Flora knew that nothing would shift him. He was a young man of decision and he'd made up his mind. She made one last stab. 'If you don't want university, then how about music school?' Alexander was talented - more talented than she was. He could play almost every instrument - not to concert standard, but well enough to be first violin in the school orchestra and the accompanist at her own music society rehearsals.
Alexander played at the Scottish nights, and when he got up there on stage or at the centre of the gathering his face was a study in out-of-this-world enjoyment. It was as if he were lit from within. Now he did not even smile as he replied, 'Mom, I'm never going to be Hank Williams. And unless I find someone as good at singing as I am at playing - unless 1 find a partner - I'll play for my own enjoyment.'
'And ours,' said Aunt Dorothy loyally.
'Of course.' He smiled. 'Once we've thrashed this out, I'll play for you, Aunt Dorothy.'
'I give in,' Flora said. She stood up. 'Carry on. You know my views. I'm going to put out the food for the racoons.'
She had nailed a little platform to one of the trees where the light from the house glowed, slanting in the moonlight, into the forest. On the platform she put the remainder of the supper: meat and cheese, biscuits and apples. Alexander's words had struck her like a knife wound. Nanny had told her that Robert had a lovely singing voice.
She went back into the house and waited, watching through the glass the pointed, striped face of the heavy racoon who lowered himself slowly down the tree to the platform, where he sat, gnawing the food which he held in one little paw. She could hear every word they spoke on the deck. They were becoming voluble now. How could she and Alexander manage the mill? Should they sell the store and keep the mill because Alexander wanted it? Would Peter need the nest egg that a sale would bring? And Peter, laughing and saying that it was the parents who needed money and how about this ... they keep the house, sell the store and leave the sawmill in the capable hands of the holy three - the mill manager, Flora and Alexander - for the next two years to see how it panned out.
Flora watched the racoon, who seemed unconcerned that he was spilling food from his platform. Suddenly and at great speed he climbed the tree and was out of sight within seconds.
Peter was behind her. He said, 'Come out on the lake with me tomorrow?'
'Yes.' She smiled and gave him a quick, friendly kiss on the cheek. 'Thank you. I'd like that.'
The following afternoon Peter took her out on the lake in his sailing dinghy as they had done dozens of times before, sometimes staying ashore in one of the bays, watching the wildlife the beavers, chickadees and deer -and listening to the loons whose eerie cries, like wild laughter, echoed across the water.
There were a dozen other boats on the lake, and the trees were aflame, bronze, orange, yellow and red among the dark green pines. At lunchtime, Peter tied up in one of the little coves and helped her ashore. They sat and made their picnic and watched a colony of beavers that at first set up a din, banging their tails on the water to let the others know that humans were there, before they returned to gnawing through tree branches, harvesting little pieces of trees before the frosts of late November.
'They store small pieces to eat in winter,' Peter told her when she said that their den looked like a muddled pile of brushwood. 'It's hollow inside above the water line. Their exit is underwater.'
Flora thought she had seen everything. Now, suddenly, she caught hold of Peter's arm and froze. 'Turn very slowly,' she said. High above them on the crest of the forested hill, looking down on them as if they were nothing more than water rats, were two bears; one an adult, the other a youngster. Peter had not brought his gun, but the boat was only feet away and the forest was silent.
'They won't come down to us,' he said calmly. He was right, and when the bears had lumbered away, as silently as they had appeared, Peter kept his arm about her and pulled her close.
She looked up at him and saw that his eyes were shining very brightly. He was nervous, for the hands that were holding her were shaking. He bent his head down to hers and kissed her without passion but with tenderness and affection.
Flora moved away. She did not want him to think that she was any nearer to falling in love with him. She knew he had kissed her for all the old-fashioned reasons -they were a man and a woman, without attachments, in a remote and beautiful place, and the urge to make something more than a mere picnic of the day had overcome him. But she was certain that he felt no more than that for her.
For herself, it was crazy ... illogical ... but she still dreamed that one day, like the proverbial prince of fairy stories, Andrew would find her. He would unravel the mystery of her disappearance. He would discover that he was the father of Robert - and of Alex. He would forgive her and come to Canada to claim her as his wife. But this fanciful idea was no use to her now. She said, 'Haven't you fallen in love yet, Peter?'
There were many pretty nurses at the hospital. Flora had seen them when Peter took her round the children's department. She had noticed nurses go soft and compliant and shining-eyed when he asked anything of them.
'I don't think so,' he said thoughtfully. Then, apologetically, 'I don't mean to sound cold, Flora.'
'You are not,’ she said kindly. But he was doing it again, proposing a marriage without love, based only on kindness and consideration.
Peter said, 'I'm so fond of you. I’ve never met a girl like you. Couldn't you consider ...?'
'Don't!' She knew she must turn the talk around, make light of it. 'I'll tell you what. If neither of us meets anyone else, if we don't fall in love, we'll reconsider in a year's time. How's that?'
Chapter Thirteen
Andrew had risen to the rank of detective sergeant. He now had an interview room on Edinburgh's Royal Terrace and a spectacular view over Queen's Park, where on that October afternoon the weather was glorious. The leaves in the city's parks and gardens were falling, lying golden and bronze, thick on the grass, drifting around the tree trunks and the footpaths in the light breeze. If this weather continued, it would be perfect for sailing. He had a week's leave starting the next day. His days were long and the mountain of work grew steadily.
A week's sailing holiday, away from the station, was what he needed. If he got a move on, he could be out of the office in fifteen minutes' time. He began to clear his desk, then, because thoughts of Flora were never far from his mind, even after sixteen years, he rang for his cadet lad and told him to bring the missing persons files.
The cadet was young, fresh-faced and eager to make a good impression. He brought in the heavy box of folders and set them down on the desk. Andrew could not resist saying, 'Thought you were going to have an easy week, did you, Brodie?'
Brodie blushed. 'No, Sergeant! I want to do a proper, useful job.'
Andrew took everything he had accumulated on the Flora Macdonald case and said, 'I want you to go through this file. See if there is anything we might have missed. Not much hope. But it's good practice.'
Brodie said, 'Do I give it priority?'
'No,' Andrew replied before he dismissed him. 'Fit it in with your normal duties. Go through it carefully. Read the report. Make enquiries if you find anything worth following up.'
Not that Andrew thought there was anything left to find, but a new eye -a different slant -might come up with a lead. Years ago he had found Jessie Fairbairn, Flora's friend from Guthrie's, but Jessie was sure that Flora was dead. In his heart, though, where it mattered, he knew she was not. If he had believed she was dead he would have given up the search years ago.
He had gone through the missing persons lists of every police department in Scotland, and though there had been many losses during the war there were few unidentified bodies. He had also tried to get hold of the lists of patients in all the hospitals in the Edinburgh area. This had not been so easy. Until the National Health Service came into being, hospital records were scanty. Yet the fact that Flora had injured her back and gone to hospital was the only clear lead he'd ever h
ad. After that, she disappeared. He had kept a private card system where every mention and record of the name of Flora Macdonald, no matter how bizarre, was noted.
He was left with only two. One of them was his Flora; the other was a girl almost three years younger who had been issued with an identity card in Edinburgh in 1940 before she too disappeared from the records. It was possible that this younger girl had joined the forces when she reached eighteen or had married outside Edinburgh. He knew neither she nor Flora had married in Edinburgh. He'd been through the Edinburgh registers of marriage since 1940 and not found a single Flora Macdonald.
He would keep at it until he was forty. Then he'd give up the search and start to look seriously for a wife. He had three years to go.
Carelessly he brushed his hand through his thick, dark hair while he dealt with the heap of files on his desk, then, he smiled to himself, thinking of Flora's singing and the huge chorus that the amateur operatic society would need when rehearsals for Oklahoma! began at the end of the year. They pulled his leg on the station about the romantic leads he played, though not seriously, because he helped produce the annual police show, Off the Beat, a stage production of songs and sketches and variety acts which ran at the Empire for three weeks every year. Many men from this station would be coerced into taking part, just as most of them would come to Oklahoma! to see Andrew singing the part of Curly.
Now, to amuse himself, and knowing the remarks they'd be making outside in the hall, he ran his hands through his own curly hair and began to sing in his fine tenor voice, 'There's a bright golden haze on the meadow ...' However, he had not expected so fast a reaction, for just before, 'The corn is as high as an elephant's eye ...', the door opened and the duty officer entered.
'Sir Gordon Campbell to see you, Sergeant,' he said, somehow managing to keep his face straight. Andrew flattened his hair quickly and put the remaining papers in a neat pile. 'Show him in.'
Sir Gordon was retired from the sea. Andrew saw him at yacht club dinners, for the Commander was an honorary member of Andrew's club. He was also a local hero, and highly respected. Andrew held the door open for his old captain and said, 'Good afternoon, Sir Gordon.' He was not on such familiar terms that he'd call him anything but sir.
Sir Gordon looked as impressive in tweeds and brogues as he used to do in uniform. At fifty-seven he had an upright bearing, thick silver hair and eyes that shone with friendliness as he held out a hand.
Andrew shook it. 'Sit down, sir,' he said and when the usual enquiries -about the boat and Sir Gordon's own North Berwick sailing club brought forth no new confidences, he ordered that coffee be brought to the office. This would give Sir Gordon time to get to the real purpose of his visit.
Over the years Sir Gordon had had trouble with his elder son, Robert, who, between the ages of six and ten, used to go missing for days on end when his father was at sea. Lady Campbell never reported her son's disappearance. Not until the boy was found sleeping on a park bench or at a harbour, curled up on the fishing nets, were the police involved, and then the lad would be brought in and questioned carefully. It was a fairly routine matter, returning runaway children to their home, and Andrew prided himself on never taking it for granted that a child would run away without reason.
He always pursued a few enquiries and time and again had been able to press charges for child neglect or cruelty against feckless or neglectful parents or guardians. But never in Robert Campbell's case. He was always examined by a doctor, no bruises were ever found and he'd be pronounced fit and healthy. Andrew knew that coldness and tongue-lashing left no visible marks. His father only got to hear of these 'escapes' when Nanny reported them to him. Then he would come along to whichever station had found the boy, thank them profusely and assure them that it was a family matter that had been dealt with.
When the coffee had been brought and the door closed again Andrew said, 'Anything 1 can do in my official capacity, sir?'
'I'm not here on official business,' said Sir Gordon. 'I'm going to ask you a personal favour, Andrew.'
'Anything at all,' Andrew said.
'I want your advice about my son,' he said quietly.
'I'm flattered. But I don't know if my advice will be worth taking.' 'You know how it feels to be a young hot-head like Robert.'
Andrew had last seen Robert a year ago, crewing for his father at a regatta. He assumed that the boy was now over the runaway phase. Sir Gordon said, 'Robert reminds me very much of you, Andrew. He is like you were at sixteen.'
Andrew smiled. He knew that it could only be in minor ways that they were alike and that there the resemblance ended, for young Robert had had a very different upbringing from his own. Where Andrew himself had had no father but a loving mother, Robert had a loving but absent father and a mother whose neglect of her elder son was the talk of, if not East Lothian, certainly both the Lothians and Borders police forces.
A deep frown creased Sir Gordon's brow. 'He's musical. Gifted. Before i had sons i used to say that it was a father's duty to guide and help them. I haven't been much of a father to Robert.’
'I'm sure you have,' Andrew said. At all of their earlier meetings Sir Gordon had talked with unashamed pride about young Robert.
'I told you that he was never top of the class or anything?'
'That's not the end of the world.'
'What 1 didn't tell you was that Robert fights. The school ...' Robert went to an Edinburgh public school, '... the school is only going to give him one more chance. If he does anything - anything at all - he'll be expelled.'
Andrew tried not to smile. 'What does he fight about? Girls?'
'No. Nothing like that. When he was young he was underweight, asthmatic…an easy target for bullies. We sent him away to school but he had a rough time and eventually ran away.' He looked Andrew straight in the eye. 'You knew that he used to run away when he was small?'
‘I did know. We often found him and took him home,' Andrew said. Sir Gordon was not to know that every police station kept files of all missing children in case they went missing again. 'He was found quickly when he ran away from his school?' he asked.
'Yes. And with Nanny's care and good food, and of course, the fresh air and sailing, he flourished. He's grown six inches in the last year. He's a big boy now -not powerful, but tall and strong-'
Andrew stopped him. 'And now he gets into fights?'
'They are not his fault,' Sir Gordon said defensively. 'Robert can't stand by and watch someone taking the punishment he suffered. Lady Campbell thinks that every boy should learn to stand up for himself and that Robert should not interfere in other boys' troubles.'
Sir Gordon paused for a few moments, then continued in a rueful voice, 'I'm afraid that my wife and I don't see eye to eye on the matter of our sons or their upbringing. I feel we are taking the right action, but with the wrong sons. Edward is the boy who should have had the strict school and firmer hand but we have indulged him to the point where he can appear arrogant and rude. Robert has had a much rougher time.'
'Why?'
'I don't know. I was away at sea in Robert's early years. But there is a special bond between a father and his first-born.' He seemed to be contemplating what to say, then suddenly confided, 'Lady Campbell sets great store by inheritance. Much more than I ever have. She feels we should make Edward successor to the title and estate.'
Andrew was taken aback by this confidence. He ought to choose his words carefully but found himself critical of the family and protective of Robert. He said hotly, 'Then you have your answer. You can’t expect him to give up his position without a fight.'
Sir Gordon said, 'Land isn't an asset or even a privilege any more. The men who will make their mark in this world will be the inventors, the industrialists. The landed gentleman's days are over!'
'All the same, you can’t go against traditions,' said Andrew.
'I agree,' Sir Gordon said. 'And Nanny takes exactly the same view as you, Andrew. You remember Miss Taylor?'
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br /> 'I remember her well.'
'She is devoted to Robert, and he to her. She delivered him under trying circumstances and Robert was a sickly, premature baby. Nanny took charge of him from birth. She drove an ambulance as well as caring for mothers and babies from one end of the county to the other.' He smiled with pride as he went on, 'Nanny was amazing.The area was full of prisoner-of-war camps and airfields. You had to show your identity card at every tum because everything was so tightly controlled. Nanny coped with all this as well as her work, and she took care of Robert.'
Andrew smiled back. Sir Gordon was clearly still devoted to the old lady. He said, 'She must be getting on in years ...?'
'She's seventy-six. Doesn't look it. She's living in Ivy Lodge now, in retirement. I want her to retire completely and visit her sister in Canada before it's too late. I've told her.I'll pay her fare. But she won't go she says, until Robert doesn't need her.'
'How can I help?' Andrew said.
'Would you return the favour I did you when you were a very young man? Would you tell Robert that the Royal Navy is a grand career? I want him to work hard and apply to Dartmouth.'
'I have never forgotten my debt to you, sir,' Andrew said. He was glad to be able to do something in return though he added, 'But unless Robert himself wants to follow in your footsteps, I don't see-'
Sir Gordon said quickly, 'Yes. Yes. But you will put it to him?'
'I will,' Andrew assured him. 'I won't wave the big stick. I'm on holiday next week. Send Robert to see me when I'm back. Any time.'
'Thank you, Andrew.'
Andrew saw Sir Gordon to his car before returning to the office and calling for Brodie again. 'There's one line I didn't explore, Brodie,' he said. 'It occurred to me only recently.' In fact it had occurred to him only five minutes ago when he'd been reminded of the wartime travel restrictions. 'If there are any, I want you to track down all records of movements in the Edinburgh and Lothians exclusion zone. See if you can find Flora Macdonald.'
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