The Stalking Party Read online

  ‘Can ye see the eagle, Mrs Alec? When there’s a stag shot, he’s never far away.’

  Two soaring specks rode the winds, flight-feathers spread fan-wise, fierce eyes on the ground, waiting for the humans to depart.

  ‘Sure, they’re there, looking for their dinner.’

  He smiled at her, and she thought those dark, aquiline features and glowing eyes must cut a swathe through the Tounie lassies. ‘They’re bonny birds,’ he said quietly. ‘Mr Alec was aye glad to see the eagles. He called them the stalker’s friends.’

  Tears stung her eyes again, and she turned away to hide them. Already Fergus was back at work, hoisting the dragging-rope over his shoulder, and settling against it like a draught-horse testing the traces.

  ‘If ye’ll take the brake-rope, sir, and Mrs Alec can manage the rifle, we’ll be getting on.’

  ‘Right you are.’ Sir Archie bent stiffly to gather the rope attached to the hind legs, and the two set off downhill, with the stag’s limp body slithering between them, undulating over the stones and heather, slipping and twisting and sliding, the sharp switch point dangerously close to Fergus’s thighs, while Sir Archie leaned his weight back against the second rope, steadying the awkward burden by digging his heels into the slope.

  Home is the hunter, home from the hill, thought Maya, watching the ungainly, spasmodic descent. According to Alec, the death of the stag was just the beginning of the stalker’s work. Now the carcase must be hoisted on to the pony’s saddle, carried to the boat, and thence to the game-larder. There the head and lower legs would be cut off after the body had been weighed, and the anonymous truncated carcase, still in its skin, locked into the chiller with the week’s other stags for collection by the game merchant’s refrigerated van, for eventual export to Germany.

  Chapter Six

  SANDY’S NOSTRILS TWITCHED as he opened the claw-marked porch door of his cottage and shut it firmly in the faces of the three dogs pressing to follow him in. He bent stiffly to unlace his boots.

  ‘Kirsty?’

  No answer. A single unshaded bulb lit the dingy ground floor, divided by a formica-topped counter, that served both as kitchen and sitting-room. Packets of cornflakes and biscuits, encrusted dog-bowls and tattered copies of Hello! took up most of the counter space. On the scored oilcloth which covered the table were the remains of a meal: an empty jam-jar with a sticky knife-handle protruding, a hunk of cheddar, tea-cups and a few pallid slices of white bread, curling at the edges.

  More cups and dishes crammed the sink, half-submerged in cold greasy water, and the acrid smell of the Rayburn brought a bleak message. He touched the top and frowned. Out for hours, by the feel of it.

  In stockinged feet he padded towards the stairs. ‘Kirsty!’

  As he passed, a long-haired tortoiseshell cat leapt off the sagging sofa that took up most of the back wall, and fled with arched tail for the cat-flap. Sandy pressed the TV power-button and sank down on the sofa, grimacing as his stiff knee was forced to flex.

  ‘I’m home,’ he called above the chatter of talking heads on the screen. ‘Where’s ma tea?’

  No answer, and the familiar chill of fear that she would vanish from his life as suddenly as she had drifted into it forced him to his feet again. It was two years since he had taken her into his home, but deep down he knew that this was only a temporary refuge for her, and he was but her temporary protector against the violent husband from whom she had fled early one Sunday morning, taking her six-month-old baby with her.

  Her greatest fear was that Kevin would discover her whereabouts and try to claim the toddler whom Sandy now regarded as his own. It took a year for her to stop trembling when the telephone rang, and slipping out to the woodshed whenever a strange car drove up the track.

  Sandy had found her perched on the parapet above the Greeting Pool one wet November morning, shivering in her denim jacket, with the baby in her arms and less than the price of a meal in her handbag. Their coming had transformed his solitary existence, unleashing long-stifled emotions: tenderness, pride, the joy of posession.

  She was twenty-five years his junior, slender and delicate, with a pale, heart-shaped face and big brown eyes that reflected her changing moods. She was untidy, unthrifty, and her slapdash housekeeping left him more than his share of domestic chores. He knew that his mother thought him a fool, yet he could not regret what he had done. Kirsty could neither sew nor bake, and could hardly be trusted to sit in front of a fire without letting it die.

  ‘I’m learning,’ she would say, with a lift of the chin that went to his heart, and he would stroke her long brown hair and pull her close.

  ‘Ye’re doing fine, never fret.’

  I’m ower old for her, he thought, and steeled himself not to glower when Fergus’s bold eyes smiled at her. He knew Fergus was too canny to risk his job by letting things get out of hand.

  The silence upstairs sent a chill through him. Had she gone without warning, unable to face his reproaches? Had Kevin tracked her down at last? Then the floorboards creaked and he relaxed, lowering himself to the sofa again. Kirsty appeared feet first down the steep stairs, moving carefully, carrying wee Dougie draped over one thin shoulder.

  Sandy went to take him. ‘Give him here,’ he scolded. ‘He’s ower big for ye tae go carrying him.’

  ‘He won’t settle. Feel his head – it’s burning.’ She laid the child on the sofa, where he stared at them vacantly, whimpering a little, playing up. Sandy placed his calloused hand with the missing forefinger on the flushed brow, but he couldn’t tell what he ought to feel.

  ‘It’s cold down here for him. Did ye forget the stove?’ he asked, carefully unaccusing.

  ‘That damned thing! I’ve no patience with it,’ she exclaimed. ‘If I take my eye off it one minute it goes out, and it’s not for want of fuel. It got a full scuttle at dinner time, and look at it now!’

  Sandy lifted the hot-lid, and hooked out the central plate to peer into the murky interior. There was coke to the rim, right enough, but as usual Kirsty had failed to riddle the ash out before she stoked. Unless a spark could be nursed back to life, he faced the grim and grimy prospect of emptying by hand, a lump at a time.

  Kneeling, he moved the riddling lever back and forth, and a cloud of fine ash rose to settle on the table.

  Kirsty said bitterly, ‘Sir Archibald should put us in a modern stove in place of that old heap of scrap.’

  ‘It’s served well enough these thirty years,’ said Sandy, to whom stoking and riddling came as naturally as breathing.

  ‘There was a lady here from the big house, the morn. She said Sir Archibald should be ashamed to let his folk live in such conditions.’

  ‘Did she so?’ Sandy’s tone was dry. ‘Which leddy would that be?’

  ‘Beverley was her name. Beverley Tanner. She said it was a disgrace that a rich man’s servants should live in a hovel.’

  ‘She called this a hovel?’

  When Kirsty had been down-and-out, she had thought the Stalker’s Cottage little short of paradise, but now she nodded. ‘She said the laird would do better to spend his money on improving his cottages instead of murdering defenceless beasts. She said things would be different when Mr Nicky was master here.’

  ‘Och, aye, I don’t doubt that, lassie. I don’t doubt it at all.’

  Within Sandy a slow anger began to smoulder. ‘Well, we hope that won’t be yet awhile, whatever Miss Beverley may say. It’s bad enough tae have Strathtorran crawling with towerists and hikers, without letting them loose on Glen Buie ground too. Hark ye, Kirsty, and hark ye well. If yon lassie comes back with more talk of the kind, you can tell her from me that it’s none of her damned business how I live, or what the laird does with his money. Tell her that, Kirsty, and if you want to please me, you’ll show her the door.’

  *****

  ‘How long do you think she’ll stick it?’ murmured Lady Priscilla to Gwennie as Beverley left the drawing-room towards the end of the week.

&n
bsp; Gwennie sighed and shook her head. ‘Can’t tell. The last thing I want is to say something that might drive Nicky away, but honestly! I can hardly bear the way she bosses him around and then looks to make sure that I’ve noticed.’

  ‘You’re a saint.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you could read my thoughts! But if we can’t have Nicky without her, we’ll simply have to bite the bullet and put up with her.’

  ‘I’m surprised she allowed him to come. I’d have thought she’d be afraid he’d slip back into his old ways as, indeed, he is doing – up to a point.’

  Marjorie Forbes raised her head from her tapestry. ‘As far as Beverley’s concerned, bringing him here is part of the programme. As a magistrate, I’ve seen quite a lot of the ways these cults operate: they all brainwash their recruits in the same way. First they destroy a boy – or, indeed, girl’s – self-confidence, and rubbish their preconceived ideas. Then they fill the recruit with their own propaganda. When they’ve got him where they want him, they put him back in his own environment and see if they can control him there, as well. Not much different from training a horse or a dog, when you think of it.’

  ‘So arrogant – how dare she!’ exclaimed Gwennie, flushing. ‘Poor Nicky!’

  ‘Rich Nicky,’ said her sister-in-law dryly. ‘You don’t suppose it’s his beaux yeux she’s after? Pretty soon, now, I’d expect her to go off and leave him, then whistle him to heel a few days later.’

  Gwennie said vigorously, ‘I hope you’re right about the going off. It’s such a strain having her here. Archie can hardly open his mouth without her jumping down his throat.’

  ‘I bet you a tenner she quits before the week’s out,’ said Marjorie, stabbing her needle into the canvas and folding it into her work-bag.

  Nobody actually cheered aloud when this prediction was fulfilled, and Beverley announced one tea-time that she wanted to spend a few days exploring the islands alone, but the sense of relief was palpable.

  Hidden by the tea-trolley, Gwennie groped secretly in her handbag, and passed Marjorie a crisp note. ‘Never were ten pounds more happily lost!’ she murmured.

  ‘I’ve looked up the timetables,’ Beverley went on, ‘and there’s a ferry from Tounie to Stornoway at 8.45 on Sunday. If I catch that, I’ll get there with plenty of time to find a B&B.’ She turned to Gwennie. ‘I’ll be back for dinner on Friday. May I leave most of my luggage in my room?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I do hope you’re a good sailor,’ remarked Ashy, munching chocolate cake. ‘Apparently there’s a big blow coming this way.’

  The other women frowned at her: For God’s sake don’t try to put her off! and Gwennie said briskly, ‘I’ll ask Mary to put you up sandwiches and a thermos. Don’t forget to pick them up when you sign the Visitors’ Book.’ Before Beverley could protest, she touched the bell. ‘Oh, Ishbel,’ she said when the maid answered. ‘Miss Tanner is leaving before breakfast tomorrow, so would you ask Mary to put her up a picnic?’

  ‘Very good, my lady.’

  ‘Tell her I’m sorry to put her to so much trouble,’ put in Beverley, and cutting off Gwennie’s protest that it would be no trouble at all, she rose abruptly and left the room.

  ‘Lovely manners!’ said Gwennie, with a wealth of feeling.

  Lady Priscilla looked up from the window-table, where she was playing Patience and a smile which on less equine features might have been called impish spread across her face.

  ‘Dearest Gwen,’ she said softly, ‘why look a gift horse in the mouth?’

  *****

  Straggling down to breakfast on Sunday morning, everyone passed the table in the hall, on which lay the Visitors’ Book. Across a fresh page of thick, creamy vellum sprawled a new signature.

  Sir Archie bent to examine it. Beverley Tanner, September 15-20th was followed by the address of Nicky’s flat in Walton Street. So that’s where she parks herself, he thought angrily; but as he entered the dining-room and saw his son’s strained expression, Sir Archie knew his hands were tied. He could not risk alienating him again. Now Alec was dead, Nicky was the heir to half Glen Buie, even if he had to wait a few years yet to take control.

  In the meantime, he could encourage Johnny Forbes to take over more of the day-to-day management: Marjorie would be delighted.

  Spooning down salted porridge as he paced back and forth across the big sash window, Sir Archie reflected on his elder nephew. He had turned out pretty well, all things considered. There had been that trouble at school, but it was surprising how short people’s memories were. Johnny had lived down that blunder: it might even have been the making of him. If anything, he had become a touch self-righteous, a bit too much of an eager beaver, in contrast to his brother Benjamin, who showed every sign of developing into a proper little layabout, interested in nothing but loud music and the uncouth specimens who belted it out.

  If Marjorie hadn’t kept a sharp eye on him, young Ben would have slipped off to Tounie to watch videos instead of sweating up the hill with a rifle. The only time his uncle had seen him looking happy this week was when he found him sitting on the scullery draining-board chatting to Elspeth while she loaded the dishwasher. Apparently she shared his taste in music.

  Freed from the strain of Beverley’s presence, Sir Archie’s guests drew together, just as Alec had told Maya they would, and to her relief they made it plain that she was included in their circle, as of right.

  ‘It’s strange,’ she remembered Alec saying, ‘but I’ve often arrived at Glen Buie and thought, Oh, lord! Same old faces. How can I bear two weeks of their company? But when you spend day after day with them, crawling up hills or wallowing in burns, sharing highs and lows, you develop a curious attachment...’

  ‘Camaraderie?’ she had suggested.

  ‘Something of the kind. Tribulations and triumphs shared. By the time the party breaks up, you can hardly bear to see them go.’

  As the week progressed, she saw what he meant, and noticed, too, how her own interest in the outside world dwindled. Newspapers were sent from Tounie with the groceries, but only the weather reports were read with attention. Everard still listened to the Stock Market report; the rest of the party knew and cared little about world affairs.

  Each morning, Sir Archie stood at his bedroom window, scanning the distant tops, and when he saw them clear, came downstairs with a spring in his step. Steadily the tally of stags mounted.

  ‘Halfway there,’ he said with satisfaction on Tuesday evening, looking back through the Game Book before making the day’s entry. Sandy’s card, recording in neat, square script the weight, points, and location of the stags shot that day, had been slipped between the pages during dinner, and these details Sir Archie now copied into the book, adding his own comments on wind and weather.

  Handing round liqueur chocolates, Ashy paused beside him. ‘How many’s that?’

  ‘Thirty. Average weight – let’s see – around twelve stone. Pretty good going, though we’ve been lucky with the weather. Do you remember 2003? Nine solid days of mist! We ended up a dozen stags short, and Sandy and old Jock had to pull out all the stops to get them before they started shooting the hinds. By then, of course, they had been rutting for weeks, and the weights were right down.’

  ‘It always puzzles me why Nature gives stags such a hard time just before the winter.’ Everard leaned back in his chair by the fire, velvet slippers embroidered with his initials stretched to the blaze. ‘Just when they should be taking things easy, storing up fat for the hungry months ahead, they run themselves to skin and bone chasing hinds. Cock-eyed, when you think of it.’

  ‘Still, it weeds out the weaklings,’ said Johnny, glancing across the room to the windowseat where Nicky was leafing through a magazine, bony knees showing sharply through his jeans.

  Yes, thought Sir Archie with a pang. If humans obeyed the same imperatives, Nicky would certainly go to the wall. ‘How did you and Priscilla get on at the trout, my love?’ he called as his wife e
ntered the room.

  ‘Pretty well, considering the loch was clear as glass, never a ripple. Rowing was hot work.’

  ‘Numbers?’

  ‘Eight to my rod, eleven for Priss. All much of a muchness – about three to a pound. The midges were terrible, though, so we left after Marjorie joined us. Things might have got busier during the evening rise.’

  ‘Well done, plenty for breakfast, anyway.’ He noted the number and said, ‘Now, Ben: you were on the river today, weren’t you? Catch anything?’

  ‘N … no,’ mumbled Benjamin, flushing and glancing at his mother, but she was deep in talk. He said rapidly, ‘It got too bright to fish, and there was a – a concert over at the Clachan, so Nicky and I went across to it.’

  ‘Culture in Tounie? You astonish me.’

  ‘Well, a rock concert. A gig.’

  ‘I see.’ Understanding the anxious glance, his uncle lowered his voice. Ben would certainly catch it if his mother found out. ‘No salmon, then?’

  ‘Nicky caught one.’

  ‘Excellent. Where was that, Nicky?’

  ‘Tail of the Turn Pool. Seven pounds four.’

  ‘Fly?’

  ‘Small Stoat’s Tail,’ said Nicky, without looking up.

  Again Sir Archie filled in the details and passed the book to Ashy. She read:

  TUESDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER

  Wind: SW Weather: clear, warm

  Stags:

  12.4 Eight points; Carn Mhor; John Forbes; A. McNichol

  11.8 Eight points; Sir A. Hanbury

  17.8 Royal; Carn Beag; Everard Cooper; F.Grant

  Salmon:

  7lbs 4 oz Turn Pool; Nicholas Hanbury; Stoat’s Tail

  Trout:

  19 Loch a Bealach; Lady P. Cooper; Lady Hanbury

  ‘Hmm...’ Ashy placed a finger on the seventeen-stone Royal, and raised questioning eyebrows.

  Sir Archie shrugged and grimaced. ‘At least he’s broken his duck,’ he murmured.