Requiem (9 page)

‘Sorry about that, old girl.’

Gaining height, he turned sharply and headed back to the air strip. Hot and weary, he half hoped the mechanic would be unable to fix the trouble so that, though it would mean the loss of much-needed loot, he could take the rest of the day off.

A
S SOON AS
lunch was over, Nick slipped away and strode briskly up through the park to the rowan tree. Wrapping the shotgun in the poacher’s jacket, he made his way back to the house, feeling conspicuous as he walked stiffly and unnaturally with the gun clamped firmly against his thigh. But there was no Alusha to see him this time, nor anyone else, and he managed to return the gun to the secure cupboard in the corner of the boot room unobserved.

As for the jacket, he couldn’t make up his mind about that. To leave it in the wood store would be to suggest that last night was forgiven and forgotten, which it most certainly was not. To keep the damn thing would be equally unsatisfactory. Putting the decision off, he finally hung it on a peg behind the door.

On his way out he met Alusha in the hall and almost gave himself away with a guilty laugh. Duplicity had never been his strong point. But if Alusha noticed, she chose not to mention it. Instead she invited him to walk with her to the paddock while Mel was watching the American football on TV and David was, inevitably, phoning London.

They stepped into air that was unexpectedly fresh. He stood looking around him, as he always did when leaving the house. The sky was clear, the hills were bathed in a light which seemed to have burnt the high moors an unaccustomed shade of ochre. The trees sparkled and shimmered, their leaves tinkling and rustling in the breeze.

They walked past the walled garden, through the rhododendron grove and began the climb towards the paddock. Nick looped his arm firmly in Alusha’s. Already the events of the previous night seemed a long way off and, if he tried really hard, he could persuade himself that none of it had happened.

Clear of the gardens the breeze was stronger and cooler, and he realized that, unusually for the time of year, it was coming from the north, maybe even a little east of north.

From the house came the distant sound of a car crunching across the gravel and a moment later Nick glanced back to see the unmistakable figure of Duncan coming round the side of the house. Nick whistled to him and Duncan, waving a brief acknowledgement, started after them. Even at that distance Nick could see that Duncan was using his angry walk: stride rapid, head down, arms pumping. By the time he caught up with them at the paddock rail, his complexion was a deep and dangerous shade of red.

‘They’ve been at it again!’ Duncan panted through clenched teeth. ‘They’ve been at it again!’

Nick caught Alusha stifling a slight smile and frowned at her. ‘Who has?’ he asked.

‘Those damned poachers! Up at Macinley’s Pool, curse their eyes! Just when I was away for the evening.’ Duncan had been in the business of outmanoeuvring poachers for thirty years, but it never seemed to occur to him that the opposition’s intelligence-gathering system might be better than his own.

‘We’ll get them next time,’ Nick said soothingly.

‘Of that you may be sure! If it’s the very last thing I do. Oh yes!’ Duncan was momentarily silenced by his own indignation.

Alusha had entered the paddock and was calling Rona, who was going through an elegant charade of evading capture. ‘I could get some of those image-intensifying things,’ Nick suggested. ‘You know, sort of night binoculars. Would that help?’ This offering was made to mollify Duncan, but also to assuage his own guilt at having cocked up a perfectly good opportunity for capture.

Duncan’s eyes sparkled. ‘Those things they use in the SAS?’

Nick hadn’t thought of Duncan as a military enthusiast. He couldn’t resist teasing him. ‘I’ve only ever seen them in nature films,’ he said innocently. ‘But what do you think?’

Duncan chortled with unconcealed glee. ‘Now that would do the trick very nicely! Oh yes. I could set myself up on the hill-side, with a two-mile stretch of river in my sights. Oh yes!’

The pony, after a last coquettish dance, had allowed herself to be captured and was following Alusha meekly to the rail. Duncan, his optimism restored, said brightly: ‘Not riding today, Mrs Mackenzie?’

Alusha stroked Rona’s neck rhythmically. ‘No, not today.’ She looked away slyly, secretively. This small evasion was so uncharacteristic of her that Nick allowed himself to read an unmistakable message into her decision, and felt his stomach tighten.

Turning quickly to Duncan he said: ‘Anyway, I thought you were taking the evening off. Going to Oban.’

Duncan admitted to the possibility with a dismissive grunt. ‘But I’ll be back later,’ he said significantly. ‘And every night, by God. Until the river falls.’

Nick heard this with some alarm. A stakeout wasn’t likely to be too productive; the tall poacher, for all his artfulness, surely wouldn’t come back so soon, not after a fracas like that. Hastily, he invented a job which would require Duncan to be in Oban early the next morning, so that it wouldn’t be worth his while to come back from the evening with his sister. They argued gently for a while. Duncan vacillated, looked unhappy, but finally agreed.

‘It’s that Alistair Campbell from Inveraray, you know,’ Duncan said over his shoulder as he started back down the hill.

‘Who is?’

‘The damned poacher.’

Alistair Campbell. Nick didn’t know the name, but he turned it carefully over in his mind, fitting it to the voice and the dark faceless figure by the pool. ‘You’re sure?’ he called after Duncan.

‘Och, I’m sure,’ Duncan said heavily, and, giving a rueful wave of farewell, plodded back towards the house.

Alusha said: ‘The police, can’t they arrest this Campbell?’

‘They’d need proof.’

‘What about the salmon? His house, it must be full of them.’ Nick regarded her fondly. ‘Sold on by now.’

She gave him a narrow cat-like stare. ‘And after you so nearly caught him.’

He was completly taken aback. ‘I … caught him?’

Alusha unclipped Rona’s halter and the pony shimmied away, picking up her feet and showing the whites of her eyes like some affronted spinster. Alusha ducked under the rail. ‘You were out all night, weren’t you? And there’s that bump in your head.’

‘On.
On
my head,’ he corrected her. ‘Does it show?’ He put a hand to the lump.

‘You’ve been touching it all day. And blood – I can see blood. Not much, but enough.’ She gave him a triumphant grin. ‘See? Easy.’

Alusha, as always, had an unfailing talent for rooting out the truth. Far from minding about this, Nick was rather proud of her for it.

Putting on a suitably sheepish expression, he said: ‘It seemed a good idea at the time.’

‘If you like to go falling over in the dark or whatever you did, well’ – she gave a small shrug – ‘what can I say? Playing cowboys and Indians. It’s
almost
funny.’ She raised her eyebrows to show how unfunny she thought it was.

A Wild West comparison wasn’t the first Nick would have made, but considering the gun and the ridiculous tussle by the pool she wasn’t so far wrong.

Alusha prodded his shoulder. ‘So long as no one gets silly, Nick. As long as no one gets hurt. That’s all I ask.’

He thought for an appalling moment that she knew about the gun. But reading her expression, he saw that there was nothing deeper in her remark and pulled her into his arms so that she wouldn’t see the guilt and relief in his face.

Breathing the musky scent of her hair, feeling the familiar shape of her body against his, he wondered not for the first time how it was possible to foul up so much of one’s life and still end up with the first prize.

Then her last words drifted back into his mind, and he complained mildly: ‘But I
am
hurt.’

‘No sympathy,’ she said firmly, pulling away from him. ‘Serves you right.’ But she couldn’t have been too cross with him because she put her hand into his as they walked down the hill.

Nearing the house, Nick could make out David’s figure in the rose garden, wandering between the beds, examining the flowers, but stiffly as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all.

From long habit, Nick and Alusha made a detour through the walled kitchen garden. But unusually, they walked in silence as they made their inspection of the vegetables, the burgeoning raspberry canes and the vine in its long glasshouse.

Nick gathered his courage. This was the obvious moment to ask the question that had been hovering between them for days, since the time Alusha had stopped riding Rona.

He got to the point of opening his mouth then, hesitating disastrously, turned away to examine the grapes. His courage ebbed away. It was superstition, it was nameless fear, but he felt that asking the question would only invite disappointment, and he wasn’t sure he was quite ready to face that yet. Postponement offered a sort of promise that seemed to go hand in hand with the perfection of the day. Anything, perhaps, was better than the blunt certainty of failure, although in some curious way the hope of children had been with them so long that it was almost enough in itself.

The sun was warmer here, the breeze soft, the day perfect. Later, when everyone had gone, the moment would come.

Squeezing her hand, he talked instead about the visit to Perthshire they were planning for the coming week.

David was first into the car, getting into the back with his briefcase at his side, doing his best to look sorry the visit was over.

Mel came next, sauntering jauntily out of the house, chattering with Alusha, kissing her warmly, as if the weekend had been an unqualified success. An afternoon in front of the television seemed to have restored his humour. As he climbed in, Nick started up the Mercedes. Alusha put her head to the open window. ‘You’ll come back soon, both of you – promise?’

She had pulled back her hair into a long plait and donned her workman’s kit, a pair of baggy overalls. Nick tried to remember what she was planning to do for the remainder of the afternoon. Painting perhaps – she’d taken a watercolour course – or renovating an old lamp she’d bought in London.

As the car rattled over the cattle grid Nick glanced in the mirror and saw that Alusha was still there, waving slowly. Something about the sight of her small figure standing in the wide expanse of the front sweep bothered him, but he couldn’t pin it down. He slowed the car to give himself time to think, but Mel shot him a questioning glance and, remembering that they had a plane to catch, he pressed on.

‘I can see the attraction of this place, you know,’ Mel said as he surveyed the spectacular beauty of the loch. ‘Unadulterated escapism.’

‘Escapism? I wouldn’t have called it that,’ Nick replied amiably. Purposely choosing to misunderstand, he added: ‘There’s no need to escape from anything here.’

‘No, I mean it’s places like this you escape
to
,’ Mel explained, impatiently. Then, catching Nick’s expression, he closed his mouth abruptly before commenting: ‘I wouldn’t mind a place like this myself, mind. No aggravation. No pollution. No stress. And all that organic food – I tell you, you’ll live for ever if you’re not careful.’

Nick smiled. Sometimes, when he thought back to the early days, he could persuade himself that he missed the companionship, the running gags, the buzz one got after a good show. On the other hand, he only had to remember the horrors of the attendant nonsense, the tensions and disagreements and crises that used to spring up with unbelievable regularity to miss nothing at all. ‘Is this for ever?’ Mel asked suddenly.

‘What?’

‘This stopping the world and getting off.’

‘I haven’t got off. Not the world, not anything. You make me sound like a recluse or something.’

‘I’m only asking if it’s for ever.’

Nick was aware of David in the back making a poor job of pretending not to listen. ‘I don’t know, Mel,’ he replied honestly. ‘I really don’t know.’

He knew what they were thinking. That the New York incident was years ago now, that he should have put that behind him, that he should be back where he belonged, producing an album a year and, while he was about it, throwing in a few gigs and an album or two to get Amazon off the ground again and put Mel and Joe back in the way of money and success.

One charity show wouldn’t be enough to satisfy them. He should have realized that. They didn’t understand, either of them, that he was quite happy alone at Ashard with Alusha and his work.

They came into Inveraray, with its main street of neat white-painted shops and hotels. A string of tourists dawdled along, staring into windows packed with tartan dolls, plastic bagpipes and miniature haggises.

A car drew out from in front of the Spa grocery shop on the other side of the street and came towards them. He recognized the car, and saw one of the occupants wave. It was his housekeeper, Mrs Alton, and her husband. He waved back. The vague concern about Alusha clarified. He realized that, with Mrs Alton here in town, all the staff were either off-duty or away. Even Duncan, who lived barely half a mile from the house, would be on his way to Oban by now. Alusha was on her own at Glen Ashard.