You would think you would know your own father well enough to understand how his mind worked. She’d even been living at home at the time all this happened – but had she ever really known her father? Known him as a man capable of impulsive, irrational decisions, rather than as a harsh, rigid paternal figure who was always so right that even when you were quite old enough to know that he wasn’t, you felt guilty for not falling into line? Did anyone ever truly know a parent?
Janet, of course—
‘Marjory! Marjory!’
She had been gazing into space; Bill’s urgent shouting brought her to with a jerk. He was standing in the yard, signalling frantically, and she jumped to her feet, waved in acknowledgement and hurried on down, her heart racing. There must be some new development – though why hadn’t they phoned the mobile she always carried with her? Some problem with reception, perhaps.
She was breathless when she reached Bill, then stopped dead when she saw his ashen face.
‘It’s Cammie. He’s been badly hurt in a game. They’re – they’re worried about him. Marjory, we need to go. Cat’s trying to find us a flight.’
‘
Jestes szalony!
You’re crazy! Kasper, for God’s sake—’ Jozef leaped up and launched himself across the room to grab him in a smother-tackle. The blade of the knife in Kasper’s upraised hand glinted in the light from the naked bulb overhead.
Stefan Pavany, trapped in a corner of the living room by Kasper’s sudden, bull-like charge, had for once lost his composure, but as Jozef intervened he snatched the knife and shouldered himself free.
Kasper was still struggling. The fourth man of the crew, Henryk, joined in, frogmarching Kasper to the dilapidated sofa and forcing him on to it. They sat down on either side, still pinioning his arms.
Stefan slipped the knife into his jacket pocket and loomed over Kasper, sneering. ‘What a fool! That’s it – finish! You’re lucky I don’t hand you over to the police.’
‘You daren’t!’ Kasper snarled. ‘They’d look at how you treat us, your papers, everything. There’s a law here, and you’re breaking it.’
Stefan laughed. ‘And you aren’t, maybe? Be grateful I’ll let you go. Get out – find another job. Or go back to Poland.’
Kasper’s shoulders sagged, the fight going out of him. ‘Give me my money, then, and I’ll leave.’
‘I told you – no money now. Money when we finish the job, when we have the bonus. Only maybe we’ll lose it, thanks to you. So you haven’t a claim.’
‘Henryk, Jozef!’ Kasper appealed to the silent men beside him. ‘You’ll let him do this? He’s screwing us all, you know that. There are three of us – we should stick together, my friends, my brothers!’
Jozef hung his head, but Henryk said, ‘We don’t want trouble. You’re a madman, Kasper – you’d have killed him, and then what? Do like he says – go away, forget about it, find another job. Maybe with the film people, like you did before?’
Kasper stood up in a sudden violent movement, shaking them off. Stefan retreated watchfully, but no further attack came.
‘I will get my stuff – you will be so gracious as to allow me?’ The ironic courtesy did not conceal his simmering rage.
He went through to his shared bedroom and the others sat down uneasily. Stefan switched on the television on mute and they sat in silence, watching faces contorted in unheard laughter in some incomprehensible quiz show. When Kasper reappeared, Stefan got up warily.
Kasper looked past Stefan to the men he had called his brothers. ‘I am ashamed of you. You are a disgrace to Poland. And you—’ He stared at Stefan with burning eyes. ‘Not worth words.’
He spat in his face, then left, slamming the door behind him so that the flimsy house shook.
Stefan took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘So – we need a roofer now, eh? You ask in the pub tonight. I have to go and see one or two people. I never thought that scum would last. Good riddance!’
It was getting late when at last Barrie Craig pronounced himself satisfied and with a collective sigh of relief the crew began to pack up. He put his arm round Jaki Johnston’s shoulders. ‘Brilliant, sweetie – rose to the occasion like a trooper.’
Jaki’s laugh was shaky. ‘Phew! I’m half-dead now. But today was a lot better than yesterday.’
‘Come to the hotel in Sandhead with us tonight. Tony says it does an almost bearable dinner, and we all need a change of scene – I certainly do! My nerves are shot, absolutely shot.’
‘Sounds good to me. Pick me up at seven, say? Great.’
Tiredly, she went to the Winnebago and slumped down on one of the cream leather bench seats. Marcus was at the other end of the wagon, pouring boiling water into a mug.
‘Dunk a tea-bag for me, would you?’ Jaki said. ‘Not sure I could stagger far enough to get it for myself.’
‘Sure.’ Marcus brought over their tea and sat down opposite her, then picked up the sling lying on the table. ‘I suppose I’d better replace this. They told me I was to wear it for a couple of days, but I could hardly ask for it to be written into the script.’
‘Does it hurt still?’ Jaki asked, seeing him wincing as he put it on.
‘It does a bit. All right if I keep still, but if I did anything violent I’d know all about it – burst my stitches, probably.’
It was unlike him to admit it, so he must be suffering. ‘You’re looking better today, though,’ she said reassuringly.
‘So are you. You must have slept all right last night.’
‘Took a pill. I was a bit woozy first thing, but the fog’s lifting now. I keep hoping it’ll clear enough for me to remember something to help the police, but—’ She grimaced.
‘I wish my mind would clear! But there’s no point in beating ourselves up – it never works. Anyway, what are your plans for tonight? Do I gather an invitation to Tulach would be unwelcome?’
Her polite denial lacked conviction and he laughed. ‘It’s OK, I wasn’t planning to put you on the spot. You had a really bad experience and you don’t need reminding of it.’
‘Barrie and Tony are taking me to Sandhead for a meal. What about you? And Sylvia, of course,’ she added hastily.
Marcus shook his head. ‘After doing her scene this morning she was wiped out, and she needs an early night. I couldn’t leave her alone in the house.’
With a tiny shudder, Jaki agreed. ‘I’d flip, being there alone.’
Marcus smiled at her. ‘Look, the police are working flat out and we have to trust them or else we’ll all go mad. Sylvia and I will have all the doors and windows locked and the shutters fastened, anyway. We just need to be calm and sensible until we get away from here or they manage to pick someone up for it.’
‘Can’t wait,’ Jaki said with feeling.
‘Cheer up!’ Marcus leaned over to flick her nose, then kissed her. ‘Have a good evening, and sleep well. I’m off.’
Jaki sat on, sipping her tea. She didn’t mean to go on and on, picking over that night, but somehow it kept coming into her head. There was something – something that had puzzled her at the time, but however hard she tried she couldn’t remember what it was.
Sheila Milne had gone to a concert in Dumfries. It had seemed a good idea not to sit at home, with everything going round and round in her head, but even the demands made by the Beethoven late quartet couldn’t banish her anxieties from her mind.
She had seen Bailey off all right – fool of a man! – but his inspector was a different matter. She had no doubt that Fleming would take a vicious satisfaction in engineering her downfall: the animosity between them was personal.
Everything she could do had been done, but still her restless mind searched and searched, like an animal trying to find its way out of a cage-trap, going back and back to the same places again and again, hoping to find a weakness.
She still hadn’t found it when the applause at the end of the piece broke into her wretched thoughts.
‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’ the woman next to her exclaimed.
‘Wonderful,’ Sheila echoed hollowly.
‘Are you sure you’re all right, sleeping down here?’ Marcus Lindsay said anxiously to Sylvia Lascelles. ‘I could help you upstairs—’
‘Darling, you’ve bolted the shutters for me. I’ll be fine.’ She smiled up at him, and he bent to kiss her.
‘If you’re sure—’
‘Of course. And everything will be all right. Promise to put it out of your mind.’
‘I’ll try.’ He looked very tired and stressed, though, with dark shadows under his eyes. ‘It’s just – difficult, that’s all.’
‘It’s easier to be brave, Laddie always used to say. Allow yourself to feel afraid, and it’s much harder.’ She patted his cheek. ‘Go to bed, and take some of those pills they gave you. You’ll feel much better in the morning.’
‘I suppose so. What about you?’
‘I’ll sleep when I need to,’ she said. ‘Goodnight, my darling.’
Marcus left her. Sylvia looked at the shutters, longing to open them and do her thinking, as she always had, looking out at the night sky. But it would be folly; instead, she picked up her stick, got herself out of her chair and limped the few agonizing steps across to the bed.
She lowered herself on to it, biting her lip against the pain, then looked at the photograph of Laddie Lazansky which always stood on the table beside her bed.
‘Oh, Laddie, Laddie! Where are you, when I need you?’ she murmured and her violet-grey eyes filled with tears.
Karolina couldn’t sleep. It was partly because Janek had a cold and now he kept having bouts of coughing in his sleep. It didn’t seem to be bothering him, but every time she dropped off, it started up again and she woke up.
She kept thinking about the poor, poor Flemings – they wouldn’t be getting much sleep in that house tonight. If it was Janek – she couldn’t bear even to frame the thought.
But she had other worries too. While she had been out in the garden with Janek this afternoon, the phone had rung. She heard Rafael answer in English, then switch to Polish. He didn’t sound very pleased, but after a few minutes he said, ‘All right, all right. I can’t lend you much, and I’ll need it back soon, OK?’ Then, ‘Yes, I’ll come down tonight. But this is the last favour – you hear?’
With a sinking heart, Karolina guessed who was at the other end. She expected Rafael to come out and tell her about it, but he didn’t, and when she wandered casually in a few minutes later, asking who had phoned, he said, ‘Oh, just one of the boys. A few of us are going for a drink, but I won’t be late.’
She should have told him immediately that she had overheard instead of pretending she hadn’t, but challenging him would have led to a row in front of Janek, who had come running in at that moment to demand something to eat.
Karolina had tried again when he came back from the pub. ‘Who was there?’
‘Oh, the usual crowd.’ He was looking everywhere but straight at her. ‘Are we just going to bed? I’d better rake out the fire.’
‘Was Kasper there?’
‘Kasper? Oh, I think so. I wasn’t really speaking to him.’
The unnecessary vigour with which he was riddling the fire betrayed him. Karolina said gently, ‘I think you have something on your mind, Rafael. What is it?’
He looked startled, then muttered something about a problem with settling in the new stirks, which might be the truth but certainly wasn’t the whole truth. He went straight upstairs and certainly appeared to be asleep by the time she had finished up downstairs and joined him.
She was angry he should have done this without consulting her. They had few enough savings, and it wasn’t his money, it was theirs. If Rafael had lent money to Kasper, he was a fool. They both knew he wasn’t to be trusted.
But Rafael still felt more of an alien in their new country than she did. He believed that Poles had a duty to look after one another, and he knew that she would have said no. Kasper didn’t deserve looking after: he just needed to work harder and keep his temper.
Rafael had all but ordered her not to tell Marjory what she knew about Kasper’s past, but she hadn’t promised. If there was any more trouble, that was exactly what she was going to do.
It was the worst night of Marjory Fleming’s life. The first flight they could get was the following afternoon, and Bill had wanted to set off immediately by car instead. It had been hard to convince him that in their distraught state this would be madness: neither of them had driven on the continent before, and they wouldn’t even get there sooner. He knew that, really, but he had a desperate need to do something – anything!
She had never seen Bill like this before, her calm, wise Bill, always a rock of common sense in any crisis. Now he was so frantic in his anxiety for his son that he was unable to keep still, hardly able to speak. Cat, though white-faced, had been more collected, and it was she who had spoken directly to the French doctor, understanding enough to relay that Cammie was in intensive care and deeply unconscious.
It had been the rugby coach who had phoned, distraught himself, to tell Bill that a tackle which had caught Cammie awkwardly had broken his leg, but this was a minor problem compared to an injury to his neck which had occurred in the ensuing ruck.
Marjory, who found herself calm with the cold numbness of shock, had spoken to the man an hour later and could almost hear him wringing his hands over the line. There was no change, and Cat’s phone call confirmed that there would be no more news tonight, unless . . .