‘Suit yourself,’ Chick shrugged, ‘on you go,’ and he reached over behind to open the rear door, temporarily losing control of the car as he did so.
‘Fucking creep,’ Terri snarled at him and bit his arm. (Which is definitely how accidents happen.)
Chick seemed unperturbed, he had the air of a man who was used to being physically and verbally abused on a regular basis. He simply accelerated even more, patting the dashboard affectionately. ‘The good old Mark 1,’ he said, ‘standard model, 1200ccs of effort, top speed seventy-six miles an hour.’
We reached the other end of the road bridge. ‘The Kingdom of Fife,’ Professor Cousins announced, as if we were entering a fairy-tale country.
‘Heuchter-teuchter land,’ Chick sneered.
‘St Andrews,’ Professor Cousins carried on dreamily, ‘my old alma mater.’
‘I thought you said that was Cambridge,’ I puzzled. It was only a couple of hours ago that he had been deliriously describing May Balls and punting and porters and all those other remote activities of academia that were unknown in Dundee.
‘Did I?’ he said.
‘We’re not going to St Andrews,’ Chick said hastily. ‘I’m not a taxi. And I’m bloody late.’
‘Late for what?’ I asked.
‘Surveillance,’ he said, enunciating the word with a certain distaste.
‘Surveillance?’ I queried.
‘Watching people.’
‘I know what it means,’ I said. ‘I just can’t imagine you doing it.’
He took a card from an inside pocket and handed it to me. Grubby and badly printed, it read ‘Premier Investigations — all work undertaken, no questions asked’. Chick, it turned out, was (of all unlikely things) a private detective.
‘A private eye,’ Professor Cousins said thoughtfully.
Chick ignored him and looked at his watch agitatedly. ‘I’m going to bloody miss her.’
‘Who exactly are you watching?’ Professor Cousins asked.
‘Some woman,’ Chick said, ‘jealous spouse, usual thing.’ He lit a cigarette (terrifying to observe at speed). ‘Husband’s a nutter, of course,’ he said; ‘they always are.’
‘You don’t have any qualms then,’ Professor Cousins asked Chick, ‘about doing this sort of work, I mean, ethical qualms.’
‘Qualms?’ Chick echoed. ‘Qualms? How?’
Professor Cousins laughed. ‘The more you say it the more ridiculous it sounds. It’s often the way with words, isn’t it? Qualms comes from the Old English, Chick — murder, torment, death.’
‘Fascinating, Gabriel,’ Chick said in such a neutral tone that I couldn’t tell whether he meant it or not.
I leant forward to speak to him and got a whiff of his middle-aged aroma — Old Spice, sweat and stale eighty-shilling ale. Professor Cousins, I couldn’t help but notice, smelt vaguely of attar of roses.
‘Are you following me?’ I asked Chick.
He raised a pair of amazed eyebrows so that his forehead made a rubbery concertina and said dismissively, ‘Why on earth would I be following you?’
‘The poor girl thinks someone’s following her,’ Professor Cousins said helpfully.
Chick cast a speculative glance at me in his rear-view mirror and said, ‘Do you?’
‘I’m just imagining it,’ I said because I really didn’t want to think otherwise.
‘Poor Christopher — Dr Pike — thought he was being followed,’ Professor Cousins sighed, ‘and look what happened to him.’
‘What happened to him?’ Chick asked after a while when Professor Cousins didn’t elaborate.
‘He had an accident, like our friend here,’ Professor Cousins said, indicating the dog in the back seat who cocked an ear to show he knew he was being talked about.
‘And you don’t think it was an accident?’ Chick said; and Professor Cousins laughed and said, ‘Oh, I’m sure it was, the members of my department are notoriously accident-prone. At any one time half of them are in hospital. There won’t be anyone left in the actual university soon.’
‘Professor Cousins thinks someone is trying to kill him,’ I told Chick.
‘You make a great pair,’ Chick said sarcastically, ‘the man who thinks someone’s trying to kill him and the girl who thinks someone’s watching her. And as for Little Miss Sunshine back there . . . You know what they say, don’t you?’ he said to Professor Cousins.
‘No, what do they say, Chick?’
‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’
‘A private dick,’ Professor Cousins said gleefully. ‘There once was a private dick/Who went by the name of Chick—’
‘Is it far?’ Terri murmured. ‘Is it far to where we’re going?’
‘Far enough,’ Chick said enigmatically.
We finally arrived wherever it was we’d been going — which might have been Cupar but I hadn’t been paying much attention to road signs; it was certainly a place very like Cupar. The lights were on in Fife, the windows of the houses glowing with precious artificial daylight in an effort to illuminate the Murk of a dark afternoon. We parked in a pleasant street, lined with trees and filled with detached and semi-detached suburban villas. Chick turned the engine off, settled back in his seat and lit up another cigarette.
‘So, Chick,’ Professor Cousins said, rubbing his hands in anticipation, ‘this is a stakeout? What happens now — you just sit here and watch her front door, then follow her if she comes out?’
‘More or less,’ Chick said.
‘How do you know you haven’t missed her?’ Terri asked, reviving a little now that we were stationary.
‘I don’t,’ Chick said.
‘Aren’t you supposed to have flasks of hot soup?’ I said to him, ‘and crossword puzzles, and tapes of classical music?’
‘How about a camera?’ Professor Cousins asked him eagerly, then added, ‘Or binoculars? A notepad? What about a newspaper to hide behind?’
Chick wrestled a Racing Post out of his pocket and waved it in the air. ‘It’s not like that, Gabriel,’ he said; ‘you’ve seen too many films.’
‘On the contrary, Chick,’ Professor Cousins said, rather sadly, ‘I haven’t seen enough.’
‘Mind you,’ Chick said, after a few minutes’ contemplative silence, ‘you come across some rum things in this job, Gabriel. I expect I could write a novel about what I’ve seen.’
‘I’m sure you could,’ Professor Cousins said, with more encouragement than was strictly necessary.
‘They say everyone has a novel inside them, don’t they?’ Chick said, warming to the subject now.
‘Yeah, and maybe that’s where it should stay,’ Terri growled. Chick responded with something derogatory about students, something to the effect that he was paying his taxes so that we could lie around all day having sex and taking drugs.
‘Don’t think I’m not grateful,’ Terri snapped, and Chick snapped back, ‘Awa’ and bile yer heid.’ The car was too cramped for this kind of behaviour, something the dog understood if no-one else did. It suddenly gave a huge walrus sigh of boredom, turned round and round in an effort to dislodge myself and Terri from the back seat, then flopped down heavily and closed its eyes.
‘It didn’t just die, did it?’ Terri asked, giving the dog an anxious poke. It opened one eye and gave her a thoughtful look.
‘Keep still, will you?’ Chick said tetchily. ‘You’re drawing attention to us.’
‘Married, Chick?’ Professor Cousins asked conversationally after a while.
Chick scowled and said, ‘Who wants to know?’
‘Just asking.’
‘Man about town, that’s me,’ Chick said airily.
‘Oh, absolutely, aren’t we all,’ Professor Cousins laughed.