Chain Reaction (36 page)

Oh dear God for an early night.

This place is ridiculous. Almost impenetrable and it’s twenty degrees colder up here. Belle, her neck and her shoulders aching to a point of unbearable stiffness, is beginning to believe it doesn’t exist when the track turns into a gravelled drive and they pull up in front of a domineering granite square covered with ivy. There are turrets on the four corners of the house and with all the evergreens and the sombre stonework it is hairy and dark.

Belle turns to her tired passenger and groans. ‘It’s like bloody Dracula’s Castle. Shall we go back? I can’t face this.’

‘But it’s getting dark and starting to rain. No, Belle, please. We’ll have to stay here now. Come on, I’ll go and knock and see what happens.’

A big nose overhanging a lank grey moustache peers out from under a checked peak cap. His knickerbocker suit, the colour of gorse, hangs straight and loose on his tall and angular frame, and a hefty hound with a panting jaw and a pendulous tongue gazes at them with moderate interest over the Jeep door. ‘By Jove, it’s late to be out and about.’ All in a broad Scottish accent which would have to be translated by subtitles were he ever to appear on TV.

‘I hope we’re not too late for a room,’ says Belle, nudging Peaches who is giggling helplessly beside her.

‘Down, Huntress, down!’
booms their host in a deep, commanding voice. And then, to them, in the same warlike tones, ‘You’d better come on in as you’re here. It’s eighteen pounds the night for each of you and that’s with a sturdy breakfast.’

‘Stop it, Peaches,’ hisses Belle. ‘Don’t upset him, for God’s sake. I couldn’t drive another inch. I don’t care what it’s like inside. Stop laughing
NOW.’

‘We don’t see a lot of Them, to be honest,’ says the little woman of the house in her button-through overall, pouring tea out of a fat brown teapot after her husband had padded off led by the straining Huntress with her gentle, pathetic eyes, not unlike those of her blustering master. Above the walk-in fireplace hang a pair of bagpipes with a coat of arms, and a vicious-looking tool with what looks like bloodstains on the handle. An entrenching tool, perhaps? Belle dare not look at Peaches. Above the twisted wooden stairs the long-dead heads of stags stared down on them with glassy nothingness when Belle and Peaches went to look at their bedroom. The same, almost-menacing look was echoed in the ancestors’ eyes, imposing paintings in heavy oils in a line along the landing. ‘Well, They keep to Themselves you know, it’s best.’ Their landlady serves them honey and hot scones. ‘But They’re sometimes seen in the village going about their business, and at church of course, and at the hunts. No different from the rest of us, you know, not really.’ She turns to Peaches. ‘Why do you ask, my dear? Are you a keen monarchist?’

‘We want to see Them tomorrow if possible.’ Peaches’ cheeks are bright with excitement and her nervous eyes dart this way and that.

‘They’ll be in church, no doubt.’

‘Do They mind strangers watching?’

‘They’re so used to it I don’t think They notice. But you might have to prepare yourselves to be searched, as you’re not known in the area.’

This is too close for comfort, no longer the far-fetched fantasy it seemed back at The Grange. Belle watches Peaches tuck into her high tea. They’ll probably not search her at all, presuming her absolute innocence. It will be Belle who gets the treatment, the same way it happened at school when they got caught with the booze at the end of term. The next one was the A-level term. Peaches stood no chance of passing anything, she was merely there to pass the time before she went off to finishing school. It was Belle who had the high hopes. Three A levels, all in the sciences, and she was predicted to get straight As in every subject. She’d been conditionally accepted at Oxford with a year out first, touring with a friend. It would be their proud contribution to her future, said her genial father, willing to fund the enterprise.

It was Charlie and Mags who had the idea of a wild, boozy party and everyone else agreed. Peaches tagged along, excited in her lispy, child-like way but no real practical help. She would provide the crisps. Belle, who was mixed up with a barman twice her age in a local pub at the time, was quite obsessed about him, took little interest apart from on the night itself when she helped to smuggle the boxes in. They all got caught because of Peaches’ mindless giggling and larking about. When Belle stood forward and demanded to take the whole of the blame, she was dealt with quite without mercy, and expelled immediately, despite the A levels coming up next term.

What
is
this need to confess? Is it to do with wanting to be liked? Or a feeling of being more capable of taking the blame than anyone else? Belle has never fathomed it out. Apparently the others did eventually come forward and confess, but they dubbed her the ringleader although she’d had little to do with any of it. Her father was mortified; her mother devastated. You’d think Belle had committed murder rather than got caught in a piece of harmless boarding-school fun.

‘Write to Mrs Coney-Wills, Daddy, please,’ she pleaded in vain. ‘She’d let me come back if you insisted, I know she would. She’s just trying to make me a scapegoat.’

‘I will certainly not write to Mrs Coney-Wills. She has made her decision with the good of the school at heart and I respect her for that.’

‘Please, Mummy, make him listen! If I don’t sit those exams my whole future will be affected.’

‘You should have thought of that, Belinda, when you were behaving so badly. And in her letter to me Mrs Coney-Wills suggests that illegal drinking was not all you were up to either.’

Belle broke her heart, more over Alfie Jamieson, the barman, than the thought of lost exams, it’s true, and Daddy refused to allow her the promised year out as a punishment. It seemed that the wrath of Allah descended and settled upon her head. Her mother would hardly speak to her. Belle heard her talking to her friends in hushed, disappointed tones on the phone. The local schools were doing a totally different examination syllabus so it was no good begging to be allowed to go there. Anywhere private was out of the question, as her furious father refused to pay.

And then she had answered the modelling advertisement and never really looked back since.

She had travelled the world in the end, to her parents’ great disapproval. She had seen all she wanted to see, securely and safely, as part of Jacy’s entourage.

And here she is again, in danger, and likely to be the one caught and punished.

She has brought her friend to the brink, so why doesn’t Belle hold back now, stay here at Clachan Keep and have a good breakfast while Peaches goes on to fulfil her terrible destiny at Craithie Church in the morning? Because Belle knows that Peaches just couldn’t cope without her. She would lose her way, or bungle the whole affair, or panic and end up in deeper trouble.

‘You get the usual little crowd of supporters, there’s not much fuss here,’ goes on their busy little landlady, Mrs MacTaggard, clearing up after them and laying the kitchen table for the morning. ‘Porridge and kedgeree all right for you? We always have that, it is MacTaggard’s favourite. Security is important, of course. These days there are lunatics lurking behind every tree. But those craving personal attention, as most of these hooligans are, wouldn’t choose Craithie as the ideal spot. They’d soon have the furious locals on their trails if they tried anything fishy round here. And on the whole the press are pretty good. They do try to give Them as much privacy when They come up here as possible.’

If the fierce MacTaggard only knew what he was harbouring under his roof tonight, he would no doubt steal in and finish them off with the ugly tool on the wall in the kitchen. Belle sighs and looks over at Peaches. Does she truly realise the enormity of the action she is so determined to take? Tonight, in the massive bedroom they share, she will try to change her friend’s mind if she can stay awake long enough, if she can fight off this feeling of total and utter exhaustion, for her own sake, if not for Arabella’s. Because Belle is beginning to realise that whatever happens tomorrow she is the one who will get the blame, as always, accused of being the instigator of the whole ghastly affair. Because everyone knows and understands that silly, soppy Peaches, the lovable, baby-faced Peaches, has no will of her own and is the sort to be easily led.

T
EN FORTY-FIVE PRECISELY.
The main security checks were completed early this morning. Now, granite-faced men with walkie-talkies and flinty eyes stand at the obvious bends and corners, bleeping to each other like baby chicks every so often to check that all is well.

As the majestic procession of big black Daimlers rolls into sight between the fir trees, a respectful little flutter of claps can be heard on the pine-filled summer air. Mostly regulars. Sir Hugh Mountjoy looks out of the last car and sighs to himself with relief. Beside him, Dougal Rathbone’s eagle eyes scan the welcoming faces because if he slips up now, if this business should get any worse than it already is, he is out on his ear in disgrace with no pension, despite his noble family connections. Sir Hugh has made that quite clear. ‘Because you’ve handled the whole thing with quite inordinate clumsiness,’ he declares, ‘when you knew very well how delicate it was.’

Sir Hugh did try to deter the Prince from attending church this morning, but his regal mother was with him at breakfast and so he could not pass on the fateful message which might well have been, ‘Trouble brewing, stay home with your head well down.’

He did consider passing a note in with the toast, but concluded that would be far too risky.

And anyway, it does seem rather unlikely that Arabella Brightly-Smythe would dare to do anything foolish in the open, in front of the cameras. The little idiot, if she is so intent on seeing her lover, is far more likely to approach quite openly through the front gates of the castle and therefore be apprehended before she causes any unpleasantness. All Sir Hugh and Dougal Rathbone know, and this information came via one of Lovette’s men, is that she was seen leaving The Grange in Belinda Hutchins’ red Jeep at eight o’clock yesterday morning, but after that they lost them in the lanes.

On hearing this Sir Hugh was not pleased.

Security men lie in wait at The Grange to inform them if the women return.

In spite of a general alert put through the regular channels, nothing was seen of the Jeep after that, but that might well be because they couldn’t give a reason for the apprehension of these two innocent women, and Special Branch haven’t the facilities to watch all the roads except in high priority cases. The one helicopter employed for the task was greatly hampered by morning mists.

Nevertheless, as soon as they learned for certain that Arabella had fled the coop and found sanctuary with her friend, the two discreet Civil Servants felt duty-bound to fly at once to Scotland and form a warning presence beside the Prince in case the need should arise. This all based on nothing more than Dougal’s intuition.

‘She’s always maintained that she won’t rest easy until she has seen and spoken to James. In my opinion, and because I know the young lady to possess a simple and stubborn personality, I would venture to believe that—’

‘Do get on with it, Dougal. You are not making a banquet speech now.’

‘I think she will try to see him in Scotland, and church is just one of a number of regular activities which everyone knows takes place while the Family are resident here.’

Sir Hugh was nonplussed. He downed his third gin and tonic since take-off. ‘But would her friend agree to such a flamboyant gesture, especially if she’s been told of the danger Arabella believes she might be in? Of course we must hope and pray that this friend, Belinda, this dated pop-star’s floozie, is a little more sophisticated and will assume at once that Arabella has let her imagination run riot this time.’ He turned to Dougal with a worried look and the lines in his noble brow seemed more deeply etched than ever. ‘Surely nobody in their right mind would believe such hysterical suggestions?’

‘We don’t even know for certain that Peaches suspected our plans. Perhaps she just ran away in despair after hearing about the engagement, fled to her friend for comfort and nothing more sinister than that. Perhaps they’ve gone away for a few days to take Peaches’ mind off her present miseries. Shopping or something girlie.’ Dougal eased off his shoes. His feet tended to swell in enclosed atmospheres, especially where there was also tension. ‘That scenario is more than likely. We mustn’t think the worst.’

A stewardess went by with a smile and Sir Hugh, after giving Dougal’s socks a disgusted sniff, lowered his voice and murmured, ‘We have to think the worst, that’s our job.’

‘But we can hardly warn anyone else without letting the cat out of the bag.’

‘That is precisely why we are going up there ourselves. And you are the only one who can identify them both.’

‘I feel like a spiv,’ said Dougal, whose star, up until now, had been in speedy ascendancy. ‘Somebody seedy out of the
Singing Detective.
I mean, what the hell do we think we are going to do if we see Arabella in the vicinity? We haven’t the necessary powers to arrest her. We can only use persuasion and she’s already turned her nose up at that.’ They should never have messed with Lovette. With an inner emptiness that frightens him, Dougal knows he will take the blame for all this, although he considers himself not only the younger but the more dominant, the more capable man of the two even though he is only an assistant on probation. Sir Hugh is dutiful and competent but decidedly unremarkable and has risen to his present position by virtue of seniority and family influence rather than brilliance, just the sort of archaic type who does the Family no favours.

‘Leave all that to me,’ said Sir Hugh, inspecting his tray of plastic luncheon, that same old breast of chicken with the blob of hard bread sauce. And could this
really
be called fruit salad? ‘You’ve caused enough trouble already. I, of course, have nothing to fear. My hands are perfectly clean.’