My Bones Will Keep

you had not the appearance of a woman who had knocked at a back door.’

‘I’m ashamed of you,’ said Laura. ‘To think that I should listen to all of this rot, not only from my husband and the father of my child, but from a Scotsman born and bred!’

‘Talking of your child,’ said Gavin, ‘I sent for him. Doubtless that is the winsome boy even now at the door.’

‘Oh, no!’ cried Laura. The door opened and Hamish went straight to his father.

‘I have been in Scotland,’ he said. ‘I wore my kilt and grandfather bought me a new sporran. I can speak seven sentences in Gaelic. It rained most of the time. I can recite Cowrin’ Beastie. Grandfather once won a prize for tossing the caber. I have an inkpot made from a deer’s horn. Grandmother took me to the field of Bannockburn, but there were not any pits or any dead soldiers.’

‘You’ve had quite a time,’ said Laura, glowering at her husband who was laughing in a loud, rude way.

‘Well, you yourself can’t grumble,’ said Gavin. ‘A loch, an island, a treasure, two corpses and a couple of madmen…’

‘Oh, yes! Did you find out who the man was who was pushed under the car in Edinburgh before the rest of the fun started?’ asked Laura, abandoning her threatening attitude.

‘His name was Grant, not Dorg.’

‘Not another Grant?’

‘Yes, indeed. Father of the reporter.’

‘Who pushed him?’

‘Nobody knows, and never will now, I suppose, but in Edinburgh they think it was Bradan and a ship’s captain we contacted when I was on the other side. A barracuda overturned a small boat he was in while I was there and, as you probably know, the barracuda is a killer, so that captain’s day was done. He was a bit of a scoundrel, anyway.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘As I say, we didn’t, but they mix the drinks pretty strong in some of those ports and men are apt to talk in their cups. You were luckier. You only seem to have slept in yours.’

Laura put out her tongue at him, but only half-heartedly. She was thinking of a beautiful sub-tropical garden overlooking a shallow and idle bay with a formidable mountain on the other side of the water and a softly-spoken owner repeating the Latin names of both common and most exotic plants.

‘You don’t think,’ she said suddenly, ‘that young Grant knew that Bradan wasn’t dead when he stuck the skian-dhu into him?’

‘You mean because of his father?’

‘Yes. You see, he was there and saw it happen, just as I did.’

‘You’ve told me that. Would you have risked killing a man to avenge your father? I know I would.’

‘Yes, and if it was Uncle Hamish, I would, too,’ said Laura, decidedly. Her husband grinned

‘Uncle Hamish!’ he said. ‘Remember his telling us that Crioch means The End?’

‘Well, so it does,’ said Laura.

– «» – «» – «» –

[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[A 3S Release – v1, html]

[April 04, 2007]