Cally was still trying to get her head round it all, trying to understand how so much horror could simply be the result of some weird family vendetta. Neep was keeping up with developments, and was talking about writing a book about the financial aspects, a serious work that, he said, would make the case for tighter rules to prevent manipulation of the stock market. Cally hoped he would carry it through, for he needed a cause to fight. He was still disconsolate, still convinced he could have saved Richard’s life, and it would be a long time before he could forgive himself, if he ever could. During the crematorium service he had sobbed like a child, and when Cally took his hand he broke down completely.
Now, when he was in conversation with someone from the ski club, she said, “I need a few minutes.” She made it look as if she was going back into the building, but then changed direction and took herself round to the garden of remembrance. She stood in a corner and thought about her mother, a woman who had died when Cally was three years old and whom she could not remember - not at all - but who she felt she had been trying to remember during the chase in the Norwegian mountains. All she knew was that the woman had died in a house fire, and that she had been drunk at the time and had probably caused the fire. But now Cally felt that some memories – a barking dog, a man trying to get to her, even a recollection of eating jelly babies – were trying to force their way to the surface. She had decided to talk to Dr Anne about it, maybe have another attempt at the hypnosis that the shrinks had tried in the early days.
She stood for a moment, then put her hand into the pocket of her jacket and took out a little red mitten. She had picked it up during the ski tour in Norway, not knowing why, just intending to take it back to where it belonged. She found a place on a trellis and pinned the mitten to it. She stood for a few moments with her head bowed; then she wiped her eyes with her sleeve and went back round to find Neep.
Richard’s mourners had gone, and there was no-one left on the exit side of the chapel apart from Neep and a man who was standing near the taxi-rank, his hood pulled up against the cold.
Cally was aware that the next contingent of grievers was already inside the building, saying goodbye to someone else, taking their painful turn in the uncomfortable chapel that was little more than the anteroom to a chimney. She wanted to be away from there, but she waited until Neep was ready to leave.
Finally he said, “I could murder a beer.”
“That was a very bad choice of words.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. How about, will you join me for a drink, Cally? Ma Cameron’s pub would be just the place.”
“That would be nice. But it will need to be a soft drink for me. I’ve had a lot of pills today.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-five.”
Neep raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, three,” Cally said. “But the day is still young.”
“I expect you still haven’t fessed up to your doctor?
“I don’t like to worry her.”
Neep smiled, for the first time in a long while. “Okay, a soft drink for you and a beer for me.” He smiled again. “And does the target of twenty-five extend to beers as well as pills?”
“On occasions like this, yes.”
They took a taxi into the city centre, going first along a stretch of road that reminded Cally of the outskirts of Lillehammer. But then they joined Queen’s Road, where the sturdy, grey houses proved beyond doubt that it was Aberdeen. You could have any shape and style of house you wanted, as long as you were happy for it to be granite. There were road-works on King’s Gate, the driver said, so at the roundabout he kept them on Queen’s Road, and then went over Anderson Drive and along a wealthy-looking street with big houses, a street that Cally knew. She realised it had been one of the white-van routes in the bad old days.
There had been a stop near here, to pick someone up, and Alec Filshie had always made Cally go into the back of the van beforehand, to prevent her from seeing the punter. When they got to the layby at the edge of town she had been made to wear a blindfold before the man came into her - always the same man, she was sure, from his deodorant and his preferences. It had all been very secretive.
By the time she shook free from the unwelcome memory, the taxi was nearing the city centre, now going along roads that she didn’t know, roads with grey tenement buildings that had shops at street level, then past the big library and the theatre and the other grand edifices raised by the respectable burghers of bygone years.
The driver pulled over at the junction with a narrow, cobbled street. He said, “I can take you right to the pub door. But you’ll be a lot quicker walking the last bit. The pub’s just down there.”
“Don’t worry,” Neep said. “I know exactly where the pub is.”
As she got out of the car, Cally was aware of another taxi pulling up behind them.
Neep was still in his seat, fumbling for his wallet, but Cally said, “I’ll get it.”
She was paying the driver when she heard someone calling her name.
She turned and saw the man who had been outside the crematorium. He still had his hood up. But now he lowered it and Cally recognised Alec Filshie. The man of her nightmares. Who was supposed to be in the young offenders’ place, with half his sentence still to serve.
He walked up to Cally and stood close, clearly trying to intimidate her. Incarceration had obviously suited him – he looked even bigger than before, even tougher.
“I saw your picture in the paper, darling,” he said with a sneer. “And now that your protector has snuffed it, I’ve come to tell you that it’s time you started working for me again.”
Maybe it was a lucky punch. But when Cally’s fist connected with Filshie’s jaw, the blow sent him sprawling the ground.
Cally bundled Neep back into the taxi and climbed in beside him.
She shouted to the driver, “Go! Just go!”
As she pulled her door shut, Filshie’s angry voice rang in her ears.
“I’m not finished with you, Cally Douglas. And I never will be.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stuart Montgomery grew up in southwest Scotland and studied at Stirling and Aberdeen universities. He spent a summer working as a furnace operator in Norway, then returned to Scotland and worked in turn as a psychiatric social worker, social researcher and lecturer. Then in the course of a belated gap-year that has still not ended, even though decades have elapsed, he became an itinerant mountain leader and a teacher of cross-country skiing. He has helped to run two specialist travel companies, Waymark Holidays (until 2004) and XCuk (until 2014).
He has written two non-fiction books about cross-country skiing:
Stride and Glide: A manual of cross-country skiing and Nordic walking (with Paddy Field) (2006)
Nordic Notes: Articles on cross-country skiing (2013)
Both are available through Amazon Kindle.
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