by Emma Baird
“Promise you won’t say anything?”
Gaby nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to die!”
“I kissed Zac the other night. After the committee meeting.”
“Did you?” Gaby clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful. Oh, Katya I’m so pleased for you!”
“Aye, aye, you didnae say anything about that when you came in.”
They both turned. Dressed in her pharmacy uniform and phone held in front of her, Mhari beamed at them. Within seconds, the WhatsApp group would be updated and the whole of the village would know. Katya might as well have snogged Zac in the pub in full view of everyone.
“How...?” Gaby asked. No one knew how Mhari managed to plant herself wherever there was news to be overheard.
“I’m on my vaping break.” Mhari held up a thin tube. The pharmacy was only two doors down from the GP’s surgery. The truly cautious said nothing out loud within 100 metres of the pharmacy.
“You don’t vape,” Katya pointed out.
“Aye, well, Alison the boss does so I said it was only fair I got vaping breaks too. Is he a good kisser? And did ye use tongues—”
As one, Katya and Gaby marched off. “Just wait until I get home!” Mhari called after them. Then, the questions would begin in earnest.
CHAPTER 19
“Hey—what have you been doing today?”
Zac caught Katya coming out of Jamal’s shop late on Friday afternoon. She’d finished work at lunchtime and then tackled Maggie Broon’s Boobs. Everyone promised the view from the top of the hills at the other side of the loch was spectacular. Maybe it was. When she’d reached the summit, her breath coming in raggedy gasps thanks to the steep ascent, a thick layer of grey cloud swirled around obscuring everything.
Still, the ache in her calves and quads told her she’d exerted herself. Perfect justification for buying a large bag of crisps, some hummus to dip them in and an evening Netflix-ing in the living room wrapped in her duvet.
“Hill climbing,” she said. If she mentioned the local nickname, Zac would respond with innuendo or flirty banter and she wasn’t in the mood. Still, Psychic Josie’s name for him, NSFW, flashed through her mind. Difficult to stop all the filthy scenarios her imagination conjured up.
“Can I walk you home?”
“It will take all of five minutes.”
She let him anyway.
“What are you doing this evening?”
“A hot date eating crisps.” She held up her bag. “On my own.”
“So long as they aren’t salt and vinegar, right?”
Despite herself, she smiled. Nice of him to remember. And smart of him not to angle for an invitation. That was the thing with a giant bag of crisps—they were best eaten in solitude where you let the crumbs drop all over your top and double dipped.
As they passed the Lochside Welcome, Ashley came out carrying the board which usually advertised that day’s pizza specials. Charity Pub Quiz in aid of Alzheimer’s UK, it said. First prize—all your food and drink for a week.
“What’s your general knowledge like?”
He’d stopped walking, the wind lifting his hair back from his face. Katya admired the way it highlighted the squareness of his face and then told herself off for fancying an Action Man. Even a NSFW one whose hands and mouth did all kinds of things in those blue-rated fantasies.
“So-so.” The Jane Austen temporary memory loss still too humiliating to remember.
“Want to be in my team?”
He always loaded much of what he said with multiple meanings. What team? The pub quiz team stroke the outsiders stroke the potential couple? Still, a charity pub quiz was a community-minded thing to do. And spending a Friday night alone eating crisps was pitiful.
“Okay. I’ll get you at your house at eight o’clock.”
It was closer to half-eight. The achy calves and quads demanded a bath, and she’d fallen asleep in it, only waking when the water turned cold.
Zac had changed into a brown suede jacket over a turtleneck jumper and narrow trousers with turn-ups. Her tea-dress worn over thick tights and over-the-knee boots meant she matched him for smartness. Hopefully, it wouldn’t make them stick out any more than they already did. Gaby said Stewart often showed up to the pub in his pyjamas.
Ashley, manning the door so he could frisk people for undeclared phones, gave Zac a hard look when they came in.
“Aye, aye—Mr I’m Just Here To Do An Online Food Business. A wee birdie tells me that’s no’ all you have up your sleeve.”
Zac plastered on his friendliest smile. “Yes, I wanted to talk to you about that. I’ve had an idea about a joint venture so we both profit. Can I pop by tomorrow afternoon and tell you all about it?”
“It had better be good,” Ashley harrumphed. “Now, hand over all phones. We’re no’ one o’ those modern quizzes. Google has no place here.” He took their phones and dumped them in a large glass bowl on the bar.
Just like the first (disastrous) time she’d gone along, the quiz seemed to attract the entire village and it was standing room only. She and Zac squeezed their way through bodies and shouted conversations, perfumes and after-shave competing with the smell of the turkey and Brie pizza Ashley was trialling for the Lochside Welcome’s Christmas menu.
Every table was taken. Gaby, huddled together with Jack, Mhari, Jolene and Stewart, gave her a wave and a smile. When Katya had texted her with the crisp-night plans earlier, she’d messaged back saying, “Please come! It’ll be a laugh.”
At the bar, she ordered two pints from the barmaid, who rolled her eyes before she headed back to where Stewart had parked himself at the bar and made yet more demands for beer. As she and Zac had got to the pub too late to find a table, they’d need to stay at the bar. Ashley shuffled over and gave them paper and pens. “I’ll forgive you your pop-up plans,” he said, darting wary looks at Stewart. “If you’re brainy. Jolene telt me her man was away on a coding course this weekend. If his team wins, I’ll go out of business before the week’s out.”
“Public school squeezed knowledge into us by hook or by crook. My memory’s legendary,” Zac told him, scribbling a team name on the top of the sheet.
I was right about the public-school background, Katya congratulated herself. The men who’d attended them were easy to spot. Eton or Harrow were her best guesses—England’s incubators for politicians, business leaders and media executives.
“Mine too,” she answered. “Without the unearned privilege.”
He only laughed. “Come the rebellion I promise you can have me up against the wall.”
Back to the flirty banter. “As if. There would be too many other delightful Tory boys to ram my bayonet into.”
Across the room Gaby gave Katya the thumbs-up, meant to be unseen by Zac, but he shoved his shoulder into hers when he saw it.
“Gaby likes me, then? She’s not on the list of people who’ll stab her bayonet into me.”
“Nope,” Katya said. “Although excusing Jack, Gaby’s taste in men hasn’t always been spot on.”
Ashley rang the bell to start the quiz. Silence descended as the quiz master Big Donnie, who wore a Barbour jacket and matching waxed hat despite the ferocious heat of the place, cleared his throat and began the questions.
“Sports first,” Katya said as Zac took up the pen, ready to jot down answers. “Bound to be the round for you, so long as the questions are cricket and rugby related, rather than football.”
But it was Katya who managed all the cricket and rugby questions, while Zac supplied the answers for the football ones. He also knew the winner of the last darts world championship. She awarded him extra points for not grinning too smugly afterwards. He had answers for all the questions in the history round too. Katya remembered everything in the literature round, although again he surprised her by knowing the answer to a Charlotte Brontë-related question.
Half time—and in finest half-time tradition, the bar owner offered to send out free snacks and update ever
yone on the scores so far. The teams mingled.
“You’re in second place!” Gaby exclaimed, yelling her team’s drinks orders to the harassed barmaid. “How brainy!”
“And there are only two of them,” Jack said. “I thought celebrity gossip was your speciality, Gaby?”
“Not mine, Mhari’s,” she said, “and she got Katie Price’s kids’ names muddled up with Kerry Katona’s.”
“Molly, Lilly-Sue, Heidi, Max and Dylan-Jorge,” sang out a female voice behind them, its upper-class braying quality all-too familiar. Lois and Angeline. Zac’s face fell—their appearance not a delightful surprise for him either. He murmured a ‘sorry’ to Katya and shuffled off his seat to flee to the loos. Ten out of ten to him for cowardly behaviour and landing a person in it. Katya took a fortifying gulp of beer and turned.
“Lois, Angeline!”
The two women smiled in sync. “Katya, how lovely to see you again. We thought we’d join in the village fun.”
Had anyone noticed how they’d aligned themselves with her? Their loudness had silenced everyone anyway—that, and the outrageous outfits. The embodiment of Ab Fab, as they both said. Lois wore a puffa skirt, tragically back in fashion. She’d paired it with a bright pink fake fur and wedged slider shoes, while Angeline’s tight white trousers skimmed bony ankles on top of feet teetering on spindly heels. On her top half, she wore what looked like a chain-mail cardigan over a mini slip dress.
Katya turned to Lois. “You forgot the sunglasses. To wear indoors.” That set the two of them off in peals of laughter, making her wonder if she ought to consider a side hustle as a stand-up comedian
Lois held her hand up to her mouth to do an exaggerated whisper. “If there’s another celebrity gossip round, you’re laughing. Angeline and I know everything about the rich and famous. We read Starz magazine avidly.”
Mhari didn’t bother with the niceties. “Who are youse? What are you doin’ here?”
A good question.
Angeline extended a hand. “Angeline Berringer. And my friend Lois Manson. Young Zac here is our prodigy and we’re big fans of Scotland. We arrived in Lochalshie a few days ago because we wanted to see what darling Zac is up to. Now we can join Zac’s team.”
“You’re no’ allowed to call in reinforcements to your team half-way through,” Mhari said.
She folded her arms, bouncer-style. No one else did, but Katya sensed the rest of the pub’s regulars lean back against their seats, regard them beadily and nod along. The Lochside Welcome’s pub quiz had been going almost twenty years. You mocked or disregarded the rules at your peril.
“Am I right, Ashley?” Mhari called out. Ashley, in the middle of pouring yet another still thankfully paid-for pint for Stewart, shook his head.
“No, Katya and Zac didnae have the full complement to start with. The rules say teams can have a maximum but no minimum. They don’t say anything about folks joining in half-way.”
And presumably, the more people on a team that wasn’t Stewart’s, the merrier.
Mhari sniffed and turned back to her team, whispering furiously. Katya did her best to make it look as if she was with her new team members under sufferance.
Zac hadn’t exaggerated when he said public school crammed one’s head with useless facts. Sport, politics, history, geography, science, film and TV, Netflix’s most popular box sets, YouTube’s biggest stars—he appeared to know everything, and the few questions he couldn’t answer were filled in by Angeline. Katya’s hands and feet twitched—always a killer sign of lust kicking in despite the voice that screamed, Are you sure, Katya, really really sure? The evasiveness, failing to mention the one crucial thing she’d found out about him after digging?
But of all the things he could do, the non-stop flow of answers made him shoot skywards in her estimation. The show-off car, the flirty banter, the too-rehearsed speeches about sustainable food production and even the physical contact she’d had with him so far. None of them of them worked on her libido like this.
Be serious, Katya, she scolded herself. Pub quizzes only test general knowledge and memory. It’s not a sign of true intelligence. But she caught snatches of whispered conversations between him and the two witches. Behind those one-two-word answers she heard substance. Zoom, zoom—the libido revved up further.
The quiz ended, and Stewart rose to his feet, evidence of too many pints there in the unsteadiness. “I need tae walk Scottie here. Dinnae announce the winners till I’m back.”
Ashley gathered in all the papers. He promised a strict and neutral marker, handing them over to Big Donnie. Gaby scuttled over to join them, providing Lois and Angeline with a one-sentence description of various villagers when she asked.
Big Donnie gave the sheets back to Ashley, who rang his bell and silence descended once more. “The judge’s decision is final,” he pre-empted what was coming next—an unpopular result. “And in third place...”
“Hold on,” Jolene called out. “What about Stewart? He’s not back yet.”
“Too bad,” Ashley replied. “The rules also say the results must be announced as soon as the judge has spoken. So, in third place, Agatha Quiztie!”
Jack, Gaby, Jolene, Stewart and Mhari cheered. The local rugby team who provided bouncer services for the Lochside Welcome when necessary came second.
“And the winning team is... Big Fact Hunt!”
A second of stunned silence before everyone got the name, titters and then boos and hisses when everyone realised who they were.
Katya put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe you called our team that,” she hissed at Zac. “How utterly juvenile.” Well, a teeny bit funny, perhaps. Lois got to her feet, threw out pink fur-covered arms, and announced that drinks were on the Big Fact Hunt. Boos rapidly changed to cheers.
Katya hoped Stewart hurried back. Missing out on the winner announcement and first prize was one thing, but not being there for a free drink added extra insult to injury. As he presented the team with the vouchers for their free meals, Ashley muttered fevered thanks.
“I was banking on Stewart not turning up and I just about had a heart attack when he came in. You folks can do my quiz anytime you want.”
The voucher said they were each entitled to a turkey and Brie pizza, a helping of chocolate decadence dessert and all their drinks for a week starting tomorrow. When Lois said they were leaving in two days’ time, Ashley offered to bring her a pizza.
Lois shook her head and sighed. “Love to, dear one, but I only need to look at a carb for it settle on my hips. It’s years since I’ve eaten pizza.”
If haute couture was outlandish, the concept of a carb-free diet came across as extremism gone mad. Heads shook in disbelief. But free drinks went a long way towards making a person reasonable, and people gathered around them, wanting to ask the newcomers questions. The two women had mastered the art of appearing bright, bubbly and open without giving anything away. Job inquiries, why they loved Scotland so much, how they knew Zac—everything was expertly deflected. Secretive, Zac said. Not half. Mhari repeated her questions several times, however, the expert interrogator well aware they weren’t getting answered.
“Anyway, we must go,” Lois said. “Too much excitement for one evening. Enjoy your drinks everyone. Zac—are you coming?”
No invite for Katya then. Why the disappointment?
Zac grabbed her hand, pulling her knuckles to his mouth and kissing them lightly. His eyes glittered. “Did you enjoy your evening?”
No point pretending she hadn’t. “You’re okay company.”
“That bet I made with you? It pains me to say this, but one of the pieces you wrote about me has been picked up by one of the major media outlets and they want an interview.”
“We don’t get to go out on a date then,” she smirked, and he grinned, blowing her a kiss. “Sure that’s what you want?” She raised her shoulders to her ears and fluttered her eyelashes.
As she watched him go, Gaby, Jolene and Mhari swirled in t
o fill the gap Katya’s departed teammates left.
“Tell us all—especially about those two skinny cows,” Mhari said, “or I’ll let myself into your bedroom every morning just as you’re waking up and fart. Ye ken I can fart to order, don’t ye?”
“She can,” Jolene confirmed, “so yeah, spill. Are you and the Viking God an item?”
Gaby nodded, pug-dog style. They’d always confided in each other but Katya had found it harder to do when Jack came on the scene. Their happiness was so... obvious and ever present, her best friend didn’t feel like the best person to talk to anymore.
She was about to tell them Mhari’s torture threat was useless when Stewart, his shaggy haircut windswept and his eyes wild, burst back in the bar. Scottie added to the effect, barking his head off. Katya clasped Jolene’s arm.
“Gaby! It’s Mena, your wee cat,” Stewart blurted. Katya closed her eyes. She knew where this was going, and it was nowhere nice.
“She’s on the road,” Stewart said, tears welling up. “Some eejit’s knocked her down.”
Gaby paled, her face losing its normal pretty pink glow, and she grabbed her coat from the back of her seat.
“Jack, Jack,” she gabbled. “Come on. That vet in Ardlui will take her in as emergency.”
Katya’s heart flipped over for her friend. “Gaby...” she began, Jack saying her name at the same time and gently touching his girlfriend’s arm. Stewart flung his arms around her. “Ah’m sorry, Gaby!” he said, tears running down his cheeks, “but she’s deid.”
CHAPTER 20
Stewart’s news silenced everyone, making his and Gaby’s sobs all the louder.
“What happened?” Katya asked Stewart, who gulped back tears long enough to say Scottie had sniffed out Mena’s little body hidden behind a hedge just off the main street. As there was blood crusted on her nose, he reckoned a car knocked her down and she’d managed to get up and stumble to the hedge and died there.
