Never Go Back

by Robert Goddard

  ‘This stuff goes straight to your head, doesn’t it?’ said Harry, raising his glass.

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Lloyd huskily. ‘Bloody vertigo. Came over me while I was standing by the parapet. And not just vertigo either. Something … weird.’

  ‘Tapper said you’d … been up here before.’

  ‘Feels like it.’ Lloyd shook his head. ‘God, this is … the strangest bloody thing.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘No. Matter of fact, I’m … sure I’m not.’

  ‘You’ve had a long hard day, Jabber. You’re probably just tired. We’re not as young as we were.’

  ‘Have you been up here before, Ossie?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. It was always kept locked.’

  ‘Yeah. It was, wasn’t it? So, how did I get up here?’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t. We’ve all experienced déjà vu. It doesn’t mean—’

  ‘This means something.’ Lloyd drained his glass. ‘You can take my word for that.’ He pushed himself away from the wall and clasped Harry by the elbow, swaying slightly as he did so. ‘Do me a favour, will you, Ossie?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Apologize to the others for me. I’m going down to my room. I need a lie-down. Might skip dinner. Ask them to send me up a sandwich later. I’d be sorry to, er, miss out on the … grand supper, but … I just can’t … at the moment …’ Lloyd’s hand fell back to his side. ‘I just can’t. OK?’

  ‘OK, Jabber. They’ll understand. You take it easy.’

  ‘Thanks. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Yeah. A rest. OK. Thanks. I’ll, er, see you, Ossie.’

  Lloyd turned and started down the stairs, taking each step with exaggerated care, his hand grasping the rail tightly, like a man negotiating a ship’s companionway in a storm. But there was no storm. Unless it was inside his head.

  Harry was never to speak to him again.

  Chapter Twelve

  DINNER THAT NIGHT, planned by Dangerfield as the high spot of the weekend, never quite lived up to its billing. The quality and quantity of the food and drink could not be faulted and Dangerfield did his best to jolly them along. But Lloyd’s absence – and the shadow cast by Askew’s death – took a perceptible toll. There was also the question of their stamina, both mental and physical. Harry suspected he was not alone in running short of amusing recollections of life at Kilveen in 1955, nor in yearning for a beer and a light snack followed by an early night, instead of fine wine, haute cuisine and a soak in the bar until the small hours.

  His suspicion was confirmed when Gregson headed for bed as soon as dinner was over. Dr Starkie soon followed. Then Erica made her excuses and left them to it. Harry felt he had done his duty when the longcase clock in the lounge adjoining the bar struck midnight. Judd had just proposed a few rounds of a game called Cardinal Puff they had sometimes played at the Macbeth Arms to decide who would buy the next round. Harry could not recall the rules, but was certain it was a bad idea. With slurred accusations of cowardice ringing in his ears, he took himself off.

  * * *

  He woke late next morning, no more than mildly hung over and relieved to realize that the reunion had nearly run its course. He would stay until Monday and travel back to London on the train with the others because that was the easy option. The truth was, however, as he explained in a phone call to Donna, that he would rather clear out straight away.

  ‘I guess Barry was the biggest draw. I’d have enjoyed seeing him again, despite all the bad turns he’s done me. If I’d known he wasn’t going to show up, well, I’m not sure I’d have bothered.’

  ‘You’ll be glad you went in the end, hon. You know you will. There’ll be the pics to laugh at for a start. Taken many?’

  ‘Pics?’

  ‘You did buy a camera, didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, er … no, I …’

  ‘Oh, Harry. I told you to. A cheap disposable. Come on. There’s still time.’

  ‘It’s Sunday. All the shops will be closed.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘Well, most of them. This is Scotland.’

  ‘Yeah. And this is your wife speaking. Buy camera. Take pictures. That’s an order.’

  After a bath and room-service breakfast, Harry headed out into the grey, still morning. He doubted if the post office and general store in Lumphanan would sell cameras, but the receptionist reckoned the shop would at least be open, so he had little choice but to make the effort.

  The village had grown in fifty years. The view through the trees as he descended the hill from the castle revealed a lobe of modern housing east of the main street, which had been farmland back in 1955. The gaps between the old cottages in the centre had been filled in as well. Strangely, this did not make it a busier place. Sunday morning in Lumphanan was as quiet as it had ever been.

  There was a modest queue at the post office, however. Newspapers, cigarettes and milk were much in demand. Harry toured the shelves in vain search of a camera, but decided he had better double-check before giving up. He joined the queue.

  The man in front of Harry turned round and squinted oddly at him, then did so again. He looked local, flat-capped and dressed in ancient tweed. He was a short, lean, tanned old fellow, with an unshaven chin and watery but sharply focused eyes. There was a smell about him of damp dog and stale tobacco. Harry suspected the venerable Jack Russell terrier tethered outside was his. They made a natural pairing.

  ‘Morning,’ said Harry in response to the second squint.

  The man held the squint, then said, ‘Good morning to you.’

  ‘Nice one, for the time of year.’

  ‘Aye. We get such mild springs now. Not what I’m used to. And not what you got last time you were here, I seem to recall.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You’re staying up at the castle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, you’re here for the reunion?’

  ‘I am. Yes.’

  ‘Then you’ll understand what I mean.’ He turned away as he reached the head of the queue and handed over the money for a newspaper already folded for him to take. Then he was gone. Leaving Harry to confirm the shop’s stock of necessities did not extend to cameras before making his own exit.

  The old fellow was waiting for him outside, Jack Russell untethered. ‘Which one are you, then?’ he enquired with a cock of the head.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘I remember most of your names. Let me see.’ He nodded. ‘Aye. You’re Barnett, I reckon.’

  ‘Good God. How did you—’

  ‘It’s Stronach, man. Do you not know me?’

  ‘Stronach.’ Of course. The gardener-handyman kept on when the University acquired the castle, whose wife had been responsible for cooking their meals – if cooking was the right word to describe what she had done with food. But the couple had surely been middle-aged. Stronach had to be ninety if he was a day. ‘Is it really you?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘As you see me.’

  ‘Mrs Stronach?’

  ‘Dead and gone.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘I’ve had a good few years to get over it.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘You’ll not be surprised to know I eat better now I’m cooking for myself.’

  ‘I’m amazed you remember me.’

  ‘Well, fifty years ago is sharper in my mind than last week. And you’ve not changed so very much. White hair and a beer belly aren’t so hard to imagine away.’

  Harry laughed despite himself. ‘It’s good to know you still tell it like it is.’

  ‘Are you going back to the castle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you as far as my cottage.’

  They set off, rounding the corner by the Macbeth Arms at a faster pace than Harry would have expected a nonagenaria
n to set.

  ‘What were you after in the shop?’

  ‘A camera.’

  ‘For some snapshots to remember your old comrades by?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘It’s too late to snap Askew, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’ Harry could not disguise his surprise at the question. How did Stronach know about Askew?

  ‘They named him on the local news last night. Travelling to Aberdeen for an RAF reunion, so they said he was. And the police are keeping an open mind about the circumstances of his death. They said that as well.’

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘That’ll have blown some of the froth off your get-together, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘He was a nervy one, as I recall. Jump at his own shadow, would Askew.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Who else have you got up there, then?’

  ‘Johnny Dangerfield’s organized the do. Then there’s, er, Milton Fripp, Owen Gregson, Bill Judd, Mervyn Lloyd, Gilbert Tancred … and Neville Wiseman.’

  ‘What about the rest?’

  ‘Most of them are dead, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Aye, well, fifty years is a long time. You’d expect that, I suppose.’

  ‘Why don’t you come up and say hello?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Stronach pulled up by the gate of his cottage, a hotchpotch of brick, timber, slate and corrugated iron camouflaged by an overgrown garden. There was a well-tilled vegetable patch off to one side, but otherwise little sign of active cultivation. Picture-postcard countryman’s dwelling it was not. ‘I was surprised when I heard about the reunion.’ He slipped the latch, stepped through with the dog and closed the gate behind him. Harry was clearly not being invited in. ‘A mite risky, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Risky?’

  ‘You never know what’ll come of it, man. Simple as that.’

  But it did not seem simple to Harry. And then a thought struck him that made it even less so. ‘When we were here, in ’fifty-five, the upper floors of the tower and the roof were kept locked, weren’t they?’

  Stronach frowned. ‘Aye. They would have been.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Urquharts, my original employers, left behind a good deal of their furniture when they moved out. It was stored in the tower. They’d not have wanted you lot clodhopping around up there.’

  ‘So, none of us could ever have gone up to the roof?’

  ‘Not in the ordinary way of things, no.’

  ‘Was there an unordinary way of things?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  Stronach’s only answer was a half-smile and a faint nod of the head. ‘I’m away in to read my paper, so I’ll say goodbye.’ He turned towards the shrub-shrouded door of his cottage. ‘Enjoy the rest of your reunion.’

  Harry wandered off along the street, puzzling over Stronach’s remarks. It was hard to judge whether they meant anything, or were just an old man’s deliberate attempts at mystification. There was no reason why Stronach should know more of events at Kilveen than the Clean Sheeters themselves – no reason, at any rate, that Harry was aware of.

  As he approached the sharp bend below the church, a car nosed into view, descending the hill from the castle. It was a silver-grey Peugeot saloon, identical to one Harry had seen parked at the hotel. As it rounded the bend, he recognized the driver as Wiseman. Lloyd was sitting next to him in the passenger seat.

  Harry raised his hand, but Wiseman drove straight on, his gaze fixed firmly ahead, apparently oblivious to Harry’s presence on the verge. Lloyd did see him, however. Their eyes met as the car passed him.

  Whether Lloyd said anything to Wiseman there was no way to tell. The car cruised on along the village street at a steady pace, turned onto the main road at the end and vanished from Harry’s sight.

  He was never to see Mervyn Lloyd again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  BACK AT KILVEEN Castle, Harry met Dangerfield in reception, looking far from happy. He was cross-questioning Bridget about something – or rather someone.

  ‘Is that all he said?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Mr Dangerfield. Back as soon as possible. Those were his words.’

  ‘But we’re— Oh, Harry.’ Now, just like Barry’s, Harry’s nickname had deserted him. ‘Thank God you haven’t run out on us.’

  ‘I walked into the village. Magister passed me in his hire car on my way back. Jabber was with him.’

  ‘Jabber too? This is bloody ridiculous. I told everyone yesterday we’d start at eleven. Well, I’m not waiting on that pair. They’ll just have to catch up with us at the pub if they’re not back by the time we leave. Can you tell them where we’ll be, Bridget? The Lairhillock Inn.’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Dangerfield.’

  Harry stepped back outside with Dangerfield, whom he judged to be in need of a calming breath of fresh air. Wiseman’s unexplained jaunt with Lloyd had clearly stretched his patience. He tried to raise Lloyd on his mobile, but got no answer. And he had no number to try for Wiseman.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder if organizing this reunion was a good idea,’ he complained as he snapped his phone shut. ‘Nothing seems to be going the way I’d planned.’

  ‘Perhaps Magister just wanted to show Jabber some of the sights he missed yesterday.’

  ‘You’d think he might at least have consulted me in that case.’

  ‘That would have been rather out of character, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘I went to the post office to try and buy a camera,’ Harry remarked in an effort to brighten Dangerfield’s mood. ‘Thought we ought to take a few commemorative photographs.’

  ‘Before there’s no one left to photograph, you mean?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s—’

  ‘No, no. It’s a good idea. I should have thought of it myself. Get one?’

  ‘No such luck.’

  ‘Never mind. We’ll stop in Banchory. Should be able to buy a camera there. Smith’s will be open.’

  ‘Great. Oh, and I, er, bumped into Stronach.’

  ‘Stronach? You’re having me on. He must be older than Methuselah.’

  ‘Looked well on it.’

  ‘You should have asked him to join us.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And is he going to?’

  ‘No. But then he always was a miserable so-and-so.’

  Dangerfield sighed. ‘We don’t seem to be too popular, do we, Harry?’ Then he summoned a smile. ‘Well, we’ll just have to put a brave face on it.’

  * * *

  Dangerfield’s plan for the day comprised a visit to another well-preserved old castle, Crathes, near Banchory, a leisurely lunch at a country inn, followed by tea back at Kilveen. In the event, he delayed their departure by more than half an hour in the hope that Wiseman and Lloyd would return. But they did not. The subsequent stop in Banchory to buy a camera ate further into their schedule and a decision was taken to proceed straight to the Lairhillock Inn, several of the party freely admitting to having had their fill of castles.

  Much of the conversation over lunch naturally concerned the absence of Wiseman and Lloyd. Erica, who had joined them today, while Dr Starkie rested up at Kilveen – ‘He’s not as fit as he pretends,’ she explained – wondered if their sudden departure, destination unknown, might be connected with Lloyd’s strange turn on the castle roof the evening before. He had, after all, been talking to Wiseman at the time.

  ‘And to me, my dear,’ said Tancred. ‘But, as you see, I was not invited along. I suppose it’s possible Magister suggested a drive to Jabber in an effort to jolly him out of his fit of the blues.’

  ‘That would explain why he left you out of it, Tapper,’ laughed Judd, who was putting away the Lairhillock’s beer at an impressive rate. ‘Probably reckoned a succession of snide cracks by you wasn’t what Jabber needed.’


  ‘This weekend’s been a positive revelation to me, Judder,’ Tancred responded. ‘I’d quite forgotten how side-splittingly funny you could be.’

  Harry attempted to head off an exchange of insults between the two by describing his encounter with Stronach. Astonishment that the gruff old gardener was still alive and well was the general reaction. But Erica took a more probing and disturbingly perceptive line.

  ‘Did you think of asking him about how easy it was to get onto the roof back then, Harry?’

  ‘Yes. As a matter of fact … I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said the Urquhart family furniture was stored on the upper floors. That’s why they were strictly off limits to the likes of us.’

  ‘No exceptions?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘He was positive about that?’

  ‘Yes. He was.’

  Harry had shied away instinctively from admitting just how ambiguous an answer Stronach had given. But he instantly regretted misrepresenting the old man, not least because the expression on Erica’s face suggested she did not quite believe him. Dissembling never had been his forte.

  Dangerfield tried Lloyd’s mobile several times during lunch without success. It was not even ringing now, a circumstance which bred a number of wild theories about where he and Wiseman could be that was blocking the signal. They were evidently not en route to the Lairhillock Inn. A phone call to the hotel confirmed nothing had been seen or heard of them.

  This was still the case when they returned to Kilveen in mid-afternoon. Dangerfield’s exasperation had run its course by then. He suggested it was now or never where group photographs were concerned, so Matthews was drummed into service as cameraman, Dr Starkie was lured down from his room and they all assembled in grinning formation on the castle’s front lawn. Gregson, it transpired, had brought his own camera, which he had been too diffident to mention. That too was put to use. It was agreed more photographs could be taken later when Wiseman and Lloyd condescended to rejoin them – assuming they did so before nightfall.

  Sarcasm about the pair’s mystery jaunt camouflaged an underlying anxiety. Harry felt sure everyone was thinking what he was thinking. It began like this with Askew. Would it end the same way? There was more going on over this weekend at Kilveen – far more – than the simple, light-hearted reunion Dangerfield had proposed. But Harry for one had not the remotest idea what it was.