SEVEN

For the last few miles of their route to Lumphanan, the road ran alongside the disused cuttings and embankments of the railway line. The countryside was bare and empty, stands of silver birch and pine giving it a vaguely Nordic look. Spring had been in spate in Wiltshire, but was still feeling its way in Aberdeenshire. Harry had forgotten just how bleak and alien the surroundings of the castle had initially looked to him. Some of the gloom they had plunged him into washed back over him as he gazed through the minibus window at the twilit hills and fields and patches of scrub.

The village of Lumphanan had not changed much in its essentials. The disappearance of the railway station and the humpback bridge over the line was disorientating at first glance. Bungalows had been built in the old goods yard and the station building itself converted into a private house. The footbridge which Harry and Chipchase had trudged over with their kitbags that cold March evening in 1955 was now just a memory in thin air. But the post office, the Macbeth Arms, the main street of the village and the narrow-steepled parish church on its hillock at the far end were instantly familiar.

'See the spire, chaps?' said Tancred. 'An admonitory finger of a Calvinist God raised over the cowering villagers.'

'They didn't do a lot of cowering, as I recall,' Judd laughed.

'That's because you never went to church.'

'We wouldn't have been welcome if we had,' said Lloyd. 'They didn't want us here.'

'So we should have hit it off straight away,' said Judd. 'We didn't want us here either.'

—«»—«»—«»—

Kilveen Castle stood half a mile out of the village, on the southern flank of Glenshalg Hill. The estate's boundary wall, so tumbledown and overgrown in 1955 as to be barely distinguishable from the rock-strewn woods screening the castle from the lane, appeared on their left, solid and well maintained. Daffodil-sown glades had been opened up in the woods, affording glimpses of the castle as they climbed. They turned in between stout granite pillars, past the swag-lettered hotel sign and up the no longer potholed drive.

The photographs had not lied. The damp and draughty hybrid of medieval stronghold and Georgian villa where Harry and his fellow Clean Sheeters had passed their unproductive days was now an elegant retreat for well-heeled tourists. The lawns were trimmed, the paths neatly gravelled, the harling of the tower honey-tinged by the setting sun. The very appearance of the place promised ease and indulgence. And most of Harry's companions seemed in the mood for both.

They pulled into the yew-hedged car park and clambered out. A couple of porters appeared with trolleys to take their bags. Dangerfield led the way into the reception area on the ground floor of the tower, where a massive fire blazed and tartan-uniformed staff flitted around them. The manager, a small, trim, sleek-haired fellow called Matthews, introduced himself and welcomed them to Kilveen. Dr Starkie and Erica Rawson had arrived, he reported, but Mr Wiseman was still awaited. Dangerfield broke the bad news about Askew and Chipchase. Matthews took it in his modest stride. The register was signed. Keys were distributed.

Harry followed a bright-eyed young woman identified by her lapel badge as Bridget to his room, high up in the tower. A lift had been installed in place of one of the two spiral staircases he remembered stumbling up and down. Bridget praised the view, which was panoramic, and rattled through detailed advice about heating controls, meal times and telephone extension numbers. Then she was gone. To his relief, Harry found himself alone. But not for long. The porter arrived with his bag. Soon, however, bag delivered and tip dispensed, Harry's solitude was restored.

He sat down on the four-poster bed and looked about him. Every comfort was on hand. But he did not feel comfortable. He did not feel relaxed in any way. And neither a satellite television nor a Jacuzzi bath was going to change that. Where was Chipchase? What was he up to? What in God's name was going on?

—«»—«»—«»—

Harry took a shower and dressed for dinner, which meant donning the dark-grey suit he had worn at his mother's funeral, paired with a rainbow-striped tie Donna had given him for Christmas a few years ago. Then, after casting a wary eye over the telephone tariff, he put a call through to Seattle.

Donna and Daisy were having brunch, prior to their drive back to Vancouver. It was good to hear their calm, cheerful voices. He reported Chipchase's no-show, but not Askew's disappearance. He did not want Donna to worry, especially when there was, obviously, nothing to worry about. She promised to give him a wake-up call in the morning. He promised not to drink too much.

When he put the phone down, Harry realized how much he missed his wife and daughter. He wanted to be with them, not carousing with half-forgotten comrades from fifty years ago. He wished profoundly that he had not come to Scotland. But he had. And if he did not head down to the bar soon, they would probably send up a search party. With a sigh, he grabbed his key and set off.

—«»—«»—«»—

Halfway down the stairs, he literally bumped into another guest, who was emerging from his room. They stepped back to examine each other and Harry's brain scrambled to deduce who the fellow might be. Tall and fleshy, with thinning, white, curly hair, an eagle's-beak nose, a broad but not altogether warm smile and an intense, faintly sceptical gaze, he was wearing an expertly cut suit of some shimmering dark-blue material, a blue shirt with a white collar and bright-red tie that matched the hue of a flamboyantly disarranged breastpocket handkerchief.

'Magister.'

'That's right. And you must be… Ossie Barnett.' They shook hands, the band of a signet ring grinding into the knuckle on Harry's little finger.

'You made it, then.'

'Got here half an hour ago. Checked in with Danger. He seemed relieved to hear from me. I gather Crooked and Fission have dropped out.'

'Looks like it.'

'On your way to the bar?'

'Yes.'

'Let's go, then.'

They carried on down. 'Buy anything at the auction?' Harry asked as they went.

'That.'' Wiseman's laugh echoed in the stairwell. 'No. Complete and utter waste of time. Telephone bidders are taking all the fun out of the auction business.'

'But you're still active in it.'

'You've got to stay active, Ossie. You must know that. The brain as well as the body. They have to be kept in trim.'

'Oh, absolutely.'

'And what this brain and this body need at the moment… is a stiff drink.'

—«»—«»—«»—

The bar was next to the dining room on the ground floor of the Georgian wing. There was a stag's head over the mantelpiece, but otherwise little in the way of Caledonian kitsch, just a welcoming fire and lots of soft leather armchairs. Harry and Wiseman were evidently the last to arrive, for Dangerfield and the rest were all there, along with Dr Starkie and Erica Rawson, who seemed to be coping well with being the only woman in a gathering of men too old to have absorbed many feminist principles.

Short and slender, with boyishly cropped black hair, the young woman's large, teak-brown eyes had a sharpness of focus that made Harry feel, albeit briefly, the undivided object of her attention as they shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. She was plainly but elegantly dressed in a dark top and palazzo pants, prompting Judd to mutter in Harry's ear, 'It'd be nice to know what she'd look like in something a bit more figure-hugging, don't you reckon, Ossie?' as Dangerfield piloted her away to meet Wiseman.

Donald Starkie, who had stooped slightly, even as a young man, stooped even more fifty years later. His mop of black hair had turned wire-wool grey and his spectacles had acquired alarmingly thick lenses, but otherwise he had changed little, remaining beanpole thin, scruffily dressed (even with an Aberdeen University tie on) and unsmilingly lugubrious.

'You heard of Professor McIntyre's death, Barnett?' he husked to Harry.

'Not at the time. But he'd be over a hundred now, so… it was no surprise.'

'He achieved a lot, let me tell you. More than his obituarists could comprehend.'

'But not with us, hey? We must have been a sore disappointment to him.'

'Oh, I wouldn't say that.'

'No?'

'What I mean…' Starkie took a sip from his glass of mineral water. 'What I mean is that Professor McIntyre regarded failure… as no less instructive than success.'

'So, at least we were instructive.'

'Aye.' Starkie looked thoughtful. 'So you were.'