And another part of her mind returned to Lilian Lee’s work. If the Canadian scientist’s project was actually more advanced than anyone had admitted, might the fladry fence be there for another reason altogether?
§
Now McQueen smiled and said, “You know, me and wolves go back a long way. Or rather, wolves and my family.”
Jenny smiled and settled back in her chair. In their short encounter, she had come to like McQueen a lot, and now the old man clearly had a story to tell.
“D’ye know the story of the last wolf in Scotland?”
He would probably have been surprised if she had.
“They used to be widespread,” he went on. “But gradually over the years they were hunted down and their territory shrank and shrank until in the eighteenth century there were just a few scattered around the wildest parts of the Highlands. In 1743, no’ far from here near a place called Cawdor, a woman and her two bairns were attacked by a vicious beast, a wolf driven out of its hiding place by a forest fire by the river Dulnain.
“The Laird of MacIntosh called a gathering of any man who could call himsel’ a hunter, and they made a plan to hunt the beast down. On the morning of the hunt they were held up because one of the hunters, a wild man wi’ a reputation for excess, was yet to show. Normally they would just have set out without him, but this man, when he wisnae laid low with a hangover, was one of the best. The laird wisnae best pleased, when sure enough, the hunter eventually showed up, his hair wild, his eyes red and narrowed against the daylight and everything about his manner saying he’d been tappin’ the whisky the night before.
“Worse, when the laird tore him off a strip or two, the man just shrugged and said, ‘Nae bother. What’s the hurry?’
“An’ then, just as the mob were about to lynch the man, he tossed a sack at the laird’s feet and said, ‘There it is for you!’ And in the sack was the bloody head of the wolf. Since that day, no more wolves have ever been seen, nor left any trace, so that man goes down in history as the one who killed the last wolf in Scotland.”
“You said something about wolves and your family,” said Jenny, although she had already guessed what was coming next.
McQueen took a big slurp of his beer and smiled. “Aye, aye I did. Well that hunter, his name was MacQueen. Spelt with an ‘a’, mind, but a McQueen nonetheless. One of us. An ancestor.”
He took another drink, then leaned forward, suddenly sharp and focused. “An’ I tell you one thing,” he said. “It was a McQueen kilt the last wolf an’ if yon Carr does what he wants then it’ll be a McQueen who kills the next one, too. They’re beasts, wild and vicious, and there’s nae place for them in a wee country like Scotland.”
They talked a little more, and McQueen seemed to realize he’d gotten carried away and so drew himself back in a little. Then, just as Jenny was gathering herself to make her excuses and leave, he said, “If ye get a chance, go for a walk on Beinn Madadh. The heather’s just coming into full bloom and the scent of it is pure heaven. It’s one of the most beautiful places.”
Then, with that twinkle back in his eye, he said, “And ye know why they call it Beinn Madadh, don’t you?”
She shook her head.
“‘Beinn’ means big hill, or mountain, and ‘madadh’ is wolf. It’s been called that ever since my however many greats granddaddy Macqueen killt Scotland’s last wolf there.”
11
Still daylight, but the sun has long since gone behind the hills, casting the glen into an early dusk. A light rain has fallen, and now the air is full of the fresh scents of earth and moss.
The wolf runs along the bank of the river, head low, his pace easy.
He needs this.
Needs the raw freshness of nature.
Too much change. Too much to unsettle him. But now...
He runs.
He tastes the fresh scents on the air.
He is free.
The ground here is damp and spongy beneath his paws, the moss soft and springy. Tufts of cottongrass hang like tiny white clouds above the moss.
He starts to ascend, scrambling over a craggy outcrop, pausing atop it to sniff. So many scents! Fox, rabbit, pine marten. Humans have been here, too, and his tail tucks down between hind legs in instant response. And on the air... Wolf. Juveniles, a couple of yearling males, the bitch, and the alpha, of course.
His ears prick up, his hackles bristling. The response is automatic, although he is not here looking for conflict.
Just curious. Drawn.
He picks his way through a coarse tangle of heather and bracken, then passes through a cluster of birch trees. Pauses.
The scent of humans is powerful here. Their natural scents, the chemical wash of their perfume, the burnt-earth smell of their vehicles.
His ears have flattened themselves again now, his tail tucked down.
He hasn’t been here before. Normally he sticks to the high moors, the wild forest.
But he is drawn.
The scent of wolf is strong now.
He pads onward through the trees and comes to a halt before a chain-link metal fence. He pads at it with one paw, presses his muzzle against it.
They are here. Trapped.
The scent does unfamiliar things to him. Makes everything wilder, rawer, but also gives him a sense of company.
He is not alone.
Movement. The scuff of paws. A dark blur among the trees. And then: a low, rumbling growl.
He stands, waits.
The pack’s alpha emerges from among the trees, and comes to stand across from him, the metal fence between them. Both have hackles raised, teeth bared, head and tail high, neither conceding.
With a sudden snarl, the alpha hurls himself at the newcomer, coming up against the fence with legs flailing, teeth ripping at the mesh, saliva spraying in long strands.
The fence does not yield and neither does the newcomer.
He stands there, still poised, menacing. Not flinching.
The alpha drops back onto his haunches, snarling, and the newcomer simply stands his ground, watching.
Finally, he turns, trots back through the birch trees, over the tangle of heather and bracken, to that craggy outcrop, where he pauses, drops to a sitting position, his front legs straight, pushing his chest up. He tips his head back, feels the sound building in his belly, pushing up, bursting out in a long, deep howl.
He should have known. Always searching out the company of his kind, he would never find it here. He would never find company with wolves.
He drops his head and starts to run, heading for the high moor.
12
Aileen showed her through to a dining room like something out of a movie set, a period piece costume drama. The walls were paneled in dark wood and mounted with all kinds of gruesome trophies. Stags’ heads, racks of antlers, a boar’s head; glass cabinets displayed stuffed gamebirds, fat ones with white plumage flecked with black, mottled brown ones with comically long beaks. A long dining table stretched the length of the room, with three places set at the far end. Here, the far wall consisted mostly of a set of high, arched windows, the glass broken into a diagonal grid by thick lead-work.
Standing by the window, looking out into the gloom, was Billy.
She thought he hadn’t noticed her at first, but as she approached he turned his head, not surprised in the least that she was so close.
“Mr Carr sends his apologies,” he said. “He’ll be joining us later, but he’s been delayed by a conference call. He suggested a drink before we eat?”
Jenny eyed him suspiciously. She couldn’t shake the feeling that everything about this trip had been staged, and Carr didn’t strike her as the kind of man who allowed his schedule to be so easily derailed.
“As long as it’s not the Famous Grouse,” she said, remembering Lilian’s comment about the sliding scale of drinks on offer.
Billy laughed and indicated a small table by the window. “Would a twenty-one year-old Balvenie do?”
She shrugged. She really wouldn’t know the difference.
She studied him as he poured the whisky into cut-crystal tumblers. It was odd, being with him again. She really had forgotten just what easy company he was, but still she found it hard to see past the subterfuge that had brought her here.
“Good day?”
Even in as simple a question as that, she was looking for a subtext, an angle. Why did she find it so hard to believe that people were just being nice?
“Yeah, I guess,” she said.
He looked up from pouring the drinks, eyes narrowing. She could see him weighing up whether to press or let her cagy answer pass.
“I could give you the tour tomorrow, if you like?” he said, moving on. “Show you the animals, show you around the estate.”
“That’d be good.” Still cagy. Still unsure if he was trying to charm her, or simply doing Carr’s bidding.
She took her glass from him, took a sip. Lots of layers of fruit, vanilla, something bitter. Not as easy a drink as the last one had been, but still... interesting.
“You’re different here,” she said now.
He gave her that eyes-narrowing look again, and said, “Really? How?”
“You’re less of a dick,” she said, and he snorted a laugh into his drink. “Less full-on,” she continued. “This is your place.”
He nodded. “Do you ever just want to leave the world behind?”
She thought of Maldon, her folks, and answered quickly: “Always.”
Those dark eyes... When he showed no sign of letting up, she tore her own look away.
Outside, the forest was a dark smudge. The lawns caught a little of the evening sun, still, and glowed emerald-like. Was there movement out there?
“Deer,” said Billy softly. “See them?”
He pointed, and she saw movement in the trees, a glimpse of white and then gone.
“Roe deer,” he told her. “Wee things, the size of a big dog. All you can see in the gloom is that flash of white on the rump. If anything can find its way through a deer fence it’s them. The estate gardeners curse them.”
His words reminded her of McQueen’s comment about what he’d called the fladry fence, and her own speculation about what it might be designed to contain if the wolves themselves were already contained...
“What do you make of Lilian Lee?” she asked. “How far has her work gotten?”
“Och, I don’t know,” said Billy. “She’s a nice enough lassie. A bit standoffish. But all that...” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand and a curl of the lip. “Well, I don’t know. Mr Carr clearly thinks it’s worth his money, but I don’t know. Talk to Lilian and she’s very guarded, but I think she’s just taking him for his money: if she can ride on the back of a rich man’s whim to get funding for her own medical research, then good for her, I say.”
“You think that’s all it is?”
“Aye, I do. I’ve spent enough time rooting around werewolf stories around the world and I’ve seen nothing to suggest Lilian’s doing anything other than, you know, working on the cure for cancer.”
“So why the fladry fence?”
“The what?”
“A six-foot fence, topped with rags impregnated with human scent. It’s a traditional way of containing wolves. Your buddy McQueen says there’s one enclosing a hundred acres of ancient forest. Says the locals are convinced Mr Carr has already released his wolves into the wild.”
Billy was shaking his head. “Gossip,” he said. “That’s all it is. I’ll show you tomorrow. There are odd stretches of fence and enclosure all over the estate from various phases of the reintroductions – the wild boar and beavers were contained at first. There are old deer enclosures, too. There’s all sorts, and no doubt some odd things like fences with rags on top and so forth – Mr Carr is a one for trying traditional and alternative techniques. I guess it’s easy for someone to read something sinister into these things, but really...” He grinned then, and said, “Maybe Mr Carr was right about needing you to do a bit of PR for the estate.”
All of a sudden things were easy between them, just like those long chats back in the States.
She was starting to see him differently now, she realized. Maldon seemed such a long time ago. “I treated you badly,” she said. “I should have answered your messages, at least.”
“I was a dick.” Then: “No, I really was. I was out of my depth. I’d never felt that way. I–”
“You’re doing it again.” That sudden intensity. The rawness of emotion. The easiness between them sucked away in an instant.
“I’d never been in love,” he told her.
She looked away, peered out into the gloom again. No sign of the deer.
In love. They’d chatted, hung out. They’d never been on a date, never kissed. She’d never even seen him in that way until he’d come over all intense, and then it was a shock to her, more than anything – surprise that she’d missed all the signs, that she’d been so naïve.
He took another drink, then said, “So what did you make of old McQueen? Was he helpful?”
“Very. He’s a sweetie.”
“I’ve heard him called all sorts of things, but never that,” laughed Billy.
“He’s clearly got a soft spot for you.”
A raised eyebrow in response. “He’s a daft bas’,” said Billy. “But a good one. He got me out of one or two scrapes when I was a lad.”
“A bit of a father figure, eh?” She thought of Billy growing up, raised by a drunken father, left to roam wild.
Billy shrugged. “Like I say, he got me out of a few scrapes.” This wasn’t something they’d talked about before, and it was clear he wasn’t keen to start now.
Then he turned to her and said, “I guess we all have father issues.”
Instantly, she was back on that last day in Maldon. Her father confronting them on the street, acting as if nothing was wrong, as if she’d just peck him on the cheek and ask how things were. The look on his face when she’d hissed at him, “No. Just no,” and marched away. He’d actually looked surprised.
“Did you talk with him?” she asked Billy. She’d left the two of them standing there. She had no idea if they’d said anything, or simply gone their separate ways.
Billy shook his head, and she felt a surge of gratitude. “He tried to shake my hand.”
She left it at that, didn’t press. “Tried” said everything. Billy had clearly understood.
“He’s a realtor,” she told him. “Very successful and respected. Everyone in Maldon knows Wesley Layne. He’s a trustee of the town hospital. He’s a lay minister. Tee-total, of course. His only vice is that he used to beat the shit out of my mom whenever the whim took him. He probably still does, for all I know. I gave up trying to persuade her to leave him. I’ve hated myself every minute since walking away.”
The darkness from the trees was spreading across the lawns now, the color leaching away, turning the emerald tones dark gray.
“Sometimes you have to walk.”
She remembered his earlier question: Do you ever just want to leave the world behind?
“He hit me,” she said. “Once.”
He was watching her closely; she knew even though she didn’t look.
“I think he pulled back at the last moment, realizing what he was doing. I didn’t. And then I left.”
“You hit him?”
“So hard it broke my little finger. I don’t know what damage it did to him, but he didn’t get up again fast. I never saw him again until that day outside the courthouse when he seemed to think everything was okay.”
“You’ve got fight.”
“I carry the scars. Inside. We all carry scars like that, I guess.” And she saw in his eyes that this was true.
13
Carr joined them, and they sat at the end of the table nearest the window.
“Lilian sends her apologies,” he told them. “I’d invited her to join us for dinner, but... She’s buri
ed in her work, you know? She often gets like that.”
There had only been three places set, so Lilian must have decided in advance that she’d be buried in her work this evening. Maybe the friendliness she’d shown Jenny this morning had been all façade. She’d certainly seemed happy enough to hand Jenny over to Carr when he showed up.
“You had a successful day, I trust?” asked Carr, as Aileen served them with an appetizer of local salmon and fennel, en papillote.
Following Carr’s example, Jenny opened the parchment parcel and breathed in the steamy aniseed hit of the fennel. “This is incredible,” she murmured. She’d eaten at a few fine restaurants in her time, but the thought of eating like this every night in your own home was something else entirely. So much about Carr was quietly unassuming, she realized, but the trappings of his wealth permeated every aspect of his life.
She remembered there had been a question, and said, “Yes. Thank you. Very interesting. I was hoping to have more of a look around tomorrow, if that’s okay? Billy said he’d show me the estate, maybe some of the reintroduction sites.”
Carr was nodding. Of course he was: she was sure Billy’s offer must have come at his instigation, or at least with his seal of approval. “Aye,” he said. “That sounds like a grand idea. I’ll be away in Edinburgh tomorrow, so Stewart’s your man. You have free access to anything you want to see, Miss Layne. Stewart will see to that.”
She smiled. More at the formalities than anything. All the “Miss Layne”, “Stewart”, “Mr Carr”. It was all so antiquated. Was it a British thing?
“Be sure to take her along the river,” said Carr. “And up to Loch Ellen. We have breeding beaver pairs at both sites. And over to Coille Dhuibh for the red squirrels.”
“I went into the village this afternoon,” she said. “Had a chat with Mr McQueen. I think you’re right about the estate’s PR challenge. According to Mr McQueen the locals aren’t keen at all on your reintroduction schemes. If you can’t win them over with your beavers and red squirrels, the wolves are going to be a real tough one.”
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