Blackstone's pursuits

In which we find she who wasn’t lost at all, in which I experience the full glory of a Scottish Sabbath, from which we make an escape, and in which something very unpleasant happens

To me, Auchterarder isn’t a place at all. It’s a stagecoach halt that’s managed somehow to carry itself over into the twentieth century. It’s something of a dormitory town, I suppose, but its main purpose today seems to be to meet the needs of Gleneagles Hotel, the fat cat up the road; to keep its kitchens filled; to make sure that its golf courses are all in the mint condition that its American and Japanese patrons have been told to expect; to ensure that there’s always a taxi available to run same to and from Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports. Other than that, there isn’t a logical reason for its existence.

Except of course that it’s where Primavera Phillips was raised to womanhood. That makes it special.

We drove up the motorway in midmorning — having left a ‘Thanks and see you later,’ note on the kitchen table for my still-absent Dad and took the fast road down from Perth.

‘Our house is on the edge of the town,’ said Prim as we took the turnoff from the A9. ‘It’s a big barn of a place up on the right.’

That was far short of a reasonable description. It struck me at first when I saw it that if it had had the Bates Motel at the foot of the garden, it could have been lifted straight out of Psycho. Closer to, I realised that I should have been thinking of the Addams Family. The Phillips homestead is a big spacious villa, with two high storeys and an attic, and a steep roof that must have been a slater’s nightmare when it was built.

‘There you are. Semple House. What d’you think?’ said Prim, smiling, biting her lip, as the Nissan’s tyres scrunched up the red gravel path.

‘You don’t have a butler called Lurch, do you?’

‘Swine!’ she shouted, laughing, and punched my arm. We eased ourselves out of the car and trotted up the six steps to the front door. Prim fumbled in her handbag for her keys. Eventually she found the bunch and fiddled through it for the right one.

She needn’t have bothered. The door swung open … with an authentic Addams Mansion creak, I was glad to note. Prim looked up, and gasped.

They aren’t instantly alike. They’re both gorgeous, but in very different ways. Dawn Phillips is dark, while Prim is authentically blonde, even when her hair isn’t bleached by the sun. Dawn’s natural expression, the one with which right there and then I guessed she opens every door, is one of apprehension, while Prim’s is one of total confidence, welcoming whatever challenge the world has to offer. But there is something about their eyes, about the tilt of the nose, which marks them out as sisters, beyond a shadow of doubt.

They stood there like statues, on their parents’ doorstep, staring at each other, their mouths hanging open. It struck me that it was like watching someone looking in a distorted mirror.

Dawn cracked first. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Prim! Oh God, you’re safe. We’ve been so worried about you, out there with all that trouble going on. When did you get back?’ She stepped out from the doorway and hugged her sister.

‘Hey, girl,’ said Prim, disengaging and holding her at arm’s length. ‘Didn’t I write? Didn’t I phone when I could? Didn’t I call Mum on Friday to say I was home?’

Dawn shook her head. ‘I didn’t know. I went up to Perth on Friday to chill out with Jenny Brown and get pissed. I’ve been so screwed up lately. I only got back half an hour ago.’

‘Before Friday, how long had you been here?’

Dawn jumped when I spoke. She was edgy, and no mistake. Prim smiled, and took my arm. ‘Sorry, I should have done the introductions first. This is Oz; Oz Blackstone, my new friend.’

The young Miss Phillips looked me up and down. My jeans had seen better days, but haven’t everyone’s, and at least my white tee-shirt was clean and my trainers didn’t smell. Eventually she held out a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Oz. Did she bring you back from Africa?’

I shook my head, and her hand. ‘No. Anstruther, in fact. And before that, from Connell. We’ve been looking all around Scotland for you.’

She frowned, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘But…’

Prim cut her off, shooeing her inside the house and pulling me in after her. ‘We’ll get to that in a minute, Dawn,’ she said, carefully. ‘First of all let’s get the kettle on. Where are Mum and Dad?’

‘It’s Sunday. They’ve gone to church.’ ‘Mmm,’ I thought. ‘People still do that, do they!’

It was a nice old house on the inside. Full of character. It seemed that the Phillips family hadn’t thrown anything away for about three generations. As I looked around the hall, I had a funny feeling that I couldn’t pin down for a moment or two. Eventually it came to me. ‘It’s like stepping back into my Granny Blackstone’s house.’ I spoke the thought aloud.

‘Yes, sort of old-fashioned comfy, isn’t it,’ said Prim. ‘My Dad likes old things.’ She pointed me into a big living room, off the hall, and disappeared with Dawn in another direction. I looked around the room. It was dominated by a huge brown three-piece suite in leather and velvet, and the pleasant smell of the hide hung in the air. Everything else — curtains, rugs, furniture, huge wooden-framed radio — was of the same 1930s vintage. A telly would have seemed obscene in there.

‘It’s a museum, isn’t it,’ said Prim, from the doorway, behind me. ‘Lovely to visit, but not to live in. Not for me, anyway.

‘Sit down,’ she ordered. ‘Dawn’s making the tea.’ She flopped on to the big sofa, pulling me down beside her. The big velvet cushions whooshed up around me with my weight. I’ve never laid on a feather-bed, but when I do, I imagine it’ll feel like the Phillips family settee. Prim curled up on her cushion, sitting with her legs pulled up like she does in the car. She was wearing a white sleeveless wool top and pale blue shorts. The way she was sitting I could see her knickers. Suddenly my jeans felt tighter as old Mr Stiffy began to make his presence felt. I reached out for her, but she jumped up, a smile on her delicious lips. ‘Oz! It’s Sunday. My folks are Sabbatarians. No radio on Sunday, no playing cards, and absolutely no nooky on the living-room carpet!

‘Besides, this is serious. What are we going to tell Dawn?’

Dragged back to reality, I shook my head. ‘We’re going to ask her a few things first. She …’

‘Ask me?’ Dawn was in the doorway carrying teapot, cups and saucers on a big tray with folding legs. ‘Ask me what?’

‘How you came to be in a movie, for a start,’ said Prim, quickly.

‘Oh,’ said Dawn. ‘All that hasn’t really sunk in yet. It was pure luck. There was a part for an actress and Miles wanted someone Scottish. He came to the Lyceum one night when I was on and saw me. Next day, I had a note from the director asking me to come for a test.’

‘That’s great. How’s it going?’

‘Terrific, so far. I was supposed to be ravished and killed by the Redcoats quite early on, but Miles has given me a reprieve. They’ve written some more scenes for me and I’m getting supporting billing. A bit more money too.’

‘You seem to be doing all right in other ways,’ I chipped in. ‘We met Miles. He fancies you, and no mistake.’

Dawn glanced at me as she poured the tea and smiled self-consciously, nervily. I could see that, temperamentally, she was her sister’s opposite.

‘So,’ said Prim, ‘with all that’s going for you, how come you’re screwed up. What’s with the Prozac?’

‘Oh it’s lots of things, but mostly, as usual, it’s men. I’ve got myself trapped in a sort of, situation, and I was having trouble finding a way out.’ ‘Christ,’ I thought, ‘if that was her solution I found in Prim’s flat it was a bit drastic.’

‘I was having stage fright, quite badly. The Prozac sorted it out, but it didn’t do anything for the root cause of the trouble.’ ‘No?’ I thought again. ‘Maybe it took the kitchen knife to sort that out.’

‘Remember the guy I told you about in a letter?’

‘Danny deVito meets Nijinski?’ said Prim.

‘Yes, that’s right. His name’s William Kane. He’s a regular at the theatre. His firm are corporate sponsors. I met him at our theatre club one night. We got talking, and I thought he was sort of funny, but sad at the same time. He was carrying a burden, I could tell.’

Prim sighed. ‘Aah. Another bloody bird with a broken wing! I thought you’d grown out of that.’

‘You don’t though, do you. At least I don’t. Anyway Willie isn’t like that. He isn’t helpless or anything. He phoned me a couple of days after the reception and asked me out. He came to the play, then took me to dinner, and it was fun. We did it again, and soon it was a regular thing.’

‘He’s married of course, Dawn, isn’t he?’ There was an edge of disapproval in Prim’s voice. Her sister’s cheeks flushed, quickly. She nodded.

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Look, I know this’ll sound awful, but his marriage is a sham. He and his wife are around forty; they’ve been married unhappily for years. She’s unfaithful to him, and she doesn’t hide it. In fact she rubs Willie’s nose in it. She has a relationship with someone she was at school with.’ Prim shot me a raised-eyebrow glance. ‘They were boy and girl school captains at the same time, but afterwards they went their separate ways, until they met up again a couple of years ago.

‘The way things were, I didn’t feel uncomfortable about sleeping with Willie.’ She grinned, suddenly with a strange, mischievous look in her eyes. ‘Except…’ She flushed again and glanced at me.

‘Yes?’ said Prim.

‘Tell you later,’ she said, looking meaningfully in my direction once more. ‘You nearly let on about Willie’s big Willy, didn’t you.’ I was bursting to say it, but I resisted. ‘Let’s just say there was a physical problem,’ she added. I coughed on a sip of tea. Prim shot me a ‘Shurrup’ look.

‘It was fun at first,’ Dawn went on. ‘But Willie’s obsessive. Pretty soon he was telling me he loved me and everything. That made me nervous, but I thought it’d wear off. It didn’t though. One day he turned up on the doorstep of your flat with a suitcase. He said he’d left Linda and was moving in with me. I didn’t know what to do. I mean if I’d chucked him out he’d have had nowhere else to go, but … well, to tell you the truth, nice as he is, when we got down to it I found out pretty soon that physically, I don’t really fancy him.’

‘Bloody great,’ said Prim. ‘The guy turned you off, but you let him shack up with you. And in my flat. A bit of a bloody nerve that, wasn’t it? Having it off with another woman’s husband in my flat. Private eyes at the door and all that.’

‘Oh come on,’ said Dawn, defensively. ‘His wife wouldn’t do that:’

Prim shot me another ‘Shurrup,’ look, but I decided that it was time to get into the discussion. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ I asked, as casually as I could.

She looked blankly at me. ‘A couple of weeks ago,’ she said. ‘I left him in Ebeneezer Street when I went off filming. I told him he’d have to find somewhere permanent to live. I didn’t say I wouldn’t be coming with him, but I tried not to make him think that I would.

‘He just said not to worry, that everything would be sorted out soon.’

‘You didn’t go back to Edinburgh on Wednesday?’

‘No. I came here, to see Mum and Dad. The thing is, I really fancy Miles too, and I want to clear the decks. I thought I’d ask Dad to go to see Willie, to say I want out, and to ask him to be sure to move out of the flat before I got back.’

Prim snorted. ‘That’d be really nice of Dad. Have you asked him yet?’

‘No, I haven’t plucked up the courage. I don’t suppose you’d …’ And then something struck her, something very obvious.

‘But hold on. You’re back, Prim. So you must have been to the flat. Wasn’t Willie there? Have you chucked him out already?’

Primavera shook her head. ‘Sit down, Dawn,’ she said quietly. Her sister obeyed. ‘Yes, I’ve been to the flat, and yes, I’ve seen Willie. So has Oz. But he was dead. He was murdered. On Wednesday night, the police say.’

The girl’s face went ashen. She hid it with her hands and slumped backwards, collapsing into the soft cushions of the big armchair. I thought that she was crying, but she wasn’t. She was too shocked for that. It was Prim who was suddenly in tears. She rushed across the room, and threw her arms round her sister. ‘Oh Dawn, I’m sorry, but I’m so relieved. We didn’t want to think it, but we were afraid that you might have had something to do with it, or that you might be in danger too. That’s why we’ve been looking for you.’

I felt helpless, so I got up and put my arms around them both. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s okay, Prim. We’ve found her now, and she’s going to be all right.’ I drew her to her feet and held her against me. In the armchair, Dawn took her hands from her ghost’s face and looked up at us.

‘Do the police know who did it?’ she said, huskily.

I shook my head. ‘No. The guy in charge is going to want to talk to you. Was Willie in touch with anyone? His wife, for example?’

‘Not as far as I know? But I haven’t seen him for two weeks, remember.’

‘Did he tell you about the money?’

‘What money?’ Prim and I looked hard at her. She was an actress, but I couldn’t imagine that anyone could fake that sort of astonishment.

‘Did Willie send you to Switzerland to open a bank account for him?’

She gave a soft gasp. ‘Oh, that. Yes. He said he wanted to hide as much of his money from his wife as he could. He said she’d be suspicious if she found out that he’d gone to Switzerland, so he asked me to do it. I flew to Geneva and opened the account, then flew back on the same day.

‘The account’s in a bank called Berners: it’s one of these cloak and dagger things. Withdrawals can only be made by two people, each carrying half of a fiver. The account number is the same as the number on the banknote. The bank took a photo of it. When I got back I gave the two halves to Willie.’ She pulled herself up in the chair.

‘But why did you ask about money? Did Willie use the account? Did he transfer his cash out there?’

I smiled. ‘I don’t know about his cash, but he transferred nine hundred thousand of his firm’s money out there. I was hired by the senior partner to recover it. I went to see him on Thursday, to get the fiver back. He was dead when I got there, and when Prim arrived. That’s when we met.

‘We’ve been a bit busy since then,’ I added.

Dawn sat there staring up at us as she fitted the pieces of the story together. By now I was quite certain that Prim’s sister was just a touch slow on the uptake, but eventually she got there. ‘Do the police think I killed Willie for the money?’

‘The guy who’s leading the investigation, Mike Dylan, he doesn’t know about the money. And that’s the way I want it to stay. Black and Muirton want to keep that part of it quiet. But if Dylan ever does find out about it, and about you opening that bank account, then yes, he’d fancy you for it right away. So let’s hope you can prove where you were when Kane was killed.’ Dawn gulped. Her mouth dropped open slightly. Prim looked at her anxiously.

‘So,’ she said, ‘when did you get here on Wednesday?’

‘About two-thirty in the afternoon.’

‘And were you with Mum and Dad all day after that?’

‘Yes. Dad had an order to dispatch that day for a customer in London. I helped him box it, then we went to the station in Perth and put it on a train. That would have been around nine in the evening.’ She paused. ‘Hey, I signed the dispatch slip, and it has the time on it!’ Her face lit up with relief.

‘After that we came back home and had supper with Mum. I told them all about the film. We sat up until about one in the morning.’

It was my turn to grin with relief. I mean, you don’t fancy even the outside possibility that your girlfriend’s sister might be a knife-wielding maniac, do you? ‘Dawn, that’s brilliant,’ I said. ‘Dylan won’t be able to lay a glove on you.’

‘Should I go to the police?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s think about that one for a while.

‘One thing though. Just remember, if and when you do see Mike Dylan, don’t mention a word to him about the bank account. If he should ask you about it, look blank, then tell us.’

She nodded. ‘Okay. What about the fiver? Who’s got that?’

I looked at Prim. Prim looked at me, and shook her head, imperceptibly. ‘The important thing, Dawn,’ I said, ‘is that whoever killed Willie doesn ’t have it. They couldn’t find it at the time, but they sure as hell want it now.’ I thought some more, and as I did, there was a loud creak from the hallway. Prim drew a finger across her throat in a ‘Keep your mouth shut!’ sign, then rubbed her face quickly with her hands to clear away the traces of her earlier tears.

Looking at Mum and Dad Phillips in their churchgoing clothes, I had a sudden strange feeling that Prim, Dawn and I, the three of us, were time travellers, who had taken a flip back sixty years. Mum was dressed in a long brown velvet dress with a fur stole and a funny, shapeless wee hat that sat on top of her head like a cowpat. Dad wore a heavy black suit, with a jacket so long that it was almost a frock coat. He wore, big round glasses, and a gold watch chain hung across his waistcoat. His high shirt collar was starched stiff, and secured by a brass stud which showed just above the knot of his striped tie. I guessed that he was in his early sixties, his wife maybe five years or so younger. Each was probably around the same age as their clothes.

‘Primavera! When we saw the car, we hoped it was you!’ Mrs Phillips had a voice like a bell. It rang grandly around the room, and I thought for a second I could hear the glassware tremble. But it had a kind tone, and I knew at once that I was going to like her. Prim rushed across to the doorway and hugged her mother. Behind them, her Dad smiled awkwardly, as if taken aback by such a show of emotion. Then she turned to him, and pulled him to her also, kissing his cheek. I was surprised when his eyes glistened, and so, I think was he. I thought about shedding the odd tear myself, to spare the poor bloke’s embarrassment.

Eventually, they noticed that I was there. They couldn’t help it. I stood there in my jeans and tee-shirt, fidgeting and feeling as awkward as I ever had in my life. They didn’t stare at me, they just looked, as they’d probably look at a deer that wandered into their garden. ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes, as long as it doesn’t eat the tulips!’ Prim took pity on the alien life-form whom she’d brought into the house. She came across and wrapped herself around me, holding me like a drunk holds a bus-stop, as if he’s taking it home to the wife.

‘Mum, Dad. This is Oz Blackstone. He’s crackers, but I think you’ll like him. I do.’

How do you respond to an introduction like that? I came out with, ‘Pleased to meet you, after all this time.’ The words sort of fell out of my mouth. It was as if they’d been generated by something other than my brain. Without breaking Prim’s bearhug, I reached out and shook hands with them both.

Mrs Phillips looked me up and down one more time. ‘Well, Oz,’ she said, slowly, weightily. ‘I’ve waited a long time to hear my older daughter say something like that, so I’m pleased to meet you too.’ She flicked a finger towards Dawn and added, archly. ‘That one, of course, says something like that every three months or so, and from the way she was talking on Wednesday, I think we’re about to hear it again.’

‘That’s not all we’re going to hear, I hope,’ said Mr Phillips, eyeballing his wife meaningfully. He’s a dry sort, Prim’s father. He looks as if he was made from the wood he carves himself, and he tends to say not much more than one of his toy soldiers. But when he does contribute, it hits the spot.

‘All in good time, David,’ said Mrs Phillips, ‘but first, lunch. Come on, girls.’

‘I’ll help too,’ I said at once, faced with the possibility of being left alone with the totem pole. But it wasn’t that easy. ‘Not at all, Oz,’ said Mother. ‘You sit down.’ Prim looked back at me, smiling, as she followed her towards the kitchen.

Dad Phillips and I stood there for a few moments, in an awkward silence. And then he coughed, and I realised that he was even less at ease than I was. ‘This must be very, er, sudden, for you,’ I ventured. ‘Both daughters at home more or less out of the blue, and one of them with a bloke in tow.’

He eyed me, checking for any sign that I was humouring him. Then, all at once, he nodded and the ice was broken. ‘Yes, you’re right. I haven’t had much practice at small talk in recent years, not since I sold my factory. Elanore and I each have our own interests, and they tend to be solitary. She writes, I carve wood into interesting shapes and paint it. We don’t have many visitors, apart from the occasional girl chums our daughters bring with them. As a matter of fact, you’re the first man friend that Primavera’s brought here since she was at college.’

I beamed, bursting with pride, until very gently, he pricked my balloon. ‘She’s always been an individual, has Primavera. Odd tastes in most things.

‘What’s Oz short for?’

I told him. He nodded, in sympathy, I thought.

‘What do you do?’

I told him. ‘No divorce work,’ I added hastily.

He shrugged. ‘No matter. Someone’s got to do it. Does it pay well?’

‘I’m self-employed. I expect thirty grand net in a reasonable year. Forty in a good one.’

‘Mmmm.’ There was something in his ‘Mmmm’ that told me I’d passed my first test.

‘D’you play chess?’ said Mr Phillips, suddenly.

‘I know how the men move,’ I said guardedly. One thing more do I know. If anyone over sixty ever offers to take you on at dominoes, darts, chess or squash, be careful: especially if it’s squash. There’s nothing worse than being humbled at a young person’s game by someone who puts his bus pass at the front of the court and adjusts his knee bandages before you begin. I know this from experience.

‘That’s enough,’ he said, a decision made. He walked over to a side window and returned carrying, carefully, a chessboard on a stand. The pieces were set up, ready for battle. They were unlike any I had ever seen. The kings, queens and their courts were all hand-carved, in forms dredged from a clearly remarkable imagination. They were delicately painted and sealed in hard varnish, but there was no doubt as to which side was which.

The black pawns were twisted, leering goblins; the castles were tall forbidding tower; the knights were dragon heads; the bishops were horned, hunched things; the royal pieces were cloaked, and oozed menace from under their twisted crowns. The whites, on the other hand were smooth wee beauties. The pawns were beautifully armoured; the castles were straight and topped with tiny, carved, hand-coloured banners; the knights were plumed; the bishops carried crooks, and had long beards; the Queen was a perfect, narrow-waisted lady, with a wimple, rather than a crown; the white King had long, flowing hair, wore a simple, gold-painted circlet and leaned on a great broadsword.

I picked up the menacing black King. It was surprisingly heavy, and I realised that there was a weight set in its base. I held it up, and gasped at the way its pinprick eyes seemed to follow me, glowering.

‘Did you make these?’ I asked. ‘They’re brilliant.’

He smiled, and I could see that he was the sort of bloke who’s embarrassed by his talent. ‘Thank you. They’re just a one-off, though. I couldn’t do them commercially. Take too much time. My model soldiers are easier.

‘Right, Oz, you’re black.’ The game didn’t last long. He marched his soldiers out methodically, as I pursued my usual tactic of going for a quick kill, crashing my main attacking pieces all around the board, looking for an opening. He took my offensive apart, pawn by pawn, knight after knight, until all but nine of the men were on his side of the board. Finally he zapped me with a Queen-rook move that I saw only when I was beyond redemption.

He nodded as I tipped over my King. ‘Excellent. You’ll do for my daughter all right. People approach chess in the same way they approach their lives. You, Oz, play with your heart, rather than your head. Exactly like Primavera; you couldn’t be better matched.’

Right on cue, my beloved appeared in the doorway. ‘Come on you two. Lunch.’ She led us through to a long dining room at the rear of the house, where a long table — more Corleone Family than Addams this time — was set for five.

‘It’s as if we were expected,’ I said to Prim; quietly, I thought, but her mother can hear a mouse break wind at the foot of the garden.

‘Sunday, Oz,’ she boomed. ‘We always cook a big bird on Sunday. It does us for a couple of days.’ The big bird turned out to have been a goose, but before we got that far we were faced with the sort of thick soup that my Granny Blackstone used to make. You know the kind; you can draw your initials in the middle and they won’t go away till you spoon them up. As I tackled and conquered the strong-flavoured goose, I looked out of the window. The Phillips’ back garden was of the market variety. On one side vegetables were set out in rows; potatoes, carrots, leeks, pea stalks, runner beans. On the other, there were lines of raspberry canes, with strawberry patches next to the house and rhubarb under the boundary wall.

‘What do you do with all that?’ I asked Dad Phillips. ‘You can’t handle it all, surely?’

‘Of course we can,’ he said. ‘We’re not completely Norman Rockwell, you know. We do have a freezer. Everything we can’t eat fresh goes in there, potatoes included, either cut into chips or sauteed.’

Naturally, there were raspberries for desert.

As we sat over our coffee, Mr Phillips looked across the table at Dawn over the top of his big glasses. Suddenly he was stem. ‘Now, young lady. Perhaps you’ll tell us why we had the police at our door yesterday, looking for you.’

Dawn went white for a second, then flushed bright scarlet.

‘Didn’t they tell you?’ said Prim, with a combative edge to her voice.

At once, Dad Phillips abandoned his attempt to be the heavy father. It isn’t a role that suits him, anyway. ‘No, they didn’t. They said something about wanting her to assist with an enquiry in Edinburgh.’

‘Yes, that’s right. But it’s got nothing to do with Dawn really. A man was found dead in a flat in Ebeneezer Street, on my stair. The police want to talk to all the neighbours, to find out if they saw anything. But Dawn was here when it happened, so she can’t tell them anything. End of story.’

I could tell that he didn’t believe her. But I could tell also whose word is law in the Phillips family, when push comes to shove, and that, whatever was happening, he trusted her to handle it. Dad and Mum don’t really want to play in the Nineties, and sometimes the world frightens Dawn just a bit. If Semple House, Auchterarder, was an independent state, Prim would be Foreign Secretary.

‘Poor chap,’ he said. ‘Yet it was a bit much of the police to come chasing Dawn up here, in the circumstances. Could you two talk to them when you go back to Edinburgh?’ He glanced at me.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘That’ll probably keep them happy.’

‘What did you tell them?’ Prim asked.

‘They asked me a straight question, so I gave them a straight answer. I said that Dawn had been here, but that she was away for a day or two with a friend in Perth. I said that she’d be back on Sunday, and we’d ask her to contact them as soon as possible. They seemed happy enough with that.’

‘When are you two going back?’ said Mrs Phillips.

‘We thought we’d stay overnight,’ said Prim, ‘if that’s all right?’

‘All right! Of course it is. Your bed’s made up, Primavera. I put sheets on it after you phoned. Thee’s fresh linen under the stair for the fourth bedroom.’ My heart sank, and I think my face must have gone down with it, for Prim kicked me under the table. I supped my coffee to cover my tracks.

There’s not a lot you can do to escape a Scottish Sabbath, but eventually, after the girls had washed the dishes, Dad had massacred my goblin army on the chess-board a few more times, and we’d had totally unnecessary tea, scones and jam, Prim came up with a cover story. ‘Mum, I think I’ll take Oz to meet Julia.’ It was around 6.30 p.m.

‘Who’s Julia?’ I asked.

‘My best pal from school. I visit her every time I’m here. She lives at the other end of town. We’ll walk. Dawn, you come too.

‘Oz, go and get our stuff out of the car, there’s a love.’ Mrs Phillips was crossing the hall when I came back inside. When she noticed that I was carrying just one bag, she glanced at me and I’ll swear a tiny smile flickered around the corners of her mouth. I guessed that there was something left of the woman who had christened her daughter after the time of her conception. She’s a great believer is Prim’s Mum. She believes in God, in her family and in all of life’s certainties; the return of the seasons, and all that.

Of course, Julia wasn’t in. We could have telephoned first, but we didn’t. Instead we walked all the length of Auchterarder’s Main Street to find out, then made a detour up to the Gleneagles Hotel, which turned out to have been our real objective after all.

I thought we’d be lucky to be served in denims, but the Phillips sisters are well known there. We sat in the big bar sipping half-pints of Pimms, which Dawn insisted on buying with her movie money. Eventually I asked her how much she was being paid. When she told me I think she heard me grind my teeth. Sometimes it takes me more than six months to make the dough that Dawn was earning for a couple of weeks’ work.

‘Don’t think it’s all like that. Once this gig is over, chances are I’ll be back in Edinburgh, doing stock plays at the Lyceum and being paid sweeties for it. That’s if I’ve got a job at all.

‘I won’t complain if that’s how it turns out. I like the Lyceum. You feel really close to your audience there, and the regulars feel close to us. Our Chairman came up with a really good idea last year. He started a theatre club for us performers and for our season ticket holders and regulars. We’ve got our own bar, and we can go in there after rehearsal — anytime really — and mix with the punters, making them feel part of the theatre family. We get some odd sorts turning out.’ Her expression darkened all of a sudden. ‘That’s where I met Willie.’ She sat there for almost a minute, in silence. Prim and I said nothing, letting her come through it in her own time. At last a faint smile returned to her lips. ‘Willie. A bird with a broken wing all right.

‘But he was just one among many. We’ve got a real cross-section of members. We’ve got civil servants, lawyers, a couple of hairdressers, housewives, flash young guys out to pull an actress. We’ve even got a member who’s a prostitute. She offered Rawdon a freebie one night! I doubt if he took her up on it though! Oh yes, and we’ve got one policeman. A real Mr Plod, but he’s dead keen. Surprising: you’d never guess it to look at him. McArthur, his name is.’

My eyebrows rose. ‘What! A big beefy bloke with a red face?’

‘Yes, that’s him. He comes to every play, and he’s in the bar about every second night.’

‘My God,’ I said, shaking my head in disbelief. ‘McArse the theatregoer. You never know the hidden depths of people.’

It was just after nine-thirty when we finished our third round of Pimms and decided that it was time to call it quits. Night was still a way off as we strolled up the Gleneagles driveway and out towards the road, but the sun had gone and there were patches of darkness under the trees. IfAuchterarder is famous for anything other than Gleneagles, it’s because it lays claim to the longest Main Street of any Scottish town. All of it lay between us and Semple House as we turned into it and set off three abreast, with me in the middle and Dawn on the outside.

A pint and a half of Pimms seemed to have relaxed Dawn. As we walked she asked us how we had traced her, and laughed as Prim described our encounter with Rawdon Brooks. ‘Poor old Rawdon,’ she laughed. ‘You shouldn’t be hard on him. I know he’s outrageous, he’s a bit of a junkie, and he could seduce the College of Cardinals, but he’s really nice. Gay men can be the kindest people, you know. There’s no-one better when it comes to sharing your troubles. No offence, Prim, but they’re even better than sisters.

‘You can tell them anything you like, and they won’t hold it against you, or tell a soul. So many people have cried on Rawdon’s shoulders, they must be mildewed. He helped me a lot when I was going through agonies with Willie. He did his best to help Willie too, being a friend, and making him ask himself whether he was certain about what he was doing.’

‘A real heart of gold,’ I said, and she dug me in the ribs with her elbow.

‘So tell me, you two. What d’you think I should do, then?’ she asked, lisping slightly.

‘No doubt about that,’ I said. ‘First thing tomorrow you should get your shapely arse back up to Connell or wherever the next stop is, and cuddle up to the leading man. “Tell her if she’s got a problem, Old Miles’ll sort it out.” That’s what he said. I’ll tell you, I reckon he could, too. When you’ve got as much clout as Miles Grayson, you can sort out most things.

‘Yes, Dawn. You head back to the Highlands and cuddle up to Miles.’

She looked up at me, then across at her sister. ‘Hey, Prim,’ she called. ‘Where did you find this guy? I like the way he thinks!’

We were laughing so loud we might have not heard the car, but there was something about the engine tone that broke through to me, something about the way it kept on revving when the driver should have been changing gear. I looked up, just in time to see a black shape, travelling flat-out, swerve and head towards us, at racing speed, climbing on to the pavement.

If there had been a high wall on the other side of us we’d have been dead. All of us. But, thank God, there was only a low stone thing, with a sickly privet hedge behind it. The car was almost on us as I grabbed each sister around the waist and jerked them off their feet — diving, plunging over the wall and through the hedge. In mid-air, I felt something catch the outside of my left foot, twisting it, but somehow we made it, all three of us, to the other side.

Behind us we heard a crunch, the sound of breaking glass and the scream of metal as the speeding car crashed into the wall. We lay there breathless waiting for it to stop, but it went roaring on, on down the longest Main Street in any Scottish town, and away into the gathering night.

I helped the girls to their feet and looked around. We were in a long garden. It stretched for at least a hundred yards, up to a big detached villa. We waited for lights to come on but none did. Amazingly, no lights came on in the surrounding houses either. Auchterarder’s a bit like that. Plenty of Levites, but not too many Samaritans.

Eventually, I took a chance and stuck my head out of the garden, checking to see if the black car had come back, if it was lying out there, waiting for another shot. I felt like a character in a Stephen King novel.

‘Who was it?’ said Prim behind me. ‘Did you see?’ It was remarkable that not one of us thought for a second that it might have been a drunk driver.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Och it was probably a drunk driver.’ Even through the gloom, I felt the eyes of the Phillips sisters boring into me.

‘Did you get the number?’ asked Dawn.

‘Do us a favour. I was too busy saving your life.’ I shuddered and tried to replay the scene in my mind’s eye. Again, I saw the car screaming towards us. I tried to freeze the picture. Suddenly, unexpectedly fragments of detail came back. ‘A Mondeo, I think. Navy or black. “N” registered.’ I tried to push everything else from my mind. ‘The last two registration letters could have been “BL”. But I couldn’t swear to it.’

‘“BL”?’ said Dawn. ‘Then it could have been hired.’

‘How do you work that out?’ asked Prim.

‘The film unit have hired minibuses. And Miles has a big stretched Ford thing. They all have “BL” registrations. But what does that tell us?’

‘It could tell us that whoever did that didn’t want to be putting their own car in for repair. Or it could tell us that it was a visiting Yank, driving, pissed, away from Gleneagles.’

We stood there for another five minutes, waiting, listening, watching every passing car, before we braved the road again. My jarred foot pained me with every step I took. We had been walking, or in my case limping, for less than a minute, when a taxi drove by, I hailed it and it stopped. The driver was a guy in his late twenties. He knew Prim and Dawn from school.

As we drove towards Semple House, I squeezed Dawn’s hand. ‘Hey. Remember what I was saying about cuddling up to Miles.’ She nodded. ‘I don’t think you should wait till morning. I think you should go tonight.’

‘Why? You don’t think that was meant for me, do you?’

‘No, of course not. I can’t think why it should be meant for any of us. But whoever that was, it wasn’t an autograph hunter. The best place for you is back with the crew.

‘Tell your Mum and Dad you have to be back early. Then get on your way. Tonight.’