Vee: Lost and Found

by David Roberts

  “Yes. It was them too. Honest to God, they’re a miserable bunch, the folk I work with.”

  “You should leave before you get to be like them.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. I’ve thought about leaving before but maybe this is the time to do something about it.”

  “Think of all the people who took the plunge before you. They’ve all done it: the café owners, the artists who set up studios in old primary schools. Adrian and Ellie; they could have been stuck in Birmingham. Is working for Ferret and Towbar, or whatever they’re called, the future you’d choose for yourself?”

  The logic was inescapable. Tom knew it wasn’t about logic, though: it was about nerve and about faith. ‘Some day’ had to become ‘this day’, as in “Action This Day”, the message Churchill attached to his orders during the dark days of the Second World War.

  They stood outside the Arch Inn, leaning on the big wooden tables at the seafront wall. There was a natural beauty to the place quite apart from the picturesque high street and the lights dotted along the pavement. It was a night for fish and chips and a walk along the pier. On their last night in Ullapool, they knew they had to immerse themselves in the experience of being there. However cosy it might be, you can’t do that in a restaurant. For that, you need the smell of the sea combining with the smell of the vinegar, and you need the seagulls to jangle like nerves, never at peace.

  They made their way inside and Alastair lay down, his shoes sticking out past the end of the bed, his elbows out, hands behind his head. In a few minutes they would go down for a quiet drink. Now it was thinking time.

  He took out the article and looked at it again. He mulled it over for a few minutes.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Tom.

  “I’m thinking it doesn’t really help. It doesn’t help me to work out if it’s them or not.”

  “You knew that already. The other articles- were they the same?”

  “Similar. This was the best of them, the most detailed one.”

  Tom changed his shirt and picked up his last pair of ‘good trousers’ as Eleanor called them. She’d always made a distinction between ‘good trousers’ and ‘working trousers’ and for some reason it had stuck with him. If he didn’t put them on now they’d arrive back in Hamilton without having been worn, which would mean bringing them had been a waste of time. This would have been irritating, so he had to put them on. So he put them on.

  Wasting year after year in an office in Hamilton, on the other hand, that appeared to be something he could just accept. Why was that, he asked himself? It didn’t even make sense, yet there he was, seemingly content to fiddle with the deckchairs as the ship was going down; keeping busy so he wouldn’t have time to think.

  He looked across. Alastair was really thinking. Perhaps it was time to busy himself with that.

  “Do you think Jamie or Ellie will know that bodies were discovered in Argyll?”

  Alastair thought for a moment. “It’s possible, but probably not. They could easily have missed it because it was mentioned only briefly. The papers couldn’t make a big story out of it because there was so little to say about who they were, how long they’d been there. There just wasn’t enough real information to hang a mystery on.”

  “And there would have been bigger stories at the time,” Tom said. “Political controversy; scandals, by-elections; economic news.”

  “And wars, of course. It’s Tony Blair and New Labour, so we’re bound to have been getting into a war somewhere or other.”

  “Oh yeah. Big stories like that- they just take over and run and run. I think you’re right. Jamie and Ellie could easily have missed it. And others seeing the story wouldn’t have known about the disappearance of Jamie’s parents all those years before, so they wouldn’t have mentioned it. They would have had no reason to. When you think about it, people don’t discuss every single story that comes up in the news: and this was a very old story from a different part of the country. They could easily have missed it.”

  “I suppose that’s right. Yes.”

  Tom continued. “I think what I’m saying is that there is probably only one person able to see the link between that small news item fifteen years ago and an unexplained disappearance over seventy years ago: and that person is you. And you only made the connection because of a chance remark in a conversation earlier tonight. What are the chances of all that coming together again?”

  “You think I should tell them.”

  “I do. Think about it this way. If they know already they’ll lose nothing. From what they told us, they are happy to think about past events and the people they have known. But if they don’t know about it, and it turns out to be the same missing people….well, think what that would mean. It would be the end of nearly eighty years of wondering what happened to them. Either way, I think you should tell them what you know.”

  Tom had a sense that he had walked his friend up to a doorway and that one final step would take him through.

  “There’s another reason too. All of this- it isn’t only about Jamie and Ellie. It’s also about you.”

  Alastair paused. They were both unsure of the territory.

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Al, I’m your mate and in a few minutes I’m going to take you down to the bar and buy you a drink, because you’re my mate.”

  “Right, so we’re mates, so….?”

  “So I can tell you things.”

  “What is it you want to say?”

  “I think something is bothering you and it’s been bothering you for a while. When we were at that ruined castle just north of here you said that Scotland can be a very dark place- or words to that effect. Terrible things have happened here: the killings; the clearing of the glens…these things are all around us, like buried bodies. The evidence is everywhere, in our history, in ruined buildings, even in the landscape. All of this stuff leaves a mark on the people who live here. We’re all like this in Scotland, with a kind of gloominess built-in. I know because I’m like that. Jesus, I’ve got more hang-ups than the Batcave. I think what’s bothering you is that you stumbled on two of these bodies and you don’t know how to deal with them. Because of that, they are always there, just below the surface. I think you have to bury them. It’s what they need. And this time, because of what you know, it can be done right.”

  Something in what was said here, perhaps underneath what was obvious, unsettled Alastair and moved him past the balance point. It was just enough. The door opened and he stepped through. He turned. Tom was still there behind him, almost ready to take the same step forward.

  “I will tell them,” he said, “tomorrow- when we go through Gairloch.”

  Tom stretched out his arm and lifted the room key from the bedside table. He patted his pocket to make sure his wallet was there, then stepped through the doorway and locked the door. He felt the tumblers move and heard the latch click but he still felt he had to try the handle. That would be a hang-up, I suppose.

  They had come a long way since leaving Lairg that morning and covered some difficult ground too. But as they bumped their way along the narrow corridor to the stairs, something was telling them it was going to be alright.

  39 A Question Answered

  2014

  The waters of Loch Broom were almost black and slightly choppy when they pulled out of the petrol station at nine-thirty the following morning. The blue Volkswagen accelerated steadily up the hill and Tom had a look back at the village before it disappeared from view behind a screen of trees.

  It had been a fantastic night in the bar of the Inn, taking their pints out to the picnic benches at the sea wall, watching the ferry and chatting away. Strangely, Alastair didn’t seem unhappy about leaving, although he usually did. Perhaps it was because his stay there, brief though it was, had given him more than anyone could have expected. Or perhaps it was simply that he knew he would be back.

  The road was empty and they just hummed along, past the wood
turning centre and the giant redwoods, round the sweeping curves and up the long incline to the junction for the coast road.

  “We’re still going right?” asked Tom.

  “We are”.

  The coast road wound round through Dundonnel, Gruinard and Aultbea. It was strange to think such tiny places could have had a hand in great events all those years before. They made their way over the hill after Poolewe and down into Gairloch.

  Alastair reached over and lifted his wallet from the small tray near the gearstick.

  “The address is in there. Can you look it out?”

  Tom unfolded the irregular bit of paper Ellie had torn off at the guest house. “Turn right here. It’s five houses along…. This is it.”

  They turned into the short driveway, got out of the car and walked up to the door.

  “Could you say the hello bit?” asked Alastair. “They might not be sure about me, after the way I walked out on them.”

  Ellie opened the door and beamed a smile

  “It’s them, Jamie!” she called through, whilst motioning them in. “We were hoping you would call. We enjoyed meeting you so much.”

  The room they entered just off the hall was cosy, if a bit old-fashioned. Jamie was on his feet by the time they were inside and he shook their hands enthusiastically.

  “Sit down, boys,” said Ellie. “We’re just about to have coffee- or would you prefer tea?”

  Hearing that either was fine she went through to the kitchen and switched the kettle on. Cupboards were opened and closed, dishes rattled on one another. A minute or two later Ellie returned with a tray.

  “Biscuits as well as coffee,” said Jamie. “We like to push the boat out in this house.”

  Ellie smiled and sat down on the settee next to him. She took a sip of her coffee before speaking. It was what the boys were expecting. How long would it take them to get home? Had they had a pleasant evening in Ullapool? (There were no specific questions about the Australian girlfriend, thank goodness.) Where else had they been? It turned out Ellie knew Lairg quite well, and she recognised the restaurant and the pub. Then she remembered something else.

  “I have something to show you. I won’t be a minute.”

  She disappeared upstairs and came down with two framed photographs. The smaller of the two she handed to Alastair, who then passed it on to Tom.

  “This is the photograph you gave me. You’ll remember it. That’s the back of the cottage in Annat. That’s me, plus Jamie and Adie.

  “This you haven’t seen before. This is Vee.” She handed over the second photograph. “This would have been taken shortly before Adie left to go back to Birmingham.”

  They looked at the figure in the photograph. She was quite small and trim in appearance, with a face that was engaging, not just pretty in a conventional sense.

  “You can’t see it from this photograph,” said Jamie, “but her hair was a vivid red: very striking, in fact.”

  Tom nodded. “She looks a strong person,” he said. “Confident. Interesting too, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “No, not at all,” said Jamie. “Vee was all of these things.”

  “And more besides,” said Ellie.

  Alastair reached into his pocket and brought out a folded sheet of paper.

  “I have something for you to see, but before you see it I’d like to apologise for leaving so quickly last night. I’m hoping you will understand why. It is something you may know about already but I suspect you don’t.”

  Jamie reached over to a small table and retrieved his glasses. Together, he and Ellie read the short article from the Oban Times.

  Bodies found in Argyll

  Police have confirmed that the two bodies discovered in central Argyll are the bodies of a man and a woman, both in their early thirties. They were found by a forestry worker six weeks ago. Identification has proved impossible due to the action of flooding and other factors, but coins suggest a date sometime around 1931. There is no evidence of foul play.

  At the bottom of the article the lady from the bookshop had written ‘Oban Times, August 1995’.

  Jamie took his glasses off, looked at Ellie and then spoke to Alastair.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “From the Ullapool bookshop, last night.”

  “Is that why you had to rush away?” asked Ellie.

  Alastair nodded. There was a lull in the conversation, as everyone waited for Jamie to speak. After a minute, and Jamie re-reading the article, Ellie broke the silence.

  “What are you thinking Jamie? You need to tell us.”

  “I’m thinking what you are thinking,” he said. “I feel it’s them.” He paused, quite briefly this time, because he knew how difficult his silence was for the others.

  “I’m finding this difficult. I spent the early part of my life asking myself what might have happened to them. Looking back now, I was probably thinking about it one way or another almost all the time. There were no answers, of course, so I just trained myself not to ask. Vee and John became my parents. We were a real family.”

  “That is exactly right,” said Ellie. “This is what you all had to do. It’s what John and Vee wanted for you and it was what you needed. You were all having to cope with a terrible event and you did the right things.” She leaned over to look at him and grasp his hand. “All this does, if we are correct, is answer a very old question; but it’s one which did need answering.”

  “I just feel like I’m taking something apart,” Jamie said, “peeling back the layers of asking and not asking and deliberately forgetting and genuinely forgetting, going right back to the start, to when they disappeared.”

  “I know. That is what you are doing. Seventy-odd years worth of layers have to be moved out of the way, so you can get back to how you felt. But this is what you need to remember. The layers will go back and this time they will fold flat. The question will be gone.”

  Tom nodded. Alastair did the same, though neither spoke.

  “There is something I don’t understand,” said Jamie. “This is a news item from a small provincial newspaper and it’s almost twenty years since it was written….”

  “You are wondering how I knew about the article.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I knew because I’m the one who found them.”

  Jamie leaned back in his chair, absolutely stunned, as Alastair continued.

  “This is just the final one in a series of news items. The earliest ones, focussing on the discovery, mention me by name; Mr A. Singer. The later items dispensed with that because the focus was more on the identities of the bodies. Of course, that led nowhere.”

  He went on to expand on what he was doing in Argyll (and explain how ‘forestry worker’ was a simplification). Very quickly, the shock and the tension began to slip away until Jamie and Alastair were talking quite normally.

  “Can you give me a hand with these please, Tom?” Ellie asked, nodding towards the cups and plates.

  “Of course.”

  They carried them through and put them on the worktop next to the sink.

  “I think we should leave them to talk,” she said. “They’ll have all these questions. I think they need this time to themselves.”

  “Yes. After all, they’ve got so much in common.”

  Ellie looked at him quizzically.

  “What I mean is that Jamie had the trauma of losing his parents…”

  “And Alastair?” Ellie asked.

  “He’s been affected by finding them. I know it’s not the same but there’s no doubt in my mind that he has been affected by discovering those two bodies. Over the years I’ve known him he has become more moody, even morose, at times. I’m sure that’s what’s at the root if it.”

  “That would explain last night,” she said.

  “Yes it does. He was knotted up inside later on, you know, trying to work out what to do. Fortunately, though, we had a dependable friend nearby.”

  “It’s not tha
t Australian girl is it? We were unconvinced by her, I have to say.”

  “I wish I’d been unconvinced. It would have saved me a call to an Edinburgh exhaust supplier.” Ellie looked confused, quite understandably. “No, this friend is called An Teallach. We drank lots of it.”

  “Ah yes,” she said. “Good for you, supporting local industry like that. It’s made in Dundonnel, you know. I have a wee glass myself now and again. My doctor prescribes it. Sometimes he even buys it.”

  They had a quiet snigger to themselves, then listened in to what was happening next door. Good- everything seemed fine through there.

  “Don’t bother with those dishes, Tom. They can be dealt with later. There’s hardly anything anyway. We can just bang some cupboard doors and rattle a few things around so they’ll know we’re busy and they won’t be disturbed. Washing up noises. I’ll stick the kettle on again.

  “So how did you meet Alastair? The two of you are so different.”

  “Oh, he just appeared out of the drizzle when my car broke down in West Lothian. Like an AA man. He was working for a garage in Edinburgh. That would be maybe ten years ago. We got talking and we’ve been meeting up for walking trips ever since: more so recently.”

  “Is he still working there?”

  “Yes, but it’s not working out the way he’d hoped.”

  “How is that?”

  “Well, he’s still just a mechanic. What he really wants to do is run a small independent garage, where he can be working for himself. The place he is in now doesn’t give him that kind of freedom. It’s one of a string of garages owned by the same firm. They’re constantly being told that it’s a caring, sharing, family concern: they really stress that in the radio adverts and the yellow pages listings etc. It’s a fiction of course: the owners are playing one garage off against another to cut costs and maximise profits for themselves. That’s what I hate about Edinburgh firms- the hypocrisy. I see it in their paperwork, where they like to present themselves as sympathetic, considerate employers, with their HR “mission statements” and so on. It’s all meaningless, of course. He’d be far better going to Glasgow or Dundee. I’ve told him that. When you make a mistake there they kick your arse but you still feel like one of the family and you learn from it and all move on together. In Edinburgh that warmth is just not there. I could never settle in Edinburgh.”