‘What on earth’s that?’
‘These are yours. Your mum and dad asked me to bring them up.’
‘I don’t want them.’
‘Neither do they.’
‘Well, what are they?’
‘University stuff, I think. Where shall I put the box?’
‘Oh, just leave it there.’ She tutted. ‘They are dreadful. Fancy making you bring it all the way up here.’
She swaddled herself in a fake fur coat and entered a four-digit security code on some gizmo on the wall before stepping outside and closing the door behind us. The ground underfoot was a little slippery already, so she took my arm as we walked to the car. It was nice having her lean against me in this way. The texture of her fur coat was strangely comforting.
‘Ooh, lovely – a Prius,’ she said. ‘Philip and I have been thinking of getting one of these.’
I was about to tell her that it was actually the company’s, but I thought better of it. For some reason I liked the idea of her thinking that I owned it.
The car glided in its usual silent manner through these quiet, dark, secretive streets. The houses seemed massive and imposing, and there were few lights on in any of the windows. We had only been driving for a minute or two and already we had passed two police cars – one of them patrolling the streets slowly, the other parked at a kerbside. I mentioned this to Alison and she explained: ‘There are a lot of concerns about crime round here. You know, this area is full of millionaires – bankers, mostly – and there’s a lot of anger directed at these people at the moment. Just along the road there …’
She began telling me about some multi-millionaire financial wizard who lived in this street and had been brought in to run one of the major banks but had somehow managed to reduce its assets to nothing while simultaneously walking off with a fortune in personal bonuses and pension payments, but I wasn’t listening very carefully. I had already programmed tomorrow’s destination into the SatNav, so Emma now seemed to think that I was already on my way to Aberdeen, and was giving me directions accordingly:
‘Hold your horses,’ I told her. ‘That’s where we’re going tomorrow.’
‘Pardon?’ said Alison.
To my embarrassment, I realized that I’d interrupted Alison in mid-flow while she was telling me about this recent financial scandal. In fact for a moment, while Emma was talking to me, I’d almost forgotten that Alison was there.
‘Who were you talking to just then?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘It just didn’t sound as though you were talking to me, that’s all.’
‘Of course I was talking to you. Who else would I be talking to?’
‘I don’t know.’ She gave me a slightly worried, suspicious glance. ‘Your SatNav?’
‘My SatNav? Why would I be talking to my SatNav? That would be a crazy thing to do.’
‘Yes, it would.’
We dropped the subject and drove on to the restaurant.
It was a welcoming, intimate sort of place, located not far from the castle. The snow had more or less petered out when we arrived, but we were still glad to hurry out of the cold into that cosy interior, with its vaulted ceilings and bare stone walls. There were lots of little alcoves where pairs of diners could eat and talk to each other in relative privacy, and our table was in one of these. The waiter seemed to know Alison and was notably attentive and courteous while seating us. After scanning the list of intriguing, locally sourced dishes on the menu, Alison chose a goat’s cheese salad, while I went for smoked duck. To accompany these, she ordered a French Chardonnay priced at ?42.50. Luckily Alison had already offered to pay for the meal. I knew that I would have been pushing my luck too far if I’d tried to claim it on expenses.
‘So your husband’s in the Far East?’ I prompted, as we sipped the wine, which tasted to me much like the sort you can buy for five pounds at Tesco or Morrisons. ‘What’s he doing out there?’
‘Oh, visiting suppliers, I think,’ said Alison, vaguely. ‘He has to travel more and more these days. Actually he’s on his way back from Australia.’
‘I’ve just got back from Australia.’
‘Really? What were you doing there?’
‘Visiting my father.’
‘Oh, of course. I’d forgotten that was where he ended up. How did you find him?’
‘He’s … fine. In good shape.’
‘No, I mean – how did you get on with him this time? Because my memory is – and my memory may be wrong – that you were never that close to your father.’
I didn’t really want to talk about this, to be honest. What I really wanted to do was to get everything out in the open, and to blurt out something along the lines of how sorry I was that thirty years ago she’d caught my father having a wank over a picture of her that she’d never wanted him to take in the first place. But somehow, it was difficult to find the right words. Perhaps fortuitously, I was rescued at that moment by the ringing of my mobile phone. I looked at the screen and saw that the caller was Lindsay Ashworth.
‘I’d better take this,’ I said.
