To Be Continued

by James Robertson

  I bring out the camera and take a few shots, but quite discreetly, because sometimes folk don’t like to be photographed when they’re doing unofficial stuff. And you’ll see for yourself, I think I managed to capture something of the biblical feel that the scene had. There’s this queue approaching and then departing from the rear of the hearse, and the hooded ones are handing out not loaves and fishes but whole cases and individual bottles of whisky to the multitude. Are you still there?

  ELDER: Still here.

  BUCKTHORN: I went in closer, still looking for signs of the police. Then I saw another set of flashing blue lights some distance away and I realised why they hadn’t arrived yet. They were stuck in the traffic, or at least their vehicle was. And then suddenly there’s a man in a balaclava barring my way, and I’m just bracing myself for a rebuke or even something a little stronger for snapping the goings-on but he doesn’t seem to notice the camera hanging round my neck, in fact he starts apologising. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he says, ‘but all the cases are gone. We’re just down to bottles now.’ I tell him not to feel bad about it, and he says, ‘Well, I do, but it’s only fair, isn’t it? Everybody should get a chance.’ And then he thrusts these two bottles at me and thanks me for understanding and I can’t help myself, my fingers instinctively close around their necks and I hold them up and inspect them in the glare of the headlights. And do you know what brand one of them is, Douglas?

  ELDER: Glen Gloming. And the other will be Salmon’s Leap.

  BUCKTHORN: It will indeed. You are remarkably well informed, and you don’t seem surprised at all. But I am not surprised you’re not surprised. As soon as I saw the Glen Gloming I remembered our encounter with it after Ronald’s funeral, and I knew something strange was going on. I had a quick walk round the hearse, and a quick look inside. No sign of the driver, as the fellow on the phone had said, but something white lying on the seat caught my eye so I fished it out and wasn’t it only one of the fucking calling-cards I made up for you. Only one of the cards I designed with the Spear’s logo and your name, DOUGLAS FUCKING ELDER, FREELANCE WRITER, printed on it, and my mobile number, the number I’d taken those calls on. So, old mucker, there’s something I want to ask you.

  [Conclusion of reconstructed transcript]

  HALLOWEEN

  ‘Well, whatever have you been up to, Douglas?’ Rosalind Munlochy inquired from the front passenger seat of Corryvreckan’s car. At this, the present author woke with a jolt.

  ‘That,’ Douglas replied, ‘is precisely what Ollie wanted to know.’

  ‘Douglas has been bootlegging,’ Poppy Munlochy said. The present author discerned a slight note of pride in her voice, as if she approved of this activity. While he forbears to pass judgement in matters that do not concern him, this jarred somewhat with his opinion of her as an uncommonly admirable creature.

  There being little point in pretence, Douglas recounted the story of his relationship with Gerry the apprentice undertaker, their journey to Glen Araich, and the loading of the whisky into the selfsame hearse that had collided with Magnus Strachan driving Douglas’s own half-car. It was notable that Corryvreckan made no remark at any point.

  ‘And your card was found at the scene of the crime?’ Rosalind remarked when Douglas had finished. ‘That might be awkward.’

  ‘Ollie pocketed the card and then started interviewing people before they all vanished,’ Douglas said. ‘He interviewed the police too, when they finally arrived, and was glad to be wearing a long coat with deep pockets, as they were very angry about the removal of the contents of the hearse. Then he cadged a lift off someone going into the city and wrote up a short version of the scoop for the Wednesday paper. He says if we can get hold of yesterday’s paper, it has the story in full. But what chance do we have of finding a copy of yesterday’s paper around here?’

  ‘We will shortly be passing the shop and service station at Inverawe,’ Corryvreckan said, breaking his silence at last. ‘They have everything.’

  Twenty minutes later the yellow car was on a road wider and faster than any previously travelled by the present author. The place mentioned by Corryvreckan was reached, and everybody got out to perform stretching exercises and to relieve themselves. The present author was able to do both of these in the car park, while the others went inside for the relief.

  Before the journey recommenced, hot drinks purchased in the shop were distributed along with food of various kinds, some of the latter finding its way into Douglas’s pocket. A copy of the Thursday edition of the Spear had been obtained. It was being kept for somebody who had decided not to take it, so the man in the shop was happy to exchange it for cash. To entertain the company, Douglas read aloud the following article, which the present author here reproduces – with an accuracy that will be marvellous only to those who are not toads – from memory:

  WEST LOTHIAN FLOODED WITH WHISKY – FROM THE BACK OF A HEARSE!

  Man charged with reckless driving and resetting stolen goods after drink-laden death-cab crashes into car

  By Oliver Buckthorn

  Extraordinary scenes followed a two-vehicle crash on Tuesday night in rural West Lothian, which has left both drivers in hospital in Edinburgh.

  Local people who arrived at the site soon after the accident happened, at about 8.35 p.m., helped one of the injured men.

  Magnus Strachan (24), who had been at a rugby training session in Stirling, had dropped off a teammate near Torphichen and was returning to his home in Edinburgh when his Volkswagen Polo was in collision with a hearse. The driver of the hearse could not at first be located.

  Mr Strachan is understood to have been knocked out and to have suffered a broken leg, cuts and bruises, but does not have life-threatening injuries.

  According to one witness, who preferred to remain anonymous, the emergency services were called but before they arrived it was discovered that the hearse was carrying a heavy load consisting entirely of cases of malt whisky. Nearly all the bottles appear to have survived the collision intact. As some people gave assistance to Mr Strachan, and others searched for the missing driver, still others arrived and began to help themselves to the whisky. ‘It was obviously under-the-counter stuff,’ another witness, who did not wish to be named, said, ‘so folk felt it was all right to take it.’

  In scenes reminiscent of the Ealing comedy classic Whisky Galore! more and more people appeared, with the express purpose of removing the whisky from the hearse. Mobile telephones were much in evidence as acquaintances were contacted to make sure they did not miss out on the unexpected bounty. At one point all the surrounding roads were blocked by traffic. ‘It’s like wasps round a pot of jam,’ quipped one woman, who chose not to identify herself.

  Despite the severe congestion a passage was cleared to enable an ambulance to reach the crash site. However, three police cars approaching from various directions found their routes completely blocked, and the officers had to abandon their vehicles as much as two miles away and complete their journey on foot. By the time they arrived, the ambulance, having apparently been guided through the snarl-up by members of the public, had departed with Mr Strachan on board. The police then secured the site, which is being treated as a crime scene.

  Detective Sergeant Steven Jephson told this newspaper: ‘It is a very serious matter when members of the public deliberately obstruct police officers who are endeavouring to carry out their duties. In this case we are looking at dozens of individuals who collectively prevented officers from reaching the scene while vital evidence was being removed by the same or other individuals. It seems that a large quantity of illegally obtained alcohol was in the back of one of the vehicles and all of it, except for a few broken bottles, disappeared between approximately 8.45 and 9.45 this evening. That in itself constitutes theft and interfering with the course of justice and any individuals identified as having been involved in such behaviour will be charged accordingly.’

  When questioned by this newspaper several individuals, some of them
wearing scarves around their faces, denied that they were thieves. ‘It’s the same as things you find washed up on a beach,’ said one man, who objected to being photographed. ‘If it belonged to anybody, that would be different, but it’s fair game in my opinion.’

  It was while taking photographs and measurements in reconstructing the cause of the collision, some time after most of the general public had dispersed, that the police heard the sound of groaning coming from a nearby ditch. Closer inspection disclosed a man partially obscured by leaves and other debris. He was suffering from injuries to his back and pelvis and had apparently tried to hide himself in the ditch following the crash. Another ambulance was summoned and he was taken to hospital, accompanied by a police escort. He has not been named, like almost everyone else in this story.

  Douglas broke off to express surprise that that last comment had been successfully ‘smuggled in’. ‘But then,’ he added, before resuming, ‘Ollie probably subbed it himself.’

  The whisky rumoured to have been in the hearse appears to have been of two varieties: the Glen Gloming 12-Year-Old and the Salmon’s Leap 10-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky. When contacted by this newspaper, Julian Parker Gowrie, whisky enthusiast and author of 101 Malts to Die For, described the Glen Gloming as ‘highly desirable, exquisitely balanced, characterised by light herbal notes with an aftershock of badger’, while the Salmon’s Leap was ‘playfully majestic, with an oily nose, a shimmering mouth and a whipped-cream finish’. The whisky expert, bon vivant and raconteur Charles MacLean, however, dismissed these opinions as ‘absolute tosh’ and ‘the usual nonsense from Julian’, and said that neither whisky exists outside the realm of fiction.

  The article was accompanied by a large, somewhat fuzzy yet atmospheric picture depicting a chain of unidentifiable human beings offloading cardboard boxes from the back of the smashed-up hearse. The photograph, like the written piece, was credited to Oliver Buckthorn.

  Douglas’s reading was received with a mixture of emotions, ranging from shock and amazement to amusement bordering on hilarity on the part of Rosalind and Poppy. Corryvreckan made throaty noises of disapproval, possibly of a moral kind, but no articulate comment. Many questions, suppositions and speculations followed, and the conversation among Douglas and the two women was enlivened by puns even as the food and beverages were being consumed. Poppy declared that she could neither condemn nor condone the spiriting away of the spirit, and Rosalind added that it showed a strong spirit of enterprise among the population of West Lothian.

  Rosalind then asked what time it was, to which the answer supplied by Corryvreckan was that it was after three o’clock. At this, Rosalind declared that she had not had her postprandial nap and that everybody should close their eyes for not fewer than twenty minutes. Douglas expressed impatience, and wondered why Rosalind could not nap while Corryvreckan drove on. Rosalind replied that the car’s motion would undoubtedly disturb her sleep and possibly make her sick. Corryvreckan was reluctant to act against her wishes and furthermore was anxious to protect the interior of his car. Poppy suggested that twenty minutes, in the grand scheme of things, would not make much difference. So four of the car’s occupants closed their eyes while the fifth let his glaze over, and the benefit of a short rest was felt, if not by all, then certainly by the present author.

  The journey recommenced as the light was fading, and a number of settlements unknown to the present author were passed in near or total darkness. Conversation became sporadic, and Corryvreckan, having received the consent of the others, inserted a succession of discs into a slot in the dashboard, as a consequence of which music filled the yellow car. A variety of compositions sung by the artistes Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and Emmylou Harris was played, and this did much to relieve the monotony of the journey until, at about the middle of the evening, the outskirts of Edinburgh were reached and Douglas began to give directions to the house and garden from which he and the present author had departed several days before.

  Douglas unlocked the door and invited the company inside. He switched on the heating system and with Poppy’s assistance set about organising the sleeping arrangements, fresh bedding and towels. It being a small house, any pretence as to the state of relations between Douglas and Poppy was futile, as well as unnecessary. Rosalind was assigned the single bed in Douglas’s old bedroom, the happy couple took the bedroom formerly occupied by Mr Thomas Ythan Elder and his late wife, while the living-room couch was to be Corryvreckan’s berth. The present author had his own accommodation nearby.

  Douglas and Poppy walked to a nearby shop to purchase milk, bread and other foodstuffs for the morning, and also procured four fish suppers from the local ‘chippie’ as his guests had declared a need for further sustenance. The latest edition of the Spear was also brought home, but it yielded little information additional to that which they already possessed. The police were interviewing the driver of the hearse, who was named as Mr Gerald Letham (28), and who remained in hospital under guard and under caution. The police were also carrying out searches in various locations in the West Lothian area, but had so far failed to discover a single bottle of the missing whisky. A Police Scotland spokesperson remained tight-lipped on other aspects of the ongoing inquiries, refusing to confirm or deny any connection between the incident and rumours of irregular activities that had allegedly occurred in recent months at a well-known Speyside distillery.

  After the consumption of the fish suppers, Douglas telephoned the Don’t Care Much Home to inquire after his father’s condition, and was reassured that he was ‘sleeping like a bairn’ and had been comfortable and calm since Douglas had last called. Soon after this the doorbell was rung by a party of children in masks and costumes intended to represent ghouls, ghosts, witches, zombies and similar supernatural or satanic beings. In return for telling some very feeble jokes, including one of questionable taste (‘What do you get if you cross a toad with a dog?’ ‘A croaker spaniel’), these children demanded payment in cash or confectionery. They were, albeit without much enthusiasm, maintaining the tradition of ‘guising’, which usually takes place on the last night of October, commonly known as Halloween. Rosalind, who said it was several decades since any guiser had called at Glentaragar House, was pleased to see the tradition continuing but disappointed by the children’s lacklustre and cynical performance. She did, however, give them some coins, upon receipt of which they immediately withdrew.

  The present author remembers being told by an ancestor that Halloween in ages past was a much more boisterous occasion, and that owing to the association of toads with witchcraft in human folklore it was deemed unwise to be abroad on this night. Indeed, there is even a saying among the bufonidian race, ‘Hibernate by Halloween, if in spring thou wouldst be seen’, but this is likely to refer to the dangers of the cold rather than to the risk of assault.

  Once the children had departed, Douglas recalled another toad joke, which is recorded here only because it touches on matters previously discussed by him with the present author: a man goes to the pictures and notices a toad in the next seat. ‘Are you a toad?’ the man asks. ‘I am,’ says the toad. ‘What on earth are you doing at the pictures?’ the man asks. ‘Well,’ says the toad, ‘I liked the book.’

  By this stage everybody was weary and so retired to bed. The present author, after a quick forage in the moonlight, also turned in, happy to be on familiar territory after his Highland excursion. He admits to finding the task of recounting these events somewhat tedious, and is surprised at how tricky an art storytelling appears to be. He suspects that he does not have sufficient imagination to write fiction, if indeed that is what this is, and therefore happily surrenders what remains of the narrative to others. He plans to spend one more evening stocking up reserves for the winter, and then it will be time for a long and, he hopes, uninterrupted sleep.

  [Not to be continued]

  JUST ED

  In the morning, the sky over Edinburgh is laden with rain, and while Poppy and I are getting
dressed it begins to pour.

  Rosalind is still in bed. Poppy takes her a cup of tea. Corryvreckan is in the kitchen, making porridge.

  It seems odd yet familiar, as if we have all lived together in that house – my father and mother’s house, my house – for years and years.

  After breakfast I phone Sonya and ask her what time she intends to be at the hospital.

  ‘Eleven-thirty,’ she says. ‘Are you in Edinburgh?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Good. Do you have a car?’

  ‘Not any more. It was totalled, remember?’

  ‘Not that car, Douglas, any car. Do you have any car at all?’

  ‘I once had half of one, but no longer.’

  ‘Douglas!’

  I relent. ‘No, Sonya, I do not have any car at all.’

  ‘So how did you get here from wherever you’ve been?’ she says, pouncing like a cat (as she probably imagines herself) on a rather dense mouse. ‘Where was it? Argyll or somewhere?’