How many times in this business had she wished she could get rid of her American accent, especially its slight southern twang. She had tried to sound more British, even taken some private lessons in learning what had previously been called the Queen’s, but now would probably be referred to as the King’s English. But her efforts had accomplished little. Every time she opened her mouth she had the feeling everyone was watching her, waiting for her to put her foot into it.
She had certainly done that yesterday! Both feet—all the way to the ankles! And her colleagues with the press had been more than ready to help her swallow.
At least he hadn’t chuckled at her mistake. Mr. Trentham had been a gentleman, his response entirely gracious. She even sensed that the smile accompanying his words might have been conveying sympathy.
It was a nice smile, she thought, allowing herself a respite in the midst of her self-inflicted drubbing to reflect on the MP’s face. A subtle smile, with just a hint of mystery to it. She would like to know more about him. Something about him struck her as being different from the rest. Maybe it was the faint understanding look he had cast her in the midst of her awkwardness—something that said he didn’t hold being an American against her.
It was hard enough to make it in the news business, she mused. Every station and network had their few token women, but it was still mostly a man’s game. And here in London, doorways to power were even more tightly guarded against intrusion by foreigners. She knew well enough how lucky she was to have this job at all.
That fact did not prevent her from being unsatisfied. She wanted to move up. It had always been her dream to conduct on-camera interviews. She wanted to be someone people recognized as a news personality, as a television reporter and journalist they could trust and rely on. She went so far as to envision having her own feature spot, even co-anchoring one of the major news programs someday.
They were lofty ambitions, to be sure. She was not a young woman anyone could ever accuse of aiming too low. After yesterday, though, her dreams seemed more unattainable than ever.
Well, she couldn’t stall forever. Her boss would have heard all about the incident by now. She had called in two hours ago to say she would be late. But she could not put it off any longer.
Four
Patricia Rawlings, or Paddy, as she was known to her colleagues and few London friends, made her way downstairs, out of the building, and along several blocks to the Chalk Farm Underground station. Once seated on the northern line, she would have about a twenty-minute ride, with a transfer to the central at Tottenham Court Road, out to the BBC headquarters at White City in Shepherd’s Bush.
She had been in London six years now. Mostly she loved it, despite the personal grief that had come her way a year ago. Yet she felt she had made little professional progress here, and she sometimes wondered whether it would be better just to go back home to Atlanta. She could probably get one of the daytime on-camera spots easily enough. But this job meant too much, and she remained hopeful of moving up within the BBC.
Not just hopeful. She was determined. She would make it here. She would prove she could do the job as well as any of them, even if she was an American, and no matter how much of her own natural reticence and timidity she had to hide in order to do it. She wanted at least to last until her American accent was no longer a liability.
Paddy walked into the news building, crossed to the elevator, and punched the appropriate button. Two minutes later she was moving down the hall toward her fate, still thinking about yesterday’s events. She would rather daydream about the handsome MP than see the gruff face of her boss, whose office she was now approaching. There was no sense even going to her own desk first. She had to face him.
She knocked on the door, then walked into the office of Edward Pilkington, head of the news division of BBC 2. She sat down in front of his desk without comment, only casting toward him a knowing expression intended to convey remorse, apology, chagrin, and what-do-I-do-now? all in one.
Pilkington looked her over for a few seconds, then sighed.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t sack you right now and send you back to the States,” he said.
“I can’t think of any,” she replied. “But please, if you’ll just give me another chance.”
“A chance to do what, Paddy?” he said in a refined cockney as recognizable as was her own native tongue, “—bring the BBC’s reputation down to the level of the American networks? You tell me you want in on the bigger stories, and then you pull a move like this. What kind of journalism do they teach you in the States?”
“I am sorry, sir. But please—just let me have an on-camera assignment. I promise I won’t muddle it up.”
“I can’t have you making a fool of us—especially on camera. Kirk tells me they laughed—they actually laughed at you.”
Paddy glanced down, both mortified at the reminder and irritated that the network’s star reporter, who had broken the Queen’s bombshell in front of the Palace, had carried news of her gaffe so quickly back to their boss.
Pilkington sighed.
“I like you, Paddy,” he said, “and I’ve nothing against Yanks. I think I’ve given you a fair enough shake. But over here, image is everything.”
“I know . . . I know.”
“People don’t forget these kinds of things.”
“What do I have to do to get on camera with a microphone in my hand?” she asked, leaning forward slightly in her chair, anxious to divert the conversation away from yesterday’s blunder.
Pilkington leaned back slightly in his chair, interlocked his fingers behind his head, and drew in a deep, thoughtful breath. The office was silent for several seconds.
“You find me a story no one else has,” he said at length, “and then we’ll talk about it again.”
Five
The hawk overhead was circling slowly, its wings barely moving, intent no doubt on spotting a mouse or rabbit for dinner. Andrew found himself staring upward as he continued his solitary stroll, envying the freedom of the winged hunter.
What would he have been, he wondered, had his name not been Andrew Trentham? Who was he really, beyond who he was expected to be—or more truthfully, what his mother expected him to be?
Perhaps, he thought, the question ought to have been: What was he beyond what he expected himself to be?
Was the confidence he wore innate to the real him, or merely assumed by virtue of his name and position?
He was beginning to realize that he sought an identity that came not from being someone’s son, or someone’s brother, or being a member of Parliament, but from who he was . . . just himself. Could he ever disengage that identity from the confused and tormented little boy at the funeral?
Now the memories were back again. The rain, the black umbrellas, the dour faces of important men and women from London, the sniffling silence, the dull thud of earth falling on the wooden coffin, his mother’s jerking and unstable breaths as she listened to the long line of condoling well-wishers, the long walk back to the car, during which his future had been determined—all part of a moment of time that was seared into his being. Those images would be with him forever.
Was his whole life nothing more than the attempt somehow to make up for Lindsay’s death? Would he never escape the oppressive obligation—self-imposed, it may have been, yet no less real—to live out both her life and his?
Again came the reminder of the helpless American reporter.
His heart went out to her in sympathy. Yet as he now recalled the momentary exchange, he realized he also felt admiration. She wasn’t afraid to buck expectation, to stand unflinching in the face of opposition, even ridicule, let come what may.
Actually, he rather liked the sound of her accent. He didn’t care what some of his stiff English colleagues thought about the upstart colonials—he liked Americans. Their openness and informality, even their brashness at times—they appealed to him. Maybe he wished he had a little more American bravado.
Was that an intrinsic difference between Americans and the English—the willingness to take risks, to go against expectations rather than conform to them, to find out who you really were . . . anyone you wanted to be?
As much as he enjoyed politics, sometimes he couldn’t escape feeling trapped by who he was, by his name, his past, trapped within the expectation of what he was supposed to do with his life, trapped within a culture that defined everything about him without his having much say in the matter of carving out an identity of his own. It was the British way—one did what was expected of one.
But that American journalist—she was free of such expectation. She was trying to do something out of the ordinary, something that defined her as an individual in her own right. He wondered if her mother approved of a reckless journalistic career in a foreign land? Were American parents less bound by familial, societal, and cultural expectations?
What had he ever done like that? Andrew thought to himself. What had he ever done that took courage, that demanded something more from him than what he had always been?
What had he ever done that was not somehow bound up in the unspoken question of what his mother would think?
Six
Andrew continued his way across the fell toward the Scotsman’s cottage. As he picked his way around rocks and scrub brush, the legendary stone again came to mind. He had read an interesting piece on it the other day in The Highlander, one of many complimentary magazines that came to his office.
The author had attempted to piece together the origins of the Stone, citing first a Celtic myth about an assembly of gods known as the Tuatha de Danaan. One of the assembly’s most prized possessions was said to have been the Stone of Fal, which supposedly cried out whenever it was stepped upon by the rightful king. Thus it had come to be used at all of ancient Ireland’s coronations, so that the veracity of each new ruler would be known.
There were other myths, widely divergent, about the Stone—the most prevalent form being that the Stone had been taken from Ireland into Scotland, as the Scots from Eire overran the Picts and gradually established their stronghold there, to be used to crown kings in the new kingdom. Another version had the Tuatha fleeing from the Philistines in Greece and journeying directly to Scotland, then later moving on to Ireland but leaving the Stone behind. Still another myth ascribed the Stone’s origin to the pillow used by patriarch Jacob at Bethel when he dreamt of the heavenly ladder, later brought to Scotland by Scota, daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh, by way of Spain and Ireland.
Andrew smiled to himself, picturing the slab of sandstone as he had seen it many times in the Abbey. What were the Stone’s origins, he wondered. Where had it really come from? It didn’t really look all that different from the stones that jutted out from the hillsides of his own father’s estate.
What was the story Duncan used to tell about that primitive man, the ancient he said was the first man to explore these regions? He had come from the south, driven northward from someplace far, far away.
What had Duncan called him—something like the explorer . . . or the traveler?
Andrew could not quite recall enough specifics to piece together a coherent memory of the tale. It was from the big book the old man was so careful of, whose pages were brittle with age.
The reminder of the book and its contents sent a thrill of expectation up his spine. And with the newly enlivened memory of those former times, into his consciousness came old Duncan’s voice, speaking to him after the book was closed.
“Ye’ll be a great man yersel’ someday, laddie,” he could hear Duncan say, as the Scotsman set the story-filled volume aside and stared intently into Andrew’s wide and impressionable eyes.
With the words suddenly flowed back others in a torrent of memory—mysterious prognostications that Andrew had all but forgotten.
“Ye’ll be jist like the auld Celt yersel,’” he had told him. “Ye mayna wander sae far, but ye’ll hae a hand in the future o’ yer ain kin. Eh, but whate’er second sicht I may hae is pointed at yersel.’ Ye’re but a wee laddie noo. But ye’ll be a great man ane day. I know God’s got ye in his sights, laddie. An’ once he’s got somethin’ in mind fer a man t’ du, he doesna let up till it’s dune.”
What had it all meant? Andrew understood the strange words no more now than he had then.
“Ye’ll grow intil a braw ane. The call o’ greatness’ll be upon ye, laddie. I ken. ’Deed, he’s yer ancestor jist as sure as his verra bluid flows through yer veins, whoever’s oye ye be. Ye’ll mak it yer ain one day. I’ll tell ye a’ in yer ain time. Ah, wee Andrew . . . ’tis a braw land, ye ken. ’Tis yer ain land, ye’ll see.”
Seven
This location was the last place in the world the well-dressed visitor from London would have chosen to spend an afternoon. Notwithstanding his name, he hated it up here, especially in winter. Leave the moors and the mountains to the wind and goats—he had better things to do with his time than freeze in this godforsaken wilderness.
The instructions, however, had been explicit. And given the scrawled signature at the bottom of the single sheet, he was hardly inclined to refuse. Unfortunately, the social aspect of the tryst had quickly given way to a heated disagreement.
The two figures spoke in hushed tones. Their voices had grown angry.
“It was my understanding—”
“Look, I gave no promises. I only said I would consider my options when the time came.”
“Well, the time has come.”
“Yes, and I have considered my options. The answer is no.”
“I thought we had—”
“It’s no use playing that card with me. What do you take me for, an amateur who buckles to every pressure that comes along? I’ve been in this game a long time. I’m not so easily seduced as you might have thought. Besides all that, this is the wrong moment, I tell you. And your promises are none too reassuring. Politically, I simply cannot risk it.”
A tense silence filled the air.
When the younger of the two again spoke, it was in a greatly altered tone, quieter, almost sinister.
“Politically, I don’t think you can afford not to do as we say. The risk, as you call it, lies entirely on the opposite side of the fence from where you would place it.”
“Just what is that supposed to mean?” snapped the Londoner, who had become so polished through the years that few would have guessed his roots.
“Very simple. The fact of the matter is this. Evidence has been planted—compelling evidence I might add, implicating you along with the SNP in the theft of the Stone of Scone . . . among other things.”
“You stole the Stone!” he exclaimed.
“I did not say that. I only say that you could very easily find yourself in a position you would be hard pressed to explain. And I do not mean as a mere accessory, but as the mastermind of the affair. It would ruin your career.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.”
“Are you actually trying to blackmail me?” he sneered. Around the edges of the sound, however, could be detected a hint of concern.
“It is such an ugly word. I would rather call it an understanding, an arrangement.”
“No one will believe a word of it.”
“Even if they don’t, they might believe the other, shall we say, items of interest we have compiled. There are photographs, you know. It really was rather careless of you. Now it is my turn to repeat your own words back to you—what do you think we are, amateurs?”
“If for no other reason, even if you discount our relationship, I would have thought better of you.”
“Tut, tut—all that’s beside the point now. We know what we are doing. Believe me, Scotland Yard will be extremely interested in what we have arranged to be found, if . . .”
The voice trailed off significantly.
“Bah—the thing’s absurd. Maybe I am willing to risk it—that’s how little I think of your amateurish threa
ts. And here I thought you . . .”
His voice halted in disgust.
“You owe me everything,” he began again. “It is I who put you where you are.”
“As I said, all that is beside the point now.”
“It is I who shall expose you . . . all of you. Scotland Yard will have you behind bars within twenty-four hours.”
He paused and stared across the table, shaking his head with disdain.
“I should have known,” he said. “I should have seen the deceit in your eyes all along. It’s clear enough now.”
He rose, then turned to go. Without another word he left the pub and strode angrily down the narrow cobbled street. His annoyance was directed as much toward himself for allowing himself to get mixed up with such people. One little lapse. Now he was in this pretty fix.
Within seconds he heard the door close. Feet ran behind him to catch up.
He did not turn around. His hired car was up ahead, parked along a lonely stretch of the roadway beside the deserted docks. Even now his pride did not allow him to apprehend his danger.
The footsteps slowed and drew alongside.
“You must change your mind,” said the familiar voice beside him.
“You’re daft!” he retorted, not slowing his step. “After this eye-opening little conversation, you couldn’t offer me enough. If you thought the votes of our party were for sale with such tactics, you were—”
They were the last words he ever uttered.
The razor-thin blade of an expensive Highland sgian dubh suddenly shot upward into his side and back, piercing two ribs and slicing through the back of the heart. He was dead instantly.
Even before he had a chance to slump, the killer shoved the still-erect body off the embankment along which they had been walking. It tumbled with more a plop than a splash into the grimy waters below.
The thin figure above continued walking as if nothing had happened. Out of sight below, the body slipped silently into the slow black current of the River Dee and floated away in the direction of the sea.
Legend of the Celtic Stone Page 14