Yesterday, with Angus for once asleep, Janet had said in a tone that was, for her, almost sharp, ‘You’re rich, Marjory. You have Bill and the children – you don’t need me. But poor Angus – I’m all he has.’
Marjory had felt ashamed, justly rebuked for her selfishness, and that was on her conscience too today. Her relationship with her father had always been difficult. No son could have tried harder than Marjory to make Angus proud, but her success in his own profession had only made him bitter. In being promoted beyond the rank he had achieved, she had somehow diminished his life’s work in his own eyes.
Intellectually, she’d recognized long ago that she would never win his approval, but emotionally a tiny hope had always remained of a more mellow old age. It hadn’t happened, of course; in old age, in senility, you don’t become different, you become more intensely whatever you were. She could never hope now for understanding, reconciliation . . .
But she couldn’t, surely, be jealous that her sick, needy father was absorbing all her mother’s time and attention? It was a most uncomfortable thought.
Restlessly she got up and walked to the window, a tall, fit-looking woman in her early forties with clear hazel eyes and neatly cut bright brown hair, showing only a few threads of grey at the temples. She opened it wide; it was very stuffy in the office today and she had an unpleasantly muzzy head. A fly flew in, then buzzed stupidly against the panes as she unconsciously drummed her long, slim fingers on the window-sill, looking out on the street scene below.
Fleming liked this vantage point with its view over Kirkluce High Street. Through the new green leaves of the plane trees below she could look down on the traffic, motorized and human, as it went about its business in the thriving market town.
It was particularly busy today, with the recently established Friday Farmers’ Market. Popular with producers and consumers alike, the market gave the farmers a fair price instead of the pittance paid by the supermarkets, and the customers a chance to know where their food came from and what had been done to it on its way to their plates.
Bill would be down there somewhere. Raising only sheep now on a small hill farm, he didn’t have a stall, but farming was a solitary life and he enjoyed the social side, catching up on the gossip and having a pie and a pint at lunchtime with some old mates. He’d have brought in eggs from Marjory’s hens to the stand which their neighbours, the Raeburns, always took to sell cream and cheese from Hamish’s dairy herd as well as Kirsty’s dried flowers and home-baking.
Marjory consulted her watch. She could take an early lunch hour, pop out and have a chat with Kirsty . . . But it felt all wrong.
She sighed. This benign spell of weather had meant that even their regular clients were more inclined to strip off their hoodies and sit around, roasting their pale grey goose-pimples to an equally unbecoming shade of puce, than to get out there and do a dishonest day’s work. It was just too quiet; that made her uneasy too.
Again, she looked at her watch: eleven forty-five. She’d done enough overtime, heaven knew, to tack on an extra fifteen minutes. There wasn’t so much as a breath of air coming in through the window and the oppressive atmosphere was making her headache worse. She might feel better outside and then come back with more enthusiasm for checking through the files, neatly laid in her in-tray, for the first appraisal. Well, she might. It was always possible.
Feeling like a schoolgirl bunking off, Marjory hurried out, masking her guilt with an ostentatiously purposeful air.
Chapter 2
Drumbreck, a scattered hamlet strung out around a sheltered inlet near the estuary of the River Cree, just north of Wigtown, was looking as slickly perfect as a picture postcard this morning. The tide was in; a pair of swans, exuding majestic indifference, sailed round the pontoons of the marina between the expensive yachts and dinky little boats which jostled and clinked as they rode their moorings, glossy paintwork shimmering in sun-sparkles from the waves, while a school of Mirror dinghies was circling round an instructor in an inflatable with an outboard motor. It looked stage-managed, an advertisement shoot, perhaps, for
Your Holiday Paradise
.
The houses too, tucked round the margin of the bay or on the rising ground which sheltered it, were all trim and freshly painted, even if a number of them showed the signs of being currently unoccupied: no car outside, half-lowered blinds, shutters closed on downstairs windows. By this evening, though, with a half-term holiday week ahead, it was a safe bet that the 464s would soon be arriving and this select little enclave would again leap into active social life which would become more and more frenetically social as the summer approached.
Within easy striking distance of Glasgow, Drumbreck was much favoured by businessmen keen to adopt the sport once described as standing under a cold shower tearing up fivers. Not all of them, perhaps, were as keen on the activities which took place on the heaving deck as they were on those which went on after the sun had sunk below the yardarm, but if seasickness, along with a degree of terror, was the price of acceptance in Drumbreck society, then it must be paid.
The Yacht Club by the marina, once a mere wooden shack for occasional sailors, had been transformed by a major fund-raising drive four years ago into a smart social centre with a swimming-pool, gym and squash courts.
It all drove up the property prices, so that by now almost none of the houses, whether substantial villas, with a bit of ground, or two-bedroom cottages, were owned by families native to the area. And it wasn’t surprising, when Drumbreck was looking as it was this morning, with glinting water covering what lay beneath: at low tide, the boats now floating so jauntily would be stranded on the mudflats below.
A Land Rover Discovery appeared, turning cautiously into the narrow road round the bay then pulling up in a parking area outside a pretty cottage set above the road, painted the colour of clotted cream with bright green paintwork, and with a steep flight of steps leading up to it through a terraced garden. A buxom blonde, in jeans and a green camisole top revealing ‘invisible’ plastic bra straps, jumped out and went round to open up the back. It was packed with cases, boxes and Marks and Spencer carrier bags, and she stood back, hands on curvaceous hips, looking from it to the flight of steps with some distaste. A small child, strapped into his safety-seat, began a monotonous chant, ‘Want out! Mummee, Mummee, want out!’
Her only response was an impatient sigh. Groping in her Prada bag for house keys, she prepared to embark on her unappealing task of haulage – no fun at all in this sultry heat. She was sweating already, just looking at what she had to do. First, though, she turned to look along the shore road towards the marina, shading her eyes against the glare from the water.
The nearest house was a charmless Victorian monstrosity, large, sprawling and run-down, an eyesore in smart Drumbreck. The litter of diseased timbers, discarded plasterboard and chipped sanitary-ware in the yard to one side suggested a renovation project, but the way the grass had grown up round about hinted at slow progress. It had a large paddock to one side where a tall man in a blue-checked shirt and moleskin trousers seemed to be working a curiously small flock of sheep with a black-and-white collie.
The woman’s face brightened. Taking a few steps along the road, she called, ‘Niall! Niall!’
Niall Murdoch looked round. ‘Oh, Kim,’ he said, without marked enthusiasm. ‘You’re back.’ He had very dark hair, falling forward at the moment in a comma on his brow, and with his strong features and deep brown eyes, he was a good-looking man; though there were lines about his mouth that suggested temper, they gave him a sort of edgy charm. He was looking sullen at the moment but his brooding expression could, with a certain generosity of spirit, be considered Byronic.
Kim’s nature, when it came to men, was generous to a fault. She wasn’t easily discouraged, either. Ignoring the complaints from inside the car, becoming more insistent, she swayed along the road to lean over the dry-stone dyke separating the paddock from the road.
‘Yes, that’s me just back to open up the house.’ Her Glasgow accent suggested that it had been only recently refined. ‘Here, it’s great to see you! Like last summer, all over again.’ Her smile was an invitation.
‘Yes, well,’ Niall said flatly, then added, ‘Adrian coming too?’ He spoke without enthusiasm. Adrian McConnell was a sardonic, smart-ass accountant he’d fallen out with over the extension to the marina years ago and the man never lost the opportunity to put the boot in. Truth to tell, his own ill-advised response to Kim’s overtures last year probably had more to do with private revenge than anything else, and it didn’t compensate for her personality which, once the novelty was over, affected him like nails scraping on a blackboard.
‘Not till tomorrow, with Kelly and Jason for the half-term week.’ She pushed back her hair and gave him a sidelong glance. ‘I’m all by my wee self tonight.’ Then she added, with an unenthusiastic glance towards the car, ‘Well, apart from him, unfortunately.’ She gestured towards the child confined in the car, whose protests were starting to sound tearful. ‘He’s such a crabby little sod.’
‘Yes. Look, Kim, I’m sorry – I’ve got to get on. It’s the trials tomorrow, and this bloody dog doesn’t seem to know its business.’
Kim gave a throaty gurgle. ‘Oh, Niall, you never learn, do you! Glutton for punishment!’ she giggled. ‘But don’t you worry, pet, I’ll be there, cheering you on. I never miss it – I always think the trials are the proper start to a Drumbreck summer. Come here and I’ll give you a big hug, just for luck.’
Niall, with resistance in every line of his body, submitted. Kim embraced him, then patted his cheek.
‘Well, I suppose I’ll need to get on with heaving all this stuff up into the cottage. It’s so hot, though – really sticky!’ She looked at him hopefully, then, as no offer of help was forthcoming, said, ‘You know what? The marina should be hiring out porters. There’s a real business opportunity.’
Niall had turned away already. Sulkily, Kim went back to the car, where the child had started wailing.
‘Oh, you just shut up, Gary!’ she snarled. ‘You’re not going anywhere till I get all this dragged upstairs, so you may as well get used to it.’
Scowling, Niall Murdoch turned away. Stupid bitch! He’d have to get free of her somehow. Not that he suffered from pangs of conscience: given his home life he reckoned he was entitled to do whatever he liked. His wife wouldn’t care, and his daughter treated him like something she’d found on the sole of her shoe.
But Kim McConnell, unfortunately, wasn’t the sort graciously to accept a hint that time had moved on; she had a big fat mouth and a spiteful nature. He didn’t appreciate her comment about the sheepdog trials either, even if he knew people laughed behind his back.
Jenna had seen to that. ‘Face it,’ she told him, with the sort of brutality you shouldn’t have to take from your wife, ‘you’ll never train dogs like your father did. You haven’t the personality for it. And even if you did win, you wouldn’t be proving anything because he’s been dead these past six years – remember?’
Niall had actually believed that once the old man wasn’t there, putting a hex on him with his critical eye and mocking his failures, he’d have the confidence to win. It mattered; somehow his father, rot his black soul, had instilled this into Niall’s consciousness as a measure of the man.
It was hardly asking for the moon. All Niall wanted to do was take the crown, just once, in the piddling little kingdom of the local sheepdog trials which his father had for a decade made his own. Then he could retire gracefully, but despite his best efforts at training a number of dogs, years of humiliation had followed, particularly unpleasant in this glossy world where all that mattered was material success. This was his last throw of the dice: he’d borrowed an exorbitant amount from the business to buy Findlay Stevenson’s champion, Moss.
Findlay, overstretched by borrowing himself, had lost his farm during the foot-and-mouth epidemic. Since then, he’d travelled the countryside with Moss, winning trials wherever he went, to boost his new business of training up working dogs and selling them. It had taken five thousand pounds to part the dog and his master.
Niall hadn’t mentioned the loan to his business partner. Ronnie Lafferty wouldn’t react well. A Glasgow scrap metal dealer, he looked like a bullfrog and had manners to match; he had a trophy wife, the lustrous Gina, and he had no interest in anything except the bottom line. His sole reason for taking a half-share in the sailing school and marina along with Niall was that with it came automatic membership of the exclusive Drumbreck Yacht Club. He’d been turned down once before, and he hadn’t liked that one little bit.
Niall was frankly afraid of him. Lafferty hadn’t made a fortune in his sort of business using sweet reason and goodwill, and if he found out . . . But he wouldn’t have to, Niall had reckoned; given another title to its name he could sell the dog on, probably for more than he had paid for it, in the next couple of days . . .
The only problem was that the dog wasn’t living up to its reputation. Niall was beginning to suspect, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, that he’d been conned. The dog must be past its best; if it couldn’t manage to put in a decent performance under these conditions – a relatively small paddock, sheep that were accustomed to being handled – what was it going to do on the full-sized trial course, with unpredictable sheep? If this was how it showed tomorrow, Moss would be practically worthless. Niall would have to kiss goodbye to the money, or rather the business would, and then what would Ronnie say?