Kingdom of Shadows (41 page)

Rex threw himself down on the couch. His tie was already loose, swinging round his neck like a noose. He closed his eyes.

‘They’ve screwed me, Mary! Put the boot in, the bastards! After all the fucking years I’ve put in, they’ve screwed me!’

Mary sat down near him, shocked as much by the unaccustomed language as by the damp pallor of his skin. ‘What do you mean, hon?’ Her voice came out as a whisper.

‘I mean they’ve kicked me out. Shown me the door. Sacked me. Told me to take early retirement.’ He put his head in his hands and she was appalled suddenly to see tears trickling between his fingers. She was too stunned to move for a moment.

‘Early retirement?’ she whispered at last. ‘From Sigma?’

He nodded.

‘Not go back to London?’

‘No.’

She stared at him, shocked into silence. No more London. No more apartment in Eaton Square. Probably no more condo. She bit her lip. She had dreamed for so long about the house in Martha’s Vineyard: lovely, old, white-painted weather board, pretty yard, nice neighbours – oh, she could picture it so clearly. But not yet. She wasn’t ready for retirement yet.

They both sat for a while, each wrapped in their own misery, then at last Rex hauled himself to his feet. He reached for the decanter of Bourbon Teresa had left on the tray with two glasses and, pouring out two hefty measures, passed her one.

She looked up blindly. ‘Why, Rex?’

‘Because I’ve been ill. Because they say I’ve lost my grip. Because Doug and those bastards in the London office have been plotting against me. Because the price of oil is dropping and they don’t need a full board executive over there, and if they do it is going to be Doug Warner, not an old has-been like me!’ He drank the Bourbon in one gulp. ‘They’ve vetoed any on-shore prospecting in Britain next year. The applications for licences are going to be withdrawn.’

‘You mean they won’t be trying to buy Duncairn?’

‘Nope.’ Setting down the glass with a bang on the table he tore off his tie and threw it down. ‘Some other company will step in there and clean up.’

‘Paul Royland will be upset.’ Mary found a tissue and dabbed delicately at her eyes. ‘He sounded like he needed the money.’

‘He sure did.’ Rex stood for a moment in front of the window. He parted the blind with his fingers and peered out into the darkness. ‘There’s oil there, Mary. I know it. I’ve been in this business too long not to play a hunch like this. All those years out in the field before they put me behind a desk. I know. It’s like tingling in the fingertips. I can feel it. There, under the ground. Godammit! Those stupid crazy bastards are going to lose the best strike there’s been in years!’ He picked up the decanter again and refilled his glass before going back to the window.

‘Will you get any money from Sigma?’ Mary asked slowly. The whisky was going to her head, but not so much she couldn’t begin to think of practicalities.

‘Oh, sure. A pay-off to ease their consciences, and a pension.’ He sighed. ‘And a month to go back, hand over to Doug, pack up the apartment, then that’s it. After forty years in the business all I get is a kiss on the ass!’

Mary stood up unsteadily. ‘It means we’ll get time together at last, honey. We’ll be able to buy the place we’ve always dreamed of in the Vineyard. Get some travelling in to places we always wanted to go while we’re still young enough. Places they don’t have oil.’ She tried a not-very-successful smile.

Rex was gazing into the bottom of the glass. He didn’t appear to have heard her. He dropped the blind and slowly he turned back towards her. Like a man in a dream he went to his briefcase and, opening it, he took out his calculator. The blurriness had vanished from his face. Mary watched him through a haze of misery as he tapped numbers into the little machine.

‘What is it?’ she whispered.

He didn’t answer. He sat down abruptly and pulled a sheet of paper towards him, jotting down a column of figures. Suddenly he was smiling as he pulled the telephone towards him.

‘Who are you phoning, Rex?’ Mary picked up the decanter and refilled her own glass.

He ignored her. He was already dialling. ‘Royland, is that you? I’ll be back in London on the 6th.’ He paused as Paul spoke on the other end of the line. Then slowly he smiled. ‘Good, but not good enough. The offer just went down by ten thousand. And if we don’t sign on the 6th then it will go down again, my friend.’ He slammed down the phone.

‘Rex?’ His wife turned to face him, glass in hand. ‘What offer? What in hell are you talking about?’

‘Duncairn.’ Rex pushed the sheet of paper in her face. ‘My ancestral home. I’m going to buy it myself.’

The bar at the Duncairn hotel was packed. Neil looked round with some satisfaction as he climbed up on the stool which raised him head and shoulders above everyone there and lifted his hands in a gesture which eventually produced enough quiet for him to make himself heard.

‘Ladies and gentlemen. First, I want to thank Jack Grant for letting us use the hotel for this meeting. It seemed the right place because here, more than anywhere, the changes which oil would bring to Duncairn would be felt.’ He looked round. He had their attention now. ‘As you know, there have been strong rumours that Sigma Oil, one of the American-based companies operating out of London and Aberdeen, has made an offer to buy Duncairn, the hotel, the bay, the village, the castle. I myself went down to England a couple of weeks ago and spoke to Clare Royland and she confirmed that an offer has indeed been made.’ He paused. The faces around him showed consternation, anger, polite interest, concern. It was his job now to see that every man, woman and child at Duncairn felt the same thing: the absolute commitment to fight.

‘Many of you knew Margaret Gordon personally. I know she came here often; she involved herself with Duncairn’s affairs even though she didn’t actually live here. She loved this place. Would she have wanted it sold?’

He loved this part. Speaking to an audience, cajoling them, winning them, whipping them into a frenzy – even this small taciturn group, fishermen mostly and their wives, a couple of farmers, one or two newcomers who had settled in the bay.

‘The Gordons lived in the castle for four hundred years until the English government dismantled it after the ’45 and after that they stayed here in their hearts.’ Neil kept his voice even. He knew just how to appeal to their patriotism, the Anglophobia which was so easily stirred in the Scots heart. ‘They never stopped loving this place. They kept faith with their ancestors, Margaret Gordon as loyal as any of them!’

There was a growl of assent around him and he saw them nodding. Behind the bar Jack Grant was leaning against the wall, his arms folded.

‘But Margaret Gordon made one mistake,’ Neil went on gravely. ‘She left the estate to her great niece, Clare. Oh, as a child Clare came here often. She loved it here. She felt the ties which have bound her ancestors to this land for nearly a thousand years. But then she went away. She married an Englishman.’ He paused for effect. ‘She left Scotland and she forgot Duncairn. Margaret Gordon thought the inheritance would be safe with Clare Royland. But she was wrong; it was not safe.’ He looked around. ‘She has agreed to sell!’

There was a stunned silence, then a roar of dissent from the people crowded round him. Neil let the noise continue for a few minutes, then he raised his hand.

‘It is true, my friends. I’m sorry. Now, you may wonder where I come into all this. I am here for two reasons. One is that I, like you, love this place.’ He paused. ‘I used to come here as a child; I went on coming here as a student.’ He grinned at them conspiratorially. ‘I used to camp on the cliffs and watch the birds, and on several occasions when I was doing that I met Margaret Gordon. The second reason is that now I am the Scots director of Earthwatch – the environmental group who are going to co-ordinate the fight against Sigma, the fight in which everyone of us here, tonight, is going to take part.’ He paused as a ragged round of applause and cheering broke out, then he went on. ‘Now, I know that the first argument Sigma will produce will be that the oil will bring jobs and money to the area.’ He paused again. ‘I think we have all lived with oil in Scotland for long enough now to know that the people who get the jobs are not necessarily the ones who live here. The benefits the directors of Sigma will talk about are not the benefits that we, here, will feel. Only two lots of people will make money from the oil here: Sigma and the government in England. And only one individual will grow rich. And that is Clare Royland!’ He took a deep breath in the silence which followed that statement, letting it sink in. Once he was sure it had, he went on. ‘And now,’ he smiled at them again, the same special conspiratorial smile which seemed personally directed at everyone in the room. ‘Now, I am going to open this preliminary meeting to the floor. Any thoughts or ideas you have which can help us in our fight are more than welcome, and to help inspiration the bar is now open and the drinks are on Earthwatch!’

He stepped down from the stool amid even more rousing cheers as Jack Grant unfolded his arms and stepped forward.

It was after eleven when the last person went home. Neil let himself out of the side door of the hotel and walked slowly down the gravel drive towards the brake of trees which sheltered it from the sea. Behind the trees sprawled the ruins of the castle.

It was a cold blustery night; very dark. There was no moon and only one or two stars appeared between the threatening clouds. Neil found his way almost by instinct towards the castle and stood, his hand on the crumbling stone of the seaward wall, listening to the deafening crash of the waves on the beach. Every now and then he could see the white foam on a rolling breaker exploding in the darkness below him. The air was sharp with salt; the ground seemed to tremble beneath his feet with the power of the sea – the ground with its dark, hidden reserves of oil.

He sat down on the wall, the collar of his jacket pulled up around his face, his hair whipping round his ears, feeling specks of spray stinging his skin. The first round had been played; the first shots fired across Sigma’s bows. He stared thoughtfully into the dark. The money would be a lure to the locals, he was under no illusions about that. They were hard realists. They might love Duncairn but they lived here. They knew the poverty which could come with a poor fishing season. They were not sentimental. He had to appeal to a deeper, more atavistic instinct than sentiment. Sentiment would do for the people of Edinburgh and Glasgow; for the readers of the English newspapers, and for himself.

He ran his hand over the cold stones with their wet film of spray. They belonged to Clare Royland and she belonged to them. Why, oh why, could she not feel it too?

The house in Campden Hill seemed far too small with Sarah and Casta there as well. It was suddenly full of the smell of wet dog and cooking as Clare changed out of her jeans in the bedroom, putting on a dress for dinner. There had been no word from Paul. She had waited for an irate phone call as soon as Henry took the papers back to him the day before, but none had come. There had been no word last night and none this morning before she and Sarah had set out for London.

She was sitting before the dressing table combing her hair when she heard the front door slam, then the murmur of Paul’s voice as he spoke to Sarah. It was a full ten minutes before he came upstairs. He stood for a moment looking at her, then, slowly taking off his jacket he proceeded to hang it up in the cupboard.

‘I hear the traffic was bad coming into town.’

Clare swallowed. ‘It was heavy,’ she agreed cautiously. After a long silence she went on, ‘I wasn’t sure if you were dining here this evening?’

‘I have already told Sarah I am.’ He pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. ‘Chloe phoned last night, by the way. She wants to meet you for lunch tomorrow. I told her you would unless she heard to the contrary tonight.’ He disappeared into the bathroom and she heard the water running into the basin.

She had been breathing deeply, expecting any moment a tirade of abuse. This cold politeness was more than she could bear. She stood up and went to the door. Paul was washing his face over the basin. Looking at his broad back and heavy shoulders she felt an unaccustomed shiver of distaste. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything about the document?’ she said defiantly.

He paused for a moment over the basin, then he went on sluicing water over his face and neck. ‘What is there to say?’

‘You tried to trick me into signing it!’

He straightened and groped for a towel. ‘In what way did I try and trick you?’

‘You hoped I’d sign it without reading it!’

He scanned her face slowly. ‘If you are foolish enough to sign things without reading them, Clare, then you must expect occasionally to sign things which surprise you.’ He permitted himself a tight, humourless smile. ‘The surprise in this case seems to have been avoided.’ He pushed past her and pulled a clean shirt out of the drawer.

‘You don’t even bother to deny it?’

‘Why should I deny it?’

She stared at him in silence. There was a cold hardness about him which frightened her.

‘Paul, is it true you’ve lost money in the City?’

‘Did Henry tell you that?’

‘No. No, not Henry. Is it true?’

‘I have to find a large sum of money by settlement day, certainly.’

‘When is settlement day?’

‘The 7th.’ He spoke curtly.

‘And if you don’t pay then?’

‘I will probably be able to get some extra time, but not much.’

‘And then? What happens then? Are you in real trouble, Paul? Is it true you’ve been insider dealing?’

He looked at her with withering contempt. ‘Clare, you don’t even know what that means! You know nothing about the City –’

‘I know enough, Paul.’ To her surprise she felt completely calm. ‘I also know that you could cover yourself by selling the Royland shares. There is no need to sell Duncairn.’

She was watching his face in the mirror as he stood with his back to her tying his tie and she saw the muscles around his jaw tighten. His face was white. ‘I cannot sell the Royland shares, Clare.’