‘Some of them, certainly. His balance sheets make him a marked man. But I tell you, Maggie, he just doesn’t believe a phone can be bugged except in one of my books!’ She laughed. ‘He’s careful of course, but you see with Jean gone he’s got nobody he can talk to, and he’s like a boy at times, he needs a listener. I’m always afraid—well, you never know, do you—there are lots of wicked folk these days and lots of hard-up ones...’ she stopped. ‘But I’ve talked far too much. I’ve given you square eyes!’
‘No,’ Maggie protested faintly.
‘Oh yes. You look quite pale.’ The eyes narrowed. ‘You are all right, my dear?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She made her fingers relax their grip on her knee. ‘It’s been most interesting. Thank you.’ It was unspeakable relief to see the rest of the party come swinging through the gate.
Angus had been serious over seeking Pamela’s advice. The papers he had brought concerned a reciprocal link up with an Italian firm in preparation for the Common Market. While legal advice would obviously be necessary he had put thoughts of his own on paper and wanted to see if she could add to them. She was astute in such matters and the ensuing discussion was wide-ranging. Having dealt with MacAllans’ prospects within the E.E.C. it went on to expansion at home, a possible new market in the U.S.A. and the lines for next summer.
‘Are we boring you?’ Angus asked Maggie.
It was such an understatement that she wanted to laugh. Irony of ironies that he should talk like this in front of her!
Suddenly she could stand it no longer. Suddenly at all costs she had to stop listening.
‘What time are we leaving?’ she asked, getting to her feet. ‘I’d like a last breath of air.’
Once again Graham and Kelly were by the lochside. She walked away from them, heading back up the glen. She wanted to think. She had to be alone.
It was Derek who had brought her to Strathyre. She was beholden to him and she loved him. She had in her possession now all the information he wanted. Strangely, it brought no pleasure. Her feet dragged to a stop. She stood staring up at a rock more pronounced than the rest, high and sheer with a gully.
‘Yes, Maggie Campbell, take a good look. That’s where it all happened,’ said Angus’s voice.
She started. He was at her heels, pipe in one hand, tobacco pouch in the other.
‘Is it time to go?’ she asked.
‘Not quite. Let the children tire themselves. That way we’ll have more peace in the car.’ He pointed the pipe stem in the direction of Maggie’s gaze. That’s Signal Rock. From the top of it three hundred and eighty years ago on the thirteenth of February a signal was given and the massacre took place.’
She looked across at it, sheer, grey and polished. Hitherto, it had seemed long ago, unreal, irrelevant. But now the black and the royal blue and the green of Campbell tartan seemed to be swarming through the dusk. And among these darkling mountains time was nothing.
It could have been last week that William of Orange had sent in his troops under Duncan Campbell to make an example of the clan who had not signed the oath of allegiance, or as Angus now pointed out, who had signed it five days late, after their chief had walked in midwinter from Glencoe to Fort William and then back to Inverary to find the Sheriff. ‘In fairness to the King he didn’t know about that. The Secretary of State boxed clever. He saw a chance of making the rest of the clans knuckle down.’
So the Campbells had come supposedly on a courtesy visit with a piece of paper from the King saying they were to be given hospitality and the chief of the Glencoe MacDonalds had conquered his prejudices and made them welcome. A week later at the given signal the troops had fallen on their hosts. Thirty MacDonalds including the chief and his wife had been killed and five times that number had perished in hiding in the hills.
And two hundred ad eighty years later the daughter of another Duncan Campbell must face her moment of truth.
The MacDonalds had not wanted the Campbells, but they had obeyed the rules. The Campbells had carried out their orders. The Secretary of State had sat like a spider in the web he had spun.
If only the MacDonalds had been suspicious instead of trusting, if only the Campbells had acted on their own judgment. She could not believe the manoeuvre had not sickened them.
‘Suppose you had been a Campbell in February 1692,’ she said abruptly. ‘What would you have done?’
‘Supposing you’d been a MacDonald?’ Angus parried. ‘Would you have cooked my supper?’
He was not proposing to be serious. He could not guess the thoughts that were thronging her brain. He went by exactly the same rules as his ancestors, hospitality and kindness. She owed allegiance to the man who sent her. This time no massacre. No one would get hurt and many would benefit. Only—now she was being emotional—whatever Duncan Campbell had felt in 1692 his namesake in the nineteen-sixties had made sure his daughter knew the meaning of trust.
Said or unsaid Angus MacAllan trusted her. She could not escape it.
He had put the pipe away unlit and rammed the pouch back in another pocket. ‘Shall I tell you something?’ he said impishly. ‘It’s not what I’d have done in ‘92 that interests me. It’s what I’m going to do now.’
Hands went to her shoulders. The green eyes neared her face.
‘What?’ Maggie asked faintly.
‘Give you three guesses,’ he answered, and kissed her.
It was a strong kiss. And, shaming as it was to confess it, it fitted all her imaginings. She’d thought he would kiss like that, he was a professional, and now and then she’d found herself marking the shape of his mouth. A nice mouth. Wide and full but firm. Better to face these things, then you knew exactly where you stood.
‘Why that?’ she asked with a coolness she did not feel.
‘I thought I should keep my hand in,’ he said frankly. ‘It’s been a long time.’
The second kiss showed that his hand had never got far out. Maggie could not decide whether the term was ‘biological’ or ‘physiotherapy’, but she got the meaning perfectly.
‘Did you tell Pamela I was thinking of getting married?’ he asked casually as they walked on.
‘Well, I—did it matter—you are, aren’t you?’
‘True. But I didn’t think I was being so obvious.’
‘You were to me,’ Maggie said kindly. ‘But that’s all I told Mrs. Patterson. No names, no pack drill!’
‘You find it amusing?’ He’d gone very quiet.
‘Of course not.’
There was a pause. ‘And that’s all you have to say? You didn’t think I need telling at least as much as Mrs. Patterson?’
‘That is a rather more sensitive area,’ she said gently. The derisive gleam in his face was making her uncomfortable. ‘Take courage. You seem to have kept your cool so far.’
‘All right, I will. I think your chances of being accepted are excellent, but...’ Confound the man I It was difficult enough without his looking so downright mesmerised. ‘You are a lot older...’
‘Thanks,’ he clipped. ‘I haven’t exactly got one foot in the grave, you know.’
‘You are a lot older,’ Maggie repeated. ‘And more experienced. And you do rather breathe down a person’s neck.’ She could still see Troy’s face the night of the party when so plainly she had been strung to concert pitch.
‘Thanks again,’ he murmured.
‘I’m being candid.’ He could not guess how much it took to pave the way like this. The urge to do just the opposite was so shockingly strong. ‘And there’s one last thing.’
‘Just one?’ He put in sarcastically, but she did not stop. ‘A good deal would have to be given up to marry you.’
‘Ah well.’ He quickened. ‘Perhaps not. I’ve been thinking. With some adjustments things might well go on as they are.’
‘Even going abroad?’ This was the thing Troy wanted above all.’
‘Going abroad? He frowned his astonishment. ‘I confess that’s news. Where to?
’
‘A developing country. Central Africa, I think, or Pakistan.’
‘Well, I agree that seems to settle it’ He looked so put out that she began to have qualms. After all, Troy could change her mind.
‘Forget that, please. I don’t know. Pm not sure. I’m really not sure about anything. I...’
The eyes regarding her had softened and the face filled with understanding. ‘Don’t apologise. Truth never hurt anyone. I shall just have to try, won’t I? If you think there’s a chance for me after all?’
‘Oh yes!’ The note in her voice pulled Maggie up with a jerk. So eager, it could be a giveaway. ‘A little more time and less pressure and you can’t lose. I’m sure of it.’
‘I’m glad one of us is.’ He sounded so deflated that for a second she wondered if he had not understood the encouragement. And then he laughed resignedly, looking at her and shaking his head. ‘All right, doctor. A little bit of time and less pressure. I’ll remember.’
Back at Pamela’s house again and whistling up the children for the homeward drive, Angus was once more his unruffled self.
It was still bright for the return trip through the glen and twists of sheep wool decorated the wire fencing.
‘Do you see all those bits of wool?’ Graham asked impressively.
‘Sign of good weather,’ Angus commented. ‘As long as you see sheep’s wool on the fences you know the sheep are staying up and the weather will be fine.’
From behind a tongue clicked in exasperation: ‘Och, Dad, I was just going to say that,’ Graham complained. ‘You don’t give me a chance!’
As they drove the light began to change. The mountains were pear-coloured and the day’s death over the moor was a spilled cauldron of gold and vermilion. Angus was silent and Maggie risked commenting on this.
‘I’m not allowed to speak. Didn’t you hear him just now?’ he retaliated.
She had the feeling that it suited him not to talk, and as the long car rushed on through the darkness she followed the children’s example and nodded off. But not restfully and never for long.
If a daughter of Duncan Campbell had faced one moment of truth at Signal Rock, another, even more piercing, was upon her now. She knew how trifling Angus MacAllan considered her. She knew how poorly her lighthearted ways compared with this. But above all, illogical, agonising and quite hopeless was the truth she could no longer escape.
He was the man she loved.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At breakfast next morning Kelly announced that on Wednesday she was going to a concert at Graham’s school. Warned by Maggie not to count on it, she waxed indignant. Graham was singing by himself and he had asked her. She was to go with Angus.
‘We’ll see,’ Maggie said sceptically. ‘And not “Angus”, Kelly; you know perfectly well you must say Mr. MacAllan.’ But in due course they did see—and to Kelly’s entire satisfaction. Graham, arriving for his lesson, passed over a note from his father. It confirmed the arrangement, hoped Maggie would be agreeable and asked that Kelly be up at Strathyre ‘for take-off at six-thirty.
‘And I’m afraid I won’t be able to ride tomorrow,’ the bearer of the note added. ‘It’s the dress rehearsal. So I ought to tell Dad tonight if Kelly can come.’
The note of eagerness in his voice, astonishing as it was, could not be denied. With everything against it, this unequal friendship had not only struck, but flourished. Maggie was touched—and envious.
Assent given, she went on feeling envious for the next forty-eight hours. And despising herself. Why should Angus MacAllan include her? Indeed, how could he? If her presence at Glencoe had caused Pamela to draw the wrong conclusion it would be even more misleading at a school function. Did she seriously expect Angus to leave himself open to such embarrassment?
Realisation was one thing, feelings were another. Maggie was ashamed of hers, but she could not stop them showing. More than once she caught Rob looking at her and once he even asked if there was something worrying her. In some ways his pawky face made her think of her father, handsome though Duncan Campbell had been.
‘Oh, just the future,’ she said vaguely. ‘It breathes down my neck at times.’
‘Is that so?’ Rob asked without sympathy. ‘I suppose any day now you’ll be getting measured for your box.’ He went on to hope that she had no daft notions about leaving.
They weren’t so daft, Maggie thought. From the first moments of their reunion she had been conscious of a change in Derek, but she had still been sure the marriage would work. Now she felt only a terrible deadness. Romantic as she knew it to be, the stranger across that crowded room wouldn’t let her go’—at least not entirely. Time might blunt the sharpness of joy and pain, though today that seemed the worse loss of all, but she certainly could not ask Derek to wait indefinitely.
On the other hand, staying on here when Angus and Troy were married was no solution. Could she bear it—even for Kelly?
At six o’clock she took Kelly back to Wee House to get ready.
‘I wish you were coming with me,’ the child said suddenly as she stood with one foot on a chair for Maggie to rub her shoe. ‘I’ll remember every minute to tell you.’
‘You do that,’ Maggie was saying briskly when she became aware that someone had pushed open the door which she’d left ajar and was walking down the hall. ‘Who’s that?’
‘The man who came to dinner,’ Derek’s voice called back.
‘Reporting for the Great Tin-Opening Exhibition,’ he added brightly, walking into the kitchen.
When you had been dreading a meeting you were am to be unfair to the subject of it. ‘I wish you’d let me know,’ Maggie grumbled.
‘Not to worry. We can always go out.’ His eye lit on Kelly in her white-cuffed navy coat. ‘As it would seem the lady is doing. Yes? No?’
In a short time Derek had changed unbelievably. Before this he had never gone in for clip jokes or fast talking. And they didn’t suit him. Or was she still being unfair?
At the door she checked Kelly for clean handkerchiefs and injuncted her to remember to thank her hosts. ‘And don’t run, there’s plenty of time and I don’t want you arriving as though you’d been dragged through a hedge!’ She stood watching the flash of long white socks as Kelly crossed the gravel. When is a run not a run? she thought indulgently. The child’s heart had been running all day.
But now there was no further excuse for not facing Derek.
‘Anything to report?’ he asked lightly as she returned.
‘Plenty, but I don’t think it would interest you.’ She touched, as lightly, on stable happenings, Graham’s progress with Cream Cracker and the success Rob was having with Kincardine’s bad habits.
At this stage Derek interrupted: ‘You’re right. It doesn’t interest me. I meant with MacAllans.’
‘Nothing there,’ Maggie said still lightly. ‘What would you like to eat? I could do a quick salad.’
‘In a minute,’ he clipped impatiently. ‘When we’ve talked.’ His eyes had hardened. ‘It will save time if I tell you that you’re not my only contact. I do know you were at the factory.’
Maggie had seen many films on espionage and in all of them there had been ‘contacts’. It seemed as though Derek might be joking. Or at least it seemed too fictional to be serious. She laughed uncertainly.
‘It’s not funny,’ he said. ‘And there’s no point in denying it.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ She felt dazed. ‘We did go. Both of us. Graham took us.’
‘So I know.’ He sat down. ‘It couldn’t have been better. I congratulate you. Now don’t let’s waste ‘any more time. What have you got for me?’
Maggie’s heart had started to thump. ‘You don’t seem to understand. Or else I don’t. What should I have for you?’
‘What I asked for. The lines for next year and where they’re going in Europe.’
‘Hardly the sort of thing you get in a hand-out on a walk round.’ She had managed to sound cool,
but she’d had to swallow. Had he noticed?
‘Hardly,’ he agreed. ‘We have the hand-out. It’s an erudite piece of writing, mostly historical. I didn’t expect it to be anything else. And I equally don’t expect you were treated like the ordinary rank and file.’
‘I wasn’t in the research unit, if that’s what you mean.’ It was unwise but the words popped out. ‘Nor under the table at a board meeting. Graham took us over. Graham. If you think he could pass on secrets then you must be mad. Who is this “contact”?’
‘And you must be mad, my darling, if you think I’d tell you that,’ Derek drawled. ‘Suffice it to say we had the place under surveillance. My man was posted where he could see who came to it. He saw you.’
‘Why?’ Maggie questioned. Suddenly she felt desperately afraid.
‘Why indeed?’ Derek echoed smilingly. The smile did nothing to alleviate her fears.
‘Time’s running out,’ he added abruptly. ‘That’s the message. If you haven’t picked up anything yet then I want it this week. No later. Colours, weights, ranges, markets—anything. But quickly. You should have the ground prepared, so it shouldn’t be difficult.’ Fingers tapped urgently on his knee.
To Maggie it was a nightmare. This man all on wires just wasn’t Derek. He had stepped straight out of fantasy. She stared.
‘You mean it,’ she faltered. ‘This is really why you found that job for Mac—to get him out of the way—’
Derek’s face went red. ‘You were to forget that—I warned you. Not just keep mum. Forget.’
‘But you told me yourself...’ Maggie protested.
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