Lamb to the Slaughter Read online

  There was fierce applause from one small sector of the hall, where older people were sitting together, but the hostile looks directed at them from all round told their story.

  Now Romy was on her feet, with bright colour burning in her cheeks, haranguing Gloag and ALCO and – unwisely – people who were stupid enough not to see how bad this would be for the town, how the atmosphere would change, how the holiday visitors who had brought trade to Kirkluce because of its good local shops would go to Castle Douglas instead, how shops would close and how, once the superstore had no rivals, the prices would rise.

  Ellie winced. Romy had never been sensitive, and despite the rebellious mutters behind her seemed oblivious to the damage she was doing. Her cause was losing support with every word she uttered.

  Now Romy was using the big gun. ‘Anyway, Gloag, however you threaten and bully, you and your oily little sidekick there can’t do a damn’ thing about it. If Andrew Carmichael refuses to sell the Craft Centre, the deal collapses. And he will.’

  She sat down to a chorus of booing, with only a few brave people clapping.

  You wouldn’t think, Ellie reflected drearily, that Gloag could look smugger than he normally did. But somehow he managed it as he smirked, ‘So you say, Mrs Kyle. But perhaps some of us have noticed that Colonel Carmichael isn’t here to speak for himself, which may tell us something.

  ‘Clearly there are negotiations still ahead, but if the sale to ALCO goes through, from the tone of this meeting I feel I would be able to assure the planning department that local opinion is in favour.’

  Although there were people sitting with their hands firmly in their laps, the number applauding made it clear enough where the balance lay. Romy got up and stormed out, as Ellie gathered up her crochet and stowed it into the workbag she always carried. It had been clear right from the start that this was what would happen.

  2

  Had anyone expected a different outcome, except perhaps Romy Kyle? Christina Munro stumped out of the Church Hall, knowing that unless Colonel Carmichael stood his ground the battle was lost. She’d wanted to come and vote against the proposal if votes were to be counted, but there had been no need to count. The feeling of the meeting was all too obvious.

  She hadn’t much of a personal stake in what happened, beyond hating the changing world. Oh, everyone mocked the Fifties, when the horrors of a second world conflict had shocked people into good behaviour, but in those days you felt so safe you never even locked your door. And if youngsters were causing trouble you told the parents, who would give them a good leathering and see that it didn’t happen again.

  It wasn’t like that today. All you could do was phone the police and if you were lucky someone would come to take a statement the next day. And you knew it wouldn’t stop them, and you lived in fear all the time, being punished instead of them.

  As she hurried back to where she had parked her elderly pickup, Christina, a small, stooped figure with a face where nose and chin looked set to meet eventually, glanced anxiously at her watch. One of Ellie Burnett’s crocheted cloche hats – dark maroon, with a jaunty bunch of bright pink, purple and white flowers – was pulled down over her ears.

  She’d taken a risk leaving the farmhouse this evening, but it was still light and they hadn’t come before until it was growing dark. She’d have time to get the donkeys into the shed and check that every door was locked before she settled down to wait fearfully with the cats and her rescue greyhound.

  Sometimes she wondered what her father would say if he could see her now. When he’d died thirty years ago Wester Seton, just on the eastern edge of Kirkluce, had been a flourishing small farm. She was never sure it was true that he thought she was as good a farmer as any son would have been, but he’d said it as if he meant it, which was important. She’d never been bonny; he was the only man who’d ever loved her, but looking at the messes that the other kind of love got folks into, she reckoned she hadn’t missed much.

  He’d trained her well, and at first the farm prospered in her hands. But then, with all the regulations and the complicated paperwork, and the supermarkets beating down the prices, you found yourself with an operating loss and in order to go on, having to take charity – which was what she knew her father would have termed the handouts from Brussels.

  There wouldn’t be anyone to take over after she’d gone, anyway. She’d sold off the land gradually until there was only the house – a low, grey stone building, not really much more than a but and ben – with a couple of fields for the elderly donkeys she’d rescued from the knacker’s yard and the steadings, mainly unused and now falling quietly into decay.

  Christina had always prided herself on being feisty, but she was old now. Latterly her life had contracted more and more, and with this latest persecution she had begun to feel trapped and helpless. And what was the point of life as a prisoner? She was a countrywoman born and bred: she had a shotgun for herself and the animals no one else would look after if she wasn’t there, and she wouldn’t scruple to use it.

  It would only take her minutes to get back to Wester Seton, but the shadows were lengthening as she drove out of the car park. The rickety frame of the pickup shuddered as she floored the accelerator, disregarding the speed limit. This just could be a matter of life or death.

  ‘And what can have happened to Uncle Andrew, then?’ Fiona Farquharson wondered aloud as she left the hall with her husband.

  Giles Farquharson didn’t look at her. ‘I don’t know.’

  She gave him a look of barely concealed dislike. ‘It has to be a good sign that he didn’t turn up. Perhaps he’s changed his mind about the development after all. That ghastly Kyle woman was obviously rattled.

  ‘You didn’t go and see him this afternoon, did you?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t.’ He marched on, staring straight ahead.

  ‘Oh – just as well, probably. You’d only have made things worse.’

  ‘It’s his decision, Fiona. There’s nothing either of us can do, anyway.’

  ‘You’d always take the easy option, of course,’ she said with a sneer, but he wouldn’t be drawn, lengthening his stride so that she almost had to trot to keep up.

  Fiona’s thin scarlet lips tightened in irritation at his feebleness, wondering yet again why she’d ever married him. But in those days, when she was a leggy blonde and he was a tall, fit young officer in the Coldstream Guards, he’d looked a good prospect, especially given his mother’s benevolent and childless older brother. Now, though her own legs were admittedly sturdier than they had once been and she only remained blonde at considerable expense, he was totally unrecognisable from the wedding photos. Giles, as Fiona’s mother was wont to say crisply, had run to seed; what had once been muscle was now fat and flab. The bright prospects had been dimmed by a succession of dead-end jobs, culminating in his present one as land agent for an estate about five miles to the north of Kirkluce, in the hillier countryside on the fringe of the Galloway Forest Park.

  When Fiona was having a bitch session with her two closest girlfriends once, she’d said Giles’s name should have been Sidam, since he was Midas in reverse: everything that he touched turned to dross. If Uncle Andrew hadn’t paid the boys’ school fees at Wellington, they’d have ended up at the local comp, unable to read and write. Not that you would think they could, given how seldom they contacted their parents.

  Uncle Andrew’s legacy was their only hope of a comfortable retirement – even a luxurious one, considering that the superstore would pay whatever it took. If he just hadn’t been so damned selfish, fussing about that pathetic little Craft Centre ... She felt deeply embittered about what she had been through, thanks to that.

  ‘Of course, none of this mess had to happen. If you had gone to him years ago, the way I told you, and got him to put the estate in trust to avoid death duties...’

  Her husband’s face had flushed. ‘There’s no point in going on about it. Where did you park? I’m up the side street here.’
r />   ‘In the Square,’ she said, but found she was talking to herself.

  The War Memorial was in the Market Square, just off the High Street, surrounded by self-important grey stone buildings which housed the council offices, the library and firms of long-established solicitors and accountants. When Fiona reached it, there was a group of the local neds and hoodies fooling about at the other side, clustered around three motorbikes with their engines running. It was a common gathering-place for them, and Fiona had wondered at the time about the wisdom of leaving the Saab there, but with so many people coming to the meeting, parking space was at a premium. She looked anxiously at the car as she reached it.

  It was thankfully unscathed and, focused on the bikes and their riders, they weren’t paying any attention to her either. There was a lot of laughter, jeering and pushing, then they scattered in mock terror as the motorbikes revved their engines and took off, one after the other, going far too fast and cutting the corner of the Square.

  Where were the police when you needed them? Having evening classes in Human Rights, Fiona reflected acidly, which never seemed to take account of the rights of people like her not to have to share the planet with people like that.

  The motorbikes shot along Kirkluce High Street, past a group standing talking just outside the Church Hall, provoking an outburst of communal tutting.

  ‘Kill themselves, that’s what they’ll do,’ an elderly man ­leaning on a stick said, glaring after them and shaking his fist.

  ‘Sooner the better,’ added his wife. ‘Just as long as they don’t take anyone with them.’

  ‘Where was the Colonel tonight, then, Annie?’ Another woman, after shaking her head in disapproval, returned to the main topic of conversation.

  Annie Brown, a comfortable-looking woman with greying hair and clear blue eyes, shook her head too. ‘When I went in at five o’clock to leave him his tea, he was out in his garden, though he was meaning to come. But I thought maybe he was kinda sweirt to go and speak out—’

  Two young women, coming out together, stopped. One of them, a henna redhead with a steel ring through her eyebrow and several more along the side of one ear, said aggressively, ‘What’s he got to be reluctant about? See him? He can screw the whole deal, right there, and none of us able to do a thing about it. It’s not right – it’s high time this dump joined the twenty-first century and had some real shops.’

  Annie squared up to her. ‘If you wonder why he wasn’t keen to come, it’s because of the likes of you. He’s a good man, the Colonel, and there’s plenty of us don’t want to see the High Street just a row of charity shops and folk who’ve been there years put out of business. We maybe don’t make as much noise about it as you lot, but we’ve a right to our opinion too.’

  ‘You tell them, Annie,’ the old man quavered. ‘That’s the trouble with you young ones nowadays – want it all your own way.’

  The girl sneered. ‘You’re living on borrowed time, Granddad. Get on with it – move aside and make room for the future.’

  Her friend giggled and they strutted off, well pleased with the shocked silence left behind them.

  ‘Well!’ Annie said, recovering herself. ‘What those young besoms need is a good skelping.’

  ‘We’ll come and visit you when you get the jail for assault,’ someone assured her, and raised a laugh.

  ‘Might as well laugh,’ the old man said morosely. ‘There’s not a muckle lot we can do about it anyway.’

  Tam MacNee pulled off the sweater with the elaborate dartboard motif, lovingly knitted by his wife Bunty for his evenings out with the Cutty Sark Warlocks darts team. It was out of keeping with his usual style – black leather jacket, jeans, white T-shirt – but it had been a labour of love on her part and he wouldn’t hurt her feelings by failing to wear it, even if she wasn’t there to see. Bunty was the rock on which his life was built, a buxom, pleasant-faced woman with a heart as generous as her hips, and he adored her.

  Anyway, the sweater had become a sort of talisman for the whole of the team from the Cutty Sark and had probably got more credit for the Warlocks’ victories over the years than had Tam’s own skill with the arrows. It hadn’t worked tonight though: his first night back after his injury, and he’d even missed the board a couple of times.

  His team-mates were overly supportive, cheering extravagantly anything that could possibly qualify as a good shot. Worse still, their opponents, the Toreadors from the Black Bull, were ready to make allowances, one of them even beginning an offer not to count a particularly wild shot, an attempt which ended in a sharp ‘Ow! Whad’ya do that for?’ as a Warlock’s foot made contact with his shin.

  Tam was in a black mood as he sat down with his pint afterwards, deliberately pushing his way through the crowded bar to a chair in a corner at the back of the big room. If there was one thing he couldn’t take, it was pity. Even when it came disguised as kindness, he recognised it with a curling lip. Marjory had tried it more than once and he’d had to be – well, what he termed straight, but Bunty, when he’d repeated it to her, had called downright rude. Women! Can’t take a telling, then get all hurt when you repeat it.

  It had been a punishing spell. His work was the focus of his life, and though at first the struggle towards recovery had been a job in itself, now that he was feeling better the lack of occupation had been driving him demented, to say nothing of what that did to Bunty. Only another couple of weeks or so, the doctor had promised, but he’d said that before to buy him off and Tam wasn’t holding his breath.

  Staring morosely into his glass, he didn’t hear the team captain say quietly, ‘If he’s feeling thon way, better just let him be.’ But before long Tam perversely began to resent his isolation, and was on the point of swallowing his beer as well as his pride and using his empty glass as an excuse to rejoin the party, when a little stir of activity indicated the arrival of the folk-singer.

  Tam brightened. He liked Ellie Burnett’s voice. They all did, and as a bonus she was a wee smasher. Every man’s head turned as she made her way to the stool at the back where a microphone had been set up, near to where Tam was sitting. She shook her head at the offers of drinks that pursued her, sat down, tuned her guitar and without introduction began to sing.

  She had a surprising voice for someone with her slight frame, a honeyed contralto with an earthy tone to it. Her repertoire was undemanding jazz, Scots ballads, Bob Dylan classics. She began with Gershwin’s ‘Summer Time’ – a favourite with Tam. The caressing voice wove its magic; he could feel the tension in his neck and shoulders beginning to ease, and the sadistic monster which now inhabited a corner of his brain, and had been stirring, quietened down again.

  Conversation gradually started up once more, though at a lower level so that she could still be heard; there was a smattering of applause when Ellie finished. After a sip of water from the glass on the table at her side she went on into ‘O whistle and I’ll come to ye, my lad’, another of Tam’s favourites. Anything at all written by his idol, Rabbie Burns, was a favourite with Tam.

  Watching idly, he became aware of a young man sitting opposite, beside the table nearest to the singer. He had pulled his chair towards her and away from it, turning his back on its other occupants who were chatting and laughing, though quietly enough. It was the extraordinary intensity of his unwavering gaze that attracted Tam’s attention.

  He was a striking-looking lad, pale-skinned with a mop of light brown hair flopping forward over his brow. His eyes were a vivid light blue, and the way they were locked on Ellie’s face must, Tam thought with slight professional unease, be making the woman uncomfortable, however used she might be to punters who thought stripping her with their eyes wasn’t assault. Bastards!

  Tam had a well-hidden romantic streak, and she had an air of vulnerability that made you want to protect her, to go out and duff up a dragon or two if necessary, or maybe just tell that wee nyaff to move along now and not embarrass the lady.

  She finished that song, a
nd another, then set down the guitar to catch her breath. Immediately the lad was on his feet, going over to her.

  ‘You snare my soul with your songs,’ Tam heard him say. ‘You set me ablaze.’

  Ellie smiled faintly; she knew him, obviously, and seemed to be treating his extravagance with a kind of weary indulgence. But he reached out to take her hand, then, when she moved it away, grabbed her wrist in a sudden movement. Ellie said nothing, seeming reluctant to make any sort of fuss, but she was twisting her wrist to try to break his hold. He didn’t let her go.

  Just as Tam was getting up to see to it that he did, another man brushed past him: a man in his late thirties, perhaps, wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt which exposed well-muscled arms. The pub was crowded but a passage opened in front of him as he reached Ellie’s side, attracting a few curious glances.

  ‘Evening, Ossian,’ he said. ‘I don’t think Ellie likes you holding her arm.’

  The younger man flushed scarlet, then dropped his grip with a look of hatred at the speaker. From where he was sitting, Tam could see a red pressure ring on Ellie’s pale skin where his hand had been, but her face was expressionless and she didn’t rub it, as if she was afraid that might provoke a scene.

  ‘That’s better,’ her protector said. ‘But you’ve hurt her, Ossian. Don’t do it again.’ He reached out and took Ellie’s arm himself, rubbing it gently. He had big, powerful hands, but his touch was delicate.

  Ossian looked at the mark on her wrist. His eyes filled. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you, Ellie, you know that,’ he cried. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I just wanted you to listen to me, that was all. Oh God, you’re bruised! I want to die!’

  The little drama was beginning to attract attention. Ellie said hastily, ‘It’s all right, Ossian. Don’t worry, Johnny, I’m not hurt.’