Scar Hill

by Alan Temperley

  Somehow, although he had only been away for a few days, the house looked abandoned. Two planks were nailed across the door which had been kicked in by the police when they were searching for him. Ben and Meg came scrambling from the helicopter, delighted to be home. He collected the keys from the byre, even though they were not needed, while Davy and Murdo tore off the planks. The lock was splintered; the door swung open at the touch of a hand.

  Peter led the way into the familiar rooms, impregnated with the tingling scent of the peat fire. The air was cold, the grate full of ash. A fine film of dust lay on the furniture.

  ‘Right.’ Davy looked around him. ‘Got an immersion?’

  ‘In the kitchen.’

  ‘Switch it on and get yourself into a hot bath. All right if I light the fire?’

  Soon the first smoky flames were licking up the chimney. Peter gave the dogs a double ration of meaty chunks. Davy went into the hall and made some phone calls. Murdo explored the food cupboards and made coffee.

  ‘Got a clean set of clothes?’ he said. ‘I’ll put that lot in the wash while you have your bath.’

  The water was about ready as the first car arrived. Whoever it was, Peter did not want to meet them. He gulped the last of his coffee, grabbed a biscuit and ran upstairs. There were voices in the hall. Surely they would not follow him into his bedroom. Quickly he pulled off his dirty clothes and threw them down to Murdo.

  The cold gave him goose pimples. Standing by the electric fire, he examined himself in the wardrobe mirror. His face and neck, hands and feet, were black with dirt. Elsewhere he looked clean enough, though bruised and scratched in his flight from Owl Cottage. The dog bite, though it did not hurt, was still red and a bit puffy. Both heels showed ragged blisters. He smelled of sweat.

  ‘Can you hear me, Peter?’ A voice rang up the stairs. ‘It’s Bunny Mason.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he shouted back. ‘I’m just getting into the bath. Not be long.’

  But Peter planned to take his time. He did not look forward to meeting Bunny Mason (Lady Crompton, as Davy called her), or Constable Taylor, or social workers, or whoever else might turn up at Scar Hill in the next hour and fire questions at him. These were people who had reason to be angry with him; people who had been out searching when he was safe all the time; people who would ask him about his dad; people whose job it was to decide his future. He flitted along the landing and locked himself in the bathroom.

  For half an hour he lay with the water to his chin, topping it up as it cooled. More cars arrived. People called upstairs. ‘Yes,’ he shouted back and sank below the surface.

  But Peter couldn’t stay in the bath for ever. Reluctantly he emerged and rubbed himself dry. There was TCP in the bathroom cabinet. He dabbed some on cotton wool and scrubbed his assorted wounds. Then he dressed in his grey school trousers and best jersey, and went downstairs.

  Mouth-watering smells rose to meet him.

  For a minute he stood at the living-room door, trying to make out what was being said inside. The voices were not angry, on the contrary they sounded quite lively and at ease. There was laughter at some remark. Nervously he pushed the door open. All eyes turned in his direction. Everyone fell silent.

  Six people were waiting to greet him. Four he knew: Bunny Mason, Constable Taylor, Davy the pilot and Murdo Sutherland. The others were a young policewoman and a man with a kindly face in his forties who turned out to be a youth worker named Mr Fyffe. All had cups of tea or coffee. A plate of biscuits stood on the table.

  ‘Peter!’ Bunny jumped to her feet and hugged him tightly. ‘What a fright you gave us all, running away like that!’

  He stood silent, not trusting himself to speak.

  She let him go. ‘Davy and Murdo said there wasn’t much wrong with you. I must say you look all right to me.’

  ‘Yes, I’m OK.’ He wiped off a drop of water that ran from his hair.

  ‘You smell of TCP.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘I got bitten by a dog though.’

  ‘A dog bite! Is it bad?’

  ‘Not really, its teeth went in a bit.’ He touched his thigh.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just yesterday.’

  ‘You’ll have to let the doctor see it. We’ll go this afternoon, get an anti-tetanus jab.’

  ‘Ben too.’

  ‘That’s right, the pair of you.’ She smiled. ‘Murdo was telling us.’

  ‘Where’s Daisy?’

  ‘I left her at home. Mary’s looking after her – you know, my cleaning lady.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Oh, Daisy’s fine. Just a bit of a cold.’

  ‘Can I go and see her?’

  ‘Good gracious, of course you can.’

  Ben didn’t like so many strangers and touched him with a black nose. Peter put down his hand.

  Mr Fyffe asked, ‘Why did you run away, son?’

  ‘Never mind that right now.’ Murdo emerged from the kitchen with a big fry-up. ‘The lad needs a hot meal inside him. Your questions can wait.’

  Peter discovered he was hungry and soon was mopping the fat from his plate and reaching for a mug of tea. Then he found himself on the settee with Davy at his side, unburdening himself for the second time of everything that had happened that winter and trying to explain how he felt about it all: his dad’s illness and death, burying him on the hill, the arrival of Valerie, spending Jim’s Social Security money, Daisy’s birth in the snowstorm, Valerie’s disappearance, looking after the baby, her illness, running away, and finally his fears for the future, having to leave Scar Hill, and being separated from the faithful Ben and Meg who had never known any other home.

  Constable Taylor said, ‘You seem to think everyone’s going to be angry with you. Why’s that?’

  ‘Well,’ Peter looked from one to the other. ‘All the things I’ve done. I did try to ring you when dad died, and Billy Josh, but there was nobody there. Then Valerie and me took all that money and everything.’

  ‘So you’re in big trouble?’

  He nodded mutely.

  The policewoman said gently, ‘Don’t you realise we’ve all been worried to death about you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Bunny said. ‘Oh, Peter! I did try to tell you. Have you still been thinking everyone’s furious? That we’ll all think you’re a bad boy? Going to end up in court? I should have realised!’ She shook her head. ‘It’s the very opposite, love. People haven’t been out searching because you’re some sort of criminal. It’s because we all care about you. Everyone’s been terrified you’d had an accident, or got lost, or gone into the river, or frozen out there on the moors. The telephone’s never stopped ringing. Do you know there were ten degrees of frost last night? And you didn’t even have your sleeping bag, you left it behind at the mines.’

  He shrugged. ‘I was all right.’

  ‘Yes, we can see that now, but we didn’t know at the time.’

  Constable Taylor said, ‘The first job of the police isn’t to punish people, Peter, it’s to help them. Especially a boy that’s looked after his dad like you have and never been in trouble in his life. In a village like this we know all these things.’

  Peter couldn’t believe it. ‘Do you mean I’m not in trouble? After everything that’s happened.’

  ‘Of course not, love,’ Bunny said.

  ‘As far as the money’s concerned,’ Mr Fyffe said, ‘you can forget about that because it’s already been paid back. Lady Crompton here sorted it out. Mind, I think we’ll have to have a little chat with your sister when she turns up.’

  Peter looked towards Bunny who smiled reassuringly.

  ‘Our Valerie,’ he said. ‘Have you heard nothing at all?’

  ‘There has been one development,’ said Constable Taylor, ‘but it doesn’t get us very far. We’ve tracked down the lorry. Routine police work, the owner had reported it overdue. Had a load for that big farm supplier just along the coast here. The driver’s name was,’ he flipped through his n
otebook, ‘Matthew Ramage. That sound right to you?’

  ‘He was called Matt,’ Peter said.

  ‘Is this him?’ Constable Taylor unfolded a piece of paper.

  It was a fax, a photo of Matt taken a few years earlier. His hair was cropped short. He wore a white T-shirt and leather jacket.

  Peter nodded.

  ‘Apparently he turned up at the depot with some cock-and-bull story about being sick. Wasn’t the first time he’d tried it on and the boss give him his cards.’

  ‘Did they say anything about Valerie?’

  ‘He had a young woman with him; it sounds like your sister.’

  Peter tried to imagine it. ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s it. He collected his wages, walked out the depot gates.’ Constable Taylor shrugged. ‘Just disappeared.’

  Bunny said, ‘Surely his employer had an address.’

  ‘Just a flat he’d shared with some other lads. They hadn’t seen him for six months.’

  Peter said, ‘Valerie used to live in Bristol.’

  ‘That’s useful.’ The constable made a note. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got an address?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Well, we’ll let them know anyway. Who knows, they might come up with something.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘All we can do is wait.’

  ‘Social Security have got them on the computer,’ Mr Fyffe said. ‘If Valerie or this Matt sign on anywhere in the country, we’ll know about it.’ He sat forward, nursing his mug of tea. ‘Listen, Peter, I don’t know what you’ve heard about people like me, but basically my job’s to make sure children are safe and happy. We don’t always succeed, but we do our best. The very last thing we’d want to do is take a boy away from his home or separate him from his dog. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about you over the past few days and had nothing but good reports. I think I can promise that – well, I’ll let Lady Crompton tell you about it.’

  Peter looked from one to the other.

  ‘Well, Peter.’ Bunny stood by the fire. ‘I’m sure this must be a bit of an ordeal for you, so I’ll get straight to the point. I’ve had some long talks with your teachers, and Mr Fyffe here and some other people, and if you’d like to, they’d be very happy for you to come and stay with me at Three Pines. There’s plenty of room. So many animals already, your Ben and Meg won’t make much difference. We’d both have to make a few adjustments, of course, but I think we’d get along pretty well. I’ve brought up two boys of my own, I know what boys are like. I’d be glad to have you there. You can help me with those damned goats for a start. Learn to milk Molly. We’d be able to pop along here and feed the sheep and keep an eye on the house. And you’d stay on at the same school, so you’d not be losing your friends.’ She thrust her hands into her jacket pockets. ‘So there’s the offer – it’s up to you.’

  Live at Three Pines. Peter had never considered it – at least, not to stay there more than a few days.

  ‘How long for?’ he said, frightened he had misunderstood.

  ‘Until we have news of your sister anyway,’ Bunny replied. ‘When she turns up you might like to go off and live with her, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. What I’m suggesting is you make Three Pines your home.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve got a choice of two bedrooms. What do you say, young man? Give it a go?’

  Peter couldn’t believe this was happening. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘Then yes,’ he said. ‘Thanks. It would be great.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then that’s settled.’

  ‘What about Daisy?’

  ‘Daisy will come with you,’ she said. ‘For the moment anyway. Like I say, until we have news of her mother.’

  Ben seemed to know that something important was taking place and pressed against him for reassurance.

  Peter rested a hand on his back. The people who had gathered to meet him were all smiling. He tried to smile back although what he wanted, even though the occasion was momentous, was to escape into the open air.

  ‘Go on then,’ Bunny said briskly. ‘Away out with you, make yourself useful. I haven’t fed the sheep yet today. Why don’t you do it.’

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ he said. ‘Come on, Ben, Meg.’

  He took two biscuits from the plate and ran off down the yard holding them high and the dogs bounding and leaping at his side.

  44

  Wild Daffodils and a Letter

  IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to keep things out of the papers and Peter’s return caused much excitement, not just locally but in the national press and even on television. Three Pines was besieged by reporters. They drove up the track to photograph Scar Hill. When Jim was exhumed from his shallow grave they gathered on the hillside to report the activity – though the grave itself was hidden beneath a canvas tent. Pictures of the body bag being carried to a police helicopter, and the endless moors which surrounded the spot, appeared in every newspaper in the country.

  To protect Peter from all this unwanted attention, Bunny arranged for the animals to be cared for and took him away for a short holiday. They stayed at a hotel in Glasgow, which to Peter’s surprise turned out to be a wonderful city. The contrast to recent events could hardly have been greater and they had a happy time visiting restaurants, going to the cinema, ice-skating, sailing up Loch Lomond, and joining the crowds at Ibrox for a midweek Rangers–Celtic match.

  While they were there, Bunny took him to buy a plain, charcoal-grey suit. Two days after they got back he wore it to his father’s funeral. The morning was cold and misty. Peter refused to wear a black tie like the other mourners, but insisted on a red tie with a picture of a stag on it which Jim had bought him a few months earlier.

  Before the funeral car arrived, he drove out to Scar Hill and picked a bunch of early daffodils from the clumps that grew wild near the house. Jim had loved the daffodils with their brave splash of yellow against the grey stone dykes and beaten grass of winter.

  St Andrew’s Church, which Peter had last attended with Valerie for the Watch Night service, stood on the edge of the village. He followed the ushers up the centre aisle. To his surprise the church was packed, partly with reporters and sightseers, but also because Jim Irwin, although a private man and given to periods of drunkenness, was popular in the village. Peter was the principal mourner, sitting with Bunny, Murdo Sutherland and another of Jim’s friends in the front pew. His daffodils rested on the coffin. It was hard to believe that his dad lay in that polished box with the bright brass handles. He had been told the body was perfectly preserved and hoped that were true.

  They sang Psalm 23 and the hymns ‘By Cool Siloam’s Shady Rill’ and ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ which, as a soldier who had fought in the desert, were two of Jim’s favourites. In his eulogy the minister praised his dad’s life and character and described what a loving father he had been to Peter.

  A long line of cars followed the hearse to the graveyard. It stood above the shore with a dry stone dyke separating it from the dunes and tumbling blue sea beyond. Four men carried the coffin up the crunching gravel path and across the trim grass between the gravestones. Peter, walking with Bunny and Murdo, led the ragged procession that followed behind. In addition to his daffodils, held by an elastic band, a florist’s wreath lay on the coffin lid. It was inscribed:

  TO OUR DAD

  WITH MUCH LOVE

  PETER AND VALERIE

  Jim’s second burial was a very different affair from the first for the grave was deep and immaculate, the sun shone, and in place of trampled peat and heather, a dozen wreaths from friends and well-wishers brightened the grass nearby. Peter took a rope as the coffin was lowered and threw down a single daffodil from his bunch. Bright and brave, it landed beside the little brass plaque engraved with Jim’s name and the dates of his birth and death. Cameras sparkled as the press photographers took pictures. The minister, his cassock and bands blowing in the breeze, performed t
he brief service of committal and indicated that as Jim’s son Peter should be first to throw down a handful of earth. He did so, to the accompaniment of more flashes, and watched with a sad heart as others followed, the soil rattling onto the shiny lid.

  The minister said the benediction and made the sign of the cross – and suddenly it was all over. People offered words of sympathy, the first chance they had had, and began drifting away. Peter read the cards on the wreaths. A reporter approached and tried to interview him; Bunny sent the man packing. It seemed wrong to walk off and leave his dad just lying there but there was nothing else to be done. As he looked back from the gate he saw the gravediggers busy with their shovels.

  Everyone was invited for drinks and sandwiches at the Tarridale Hotel. Peter attended for half an hour because it was the right thing to do, then Bunny took him home to Three Pines.

  He sat in an armchair with Daisy in his lap and told her about it. ‘He was your granddad, you’d have liked him. He was a nice man. He’d have nursed you like I do and given you bottles. But he wasn’t well. The army made him sick.’

  Daisy looked into his face and blew happy bubbles. He gave her a squeeze and she crowed with laughter, showing her pink gums and smearing his suit with spit.

  ‘When you’re a big girl, I’ll tell you all about him.’ Peter nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, I will.’

  A letter had arrived from Messrs Simpson, Fraser and Cherriwick, a leading firm of solicitors, asking Peter and his guardian to call at their offices for the reading of his father’s will. Two days after the funeral Bunny drove him to Clashbay in the Land Rover. She wore a smart green costume, earrings and a brooch. Peter wore his suit with a blue, open-necked shirt.