SIX

It was difficult, looking back, to say exactly when Askew had gone missing. Harry slept as solidly as only a man who has drunk too much can until roused by the noisy return of Judd, Tancred, Lloyd and Fripp from the restaurant car. This was as the train was nearing Stonehaven, with half an hour to go till it reached Aberdeen. Two hours of oblivion had passed for Harry since its departure from Edinburgh. Gregson, who had slept less heavily, recalled registering the train's arrival in Dundee and was more or less certain that Askew had still been there then. He also recalled registering Askew's absence some time later, but was vague about when that would have been.

Harry and his companions did not actually take seriously the idea that Askew was missing until the train entered the outskirts of Aberdeen and the guard announced their imminent arrival at 'our last and final station stop'. A hasty check of the nearest loos began, but Askew was in none of them. They did find his bag, however, left where he had stowed it on the rack, and duly took it along with theirs when they stumbled off the train into the grey chill of an Aberdeen afternoon.

They followed the ruck of passengers off the platform assuming Askew had for some reason gone to the front of the train and would soon be sighted. But he was not. They lingered on the concourse, expecting him to appear from one direction or another. But he did not. Harry accompanied Lloyd and Judd back to the train, where the cleaners were already at work and the guard assured them that all the passengers had left. He surmised that their friend had simply got off earlier. Why Askew would have left his bag behind was a puzzle the guard neither needed nor wished to dwell on.

Back on the concourse, Johnny Dangerfield had arrived to collect them. A weather-beaten but still handsome figure in Barbour, guernsey, corduroys and brogues, he had kept the trimmed moustache and Brylcreemed hairstyle of his youth, but the moustache had lost most of its colour, while his face had reddened with age and whisky. The twinkle in his eyes, that had once been like Venus in the night sky, was now more akin to a distant star in an unnamed galaxy. But there was still enough dash about him to suggest he had left an E-Type in the car park, rather than the minibus he had actually hired to transport them to the castle.

Harry had expected to see Chipchase at Dangerfield's elbow, but there was as little sign of him as of Askew. The mystery of Askew's whereabouts took priority, however, and it was not until a deputation, which he and Dangerfield were both part of, had been despatched to the railway police office, that Harry had the chance to ask after his old friend.

'Did you leave Barry in the van, Danger?'

'Fission? No. Actually, this is a bit of a double whammy, chaps. Fission's sister died last night. Her husband's in a godawful state, apparently. Fission's had to fly down to Manchester. He's not going to be able to join us.'

'Sister, did you say?' It was the first Harry had ever heard of Chipchase having siblings, dead or alive.

'Yes. Know her, did you, Ossie?'

'No. Actually, I didn't.'

'Well, there it is. Can't be helped. At least we know where Fission's gone. Unlike Crooked, blast the fellow.'

The railway police were not a lot more helpful than the train guard. The officer on duty took a note of their friend's apparent disappearance, but emphasized that much the likeliest explanation was that he had got off the train at an earlier stop or had disembarked at the front on arrival at Aberdeen and left the station, forgetting to take his bag with him.

It was only then that Harry remembered Askew's mobile. Why not simply ring him and ask where the blue blazes he was and what he thought he was playing at? But no-one had the number. Lloyd, indeed, did not even know Askew possessed a phone.

'He never made or took a call while I was with him yesterday. Or while we were at my daughter's.'

'He took a call on the train,' said Harry. 'While we were having lunch.'

But no-one else had noticed. And some suggested Harry was confused.

'Your powers of observation while under the influence were always close to zero, Ossie,' said Tancred. 'I can't think age has improved them.'

Harry could not find the energy to be riled by this and it was generally agreed that none of them could claim more than partial recall of the events of the journey anyway. They adjourned to the station buffet for much-needed coffee, which completed the sobering-up Askew's vanishment had kick-started without inducing much in the way of inspired thoughts.

But Harry's memory was slowly booting up, distracted though he was by the parallel mystery of Chipchase's sudden flying of the coop. (He did not think this was the moment to voice his certainty that Chipchase had never had a sister.) 'I spoke to Peter on the platform at Waverley station. He said he was having second thoughts about the whole idea of the reunion.'

'Why?' snapped Tancred.

'Something about it reminding him of how little he'd achieved in life.'

'He's hardly alone in that,' said Fripp.

'Well, it seemed to be preying on his mind,' said Harry.

'That's it, then,' said Lloyd. 'He's baled out. He always was chicken.'

'It's possible, I suppose,' said Dangerfield. 'Let's see.' He flourished a GNER pocket timetable and leafed through it. 'We know from Gregger he was still on at Dundee. But if he got off after that, at Arbroath, say, or Montrose…' He recited various train times under his breath. 'Mmm. Montrose would've been too late. It has to have been Arbroath.'

'Can you spell it out for us, Danger?' pleaded Judd. 'You might be firing on all cylinders, but I can assure you the rest of us aren't.'

'It's simply that if he'd got off at Arbroath and caught the next southbound train… he could connect with the seven o'clock from Edinburgh to London… and get into King's Cross just after midnight.'

'You mean he's bolted back to London?'

'I don't know. What do you think, Ossie? Based on his state of mind during your chat at Edinburgh.'

Put on the spot, Harry had to admit it was a distinct possibility. 'I reckon he must have done.'

'Charming,' said Lloyd. 'I go to all the bother of arranging for my daughter to put him up and he goes and does this.'

'He obviously wasn't thinking straight,' said Dangerfield. 'Otherwise he'd have taken his bag. No doubt he'll be in touch with us about that — and to apologize. Sorry, gents, but we're two down and we'll just have to make the best of it. That's all there is to it.'

—«»—«»—«»—

Harry did not share Dangerfield's complacency. He knew Chipchase was lying about a dead sister and a distraught brother-in-law in Manchester. He also knew Askew had a mobile and had been using it on the train. If Askew had been capable of working out the logistics of getting back to London from Arbroath, he would surely not have been so forgetful as to leave his bag behind. What all this meant Harry had no idea, but the coincidence of Chipchase and Askew going missing was too much to swallow. Something was going on. And Chipchase was up to his neck in it.

Still Harry said nothing about the non-existence of Chipchase's sister. Some loyalty to his old friend that he could not shake off, despite the many occasions on which that friend had let him down, bound him to silence. Denied this information, his companions naturally made no connection between the two turns of events. Chipchase had been called away. And Askew was AWOL. There was no more to be said.

—«»—«»—«»—

They piled into the minibus and began the final leg of their journey. The Deeside railway line was long gone, a victim of the Beeching cuts of the mid-sixties. Their arrival at the castle would not be a re-creation of how they had arrived fifty years previously, in ones and twos, on different days, by slow, labouring steam train. It was the road for them this time, with Dangerfield at the wheel, cursing and swearing his way through the rush-hour traffic as a pallid sun cast a sickly hue across the grey city. Conversation was subdued, thanks to encroaching hangovers, incipient indigestion and a general feeling that the absences of Chipchase and Askew had taken some of the gloss off the proceedings. Some even wondered if Wiseman had deserted them as well, though Dangerfield seemed certain he would join them before the evening was out.

Their spirits revived somewhat when they left the straggling suburbs of Aberdeen behind and headed on towards the sun-gilded hills of Deeside. They had a first encounter with Erica Rawson to look forward to — and a weekend of carousing. As Lloyd put it: 'Bugger Crooked. And bad luck, Fission. They're going to miss a right royal piss-up.'