Dougie and Archie were there waiting for them at the Arrivals hall barrier, Dougie dressed somewhat uncharacteristically in a dark suit that accentuated every muscle in his squat frame, and this, coupled with the expression of hooded seriousness on his face, made him look like a highly experienced Russian bodyguard. David smiled to himself, realizing that it was probably exactly what he was going to need that day.
“Hi, Dougie,” he said, stretching out his hand.
“Hullo, Mr. David.” He took a firm grip on David's hand. “Did you have a good flight?”
“Yes, thanks. No problem at all.” He turned to Archie. “Hello, Archie.”
The young man gave him a self-conscious smile and a brief nod of his head. “Dougie and I were just saying how sorry we were to hear about your father, sir.”
“I know, Archie. It's very sad.”
“Aye, it's more than that,” Dougie cut in, flicking his head to the side in a knowing gesture. “I ken fine well what brought it on. It's just bloody criminal.” He touched his finger to his mouth, realizing that he had just sworn in front of the children. “Sorry, sir.”
David smiled and shook his head. “No, you're right.” He took over control of the luggage trolley from Charlie. “So, come on. Let's go and sort it out.”
They walked out of the terminal building and splashed their way across the rain-soaked road to the car-park. As they approached the cars, David turned to the younger man.
“Now, Archie, I want you to take the children straight back to Inchelvie, and make sure that you see Effie, the housekeeper, before you leave, okay?”
“Right, sir.”
“Then, after that, go straight to the distillery. I want you there when we meet with Mr. Caple, but you must
not
park in the office car-park, understood? I don't want to risk you being seen, otherwise it might spoil the element of surprise. Go round to the loading bay at the back of the maturation warehouses and park over in the corner next to where the empty barrels are stored.”
The young man nodded.
“Right. Now we'll go in convoy as far as Aviemore, and there we'll split, because Dougie and I are going to head straight up to Inverness to see my father. Okay⦔ David looked at his watch. “⦠so it's a quarter to eight now. We should be in Inverness by about half past eleven, if those bloody unmarked police cars aren't on the A-Nine. I reckon we'll be back at the distillery by half past one, so make sure that you are there by then, and keep an eye out for us coming down the road. Is that all clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, then, let's make a move.”
He turned to Sophie, Charlie and Harriet, who had been standing silently beside him, and bent down and gave each a kiss.
“Now, you lot, go with Archie, and I'll see you this evening at Inchelvie.”
“Will you tell Grandpa to get better soon, Dad?” Charlie said in a solemn voice. “Because he
did
say that he would teach me how to cast a salmon rod these holidays.”
“Yeah, I will,” David replied as lightly as he could.
Archie opened the back door of the car and Charlie and Harriet clambered in. Sophie held back for a moment, then took hold of her father's arm and led him away to a safe distance from the car.
“Dad, do you think we could go back to The Beeches tomorrow? I think we all need to go home.”
David smiled at her, and putting his arms around her, he gave her a long hug.
“You're absolutely right, darling. We all
do
need to go homeâback to where Mummy is.”
He gave her a kiss on the forehead, then walked back to the car and opened the front passenger door for her. “Drive carefully, Archie,” he said, looking into the car. “You've got a particularly valuable cargo on board.”
The journey to Inverness took a little longer than anticipated, even though the weather, as he had predicted, improved as they headed north. The single-carriageway sections of the road were heavy with lorries, each having accumulated a tailback of cars that were boxed so tightly together that it made overtaking almost impossible. Although Dougie was quite adept at driving a half-mile stretch on the wrong side of the road to get clear of the hold-ups, Archie seemed to have taken David's last remark to heart, driving with such care and attention that Dougie had to pull over into a lay-by on two separate occasions to allow his car to catch up, then watch in seething frustration as a recently overtaken lorry and its parasitical line of cars trundled slowly past.
However, once they passed Aviemore, the traffic thinned out, and having seen Archie and the children safely on their way to Inchelvie, Dougie put his foot down, eventually pulling the car to a squealing halt at the main doors of Raigmore Hospital just before midday.
David asked Dougie to wait in the car-park, then walked in through the main doors of the hospital and approached the main desk. An elderly lady, whose gentle smile made it look as if she'd been specifically bred for voluntary services, looked up from where she had been writing on a shorthand pad.
“
Good
morning, can I help you?”
“Yes. I wonder if you could guide me in the right direction. I want to find Lord Inchelvie's room.”
David watched as she wrote down his father's name on her pad. “And may I ask who you might be, sir?”
“Yeah, I'm Mr. Corstorphine, his son.”
“Oh, I see. Right,” she said, getting up immediately from her chair. “If you could just give me a moment while I get someone else to look after the desk, and then I'll take you to his room myself.”
She turned and went into the office behind her. David watched through the window as she spoke to a colleague who was sitting having a cup of tea. The woman cast a glance at him through the window, then got up from her chair.
“Mr. Corstorphine,” the lady said, as they both came out of the office. “If you would like to follow me, I'll take you up there now.”
They walked over to the lift and took it to the sixth floor. David followed her along the spotless corridor, both standing aside to allow an old lady in a pink winceyette nightie to push her drip-stand slowly past them, muttering incoherently to herself as she went. At the end of the corridor, they entered a long ward, and David's guide stopped outside a door next to the nurses' desk.
“You'll find Lord Inchelvie in here, sir. I think Lady Inchelvie should be there as well.”
David thanked her and turned to watch her leave the ward. As he put his hand out to push down the handle of the door, it opened and Roger Spiers appeared. On seeing David, he held his finger to his mouth and closed the door quietly behind him.
“David!” the old doctor said, holding out his hand. “How nice to see you! Well done, you getting back so quickly.”
David shook his hand. “How is he, Roger?”
Dr. Spiers flicked his head to the side. “Not that good, I'm afraid. Nevertheless, he's pretty comfortable and I know for a fact that he's not in any pain, but, well⦔ He smiled warmly at him. “⦠like all of us of that generation, the old engine begins to get a little weary, and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep it from stalling.” He looked round at the door. “Your mother's in there. She's been absolutely marvellous. Hasn't left his bedside since she got here”âhe turned back to Davidâ“so I know she'll be delighted to see you home, my boy.” He gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, then shambled his way off down the ward. Taking a deep breath, David gently pushed down the handle and put his head round the door.
The small room was mottled with light that bled its way through the gaps in the closed blinds and a thin ray caught the side of his father's cheek as he lay motionless on the bed, accentuating the pallor of his once ruddy complexion. A network of tubes ran upwards from his body to the plastic drip-bottles that hung above the bed. His eyes were closed and his mouth open, but what little sound he was emitting was drowned out by the constant bleeping of the heart-monitoring equipment which flickered out its glowing light into the semi-darkness of the room.
As David watched, his mother stood up from where she sat knitting beside his father, and gently pressed his chin upwards, closing his mouth. Then, stroking her hand over his forehead, she pushed away a strand of hair that had by some miracle displaced itself, and giving her husband a smile that would never be acknowledged, she turned to sit down again, executing a double take when she saw David at the door.
“Oh, my darling, well done!” she said in a whisper, dropping her knitting onto the chair and coming over towards him. As David walked into the room, he noticed immediately the look of sheer fatigue and sorrow in his mother's eyes as she approached. He took her in his arms and held her tight.
“Let me have a look at you!” she continued to whisper, pushing herself away from him, yet holding firmly on to his arms. “You look so well! You're brown!”
David smiled at her and looked over to his father. “I'm so very sorry that I wasn't here, Ma. I really am so sorry.”
His mother turned to follow his gaze. “My darling, it is
not
your fault that this has happened, and you must not even begin to think of reproaching yourself for it. I mean it. That was exactly why I made a point of explaining that in my fax. The doctor did say that it could have happened at any time.” She turned back to him and reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “The main thing is that you're here.”
David made no comment, thinking it neither the time nor the place to tell her that he had worked out what had been going on at the distillery. Instead, he walked past her and went over to stand by his father, reaching down and gently taking hold of his hand, taking care not to knock out the tubes that were protruding from his wrist.
“I've just had a word with Roger Spiers outside in the corridor. He says things aren't looking too good.”
His mother walked around to the other side of the bed and stood looking down at her husband. “No, I'm afraid not. There was a marked deterioration overnight. They very kindly allowed me to stay in the next-door room, and they called me at about two o'clock this morning, because they were so worried about him.” She let out a long sigh. “But he seemed to rally again.”
David glanced over at his mother, and caught on her face an expression of unequivocal love as she looked down at her husband. “He's always been a fighter, David. He's very weak, but I have a suspicion that he's been holding out until ⦠you got home.”
David nodded and leaned over and stroked his father's face, feeling a lump tighten in his throat and his eyes begin to smart with tears. “Well, I'm back now. I hope you can hear, Pa, because I'm back now, and everything, I promise you, is going to be just fine.”
He bent forward and gave the wrinkled forehead a kiss, wincing at the coldness of his father's skin against his lips. He stood up and looked over to his mother. “Listen, I'm going to go to the distillery right now. I want to get this whole thing cleared up and finished with today. But I'll be back later, once I've been to Inchelvie to see the children. Do you want anything from the house?”
His mother smiled at him. “No, I've got everything I need here.”
They both moved to the bottom of the bed, and David gave his mother a hug and a kiss before walking over to the door. He turned to give his father a last look, then, on impulse, returned to the bed and gave the dear, brave old man another kiss.
“We'll get this sorted out. We really will,” he said, addressing no one in particular, but hoping that both occupants of the room could take comfort from his words. He opened the door and walked out, closing it gently behind him.
They drove in silence back down the A9, Dougie intent on getting back to the distillery as fast as possible, while David was quite happy to use the time to look through his notes, trying to get all his facts as clear as possible in his mind. As Dougie drove across the bridge over the Spey and turned hard left down the Glendurnich Distillery road, David glanced at his watch. It was half past one. He took in a deep breath. This was it. The show-down.
They descended the hill and turned the corner above the maturation warehouses. Archie was there, his car tucked away between two rows of barrels at the most northerly point of the concrete apron. Dougie flashed his lights, Archie responded, and his car immediately shot out and came round the side of the sheds, pulling in behind their car as they levelled out at the bottom of the hill and following them onto the car-park.
As soon as Dougie had stopped, David jumped out and looked around to make sure that Duncan's BMW was there. It was. He turned round to Dougie and Archie, who had come to stand behind him.
“Right. Archie, has Dougie explained what's been happening here?”
“Yes, he has, sir,” Archie replied seriously.
“Good. Well, as soon as things are back to normal here, I just want you to know that you are to be reinstated at Glendurnich. I take it that you don't have another job yet?”
“No, I don't!” Archie exclaimed, his eyes wide with delight.
“Right. That's settled then. Now, I want you two to be present in the boardroom, just in case things get a little out of hand, okay?”
They nodded briefly, and David suddenly realized that both were dressed very much smarter than he was, he still being in the clothes that he had worn when he left Leesport. He felt a wry smile come over his face. What the hell! Better wearing old clothes for this kind of job. Blood would no doubt wash out much better from denim.
“Right. Let's go.”
As they walked across the car-park, David turned to see that Dougie and Archie were making up a V-formation behind him. He smiled to himself. Perfect. Just like the Westerns. Everyone had his gun hand clear for the show-down.
They each took a separate door, bursting into the reception area at the same time, making the woman at the desk start back in surprise. David walked over and leaned both hands on the desk, and the woman, her mouth pursed in displeasure at their unmannerly entrance, pushed back her chair to distance herself from the menacing figure that stood in front of her.