At my seminary school they used to set us a perennial problem: given the choice, whether to disbelieve in God or His absence. I never knew how to answer. Similarly, I’m never quite sure whether it’s crime or sanctity that offers the least painful compromise for the human race. I’ve experimented with both, and found little difference. Now, I think perhaps sin has the edge, because it at least provides a decent income. So maybe it was the hope of solvency that spurred Elaine’s retainers on.
At my request Elaine had spread word. Any old objects relating to the clan, or any McGunn, Tachnadray, Caithness, or indeed the Highlands, were badly needed at Tachnadray. Anyone wanting to sell the same should communicate with Michelle McGunn at Tachnadray forthwith. They actually started coming in by that first afternoon. How the hell did news travel? I tried asking an old woman who came trogging up carrying an infantry officer’s telescope—leather-cased, War Office stamp, and arrows—and she merely smiled, “Och, I heard,” which was as far as I got.
Our peaceful scene had a visit from a police car asking if everything was all right. I started my favorite spiel requesting road blocks, helicopters… They drove off in haste. A Glasgow paper’d run a spread showing Alan pointing to bits of broken windscreen on the Ipswich bypass—the result of my phoned instruction to Tinker. Decadent youth, exploited by international financiers, was apparently to blame. More coverage—as the media nowadays term falsehood—was on the way. A TV crew was turned away. They sat sullenly on the hillside until Robert mustered a sortie to persuade.
And the letters came in.
That second day, Michelle was thrilled, rushing to find me in the workshop and holding all three. “And one’s from London!” she cried, beside herself. “From a collector!”
“Get notepaper printed, love,” I said. I was busy engraving Elaine’s coat-of-arms on a mid-nineteenth-century pipe box, silver. It’s murder by hand, but more artistic than the modified dental drills most forgers use. I felt bad about it for the box’s sake, but murder asserts priorities.
“Notepaper? Think of the expense, Ian!”
“All right, love.” I regoggled and resumed my engraving. “Only don’t come wailing I didn’t warn you.”
“Michelle.” Duncan was fretting out some wood sections I’d marked. “Do as Ian says.
Get young Hamish along today.”
“Very well.” Michelle was still doubtful. “But I can’t see why we’d waste money printing grand notepaper when I can just as easily write our address longhand.”
Duncan didn’t glance at me. “We’ve never done anything like this before, and Ian has.”
Hamish McGunn, printer, came on a bicycle about teatime, fingers black and face pale.
He looked subnourished, Charles Dickens in the blacking factory. Michelle brought him across, still in a huff from being told off. She fetched tea in mugs and a bowl of barm-cakes with margarine. No jam, and it served us right.
“Ian wants notepaper printed,” she said, angrily offering the nosh so fast you had to make a dive.
“Embossed,” I said, “if you’ve got that thermal process. Tachnadray’s coat-of-arms left, and address. Put Michelle as auction secretary. And our phone number.”
“Tachnadray isn’t on the phone,” Michelle said.
Hamish wrote on unheeding, squarish writing, hard pencil.
“And then do a flyer sheet. The colors are yours, but choose discrete posh.” I gave him a crumpled paper. “That’s the wording. A thousand of each by tomorrow noon.” I grinned inside as his head raised. “Ten days Michelle’ll give you the full catalog. Two thousand, about sixty pages. There’ll be one score color plates and three score black-and-white. ”
“Ay, there’s just the question, Ian,” Hamish said, embarrassed.
“The money in seven days. But”—I raised a handy maul in threat—“use Linotron Baskerville or Bembo and the deal’s off. We’ve got educated folk coming. Okay?”
He left laughing, pedaling like the clappers.
Michelle stuck to her guns. “Tachnadray’s no longer on the phone.” Poor lass, it was all becoming too much.
“A Telecom van’ll be here soon, love.” I gave her my most innocent gaze. “Could you direct them to Dr. Lamont’s office please?”
“Dr. Lamont?” She stood helplessly.
“Doctors get priority with phones.”
“But is there really a Dr. Lamont—?”
A kilted man staggering under a bookcase from Mac’s lorry shouted, “Michelle. A telephone man’s here asking…” She left at a stumbling run.
“Honestly,” I said to the silent Duncan as we resumed work. “Women. Set them a hand’s turn and they go to pieces. Notice there was no jam?”
The whole of Tachnadray was silent. It was ten-thirty, long past nightfall. Michelle, lustrous as a grisaille-glass Early English cathedral window at sunset, had met me as instructed in our lonely office. Our only light was candles and an oil lamp.
“Ready?” I asked huskily.
“Yes,” she said. Her face glowed, her eyes danced.
Cunning to the last, I dialed and passed the receiver. “Our first phone call from Tachnadray.”
“This is the house auction secretary speaking,” she said. “Could I please have, ah, Tinker?”
I egged her on. “Don’t forget the room.”
“Tinker? This is Mrs. Michelle, auction secretary. You will please transfer to a separate extension in a room away from noise.” An alarmed expression, her hand on the mouthpiece. “He says he can’t, Ian. It sounds like a…”
“It is a pub. Tell the boozy old devil to take his beer and Ted can shoot refills through the hatch.”
“He’s going,” Michelle whispered. “What a dreadful cough.”
“You’re doing great.”
“He said ‘Where’s Lovejoy?’ That’s the name you—”
Tinker’s cough ground out as I took the receiver. “Tinker? Course the seam’s on. Listen: Make sure you remember this bird’s voice, d’y’hear? She’ll be doing the phoning every night. She’s new, so talk slow, understand? And a new pub every night. Treble Tile tomorrow, same time. Make sure she gets the number.”
“Bird indeed,” Michelle muttered.
“And, Tinker. I’ve decided on the auctioneer. Tee up Trembler.”
“Bleedin’ ’ell,” Tinker croaked. “Asking for trouble?”
I lost my rag. “Do as you’re bloody told,” I yelled. “Everybody’s flaming boss until it’s time to pick up the tab—”
“Awreet, Lovejoy. I’ll find him. But Aussie’s free and Flintstone’s out of clink—”
“Trembler!” I bawled, then, smiling, passed Michelle the receiver. “Off you go, love.
Good luck. Tell Tinker to glam Trembler up. And get a typewriter.”
“Glam? A typewriter? Where from?” she was asking, round-eyed, as I took my leave with a candle to light my way. I didn’t reply. Where from, indeed. Did I have to think of everything? I went to see if there was blood on the laird’s old car.
The monster motor was housed in a drystone coach house behind Duncan’s workshop.
Before knocking off as night fell, I’d trailed a cable from the window while Duncan had a final smoke at the door, his closing ritual safe from our volatile solvents. I’d left the switch down.
The cable stretched to the coach house, explaining its length. Robert padlocked the double doors on the motor’s return, always good for a laugh. I opened the door, trailed the cable in after me, pulled the leaf shut. A bulb from my pocket, and I started searching.
Say, forty minutes later, and defeat. No blood that I could see. Blood’s russet after a few minutes, then brown, then black. It was a common-enough art stain in its time, and you can tell the shade. Therefore, Joseph, who was Michelle and Duncan’s son, who’d “betrayed Tachnadray” and was now kept imprisoned at Shooters, had returned without being bludgeoned. Persuaded? Drugged? Gunpoint? I gave up. Lots of puzzles in clan country. Not a lot of explanations.