the laird’s plantin’?”

  Kenneth looked guilty. “Yes — poaching!” he said. “Wheesht, wheesht!” Wee Ned shuddered. “We werena poachin’ in the strict sense o’ the word! Rabbits is vermin, and we were helpin’ to keep them doon.”

  “Let’s put it that way, then. But what’s the connection?” Wee Ned lowered his voice. “If ye were wantin’ a bit fun,” he said, “and ye were off duty at any time — say for an hour or two the morn’s nicht, Kenny boy — ye micht come and gi’e me hand in the plantin’. Just for sport, ye ken — like in the auld days.”

  Kenneth shook his head. “Can’t be done.” He tried to camouflage a timbre of regret. “It’s all very well for you, but if I were caught — a policeman”

  “Och, ye’d no’ be caught!” interrupted Wee Ned, testily. “Come on — be a sport.”

  “No. I’m sorry. In any case, aren’t you getting plenty of rabbits here at your legitimate job?”

  “Och, aye! But they’re no’ as sweet as the yins that dinna belang tae me!”

  Veronica Jane burst out laughing. She looked up at her embarrassed escort.

  “Kenny boy,” she said, mimicking the rabbit-catcher, “what about it? Forget you’re a policeman — for once.” “No — it’s out of the question.”

  He sounded far more firm and decisive than he felt. His conscience was troubled. Something was happening to him. The shackles of orthodoxy were slipping away, while he struggled hard to hold them in position.

  Veronica Jane pouted. Then she turned her back on him. “Tomorrow night did you say, Ned?"

  "Aye."

  "Okay. Don't let’s worry about him. I’ll come with you.’’

  For a moment the old man stared at her. Then he slapped a horny hand on the side of his patched trousers.

  "Well done, lassie! I kent it fine — ye’re like Jane Dallas in mair ways than wan! That’s settled then. If ye come tae my cottage on the shore aboot seeven o’clock’’

  "Wait a minute!’’ Kenneth’s interruption was cold, even harsh. "It’s not settled at all.’’

  "Why?’’ said Veronica Jane, quickly.

  "You should know.’’

  "Well — I don’t!’’

  Wee Ned had been listening to this by-play with growing astonishment.

  "What’s bitin’ ye, Kenny boy?’’ he burst out. "If ye canna come yersel’, dinna spoil the lassie’s pleesure. It’s a free country.’’

  "Sure it’s a free country,’’ said Veronica Jane. "And I will go with you, Ned.’’

  It was an awkward situation. Kenneth was in no mood to explain to his old friend the danger which threatened Veronica Jane and the difficulty of his own task in protecting her. Why couldn’t she understand that if she went out at night on a poaching expedition and anything happened to her, he would be held responsible? Why c
ouldn’t she play the game — as.she had promised — and stop putting him in the wrong with Wee Ned? He wished she had been several years younger; then he might have put her across his knee and given her exactly what she deserved.

  He frowned. "We’ll see about that,’’ he said, curtly.

  Veronica Jane glanced at Wee Ned and, unseen by Kenneth, winked — slowly and deliberately. Then she assumed an expression of martyrdom.

  "I guess we should be going now,’’ she sighed, half-turning towards her escort. "It’s a hard world, Ned!’’

  The small rabbit-catcher, who had a long experience of the wiles of women — he was a widower for the second time — had a good idea of what was in her mind. He had a suspicion that on the following night he would be accompanied to rhe planting not only by Jane Dallas’s grand-daughter but also by Detective-Sergeant Kenneth MacDonald.

  As they parted, he took his clay pipe from his mouth and pointed it at Veronica Jane. “Man, ye’re as like her as two peas!” he chuckled.

  Then, with a wave of his hand, he bent down again arid resumed work on his snares.

  Crossing the shore to the hotel, Kenneth and Veronica Jane said little to each other. The sea pulsed among the brown seaweed at their feet. Black-and-white oyster-catchers, wading in the shallow pools formed by the incoming tide, flew up in clouds as they approached. The sun was high over Dunaverty Rock behind them, but there was a nip in the salt-smelling breeze to remind them that summer was still a few weeks away.

  Both of them avoided the subject of the poaching expedition — Kenneth because he felt it might lead to an open quarrel, Veronica Jane because she knew how to bide her time…

  On the grey, lichened rocks immediately below the hotel they found Hector sitting by himself, a folded easel and disreputable case lying neglected at his side.

  He sprang to his feet, obviously glad to see them.

  “I’ve been trying to work out a picture,” he explained, gesturing at the sea, the Rock of Dunaverty and the islands in the distance. “Everything is perfect — beautiful. And yet — there’s something missing.”

  Kenneth surveyed the scene with narrowed eyes. There came to him the memory of a girl sitting on a white fence, with the sparkling water of Loch Lomond behind her.

  “I think I know what it is, Hector,” he said, at last. “Why don’t you ask Sheena Mathieson to model for you? She’ll be free on Saturday. Put her in the foreground of your picture”

  “Stop! Stop!” shouted the artist, beating his forehead with an enormous hand and dancing precariously on the slippery rocks. “You’ve got it, man! You’ve got it. Human interest. I know the very title — ‘Girl On The Shore.’ I can see it. I can see Sheena Mathieson, dark and quiet and in that yellow dress”

  He broke off. He eyed Veronica Jane and grinned apologetically. “Excuse me," he said, smoothing his black, untidy hair. “It just came to me all of a sudden.”

  “I know — the artistic temperament.” She smiled. “Don't apologize, Hector.”

  For some time, standing in the sun, they discussed the composition of the picture. Hector was impatient to make a start — on the background at any rate — and began to set up his easel.

  “But it's almost lunch-time,” said Veronica Jane.

  He shook his head. “I'm not a bit hungry.”

  “Now — don't be silly,” she told him, in a motherly way. “I'm sure Mrs. Connacher has a beautiful lunch all ready for you, and she'd be awfully annoyed if you skipped it. No wonder you're so thin. The artistic temperament's all very well, but it never did function in a hungry man.”

  He smiled like a guilty schoolboy. Then a sudden thought occurred to him.

  “Talking of food!” he said. “A chap came to Mrs. Connacher's door this morning — selling onions. From Brittany he said he was. But I remembered about the Actor, Kenneth, and tried him with a spot of Breton slang I picked up during the war. He didn't understand a word of it!”

  Chapter 6

  Shadow-Play

  Kenneth at once lost interest in Hector's picture. He also forgot about the delicate matter of the poaching expedition. The problem of the onion-seller’s identity was of more immediate importance. Could the Breton who failed to recognize Breton slang possibly be Max Bergman?

  It was up to him to find out. He left Veronica Jane and Hector together on the shore and hurried back to the village.

  “The onion-man?” said Jamie Smith, who owned the garage. “He was all through the village this morning. I think he’s gone round by the East Road now, past the Old Mill."

  "Can I use your phone?"

  "Aye — surely."

  Kenneth rang the Campbeltown police. Did they know anything of an onion-seller who was at the moment in Glendale? A Frenchman, by all accounts.

  The bar-officer chuckled. "He's as much a Frenchman as I am. Comes from the Gorbals in Glasgow. We know all about him — and you needn't worry, Sergeant. His name's MacPhee. You can identify him by a scar on the back of his neck. Got it about a year ago. In a fight with some sailors here in Campbeltown."

  But Kenneth wasn't satisfied with second-hand information. He knew the cunning and ingenuity of the Actor and was taking no chances. Reversing the police-car out of the garage, he accelerated like a racing-driver towards the East Road.

  Underneath the stone arch of the bridge at the Mill he glimpsed an old woman, painfully gathering sticks thrown up on the bank by a recent flood. He stopped the car, got out and leaned over the parapet.

  "Hullo!" he called.

  She straightened herself and looked up. "Ach, it's Kenny. Ye're back."

  "Just for a short time, Nancy. How are you keeping?"

  "Ach, jeest fine, if it wasna for the rheumatics. D'ye ken what age I am?"

  It was a question he had been asked before, and Kenneth knew the answer to a day. The widow of an inshore fisherman who had emigrated from Northern Ireland to Kintyre seventy years before, she was ninety-one — and proud of it. But being kind by instinct he pretended ignorance.

  "About eighty, isn't it?" he said.

  She cackled with delight, her wrinkled brown face splitting to reveal a lately acquired set of false teeth. "I’m ninety-one, Kenny — ninety-one come Whitsun."

  "By Jove, you don't look it. I'll be along to see you one of these days, and you must give me the recipe… Nancy, did you see the onion-seller come this way?"

  "The Frenchie?" She tucked some strands of white hair below her drab head-scarf and wiped her nose with the back of a knuckly hand. "Aye — he went ower the brig about ten meenits syne. If ye hurry up ye’ll catch him… My goodness, it’s a toff ye are nooadays wi’ a grand car! Yer poor ould faither never had a car — but he was a good meenister, and maybe he did his job better withoot wan.”

  “Maybe he did, Nancy.” Kenneth took his elbows from the stone coping. “Meantime — thanks for the information.”

  She waved to him, still chuckling and muttering to herself as he climbed into the car.

  Five minutes later he saw his quarry sitting by the roadside, on a bank of primroses, the stick of onions balanced against the fence. He was dressed in a ragged blue jersey and torn flannel trousers; but he leaned back comfortably, one foot propped up on the knee of the other leg, munching a cheese sandwich. When the police-car drew up alongside, however, he started to his feet, a scared expression in his dark eyes. His face flushed under its stubble of beard.

  For a moment it seemed as if he intended making a bolt for it; but before he could move Kenneth was out of his seat and had caught his arm. Tense muscles rippled below the frayed, dirty jersey — young muscles that went ill with his broken-down appearance.

  “Got your hawker’s licence?” asked Kenneth.

  The onion-man scowled. “I no’ unnerstan’ English goot. Me French”

  “Don’t give me that!”

  “Please, monsieur” — the initial bluster changed quickly to a whine — “I do nozzings bad. I sell onions”

  “That’s obvious. And
whether you’ve done anything bad or not doesn’t concern me at the moment. Even though I am a policeman.” Kenneth showed his badge. Then he noticed the angry scar on the back of the man’s neck and added with more kindliness: “All I want to see is your hawker’s licence.”

  The man glanced about him. But the road was deserted, and the only sign of life was a tractor towing a set of harrows in a distant field by the river.

  “Listen, pal,” he said, in a low voice, “don’t give me away. My name’s MacPhee, but I can sell more onions if people think I’m a foreigner. Like a composer with music.” A spark of humour showed in his wary eyes. “They’d throw me out if they knew I came from Glasgow.”

  Kenneth smiled. “All right. I'll keep your secret. However, I still want to see that licence."

  The other fished in his hip-pocket and brought out an ancient wallet. Among the contents he discovered a creased, grey-blue card. The name on it was Alastair MacPhee; the address 7 Alston Street, Gorbals, Glasgow.

  “Good enough,” said Kenneth. He took a fountain-pen and an old envelope from his pocket. “But let me see you sign your name — on the back of this envelope. I want to make sure it corresponds with your signature on the licence.”

  Grumbling, MacPhee did as he was told. And Kenneth was at last convinced. By no stretch of imagination could this man be suspected of being the Actor.

  “Satisfied?" muttered MacPhee, subsiding again among the primroses. Kenneth had an idea that he was trying to hide his relief at not being questioned further. Something was on his conscience; but there was no point in pursuing the matter. The Kintyre police were well able to look after their own business.

  “Yes. Sorry to have troubled you." Kenneth returned the card to its owner and put the envelope and pen back in his pocket. “Were you in the war?" he asked. “You look young enough."

  “I was a paratrooper. Landed at Arnhem. Picked up what French I have from the Belgians." MacPhee bit into his sandwich. “But who the hell cares nowadays?" he mumbled, viciously. “Them that stayed at home are the big noises. And look at me… "

  Kenneth patted his shoulder. “I know what you mean," he said. “But — well, sometimes things take a turn for the better." He took a crumpled ten-shilling note from his pocket. “Can you use it?" he asked.