He ran downstairs. The man in charge of the hostel peered out through a square-shaped hole in the wall, which doubled as his reception desk. ‘Breakfast’s finished,’ he informed Scott cheerfully. ‘You’ll have to eat out.’
Hilary was already waiting. Her trousers and T-shirt looked as if they had been freshly ironed, not worn for the past two days, and her fair hair was newly washed and pinned back in its usual ponytail. She couldn’t have been waiting long though. Scott eyed the wet hair and decided not to bother apologising for being late.
‘You okay?’ he asked, pulling open the heavy front door of the hostel for her to pass through first.
‘A bit stiff and some clean clothes would help.’
Scott blinked as the sun hit him. Overhead, the sky was a brilliant blue with hardly a cloud in sight, the shrubs in the grounds already basking under its warm gaze, like otters on the shore of the loch.
Relieved their journey was finally at an end, they strolled in companionable silence down the driveway, past wide borders of black earth, in which clumps of heather were still flowering, dotted with the bright whiteness of snowdrops. On both sides of the garden, a weathered and crumbling wall formed the boundary and, in its lee, daffodils were already in flower.
‘So what now?’ Hilary said as they reached the road running past the end of the drive.
On the wall close by, a black and white sign – sporting a large fist – pointed towards the loch. Scott caught a glimpse of Anarrow lane, bordered with gardens on one side. He ignored it, food was much more important.
‘Breakfast; the coffee shop should be along here.’
He led the way down the narrow street towards the town square, the buildings on both sides in deep shadow. The air struck cold and Scott shivered. He gazed up at the sparkling blue of the sky, the sun’s rays trapped among chimney pots and roof tiles, unable to reach the ground.
A coach, that had been jolting slowly along the narrow road towards them, lurched to a stop. The driver stuck his head out of the window eyeing up the space left by a parked car. Spinning the steering wheel, he bumped the cumbersome vehicle onto the pavement, inching it slowly through the gap. Scott hastily plastered himself against a wall to avoid being squashed, leaving Hilary to fend for herself. She ran back along the road, searching for a shop doorway large enough to hide in, ponderously pursued by the single-decker monstrosity. The granite doorstep of an Italian restaurant beckoned and she darted in. The coach lumbered past, its occupants craning their necks over its high windows to stare down at her, as if a girl in a shop doorway was as riveting a sight as the world-famous loch had been.
‘Great,’ she exclaimed as she rejoined Scott.
He gave her a friendly grin, continuing to watch the coach clumsily negotiate its massive tyres off the kerb back on to the road. ‘I wonder how many people they manage to kill in a year,’ he joked.
The village was old, the modern town of Arden extending inland away from the narrow, winding streets; its century-old houses clad in dark-grey granite, as rigid as an ancient kirk, topped by steeply-pitched slate roofs. At ground level, most had been converted into shops and restaurants to cater for a bustling year-round tourist trade and the coffee shop was busy, its tables full of walkers and retired couples on a mini-break. Having risen early, by eleven in the morning they were in need of substantial nourishment, the keen air off the loch whipping the appetite into overdrive. Plates of home-made scones and jam decorated almost all of the tables, while their occupants, with the use of maps and magnifying glasses, checked the next stage of the day’s activities.
Seeing them enter, a waitress – carrying a tray piled high with dirty crockery – a smile of welcome on her face, paused long enough to ask what they wanted to eat. She vanished into the kitchen leaving them to find an empty table. Noticing one at the back of the shop, next to an open doorway curtained with strips of brightly-coloured plastic, Scott began to squeeze his way through the narrow space between the tables, muttering a continuous litany of: ‘Sorry … didn’t mean to knock you… er … excuse me,’ as he elbowed a pair of glasses or bumped against a table, knocking a newspaper or map to the floor.
They had just sat down when the waitress reappeared, hurriedly placing a pot of tea and two cups down in front of them.
‘Your breakfast will be along in a minute. Milk and sugar on the table,’ she said and, spotting a man’s arm waving frantically at her, dashed off to find out what he wanted.
Almost too hungry to talk, Scott added extra milk to his tea and gulped it down before pouring himself another cup.
‘We safe do you think?’ he said eventually.
The plastic curtain rattled and a waitress appeared. ‘Plate hot,’ she informed them, crashing down a plate of egg and bacon, followed by a second one with scrambled eggs.
‘I think,’ Hilary studied her scrambled eggs on a muffin, savouring their elegant arrangement on the plate, before picking up her knife and fork. ‘And we need to talk.’
‘What about?’ Scott eyed her suspiciously, instantly defensive.
‘Everything! Anything and everything that could help us find your dad.’
‘But I’ve told you everything I know,’ he protested.
‘So tell me again. There has to be more. But if you still don’t trust me?’
Scott flinched. Hilary really was the most difficult person to deal with. There he was, looking forward to five minutes of peace while he ate his breakfast, only to be faced with her busy-busy attitude all the time – exactly like a teacher. Wishing he was brave enough to say it, he muttered, ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You don’t have to, it’s obvious. What do I have to do to prove it to you – get shot?’ Hilary put down her knife and fork glaring. ‘You hardly ever speak and every time I want to know something I have to take out a spade and dig for it. We’re in this together or had you forgotten?’
‘I didn’t ask you to come. Anyway I never talk much,’ Scott retorted. ‘Besides, I have told you everything. It’s just so mixed up,’ he added relenting slightly.
‘You can say that again.’ Hilary picked up her knife again then paused, pointing it at Scott. ‘You told me the other day you were good at puzzles. Okay, so try this.’ She took a bite of her muffin chewing thoughtfully.
Scott waited nervously, wondering what was coming.
‘We believe that whoever snatched your dad is linked to government,’ Hilary kept her voice low. ‘Or, at the very least, someone that works for the government – allowing them to track you through the motorway computer posts.’ She stopped to eat a mouthful of breakfast. ‘But if these people – whoever they are – already have your dad, why were they still bothering to look for him?’
‘But they weren’t looking for Dad, they were after me,’ Scott said. ‘Like those men in the cottage.’
‘That’s just the point,’ Hilary said. ‘Were they? Remember it was your dad’s bike and his specs. So if it was your dad they were searching for … then they have to be different from the lot that grabbed him, which seriously complicates things. But if it was you they were after …’ she paused, ‘they also knew about you taking your dad’s bike.’
Without noticing, Scott began to tear his piece of toast into squares.
‘Go on – say it,’ Hilary stared, her face expressionless.
‘And no one knew about that except – the American Secret Service,’ Scott finished the sentence somewhat reluctantly. ‘But Pete said Sean Terry was one of the good guys,’ he argued. ‘And to trust him. Surely … I mean … the person who …’ he stumbled and came to a full stop.
‘I agree,’ Hilary chewed thoughtfully. ‘I don’t believe it’s the boss, either, however much I dislike him. So that leaves the people at headquarters. The staff there knew what was going on.’
‘Before you arrived at the cottage, there were at least four other men there.’ Scott stared blankly at a picture of the loch on the wall nearby, trying to recall the sequence of events. ‘Tulsa was one
.’
Hilary raised her eyebrows encouraging him to continue.
‘And the man they took prisoner – he died.’
‘What do you mean died?’
‘I think someone murdered him.’
Hilary’s eyebrows disappeared under her fringe. ‘Murdered – the prisoner!’ She shook her head. ‘No! You’re wrong there, that couldn’t happen. There’s two men guarding a prisoner at all times.’
‘Well, it sounded like that, anyway,’ Scott grumbled, fed up with Hilary always insisting he’d got it wrong. ‘You were in the garage so you didn’t hear. Sean Terry was furious. He said, when they got to headquarters the man was already dead. Pete said he’d been searched before he was put in the van and he didn’t believe it was either of the two agents that accompanied him. He was sure they were okay. Arizona – that was the other man’s name.’ He checked his watch. ‘Come on, we’d better hurry up – it’s almost eleven o’clock.’
Scott gazed out over the loch, staring blankly at the vast stretch of water. The view was stunning; the water crystal clear, exactly as it had appeared on the website, even to the snow decorating the surrounding hills. Except on the computer the picture had been limited by its edges. Here the mountain range lifted the sky to infinity, as if a lid had been taken off the world.
‘The photograph was taken from … er … here.’ He leapt on to the man-made flatness of a tree stump. ‘The outskirts of the village of Arden – that’s what it said,’ he insisted, unable to believe there wasn’t even a fisherman’s hut in sight, but there wasn’t. The land belonging to the Forestry Commission had been swept clear of the trappings of civilisation, save for the occasional litter bin cunningly disguised as a tree stump. That morning when he had woken he’d felt so hopeful, as if the fragile strands of his search were at long last beginning to knot together. ‘There’s nothing here,’ he exclaimed wanting to howl like a dog.
‘What were you expecting – a banner tacked across the top of a mountain?’ Hilary’s tone carried a sarcastic tinge to it. Scott flushed – he had sort of.
Hilary scuffed her toe in the dirt, avoiding his eye. ‘Those clues – admit it, Scott, they were pretty feeble.’
‘No! They were clues – I know they were,’ Scott shouted furiously.
Hilary got up and wandered down to the water’s edge, gentle ripples on the shore creating a tide-like effect. ‘The man at the hostel said people swim in the loch in summer. I could do with a swim.’ Pulling off her trainers she inched her toes into the water. ‘Yeow! It’s freezing,’ she squealed, hopping up and down on the fine gravel. ‘They should put up a notice – polar bears only.’
Scott’s face broke into a reluctant smile, for the first time becoming aware that trouble was easier to bear if you had someone to laugh with. And Hilary was fun when she forgot to be bossy.
‘So, if there’s nothing here,’ he said, sounding more cheerful, ‘we widen the search. All round the lake if necessary.’
Hilary bent down to tie her shoe lace. ‘But it’s five miles wide and hundreds of miles long. I heard the man at the hostel telling one of the guests. And there’s villages all round.’
‘So we continue north along the west shore and ask everyone we meet – someone has to know him.’
‘It’ll take forever,’ she wailed. ‘I still think it’s a wild goose chase. But if you’re determined to make a fool of yourself, I saw a megaphone in a shop back there, why not buy that and shout it out loud, it would save time.’
Scott flushed and put on his helmet again. Girls! He’d opened his mouth to retort when he caught sight of Hilary’s face, her eyes underscored by deep-purple shadows. She had to be feeling as rotten as him; two days on a bike gave you sore muscles you didn’t even know existed. He raised his visor keeping his tone light. ‘That’s okay. I’ll drop you off at the bus stop if you want – there’s bound to be a bus for Glasgow sometime today – you can catch it,’ and flashed a smile to show he was joking.
Hilary ducked her head to pull on her helmet. ‘Nice try.’ She sketched a laugh. ‘But no, thanks. Whither thou goest and all that rot.’ She climbed reluctantly back on the bike, her muscles protesting angrily as, with a sudden surge of revs, Scott pulled away from the loch edge.
By late afternoon they had scoured the entire length of the western coastline and nothing had happened; local people shaking their heads, unable or unwilling to provide information to strangers. Scott had surprised even himself, chatting to local residents in a friendly way. And, amazingly, after years of monosyllabic utterances it wasn’t that difficult – he simply pretended he was Jameson, copying his eager, trusting manner.
His feeling of desolation reappeared as he directed the bike back towards the village. It couldn’t be a wild goose chase, could it? He’d felt so certain. He re-ran the events in the cottage – the posters on the wall still jarring. No, his dad would never have hung them on the wall – not in a million years. They passed the sign for the old town. Scott indicated and swung into the lane, heading for the hostel garage.
Like the main building, this had also lain derelict before being converted into a spacious unit, and a handful of rusty horse brasses still clung to the beams, as a memento of its former occupation. In the rear wall, a narrow doorway, already half off its hinges, provided guests with a short cut into the hostel grounds.
Ignoring the door, Scott and Hilary walked back up the lane towards the town square, where an ice-cream sign beckoned.
‘I’m shattered.’ Scott collapsed on to a bench seat, thoughtfully provided by the parish council for visitors, and grabbed the ice-cream cone Hilary held out to him.
It wasn’t much of a square, a stretch of cobbled paving, on three sides by shops and houses, a road along the fourth. The post office cum general store occupied a central position, a drinks machine chained to the wall outside. On the pavement white metal signs, displaying brightly-coloured advertisements for daily news and the more popular varieties of ice-cream, clattered noisily to and fro in the wind. On either side, shops with narrow, plate-glass windows, of a style only ever seen by tourists wandering off the beaten track, shielded wilting vegetables from the sun and the usual paraphernalia of a chemist’s shop, a bunch of leaflets in a fly-spotted, white cardboard carton. A florist had filled its window with fake Easter lilies, leaving perishable stock safely in a fridge at the back, while a gift shop displayed the flags of all twenty-seven European nations; a solitary dog lying asleep on its doorstep.
From time to time the delicate chiming of a bell heralded the arrival or departure of customers to the general store. It was a peaceful, almost soporific atmosphere, which made it all the more difficult to believe that a secret society could exist in so tranquil a setting.
But that’s exactly why it would, Scott reasoned. He gazed sleepily at the rigid shape of the building on the far side of the square, offering Bed and Breakfast. Even that looked deserted, guests expected to leave in the morning and not return till after five. A second-hand bookshop had been sandwiched between it and the coffee shop where they had breakfasted, its window as dusty as the books it sold. Further on, a sign, partially obscured by the building on the corner, read: Faro Island Self-Help Pure wool hand – Intrigued, Scott stood up and took a pace forward – knitted sweaters.
Disappointed, he sat down again and stretched out his legs, casting an envious eye at the dog taking advantage of the sun’s warmth. His eyelids began to droop. Pulling himself back upright, he pressed his back into the bars of the seat and focussed his gaze once more on the general store, its window a junkyard of advertising leaflets. The window blurred and he blinked rapidly to focus his eyes again. ‘I need a sleep,’ he said.
‘What about lunch?’
He yawned widely. ‘It’s a bit late now, it’s gone four. Anyhow sleep’s more important. Then we’ll have dinner. We can start again in the morning.’
Hilary groaned loudly. ‘Scott, I don’t mean this unkindly but we’re wasting time searching like this w
ithout more to go on. It’s a total washout. All that’s happening is we’re getting more and more miserable. Admit it; we’ve come to the wrong place.’ She lent forward, tossing her ice-cream wrapper into the bin.
Since early morning the sun had been making its way round the square. Now it ducked behind the tall roof of the building opposite, throwing the general store into shade. The bell above the shop doorway chimed and a man appeared carrying a long pole, a gleaming brass hook projecting from one end. He hooked the pole into the frame of the awning and pushed vigorously upwards, the muscles in his arms protesting at the force needed to move the rusty iron bars. With a loud clattering sound, the awning shot up and disappeared into the wooden fascia. Unhooking the pole, the man disappeared back into the shop.
Scott stared, his body rigid like a man poleaxed. He touched Hilary on the arm and pointed at the shop window, his hand trembling. ‘Want to bet,’ he said.
A polished brass strip ran across the lintel above the shop doorway. On it the words: James Nicely licensed to sell wine and spirits …
SEVENTEEN
Scott leapt to his feet brushing off Hilary’s hand trying to pull him back. Next second, he was pushing open the shop door.
The bell chimed. The woman behind the post office counter, a fine metal grille separating her from customers, automatically looked up, as if the bell cord had been attached to one of the vertebrae in her neck, a smile of welcome on her face.
‘Can I help?’ The man called from the back of the shop; his voice mechanical, repeating the same words every time the bell jangled.
With a feeling of immense gratitude for his stowing the blind away at the appropriate moment, Scott smiled warmly at him. ‘I hope so,’ he said, ‘I’m looking for James Nicely.’
‘Sorry,’ the man replied, his manner abrupt. ‘Can’t help you there.’
‘But his name, it’s over the door,’ Scott protested.
‘That’s right, laddie.’ The friendly voice of the woman behind the post office counter broke in, the criss-cross lines of the grille bars breaking up the contours of her face. ‘Mr Nicely, he was the boss until … ooh … ten years ago … about that. Right up till one of the chain stores came along. They bought up most of the village shops in this area. And Mr Nicely, bless him, well he retired. I didn’t know the sign was still there.’ She laughed self-consciously. ‘I unlock the door every morning. I suppose I’m so used to seeing it, I never notice.’
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