The Second Strain

by John Burke

  Sunlight touched the tops of the hills and sparkled in the river as the road took a long, leisurely sweep above the valley of the winding Tay. He tried to enjoy the music within the landscape itself, so that he would arrive relaxed and ready to explain the festival and what Erskine’s presence would mean to them. He could only hope that Mairi would not, with a fine toss of that streaming hair of hers, laugh that tinpot little festivals and gatherings of this kind were a bit behind the times, weren’t they?

  It had to be admitted that the Borders town of Kilstane had been behind the times during most periods of its history. Its provost had been late in signifying loyalty to William III and had been forced to flee into the Highlands, where as a despised Lowlander he had been put to death by the ever rapacious killers of Argyll. Townsfolk had been so slow to decide for or against the Jacobite Rising of the ’45 that Bonnie Prince Charlie was on his dismal way back from England before they could make up their minds. They had escaped serious penalties because the Hanoverians, exhausted by their slaughters in the Highlands, were too drugged by bloodshed to make up their minds either.

  In the twentieth century the borough council allowed itself to be swallowed up by a regional octopus whose tentacles grasped riches in the form of grants from the Lottery, the EU, and Scottish Enterprise. A small clique of councillors soon learned to manipulate these to the benefit of their own pockets rather than those of the local ratepayers. In the aftermath of a misguided Common Riding ceremony which had blighted Nick’s first year in his tower of Black Knowe, the Community Council looked around for a cause which could command respect — and cash.

  In the far reaches of Galloway, Wigtown had received grants to set itself up as a Book Town. Kirkcudbright, always a haunt of painters, potters and poseurs, began issuing postcards and maps proclaiming itself an Artists’ Town.

  So what was left?

  Later, thought Nick wryly, it was going to be difficult to remember who first mooted the idea of Kilstane as a Music Town. And there had been one hell of an argument over launching the project with a concert devoted to the works of that now distinguished composer who had been born and brought up here. If the first stages proved a success, every little fusspot on the council would claim the credit. If it was a flop, they would all be passing the buck, just the way they did after the Common Riding fiasco.

  And the shit, he thought with growing glumness, would most likely land in his own lap, with just a bit of it splashing over on to Adam Lowther for so fervently pushing the case of Daniel Erskine.

  He pulled off the main road for coffee at Killiekrankie, and before setting off again selected a less demanding CD which he had engineered himself before inheriting his baronetcy and moving to Kilstane. Then he found the first few bars of the first track just as unsettling as the Erskine piece, in a quite different way. It brought Mairi vividly — too vividly — back into his life. Against the hulking shoulders of the Easter Ross hills the memory of Mairi’s honey-smelling shoulders drifted across a brief vision of the window of the Holland Park flat where they had loved, and wrestled, and quarrelled. The view of the austere yet glittering crags and slopes ahead was becoming dangerously distorted by this other face, this other figure.

  Again he switched off the music abruptly. Whatever lay ahead, there must be no elements lingering from the past.

  It was disconcerting to find that, just as the only way to rid one’s mind of a persistent melody was by overlaying it with another, he could dismiss the always greedy, grasping shape of Mairi only by remembering the trim, dismissive shape of the young woman who had refused to grasp the offer he had made to her.

  For all the good it was, thinking of either of them.

  He looked for the turn-off to an eaterie somewhere south of Inverness.

  *

  ‘The Superintendent will see you now.’

  The secretary’s face gave nothing away, though she must know whether it was going to be good news or bad news for Detective Inspector Gunn.

  Lesley Gunn went into the Super’s office.

  ‘Ah, yes. Inspector. Do sit down.’

  Her skills in analysing works of art, looking for flaws and forgeries or subtle identification marks, all too often leaked over into her study of living beings. Although it was important — vital at this stage in her career — that she should listen intently to what Superintendent Maitland had to say, she could not help seeing a sort of seedy Rembrandt in him: the blotchy features, the cluster of dried-up spots beside his left ear, red jowls as if he had clumsily scraped the skin with his razor this morning, and a pallid patch below his left eye as if the painter had run out of colour before putting the finishing touches to the portrait.

  Then she was jolted into listening to what he was saying.

  ‘Well, Gunn, this matter of your promotion. Afraid you’ve been kept waiting for a decision, eh?’

  ‘Quite a time, sir, yes.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s the way o’ these things.’ He drew a deep breath and pretended to consult some papers on his desk; and she knew that the encouraging half promises were not going to add up. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘we’re in no position to make you up to DCI at this moment in time.’

  ‘I see.’ Actually, Lesley didn’t see.

  ‘It’s all very unfortunate. With all these recent cutbacks, there is no room on our strength for a Fine Arts specialist at Chief Inspector level.’

  As quietly as possible she ventured: ‘I thought, sir, there’d been a lot of talk recently about a big increase in funding for the police.’

  ‘Aye, talk. A lot of talk, I grant you. But we’ve had instructions from up above’ — Maitland raised his eyes to the ceiling as if some stern God was sitting in the room above listening to every word — ‘that our resources have to be deployed more widely. The functions of CID Special Operations Unit are rather too specialized for a rural force such as ours.’

  ‘All the most vulnerable country mansions do tend to be in rural areas.’

  She half expected a reprimand for insolence. Instead he grinned and said: ‘Well, I’m afraid we’re more interested in drugs nowadays than in old works of art. Well, then. Your function now has to be incorporated into normal procedures. Which means no lowering of your status or your usefulness, of course.’ It was a smooth, smug way of saying she should be grateful she wasn’t going to be demoted or sent to look after the filing system. ‘It’s just that unfortunately there’s no immediate prospect of your achieving your well-merited promotion to DCI.’ He waited for her to speak. When he saw that she still had nothing to offer, he went on with a kind of off handed matiness: ‘Wasn’t there some talk of your being offered a civilian appointment by . . . um . . . Sir Nicholas Torrance, wasn’t it?’

  He knew damn well there had been.

  ‘There was, sir. I preferred to stay in the Force.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Good for you.’

  But had it been good for her?

  ‘It’s a bit of a disappointment,’ she said, ‘to find that all my work hasn’t been properly assessed and appreciated.’

  ‘Not at all. By no means. It’s simply a matter of coping with difficult times. I can quite understand you feeling a bit down. Happens to all of us on the way up. But while you sort things out in your own mind, we have an interesting little assignment for you.’ Superintendent Maitland became loudly benevolent. ‘Just up your street.’

  She waited, resigned to some routine job designed to keep her quiet and out of everybody’s way. Some objets d’art stolen from a country house? Fakes being smuggled in via Leith docks?

  Maitland said: ‘There’s been a death. Not recent, so there’s no panic. Just a corpse that needs identifying, date of death, foul play or just a weird accident. Loose ends to be tidied up.’

  She was puzzled. ‘Just up my street, sir?’

  ‘You know the neighbourhood pretty well. Kilstane.’

  She tried not to look as sick and incredulous as she felt inside.

  ‘Did some damn shrewd
work over that Common Riding farce,’ he was booming on. ‘You know your way around. DCI Rutherford will brief you, but we’re happy for you to handle it as you see fit. As I’ve said, it’s not a recent death, so we won’t have the tabloids breathing all over us. Take your time.’

  Take your time.

  In other words, don’t hurry back. Just give us an excuse for easing you gently out. Or renew your acquaintanceship with Sir Nicholas Torrance, and this time grab that job he once offered you.

  She thought of having to face up to Nick and his silent accusation — he would be too discreet to say it out loud — that she had been stupid to turn down his offer, and look where it had got her.

  Too late now.

  ‘If you need a gofer,’ Maitland was saying, ‘you can call on Sergeant Elliot from Rowanbie. He’s on light duties after being hit by a car thief. Don’t overtax him.’

  The scrape of his chair on the floor told her that this was the end of the interview. She was destined to return to Kilstane and was expected to be thankful for it — to return to those people who had first sneered at her and then blamed her for ruining one of their most treasured fantasies.

  She made herself say it: ‘Thank you, sir.’

  *

  The sky across the Sutherland wilderness had turned sullen, with a dull copper glow suggesting a heat wave that was unlikely at this time of year. As Nick slowed on a twist of the narrow road, his mobile phone on the passenger seat began a faint tinkling. He pulled on to the grass and reached for it, but there was only a confused spluttering. The message, wherever it came from, was breaking up. Out here, with not a house or cottage in sight, there was obviously a dead spot. It probably spread out for miles.

  He drove on. Whoever had been trying to contact him, it couldn’t be urgent. His housekeeper had his mobile number, and he had given it to Adam Lowther, who had perhaps thought of yet more enthusiastic remarks to pass on to Daniel Erskine.

  It could wait. He might ring from the hotel when he got there.

  The final lap of the journey took longer than he had expected. The road became single track, with passing places marked by poles, most of which had long since shed their lettered lozenges from the top. In the dusk the turns and twists of the road, even narrower at unexpected intervals where a stream had undermined the verges or a rocky outcrop threatened to scrape the panels of the car, demanded an eye-aching concentration.

  At last there was a glimmer of light ahead. On the map was the name of Altnalarach and the symbol for a hotel. The white-harled building looked absurdly out of place in this vast expanse of bog and scrub, saved from encroachment by a palisade of spruce. Fanatical fishermen and deer stalkers must be its main trade.

  And somewhere over towards that hazy mountain like a lion crouched along the western horizon, Daniel Erskine had chosen to flee from the world and concentrate on his music. Distractions must certainly be few.

  Nick drove into the car park and rubbed his eyes. He thought of ringing Kilstane, but decided against it. He was dead tired, he didn’t want to hear of any second thoughts or unresolved arguments across so many miles. A drink, a snack — if they were prepared to serve anything this late — and bed.

  The snack presented no problem. Out here they were used to fishermen, stalkers, backpackers and other eccentrics rolling up at ungodly hours. He gratefully knocked back a nightcap of a large Clynelish from the nearest regional distillery, and went to bed.

  And dreamed uneasily of Mairi McLeod being arrested by Lesley Gunn and being ruthlessly questioned about their past relationship.

  Chapter Three

  They assembled on the first floor of the Tolbooth, grumbling. Ian MacKenzie complained that this was his late evening opening and he was having to pay his niece overtime to look after the shop at such short notice. When it was suggested that he might rely on the rest of the committee to make sensible decisions in his absence, he at once made it clear that he wasn’t going to allow decisions of any kind to be pushed through behind his back.

  Mrs Cynthia Scott-Fraser arrived late as usual, screeching that she had had to dash away from an important regional council meeting on traffic calming, and would have to dash off again as soon as possible to meet the chairman of another committee. She was a rangy fifty-year-old, in the habit of stooping from her six-foot height and dabbing her head forward to emphasize every word she spoke. Each assertive remark disclosed protruding teeth which went well with her presidency of the Rowanbie Pony Club.

  When they had all finished complaining and had scraped their chairs into a semicircle facing the mahogany table below the platform, Adam Lowther as Convener Depute called the meeting to order and apologized for the unavoidable absence of Sir Nicholas Torrance.

  ‘Aye, he’d be a sight better attending to things here instead o’ gallivanting off to meet that scunner Erskine.’ Buchanan’s objections to the return of the composer to his hometown had been overruled weeks ago, but he wasn’t going to let them forget those objections. When things went wrong, he would certainly not allow them to forget.

  Adam rapped on the table with his knuckles. He ought really to have acquired one of those little lecterns and the sort of gavel which so many of those present used in various capacities at Rotary, Probus and the Incorporated Crafts functions, with a clipboard under one arm and chains of office bouncing on their chests.

  He said as authoritatively as possible: ‘Obviously we’ve had no time to prepare an agenda for this meeting. But I’m sure we’re all agreed that we have to deal as swiftly as possible with the situation which has arisen. The basic fact is that a corner of the Academy in which we planned our main concerts has been rendered unsafe —’

  ‘Because of slapdash alterations by unqualified workmen,’ said Buchanan.

  ‘Because of structural failings camouflaged by earlier contractors,’ said Kerr.

  It was unfortunate that both men should be sitting on this committee. It had come about because Kerr’s offer of free advice on refurbishment of the Academy and the provision of tents and portaloos for the open-air features was immediately matched by Buchanan insisting on his right to be included ‘to give the proceedings a proper balance’, by which he meant that he represented the concerns of the more sober townspeople. In effect he was the self-appointed censor alert for potential rowdiness and vandalism which must not be allowed to ruin the tranquillity of God-fearing folk. Somewhere he had picked up the word ‘rave’ and knew there was something about it which demanded constant vigilance.

  Before there could be any more bickering, Adam said: ‘Whatever may have happened in the past, right here and now we’ve got to decide what to do about the loss of those essential premises. Any suggestions?’

  There was a long silence.

  At last MacKenzie said: ‘There was a time we had some gey fine music in Black Knowe. Maybe Sir Nicholas would let us use his hall again.’

  ‘Fine for chamber music or solo recitals,’ said Adam, ‘but not for a full orchestra.’

  ‘We could maybe do without the full orchestra?’

  ‘Cancel the booking?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘The Westermarch Sinfonia doesn’t come cheap. I don’t think we could stand the cost of paying them off and returning ticket money. Or, for that matter, the groups booked for the Folk Revel on the haughs. Some of these rockers and rappers can turn very nasty when it comes to missing out on the money.’

  Cynthia Scott-Fraser was anxious to put it on record that, like Buchanan, she had expressed certain doubts of her own. ‘I was never happy about the introduction of elements like that. One has only to read of the goings-on at Glastonbury and annual debauches of that kind — drugs everywhere, men and women running about naked . . .’

  ‘Running around all bare?’ grinned Kerr: ‘Here, with that wind off the braes?’

  ‘Nevertheless’ — Mrs Scott-Fraser remembered her responsibilities as representative appointed by the regional council, whose grant was allied with that of the Scottish Arts
Council and some Lottery money — ‘since the commitment has, however rashly, been made, we’ll find it difficult to withdraw without suffering severe penalties.’

  ‘And why should we at all be needing to withdraw from that part of it, anyway?’ MacKenzie had been opposed to Mrs Scott-Fraser and everything she stood for since she had stood against his planning application for an extension to his grocer’s shop and an awning with the word DELICATESSEN in large red lettering on a tartan background. ‘At least they’ll bring some trade into the town.’

  Adam reasserted himself. ‘We would also have to consider refunding money to booking agents for tickets already sold.’

  ‘It may be forced on us. If the Procurator Fiscal insists on us calling the function off while the police investigate this unfortunate incident —’

  ‘Because of an ancient corpse? Hardly an urgent murder hunt.’

  ‘Maybe news of the corpse will be an additional attraction.’

  Heads turned towards Duncan Maxwell. Working in the Tourist Office during the season and as a supply teacher during the winter, he was regarded with mild contempt by most of those present, and this sort of remark didn’t endear him to them.

  MacKenzie was the only one to offer positive approval. ‘Aye, could be this will bring more folk into the town.’ He might already be calculating how many extra tins to order of his Bonnie Prince Charlie shortbread, made according to a secret Jacobite recipe.

  ‘So,’ Adam persevered, ‘on the assumption that we’re still committed to going ahead with our plans, what do we do about the loss of the Academy hall for the main concerts?’

  They all fidgeted on their seats. Adam tilted his chair back, and above their heads contemplated other heads — the dark oil paintings of past provosts, town clerks and similar civic worthies, most of them with vast black beards and eyebrows to match. The absence of beards nowadays, apart from Buchanan’s fading ginger tuft, robbed their successors of that awesome dignity.

  Duncan Maxwell cleared his throat. Peeved by the derisive looks he had been given, and in a mood to keep stirring, he waved at the platform along the west end of the chamber, dominated by the sheriff’s bench and the great chair bearing the burgh coat of arms. ‘We could shift the bench and take down the curtains at the back. Should just about accommodate the sinfonia.’