A Summer in Amber Read online

  Chapter 3: Friday 21 June

  01

  It was a damp, dreary morning, not quite raining, not quite not raining. A morning as grey as Ordmoor's stone buildings and dank pavement. The tropical heat still lingered, so despite the gloom it was hot-house steamy.

  The weekly market straggled down several blocks along the four cross streets that pass as Ordmoor's town centre. It seemed well attended by sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry in makeshift pens, plus many horses in assorted sizes and colours. There were lines of colourful caravans and stalls of tinkers, gypsies and pedlars hawking their wares which added a sheen of transient gaiety to the scene. The natives, young and old dressed very rural tra. The men in boots, wool or moleskin trousers and waxed jackets in various states of disrepair, wearing felt or tweed hats. The women wore Inverness capes reaching to their ankles and wide bonnets, some with veils pinned back. Many carried black umbrellas and canvas bags filled with their purchases. Sweating farmers, dogs at their feet, stood about in clumps exchanging gossip while eyeing the drifting livestock brokers and buyers, giving the market a sense of gravity, of business, of timelessness. Their wives added a domestic note, cheerfully exchanging the week's news with friends or haggled loudly over the early vegetables, eggs, preserves, butter, cheeses and handicrafts spread out before them. And flocks of children larked about laughing and getting yelled at. Ordmoor market may not have been, strictly speaking, large, bright or bustling, but it was, on this grey morning, a living institution.

  I'd been up since first light. Sleep on the unfamiliar sofa had proved to be an off and on affair. I'd just finished my breakfast, the second, soggy steak pie and a pot of tea when Guy stopped by with Mrs Douglas, the chairwoman of the estate's worker's co-op. For a pound a year, and the promise of four hours of donated labour a week, I became a co-op member entitling me to buy the products of the co-op's greenhouse and garden, pig, poultry, dairy and brewery operations. These co-ops, run by workers in their spare time were a feature of the Storm years' society that has yet to die out. With my lavish per diem, I insisted on paying for a year's membership. If I was to be staff, I wanted to be on good terms with my new mates. I'd a flatmate in my undergrad years who home brewed beer, but I'd a feeling that'd be a popular job, so I settled on working in the greenhouse and garden. We didn't have much time to talk, as Guy was to drive the housewives to market, so I placed my order for eggs, some early vegetables and a chicken (cleaned and plucked) to be delivered tomorrow, and said I'd look in to see what the co-op's second hand closet had to offer for clothes sometime in the next couple of days. Afterwards, I headed out to Ordmoor on my bike.

  First stop in Ordmoor was at the Bank of Scotland's little office to open an account in order to convert my per diem credit transfers to coin. Next, the public Wi-Fi box in front of the post office to download my mail and daily info-sites and then on to find Guy Munro. I found him holding down a bench in front of the Highland Squire Pub, yarning with a couple other tweedy gents, all with mugs in hand. The Estate's Rover is a large faded green pre-Storm electric engine antique parked kerbside where Guy could keep an eye on it. (Learmonte has half a dozen pre-Storm motorcars in his collection including one that brings him up from his Scottish home office in Falkirk most weekends.) Guy offered vague directions to the baker, butcher and grocer, but given Ordmoor's size, none were hard to find. I bought some string bags from a gypsy's stand and filled one with jellies, preserves, and some local cheeses, dropped it off at the Rover and then on to the baker, the butcher and the small grocery shop that carried a crowded, eclectic selection of canned and packaged goods with unfamiliar Scottish brands in sizes for both the crofter and the big houses. I'd my standard shopping list on my watson, so I picked my way through the three narrow aisles and then stood in line for fifteen minutes waiting to check out. I passed the time trying to follow the gossip in the local dialect, with little success. I reached the Rover a little after 10:45. Guy was still outside, mug in hand, keeping an eagle eye on the growing collection of parcels in the boot. I told him that was all for me; anything else I'd carry home myself.

  I then made the rounds of the four jumble shops, each offering a selection of just about everything one might need, each featuring something different. O'Malley's featured furniture, Clare's, kitchenware, Kirkmiur's had mostly clothes, and Jock Bishop's specialized in hardware.

  I picked out a pair of tweedy trousers, carefully patched, hinting a wife in the background, and two rough shirts, a tweed Norfolk jacket and – just in case – a warm jersey. I packed them in the saddle bags, and headed home. I may have spent more money once or twice in my life – like when I bought my watson – but I don't remember being able to spend money with such carefree abandon. Everything, however, was something I needed. I did pass on a border collie puppy, though it was touch and go for a few seconds. Still, being able to just pick things out without studying my credit balance was a new experience. Scotland and ten pounds a day are both new experiences. New and strange.

  My course back to Glen Lonon took me over the same roads of yesterday's journey and I'm happy to report that Scotland didn't try to kill me, this time. Still, as I rode through the moist greenness of the glen beneath the dripping trees that crowded the lane, I couldn't quite shake the notion that these hills were impatient to be free of us humans, not just me, once again. They had a taste of untrammelled freedom thirty-six years ago and resented our return.

  My groceries were on the kitchen table when I arrived. I put them in their proper places and made a lunch of sandwiches, tea and biscuits.

  As long as I am categorizing the domestic delights of my day, I might as well complete the description of my new digs. The Groom's Cottage was built with grey stones a couple of centuries ago. It is about five metres wide by nine metres long with a slate floor. Outside, there's a long bench alongside the doorway. Sitting with your back against the cottage you can gaze out across a little patch of lawn to the lane, a stone fence, a wide paddock, the tree lined Lonon River and the hills beyond. To your left, there's the stables and some workers' cottages, to your right, the lane runs to Hidden Garden house, out of sight beyond the trees. Next to the door, on your left as you enter, is narrow window and under it inside is a built-in bench to sit on while taking off your wellies with your back resting against the closet. Beyond the closet, the kitchen counter runs the length of the cottage's short side wall with a hob, an oven, a sink under a window and an under-the-counter fridge. There's small square table with four chairs pushed tight against the far wall under another small window. A soapstone wood stove sits to the right of the table, and to the right of it, is the book shelves with the tele screen and some fly rods hung above it. In the far corner, there's a doorway leading to a small wooden addition that houses the water closet, shower, and battery storage closet with a door out to a covered back porch piled high with split wood. Back in the cottage proper, against the wall is the steep stairs or a ladder that leads up to the attic bunk room. It has six narrow beds tucked under the low eves, three to a side, with wardrobes between them. There's a small window over the stairs and a larger window at the far end to give a little light and air to the attic. Down the steep stairs again, and between the stairs and the front door is window and then a solid wooden desk and chair. Splitting the room almost in half the long way is a leather sofa facing the tele screen, with a small end table and the club chair tucked under the steep stairs. And that's it. Nice, cosy, compact and all mine for the next few weeks.

  02

  By the time I finished lunch, the sun was breaking through the low clouds and with the promise of a brighter afternoon, I changed into my new patched trousers and a faded work shirt, grabbed my slouch hat, pulled on my light gloves, and headed out.

  I turned west and walked towards the stables, away from the big houses as I'd been instructed to do. I glanced into the stables (horses in stalls) before strolling across the wide paddock and over a narrow river to half a dozen old stone cottages known as Little Lonon. M
ost were mere empty shells of cottages. I was told that Mrs Grant, the co-op gardener lived here, so I knocked at the door of the one cottage that looked in good repair. No response, so I wandered around back, figuring she'd likely be working in the garden where, indeed, I found her hoeing weeds in one of the plots. She proved to be a small trim lady in boots, work pants, blouse and a wide bonnet. Seeing me she stopped her hoeing and leaned on it as I approached.

  'You must be the Groom's Cottage feller that wants to weed,' she said in a thick Scottish accent, that I'm going to translate into English rather than try to reproduce it and get every other word underlined as a misspelling. (A policy that I'll follow throughout this record.)

  'Aye, Sandy Say, and you must be Mrs Grant,' I said, taking the gloved hand she offered me.

  She looked me over and pegging me for what I am today said, 'This is a hoe. Ever seen one before?'

  I smiled, 'Aye, and I've spent many an hour in one's company. Family business.'

  'Farming?'

  'Green growers and wholesale greengrocers in London. We've half a hectare under glass and plastic and five more open plots producing the finest locally grown fruits, vegetables, poultry and rabbits, in London,' I said, not without pride.

  She wasn't quite ready to be impressed, 'So what are you doing up here reading over TTR's papers?'

  I laughed, 'I spent too much of my impressionable youth in the company of one of these, I guess. But I've two older sisters who'll keep the business going, so I gave up my share of the business and attended the uni instead. But I still know how to wield one, and now that I don't have to, I rather enjoy doing it, on occasions.'

  'All right, Sandy, let's see what you know. I'll show you around my little operation and you can tell me what needs to be done.'

  The greenhouse was the shell of three of the cottages roofed over with a patchwork of salvaged cottage windows, much like our old factory/greenhouse was when I was young.

  Since I still knew what was what in the business, even though I'd only spent my vacations these last eight years working in it, she quickly dropped her guard and we talked crops and planting, watering, weeds and rot, fertilizer and lighting for more than an hour.

  'Well, these weeds aren't going to go away on their own, so I'd best get back to work. You can come whenever you want and if I'm not about, I'll trust you'll see what needs be done,' she said as we once more stood by the plot she was weeding.

  'I'll know more about things once I've had a chance to settle in, but I don't see any problem about getting my hours in. Thanks for the tour, Mrs Grant, I'll be around in a few days to help with the weeds.'

  'It's Daisy,' she said, adding, 'Good day, young man.' and went back to hoeing.

  I then turned south on the lane and up a long grade to an abandoned hydro-electric dam and power plant at the head of Loch Maig. Birds wheeling in the sky, bugs buzzing hither and yon, and the wind sighing in the trees all failed to give life to the hollow buildings, rusting bridge, and old dam. They had, instead, a rather eerie air of, well, 'sadness'. I've seen plenty of abandoned buildings falling into ruin in London, though there are far fewer of them these days as many have been replaced with gardens and parks, but here, they seemed resigned to decay, waiting for the trees and vines to grow over them, hiding their concrete walls while they crumbled away.

  On the lane beyond the bridge I met Guy driving a team of horses pulling two empty hay wagons. He stopped to offer me a ride. It wasn't all that far to the factor's house, but Guy could talk so I learned that Learmonte owns most of the Lonon River glen from Loch Achonie inwards and all of Glen Maig and the hills around them, a run of almost than 20 kilometres of river, loch, farm fields and pasture along with the pine and heather covered hills that are used mostly for hunting, something like 3500 hectares in all. He also owns a smaller, but more lucrative farm, on the Beauty River south of Ordmoor.

  Guy told me that Glen Lonon has two big houses, The Lodge, a low built stone Victorian era hunting lodge of seven bedrooms that serves the summer family guests and fall hunting guests and is used during the winter and spring, for NuEnG business conferences and such. The second house, Hidden Garden is the family's residence. It's the big house at the turning of the drive from the Factor's Office which we passed last night. A large attached walled garden gives it its name. Since the death of Learmonte's wife, Lady Emily, it is overseen year round by Lady Emily's aunt Regina. I also learned that Learmonte has two daughters who'd likely be around most of the summer and more nieces and nephews than I could keep track of. All in all, I felt quite up to speed on the ins and outs of Glen Lonon by the time we reached the Factor's House. He halted to drop me off, and thanking him for the ride and the peek into Glen Lonon, I headed down the drive to my cottage.

  As I strolled along the sun and shaded mottled drive, two dogs, a border collie and a labrador, bounded out of the woods and seemed genuinely pleased to make my acquaintance. After giving each a few pats on the head and a scratch under their ears, the three of us got under way again only to see three mod dressed girls in light blouses, slacks and wide bonnets round the stone fence at the lower corner of the drive and turn our way. The dogs abandoned me and raced ahead to greet them.

  I drifted over to the far side of the drive, kept my head down, my hands in my pockets, pretending to be invisible. This was just exactly the type of situation I was warned to avoid.

  'Willie, Watt!' called out one of the girls, greeting the dogs churning about her. She saw me, gave me a long look and said loud enough for me to hear, 'What have you naughty dogs dragged home today?'

  Turning to the other two she added, 'They delight in bringing home the most disgusting things, a half decayed salmon from the river bank or some strange hank of fur. Anything that smells horrible enough to roll around in. But I'm going to draw the line at smelly old tramps. Dead or alive.' And then to me in a louder voice, 'You! You, what are you doing here? This is private property. You've no business here annoying my dogs. Scat or I'll set the dogs on you.' she added, fearlessly approaching me.

  I was pretty sure she was just entertaining her two younger companions. I've two older sisters and I'm all too familiar with this type of sisterly abuse. There was, however, a slim chance that she was serious. I hesitated. I didn't know just what to say.

  'Those dogs?' I asked to buy time.

  'Aye, these two dogs,' she said with an almost straight face.

  'Oh, I rather doubt that... I think you'll need to come up with two other dogs to set on me, 'cause we're pals, aren't we lads?' This last to the dogs who milling around us tails wagging.

  'Willie, Watt, get over here,' she ordered sharply, but was watching me. 'This is a private drive. Turn yourself around and slouch back to whatever rock you crawled out from.'

  'I know where I am, ma'am. I work for Lord Learmonte,' I said simply.

  'I've not seen you around here before. Who are you?'

  'My name's Alasandr Say.'

  'Say!' she exclaimed, her eyes widening in mock horror and started back in mock fear to the amusement of the other two girls. 'You're the young man father told us about! The one we're to avoid like the plague. What are you doing out? You're supposed to be confined to your cottage down by stables. How did you escape? You've no business wandering around the estate, annoying the dogs and accosting innocent girls. I'm telling father on you! He'll have you flogged.'

  Ah, one of his daughters who evidently knew something about my reason for being here. And she was just giving me the business – not the disaster it might have been. Still, Learmonte wouldn't be happy if she did indeed tell him. However, in the end, Learmonte wasn't likely to be happy, period.

  'I think that's unlikely, milady. Why, I lunched with Lord Learmonte just the other day,' I replied. 'Since you seem to know who I am, my friends call me Sandy, and I hope you young ladies will too.'

  'I am Flora Mackenzie,' she replied holding her head high. 'These are my cousins, Becky Adams and Anne Mannering,' she added as Becky and Anne
smiled at me. They were several years younger, but posh.

  'I'm delighted to meet all of you,' I said. 'Has your father arrived already?'

  'No. But he sent word ahead to stay clear of you. Why is that, Sandy Say?' she asked, suddenly interested. 'You're far from irresistibly handsome...'

  'Can't imagine. Quite harmless. You'll have to ask your father,' I said cautiously.

  She smiled sweetly. 'I gather he doesn't like you. Doesn't like anyone these days. Still, this may prove interesting... Well, it was thrilling to meet the infamous prisoner of the Groom's Cottage, but we must be running along and I'm sure you've work you're supposed to be doing, so I won't keep you any longer. Good afternoon, Mr Say. I don't suppose we'll meet again. I'm sure he'll keep you locked up after this...' she added as she led her charges, two girls and two dogs past me and up the lane.

  'And good day to you too, milady, ladies,' I said and turned towards my cottage. Well, that hadn't seemed too great a disaster, but did serve as a warning. Still, three pretty girls had briefly brightened my day. It would darken again, soon enough with the arrival of Lord Learmonte.

  03

  Lord Learmonte arrived outside the screen door shortly after six, as I was about to make sandwiches for tea. 'Come in, sir. I've water heating on the hob. If you'd care for a cup of tea, I'll add more.'

  'No thank you. I won't keep you from your tea for long, but we've a number of items on the agenda to settle to get you up and working,' he said briskly, but without any hint of annoyance. He seemed resigned to having Sandy Say about.

  'Certainly, I'm anxious to get working,' I replied, determined to do or say nothing to make him change this attitude. 'Where would you like to start?'

  'I best show you how to access the papers. No doubt you saw the safe upstairs.'

  'I can't say I did, sir. It was too hot to sleep up there last night so I slept on the sofa and haven't had a reason to go up since then.'

  'Right. Let's go up and I'll get you set up to open the safe. Then we can bring the box down to look at the material,' he said, nodding towards the ladder.

  It was a new solid looking safe requiring a combination and thumb print. He was taking no chances. He set me up with all the necessary precautions and we took down the musty, taped and battered cardboard box which held the papers and placed it on the kitchen table. Inside were three small moleskin notebooks and perhaps 5 to 6 cm of crinkled loose papers. At the bottom, mice had chewed a passage way into the pile, making a soft nest of paper scraps in the centre of them. We shifted through the collection. The small notebooks mostly contained brief jottings, formulas and diagrams. The loose papers, especially towards the bottom were water stained, washed out, and stuck together in addition to having a hole in the middle of them. The upper pages were mostly free of mice damage except along their edges, and fairly loose. These pages appeared to be a printed manuscript with a great deal of hand written revisions, scribbled alterations that sometimes continued on both sides of the paper. Looking at the scribbles, I realized, with a sinking feeling, that deciphering TTR's handwriting was going to be a trial. Handwriting legibility suffered greatly in the pre-Storm age of computers, slates and watsons. Worse yet, the bottom half of the pile seemed to be entirely composed of handwritten pages in which the mice chewed two tunnels and nest, leaving perhaps half of the writing legible in across several pieces of each page. Still, I've been only hired to transcribe, not extrapolate and reconstruct TTR's writings, so that wasn't my problem though looking at the scattered pieces was enough to discourage me. Learmonte, I had a feeling, felt much the same way. We both just stared at the box for a while after we'd gone through it.

  'I'm going to need clear plastic sleeves to keep the parts of the pages together and in their proper order,' I said after considering the mess. 'Two, make that three hundred.'

  'Yes,' he said and taking out his watson, made a quick note and then brought out a keyboard computer from his briefcase. 'This is the machine you'll do all your work on. It's the secure machine we use at the NuEnG labs. It's not equipped to connect to the info-net, it'll record your key strokes, it'll not allow you to modify or add apps, nor will it allow data to be offloaded or erased. I expect you to do all your work on this machine, and you will lock it in the safe upstairs whenever you're not using it.' He gave me a hard glance, braced for my outrage.

  I just nodded. I wasn't officially working for Learmonte but I'd let Blake dig my work out of Learmonte if it came to that. This wasn't a battle I'd win.

  He continued. 'Turn over your watson to Ms Munro. While you are on the estate you can give the estate's office number as your emergency contact number. You can access the entertainment net and the info-net on the tele screen, but it's also restricted and will not allow any downloads or sign ins. In short, all your work for this project will be done on my machine under terms which are designed to prevent information leaking either intentionally or unintentionally. It's the nature of the business. These are the same restrictions my research staff works under,' he added pausing to give me a chance to reply.

  So much for my complaisant acceptance of his terms. 'You must realize I'm not going to turn in my watson.'

  'I must?'

  'I'm not a NuEnG employee. I'm employed by the Cavendish Labs. My watson is my own, and I'll keep it. You need to decide whether or not to trust me. You either trust me or find someone else. I've no more desire to be here than you have for me to be here, so you've nothing to hold over me. I'll keep my watson, no compromise on that,' I said. It's one thing to put your watson in a locker at the security desk, but something else to be deprived of it entirely. It had all my official life on it, including my passport and visa, as well as a great deal of my personal life as well. No way I was turning it over. Was this my way out?

  He glared at me, but must have expected that this restriction wouldn't fly so he only said, 'In any event, your watson will not be registered on the estate grid, so you'll not be able to use it for communications.'

  I shrugged. 'All that means is that I'll have go to Maryfield to call out. Really, you've no choice but to trust me. Why make it so inconvenient?'

  'I don't want any hint of what's going on here to leak. I trust Munro has gone over what is expected of you during your time here.'

  'Aye. I'm here to work, stay out of sight, stay away from the big houses and blend into the landscape.'

  'Don't take the restrictions lightly. I expect you to confine all your work to this cottage. I expect you to stay inside when guests are present on the grounds. I will arrange with Munro to look after your shopping needs so that you can remain on the estate. I expect you to get the project done in the least amount of time to keep all this unpleasantness to a minimum. Any questions?'

  I'd no intention of becoming the prisoner of Glen Lonon. But I tried to choose my words carefully. I owed Professor Blake that much.

  'Once again Lord Learmonte, if you are unwilling to trust me, we should wrap things up now before I'm any deeper into the project. I fully understand why you'd want to keep your grandfather's papers secret. I've no problem with that. I'll do my best to keep everything secret. But I'm employed by the Cavendish Lab and I'll work to their requirements, not yours. I'll come and go as I please. What I do and where I go in my free time is my own business. I'm as motivated to get this project done as you are, but I'm neither a prisoner or a slave. If you wanted one, you should have insisted on a grad student.' He was likely thinking the same thing.

  'Besides, you can't expect me just to vanish without a trace. It would raise red flags with my friends and family, which is the last thing you'd want. I'll have to be in normal contact and tell them something of what I'm up to.'

  'Which is also the last thing I want.'

  'I'll keep it vague. I'll just say that since I couldn't get into the lab before fall, I was offered a chance to do some research in Scotland. It needs to be close enough to the truth to be plausible. I won't have to go into details. It's certainly better than disappearing
without a trace.'

  He grunted. Considered it. Shrugged, which I took to be 'yes'.

  'My guarantee is simple; I don't want to be here any longer than you want me here. I'll get the work done as expeditiously as possible, though I can't say how long it'll take. I know you'd rather not have anyone in on your grandfather's secret, but unless you take the project on yourself, you're going to have to trust someone. From what I've just seen, I doubt much of the project survived the mice and I've no interest in it anyway, so the sooner done and forgotten the better. I've my own projects which I'm anxious to get on with.'

  He considered that in silence, weighting the pros and cons for much longer than I'd have thought necessary.

  'I don't see that I have a choice,' he said at last.

  I wasn't going to accept that. 'Of course you have a choice. Tell Professor Blake you want someone else, and he'll find someone else, with your research centre you have him by the short hairs.'

  He shook his head, 'No, you're already one too many. I have to trust you – and that non-discloser agreement you signed,' he added, showing just how limited that trust was.

  I took it anyway. 'Good. Now, I'm going to need a camera to photograph the pages. I could use my watson, but I don't suppose you'd want me doing that.'

  He stared at me. 'Photograph the pages? That's out of the question. Why do you think I keep the pages locked in the safe?'

  'It's standard procedure in cases like this, or so I've been told. It makes sense. Eventually, other scientists are going to look over my transcriptions. They'll no doubt question some of my work, did TTR really write that or did that idiot Say just guess?' I added, keeping my demands as pleasantly presented as possible. 'They'll want to see the original papers to verify my transcription. And from what I've seen of your grandfather's handwriting, many words will likely be open to different interpretations. You're not going to want to locate the actual notebook or sheet of paper every time this happens. What you want is a photo of the page right alongside my transcription.'

  He took this in without comment.

  'Besides there's ways of enhancing photos to make faint markings more readily readable. Different light sources and filters can make inks that have faded more visible. I've not looked into this much, but I downloaded some resources that I hope will help me. So you see, I'll need a camera to do the job right. Plus, after I've photographed the pages I can work from the photos on the secured computer, keeping the originals locked in the safe at all times.'

  'Alright,' he sighed. 'I'll have a camera sent around. You must, however, store all the photos only in this machine,' he added, indicating the computer on the table before us.

  'Yes. And it would be nice if the camera came with a small tripod so that I could take the photos faster and more constantly. And if there's not a good photo program on the computer it should be added.'

  'Anything else?' rather sarcastically.

  'Not that I can think of,' I replied pleasantly. 'At the moment.'

  'Right. Then let's set get your security clearance on the computer, and we can see if there's a photo program on the machine. I believe there is.'

  There was, and after getting me set up on the computer, he stalked out with a brief “'night.” Still, I thought that went rather well, all things considered. No mention of my encounter with Flora. Promising.

  Guy Munro delivered the camera and tripod shortly after eight. I spent the rest of the evening consulting my recently acquired resources on manuscript restoration and playing around with the camera, tripod, and a lamp to work out a reliable and efficient way of photographing the pages.

  04

  It's a small social world. Late that evening while working at the kitchen table, a familiar laugh and voice came drifting in through the screen door. I couldn't put a name to it, so I turned off the lamp and stepped over to the doorway, careful to stay deep in the darkness of the cottage.

  Strolling down the lane in a group of young people was Renshaw Lonsdale. We were members of the same college, though he was three years behind me. He'd gone down last year with a first in Manufacturing and Management Engineering to work in his father's firm, Advanced Nano-Electronics. He was one of the brightest stars in the University's posh set, tall, handsome and outgoing, wealthy and free spending, casual and fun loving, above all the rules, and always surrounded by posh friends and beautiful girls.

  We didn't run in the same social set, but still, he might recognize my face, though I doubted he'd recall my name. It struck me how strange it was, given Learmonte's concern for secrecy, that he'd set me up so close to his summer guests. I may not be a member of his social set, but already just a day in, here was someone who could recognize me. I couldn't play the stable hand with Lonsdale or someone like him. Did he really expect to lock me away? I suppose he wants to keep me as isolated as possible, here, beyond the pale – hidden away in a small cottage on an estate in the Scottish Highlands – was about as isolated as you can get.

  Watching the jolly group pass by I couldn't help but feeling sorry for myself. Lonsdale partied his way through university and was still partying, while I'd worked night and day only to find myself sulking about in a musty cottage doing a clerk's job. If it wasn't for the fact that my best friend was Penny Lee, I'd have felt totally miserable. Lonsdale had a lot of girlfriends, but none held a candle to Penny.

  Still, blue and discouraged, I put the papers and camera away and called it a day.