wends its way from the town out to its most westward beach and back again. In the wind it's a swine, but on a balmy spring day it's one of life's great pleasures.
And yet as we made our way towards the turn, I could sense that there was an invisible cloud hanging over us, or over Mac the Dentist at least. Actually, I had sensed it the night before over dinner, when he had been quieter than usual. When he missed successive putts from under eight feet on the fifth, sixth and seventh greens, I knew for sure there was something on his mind.
'Out with it,' I demanded as we set off up the eighth. 'What's up?'
Jonny had pushed his drive to the right and was striding off after it.
In step with the arrival of his baritone, he'd grown a hell of a lot over the winter; although he was still a few weeks shy of fourteen years old, he was as tall as his Granddad and catching up on me fast.
'Nothing's up.'
'Dad,' I told him, 'the rest of your golf may be shite, but you are the best putter in life. You haven't missed three on the trot like that in my lifetime.'
He looked at the ground as he walked and shrugged. 'Ach, it's my eyes,' he muttered. 'They've been playing me up.'
'Bollocks,' I retorted. 'You spotted my second shot on the fourth when I'd lost sight of it. When we were driving through here you recognised that patient of yours in Pittenweem from three hundred yards away.
What's the score?'
'You're four up!'
'Not that score. Cut the crap, Dad. Telling me porkies only serves to confirm it.'
He stopped and sighed. 'Okay, there is. But let's not talk about it here, not with the boy around. Afterwards. Now come on, before we hold the course up.' He trudged off after his drive, which he had carved way out to the left; I had laid up with an iron off the tee, the only one of the three of us to find the fairway.
His mood seemed to improve after that. His concentration on the greens did, that's certain. He rolled in a few of his usual miracles and by the time we reached the seventeenth tee, he was only one down. He tugged his drive down the left and out of bounds, though, and that was curtains.
Since Jonny, playing off a handicap that would have to be revised, and quickly, had won our separate three- way points competition by that time, we agreed that we'd skip the eighteenth. Another of the pleasures of Elie is the pub near the fourth and final tees, placed strategically to lure those whose games have ended early, or on occasion those who lack the bottle to battle outwards into horizontal rain and gale-force winds.
We parked our clubs at the door… no worries: it's that sort of place … and wandered in. If we had taken Jonny in with us, the licensee probably wouldn't have minded, given the size of him, but I told him that while he might be tall enough to go into a pub, he wasn't old enough. He's an amenable lad, so he didn't argue.
The lounge section was empty, and so we chose a table in the corner. I bought Jonny a pint of orange and lemonade, a bag of crisps and a filled roll, and took them outside, where I found him sat on the wheel of my Dad's caddy-car, watching a match going up the fourth. Then I fetched a couple of pints of Eighty and four more rolls… it was still a while to dinner… and brought them across on a tray. I laid the plate on the table, put a pint in front of my Dad, returned the tray, sat down and growled, 'Right.'
'It's nothing I can't handle, son,' said Mac the Dentist, abruptly.
'If it's making you play like that, you're not fucking handling it. Now out with it.'
He gave another sigh, a huge one this time, and sagged back into his chair. He picked up his pint and looked at it. 'I'm driving,' he said. 'I shouldn't be drinking this.'
'We'll get a taxi. Now out with it.'
'There's no putting you off, is there? What if I just refuse to talk about it?'
'Don't bother thinking about that; it's not an option. Come on.'
He took a drink and a decision. 'Okay, if you insist. I'm being blackmailed.'
I felt myself stiffen in my chair. 'You're what?' It began as a roar, but I choked it down before the licensee took too much interest. 'What do you mean?'
He leaned his head back against the pub window, and stared up at the ceiling. 'The husband of a female patient came to see me,' he began, his voice loud enough for me to hear, but not to carry across to the landlord. 'This was three days ago, on Wednesday, my afternoon off;
I'd treated his wife the day before.' He paused and took another drink, and when he was finished so was his pint. I went to the bar, bought him another and brought it back. Anger was welling up inside me, but I kept it in check.
'Thanks, son.' His tongue was loosening. 'I did an extraction under sedation,' he explained. 'It's unusual these days, especially in adults; most people just go for locals. But not this woman. She said she had a phobia, and that the only way she could do it was if I put her under. So I did, yanked her tooth, made sure that she had come round okay, and that was that. I told her to sit in the waiting room for a couple of minutes, but she said she was fine and went straight out the door.' He paused to ingest some more ale.
'Next day, her weasel of a husband came to see me, and said that his wife had made a complaint against me. She'd claimed that when she started to come round from the anaesthetic, she realised that her knickers were down by her knees, her skirt was up round her waist and that I was feeling her up.'
'So why didn't she scream?'
'My question exactly. The husband said that at first it was like a dream to her, that I must have realised she was coming round early and straightened her up. Only she realised very quickly that she hadn't been dreaming. As his story went on, she got out fast, went home and asked her husband to take a look at her. He said that he did, and saw, as he put it, 'Clear signs of sexual interference.' Bastard!
Bastards!'
'So why didn't he go straight to the police? While the knickers in question were still moist, so to speak.'
'He said he wanted to spare you the indignity, you being a public figure and all that. He said he was sure I'd want to as well.'
'By how much did he reckon you'd want to spare me?'
'Fifty grand's worth.'
'Indeed,' I heard myself say, my voice grating. 'And if not?'
'The police and the tabloids.'
My anger had turned into rage, but not the kind that shows on the outside; this was like a great cold ball inside me, growing all the time. Then the obvious occurred to me.
'Wait a minute. You must have had a doctor there to give the anaesthetic. Surely he'll kick all this into touch.'
'Oh, I did; technically I wasn't anaesthetising the woman, only sedating her as I said, but I had Arthur Matthews in to do it. But that's the trouble. He can't back me up. He gave her the nitrous oxide all right, but the patient was no sooner under when his mobile went. A kid had been knocked down in the street, and he was the only doctor handy. He could see that everything was all right with the woman and he knows me well enough, so we agreed that he should get along there pronto. I never thought for a minute that I might be setting myself up, but I bloody well should have. I'm an idiot, son, and I know it.'
'You're not an idiot, Dad,' I told him, quietly. 'You're a very nice man who knows nothing of the dark side of human nature. So what do you plan to do? Go to the police yourself?'
He shook his head, firmly. 'Doing that would get you and Susie all over the bloody tabloids just as quickly, and inevitably mud would stick to me. I can't have that, for Mary's sake, or your sister's, or the boys'.'
'You're not thinking of paying them, are you?'
'If it comes to it.'
I could feel my eyes pulling at the corners as they narrowed. 'What's his name? This wee blackmailer, what's his name?'
'Neiporte.' He spelled it out. 'Walter Neiporte. He sounded American. The wife's name's Andrea; I'd say she was English. She said she works as a secretary in a hotel up behind Kingsbarns, and I believe that he's a lab technician at St. Andrews University. They haven't been on my list for very long. This was only the third time the woman had been to the surgery. He's never been.'
'Address?'
'They live in Pittenweem. Do you remember me slowing and looking at someone on the way through here? If
