Chapter 8: Read All About It!

I had really been looking forward to getting back to Scotland. I had wriggled out of my cocoon, and I was ready to begin again as a brilliant butterfly. The problem is that I was the same old creepy-crawly at heart. The seeds of the trouble had been planted some time before, but it is convenient to begin with Hugh McLean having a prior engagement for the morning of the last Tuesday in September. He had called late the previous week to say that he had preliminary results of his searches that he wished to discuss with me. When I arrived at my hotel close to Glasgow Airport at about four on the Monday, I phoned him, only to find that he was not free until the following afternoon. Not wishing to waste time, I called to set up a meeting for the Tuesday morning with the lawyer Hugh had recommended.

There was still no word from Jenny or Piers since I had introduced them two weeks before. I wanted to let the folk at the Retreat know that I would be back in a day or two, but I did not want to hear about Jenny second hand. I would have called if I could have been sure of talking to Jon, but I was certain that Kate would blurt out any information she had about the missing artist.

Worse than that, she would expect me to make an immediate response. After almost a fortnight together, I was fairly sure that Jenny would have succumbed to Piers’ rather tawdry charm, but it would be impossible for me to sound delighted if Kate gave me the news. Anything less than an Oscar-winning performance would be detected by the girl, young and inexperienced though she may be; it seems to me that women are born with the ability to detect insincerity in men, perhaps because they so often experience it.

After giving the matter some thought in the hotel bar a little later, I decided to telephone Anya. My reasoning may have been a little clouded by alcohol, but she was sure to know something of what was happening at the Retreat in my absence. I would have to meet her at some point to thrash out the details of the offer I was determined to make for the property she administers. To tell the truth, I was rather surprised to find that my mind was so firmly made up.

All the somewhat intangible reasons to take on the new responsibility appeared to have come to the surface, while the very obvious difficulties now seem manageable, if not altogether trivial. I cannot completely explain what had caused this attitude. There was an element of rootlessness in the equation: my business had been the rock on which my life was built; now that it had gone, I was feeling the need for something to cling to. I wanted to be grounded, and my mind was taking the description literally.

I recognised too that I had been deeply affected by my talk with Jock Mackenzie. He was approaching death with the certainty that nothing he had built would survive his passing. If I could build a community centred on the old farmhouse and chalets of the Retreat, amongst the unchanging hills and moors, perhaps I could approach my own ultimate dissolution more fulfilled than poor Jock. Native Australians perceive themselves as guardians, not as owners of the land they inhabit; I was beginning to understand the sentiment.

I am a supine philosopher so, as usual, I was lying in bed when these thoughts bubbled in my head. I had dialled Anya’s number earlier only to be put straight through to voicemail. Now, at one o’clock in the morning, she rang me back.

“I can’t talk for long, Fergus,” she whispered. “Rob’s here and I’ve had to wait until he was snoring to call you back.”

I told her that I wanted a meeting with her to discuss terms for a partnership. She sounded sincere when she told me how pleased she was that I wanted to go ahead with the deal, but she was adamant that she and I could not meet. She gave me the name of the solicitor who handles the affairs of the Retreat and promised to give him all the details.

Her voice had barely risen above a whisper, and she was clearly uneasy talking to me. She relaxed a little when I asked after Kate and Jon; for the first time, the tension went out of her voice and the warmth of her personality came through. She began telling me of a gig the youngsters had in London when she suddenly whispered: ‘Oh shit’ and the call disconnected.

It is hard to recall when I was last so frustrated. I almost re-dialled but I doubted if she would answer, considering how perturbed she had been for most of the call. I was delighted that Jon and Kate had a chance to perform in the capital and I would have liked to learn all the details. In the end, I had to content myself with the name and number of the solicitor who could deal with my wish for a share of the Retreat.

The next morning, I was ushered into the office of Willie Guthrie at five minutes after ten; my appointment was for nine-thirty so the solicitor Hugh recommended was already in negative territory; I do not take kindly to being kept waiting.

“I’m a busy man,” he told me, adding ‘Mr Galbraith’ only after he had checked his desk diary. “Hugh tells me you have some hare-brained scheme that you need talking out of.”

Mr Guthrie is a markedly healthy young man, with the look of a rugby player, which fact on its own prejudices me against him. He had waved at a seat facing his desk but, instead of taking it, I turned on my heel and left him to his busy life.

“You might as well stay,” was the last I heard as I crossed the outer office. “I’ll be billing you for the consultation anyway!”

I ate lunch alone in the Rogano, which turned out to be the highlight of the week both in terms of food and the company I kept – the waiter was taciturn but polite.

“I don’t know what illusions you’re getting about yourself, Fergus,” Hugh greeted me, as I was shown into his office. I caught the look of astonishment on his secretary’s face as she closed the door behind me. “Willie Guthrie is a great guy and a friend of mine. He doesn’t deserve the display of sheer bad manners you treated him to this morning.”

Once again, I found myself being waved to a chair and, just like in Guthrie’s office, I declined to take it.

“He kept me waiting for more than half an hour without apology and immediately berated me about my intentions. He hadn’t even remembered my name.”

“Och, that’s just the way Willie is,” Hugh responded, looking rather startled by my reply to his accusation. “He’s a great joker. You just have to accept him as he is.”

“I choose to leave him as he is, if you don’t mind,” I replied in my softest, gentlest voice. “And if you’ll let me have the papers and your bill, I’ll settle with you and get out of your hair.”

It took Hugh almost quarter of an hour to try to repair the relationship between us; at that point, I condescended to sit across the desk from him. It was clear to me that he had spent some time checking on me and was inclined to believe that the snivelling coward jibe was based on fact. Considering that he had seen me in action, so to speak, that showed me that he is suggestible and not to be relied on.

While he was trying to regain my confidence, I was dividing my affairs into the purely factual and the speculative. Hugh is a good investigator, and I will continue to use him in that role but his opinion is not worth listening to. I let a lot of what he was saying wash over me while I recalled a lad who lived a few doors from dad’s house when I was at school. I tutored him in maths for a while; if my memory served, he had become a solicitor, and I had resolved to contact him before I offered an olive branch by sitting across the desk from Hugh.

The Romans had a system of big fleas bitten by little fleas. An ancient Roman in my position would have had clients who owed their success to me; in return for the crumbs I would throw carelessly at their feet, they would hang on my every word. Everyone I met seemed to have clients they recommended to me whatever their actual suitability for the job. Perhaps I should build my own stable of clients. There is every chance that they would be as capable as losers like Guthrie and at least they would treat me with respect.

There is quite a surprising amount of information readily available in the public records if you know where to look and Hugh was an expert in extracting it. Kate and Jon were, in some ways, the most straightforward of the group of people I had asked about. After their horrific accident, they were fostered by two families in Helensburgh, remaining with them until they reached the age of sixteen.

There was one oddity that Hugh missed: they had attended the same primary school despite the foster parents living in different catchment areas. Someone must have gone to a bit of trouble to make that happen. Hugh had also found that the house in Kilcreggan had been left to them by Doctor Willis, the man who pulled them from the smashed vehicle.

Elaine is just what she purports to be. She was the secretary to a wealthy businessman, married him after years of devoted service, in and out of the office for all I know. She eventually became his wife and inherited all his wealth after his death. The will was contested by his estranged children, but the case did not come to court. His businesses are now owned by his son and daughter, while Elaine kept the houses and jewellery. Hugh had not found a record but it would appear that the litigants reached a private agreement.

Jenny’s account of her past leaves a substantial part unexplained. She actually attended Art College but left at the end of her first year. There is no evidence of a certificate of marriage, but Hugh somehow discovered a birth certificate for a stillborn baby girl, mother Jenny but father unnamed. The two women give the impression that they have been together for a long time but the dates on the death certificate of Elaine’s husband and the birth certificate of Jenny’s child, suggest that they have only been companions for about three years.

By far the most interesting documentation is Anya’s. She was seventeen before her birth was registered. At that age, she turned up at a London college and enrolled for a nursing degree. She had no birth certificate, but the Almoner liked the shy girl with the soft, Highland accent and set about remedying the lack. Hugh had copies of affidavits attesting to the birth of a girl to Hector Mathieson and his then wife.

The wife stated that she had left the newborn with the infant’s father who testified that he had taken her to his unmarried sister to raise the baby. Both parents believed that the other had registered the birth. Aunt Shona still lived in her family home so when little Anya started school no one asked to look at any proof of the child’s right to be considered Hector’s daughter.

There was no certificate of marriage to Olaf Ogilvie, but she was named as his wife and executor in his will. The other thing Hugh discovered was a copy of a letter of commendation from the United Nations detailing Anya’s service in extremely hazardous conditions as a nurse in a war zone. It mentioned dates that coincided with the accident that killed the parents of Kate and Jon. Anya had told me that she was pre-occupied at that time, and it appears that was something of an understatement.

Hugh had made no progress in gaining access to Olaf’s will and I left him to try again. As an afterthought, almost as I left the office, I asked him to check on the Dochard Trio, Olaf’s folk group and on Rob Janes, their accordionist.

“I’ll get on to Willie and smooth things over,” Hugh assured me as I got up to leave.

“Don’t bother – he had his chance, and he blew it.”

I had an appointment with the solicitor for the Retreat on the Wednesday morning. Mr Mason occupied a substantial office in Royal Exchange Square, made claustrophobic by the deed boxes and loose briefs covering every available surface. He sat on one side of a desk that had documents piled on both wings; two chairs were placed on the other side of the desk at the other end of the tunnel formed by the papers.

Mason is, I suppose about my age, and it may be this maturity that enabled him to hold his tongue until I had sat down, in response to the now familiar gesture. Once he found his voice, he began where Guthrie had left off on the previous day. He leaned over the desk, adjusting his glasses, to check my name in his diary; he even improved on the performance by checking again to confirm the name of his own client.

He was still leaning slightly forward when I matched his position as I shifted my weight ready to rise and leave his office. He started back as if I had threatened him with violence; there was no thought of violence in my mind, but he may have seen something in my face. It was as if the scales had been lifted from my eyes, as the saying has it, and for the moment the Giftie granted me the power to see myself as others see me.

Guthrie and Mason are big fish, but they are swimming in the provincial pool of Glasgow; I am a fellow Scot who succeeded in London. Both men are living with the crippling inferiority complex that afflicts so many Scots and my presence offers a rare opportunity to patronise one of the really big fish. I settled back in my seat with a little private smile; now I understand the position, I believe I can profit by it.

“I understand you intend to offer for the business known as the Retreat Mr ... er ... Galbraith.”

I said nothing, but I let my smile broaden and directed it at him.

“My client,” he continued, shuffling some papers in a vain attempt to find Anya’s name. “My client appears to believe that I can provide you with information.”

“Perhaps you could start by telling me if the Retreat owns the land at Coulport or leases it and if so...”

He held his right hand up, like a traffic policeman instructing a motorist to halt.

“Mr Galbraith, Mr Galbraith,” he intoned shaking his head. “You must think we’re ‘saft-heided’ up here in the ‘Dear Green Place’”

I have put the colloquialisms in inverted commas because that is how he made them sound. I had more or less switched off, paying very little attention to his lecture on the proper conduct of solicitors, at least in so far as the law is practiced in Glasgow. I was already planning my next move, but I was sufficiently aware to hear a reference to Guthrie.

“The proper course for you is to make a formal approach to this office through your solicitor who is, I understand, Mr Guthrie.”

This was my cue, so I rose, bid him good morning and exited stage left. Mr Mason practically demanded that his performance be judged as theatre. I left wondering if he had searched to find an office that suited his acting skills or if he had developed his persona to match an existing set. It almost came as a shock to exit onto the bustling streets of a modern city rather than some dark, Dickensian back court.

As soon as I had realised the problem of dealing with the sensitive souls of Glasgow lawyers, I had come up with a solution, so now I turned down Buchanan Street and was gratified to find my memory was still good. I went into Black’s in Argyle Street and bought a complete hiking outfit from underwear upwards and a backpack in which to carry everything. I went on under the Heilanman’s Umbrella and up Renfield Street into Central Station.

On the train to Gourock I studied the maps of the area around Loch Dochard and the hiking route to it from the car park near Bridge of Orchy. Anya is no mountain, and I am certainly no Mohammed but I had resolved that if Anya would not come to see me then I would visit her. Finding I had to wait almost an hour for a ferry to Kilcreggan, I had a burger in a café outside Gourock Station.

Being accustomed to big city ways, it had not occurred to me that there would not be a selection of taxi cabs waiting at the pier head in Kilcreggan. It took almost ten minutes and the help of four friendly natives before I was on my way to Coulport where my car had been parked for more than two weeks. The journey is about five miles which was quite adequate for the exchange of life histories; the driver had heard of my visit to the Retreat, I was not surprised to learn.

After a couple of failed attempts, I gave up trying to correct the misinformation in the rumours he had heard. My reason for visiting was popularly believed to be connected with a nebulous role I played in Major Crime, although opinion was split between me being a Master Criminal or a Master Detective. The driver confided that his own opinion was that I was in the Secret Service. That seemed fairly harmless, so I let it go although I had cause to regret the decision later. My behaviour since I arrived was considered to be good; Kate and Jon are held in high esteem locally and it was agreed by everyone that I had contributed to their happiness by getting rid of Phil.

In the course of my life as a businessman, I had acquired a reputation, but this was my first experience of being the subject of local gossip. The process seems to be similar to remembering a tune but not all of the lyrics: rather than remain silent, you make up a word that fits the rhythm of the music even if it changes the meaning of the verse. If my taxi driver is typical, then it is the altered version that gains popular approval. Heaven help anyone who gets a bad review from the locals, for he will never live it down.

I sat for some minutes considering the implications of the gossip. It was clear that my future, like my past, was to be decided by the natives on the basis of rumour rather than fact. One consequence of the interest they show is that this visit will be widely known and news of it will quickly reach the Retreat.

In the end, after careful thought, I decided to send a message to Kate letting her know that I was close to them but saying that I had urgent, unspecified business and would be unable to join them. I put my phone on to charge but not before I had switched it off to avoid any temptation to use it while I was driving. That done, I joined the road that follows Loch Long to Arrochar.

My study of the road maps while I was in the train to Gourock, reminded me that there was little civilization between Arrochar and Tyndrum, which was my destination, so I pulled into the Tarbert Hotel to have my evening meal. It turned out to be an inspired decision. The hotel was filled with pensioners collected from all over England and herded together onto two coaches by the aptly named Shearings Holidays.

Whether the intention was to actually fleece them, the sheep were happy enough. The staff seated me at a table on my own, but I was soon moved to a larger table at the insistence of nine joyful pensioners. I made the fourth man in the group with six merry widows. I had intended to eat and go but there was to be entertainment and dancing later in the evening and it was universally agreed that I must stay. The manager came to ask if we were content and, before he left, I had been fixed up with a room for the night. I cannot recall that my wishes were consulted.

The evening began with a piper, marching up and down outside the dining room windows while we drank our coffee, followed by a move to the lounge where an accordionist accompanied a local singing duo comprising an almost soprano and a nearly tenor. The songs were familiar, and the audience was there to enjoy themselves so the quality of the entertainment did not matter in the slightest.

Later, the accordionist was joined by a fiddler and the floor was cleared for dancing. I made token resistance when I was told to get on the floor and strut my stuff. Men were outnumbered roughly two to one and reasonably fit men were in even shorter supply, so I was allowed no respite: as the old song says, ‘I danced the buckles off my shoes’. It was after midnight before I got to my room drenched in sweat but very happy. I kept smiling as I stood in the shower, remembering little incidents from the evening.