‘It’s – it’s just—’ he stammered, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
‘What were you and Jozef talking about last night? I could tell you were plotting something. I don’t like plots.’ Stefan’s dark blue eyes were fixed on the younger man.
Kasper somehow could not look away. ‘It’s just . . . well, I was going to tell you before I left. I’m taking the rest of the week off.’
There was a brief silence, then Stefan’s face lit with rage. ‘What?’ he yelled. ‘Oh no, you’re not!’ He explained, in obscene detail, precisely what he would do to stop him, then went on, ‘We’ve a contract, remember? A great bonus if we finish next week, and we lose another job the week after if we don’t. Do you think I run this for your benefit?
‘Still, good that you’re up early. I’ll take you to the house now and you can start while I go back and fetch the others.’
Kasper was taller and broader than the older man but even so he had to screw up his courage. ‘I won’t go. These people pay double what you pay me. It’s four days. That’s all.’
He had been prepared for argument, prepared even to have to pay some share of his windfall into the gang’s kitty. He was not prepared for immediate violence, and Stefan’s punch caught him squarely on his cheekbone.
Shock came first, then dismay. He was no stranger to street fights, yet for the second time recently he was trapped. He couldn’t dodge the rain of blows and kicks and with his injured arm, both his defence and attack were feeble.
The noise had brought the other two occupants of the house bleary-eyed from their beds to stare, stupefied, at what was going on. At last one of them, Jozef, pulled Stefan off but not before a final vicious kick left Kasper doubled over in pain.
Stefan had not escaped unscathed either: his lip was bleeding and there was a bloody bruise on his temple, but his adversary was in a much worse state. His nose was pouring blood, one of his eyes was half-shut and his jaw was swelling visibly. He turned to the sink and spat out blood and a chip off a tooth. He grabbed a dish towel and put it to his nose.
Still breathing heavily, Stefan shook himself free of restraint. ‘Just a little misunderstanding. Kasper thought he would dump us and lose us the bonus, but he’s changed his mind.’
He walked back into the living room. Kasper, his face black with rage and humiliation, limped out of the kitchen past him. He turned at the doorway in stubborn defiance.
‘You heard what I said. I’m going. You’ve beaten me up – you can’t kill me, or I’m no use to you. I can come back next week and work overtime, or I walk out and you’re a man short. You choose.’
‘The circus come to town, has it?’ The old man, a bemused look on his face, looked up and down Ardhill’s main street.
There were trucks everywhere, almost constituting a small village on their own. A Winnebago stood in the pub car park and a catering truck opposite was producing a fine smell of frying bacon. A queue of people was lining up at the hatch for breakfast.
Across the road, a generator with cables snaking from it was running and nearby a woman with a clipboard was in earnest conversation with a man who had headphones draped round his neck. The early rain had stopped, but the sky was grey and threatening, and clearly a source of concern.
A uniformed policeman, there to reconcile production demands with the needs of the motorist, was eating a sausage butty and there were faces at the windows of the houses. A small crowd had gathered and a party atmosphere was rapidly developing.
A minibus appeared and disgorged a self-conscious group of schoolchildren, among them Catriona Fleming and her friend Anna. They had been up since six this morning, getting ready and having intense phone consultations about such important matters as shades of lip-gloss. The result, in each case, was impressive: two pretty girls, one fair, one dark, dressed similarly in jeans and tops from Gap (one blue t-shirt, one green smock).
Cat and Anna had checked out the competition and were now feeling distinctly complacent. ‘None of the others have even bothered,’ Anna whispered. ‘Some of them look a right mess.’
They were directed to the breakfast truck, but Cat and Anna hung back. The bacon smell was tempting and they both had healthy adolescent appetites, but having taken so much trouble with the lip-gloss – renewed on the bus – it would be a shame to eat it off before the director got the full effect. Cat waved to Karolina, serving at the hatch, but she was looking harassed and gave her only a brief smile.
‘Look,’ Anna said, nudging her friend, ‘someone’s coming over.’ They both produced nervous grins.
There were two men, one small, plump and cheerful-looking and the other dark and unsmiling.
‘You’re the kids from the school, right?’ the dark one said. ‘If you wait all together over there, I’ll come and explain.’
The youngsters gathered slowly, clutching bacon rolls and croissants, and in one case a bowl of cereal. When they were assembled, the dark man looked round them with a professional eye.
‘Hi. I’m Tony. Can’t use you all, I’m afraid, but thanks for coming anyway. The storyline calls for a bunch of kids throwing stones at a car. Who fancies stone-throwing? Legal vandalism – could be fun.’
All the hands went up, Cat and Anna looking at each other uncertainly. It wasn’t what they had expected and both were getting a sinking feeling that all their efforts might have been wasted.
‘OK.’ Tony’s eyes scanned them again. ‘I need five. You, you, you, you and you.
‘The rest of you – sorry. Thanks again for turning up. Feel free to wander around, have some more breakfast, watch for a bit if you like. I warn you, though, it’ll be slow. Watching paint dry’s a thrill a minute by comparison. If you’re heading back to school, the bus is there to take you whenever you want to go.’
Cat bit her lip. Anna gave a small, miserable sniff as they turned away with the other rejects. One of the scruffiest boys went past them sniggering.
‘Being smart’s not always as smart as not being smart,’ he said, leaving them, as he would have said if he’d thought of it, smarting.
Karolina had been looking forward to today, and now it had been ruined by anxiety. Oh, the cooking wasn’t difficult and the kitchen crew had been friendly – at least until Kasper’s arrival.
The Glasgow friend who had got her the job in the first place had phoned on Saturday to say another person was needed locally to fill in. She’d mentioned it to some Polish friends after Mass on Sunday, among them Kasper who got in first when she said what it paid. She hadn’t been altogether happy – and she certainly hadn’t told Rafael – but at least she’d been able to say she’d found someone.
When Kasper appeared, it was clear he had been fighting. With his height, his dark colouring and his usual intense expression, he tended to look forbidding. Today, with the gashes on his face and a black eye, he looked positively alarming.
Chef, a plump and peaceable man, looked at him askance. ‘You all right? What happened to you, then?’
‘Had problem. OK now. What you want I do?’
He was set to peeling vegetables. Karolina, pink with embarrassment, came over and hissed at him, ‘
Co to jest?
What is this? Why have you come looking like this? You have let me down.’
Kasper was aggrieved. ‘You think I wanted this? My gang boss didn’t like me taking days off. Went for me like a crazy man.’
‘I can see that. Why did you take this, if you had a job already?’
‘Because it paid more. Why do you think?’
‘You are too fond of money, Kasper. You haven’t learned—’
He interrupted her. ‘I don’t need a lecture. This man is a slave-driver – takes most of the money for himself, then charges us rent to live in a pigsty house.’
He set down his knife and took her by the wrist. ‘Karolina, I don’t know if it is safe to go back. He is dangerous – you can see. If the others hadn’t pulled him off me, he might have killed me.
‘Can I stay with you and Rafael, just for a while? We’re old friends, you have a house, we are Poles who must stick together—’
‘No!’ She wrenched her hand away. ‘It’s a small house, we have Janek – you must find somewhere else. Or go back to your job now and say sorry. I will explain here—’ She would be glad to, with the curious looks she was getting.
He turned to stare at her fiercely. ‘I will never apologize. He must apologize to me.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Karolina said wearily. ‘Anyway, I’ve got work to do and so have you.’
Chef looked at her enquiringly as she turned away.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘He had a row with one of his housemates. He’ll be fine. These things – they make up again, I guess.’
And how Karolina hoped that what she said was true!
Jaki Johnston came downstairs yawning at ten o’clock. Reaching the foot of the stairs, she heard Marcus’s voice from the drawing room and stuck her head in. He was on his mobile, but waved and mouthed, ‘Won’t be long!’
He said into the phone, ‘For goodness’ sake! I can’t see it coming up in general conversation, anyway. Surely anything more would be most unwise? I’m sorry, I just won’t go down that road.’
There was a lengthy response, then he said, ‘Easiest if you just keep them off my back, really.’ He laughed. ‘Then I won’t be tempted to confess.’
Even Jaki could hear the agitated squawking at the other end of the phone.
‘OK, OK, calm down. That was a joke, all right? Yes. Yes, fine. See you sometime.’
Marcus switched the phone off, pulling a face. ‘Idiot woman! Thinks I’m going to cause her trouble and wants me to lie to the police. I hate people trying to manipulate me – sends me in the opposite direction.’
Jaki looked at him quizzically, but he only said, ‘Looking for breakfast? Mrs Boyter’s out shopping – an excuse to see what’s happening in the village, I reckon – but we can find you some toast, at least.’
‘It must be up that lane there, look,’ DS Andy Macdonald said to DC Ewan Campbell, dodging the chaos in Ardhill’s main street, avoiding cameras mounted on dollies, trolleys of equipment and people who seemed oblivious to anything except what they themselves were doing. ‘I hope we can manage to get through – and get back out again!’
‘Just as long as we don’t get ourselves blocked in,’ Campbell said.
Macdonald looked at him in surprise. Campbell, who came from Oban, was famous for his linguistic economy. This almost came under the heading of small-talk.
‘Why does it matter?’ Macdonald asked, and saw Campbell’s pale skin go pink under the freckles.
‘It’s Mairi. She’s due today and I might get a call any time.’
It was the most personal observation Macdonald had ever heard him make. He knew Campbell was married, but he couldn’t have been sure of his wife’s name and had no idea the arrival of a small Campbell was imminent.
‘Well – congratulations,’ he said, a little lamely. ‘My sisters tell me first babies are always late, anyway.’
‘Aye, maybe. But if she’s needing me they’ll have to get their cameras out the road right away.’
He spoke ferociously and Macdonald looked at him, astonished. Maybe that was the Campbell blood coming out, and as a Macdonald he’d better watch his step.
‘Er – yes,’ he said, then with some relief, ‘Here we are – that looks like the house.’
The address was the one given to the medical centre by the young man with the knife wound. It was a run-down area at the back of Ardhill, in sharp contrast to the smartly painted main street. The house was an ugly semi-detached bungalow, built of concrete slabs coated with beige pebble-dash. The garden gate was off its hinges and in the garden itself rubbish had accumulated – a rusted engine, some old enamel pails and buckets, a bicycle chassis with no wheels. Dirty net curtains hung at the window, one with a jagged tear in it.
‘How many of them do you suppose are living there?’ Macdonald wondered, not really expecting an answer. Campbell followed him up the path in silence as he went on, ‘Can’t be paying much rent for a place like this, though of course they won’t be earning much. They work for about half of what the locals charge.’
They walked up the path to a front door which had once been blue but was now blistered and peeling. There was no bell, so Campbell knocked, then knocked again.
‘Out at work, probably,’ Macdonald said. ‘Not the best time to catch them in, really, when you think about it.’
He stepped back, looking at the front of the house, then, noticing the rip in the curtain, walked over to the window and peered through it, shading his eyes. ‘It’s messy enough for a lot of men, anyway. Dirty dishes everywhere – just like home.’
‘Someone’s watching us next door,’ Campbell said suddenly. ‘Curtain moved.’
The adjoining garden was similarly untidy, though this time the litter was mainly plastic toys, their colour bleached by sun and rain. The doorbell played a silly tune when Campbell pressed it.
After a pause, the door opened a fraction and a young woman in a grubby T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms and bare feet appeared, holding an even grubbier infant clad only in a plastic nappy.
She eyed them suspiciously round the door, the tall young man with a dark buzz-cut and the shorter one with red hair, one wearing a raincoat and the other a brown zipped jacket. ‘You’re polis, aren’t you? What are you wanting? He’s not here, anyway.’