wed me. My two bairns are away in London.”
“Sinners.”
The joke fell flat. “Aye,” she wheezed over the frying bacon. “I pray for them night and day.”
“I walked out this morning,” I said hopefully as the porridge came.
“Aye. You were seen.”
The laconic shutout. I bent to my spoon. “I thought I saw Hector walking Tessie and Joey.”
“No, man. He’d be away in the opposite direction, on the…” Mrs. Buchan’s voice trailed off as Robert’s massive hulk emitted a warning rumble.
“Lovely dogs,” I said casually, reaching for hot new bread.
Eating always cheers me up. And happiness brings luck, though folk mistakenly assume it’s the other way round. Nice knowing that the cottage Hector inspected every morning lay in the opposite direction to the place I’d just tried to reach. Progress in Tachnadray.
Duncan told me when I reported for work that Elaine had called a meeting tomorrow morning. I’d have to get a move on with Plan X.
« ^ »
—— 16 ——
You must have played that imagination game where you can have any woman (or man, mutatis mutandis) on earth? And “have” in any way you like? It used to be my big favorite until matters got out of hand, over this bird called Wilhelmina. She was a drama student and lived on Natural Earth-Friendly Pulses, which means beans. It ended in tragedy when, in the throes of orgasm, somebody (she claimed it was me) uttered a strange bird’s name. She played merry hell and stormed out in a rage. Naturally I missed her almost until the pubs opened, and felt the chill wind of economics because she’d paid the mortgage. Still, I got used to food again. God, those bloody beans. But the point of mentioning that dream game of yippee is, Shona was beginning to figure in my imagination. Disloyal to Jamie, of course, to think hopefully of Shona rapturously savaging my defenseless body. Only a heel would lust like that. Her great dog Ranter was the deterrent.
Duncan gave me permission to go into Dubneath that morning, to see what was available in a small lumber yard. It sounds quick and easy. In fact I had to walk four miles on the track to a cairn of stones and wait there on the bare hillside for a lorry to come by at half past ten. It was on time, driven by a warped old geezer called Mac whose one utterance was “Aye,” in various tones of disbelief. Oddly, I was almost certain I’d seen Robert stalking the upland stones while I’d waited, but looking more intently only seemed to make him vanish actually on the hillside. Clever, that. I got the lorryman to drop me on the outskirts of the megalopolis and walked in.
The lumber yard was soporific. A neat rectangle of sloped planks, a barrow, a wooden shed with a corrugated roof. A few pieces of secondhand furniture were covered by a lean-to on the side opposite the double gate. I shouted a couple of times, wandered a bit. The only rescuable items were a heavy rosewood desk, eastern, and a wellington chest whose top and side panels had split badly. Beggars can’t be choosers. I scribbled a note, offering for the two, and wedged it in the shed door saying I’d call back.
It was too early to phone Tinker, or call on Shona—I wasn’t going to risk that great silent dog without protection—so I went to see George MacNeish. He was doing out the saloon bar with Mary. They seemed honestly pleased to see me.
I pretended to stagger to a stool. “I’m in hell. No houses anywhere, and all the grub’s French.”
“That’ll be Michelle,” Mary said, smiling. “But Gladys Buchan’ll start you off right each day.”
“She tries.” I closed the door because two old anglers in tweedy plus fours were chatting in the parlor. “Look, folks. Who and where is this Joseph?”
The smiles faded. After a moment of still life I said, “I can’t go out and ask Mrs. Innes.
Everybody in Tachnadray shuts up if I mention him. It’s getting on my nerves.”
George was about to say something when Mary put in one breath ahead. “It’s no business of ours, Ian. Maybe you’ve been too long in the soft south. Up here family feelings are best not touched.”
“Seems daft to me. Okay, he drank. Is that enough to launch a bloke into oblivion? And where’s the harm telling me?”
George deliberately chose his words. “Joseph is a McGunn, so he’s rightly your clan’s responsibility, not ours. But to settle your mind: Joseph worked up at Tachnadray, yes.
And left under a cloud. That’s all. Now stop your asking, and stay mute like a canny man.”
“There!” I said with evident pleasure. “Wasn’t painful, was it? And look how relieved you’ve made me. Just for that, I’ll drag your wife down into her kitchen, bolt the door, and force her to warm up some of her rotten old moldy pasties.”
Their expressions lifted, and amid smiling prattle Mary started for the kitchen. I don’t know which of us was the more relieved as normality reasserted itself.
“Typical McGunn,” George mock-grumbled. “Always thieving.”
“Shut your face, MacNeish. Or I’ll take up golf and thrash you at your own game. Here, missus,” I said, slamming the kitchen door after me. “What’s this about the soft south?
I’ll have you know I work bloody hard down there…”
My heart felt sick, though I cleared Mary’s grub quick enough and kept up the rabbiting.
The MacNeishes had been generous enough to give me a warning when I’d left for Tachnadray, but now I needed to know something definite they’d handed me a load of codswallop. I didn’t believe that about Joseph leaving under a cloud. He was still around, and I badly needed to find him.
By eleven o’clock I was at the great Innes emporium, smiling as I entered and hoping to find it empty of customers. It was, but a glance at Mrs. Innes’s closed face made it apparent there’d be no joy there. She’d been
