Whirligig (28 page)

For, what reason did Gordon Claypole now have to choose shame over death? He turned off the road and towards the loch.

And thus I see among these pleasant things

Each care decays; and yet my sorrow springs.

‘Spring‘, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (?1517–1547)

E
arly the following evening, chuffing grey smoke into the clear air, Lachlan's ancient camper van came to a stop outside the Loch Garvach Hotel. Milky switched the engine off, and for a full minute the two men did not speak. The tension in the van was even greater than it had been the previous night. It had been a weak plan, perhaps. There could have been any number of reasons why Claypole had not appeared on the driveway of MacGilp House. But now that they had been thwarted, they would have to conduct the kidnap in broad daylight in front of the community hall. This had risks enough to weaken their joint resolve.

Lachlan looked at his watch. ‘Do you want chips?' he said.

Milky did not answer.

‘Or we could splash out… Let's go to Mackay's and get a veggie Pad Thai.'

‘No,' said Milky.

‘So we're just going to wait for him here, are we?' He paused. ‘This is a mistake. Someone's going to see us.'

Milky did not speak.

‘I s'pose,' Lachlan added, ‘if he doesn't turn up at all, the problem is solved, right? No fatty, no problem…'

Milky blinked, which Lachlan took as tacit agreement, and the two men once again fell quiet.

Inside the community hall, Coky had been alone for some time. She was about to stand up in front of seventy or eighty people, most of whom had known her since birth, and address them on a topic on which she was very far from being an expert. She had not tried to ingest so much information in so short a period of time since A-levels, and it was a shock to her system. How was she supposed to represent the case for the wind farm when she had so little grasp of the detail? What had Peregrine said? ‘Claypole's not only PNG, he's also AWOL, and everybody around here hates me. It's got to be you. Go to it, my girl, and bring us home some bacon.'

She had agreed, of course. Not because she felt so strongly about renewable energy, or wind farms in particular, and her uncle's money worries were his own affair. But the long and horrible war between Peregrine and his sisters had its origins many years in the past – ever since Peregrine's disgraceful actions at his mother's deathbed – and it was high time they all put it behind them. That was Coky's opinion, but it was not one that she could voice to any of the combatants in this war. To varying degrees, they treated her like the child she had (very nearly)
been when her grandmother had died. She was counsel to none of them. So Coky had had to go about her task of reuniting her fractured family with great stealth, telling no one of her intentions. She just knew that if they could get through the wind farm problem there might be a greater than zero chance of peace breaking out among the MacGilps. Not, she couldn't help feeling, that the stupid buggers deserved it.

Coky was angry with Peregrine. He knew more about the Loch Garvach Wind Farm than anyone, and yet he refused to stand up and make the critical speech. He had let Claypole take the heat in the last meeting, but why on earth was the old man still hedging his bets? Perhaps if planning permission were refused, Peregrine wanted to be in a position to deny that he had pushed for it. He could pretend that he was just the landowner on whose land the putative wind farm might have been built, and that it had been nothing to do with him if it either did or didn't happen. But this was no time to be cowardly. It should be him sitting in her seat.

Coky was also angry with her mother. Bonnie had gone out of her way, and beyond the normal course of logic, to be against the wind farm, simply because it was to Peregrine's advantage if it went ahead. If there had been some principle underlying her reaction, it had long been superseded by simple spite. Bonnie was abusing her position as a voice in the community (or long-standing pain in the neck, to put it another way) to poison public opinion and ensure an atmosphere of hostility towards the wind farm. She had certainly lobbied Councillor Helen MacDougall successfully. So it was not only spiteful and annoying. It was corrupt.
Apparently even her only child's advocacy in favour of the wind farm was not enough for Bonnie to keep an open mind. How Coky wished for the steady voice of reason of the late Angus Straughan.

Coky was even angry with Dorcas. Her lovely, wise aunt had stayed in the background while the politics of the wind farm had played out with increasing animosity. Dorcas had made protestations to Coky that she no longer held a grudge against her brother. But if that were true, why had Dorcas stood idly by when his scheme, with its environmental benefit, needed her support? Normally Dorcas would have championed a good cause. Dorcas shouldn't be hiding like a hermit. She should be the one influencing local opinion, with her learning and her erudition and her infinitely subtle intellectual balance.

Coky's anger towards Claypole, though, had different, more complicated flavours to it. He had lied to her – lied to everyone – about his past, and his capabilities. He had also insulted her and then deserted her at exactly the hour he was most needed. Some friend he was. And yet she couldn't help feeling sympathy for him. Peregrine had most brazenly used Claypole as a fall guy, allowing him to be demonised and burned at the stake of public opinion. She also could see, as a result of the revelations that had so horribly been brought to her attention, that Claypole's motives were not simple. He wasn't just another plutocratic opportunist, as she had originally thought, although he had portrayed himself as such, and if environmental considerations made up any of his interest, it was only a small part. In the main, it had been a desperate man's last throw of the dice. He had come up to Scotland to try and save himself from bankruptcy. Much as that
might have been a foolish gamble, it was at least understandable. People do the strangest things
in extremis.
Certainly there could be no other explanation for his actions. Could there?

But Coky was unaccustomed to anger, and she tried to dismiss these unwelcome thoughts while she tried to read about projected wind speeds and the capacity factors of industrial turbines.

The second person to arrive in the hall was chairman of the planning committee Tommy Thompson. He approached Coky, but seeing she was so ensconced in her reading, he backed off and started laying out chairs. The third and fourth persons were the other councillors – Helen MacDougall and the strange-looking John Bruce. MacDougall played with her smartphone, and Bruce sat scratching his greasy scalp and rocking back and forth metronomically while reading a copy of the
Glenmorie Herald
. Soon others began to file through the door and take their places. The noise built further, and Coky was forced to abandon her attempts to concentrate.

When Peregrine MacGilp arrived, wearing a maroon tie that matched his hangover complexion, Tommy Thompson took him off into a corner of the room.

‘I heard about Mr Claypole's departure,' said Tommy Thompson quietly.

‘Bloody fool,' tutted Peregrine.

‘Yes, well,' Tommy Thompson said, also smiling. ‘It doesn't matter. I did what you asked. John Bruce is in favour, so that makes two to one on the committee.' Tommy Thompson gave a wink to his old friend. ‘It's in the bag.'

Peregrine took his seat with a sly smile playing on his lips.

The hall was nearly half full now, and Coky felt a presence by her side. She turned to see her mother.

‘You know that little Johnnie Bruce is against it, don't you, darling? Helen MacDougall and I met him yesterday and he's definitely going to vote against the wind farm.'

Coky looked at her mother and gave a painful sigh.

‘You've never given me an inch, have you, Mum? Not one inch.'

Bonnie looked at her daughter with surprise. ‘There's no need to take it personally, darling. I'm only doing what I think is best. You chose to…'

‘To what…?' said Coky after a pause.

‘Well, to side with Peregrine.'

‘Oh God,' said Coky, suddenly riled. ‘Is that what you think this is? Now who's taking it personally?'

‘Oh, darling –'

‘No, you just listen for a change,' Coky whispered furiously, shaking. But she couldn't continue. She was near tears, and did not want to be. Not now.

‘You didn't think,' said Bonnie, her moon eyes widening, ‘that this was about
family
, did you?'

Coky took a breath. ‘I'm not defending what Peregrine did over the house and estate for a moment. But it was ages ago, and it's not as if he's had it easy…' Coky stopped abruptly. This argument could be conducted another time. ‘I need to prepare,' she said. But she could not stop herself from asking one further question of her mother.

‘Mum, why did you give your consent to the right of way if you knew we would be defeated today?'

To Coky's surprise, her mother looked pained. The hall was nearly full. Tommy Thompson was looking at his watch as Bonnie whispered to her daughter.

‘I'll tell you why,'
said Bonnie without her usual shrill tone. ‘I think Gordon Claypole, for all his bumbling weirdness, is quite a class act. It takes some balls to try and do what he did. He's funny too, even if he is a crook. Do you know what he said when I asked him to produce one reason why I should vote in favour of the wind farm? He said, “money”.'

Coky smiled weakly. ‘Aye. I thought I liked him too,' she said.

‘There's another reason, though. I…' Bonnie paused for a moment, during which Coky wondered if she had ever seen her mother like this. ‘I once did the Claypole family a… disservice, shall we say…'

Coky screwed her face in confusion, but remained silent.

‘It was before I met Angus. I was having a strange time, and I didn't behave well… So… Well, we'll leave it at that.'

Bonnie smiled sheepishly as she took a seat among the building audience. Tommy Thompson banged his gavel.

‘Good evening, everyone,' said Tommy Thompson, and the room hushed in a moment. ‘First tonight is Tony Ponder, the council's Acting Planning Officer.'

A small man in a blue suit, whom no one had noticed, stood and gave a highly technical speech to which no one listened. Although his recommendation was that the scheme be turned down, it was entirely clear to everyone in the hall that he had no power. When Ponder had finished, Tommy Thompson stood again.

‘Thank you, Tony,' he said without enthusiasm, and turned to the hall. ‘It has been a dramatic week in the life of our community, I think you'll all agree. The questions we asked of the Wind Farm Company at the
last meeting a week ago have kindly been answered, and copies of that document are on some of the chairs in this hall as you can see.'

He coughed, as did some others.

‘It seems that we will have to do without the spokesman for the wind farm, as he has been indisposed.'

There were some titters from the assembly.

‘But Coky Viveksananda has kindly agreed to step in at the last moment and read a statement by the company. So we should give our thanks to her.'

There was silence in the hall as Coky rose from her chair and prepared to pronounce the last rites over what she was sure was the dead body of the Loch Garvach Wind Farm. She had decided, as her one and only tactic, to give the facts very formally and drily, in the hope that anyone speaking against the wind farm might sound hysterical and illogical by comparison. Her voice as she began was quieter than Tommy Thompson's professional boom, but it was steady and gently confident. Her small presence on the stage was attended to closely by the whole hall, and even those at the back found that they could hear her well.

As she went through her statement on behalf of the wind farm, correcting certain misconceptions that had surfaced at the previous meeting, and logically presenting the case in favour, she noticed certain people in the audience. In the front row of the audience was Peregrine. His beaming grin was intended, she knew, to provide her with confidence, but it was the same smugness that Coky had been ignoring in her uncle all her life in order to try and love him. She glanced at the back of the hall. There was Lachlan, brooding and looking at the floor. Milky, standing next to him, had
been the last person into the hall. He looked distracted. There was Kevin Watt from the
Glenmorie Herald
. And there, right at the back, with the door swinging silently shut behind him, was Gordon Claypole.

Coky stuttered slightly, but managed to continue her speech despite the storm raging in her head, once or twice looking back at Claypole to check that her eyes were not deceiving her.

‘In conclusion, then, we say change should be given a chance. The Loch Garvach Wind Farm will improve the environment and enhance our community. Thank you.'