“I guess so,” I said. “No tea, please. I really just want to go back to my B B.” Why did everybody here think hot tea would solve everything?
“You drive her car, Willow, and I’ll follow on my bike,” Kenny said.
“No, I’m okay,” I said. I didn’t really want them to know where I was staying until I’d had time to think this all through. Still I couldn’t avoid giving them Mrs. Brown’s name. It would have seemed rather peculiar not to, but now that I’d found her, I really just wanted to get away from Willow and her Kenny. Menace seemed to lurk everywhere, but it was a fuzzy everywhere, and I couldn’t decide where the real danger might lie. All I knew is that I wanted to be very far from anyone associated with mad Bjarni the Wanderer, because people interested in this Bjarni person ended up dead. A means of evading Willow and Kenny was waiting for me back at Mrs. Brown’s place, along with a nice shot of her single malt scotch. It was a letter from Maya Alexander, which read:
I heard about your terrible experience. You must have been terrified, and you simply must come and stay with us. We’ll be here for two or three more days at least, and I can stay longer than that, if you need to stay. Both Robert and I insist you come. You can’t stay all by yourself in that BB after what has happened. Please call any time, day or night. Love, Maya.
I called. They said they would come to get me immediately. I told them I would find my own way there the next day in time for dinner, not wishing to insult Mrs. Brown. I wondered how they found me. Maya told me Robert had got on the phone the minute they’d seen the article in the paper. I guess if you have enough money and influence you can do just about anything. At least I hope that explained it.
That night I alternated between nightmares, in which disembodied heads featured prominently, and fussing about what all this meant. It was just too much of a coincidence that both Percy and Willow were looking for the same thing. Both Percy and Willow, by way of Trevor, had an association with the writing cabinet. But neither was really interested in the writing cabinet, I now realized. I was the only person who really gave two hoots about the Mackintosh.
The two lines, Percy’s dying words and Kenny’s translation of the Viking runes, were not identical. I was sure that Percy had said Bjarni had hidden a “chalice,” not a “cauldron,” in the tomb of the orcs. His last words were now burned into my memory. Was that semantics, a slightly different translation of the same word, or was there something more significant, or sinister about it? And if there was such a thing in Orkney as the Tomb of the Eagles so-named for the eagle talons and bones found in it, and of course there was because I’d been in it, what, other than a creature in Tolkien, was an orc?
I was up very early the next morning. The good news was that in addition to the fish and chips, I seemed to have purged that cold, hard lump in my chest. Now instead of numb, I was mad as hell. In other words, I was feeling a whole lot better.
There are not that many hedges in Otkney, the terrain tending more to rolling farmland, dark hills, and high cliffs by the sea where the waves crashed in. Still, there was a hedge at Willow and Kenny’s place, and early the next morning, I was in it. It did occur to me that I was spending rather too much time in hedges, an undignified activity if ever there was one, since Blair Bazillionaire’s cocktail party. This time I wasn’t looking for pathetic remnants of furniture. I was getting ready to follow Willow. At the crack of dawn I packed my bag, bade the lovely Mrs. Brown adieu, phoned the Northern Constabulary to tell them what Percy’s last words were—I believe I heard a snort of disbelief when I told them—and where they could find me that evening. Then I headed out for Deerness and Willow and Kenny’s BB.
On the way, I called Willow from a phone booth, one of those lovely old red ones you don’t see much anymore, in the corner of a field—seriously, there were cows in the field that looked as if they were lined up to use it—to tell her I still wasn’t feeling very well, and they should carry on without me for the day. I’d promised to call the next morning, a promise I had no intention of keeping. Had I believed her question, delivered with wide-eyed innocence, about my not receiving her e-mail? I had not. Did I believe the “Wow, we’ve been looking for you everywhere,” from Kenny? Not that, either, no matter how cute he was. Did I even believe they had just met on the ferry? No, again. I had no idea what was going on here, but I knew I didn’t like it.
Willow, of course, had been terribly solicitous when I called. She said she understood completely, that I must rest after such an ordeal, and that they would let me know what progress they’d made when they saw me. She told me they had ordnance maps and were looking for a bay with the right shape, and that Kenny was going to try to do some research on the Internet to narrow their area of search down a little. I told them that was a good idea. Then I drove to Deerness, pulled my car off the road, and went and stood in the hedge.
It was not long before Willow and Kenny, arms around each other, emerged from the house. By the time they’d got the motorcycle out of the garage and put on their helmets, I was back in my car. My car looked very similar to most of the other cars on the road, so I wasn’t too worried about their recognizing it. Soon however, they left the bike and headed along the coast on foot. This made things a little trickier. I had my own ordnance map, and consulted it, trying to figure out where they’d be walking. I decided they were doing what they said they would, which is to say, they were scouring the coastline for a bay with a tower. I parked the car by a church and waited. I figured if they saw me, I’d just have to say that I had changed my mind about coming with them and had seen them leave the BB. They wouldn’t believe me probably, but then I didn’t believe them either.
About forty-five minutes later, they were back on their bike, heading in the direction of Kirkwall. I followed at what I hoped was a safe distance. They parked in the same lot I had when I’d brought poor Percy back after our hours spent sightseeing, and then they headed for the Internet cafe. Once again they were doing exactly what they said they would, something I found annoying. Had they seen me or was their story absolutely genuine? I simply didn’t know.
They spent an hour in the Internet cafe. By this time I was hungry, having passed on breakfast in the fear my stomach wasn’t up for it. I was casting my eyes about for a quick place to grab a sandwich when they came out of the cafe, Kenny looking at his watch, and started walking quickly toward the main street of town. I followed. They went into a pub in a hotel on the harbor.
Now I didn’t know what to do. To add to my discomfort, it was starting to rain, just a drizzle, really, but I’d get wet enough in time. I could sit outside in a puddle and wait for them to have lunch, I could give up and go to the Alexanders, or I could march into the bar. I could do the wide-eyed innocent routine as well as Willow. I could feign surprise with the best of them. I would ask them if they got my message that I was feeling much better and look pained that they didn’t. I might even go to a phone and leave that message with their innkeeper.
That sounded like such a clever idea, I headed off immediately in search of a public telephone, and found one with no cows to be seen nearby. I just hoped that whoever the person was who took the message wouldn’t note the time exactly. I then stepped into the dim light of the bar. It took me a minute to realize neither Willow nor Kenny was there. Did they have two rooms, one in the hotel and one at the BB? That seemed excessive, if nothing else. I went to the desk and asked for Willow Laurier, but there was no one there by that name. Unfortunately I only knew her partner as Kenny, so I couldn’t ask for him. I went back into the bar. I noted a back door, and took it on to a side street, a lane, really. They had given me the slip.