The Crow Road

CHAPTER 17

The line went dead. Twenty thousand kilometres away — and a lot more than that if you took the satellite route my words had — a man put the phone down on me. I listened to the electronic buzz for a while, then replaced the onyx handset in its gold cradle.

I put my hands between my knees, looked out through my own reflection in the study windows to the darkness of the park and the string of orange lights along Kelvin Way, and felt a cold, sick feeling coiling in my belly. I was running out of excuses for doing nothing.

If Lachlan Watt had said "What?" or "How dare you! or something like that; even if he'd just denied it — indignant or amused — and perhaps especially if he asked me to repeat what I'd just said, I'd have had some doubt. But to put the phone down… Did that make sense? I mean, you're living quietly in Australia, the phone goes, and somebody you last remember as a kid in Scotland has the nerve to ask if you ever slept with his aunt in her marital bed. Do you put the phone down without another word it the answer's No?

Maybe you do. Everybody's different. Maybe I still didn't know enough. I lowered my head to the green leather surface of the antique desk and banged my head softly a couple of times, my hands still clasped between my knees.

I'd been putting this off for days. And anyway weeks had passed. First, Ashley's mum hadn't had Lachy's number, then she got it off somebody else in the family, then it turned out it was an old number (I hadn't tried it anyway) and he'd moved, then there was a delay getting the new number, and when Mrs Watt did phone up with it, I'd dithered. What was I supposed to say? How did I broach the subject? Come right out with it? Talk round it? Hint? Accuse? Make up some story about a just-discovered will, with a bequest to the one man she'd been unfaithful with? Or the one she'd most enjoyed being unfaithful with? Should I pretend to be a lawyer? A journalist? Offer money? I fretted for days and could have gone on doing so for months.

I'd stayed in Glasgow that Thursday night, completing a paper on the effect of industrial growth on the drive towards the unification of Germany in the eighteenth century; it wasn't actually due in until the following Friday, but I reckoned that slamming the blighter in a whole seven days early would keep the Prof. happy.

I'd turned one of the late Mrs Ippot's first-floor reception rooms into a study, moving a giant oak and leather desk over to the window with the help of Gav and Norris; I'd bought a PC similar to but faster than the machine at Lochgair and plonked it roughly in the middle of the mega-desk, where it looked a bit lost, but clashed nicely. For the essay on German unity, I'd surrounded the computer with a dozen delicately beautiful pieces of Meissen pottery. Whether they had any positive effect on the worth of the paper I don't know, but they were a lot more soothing to look at while I was searching for inspiration than a blinking cursor.

I'd finished the paper about 2am and printed it out. I thought about getting in the car there and then, dropping the paper through the letter-box of a pal who'd take it in to the department for me tomorrow, and then heading for Lochgair. But I was tired, and I'd already told mum I'd be down in the morning; I didn't want to wake her by arriving in the middle of the night.

So I'd had a whisky and gone to bed.

The main bedroom in Mrs Ippot's expansive town house contained a canopied four-poster about the size of a double garage, the sleeping surface of which was about the same height as a mini's roof. The posts were telegraph-pole thick; highly polished mahogany carved into representations of fairies, elves and gnomes, all stacked like little caryatids. I liked to imagine they were the work of an Amerindian totem-pole maker who'd read too much Tolkien.

The centre-piece of the bedroom was a vast chandelier cut from ruby-coloured Murano glass; it hung like a glistening spray of frozen blood from the centre of a gilt-smothered ceiling whose few flat patches were covered in paintings of cherubs and fawns cavorting in a sylvan landscape that appeared to be equal parts Rubens and Disney.

The walls of the room, when not hidden from view by the bed's luxurious (but Islamically abstract) brocade side curtains, were covered with huge Rococo canvases of Venus in various guises, settings and ages, though all shared the same state of déshabillé and a rotundity of figure that must have required the painterly equivalent of soft-focus to appear so leniently attractive.

Where the walls did not glow with acres of flesh, they reflected that golden voluptuousness with great gilt-frame mirrors which almost visibly strained the walls they hung on, and which, I couldn't help but notice, also provided rather a good view from and of the silk-sheeted bed. I'd understood Mrs Ippot had been elderly and frail when she died, but I rather hoped she'd had more fun in the bed than just lying there contemplating the condign punishment I'd decided she had devised for her immediate family (certainly I had yet to share the space between those sheets with anybody, though the bedroom's sheer scale and stateliness did lend masturbation an air of solemnity and arguable dignity the apprehension of which had previously quite passed me by). Even the bedside tables were Chippendale; one of them was topped with a large cut-crystal Venetian vase which I kept fruit in, when I remembered. Otherwise it played host to the little lump of concrete that had been part of the Berlin Wall, which Ashley had given to me over a year earlier.

The bedroom also contained the greater part of Mrs I's collection of camphor-wood chests; a few too many, perhaps. Despite the visual and tactile splendour, olfactorily it was like sleeping in a chemist's.

However, the sad truth is that being surrounded by art treasures designed to excite the eye, gladden the gland and animate the avarice does not guarantee a full night's kip. I'd woken at about half-six, lain there restlessly for a bit, then given up trying to get back to sleep and got up to have some toast and a cup of tea.

I'd put the TV on in the kitchen and found we were at war.

I sat and watched it for a while; heard the CNN guys in Baghdad, saw the reporters report from Saudi airfields, listened to the studio pundits gibber about surgical strikes and pinpoint accuracy, and discovered that, these days, war is prosecuted, not waged. Actually, both words struck me as possessing greasily appropriate connotations in the circumstances.

"Fuck it," I said to myself. What was telephoning somebody you hardly know on the other side of the planet and asking them impertinent questions about their sex life, compared to this gratuitous malfeasance? I strode up the stairs to the reception-room study, determined to make the phone call.

I settled on the direct approach and the truth about myself.

And Lachy Watt put the phone down on me.

Maybe he just wanted to get back to the TV and watch our exciting Third World War for a bit.

I'd stayed in the Lochgair house over Hogmanay itself. We had plenty of drink in, and mum and I had prepared loads of food, but not many people actually visited after the bells. Verity went to bed about ten past midnight after struggling to stay awake from about ten o'clock. She had a very small glass of whisky at the bells. Some people from the village came in about one, Aunt Tone and Uncle Hamish arrived about two for half an hour of strained conversation, and some of James's pals called in after four, but mostly it was just mum, Lewis, James and I together. James conked out about six, but Lewis and I were determined to see the dawn come up just on principle.

We sat in the conservatory, talking and listening to CDs on the gateaux blaster, which I'd brought down with me from Glasgow because it sounded better than the Golf's own sound system (which anyway didn't include a CD player). We were drinking whisky, chasing it with pints of mineral water; pacing ourselves. Lewis felt we were both starting to nod off at one point and so suggested a game of chess. I mooted for the River Game, but we'd have had to have dug the board and everything out and read through all the rules, so we decided chess would be simpler.

"I've been too sensible," I told him, while pondering a pawn exchange.

"Sensible?" Lewis sounded surprised. "You?"

I grinned. "Well… Look at me; I'm studying, I'm living quietly, I'm coming home to mother each weekend… I even bought a sensible, reasonably cheap car. All that money I got… " I shook my head. "I'm twenty-two; I should have blown it all on floozies or dangerous drugs, or just took off round the world, or bought a Ferrari."

"You can't buy a Ferrari for forty grand," Lewis said, chin in hands, studying the board.

"I didn't say it had to be a new one."

Lewis shrugged. "Well, you've still got most of the dosh. Go ahead; go do some of that stuff."

"Yeah, but I sort of promised mum I'd get this degree."

"Okay, so wait till the summer and then do it."

"But mum'll just worry if I get a fast car."

"So take off round the world."

"Yeah. Maybe. I might."

Lewis looked up at me. "What are you intending to do, anyway, Prentice?" He grimaced, stretched, rubbed his face. "I mean, are you still just going to wait and see who's recruiting graduates and then take what sounds like the best job, or have you settled on something yet? Something you actually want to do?"

I shook my head. "Still open, that one," I said. I took the pawn Lewis had offered. He looked vaguely surprised. "I still like the idea of just being a historian," I told him. "You know, ideally. But that means staying in academia, and I don't know if that's what I want. Somehow I don't think they let you go straight from graduation onto prime-time TV with a twenty-six part dramatised history of the world."

"Sounds a little unlikely," Lewis agreed, taking my pawn. "You given up on the diplomatic service?"

I smiled, thinking back a year to Uncle Hamish's party. "Well, I'm not sure I'm cut out for that. I've met some of those people, they're bright… But in the end you have to do as you're damn well told by fuckwit politicians."

"Ah! Politics, then?" Lewis said.

I bit my lip, looking the length and breadth of the board, trying to work out if the bishop I wanted to move next was going to cause any problems in its new position. "Na, I should have started by now anyway, but… shit; you have to make deals. You have to lie, or come so damn close to lying it makes little difference. It's all so fucking expedient, Lewis; they all have this thing about my enemy's enemy is my friend. 'He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch. I mean; good grief. What a crock of shit that is. I despair for our species."

"Not politics, then."

"I wonder if Noam Chomsky needs an assistant," I said.

"Probably got one," Lewis said.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Probably."

Lewis looked quizzical. "Everything else all right?"

"Yeah," I said, feeling awkward. "Why?"

He shrugged, studied the board again. "I don't know. I just wondered if there was anything…»

"Hi guys."

We both looked over to see Verity, hair in spiky disarray, face soft with sleep, wrapped in a long white towelling dressing gown, padding into the conservatory holding a glass of milk.

"Morning," I said.

"Hi there, darlin," Lewis said, swivelling so she could sit on his lap. She put her head on his shoulder and he kissed her forehead. "You okay?"

She nodded sleepily. Then she straightened, drank some milk and ruffled Lewis's hair. "Might get dressed," she said, yawning. "Been having nightmares."

"Aw," Lewis said tenderly. "You poor thing. Want me to come to bed?"

Verity sat on Lewis's lap, rocking back and forth a little, her bottom lip pouting. She frowned and said, "No." She smoothed Lewis's hair again. "I'll get up. You finish your game." She smiled at me, then looked up. "Nearly dawn."

"Why, so it is," I said. Beyond the glass of the conservatory there was just the faintest hint of grey in the sky over the house.

Verity waved bye-bye and went off, head down, rubbing her eyes, back into the house.

I moved the bishop. Lewis sat and thought.

I had won a knight and another pawn for the bishop when Verity came back. She was washed and dressed; she looked fabulous in leggings and a black maternity dress with a black leather jacket over the top. She stood at the doors, clapped her hands together and — when we appeared quizzical — waved some keys at us and said, "Fancy a drive?"

We looked at each other and both shrugged at the same time.

We took Lewis and Verity's new soft-top XR3i — roof down, heater up full — out into the grey-pink dawn and drove through Lochgilphead and then into Gallanach and just cruised about the town, waving at the people still walking around the place and shouting Happy New Year! at one and all. Lewis and I had brought the whisky, just in case we met anybody we felt we ought to offer a dram. So we started with each other, and all that water during the night must have done us the power of good because the whisky tasted great.

(I'd looked back at the castle, as we'd passed the hill on the outskirts of Gallanach, feeling guilty and ashamed and nervous because I still hadn't done anything about my suspicions, but telling myself that I still didn't have any real evidence, and anyway I was off-duty now; this was the season to have fun, after all. Hogmanay; let's-get-oot-oor-brains time. And, naturally, an end-of-year truce. Hell, it was traditional.)

"Let's go down Shore Road and drop some whisky on that grave dad hit!" Lewis shouted suddenly. "Mr Andrew McDobbie 1823–1875 and his wife Moira 1821–1903 deserve to be thought of at this time!"

"Ugh, you ghoul," said Verity.

"No," I said. "It's a great idea. Verity; to the church!"

Which is how we came to find Helen Urvill and Dean Watt wandering through Gallanach along Shore Road, arm in arm. Dean was playing — necessarily softly — on his Stratocaster, while Helen held a bottle of Jack Daniels. They were being followed by a bemused-looking dog.

"Happy New Year!" shouted Dean Watt, and struck a chord. There ensued a great deal of Happy New Years; the mongrel that had been following Helen and Dean joined in by barking.

There were lots of hugs and handshakes and kisses too, before Helen Urvill yelled, "Yo Verity!" as she hung on Dean's shoulder and breathed bourbon fumes at us. "You sober, girl?"

"Yep," Verity nodded briskly. "Want a lift anywhere?"

Helen swung woozily round to look at Dean, who was fiddling with a machine-head. "Well, we were heading back for the castle… " She frowned deeply, and her eyes flicked around a bit. "I think… " She shrugged; her thick black eyebrows waggled. "But if you're going somewhere…»

"Let's go somewhere," Verity said to Lewis, who was in the passenger's seat. "Somewhere further." She nudged Lewis.

"Okay," Lewis said. "Got a full tank; where we going to go?"

"Oban!"

"Boring!"

"Glasgow!"

"What for?"

"How about," I suggested, over the noise of the barking hound. "That bit north of Tighnabruaich, where you can look out over the Kyles of Bute? That's a nice bit of scenery."

"Brilliant!" Lewis said.

"Great idea!"

"Let's go!"

"Get in, then."

"And let's take the dog."

"Is it car-trained?"

"Who cares? We can point it over the side if it comes to it."

"Fuck it, yeah, let's take the mutt."

"Might not want to come," Dean said, and handed the Fender to Lewis, who put it at his feet with the neck by the door, while Dean knelt down by the side of the dog, which was sniffing at the rear wheel of the Escort.

"Course it wants to come," Helen said, with the conviction only the truly drunk can muster. "Not a dog been born doesn't like sticking its nose out a car window."

"Here you go," grunted Dean, lifting a puzzled-looking canine of medium build, indeterminate breed and brownly brindled coat into the car and onto my lap.

"Hey, thanks," I said, as Helen clambered in beside me and Dean squeezed in on her far side. "So it's me that gets to find out if this beast's shit-scared of driving."

"Ah, stop whining," Helen said, and pulled the fishy-smelling dog away from me to plonk it in Dean's lap.

"All set?" asked Verity.

"I wonder if its wee eyes'll light up when the brakes go on?" Dean said, trying to look into them.

"All set!" Helen yelled, then did some yodelling as we did a U-turn and went smoothly back through the town. Helen offered me some Jack Daniels, which I accepted. We still shouted Happy New Year! at people, and the dog barked enthusiastically in accompaniment; it didn't seem in the least discomfited when we left Gallanach and headed through Lochgilphead and away.

We stopped briefly at Lochgair. I ran into the house. Mum was up, washing dishes. I kissed and hugged her and said we'd be a few hours. Not to worry; Verity was bright as a button and so sober it ought to constitute a crime in Scotland at this time on a Hogmanay morning. She told me to make sure nobody else drove, then, and be careful. She made me take a load of sandwiches, dips and God-knows what, two bottles of mineral water and a flask of coffee she'd just made, and I staggered out the house and had to put most of it in the convertible's rather small boot, but then that was that and off we went through the calm, brightening day, playing lots of very loud music and munching through the various bits and pieces of food I hadn't stashed in the boot. Dog liked the garlic dip best.

"I don't give a fuck what colour he is; a man who can't pronounce his own name shouldn't be in charge of the most destructive military machine the world has ever seen," I heard Lewis say, while I sat looking at Dean Watt, and thought, Shit, not again.

"She did, did she?" I said, trying to look pleased. "Well. Good for her. Nice chap, is he?"

Dean shrugged. "Okay, ah suppose."

We were sitting on the rocks beyond the car-park crash barrier at the viewpoint above West Glen, overlooking the Kyles of Bute. The island itself stretched away to the south, all pastel and shade in the slightly watery light of this New Year's morning. The waters of the sound looked calmly ruffled, reflecting milky stretches of the lightly clouded sky.

Damn, I thought.

Ashley had got off with somebody at Liz and Droid's party. Dancin and winchin, as Dean had put it. Then gone off together. And suddenly I felt like it had happened again. Maybe not quite as stylish as jumping off your uncle's Range Rover into your future husband's arms, but just as effective. My heart didn't exactly go melt-down this time, but it still wasn't too pleasant a feeling.

Dean seemed happy to adjust his Strat and pick out the occasional tiny, tinny-sounded phrase; Lewis and Verity and Helen were arguing about the coming war. Or at least Lewis was ranting and they were having to listen.

"Aw, Hell," Lewis said. "I'm not arguing he isn't an evil bastard…

Ashley, I thought, staring out into the view. Ashley, what was I thinking of? Why had I taken it so slow? What had I been frightened of? Why hadn't I said anything?

Hadn't I known what it was I wanted to say?

" — democracy and freedom, what Our Brave Boys are actually going to be fighting for is to restore the nineteenth century to Kuwait and defend the seventeenth century in Saudi Arabia."

Now I thought I knew what I wanted to say, but it might already be too late. The knowledge and the provenance of its uselessness were the same; a feeling of loss I couldn't deny. Did that mean I was in love with her? If I was, it felt quite different from what I'd felt for Verity. (Verity sat at Lewis's side, huddled in her leggings and leathers and wearing Lewis's startlingly bright skiing jacket, all orange and purple and lime; she looked like a little psychedelic blonde Buddha perched on the tartan car rug.) Something calmer than that, something slower.

" — ternational law is only so goddman sacrosanct when it isn't something awkward like the World Court telling America to quit mining Nicaraguan harbours."

But perhaps I was wrong about Ash being interested in me, anyway. Ashley was the one I remembered talking to in the Jac that evening after Grandma Margot's cremation; she was the one who kept telling me to tell Verity I loved her. If you love her, tell her. Wasn't that what she'd said? So if Ashley felt anything for me beyond friendship, why hadn't she said anything to me? And if she did feel anything, what was she doing going off with this friend of Droid's?

" — next time the US wants to invade somewhere and see what happens; out'll come that good old veto again. Heck, we got lots of practice using that. We'll do it if the Yanks don't. Panama? This place with the ditch? You don't like the guy in power any more after paying him all that CIA drug money over the years? Ah, why not? On you go. Seven thousand dead? Never mind, we can hush that up."

Could I finally be right, and a woman was taking up with somebody else to make me feel jealous? I doubted it. Maybe she had been patiently waiting for me to tell her how I felt, or make some sort of move, and now she was fed up waiting, so all bets were off. But why should she have been so passive? Was Ashley that old-fashioned? Didn't sound like it; from what she'd told me, it was her who went after that Texan systems analyst, not the other way round. If she'd fancied me at all she'd have said or done something about it before now, wouldn't she?

" — resolutions are fine, unless they're against Israel, of course, in which case, Aw sheeit; you guys just stay in them Golan Heights, and that Gaza Strip. Shoot; them Palestinians probably weren't — aw, gosh-darn; did I say shoot them Palestinians? Well, hell no, we won't mention that. Twenty-three years the Israelis have been ignoring UN resolutions and occupying foreign territory; south, east and north. Hell's teeth, they'd probably invade the Mediterranean if you told them the fish were Palestinian. But does the US lay siege to them? Impose sanctions? Like fuck, they bank-roll the place!"

Maybe she did think of me as a brother. All those times I'd rambled drunkenly away to her about how much I loved Verity and what a hard time I was getting from everybody, and how wonderful Verity was, and what a poor, hard-done-by kid I was, and how much I loved Verity and how nobody understood me, and how wonderful Verity was… How could you expect anybody to listen to all that moronic, self-pitying, self-deluding crap for so long and not think. Poor jerk?

" — we paid him to fight the Iranians for us, but now the scumbag's getting uppity, so we'll pay other scumbags like Assad to help fight him, and it'll all happen —»

Unloading all that stuff on Ash; most people would have told me to fuck off, but she listened, or at least didn't interrupt… but what must she have been thinking? The response just couldn't be, Oh, he's so sensitive, or Oh, what a deep capacity for lurve this young fellow has… Poor jerk. That about covered it. Or just, Jerk.

" — a modern day Hitler it's Pol Pot; even Saddam Hussein hasn't obliterated two million of his own people. But does the West mount a crusade against that genocidal mother-fucker? No! We're supporting the vicious scumbag! The United fucking States of America and the United fucking Kingdom think he's just the bee's knees because he's fighting those pesky Vietnamese who had the nerve to beat Uncle Sam —»

But maybe she hadn't really got off with this guy. Maybe it was all a mistake, maybe there was still a chance. Oh shit, I thought, and watched a seagull glide smoothly through the air below us, over the tops of the trees and the bundled rocks that led down to the distant shore.

"Oh," said Verity suddenly, and clutched her belly, and looked wide-eyed at Lewis, who was in full flight over the vexed sands of Kuwait, and apparently quite beyond verbal interception.

" — Sabra and Chatila; ask the Kurds in Halabja — " He stopped dead, looked at his wife, who was still clutching her belly, looking pleadingly at him.

Lewis's jaw dropped and his face went white.

Verity hugged herself, put her head between her knees and started to rock back and forth. "Oh-oh," she said.

Lewis staggered to his feet, hands flailing, while Verity's shoulders started to quiver. The dog, which had been snoozing at Lewis's feet, jumped up too.

"Verity, what's wrong? Is it —?" began Helen, leaning over and putting an arm on Verity's shoulders.

"Who's the least drunk?" Lewis hollered, gaze oscillating rapidly between the car parked a few metres behind us and his wife, sitting rocking back and forth and shaking. The dog barked, bouncing up on its front feet, then sneezing.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" said Verity, as Helen hugged her.

"Aw Christ," said Dean. "Verity, you're no about to drop, are ye?"

Lewis stood with his hands out, fingers splayed, eyes closed, on the rock. "I don't believe this is happening!" he yelled. The dog barked loudly in what sounded like agreement.

Helen Urvill, her face down at Verity's knees — where Verity's head was still wedged — suddenly slapped Verity across the back and rolled away, laughing.

Dean looked confused. I felt the same way, then realised.

Lewis opened his eyes and stared at Helen lying laughing on the rock.

Verity rose quickly and gracefully, her face pink and smiling.

She stepped up to Lewis and hugged him, rocking him, her face tipped up to his as she giggled. "Joke," she told him. "It isn't happening. I keep telling you, this baby's going to be born in a nice warm birthing pool in a nice big hospital. Nowhere else."

Lewis sagged. He might have fallen if Verity hadn't held him. He slapped both hands over his face. "You unutterable… minx!" he roared, and put a hand to each side of Verity's grinning face, holding her head and shaking it. She just giggled.

So we sat and had some coffee and sandwiches.

"Damn fine coffee," muttered Lewis.

Well, he had a tartan shirt on.

We drove back later; I watched buzzards and crows and gulls stoop and wheel and glide across the under-surface of thickening grey cloud. We were all very tired save Verity, and I must have fallen asleep because it came as a surprise when we had to stop to put the top up, in Inveraray, when the rain came on. It was a cramped, claustrophobic journey after that, and the dog whined a lot and smelled.

We got to Lochgair; I staggered into the house, collapsed into my bed and slept for the rest of the day.

I kept missing Ashley after that. Whenever I rang the Watt house she was out, or asleep. She rang me once, but I'd been out walking. Next time I called she had caught the train for Glasgow, en route for the airport and London.

Tone and Hamish's usual post-Hogmanay soirée had been even more subdued than usual. Hamish had given up drink, but apparently found his heretical ideas on retribution more difficult to jettison, and so spent most of the evening telling me — with a kind of baleful enthusiasm — about a Commentary he was writing on the Bible, which cast new light on punishment and reward in the hereafter, and which had great contemporary relevance.

I drove back to Glasgow on the fifth of January. After New Year's Eve, watching Fergus show off his new plane, I hadn't visited the castle again.

Two weeks later, after I had had my abbreviated conversation with Lachlan Watt in sunny Sydney, I set off for Lochgair at nine that Friday morning, listening to the war on the radio for as long as I could, until the mountains blocked out the signal.

War breaks out amongst the oilfields and the price of crude plummets. From being an ally so staunch he can missile American ships and it passes as an understandable mistake, and gas thousands of Kurds with barely a gesture of censure (Thatcher promptly increased his export credits, and within three weeks Britain was talking about all the lovely marketing opportunities Iraq represented; for chemicals, presumably), Saddam Hussein had suddenly become Adolf Hitler, despite more or less being invited to walk into Kuwait.

It was a war scripted by Heller from a story by Orwell, and somebody would be bombing their own airfield before too long, no doubt.

From Glasgow to Lochgair is a hundred and thirty-five kilometres by road; less as the crow flies, or as the missile cruises. The journey took about an hour and a half, which is about normal when the roads aren't packed with tourists and caravans. I spent most of the time shaking my head in disbelief at the news on the radio, and telling myself that I mustn't allow this to distract me from confronting Fergus, or at the very least sharing my suspicions with somebody other than Ash.

But I think I already knew that was exactly what would happen.

And Ash… God, the damn thing may be just muscle, merely a pump, but my heart really did seem to ache whenever I thought of her.

So I tried not to think about Ashley Watt at all, utterly unsure whether by doing so I was being very strong, or extremely stupid. I chose not to make an informed guess which; my track record didn't encourage such honesty.

Mum dropped her laser-guided bombshell over lunch that day. We were sitting in the kitchen, watching the war on television, dutifully listening to the same reports and watching the same sparse bits of footage time after time. I was already starting to get bored with the twin blue-pink glowing cones of RAF Tornadoes" afterburners as they took off into the night, and even the slo-mo footage of the exciting Brit-made JP-233 runway-cratering package scattering bomblets and mines with the demented glee of some Satanic Santa was already inducing feelings of weary familiarity.

On the other hand, such repetition left one free to appreciate the subtler points in these reports that might otherwise have gone unnoticed, such as the fact that the English could pronounce the soft ch sound, after all. The little rascals had only been teasing us all these years, saying «Lock» Lomond and «Lock» Ness! Why, it must be something genetic, we'd all thought. But no! Places like Bah'rain and Dah'ran were rolled confidently off the tongue by newsreader after newsreader and correspondent after correspondent as though they'd been using the technique for years.

Unfortunately, rather like a super-gun, there appeared to be a problem traversing such a sophisticated phonetic delivery system, and while the Arabian peninsula obviously lay in the favoured direction, nowhere unfortunate enough to be located to the north of London seemed able to benefit from this new-found facility.

"Oh," mum said, passing the milk across the kitchen table to me, "assuming we're all still alive next Friday, Fergus has asked me to the opera in Glasgow. Is it all right if we stay with you?"

I watched the lines of tracer climb above Baghdad, impotent spirals of light twisting to and fro. I felt frozen. Had I heard right? I looked at my mother.

She frowned. "Prentice, are you okay?"

"Wha —?" I said. I could feel the blood draining from my face. I put the jug down, feeling as white as the low-fat it contained. I tried to swallow. I couldn't talk, so I settled for clearing my throat and looking at mum with a interrogatory expression.

"Fergus," mum said tolerantly. "Invited me to the opera in Glasgow, next Friday. May we stay with you? I assume there's room… I do mean separate rooms, Prentice." She smiled. "Are you all right? You're not worried about the war, are you? You look white as a sheet."

"I'm fine," I waved one hand weakly. Actually I felt sick.

"You look sick," mum said.

I tried to swallow again. She shook her head. "Don't worry, Prentice. They won't conscript you; you're far too Bolshie. I really wouldn't worry."

"Hg," I said, almost gagging.

"Is that all right? Are we allowed to stay with you? Does your lease, or whatever, cover that?"

"Ah," I said at last. "Yeah." I nodded, finally swallowing successfully. "Yeah, I think so. I mean, of course. Yes. Why not? Loads of room. What opera? What are you going to see?"

"Macbeth."

Macbeth! "Oh," I said, trying to smile. "That's Verdi, isn't it?"

"Yes, I think so," mum said, still frowning. "Would you like to come? It's a box, so there should be room."

"Um, no thanks," I said. I didn't know what to do with my hands, which seemed to want to shake. Finally I shoved them in the pockets of my jeans.

"You sure you're all right, Prentice?"

"Of course!"

Mum tipped her head to one side. "You're not upset because I'm going out with Fergus, are you?"

"No!" I laughed. "Why, are you?"

"We've partnered each other at bridge a couple of times. He's a friend, Prentice, that's all." Mum looked puzzled.

"Right. Well," I said. "Yes, of course there's room. I'll… no problem."

"Good," mum said, and clicked a couple of sweeteners into her tea. She was still looking at me strangely. I turned and watched the war for a while. Jumping Jesus, now what?

I sat at dad's desk. It took longer to write down what I suspected than I'd thought it would. I started with pen and paper, but my writing looked funny and I kept having to dry my hand. Finally I used the computer and printed out what I'd typed. I put the sheet of paper in an envelope and left it lying in the top right drawer of the desk. I wished dad had had a gun, but he hadn't. I settled for the old Bowie knife I'd had since my Scouting days, sticking the leather sheath down the back of my jeans. I changed into a T-shirt and a shortish jumper so that 1 could get at the knife quickly, feeling frightened and embarrassed as I did so.

Mum was in what had been a spare bedroom, constructing the harpsichord. When I stuck my head round the door, the room stank of varnish and the sort of old-fashioned glue you'd rather not know the original source of. "I'm just going up to the castle, to see Uncle Fergus," I said. "You reminded me: there are some pieces of Lalique in the house I'm staying in. I thought I'd have a talk to Fergus about them, see if he fancied bidding for them when the contents are eventually auctioned."

Mum was standing at the work-bench, dressed in overalls, her hair tied back. She was polishing a piece of veneer with a cloth. "Pieces of what?" she said, blowing from the side of her mouth to dislodge a wisp of hair that had escaped the hair clasp.

"Lalique. René Lalique. Glass; you know."

"Oh, yes." She looked surprised. "Fergus'll see them on Friday, won't he?"

"Well, they're in storage in the cellar," I said. "I haven't actually seen them. They're in the inventory. I took a note of them. But I thought if he did want to look at them, maybe I could look them out in time for Friday."

"Oh." Mum shrugged, tipped oil from a bottle onto the brown-stained cloth. "Okay, then. Say hello from me."

"Yeah," I said. I closed the door.

I walked away thinking I should have said more, should have said… well, the conventional things you tell people when you're going in fear of your life. But I couldn't think of a way to say them that wouldn't sound ridiculous and melodramatic. I'd closed off the letter I'd left in the desk with quite enough of that sort of thing, I thought.

I took the Golf out of Lochgair, along the Gallanach road. The Bowie knife was an uncomfortable lump down and across the small of my back, its wood and brass handle cold on my back at first, then warming.

I stopped and made a phone call in Lochgilphead.

"Mr Blawke, sorry to trouble you at home —»

Ostensibly I was just checking out whether it was all right for me to mention the Lalique to Fergus, before the expensive French glass-ware was included in any auction, but really I was making sure the lawyer Blawke knew where I was going.

It wasn't until I was at the foot of the castle driveway that I realised all this time I'd just been assuming Fergus would be there. As I hesitated, hands shaking on the wheel, it occurred to me there was probably a good chance he wasn't. I hadn't checked, after all, and Fergus frequently went away for the weekend; maybe he wasn't at the castle. Relief coursed through me, along with an annoying current of shame that I felt so relieved.

I took the Golf up the drive.

The gravel circle in front of the castle held five cars, including Fergus's Range Rover. "Oh God," I said to myself.

I parked the Golf behind a Bristol Brigand which sat half on the gravel and half on the grass. I walked up to the doors and rang the bell.

"Prentice!" Mrs McSpadden roared. "Happy New Year to you."

"Happy New Year," I said, realising only then that I hadn't seen Mrs McS since the turn of the year. I was permitted to kiss the formidable ramparts of one of Mrs McS's cheeks. "Is Uncle Fergus in?" I asked. Say, No, I thought, Say, No!

"Aye, he is that," she said, letting me into the castle. "I think they're playing billiards. I'll take you up." She stood aside to let me into the entrance hall with its glassy-eyed audience of stags" heads.

"Actually, it's sort of personal," I said, smiling faintly, aware I was blinking a lot.

Mrs McS looked at me oddly. "Is that a fact? Well, then, would you wait in the library?"

"Ah… all right," I said.

We walked through the hall. "Isn't this Gulf thing terrible?" Mrs McSpadden shouted, as if trying to be heard there. I agreed it was terrible. She showed me into the library, on the other side of the lower hall from the kitchen entrance. I stood in there nervously, trying to breathe normally, letting my gaze flick over the ranked rows of impressive, dark leather spines. I wished my own was half so noble and upright. The room smelled of leather and old, musty paper. I went to look out one of the room's two small windows, at the garden and the wood beyond. I adjusted the knife down the back of my jeans so that I could get at it easily.

"Prentice?" Fergus Urvill said, entering the library. He closed the door behind him. He was dressed in tweed britches and a Pringle jumper over a checked country shirt, with thick socks and brogues. He brushed some grey-black hair away from his face. His jowls flexed as he smiled at me, lifting a little from the collar of his shirt.

I cleared my throat.

Fergus stood there, his arms folded. After a moment he said, "What can I do for you, young man?"

I moved from the window to the large wooden table that filled the centre of the room, and put my hands lightly on its surface to stop them shaking. A seat back pressed into my thighs.

«Fergus…» I began. "I wondered… I wondered if you knew where… where my Uncle Rory might be."

Fergus frowned, then one eye closed and he sort of cocked his head. Still with his arms folded, he leaned forward a little. "Sorry? Your uncle —»

"Uncle Rory," I said. Maybe a little too loudly, but at least my voice didn't sound as shaky as I'd expected. I lowered it a little to say, "I thought you might have an idea where he is."

Fergus stood straight again. The frown was still there around his eyes, but his lips were smiling. "You mean Rory, who disappeared…?"

"Yes," I nodded. My mouth felt dry and I had to fight to swallow.

"I've no idea, Prentice." Fergus scratched behind one ear with one hand. He looked mystified. "Why do you think I might know?"

I felt myself blinking too much again, and tried to stop it. I took a breath.

"Because you got a man called Rupert Paxton-Marr to send match-book covers to my dad." My hands were shaking even though they were planted on the surface of the table. I pressed down harder.

Fergus rocked back a little on his brogues. His frown-smile intensified. "Rupert? Sending your dad… what?" He looked a little amused, a little confused, and not nervous in the least. Oh God, what am I doing? I thought.

Of course, I hadn't thought to bring any of the match-book covers with me. "Match-book covers," I said, my dry throat rasping. "From all over the world, so that dad would think Rory was still alive."

Fergus looked to one side and unfolded his arms, sticking his hands in his pockets. He looked up at me. "Hmm. Would you like a drink?" he said.

"No," I told him.

He moved to the other end of the table, where there was a small wooden desk like the top of a lectern. He opened it and took out a squat decanter and a crystal glass. He took the glittering, faceted stopper out of the decanter and poured some of the brown liquid into the glass, frowning all the time. "Prentice," he said, shaking his head and mating stopper and decanter again. "I'm sorry, you've lost me. What are you… what is… what do you think is going on? Rupert's sending, or was sending Kenneth…?"

"Match-book covers, from hotels and restaurants and bars in various parts of the world," I told him, as he stood, relaxed, one hand in pocket, one hand holding the glass, his face scrunched up in the manner of one trying hard and with some sympathy to understand what another is saying. "Somehow," I struggled on, "they were meant to convince dad that Rory was still alive. But I think he's dead."

"Dead?" Fergus said, drinking. He nodded at the seat I was standing over. "Aren't you going to take a seat?"

"No thanks," I said.

Fergus shrugged, sighed. "Well, I can't imagine… " The frown came back again. "Has Rupert told you he was doing this?"

"No," I said.

"And are you sure it wasn't Rory?" Fergus shrugged. "I mean, was it his handwriting?"

"There wasn't any handwriting."

There wasn't… " Fergus shook his head. He smiled, an expression that looked to be half sympathy and half incomprehension. "Prentice, I'm lost. I don't see… " His voice trailed off. The frown returned. "Now, wait a moment," he said. "You said you thought I might know where Rory is. But if he's dead…?" He stared, looking shocked, into my eyes. I tried hard not to look away, but in the end had to. I looked down at the table-top, biting my lip.

"Prentice," Fergus said softly, putting his glass down on the table. "I've no idea where your uncle is." There was silence for a while. "Rupert is an old school friend of mine. He's a journalist who goes all over the world; he's out in Iraq at this moment, in fact. I haven't seen him for a couple of years, though he used to come and shoot on occasion. He is a bit of a practical joker at times, but… " Fergus looked thoughtful. He shrugged. "Rory did tell me something once about setting fire to a barn on the estate once; accidentally, when he was very young. That might tie in with these match boxes… " He shook his head, inspected the contents of his glass. "But I don't think I ever mentioned that to Rupert."

I felt sick. "Nothing about… some pieces of writing makes any sense, does it?"

"Writing?" Fergus said, tilting his head, one eye narrowing. He shook his head. "No. Whose writing?"

"Rory's. Based on something that you saw here; up in the roof-space of the castle, and which you told Rory when you were in that bothy together. The night you shot the rat."

Fergus had leaned forward again. He looked totally bemused. Finally he jerked upright and laughed. He looked at the glass he held. "Maybe I should lay off this stuff. You're making less and less sense as you go along here, Prentice. Rory and I did spend a night in a bothy once, on the estate. But there wasn't any… rat." He smiled and frowned at the same time. "Or any shooting. I don't think we even had guns with us; we were fishing some of the out-of-the-way lochans and streams." He sighed, giving the impression of patient weariness. "Is this something you've read?"

"Yes," I conceded.

"What, in your father's papers, since his death?" Fergus looked as though he felt pity for me.

I nodded, trying not to look down from his gaze. "Sort of," I breathed.

"And who is meant to have seen what?" He raised one finger to his mouth, bit briefly at a nail and examined it.

"None of that makes any sense to you, does it?" I said. "No… confession, revelation? Nothing to do with Lachy Watt?"

Fergus looked hurt. He swirled the glass, drained it. "That was a very long time ago, Prentice," he said quietly.

He looked at me more sorrowfully than accusatorily. "We were only children. We don't always appreciate the seriousness of what we do… " He glanced at his empty glass… "when we're younger."

He put the glass on the table.

I couldn't match his gaze, and lowered mine again. I felt dizzy.

I heard Fergus take in a breath. "Prentice," he said, eventually. "I was quite close to Kenneth. He was a friend. I don't think we saw eye-to-eye on anything really, but we… we got on, you know? He was a gifted man, and a good friend, and I know I feel the loss. I can imagine how you feel. I… I've had my own… What I mean is, it isn't an easy thing to cope with, when somebody that close dies so suddenly. Everything can look… Well, everything can look very black, you know? Nothing seems right. You even resent other people their happiness, and, well, it just all seems very unfair. It is a terrible strain to be under; don't think I don't appreciate that. And just now, when the world seems… " He took another deep breath. "Look, old son —»

"I'm sorry," I said, stopping him. I smiled shakily. "Uncle Fergus; I'm very sorry I came here. I've been silly. I don't know what I was… " I shook my head, looked briefly down. "I don't know what I was thinking. I've not been getting much sleep recently." I smiled bravely. "Watching too much television, maybe." I waved one hand round a little, as though flailing out for something just beyond reach, then shrugged. "I'm sorry," I concluded.

Fergus looked serious for a moment. Then he gave a small smile. He crossed his arms again. "Oh well. I think everything looks a bit sort of mad, really, at the moment, doesn't it?"

"A bit," I agreed. I sniffed, wiped my nose with a paper hanky.

"Sure you won't have that drink?" Fergus said, nodded, stuffed the hanky back into my jeans. "No thanks, I have to drive. Better be getting back."

"Right you are," Fergus said.

He saw me to the door. He patted me on the shoulder as I stood in the doorway. "Don't worry, Prentice, all right?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Oh, and I don't know if your mother's mentioned it —»

"Opera; Friday." I smiled.

Fergus smiled too, jowls wobbling. "Ah, she has."

"Yes. No problem," I said.

"Jolly good. Well, that's all right then." He offered me his hand.

We shook. "Thanks, uncle," I said. He nodded, and I walked down the steps and across the gravel to the Golf.

He waved goodbye from the steps, looking concerned but encouraging.

I let the Golf trundle down to the bottom of the hill, where the drive levelled out and joined the tarmac single-track which swept round the base of the hill towards the main road between Gallanach and Lochgilphead. At the junction I stopped. I just sat there for a while. I raised my right hand and looked at the palm for a while, then spat on it and rubbed it hard on the side of my thigh. I tore the knife and its sheath out from my jeans and threw them down into the passenger footwell. I looked in the rear-view mirror, where I could just see the reflection of the top of the castle — its battlements and silver observatory dome — through the limbs of the leafless trees.

"Guilty as charged, you bastard," I heard myself say. Then with a quick look either way, I revved up, slipped the clutch and sent the VW screaming along the road away from the castle.

The courtyard was empty and the house storm doors were shut when I got back to Lochgair. I parked the Golf in the yard and got out; my hands were shaking. I felt like getting furiously drunk. I stood there, breathing hard in the calm air, listening to gulls crying above the drive down towards the loch, while crows crackled in the trees around the house like some drunken chorus, scornful. My heart was thudding now and my trembling hands were slick with sweat. I had to rest back against the side of the car. I closed my eyes. The cries of the birds were replaced by a roaring noise in my ears.

Jesus, I thought, if this was how I felt, how must Fergus be reacting, if I was right, and he was guilty? Now would be the time to watch him, study him. But I could barely have walked just then, let alone drive back to the castle, even if I had been able to summon up the courage to return.

Eventually I felt better again, and instead of going into the house, went for a walk through the woods and the forest and up into the hills, and sat on an old ruined wall on the hill topped by the cairn where dad had told us about the mythosaurs, all those years ago. I looked down to the trees and the loch in the pastel light cast by the bright, gauzy overcast, while the mild wind freshened. I replayed that scene in the castle library time after time after time, imagining that I remembered every word, every movement, every nuance of tone and phrasing, every millimetric increment of body language, trying to work out whether I was being terribly sensitive and acute, or just insanely fanciful and paranoid.

Sometimes I thought it was perfectly obvious that Fergus was utterly genuine, and all my ideas, all my suspicions were demonstrably ludicrous. Of course the man was innocent; I was insane. Guilty as charged, indeed; who was I to judge?

Other times it was as though his every inflection and gesture shrieked artifice, lies, deception. Very good deception, cunningly deployed lies and artful artifice, but everything false all the same.

He had reacted just as you would expect somebody to react. But was that the way somebody actually would react? I didn't know, and could not decide.

I got so angry and confused at it all I threw my head back and screamed at the grey sky, roaring full force, all noise and no meaning till my lungs emptied and my throat ached. I doubled up, coughing and spluttering, eyes watering, feeling marginally better but looking round guiltily, hoping nobody had heard or seen. Only a couple of crows answered, harsh voices calling from the trees beneath.

I'd chosen a vantage point from which I could watch the road and the house, and only went back down there when I saw mum's Metro turn off the loch road from Gallanach and flicker like a green ghost as it moved up the drive, half-obscured by the trunks and branches of the bare, grey oaks.

I suppose I was uncommunicative with James and my mother that evening; I spent most of the time in dad's study, reading and rereading the three pieces Rory had written about himself, Fergus, Aunt Fiona and Lachlan Watt. I looked through some of Rory's diaries, gritting my teeth at the impenetrable paucity of their desiccated information. I turned on the Compaq and looked at the letter I'd written that morning. Damn; found a spelling mistake that had got through the spell-checker; «saw» where I'd meant to type "was'.

I started drinking whisky after dinner, sitting at the desk in the study at first, craning over its leather surface, sifting through the various papers and diaries, my eyes getting sore. I nearly spilled my whisky into the Compaq at one point, so I turned off the little green-shaded light on the desk and went over to the couch, taking all the bits and pieces with me. I switched on the standard lamp behind me and lay lengthwise on the couch, surrounded by paper. I had the TV on with the sound turned down most of the time, using the remote to turn it up whenever it looked like there was something interesting coming in from the Gulf. I heard James go to bed about eleven-thirty. Mum looked in to say good-night about twelve. I waved, wished her pleasant dreams and kept on reading.

I woke up just after two with the whisky glass balanced on my chest and my eyes feeling gritty. I finished the whisky even though I didn't really feel like it, then went to bed. I drank some water before I fell asleep.

The clock said 4:14 when I woke up, my bladder just at that point where it might or might not be possible to fall asleep again without having to go for a pee (it didn't usually wake me with so poor an excuse). I lay there for a bit, listening to soft rain hitting the bedroom window. Maybe that was what had woken me. I turned over to go to sleep again, then suddenly started to wonder if I'd turned the computer off. I had the feeling that I had, but 1 couldn't actually remember doing so. Fuck it, I thought; it would be safe enough. I rolled over onto my other side.

But my bladder had woken up properly in the meantime and was demanding attention. I sighed, swung out of bed, not bothering with my dressing gown even though the house had grown a little chilly by now. There was an orange night-light plug in a socket in the corridor; I decided to save my eyes from the shock of putting on any more powerful illumination and navigated the anyway familiar route to the bathroom by the plug's pale orange glow.

I sat in the darkness, peeing. A sort of quarter-erection had made it advisable to sit down. I smiled, remembering Lewis's spiel about trying to pee when you had a full bladder and a full erection at the same time. I flushed the toilet, washed my hands and drank some water from the tap. Mum must have been varnishing some part of the harpsichord earlier, judging by the smell in the corridor. I padded along to the study.

could just make out the dim shape of the desk and computer on the far side of the room when I opened the study door. I couldn't hear the Compaq's fan running, or see a light on, but I went over to it anyway. I stood with my thighs against the wood and leather back of the desk's chair, and leant forward, pressing the computer's disk eject button in case I had switched it off but had left a disk in it. No disk. I yawned, straightened, and rubbed the inside of my right fore-arm where it had brushed against the glass shade of the little desk light. The shade had been hot.

There was a little red dot glowing on the dark screen of the computer monitor; must be the reflection of the TV on the other side of the room. Ha; so I had left it -

I froze, suddenly wide awake.

Why was the light shade hot?

The little red light reflected on the screen winked out, as though suddenly obscured.

I threw myself back from the desk, just starting to sense movement behind me; I fell backwards as something dark scythed past in front of my face and a noise like the wind terminated in a splintering crash. Somebody — just a silhouette in the dim vague shadows of the room, lit only by the feeble light spilling from the hall night-light — stumbled forward, just behind where I had stood, arms reaching in front of them, pulling something long and dark and thin out of the wrecked back of the seat. The figure started to turn as I landed heavily on my back on the rug; I kicked out at their nearest knee, wishing I was wearing my Docs. Or anything, come to that.

I felt my heel hit their leg. "Huh!"

Sounded male; he staggered a little, then came forward at me, one arm raised as I started to roll, suddenly feeling very vulnerable and naked. A smashing noise sounded from overhead; metal and glass. I kept rolling, pushing up with my hands and leaping to my feet. Glass was falling from the ceiling as something thudded into the floor where I'd lain. I was at the man's side as he staggered forward, raising the bar or jemmy or whatever the hell it was from where it had struck the carpet. I kicked him in what I hoped was the kidneys and watched him stumble to one side, then something banged into the top of my head and hit my shoulder, contusing me. My feet crunched over something hard on the rug as I staggered. More light from the hall, as I stood swaying, dazed, and the attacker recovered. I could see him better now; all in black. Gloves, balaclava. His build…

"Uncle Ferg?" I heard somebody whisper. It sounded like me.

"Prentice?" said a woman's voice, distantly, worriedly, from the corridor.

I watched the man in front of me seem to hesitate, arm raised. I was falling. I staggered backwards, trying not to fall, crashing into a filing cabinet.

"Prentice!" mum screamed, somewhere. Then; "James! Get back!"

The dark figure looked towards the hallway, where the light was. I nearly fell round the side of the filing cabinet, then pulled myself up on some shelves, staring back at the black-dressed man in the middle of the room. There was movement at the study door; sparks flashed in the middle of the ceiling. I clutched at something on the bookshelf; graspable, heavy enough; an ashtray or bowl. I threw it, heard it hit his body and clunk to the floor. He still stood there, maybe only for a second or so, but it seemed like an eternal hesitation, while he glanced from me to the hallway again. I thought I heard a door slam. I roared, shouting incoherently the way I had on the hillside that afternoon as I stumbled from the shelves, past the filing cabinet and nearly fell over the desk while he came forward at me, arm raised again; I picked up the computer's keyboard from the desk, hauling it bursting free and swinging it as hard as I could at him as he brought his arm down.

There was a terrific, bone-ringing crash that seemed to infect the whole world, like an electric shock and a thunder-clap and an earthquake all at once. There was an odd pattering and clinking noise from every part of the room. I stood, holding nothing, blinking in the darkness while somebody moved stumbling away, obscuring light.

I felt weird. My feet and arms and head felt buzzy and sore, but when I felt my head I couldn't feel any blood. Feet felt slippy. I heard the phone on the desk make a noise, and picked it up, still dazed.

"Which service?" said a man's voice.

"Police!" I heard my mother shout.

"Sorry," I mumbled. I put the phone down, pushing myself away from the desk. I tripped on the pale remains of the keyboard. Its lettered keys lay scattered about the floor like teeth. I stubbed my toe on something, bent down and picked up a long steel bar. I limped to the top of the stairs in time to see the front door slam shut.

My head felt buzzy again; I went into the kitchen, found the broken door lock and two full red plastic petrol cans sitting on the kitchen table, then got back out into the hall, still holding the steel bar even though it was beginning to feel very heavy, and shouted, "Mum? Mum; it's all right! I think… " before I had to sit down at the kitchen table, because my tongue had suddenly become a clapper in the bell of my skull, and my head was ringing. I put my arms on the table and rested my head on them while I waited for the echoes in my head to go away.

"Welcome to Argyll," I told myself.

The kitchen light was painfully bright when it went on. Mum brought me my dressing gown and put a blanket over my shoulders and made me drink heavily sugared tea, and I remember thinking, Sugared tea; dad must have died again, and mumbling something about having a flag in my foot when mum washed them and put bandages on them, and wondering why she was looking so upset and James so frightened; then police came. They seemed very large and official and asked me lots of questions. Later, Doctor Fyfe appeared looking slightly dishevelled, and I recall asking him what he was doing up at this time in the morning, and how he was these days. Old ticker holding out all right, was it?