TWENTY-NINE

The North Sea was grey and turbid, heaving to a slow, queasy rhythm. Harry stared out through the windscreen of Shona's car at its chill, blurry expanse from a parking bay on Aberdeen's esplanade, with Chipchase alternating heavy sighs and muttered curses beside him.

'Got a fag?' Chipchase asked suddenly.

'I gave up years ago.'

'Bloody hell.'

'Haven't you got your cigars with you?'

'I never smoke cigars before lunch, Lunchtime, anyway. A man buffeted by the cruel winds of fate as I've been can't be sure of—'

'Put a sock in it, for God's sake.'

'No need to be so tetchy.'

'Really? I'd have said there was every need.'

'The dead sister in Manchester was a low punch, it's true. I'd never have thought old Starkie had a sense of humour, albeit a sadistic one. Just shows how wrong you can be.'

'What are they up to, Barry?'

'Him and the now-you-see-her-now-you-don't Miss Rawson? Christ knows. Something deep and dark would be my guess. Bloody deep. And bloody dark.'

'Danger must have known all along Erica wasn't what she claimed to be.'

'So he takes a header from his own landing. And she disappears. Along with Starkie. Q. E. bloody D. We're Conference against Premiership here, Harry. Way out of our league.'

'We've got to do something.'

'You could try her mobile again.'

'Very funny.'

'Or we could just… head for the hills.'

'Which hills, exactly?'

'I don't know. We could make it to Ireland without passports. Lose ourselves out west. Hope they don't come looking for us.'

'But they would.'

'Not such a bright idea, then. Besides, I hear all the bars there are non-smoking now. Bloody savages.'

'We should head for the hills, though. The Aberdeenshire ones. I've just had an idea.'

'Here we go.'

'Start driving, Barry.'

'Where to?'

'Lumphanan.'

—«»—«»—«»—

The Clean Sheeters were scattered. Starkie and Erica Rawson had fled. But one horse, if Harry was any judge, would still be in his stable.

'Stronach knows something,' he said, as they sped west out of Aberdeen. 'I'm sure of it.'

'He was just the castle handyman, Harry. What could he know?'

'He kept his eyes peeled. He missed nothing.'

'If you say so.'

'He called the reunion risky.'

'Anything seems risky to a man like him. He's spent his whole miserable life in that village. Can you imagine how bloody narrow-minded that must make him? He's probably never been to Edinburgh, let alone London.'

'I'm not interested in his take on the Zeitgeist, just his pin-sharp memories of Kilveen Castle fifty years ago.'

'Sharper than ours, you think?'

'I'm betting on it.'

—«»—«»—«»—

'Barnett,' said Stronach by way of expressionless greeting when he opened the door of his cottage. 'And Chipchase. A well-matched pair, if ever there was. What can I do for you?'

'You can call this bloody dog off for a start,' shouted Chipchase, who had retreated towards the gate in the face of the Jack Russell's barking proximity to his ankles.

'You canna keep a good ratter down.'

'What the hell's that supposed to mean?'

'Don't make such a fuss, man. He won't bite, and, if he did, it'd only be a wee nip.'

'Can we come in?' Harry asked.

'You're no fugitives, are you?'

'No, we are not.'

'I just wondered. The P and J said the polis had taken in a couple of suspects for questioning after Dangerfield's murder. You two came straight into my head.'

'Did we really?'

'I told you you shouldn't have had any truck with a reunion.'

'So you did.'

'Och, well, come in, then, if you want. You'll have to take me as you find me, though, I warn you. I'm not exactly geared up for entertaining.'

—«»—«»—«»—

The degree of understatement in Stronach's warning was evident as he led them into a kitchen equipped in an antique style the National Trust would be proud to preserve, but not maintained in a fashion they would be pleased with. Most of the metalwork of the range was invisible under a crust of dried spillages and the table looked to be permanently laid for one, with a drift of breadcrumbs, tea leaves, bacon rind and tobacco covering most of its surface. At one end a pipe, pungent even though unlit, was propped in a saucer next to an egg-smeared plate and a grease-stained copy of the Press and Journal.

Stronach poured himself a cup of some treacle-coloured liquid from a teapot on the range and sat down at the table. He did not offer his guests any refreshment, for which Harry for one was grateful. The dog followed them into the room, paying close attention to Chipchase but no longer barking at him and not seeming to pose an immediate threat.

'What's brought you out here, then?' Stronach asked, eyeing them hardly less suspiciously than the dog.

'Why was the reunion such a bad idea?' Harry responded bluntly.

'You tell me.'

'We don't know.'

'What makes you think I do?'

'You said it was risky. Why?'

'I sensed it, you might say.'

'How about saying a bit more?'

'I know nothing, man.' Stronach loaded some tobacco into his pipe. 'For a fact.'

'Forget facts. What do you sense?'

'I'm not sure. I never have been.' The pipe was lit in what seemed a deliberately protracted procedure. 'But something wasn'a right up at Kilveen. You know that as well as I do. Probably better. Why were you there in the first place, for instance?'

'An experiment in teaching techniques.'

'Aye. Well, that was the story, wasn't it?'

'It was the bloody reality as well,' said Chipchase. 'We should know. We sat through it.'

'Did you? Sure of that, are you now?'

'Of course we're bloody sure.'

'Aye. I'd have said the same. I didn'a see so much of you, but Mrs Stronach cooked for you every day. Regular as clockwork. The whole time.'

'Yeah. I still get indigestion thinking about it.'

'What are you driving at, Stronach?' Harry asked, trying not to become impatient.

'Just this. You're not the first of your Clean Sheet band to come here, asking me questions about your spell up at the castle. No, no. Not by a long chalk. Nor by a long time. It must be more than twenty year since the black boy called round to see me.'

'The black boy? You mean Leroy Nixon came here?'

'He did that.'

'When?'

'Like I say. More than twenty year ago.'

'It'd have to be. He died in 1983.'

'And how did that happen?'

'He drowned.'

'Did he now? Do they have that down as suicide, accident — or another murder?'

'We don't know the circumstances.'

'Well, I'm sorry to hear it, anyhow. He was a good lad. Though far from a lad when I last saw him.'

'Do you think that was the year he died? Or earlier?'

'I canna say. He mentioned he was living in Brixton. There'd been race riots reported there. I asked him about them. You could place it from that, I dare say. It was this time of year, though. Spring. I'm sure of that.'

'What did he want to know?'

'It was… vague stuff. Like with yourselves. Something niggling at him. Some… doubts that wouldn'a go away.'

'He came all the way here from bloody Brixton to share a few doubts with you?' snapped Chipchase. 'Pull the other one.'

'It wasn'a just that.' Stronach paused for a puff at his pipe. 'Maybe I shouldn'a tell you. It could get us all into a lot of trouble. It might have got him drowned. And these other men killed. But at my age…' He smiled crookedly. 'I'm risking death every night just by going to sleep.'

'What did he want to know?' Harry repeated.

'Whether any of you had ever left the castle. Whether there were times I went up there and some of — or even all of — you were gone.'

'We were stuck there for the bloody duration,' said Chip-chase. 'Bar a fortnightly booze-up in Aberdeen.'

'Aye. I know. That's what I told him.'

'How did he react?' Harry asked.

'He seemed pleased at first. Relieved, I suppose you'd say. But I don't know that he wasn'a just… acting that way… for my sake. It's a strange thing, but, looking back, I don't think he really believed me. I don't think I told him what he wanted to hear.'