by John Burke
‘I did tell you, I moved out quite a while ago. But I do come back, naturally. To see father. It’s still …’ For the first time she was fumbling for a word. At last she said, doubtfully: ‘Home.’
They went on a few paces in silence. Then, with an abrupt laugh, she said: ‘Look, are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
‘I’m supposed to be pretty competent at my job.’
‘Brigid’s been very good at getting people into jobs or out of jobs. Now she’s out of one herself, and somebody has to be made to pay. But maybe there’ll be some who decide to pay back. She could get into a lot of trouble with her enemies, you know. And drag you into it, too. Doesn’t that worry you?’
As he was about to concoct an answer, the sound of a car scattering gravel came from the curve of the main drive. The lady of the house was home.
*
‘God, I can do with a drink.’ Brigid led the way unhesitatingly into a small sitting-room which Greg had not yet been shown. ‘All this dashing to and fro. Sorry I wasn’t around when you got here, but I can see Caroline’s made you feel quite at home. Caroline darling, do join us and keep Greg entertained. I’ve a suspicion that I’ve lost the knack of it.’
Caroline prodded at her hair. ‘No, I’m really running short of time. I do have some homework to get on with.’
‘Homework?’ said Greg after she had gone out of the room.
‘She does odd jobs on a television programme.’
‘Oh, yes, she did mention that.’
‘A local chat show, and news items galloping all over the landscape. They think having a real live lord’s daughter on the programme gives it class.’ Brigid’s tone was much the same as Caroline’s when uttering her own name. ‘And I did do a bit of string-pulling in certain quarters.’
The young man who had taken Greg’s case upstairs appeared, opened a corner cabinet, and poured drinks.
Greg watched him go as silently as he had come. ‘Are the locals telepathic, or something? Materialising before you’d even reached for the bell-pull.’
‘Young Drew. A good local lad from the home farm. A bit fey, like a lot of them round here. Comes up Sunday mornings and plays the pipes along the landing outside our bedroom until Hector goes out and tells him he can stop.’
‘What if you oversleep? Does he have to keep on playing all morning?’
‘Have you ever tried to sleep when somebody’s playing the pipes outside your bedroom door? Hector can lie there for a good twenty minutes, wallowing in it. Me, one pibroch and two variations and I need to go to the loo.’
Brigid was sitting upright in what was obviously her usual chair, with a low table near her right hand carrying a pad and gold pencil, and a coaster for her drink. A higher table with a black and gold porcelain lamp stood to her left. She was wearing a white suit and, in spite of her talk of dashing about, looked unflustered and uncreased. Unlike her stepdaughter, she did not have a hair out of place. Greg sat facing her, across a small fireplace with a log fire burning in it, welcome even on a warm evening like this.
He suppressed a yawn.
Brigid was on it at once. ‘You’ve had a long drive. Must be tired out. We’ll eat the moment Hector gets back and let you get to bed.’
‘It’s dangerously cosy by this fire.’ He raised his glass. Reflections of the flames winked and swayed within the amber liquid. ‘Satisfactory trip?’
‘All in competent hands. Ammunition provided.’
‘Ready to start, then,’ he said, ‘in the morning?’
‘In the morning, yes. If you’re up to it.’
‘Bright and early,’ he promised. He let the warmth of the peaty malt add to his torpor, then made an effort to jerk himself out of it. ‘Just one thing. If you’ve set this up just to make me look small —’
‘You wouldn’t have come if you’d thought that, would you? And the book wouldn’t stand much of a chance of being any good.’
‘As long as we understand each other.’
‘Better than we used to, maybe. We’ve both come a long way since then.’
He looked at a modern painting behind her head of a man in the uniform of a colonel in some Scottish regiment, and recognised the Crombie features yet again. A few minutes later a living facsimile of the portrait appeared in the doorway, in clothes which were in their own way a kind of uniform.
Lord Crombie was wearing a green tweed jacket and a brown leather waistcoat above tartan trousers, with a regimental tie clumsily knotted into his check shirt collar. He had a gingery moustache as floppy as the tie, and ginger hair which had long since retreated from his freckled forehead to form bushy outposts behind his ears. His smile as his wife introduced their guest was sincere but awkward.
‘Good. Yes, good. Um — got a dram? Och, right then. Never do to …’ He stared at something intangible as if trying to blink away a floater in his eye, and started holding forth about what young Macpherson had been telling him. ‘Can’t say I’m keen, but the man’s right, we only lose money on carriage driving or horse trials. Great occasions. But they’re a drain. Aye, a drain.’ His ginger eyebrows were two inverted circumflexes, his large lips a puzzled pout. Whatever school he had been to, or whatever officers’ mess he had frequented, they had eradicated most traces of a Scottish accent apart from a resonance at the back of his throat; and occasionally a spontaneous word slipped through. ‘All the same, I’m nae keen on the idea of a … what did he call it? A pop festival. Or a theme weekend. Now, what the devil would a theme weekend be?’
‘Do sit down, Hector,’ said his wife. ‘I hate it when you loom.’
‘Says there’s an exhibition in Edinburgh early next month. All about country houses and the way to exploit them. Exploit them!’ He sank into a chair and stared at Brigid with a hangdog expression. ‘We’d not really want to go to that, would we?’
‘I shall be busy,’ said Brigid dismissively. Then she took a slow, thoughtful draught from her glass. ‘I don’t know, though. By then, Greg and I may need some time in Edinburgh for the background material. Might be a good opportunity for you to see what’s on offer, Hector. We do need some means of raising money to sweep the mothballs out of this place.’
Greg conjured up a vision of Caroline’s sour smile.
‘Aye, well then …’ Hector thought for a moment, then made an effort to include their guest in the conversation. ‘Damn ridiculous. There’s the Maxwell Stuarts over at Traquair, allowed their own brewery. Jacobite Ale, they call it. All we can manage are tutored wine tastings.’ He snorted. ‘Much better let us start up our own distillery. Why not Jacobite Whisky?’
‘You’d drink the entire production,’ said his wife.
Hector fidgeted in his chair, muttered something about having a word with old Crichton, got up, and headed for the door.
‘Dinner in twenty minutes,’ Brigid called after him. ‘And don’t have too many drams before then. Remember what you were told about your blood pressure.’
The fire spluttered a gentle cough and scattered a few sparks. As Brigid reached for the poker, Greg said: ‘You’ve found yourself a very comfortable lifestyle now.’
‘And you?’
‘I get by. I can pick and choose.’
‘Didn’t you ever risk choosing one of those shapely little creatures who used to hang around when my back was turned?’
‘They never existed.’
‘From what Simon used to say —’
‘What Simon used to say was malicious muck. And you did enjoy wallowing in it, didn’t you? Until the smell got too rank even for you.’
They studied each other across the fireplace.
‘I do think,’ she said, ‘that we’d do well to keep that particular subject in reserve. For the time being.’
‘When we do get round to it, d’you think Simon will care for being shown up in a book?’
‘Probably preen himself on being such a shit.’
‘That figures. The only way to put paid to Simon permanently is
by wringing his bloody neck.’
‘I agree with you.’
‘And you used to be devoted to him!’
‘I’ve told you, he can wait until I’m ready to deal with him. We start tomorrow morning with the real stuff.’
‘The wheelings and dealings the public don’t know about,’ he agreed. ‘More exciting than broken marriages, deceptions, divorce, and all that run-of-the mill stuff. Stale stuff. Absolutely.’
‘Starting,’ she said vengefully, ‘with that crass little cheat who dropped me in it. I think we can make it quite exciting, Greg.’
The pale blue of her eyes was almost washed out, like the palest of inks on cream writing paper. Some job interviewers prided themselves on the discomfort they could cause by their piercing gaze. Brigid’s apparent unresponsiveness could be far more disconcerting. But when someone reacted in a way which really got through to her, those eyes took on a sheen like that of opals brought to life by the warmth of rubbing against flesh. At this moment they had become alive and radiant.
‘Greg.’ He cringed at the affection in her voice, dredged up from a past she was persuading herself into believing. She was as good at this as she was at persuading men she met whatever she wanted them to believe. ‘It had to be you on this job. I insisted on you. You’re the only one I can share it all with.’
Caroline Crombie’s voice echoed in his mind. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
4
The Conference Venue Exhibition covered the whole first floor of the Market Street Centre. Rows of trade stands displayed samples of gift-shop pencils, rubbers, bookmarks and china mugs bearing the names of stately homes, paperweights with a family crest gleaming inside, and mock-ups of glossy brochures. In discreet cubicles men and women with discreetly modulated voices offered expert advice on converting beautiful but cash-strapped castles and mansions into hotels cum conference centres, tastefully adapted for Corporate Presentations.
Detective Inspector Lesley Gunn studied the visitors strolling from one exhibit to another. This Saturday, the last day of the exhibition, had brought in large numbers of people too busy during the rest of the week. Sharp entrepreneurs assessed one another’s offerings and weighed up chances of plagiarising a profitable idea. Middle managers of large companies drifted with carefully maintained nonchalance down the aisles while maintaining a slight sneer which among them was almost as characteristic as a Masonic handshake. They checked on amenities for conferences and corporate hospitality packages, combining catering facilities with state-of-the-art lecture rooms and spacious halls for brainstorming sessions.
A third category consisted of the inheritors of noble names and noble buildings, dignified but desperate to find ways of shoring up their finances. Their tweedy womenfolk disdained to look at anything which might suggest they were interested in vulgar commerce. Such distasteful matters were left to their dejected husbands.
One Englishman with a calculatedly languid yet piercing voice was escorting a group from one display stand to another. ‘We have found in Yorkshire and Northumberland’ — he could have been delivering a television commentary on a documentary about the far reaches of Azerbaijan — ‘that it pays to advertise not in the obvious tourist guides but in county magazines and selected women’s magazines. Or should I say ladies’ magazines?’ He smiled and waited for their obedient smirks of gratification. ‘At the same time, leaflets supplied to a range of select hotels …’
He was leading his flock like a guide in a stately home when one of them detached himself to greet a red-faced man glumly contemplating a teddy bear wearing a tam-o’-shanter and a kilt.
‘Crombie! What brings you here?’
‘Her ladyship’s got some work to do in Edinburgh. Thought I’d leave her to it, and drop in here. Out of curiosity, ye ken.’
‘Aye. Me, too.’
Together the two men edged away from the conducted party to contemplate a board displaying a coloured map of an imaginary estate. A children’s playground in one corner led to a walled garden selling herbs, and a path wandered in and out of trees beside an ornamental lake.
‘Bicycles!’ spluttered Crombie. ‘Good God. Bicycle hire for rides round the grounds?’
‘All the rage, I’m told,’ said his companion dolefully.
‘We’ve already got a nature trail, and that does enough damage. Throwing their crisp packets and ice-cream wrappers into the shrubbery. Mind you’ — Crombie showed yellowing teeth in a smirk — ‘I suppose cyclists could run a few walkers down.’
DI Gunn returned to the stall to which she had been detailed to show official approval. ‘Get those old buffers to guard their belongings properly in the first place,’ the Chief Super had decreed, ‘and we can cut down on time chasing their lost property afterwards.’ He was never entirely happy with having the Midlothian and Merse CID Special Operations Unit under his wing. Its section concentrating on agricultural matters and misdeeds was something he could grasp. His remote predecessors had sought to subdue the Border reivers and their cattle raids. Today the trade was still flourishing, though sheep were now the more usual prey. Lorries came up across the Border and escaped with their cargoes down the A74 and the M6. So did valuable paintings and antiques. But Detective Inspector Gunn’s highly specialised knowledge of art treasures and their likely destinations when stolen was way outside his own training. Her track record was so impressive, however, that she was an obvious choice to keep an eye on this exhibition — most especially, beside those stalls offering inducements to welcome visitors into family mansions, the one displaying surveillance cameras, alarms and safety locks to keep unwelcome visitors out.
A middle-aged woman in a Prussian blue blouse and white slacks strolled from the main door down the central aisle.
‘Hello, m’dear.’ Crombie gave her an awkward peck on the cheek. ‘Glad you’ve made it. Need some advice.’
Her eyes were taking in the room in a critical sweep. ‘Best advice would be to find the coffee shop.’
‘Left your tame scribe typing up what ye’ve done so far?’
‘They don’t call it typing nowadays. It’s keyboarding.’
Lesley found herself watching the two of them sauntering past the wares of an olde-worlde kitchen restorer (recommended by the Duke of Jedburgh and Viscount Islay after tasteful restoration of their basements) and lingering by a spread of glossy printed booklets. She tried summing them up. Crombie had to be Lord Crombie, among whose treasures were two Raeburns, a Lavery, a couple of valuable tapestries, and a fascinating anamorphosis of the Young Pretender which she kept promising herself to visit. There was also talk of a cellar of fine wines. His wife, a lot younger, was something fierce in the business world.
‘Detective Inspector Gunn, I think?’
The voice came from near her left cheek. ‘Well, Sir Michael.’ Sir Michael Veitch, Scottish MD of an international insurance and pensions investment group — here to advise on insurance cover for stately homes and their contents? Unlikely, at his level.
He settled the question for her. ‘Two of my chaps have recommended new conference venues for our American friends when they fly over. Near a golf course, and maybe a bit of shooting. Thought I’d spend ten minutes assessing the layouts for myself. Any helpful comments, inspector?’
A year ago it had been her task to trace a Bohemian triptych stolen from Veitch’s private collection. He had made flattering comments to higher authority when she retrieved it from the vaults of a dubious Glasgow gallery, and now sounded genuinely respectful.
‘I’m not here to advise on anything other than safety precautions against break-ins, Sir Michael.’
‘Who better? After that last experience, we’ve installed every device you recommended.’ He looked past her and raised a hand in a brief salute. Lady Crombie’s nod was even briefer. He said: ‘You seem interested in those two. Ever visited Baldonald House?’
‘Not yet. The Department has been considering adding some of its contents to our Antiques Regi
ster.’
‘Excellent idea. When it comes to scaring villains off, I don’t suppose old Hector’s got beyond the notion of blasting away with his shotgun.’ But he was staring at Lady Crombie rather than her husband. ‘I gather the lady has time on her hands nowadays. You know of her, of course?’
‘Something to do with managerial recruitment.’
‘The most lethal headhunter since the Papuans in their heyday.’
‘Perhaps she’s getting ready to retire gracefully. They do seem to be interested in the sort of thing that might expand facilities at Baldonald House.’
‘The least I can do is offer them some advice, after our own experiences in that field. I think perhaps a few words from an old friend …’ He favoured her with his most practised yet impersonal smile. ‘If you’ll excuse me, inspector.’
Lesley watched him join the Crombies, and above the shuffle of visitors heard Lady Crombie’s clear, hard voice. ‘Pity we haven’t got a real prince or princess to entomb in the grounds — or Flora MacDonald’s ashes to boost the takings.’ Veitch laughed, but even from this distance Lesley Gunn was sure that the polite gestures had very little friendship in them. And a moment later Lord Crombie’s voice was raised in outrage. ‘Let it out for weddings?’
‘Any bride would love to be photographed coming down those steps, posing on the fourth or fifth from the bottom.’
‘Like a bloody Christmas pantomime!’
Lady Crombie was obviously suggesting that he should keep his voice down.
*
Greg set the printer to run off the three chapters he had achieved during these past three weeks, with ten pages added this morning, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
Sunlight bounced off the great hulk of the Scottish Office. A streamer across the facade of a neighbouring warehouse announced the opening of yet another new restaurant. Delivery vans bumped over the cobbles, and a constant stream of artics and heavy trucks stormed along the main coast road, but all of it was eerily silent: double glazing cut off any distracting noise from outside. He watched a young man following a girl across the bridge, matching his pace to hers, and instinctively began thinking himself into the mind of the wary pursuer, building up to the brasher approach and then …