‘I hope so. It looks and sounds attractive.’
Douglas decided to fish a little. ‘Stan got a favourable price on the condition that he would keep the gardens in order.’
‘You won’t get Dad to work in a garden. I’d take it on like a shot, I love gardening and Uncle Stan taught me a lot. Well, I’m glad to know that Dad’s all right. But I think I’ll wait and see him all the same. Set my mind at rest. What … what can you tell me about what happened to my uncle?’
‘Nobody knows for sure.’ Briefly, Douglas explained the terms of Stan’s purchase of the basement flat, the discovery of his body and the general uncertainty as to what had caused his death.
‘I see,’ Norman Eastwick said. ‘Thank you. I’d better go and speak to the police if you’ll tell me who to contact. What you’ve told me makes me rather glad that I was abroad just then. I had a bit of holiday to come and I went on my motorbike and got pinched for speeding in France.’
‘The French aren’t so very disapproving of speed. You must have been going at some lick.’
‘A hundred and thirty,’ Norman said proudly. ‘Miles an hour, not kilometres.’
They walked on in respectful silence. Underwood House vanished behind the trees. ‘What do you do for a living?’ Douglas enquired.
‘I’m the keeper on a small estate the other side of Edinburgh.’
Douglas pricked up his ears at the mention of that profession. He was tempted to raise the practicability of turning out a few pheasants in the Underwood House gardens with the intention of pursuing them on the adjoining farmland, but he put the subject aside for later discussion. ‘How old were you when your parents separated?’ he asked. He quickly added, ‘Forgive my nosiness but I never knew that there was any family …’
‘That’s all right. My mother took me away when I was almost too young to remember. But then she died and George, being my father, took over. They were good to me, the two of them, my father and Uncle Stan. I only moved out when I wanted to marry, about five years ago. Uncle Stan had left by then to buy a flat nearer to his work. I have a wife now and a young son.’
The conversation rambled. Norman expressed his satisfaction with his present life and prospects. They came down to the fringe of the Underwood House policies. The late Stan Eastwick had used his chainsaw to sculpt a bench complete with seatback out of a fallen tree trunk where the sitter could enjoy a view of the gardens and the house and they took a seat.
‘It’s a handsome old place,’ Norman said.
Douglas agreed but this was not the time for discussion of the merits of Underwood House. ‘George was helping Stan with the finishings to his flat in the semi-basement, but there was occasional friction. Did the two of them always get on well together?’
‘I think they tried hard not to quarrel in front of me. Dad had a temper, there’s no doubt about that. I suppose he still has it. But it was always kept just under control.’
‘Do you think that your presence was why he kept it like that?’
Norman considered the question carefully. ‘You could be right. I never thought of it that way. But they did argue sometimes and when they did it was usually a jealousy thing – a squabble, not a blazing row.’ He paused and blinked at Douglas. ‘I shouldn’t be talking about them like this to a stranger but I suppose the police will want to know all about it and then it’ll become public knowledge. They had something in common, an interest or a hobby or some such thing. That seemed to hold them together and if they quarrelled it was about that. But I’ve no idea what it was and I must admit that I’m as curious as anybody. They were much too secretive about it. They always made out that I was too young to understand – and that seemed to keep me from asking more questions. But I do still wonder what it is. You’d have to ask Dad, or the police will.’
Douglas was trying to think of an oblique way of fishing for more details when George’s van (as it had become) came to the back of the house and stopped at the door of the basement flat. Once George had dismounted, his son, recognizing him even at a distance, shook hands with Douglas and hurried across the grass to intercept his father. Douglas sighed. If only Norman had been Stan’s son instead of George’s, he would have inherited the flat and have been a much better neighbour than George.
On the drive before the front door there stood a very handsome Japanese motorbike, sparkling chromium and polished stainless steel surrounding an engine that would have done many a small car proud. Douglas sighed again. If he had not settled into quite so respectable a lifestyle, he too might have worn black leather and blasted around sitting on several litres of raw power.
FIFTEEN
George was understood to be staying in his own flat in Falkirk while the police had possession of Stan’s semi-basement flat in Underwood House. Occasionally he could be seen visiting the basement flat. He seemed to have reached an informal compromise – he would come and ‘help the police with their inquiries’ in exchange for being allowed to give some attention to preparations for the fitting-out of the kitchenette. Empty cartons from flat-pack kitchen units were piling up around the door.
A week after Norman’s visit, Douglas’s spirits fell when there was a knock on his inside door and he found George on the threshold. Apparently George was only a messenger on this occasion, but he never brought good news.
‘There’s somebody wants to see you. Something about Stan.’
This was Douglas’s quiet Sunday and he did not want to waste it on worrying about the late Stan. He had been contentedly surfing the Internet and thinking about Tash. ‘Tell him to –’ there was a pause while Douglas moderated his language ‘– log off. Unless he wants property surveyed, that is.’
‘He’s from the university and he seems to be in a bit of a tizzy. You’d better see him.’
‘If it’s to do with Stan, you should see him. Stan was your brother.’
‘I said that. He wants to see you.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Douglas said peevishly. The weather outside was foul, cold rain borne on a lashing wind, but he had been engrossed. ‘I thought you’d gone home,’ he said to George.
‘Had to get out, the buyers wanted in and the police had finished here. This will be home as soon as they let me stay. I’ll fetch your guest up.’
Douglas had just enough time to skip to the end of what he was reading and shut down the computer before George was back. George seemed to have appointed himself butler for the moment.
‘Dr Stone,’ he said, and with that for introduction he slipped away, leaving behind a thin, nervous looking, red-haired man.
The least he could do, Douglas felt, was to offer the newcomer a seat, so he did so. He was much less inclined to welcome the uninvited interruption to his weekend leisure. ‘What brings you here?’ he asked.
The abrupt enquiry seemed further to unsettle the visitor. He coloured so that the freckles which so often go with red hair faded from sight. ‘I’ve only just heard that Stan Eastwick is dead. I had some dealings with him which are left up in the air.’
‘I suppose they would be. But why come to me about it – me in particular?’
‘You’re the one who’s at home,’ Dr Stone said simply.
‘That was Stan’s brother George who brought you to me. I would have thought that he would have been the best person to approach.’
Dr Stone showed even more confusion. ‘I – I didn’t know that. He didn’t let on and I asked who was the senior resident here …’
Although slightly flattered, Douglas was still not appeased. ‘I know nothing about Stan’s affairs. Two of the university staff live here, if we’re talking about the same university. They may know something.’
‘They would be just the people I don’t want to know anything. Let me explain. This can be in confidence?’
‘As far as I’m concerned, totally.’
‘I’m senior lecturer in the Department of Botany. I’ve been running a research project into the use that plants make of carbon dioxide. The
carbon element is quite clear but there’s a small amount of oxygen not accounted for. I’ve been trying to find out where it goes and how and why. But we share facilities with Zoology, and they have a bigger and better funded research project running which has a practical application. Something to do with locusts. I couldn’t get any intelligent help. Stan might not be trained in scientific methods but he did know plant biology and he offered to grow and record some specimens for me. All I wanted was certain samples, with readings taken at regular intervals. I was going to pay him out of my own pocket, because to arrive at something new and to get published about it would be my next step towards promotion.’
To Douglas it seemed that an academic career was a precarious ladder to climb. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that I had to lend him some expensive pieces of equipment for which I’m responsible and nobody seems to know where they’ve gone.’
From being an annoying intruder on a par with a buzzing bluebottle, Dr Stone suddenly became interesting. ‘Would those pieces of equipment have included cylinders of carbon dioxide?’
‘Yes. At least one.’
‘Then,’ Douglas said, ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell the police.’
‘But—’
‘There are no buts. There seems to be a high probability that Stan’s death may have involved what they call foul play and what you’ve just told me could be relevant. I am not going to be responsible for withholding evidence in a murder case. If you don’t tell them I shall have to rescind my promise and tell them as much as I know. And I’m sure you can see that it will look much better coming from you. You could ask them to respect your desire for confidentiality.’ And, Douglas thought to himself, a fat chance you’ve got.
Dr Stone must have taken Douglas’s admonition to heart because DCI Laird made his appearance shortly after lunch on the day following. Douglas and Tash were doing the tedious job of transferring the files to the new system and it had seemed to be an appropriate occasion for altering the categories of the contents. It was boring work and they were glad of the excuse to stop. The three settled around the big desk.
‘I gather,’ said the DCI, ‘that you advised Dr Stone to report to me. That was very sensible of you. But a problem follows on. There is no sign whatever of any research tools or notes around Stan Eastwick’s goods and papers unless you include one medium or medical sized cylinder, which, if we go by the colour coding and a paper label, had been intended for carbon dioxide. It’s in the greenhouse. What have we missed?’
Douglas said that he was sorry. ‘I would love to be able to say the magic words and solve your problem, but life is rarely that easy and in this instance it’s impossible. An old building like this had all kinds of holes and corners but I had most of them closed in and plastered over during the alterations. I can’t believe that anybody was daft enough to plaster over a niche containing some expensive equipment, but there’s nothing in the world so stupid that you can be sure that nobody’s ever done it. However, Stan was a competent craftsman and George is much the same, quite capable of opening some of them up again if they knew where they were, or even of making new hidey-holes. But why should they do that, just to hide research material? He was helping out on a research project with instruments loaned by the university. If he wanted to keep them safe from a passing thief …’
‘Yes?’
Douglas was struck by an idea calculated to keep George Eastwick busy and out of his hair for some time. ‘He’s on the lowest floor of the house. Some of his floor is concrete but parts of it are timber flooring on joists. He could have taken up a floorboard or two and stowed anything valuable or confidential underneath.’
‘Thank you,’ the DCI said. ‘I knew that I could count on you.’
‘Just don’t let him know that I suggested it.’
SIXTEEN
Douglas lost Tash’s help and company for the afternoon because her mother was busily gathering up her brood and all the necessary chattels in preparation for a visit to her sister. Then in the late afternoon the people carrier oozed quietly down the driveway and was gone. Tash and Douglas looked at each other.
‘I’ve prepared a meal for us upstairs,’ Douglas said.
Tash swallowed nervously. ‘Are we doing a wise thing?’ she asked.
‘Whether we do it or not is up to you,’ Douglas said gently. ‘Either way, we have to eat. Then you can tell me what’s in your mind.’
Tash nodded bravely.
The room that Douglas intended eventually to make into his dining room/kitchen was finished as far as the walls and floor were concerned, although no cooking equipment beyond a microwave oven, sufficient for the preparation of his breakfast, had so far been installed. Douglas had used the afternoon interval, during which the main kitchen was unused, to begin preparation of a simple meal, but Betty McLeish had discovered him, struggling, and had immediately divined his purpose and, approving, had taken over. Her friendship with Tash’s mother did not supersede the desire in her romantic soul to aid the young lovers. There may even have been a hope on the part of one mother to score off the other. As a result a light but beautifully prepared meal was waiting upstairs, requiring only that the soup and then the main course be reheated before serving.
Champagne would have struck quite the wrong note. Douglas had brought and chilled what he considered to be a suitable Riesling. They were sipping it while making a start on the meal when Tash said, ‘I see you’ve put flowers on the table.’
‘It seemed to be the least I could do.’
She nodded approvingly. ‘I appreciate the thought. But I hope you aren’t planning to produce more flowers for me, or chocolates or whatever. As I told you, this is not that sort of encounter and I don’t want you to feel that I’m forcing you into a romance. We’ll try me out and then think again.’
‘Very sensible,’ said Douglas. More and more, Tash was showing up as a sensible and self-contained young woman, wise beyond her years.
They chatted about the affairs of the day but without thinking deeply about what they were saying. When they had finished and taken coffee, Tash’s manner was expectant rather than reluctant so Douglas rose and drew her to her feet, leading her in the direction of his bedroom. ‘Would you rather undress privately, in the bathroom?’ he asked her.
‘I’m only going by what I’ve heard,’ she said, ‘but I rather thought that that was your job.’
‘To undress you? Is that what you want?’
She gave a little shiver. ‘Yes, I think I’d like that, to establish the mood. It would be exciting.’
In the bedroom he undressed her slowly, making a caress of each move. Her garments were clean and fresh, of good quality but not provocative. He managed to get rid of his own clothes at the same time without interrupting the process or breaking the mood. She was throwing aside her reservations. When they were both nude he took her in his arms but she crossed her own arms in front of her.
‘It’s not too late to change your mind,’ he said.
‘No, go ahead.’ She seemed daunted by the size of him. She was very tense.
Douglas was not totally lacking in experience. There was sometimes a custom to write or say that a woman suffered sex in exchange for security and comfort, the assumption being that women never enjoyed the mating act. This he was sure was wrong. Each of his previous partners could surely not have been faking it, and so convincingly. If it was sometimes true, this was because the woman’s partners had been selfish or unskilled. He settled down for a long period of foreplay, kissing and stroking and petting her in all the ways that a woman likes until she had relaxed and then returned his caresses. He knew that she did not want him to offer love so he whispered tributes, true as could be, to her beauty. Her eyes half-closed and her breathing quickened; her private parts softened, moistened and opened for him. He kept a generous part of his mind away from the immediate act so that he would not become too quickly and too fully engorged and therefore too l
arge for her comfort. She returned his kisses. She no longer expected his penetration to hurt and so it did not.
He moved slowly at first until she had learned to respond. He tried to make every least motion a caress. Soon he found that he had woken a tigress. This was no passive maiden, waiting to be served. She was responding to him, move for move. She clasped him with her legs so tightly that he thought he might have to beg for mercy. In her movements against and around him he could feel her determination to give pleasure, both to him and to herself. He again used the old trick, thinking about something remote in order to postpone his own climax. Then, when he sensed that an orgasm was rushing at her, he released his own pleasure. Clasping each other tightly, they exploded in unison. She gave little squeaks of joy.
As they lay gasping in the afterglow she said, ‘I had no idea.’
He said, ‘Of course you hadn’t. That was good. It has never been better.’
‘How do you measure that?’ she asked into his neck.
He said, ‘We shall have to devise a formula.’
‘The Young-Jamieson Formula for posterity to judge itself by?’
‘Jamieson-Young. You thought of it first.’
They laughed together.
It was several minutes before he could follow Tash downstairs without betraying their secret.
SEVENTEEN
To the other residents in Underwood House there was no obvious change in their relationship. He still treated her with courtesy and disguised his instructions as requests; she continued to show him the respect due to an employer and an elder; they still laughed together at the follies of the world around them. In private, however, there were major changes. She had entered their affair in search of knowledge, determined that this would not be an affair of the heart; she had gained the knowledge but she now knew that she had been mistaken. Along with her virginity she had given him her heart and he was handling it with care. She felt that her heartbeat quickened whenever she saw him.
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