The Tartan Ringers

by Jonathan Gash

  Dutchie carried his chains over his shoulder, me humping his granite cube. We left Shooters and crawled to the gully. We must have looked a sight by the time we reached the bridge. Dutchie was exhausted. I shoved him so he was in the dry under the arch, and heaved myself up to join him. He tried to gasp what the hell were we doing but I shut him and whispered that our own private express service would be along shortly.

  Cars were still passing overhead heading towards Tachnadray, but only intermittently. One of them would be Dobson and his five sociopaths.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon before that ancient engine came thumping down the track and arrested humming on the bridge. Even then I didn’t make a move until a gravelly cough temporarily muted the racket.

  ‘Come on, Dutchie.’ I tugged on his chain. We struggled up the bank. Tinker gaped from the Mawdslay.

  ‘Bleedin’ hell, Lovejoy. That Dutchie you got there?’

  ‘Shut it.’ I dumped the granite block in. ‘Drive. South.’

  He blasphemed at the gears. ‘ ’Ere, Lovejoy. Why’s Dutchie in chains?’ We slammed forward, skidding wheels spraying earth. ‘Can we stop at a pub?’

  Chapter 29

  WE RAN INTO Dubneath, veered south and started the long run. In the first few miles we hardly spoke, except for me once.

  ‘Give over hammering, Dutchie. The frigging floor’ll fall out.’

  ‘But I’m chained,’ he bleated.

  Aren’t we all, I thought wearily. I’d lost all track of who I was being loyal to. The shyly elegant Michelle; the lovely Elaine inheriting the sins of her fathers, sic; teacher Jo; Shona the priestess-oracle of a McGunn renaissance; or this lout with whom I was now lumbered.

  There hadn’t been much choice of direction. North or east meant splash. West was back to Tachnadray. Within ten miles Tinker drove me mad, complaining about the signs.

  ‘Kyle of what?’ he grumbled. ‘Strath of Kildonan? Here, Lovejoy. Funny bleedin’ names up here.’

  ‘Give us that wheel,’ I said irritably. We changed places. Cackling joyously, he fetched out a bottle, the old devil.

  ‘Give Dutchie a swallow,’ I told him.

  He coughed long and harsh, giving himself time to think up an excuse. ‘Dutchie shouldn’t,’ he wheezed, with rheumy old eyes streaming. ‘On account of his chains.’

  ‘Tinker.’ For half a groat I’d have slung them both out. I was sick of the lot of them. Everybody was safe except me, heading back into danger.

  Morosely Tinker passed his bottle to Dutchie, whose glugs made Tinker squirm in distress. He decided to get at me for enforcing charity at his ale’s expense.

  ‘There wuz only two of them berks with Dobson,’ he said.

  ‘You sure?’ I felt my nape prickle. I’d banked on all five, plus Dobson, turning up at the auction. Dobson must have guessed I’d make a sly run for it.

  ‘I waited, Lovejoy. They went in. Eyes all round their heads.’

  ‘Dobson’s here?’ Dutchie sounded pale in the rear seat.

  ‘With five goons. Tough lot.’

  Dutchie groaned. ‘We’ve had it, then. They’ll be on the road waiting for us, Lovejoy.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Will . . . they all be safe at Tachnadray?’ He sounded like a bloke on his deathbed.

  ‘You mean your mother and dad? Certainly. I’ve got Trembler up. There’s a big auction on the estate. Paper job.’

  Tinker belched, hawked. ‘Mam and dad?’

  ‘Michelle and Duncan,’ I explained.

  ‘Dutchie’s?’ His eyes widened. ‘You mean that bird you—?’

  ‘Shut it.’ Tinker always knows more about my affairs than I’d like. ‘And your sister is fine.’ Still nothing following in the rear mirror.

  That took a minute to sink in, but he tried. ‘You know about that, then, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Only guessed. She did a painting, your mother Michelle and the laird. Pastor Ruthven gave part of the game away. The laird’s wife couldn’t conceive and he became obsessed with providing an heir for the crumbling clan. Dynasty delusion.’

  ‘He was always like that. Ever since . . .’

  ‘Ever since he arrived as plain James Wheeler.’ I adjusted the mirror to watch Dutchie’s face. ‘Even had his name changed to McGunn, by deed poll. I had it checked. Which makes Elaine Michelle’s daughter. You’re Elaine’s half-brother.’

  ‘Elaine and me always got on, in spite of all.’

  Tinker’s brain buzzed. ‘Then what she have you chained up for, Dutchie?’

  I answered for him. ‘Remember that bureau? The night of the fog, when the driver got topped? Dutchie was trying to nick it. You were hoping to make a killing of a different sort, eh, Dutchie?’

  Tinker put his mouth near my ear to whisper hoarsely, ‘Lovejoy. If Dutchie kilt the driver, what you give him that frigging hammer for?’

  ‘Dobson clobbered the driver.’ I kept checking my accuracy on Dutchie’s face. ‘When me and Ellen reached the wagon the bureau had been offloaded. Dobson organized the twinning job knowing its value. Maybe the driver also realized, so Dobson did him, poor sod. Dobson told Robert that Dutchie’d shared in the killing. With the fog lifting during the night, Robert drove Dutchie to Tachnadray. Dobson had to do in Tipper Noone, who’d done the twinning. He knew it was Dobson.’

  Dutchie said, ‘Robert came up just as Dobson clobbered me because I wouldn’t go along with the driver’s killing. I’d been unloading while he killed him.’

  Tinker cackled. ‘Bet Robert got an eyeful. Lovejoy was in Ben’s hut shagging that Ellen. Biggest bristols you ever—’

  ‘Tinker.’ One day I’ll replace the garrulous berk by a Cambridge MA. I’m always making these vows, never fulfil them.

  ‘There was no hiding place except Tachnadray,’ Dutchie said. He sounded really depressed.

  ‘Because one of Dobson’s goons is from Michelle’s home town in Belgium. The Continental connection, eh?’ I should have realized a million years ago, if only from Michelle’s accent. And Dutchie’s nickname: anybody from the Low Countries is called that indiscriminately in East Anglia. Thick as ever.

  Dutchie was telling Tinker. ‘. . . friend of my mother’s side.’

  The old drunk was delighted. ‘Hey!’ he exclaimed. ‘I know it! Nice little place. I blew a bridge there. Up to me balls in water. Lovely little Norman arch it had—’

  ‘One more word from you, Tinker,’ I warned him. He shut up. ‘Tell me if I’m right, Dutchie. Duncan and Michelle hid you at Shooters. You tried to escape, thinking you’d turn yourself in and tell the truth. Elaine supposed they were protecting you against yourself.’

  ‘I tried telling them.’

  I said, readjusting the mirror, ‘Shona discovered my identity because I opened my big mouth about antiques. She claimed then to have deliberately sent a real antique to entice me to Tachnadray. Like a prat, I believed her. Here, Tinker, take a glance. Is that motor the one which Dobson and the goons had at Tachnadray?’

  ‘Eh?’ He screwed his eyes, peered. ‘No.’

  It could have overtaken us twice, and hasn’t.’ I’d noticed it a mile since. ‘It has the legs on us.’

  Dutchie sounded almost in tears. ‘There’s no way out, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Optimist.’ The trouble with some people is they’re not big enough cowards. Anyway, they didn’t want Dutchie any more. They wanted me. ‘There’s nowt they can do until we pass Dingwall. We’re going to double back north for a bit. The A890 to Achnashellach.’

  ‘Funny frigging names round here.’ Tinker started a prolonged cough, phlegm and spittle over the side. If his chest would mend we’d be ten miles faster.

  The big blue Mercedes stayed on our tail. I took on petrol in Dingwall, as Antioch had told me to do, then left the Inverness Road and pretended to try to shake them off by over-desperate demonstration driving.

  The day was fading. The road grew thinner and traffic lessened. An occasional car overtook
us and a lorry or two passed going east, but that was about it. We left the security of towns as we hurried west. Countryside is rotten old stuff, lonely and ominous. The government really should do something. I was as worried what was happening up ahead as much as by that bulky saloon dogging me, and kept staring into the middle distance on every rise. The skies abruptly lowered on us, and a drizzle started. The Mawdslay was a tough old thing, booming up each slope with ease, but steering it through the twisting dips was hell. It had a will of its own. Tinker started snoring.

  As we ran on and the day ended there was nothing but hills, and woods and lakes to the left. Dutchie started some lunatic suggestion: drop him off and he would nip down an incline, granite block and all. ‘I could reach the Strath Bran railway.’

  ‘Ta, Dutchie, but don’t be daft.’ He was only trying to help. Bravery’s more stupid than cowardice.

  Tinker coughed himself awake and also made a contribution. ‘Here, Dutchie. How’d you manage to go for a—?’

  ‘The chain was long enough.’ Dutchie rattled it as proof.

  We were a couple of miles past the chapel near Bran when we saw the man mending a motorbike by a lantern, thank Christ. He didn’t watch us drive past, made no move. I was beginning to worry I’d missed him.

  ‘Hang on, lads,’ I said, and cracked on speed. The old giant roared, fast as I could go in the darkening rain.

  ‘Here, Dutchie,’ Tinker was rabbiting on. ‘What percentage d’you give that Dobson . . . ?’

  Here I was sweating, grappling with the controls, and this pair sitting yapping like at a tea party. The road curved, left to right. Down, then uphill. A slow bend, the Mercedes coming fast, its headlights on full beam. It’d be soon. I yelped, cornering too fast, wrestled up straight, cursing.

  The tall lorry swept past in the opposite direction. I saw the Mercedes waver as its driver realized. A horn blared. The crash sounded actually in the Mawdslay and for one crazy instant I thought: Hell, it’s us they’ve got in spite of everything, before sense reasserted itself. I was still driving, unimpeded. Something burst. Air rushed along over the Mawdslay, blew on my ears. I slowed. Only the lorry’s tail lights in the rear-view mirror, nothing moving.

  ‘Gawd Almighty,’ Tinker croaked. ‘See that?’

  Head out of the window, I crawled in slow reverse to where the man was standing by his lorry. I disembarked and stood looking over the edge of the camber.

  ‘Ta, Antioch. All right?’

  He heaved a sigh, tutting. ‘No gumption, some people. If he’d braked, he might have got out of it.’

  A car was ablaze down below among a haircut of young trees. Even as I watched another bit of it woomphed. The air stank oil, rubber. A big bloke arrived on a motorbike, somehow folded it and lobbed it into Antioch’s lorry’s tailboard with ease. He nodded at the fire on the hillside below, as if acknowledging the inevitable. ‘Well,’ he said in a singy Ulster voice, ‘they shouldn’t go round killing drivers, should they?’

  ‘Six in it, eh?’ I asked Antioch.

  ‘No. Three. They’re using a band radio. They’ve a rover block on the A87.’

  ‘What’s best, Antioch?’ Three from six leaves three.

  ‘No smoking, O’Flaherty,’ Antioch said absently. The man put away his cigarettes. He had the envious tranquillity of the professional. I’m only glad I’m not that tranquil. ‘Look, Lovejoy. I can see you safe part way, say Glasgow?’

  ‘I’ve a better idea, Antioch,’ I said. Lovejoy Know-all. ‘They’ll suspect I won’t touch Edinburgh.’ I didn’t give reasons. ‘Will you put us that way on?’

  ‘Right. I’ve things to do here, so O’Flaherty’ll see you as far as Perth. Then it’s motorway.’

  The rain was worsening, but it made no difference to the fire below. A lorry chugged past. O’Flaherty waved.

  With difficulty I turned the Mawdslay and followed O’Flaherty’s lorry. Antioch gave a distant nod as we passed. Aren’t people funny? He supports an orphanage in Affetside, then he goes and does a thing like that and stays cool. I kept having to clench my teeth to stop them chattering.

  Dutchie’s voice wasn’t all that steady, either. ‘Where to now, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Down the middle, to Edinburgh.’

  Past Balmoral. We could always pop in and check that the royal gardeners were growing enough flowers under the old Queen Mum’s roses. She was murder on ground-cover plants.

  Chapter 30

  THERE’S NOT A lot of northerly roads into Edinburgh. Unless you’ve a hang-glider, this means two accident-prone motorways. O’Flaherty pulled into a lay-by south of Perth, still not smoking as he shook my hand.

  ‘Get them bastards, Lovejoy,’ he said.

  ‘Me?’ I was amazed. ‘I’m not like that. Honest.’

  ‘To be sure. But the driver they topped was my mate.’ He was so wistful as he said, ‘I wanted Antioch to let me drive the pusher. Good luck.’ I waved him off.

  Assassins are pretty cool, and often misunderstood. I’ve often noticed that. I was trying to evade the blighters, not find them. Which worried me, thinking about Mr Sidoli and the travelling funfair. Except Edinburgh’s Festival was still in mid-orgy. Which meant Sidoli and Bissolotti would presumably still be hurdy-gurdying grimly on that green. But, my hope-glands flicked into my mind, where can you hide a Lovejoy best, but in a lovely throng? I shelved the terrible fact that any solution would be only temporary. Dobson & Co had my home territory sewn up. The north was done for, now I’d sprung Dutchie. Edinburgh was limbo, but a satisfactorily crowded one.

  ‘We’ll leave you in the motor, Dutchie,’ I decided. ‘A cutting file and you’ll be free as air.’

  ‘We’re splitting up?’ he asked.

  ‘About Tipper Noone,’ I said, concentrating hard on the long strings of motorway lights. I had to be sure. Now that Michelle and me had come together, maybe I was feeling like his dad or something equally barmy.

  ‘Tipper ships for us, Lovejoy. Repros through the Hook.’

  Does? No past tenses for poor old Tipper, RIP? Dutchie, for all his gormlessness, was looking better and better. I drew breath to exploit Dutchie’s unawareness, but Tinker said helpfully, ‘Your pal Tipper’s snuffed it.’ So much for tact.

  The A90 had most traffic, so I bombed in on that while Tinker cheerfully narrated Tipper’s tale to the stricken Dutchie. Parking the motor would be a nightmare . . . Too late I noticed the bloody toll bridge. Too tired for any more vigilance, I was in the queue and the man asking for the gelt. He could see Dutchie quite clearly, manacles, chains, block. No hidey nooks in a tourer.

  ‘Fringe?’ he said, nodding at Dutchie.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Your show.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘The council should provide proper places for the Fringe Festival. It’s a disgrace.’

  ‘Ta. We’ll manage.’ I tried to look brave but wounded.

  ‘Good luck.’

  And we were through. Fringe? ‘What was he on about, Dutchie?’

  Dutchie chuckled. His first ever. ‘He thought we were performers. The Fringe Festival’s unpaid art. It makes its way. Streets, bars, even bus stops, living rough.’

  I cheered up. We were along Queensferry Road. Civilization and people – God, the people – lights, traffic. ‘Shout if there’s an ironmonger’s.’ Suddenly it was simple. I could buy a cutting file without fear. Part of our show’s props. See how easy towns are, compared to countryside?

  Signs directed us a different way than I’d intended. Older buildings, denser mobs, louder talk, songs, turmoil. I didn’t want the old crate trapped in some sequinned cul-de-sac.

  ‘There’s a pub, Lovejoy.’ Tinker had dried into restlessness.

  We were down to trotting pace. I didn’t fancy this at all. I wanted a zoom through the fleshpots, a rapid file session to lighten our load, then to go to earth while Tinker and Dutchie caught the Flying Scot south to safety. I’d follow later when I’d convinced our pursuers I’d escaped. But sedate traffic in a glare o
f road lights can be inspected quite easily – as indeed the pedestrians were doing, openly admiring our Mawdslay.

  ‘Tinker. Got your medals?’ A brainwave. The cunning old devil always carries them, and a mouth organ, to do a bit of busking if he’s short of a pint and I’m not around.

  He obeyed, smoothing them in place. A cluster of stilt walkers followed us, striding and waving. A couple of girls in Red Indian costumes danced carrying buckets. A jazz band led by a pink donkey, I assure you, stomped jubilantly beside us, one of the players drumming on our side panel, a deafening racket. At a traffic light, me grinning weakly and trying to hum along to show we honestly were fringe people too, a lass in a straw boater stuck her head next to mine and screamed, ‘Seen a gondola?’

  ‘Er, no, love.’

  ‘Soddation.’ She climbed into the passenger seat. Tinker cackled. She seemed to wear little, black mesh stockings and bands of snakeskin. ‘You can drop me off. You in the procession?’ She lit a cigarette. Where the hell had she kept that? ‘Or marching?’

  ‘Well, er, you can see how we’re fixed.’

  ‘Ah.’ She gazed round, eyes narrowing as she took in Dutchie’s slavehood. ‘Good, good. Rejection of imperialistic chauvinisms. The medals are genius.’

  ‘Me wounds still hurt, dear.’ Tinker started a shuddering cough. Sympathy always starts him cadging.

  ‘Shut it, Tinker.’ No exits down the side streets. All one way now, with the multicoloured mob a long winding tide. Police grinning, waving. A Caribbean dustbin band bonged to our right. A non-band of chalk-faced mimers played non-instruments alongside. Jesus. We were in a parade. My head was spinning. ‘Lads, look for a way out.’

  ‘I agree,’ the girl groused. ‘No political motivation. They’re hooked on happiness. Perverts.’

  I’d no idea what she was on about, but I made concurring mutters and simply drove in the worsening press. It was pandemonium. In front were handcarts, a lorryload of Scotch bagpipers. All the shops were lit bright as day. Pirates dangled from lamp posts, singing that chorus from Faust. A girl wearing a dog on her hat reclined on our bonnet with a weary sigh and popped a bottle of beer on a headlamp. Tinker whimpered. The dog looked fed up. Two ballet dancers danced outside a shoe shop, Jewels of the Madonna but I couldn’t be sure because of the other bands. Applause. A youth dragged a floreate piano into the swelling parade, making placatory gestures to me to hold back while he made it. Wearily I waved him on. That said it all – Lovejoy, hot-rodding to escape, overtaken by a pianoforte. A poet declaimed from a girl’s shoulders. She was dressed as a skeleton and clutched an anchor.