‘Say, Lachlan, I gotta a question for you.’
It was Strawson again, calling to him from the bar. Kite heard a seagull clack in the sky above Killantringan. He called out: ‘Just a moment, sir,’ tipped the ash and butts from an evening of cigarettes into the bin, put the dirty glasses in the dishwasher and returned to the bar.
‘Yes, Mr Strawson. What can I do for you?’
‘You like a riddle, young man?’
‘A what, sir?’
‘A puzzle. A brain-teaser.’
About as much as I like eating cigarette butts or talking to strange Americans about school, Kite thought, but he put a professional smile on his face and said: ‘Sure.’
‘I was looking at your light switches there.’ Strawson indicated a panel of four switches beneath a reproduction oil painting of The Monarch of the Glen. ‘Reminded me of a riddle I was taught in the army back in the sixties.’
On Peele’s recommendation, Kite had seen The Deer Hunter and Full Metal Jacket and wondered with a buzz if he was talking to a real-life Vietnam vet.
‘What was the riddle, sir?’
Strawson twisted on the bar stool so that he was facing out into the room. The elderly couple had gone upstairs to bed. The Irishmen were laughing and drinking their pints. The wife of the French guest had momentarily left the room, leaving her husband alone with a copy of The Scotsman. Strawson had no other audience but Kite.
‘OK. There’s a room with nothing inside it except a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. There’s a door into the room. You are on the outside and you can’t see in. Next to the door are three light switches: call them A, B and C. One of them turns the light on and off. The other two are dummies. You have to work out which switch operates the light, but here’s the catch: you’re only allowed to go into the room one time.’
Kite barely understood what Strawson had told him and asked him to repeat what he had said. He was tired and not in the mood to think deeply about anything very much; he sensed that Strawson was trying to make a point about the limits of an Alford education. This irritated Kite, who was possessed of a strong streak of stubborn, competitive pride. He wanted to solve the riddle and prove the American wrong.
‘So the switches are all set to “off”?’ he asked.
Strawson smiled and nodded. ‘There are no tricks. It’s a regular room and it’s a regular lightbulb. A chair won’t help you. You don’t need a desk. You can’t see inside and you can’t open the door, look at the bulb and try the switches one by one. Somehow you have to work out which switch is connected to the lightbulb. A, B or C?’
Kite was not aware of the process by which he arrived at the answer, but it came to him within less than a minute. All it took was a quick walk down the passage, a few moments to clear his head in the hotel office, a glance up at the lightbulb blazing in the ceiling and he had it.
‘Heat,’ he said, walking back into the bar.
Strawson’s eyes glowed with admiration. ‘Go on,’ he said. Kite could tell from his expression that he had solved it.
‘You turn on switch A. You leave it on for five or ten seconds. You turn it off. Then you flick B, open the door and walk into the room. If the bulb is on, you know it’s operated by B. If it’s off but the bulb is hot when you touch it, you know that it’s operated by A.’ Strawson nodded appreciatively. Kite didn’t even need to finish but wanted to do so for his own satisfaction. ‘If it’s off and the bulb is cold, you’ll know the switch is C.’
Strawson slid off the stool, turned to face Kite and applauded quietly.
‘Very impressive, young man,’ he said. ‘Very impressive.’
All weekend the tests continued.
Just before six o’clock the following evening, Cheryl Kite was driving back from the Cash & Carry in Stranraer with a boot full of supplies for the hotel when she was flagged down by a middle-aged man whose car appeared to have a puncture. She was not far along the narrow, single-track road which ran downhill towards Killantringan past fields of heather and grazing sheep. Service was due to begin in the restaurant at half-past six (Mr Strawson, in common with many of his compatriots, preferred to eat early) and the last thing she needed was to be delayed by a motorist with a flat tyre.
Cheryl pulled up in front of the stranded Ford Cortina and immediately recognised the driver as one of two Irishmen who had been drinking in the bar the night before.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked, walking towards him. ‘Flat tyre?’
‘Oh thank goodness you’re here,’ the man replied. He was in his early fifties and looked very distressed. ‘We were down at Killantringan last night, d’you remember? We’re staying over at the Portpatrick Hotel. I’m Seamus. My friend here is in a bad way. He needs the hospital. Can you help us?’
Cheryl peered inside the car. Sure enough, the second of the two Irishmen was curled up on the back seat nursing what appeared to be an appalling stomach cramp. He was moaning and gasping. Cheryl wondered why the hell his friend hadn’t driven him straight to Stranraer.
‘You should take him to a doctor,’ she said. ‘Is there a puncture? Have you run out of petrol?’
‘I can’t drive,’ Seamus replied, looking utterly shamefaced. ‘Billy has a licence. Only he started feeling terrible twenty minutes
