Grimm (18 page)

“What are you all gawping at? Never seen an old boy out and about? Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, you know. Good to see you, Lachlan, you mad old rascal.”

He reached Rory. “I couldn’t work out how to text you a reply so I thought I’d better come down instead. Now can you make sure I don’t trip over anything on the way to this cable car? And I would like a window seat in this café too if you can see to it.”

“And you lot,” he continued, waving his white stick in the air. “Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves. There are people who sadly can’t be here today, who would be horrified that this was how things had turned out.” Grandad looked meaningfully in Derek Goodman’s direction. “It’s time that people in this town got a grip on their imaginations and started seeing things properly. Get yourselves up that hill.”

With that Grandad hobbled off, heading in the direction of the fast-disappearing Bonnie, dragging Momo with him and barking, “Come on then,” at Rory and Lachlan Stagg.

The crowd remained silent and watched them go.

Within minutes the five of them were being ushered into the cable car by Stobo. The normally oily mechanic was wearing a fresh pair of overalls that were so new they still had deep creases in them from where they had been folded in the packaging. Stobo shut the doors with a firm hand. He looked Rory straight in the eye and gave a slight nod as if to note that all was well. Going behind the control desk, he pushed the buttons and Rory saw the glint of a smile on the man’s face as he sent them clanking and rocking slowly on their way.

Inside the cable car the group fell silent as they moved out of the housing of the station and began gaining height rapidly. Bonnie was the first to speak. “This is fantastic! WooHoo!”

“What a view!” said Momo. She had already found one of the
telescopes and was scanning the landscape below. The car rose and lifted over the first pylon and Aberfintry dropped away below them. “I don’t know what Gordon and Gracie were complaining about,” said Bonnie with a mischievous look in her eye, craning her neck to see as well as she could out of the window.

“Come on then. Someone describe it to me,” said Grandad. The others looked at each other to see who was going to start.

“Don’t all shout at once,” said Grandad. “Hurry up, I might be missing something important.”

“The town is getting so small it looks like a model,” said Rory.

“It looks pretty from up here,” said Bonnie. “Little streets and matchstick people.”

“We can see the park, Dad,” said Momo. “It’s a splash of colour just like it always was.”

“You can see the path where the old Scrab Hill Race used to be,” said Lachlan Stagg. “You won that once, Hugh, didn’t you?”

“Aye, I did indeed,” said Grandad.

“I didn’t know that,” said Rory turning from the window to look at the old man.

“Oh no, here we go again,” said Grandad. “Well it’s no secret. The medal is in that box of mine. You need to spend a bit more time in there looking for things.”

Rory forced himself to look back at the crowd in the centre of town. They seemed to be milling around but it was impossible to tell what the mood was.

“We’re nearly there,” said Bonnie. “Hold on, Mr Munro. Stand by for it slowing down.”

The station at the ledge came quickly into view, the cable car slowed to half its speed and then came alongside the small building. Grimson was there to greet them. He was dressed in black, as usual, but looking smart and brushed,

“Welcome!” he said. “Would you all like to step this way?” He turned and began to head the short distance down the path to the ledge. As the group followed on, Rory spotted the first thing that had changed since he had been up here last. The new sign read “The
Halfway House Café. A warm welcome to all,” and just beyond it was something more familiar.

“Grandad. You might remember this,” said Rory taking him by the arm and leading him over to the side of the path.

“What is it, son?” said the old man. The wolf statue was standing upright, positioned as the first thing to greet every visitor as they walked from the cable car to the Halfway House.

Grandad dropped his white stick and reached out with both hands, his fingers brushing the stone with tenderness. He whispered to himself as he touched it. It was as though each mark in the stone was one that he remembered making. The group stood back for a moment and watched as he wiped a tear from his eye. Clearing his throat he spoke.

“Know what? Whoever did that had the makings of a master stonemason.” His face cracked into a grin. “Come on. What else is there I should see?”

As they walked on, the cable car began its journey back downhill, the little wheels humming on the cables as it went. It seemed as though Stobo had even found some special grease for the occasion to make things run more smoothly.

“Mmm,” said Lachlan Stagg. “If I’m not mistaken that is the smell of a Sandilands Special.”

“What’s that?” asked Bonnie.

Stagg took a huge sniff of the air. “I think there are fruit scones, ginger snaps, chocolate spice cake and of course a pancake or two.”

“Ramsay!” called Rory. A figure in a chef’s outfit turned towards him. “Ah, Rory McKenna. Welcome to The Halfway House.” Ramsay Sandilands waved grandly around himself. The ledge had been set out with tables, each with a white linen tablecloth, and surrounded by animals — Grandad’s stone animals. Stobo had spent some of the week transporting them in a barrow from Grandad’s workshop to the cable car. The Curse of the Stonemason had been laid to rest.

In the background the pavilion had been transformed from the shell that Rory had last seen. The glass-walled building stood once
more, sitting neatly under the rock overhang. Inside, Rory could see some of Grimson’s portraits on display. He could also see Finkleman busying away making tiny adjustments to tables. Even from this distance Rory reckoned that the American had shed a few pounds and benefitted from being out in the sun for a few days. Grog was there too, seated at a cash register near the door. All around the walls was a bank of glass cases; the old fish tanks from the pavilion of years ago. Stepping closer Rory could see that some of Grog’s more attractive pets had made the move from the bathroom to a new home at The Halfway House as an additional talking point for guests.

Rory became aware that Bonnie had split from the group and had gone on her own towards the edge of the ledge. He walked over to join her.

“You okay?” asked Rory.

“Yeah,” said Bonnie in a quiet voice. “I’ve never been so high up before. I can see as far as anyone else can. I feel tall, Rory … I actually feel tall!”

Grandad’s telescope had been fixed permanently at the edge and Rory looked through the lens, focusing on the scene at the bottom of the hill. What he saw made him stop. Close to the cable car station he could see his father getting out of his car. He removed the learner sign from the roof and tossed it into the boot, before joining the back of a very long queue of people snaking out of the cable station. Rory watched him begin talking to the people he was standing beside, his newspaper uncharacteristically tucked under his arm. Then, emerging from the station, the cable car began its journey up towards the ledge.

“Ramsay!” shouted Rory.

“Yes, my dear boy?”

“Better get ready behind the scenes.”

“Why? What is it?” said the whiskery man.

“There’s a full cable car on its way and a very long queue for the one after that.”

There was a momentary look of disbelief on Ramsay’s face but one glance down the hillside confirmed that what Rory had said
was true.

“Oh my word, oh my word,” said Ramsay bustling about, his nose twitching in anticipation.

“Boys, this is our moment. This is it!” Rory couldn’t think at first who Ramsay was talking to and then he twigged.

“Er … no disrespect, Ramsay, really, but I think you should keep the wee guys out of sight. At least until you get things going.” Rory nodded towards a couple of twitching heads in Ramsay’s pockets. For a moment Rory thought that he might have touched on Ramsay’s raw nerve once again, but the rat collector’s face showed a new look of professionalism and determination.

“You’re right, Rory McKenna. After all … you are the marketing genius! You know best!”

“He’s right, Rory,” said Bonnie looking around at the café. “This is a great piece of work.”

“Aye, son,” said Grandad. “Not bad for a lad who prefers to sit back a bit!”

A tall figure approached them, coming down the path from the hotel. Granville Grimm’s hair was cut short and he wore a dark suit with a bright cravat in the same scarlet colour that Rory remembered from Gwendolen’s dress in Grimson’s painting.

“Is that who I think it is?” said Bonnie.

“Good morning, Rory,” said Granville Grimm as he approached. “How did things go down in the town?”

“Pretty well, I think,” replied Rory. “The first customers are on their way.”

“Excellent,” said Granville Grimm. “I look forward to welcoming them. We’ve had an amazing week here. I already have so much to thank you for. I think things are finally looking up.”

The little group watched as the sun shone on Aberfintry, on Hotel Grimm and on the approaching cable car full of people. They could see the figures inside it pointing to views and to things that they had not seen or not taken the time to look at for years. Granville Grimm was right. Things were definitely looking up for Hotel Grimm.

Later, when Rory thought back on that day, he could picture people stepping falteringly out of the cable car station, not quite sure what they were coming to, only to be met by a fabulous view of their own town and a charming, personal welcome from Granville Grimm. He could see the looks on their faces as they took their first bites of Ramsay’s baking and had a clear image of people approaching Grimson and asking him to do portraits for them. By the end of the day he had twelve commissions.

Rory remembered children clustering around the large glass tanks as Grog, dabbing his mouth with a hanky, cheerfully explained for the umpteenth time what all of the creatures were. And beside the till, even Lachlan Stagg’s “Beast of Corridor Five” outfit had been displayed — cymbals, bellows, gasmask and all — but with an additional twist. If you put a coin in a slot in one outstretched hand the dummy clashed, stomped and puffed just like the old days.

Ramsay had even succeeded in keeping his rats out of sight and, to his surprise, Rory even found himself feeling a bit sorry for them. They’d missed out on such a good event.

Editorial

Sometimes newspaper editors have to take risks. Sometimes they have to go out on a limb, unsure of what the reaction of a readership will be.

It is my belief at The Chronicle that Aberfintry is a fine town with equally fine people. That has been made clear in recent days by the willingness of people to be honest and forgiving in a range of remarkable stories. In the past The Chronicle has tried to be an example to the town, but I have seen, in the last few days, that some people in the town have been providing a far better example to this paper and its editor.

I have made mistakes and would like to apologise for these. Sometimes personal issues can be so deeply entrenched that they affect how we behave, and that goes on to affect other people. I apologise to Granville Grimm and his family for any hurt caused over the years.

I wish to draw a line and move on. In the spirit of The Halfway House, it is time for a new view and a fresh outlook and thus I hereby launch
The New Aberfintry Chronicle.

Derek Goodman

Inside this issue:

— Agatha Finkleman and Alistair McGroggan give their recollections of a fiery night at Hotel Grimm and a life-saving act of bravery.

— Rats: have we got it all wrong? Scum of the earth, or household pets and companions of the future? Ramsay Sandilands pleads their case.

— Feature: The Curse of the Stonemason: curse or coincidence? We speak to Hugh Munro as he prepares to give his sell-out presentation on stone carving.

— Ramsay’s Recipes: the master chef from the Halfway House shares some of his tricks of the trade for you to try at home.

— Bella Valentine Meets the Beast: We report as Bella Valentine meets the man who was the Beast of Hotel Grimm.

— In hiding: Lachlan Stagg talks of his years at the now re-named Grimm Manor and his plans for a book on the experience.

— Obituary: the life of Gwendolen Grimm.

— Return of the Scrab Hill Race. Entry form on Page 5.

— Marketing genius or normal boy? Rory McKenna comes clean about his source of inspiration for the Zizz campaign.

Keep reading for a sneak peek of
Catscape,
another hilarious book by Mike Nicholson.

Ever since he had first looked in the window of Crockett’s Watches and Clocks, Fergus Speight had known exactly what he wanted for his twelfth birthday. Looking beyond the carriage clocks and the padded velvet trays of shiny silver watches, Fergus’s gaze had come to an abrupt halt on the display of digital watches. Each of the watches had blinked at him as they counted time, but one in particular had caught his eye. It was spinning slowly around on its own little podium and a tiny plaque at the bottom declared that this was “The DataBoy.” A small card alongside proudly proclaimed that the DataBoy was “One Funky Watch with Twenty Funky Functions,” while a list below showed that these included a stopwatch, calculator, thermometer, light and a display of times in twenty-five countries around the world … and those were only the first five.

Since then, Fergus had tried to pass Crockett’s as often as he could. Each time he reversed his baseball cap so that he could get close enough to the window to see which of the DataBoy’s functions was on show. The previous week, one of the shop assistants had come outside to say that Mr. Crockett would prefer it if Fergus didn’t stand quite so close to the window, because he was steaming it up for the other customers.

With his birthday fast approaching, Fergus was pretty sure that his mum would get the DataBoy for him, but had decided not to say anything until she asked him what he wanted. He was basing this tactic on a particularly hard lesson he had learned on his last birthday. A year ago he had asked her so often for a DVD called “The Pyramid Maze” that she did buy it for him, but also removed the plug from the DVD player so that he couldn’t watch it for three long days.

It seemed to take forever between Fergus’s first view of the DataBoy and Mrs. Speight asking him about his birthday. However, when she finally did they happened to be on Raeburn Place quite close to Crockett’s Watches and Clocks. Without a word, Fergus had taken his mum firmly by her coat sleeve, and had pulled her towards the shop window, narrowly avoiding a pedestrian pile-up with a dog, a woman with a pushchair and an old man with a walking stick, in his rush to get there.

“Are you quite sure that’s what you want?’ said his mum, smiling as she looked through the glass at the DataBoy while she tried to return her coat to its original shape.

“It does so many things!” Fergus said excitedly, “Twenty Funky Functions!”

“Is one of them tidying bedrooms?” his mum asked, leaning towards the window to read the information on the DataBoy.

“I could find out for you,” replied Fergus hopefully.

So when the morning of Fergus’s birthday arrived, just at the start of the summer holidays, it was no surprise that one of his presents was a long, slim rectangular package in shiny silver paper, about the length of a watch and strap. Fergus tore into the paper excitedly and opened the box to reveal the DataBoy, then spent most of the day staring at the gleaming watch on his wrist and testing all the functions. He checked the temperature inside and outside the flat using the thermometer, added up the items on an old till receipt on the calculator, and found out the time differences between Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

The day after his birthday, Fergus was still finding ways to make use of his new watch. He and his mum had just been to the shops on Raeburn Place and were heading home with two bags of groceries. As they turned into Comely Bank Avenue, Fergus decided to time how long it would take to get from the traffic lights to their flat at number 81. He was concentrating so hard on the DataBoy as they walked, that he didn’t anticipate the horror that was rapidly approaching until he happened to glance up.

Blue shoes, blue stockings, blue coat, blue scarf, blue hat and even a hint of blue in the steely grey hair underneath … Mrs. Scrimgeour was coming towards them.

Fergus immediately tugged at his mum’s coat, whispering, “Cross the road … quick!”

“Fergus, don’t be so rude,” said his mum who was clearly also trying to work out if dodging the traffic was worth the risk to avoid meeting Mrs. Scrimgeour.

Fergus groaned, knowing from previous experience that an encounter with Mrs. Scrimgeour would mean being trapped in a one-sided conversation for at least fifteen minutes. As Mrs. Scrimgeour spotted them she let out a loud “YOO HOO!” Fergus felt that he was about to be enveloped by a large blue cloud from which there was no escape.

“FIONA, FERGUS, LOVELY TO SEE YOU,” bellowed Mrs. Scrimgeour.

“Lovely to see you too, Beryl,” said Mrs. Speight.

Fergus switched off as Mrs. Scrimgeour launched into conversation, beginning most of her sentences with “AND HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE PEOPLE AT NUMBER …?”

He decided to continue to put his new watch to practical use by timing how long Mrs. Scrimgeour could speak without taking a breath. It was 11.33 am when he began counting the seconds. After a few goes, Fergus gave up, reaching the conclusion that Mrs. Scrimgeour must be like a frog and breathe through her skin, because as hard as he tried he couldn’t spot any gaps between the words when she might be drawing breath.

As his mum stood listening and nodding patiently while Mrs. Scrimgeour droned on, Fergus began pushing a small stone around with the edge of his trainer. He moved it onto a metal manhole cover, and began nudging the stone backwards and forwards along its grooves. “Maybe by the time I get to the other side of the cover they’ll be finished,” he thought.

It soon became a race for Fergus to get the stone across the grooves when he heard his mum say, “We really have to get going
now,” for what he thought was the fourteenth time, although he had lost count somewhere around seven.

“At last!” whispered Fergus, as they broke free and headed up the last bit of Comely Bank Avenue.

“She could talk the hind legs off a donkey,” said his mum.

Fergus decided that if this was true, Mrs. Scrimgeour probably had a large collection of donkey legs stuffed and mounted in glass cases around her house.

Fergus and his mum continued up the road until they reached number 81, where Fergus checked his watch again.

“No way!” he shouted.

“Fergus!” his mother said sternly as she put her key in the lock. “Don’t shout!”

“My watch isn’t working!” wailed Fergus.

Sure enough the DataBoy was showing the time as 11.26. It had lost seven minutes since he had last looked at it. Mrs. Speight glanced at the digital figures, and spotting the seconds ticking over said, “Well it seems to be working now. Isn’t it just a little slow?”

“But it was 11.33 a minute ago,” said Fergus.

“That doesn’t make sense. I know that it did feel as if time was standing still when I was listening to Mrs. Scrimgeour but I didn’t realize it was going backwards!” said his mum, laughing at her own joke. Fergus didn’t find this funny, considering the seriousness of his brand new watch being broken.

“Come on,” his mum said, “we’ll re-set your watch and see how it goes. If there’s a problem we can always take it back to Mr. Crockett. In the meantime why don’t you use it to see how quickly we can put the shopping away?”

Throughout the rest of the day, Fergus looked at his watch just as much as before, although each glance was now with some suspicion as he checked closely to see if it was working like a new DataBoy should. All of the functions performed perfectly over the following few days and so Fergus began to forget about his new watch going
backwards. Until … it happened again!

A week later, Fergus was heading down Comely Bank Avenue towards the corner shop, clutching a short list of things that his mum had asked him to get. Just before he got to the shop, he passed a lamppost, with a homemade poster tied loosely to it, fluttering in the breeze. He glanced at it as he wandered past and had gone a few more paces before the words sank in; “Reward, Lost cat. Black and white. Called Rainbow.”

“A black and white cat called Rainbow?” thought Fergus. “Someone has a great sense of humour.” He slowly registered that there was some other writing on the poster and backtracked to look more closely. In typed print under the cat’s description it said “£10 reward for information. £40 for safe return.”

“Wow, that would be useful money,” thought Fergus, not needing the calculator on his DataBoy to work out that £40 could mean a few CDs or a few weeks’ worth of sweets. At the bottom of the poster was a contact phone number. Fergus went into the corner shop to ask George, the shopkeeper, if he could borrow a pen and paper to take a note of it. He nipped back outside, wrote down the details and made up his mind to keep an eye out for a black and white cat called Rainbow.

After buying the milk, magazine and onions on his mum’s list, Fergus said goodbye to George and headed home. Outside the shop he noticed another “Reward” poster, this time stuck to a postbox.

“£25 reward for the return of a Tabby cat called Tabby,” it declared. Fergus couldn’t help wondering what he would call a cat if he had one, but decided that Tabby and Rainbow would be fairly low on his list.

He went back to the shop to borrow the pen again. “I should start charging for this,” said George. “How about 10p for every word? Does that seem reasonable?” Fergus said that he would be happy to negotiate if he got one of the rewards.

Fergus set off for home for a second time, passing the manhole cover where he had been kicking the stone the previous week.
Distracted from thoughts of lost cats and reward money, Fergus remembered that timing his journey home that day had been interrupted by Mrs. Scrimgeour. Deciding to have another go, he stood on the metal cover and set the stopwatch on his DataBoy. Suddenly Fergus blinked hard and stared at the watch. Surely he must be imagining things? He could have sworn that it had just jumped back a minute. Had it really just gone from 10.47 to 10.46? He stared even harder at his watch, trying desperately not to blink and break his concentration. Then after a minute had passed he saw what he had been waiting for. His watch changed to 10.45.

Something made Fergus look down at his feet. Was it just a coincidence that his watch had lost time twice when he had been standing on the same spot? The manhole cover he was standing on looked as normal as any other that he seen before, although Fergus knew that he couldn’t claim to be an expert in this field. As he bent down to look more closely he was unprepared for what happened next. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement just before impact occurred, and the next things he saw were the sky and his baseball cap flying past. Not realizing that he had been knocked off his feet and had whacked his head on the pavement he couldn’t work out why his left cheek was getting a big wet stripe on it every two seconds. Opening his eyes he found that a small white dog was licking his face enthusiastically.

Fergus heard somebody say, “Heel, Jock, heel!” Looking round blearily from his prone position he saw a rather round boy standing a few feet away holding a Metro scooter, which Fergus reckoned must have been going at top speed until a few seconds before. The dog was now panting heavily beside the boy’s scruffy baseball boots. The boy was carrying a small but very heavy-looking rucksack and seemed to have come out of the incident remarkably unharmed.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you,” he said, scratching his head and looking a bit embarrassed.

“That’s good news,” said Fergus sitting up and brushing down his combats. “I’d hate to think it was deliberate.” The boy grinned sheepishly beneath a mop of curly brown hair. “My name’s Murdo
and you’ve just met Jock,” he said pointing at the small Jack Russell. “What’s your name?”

“Fergus,” said Fergus, getting shakily to his feet, rubbing his short blond hair and finding to his surprise that he was not bleeding from anywhere. He picked up his baseball cap and it was then that he noticed Murdo’s bulging rucksack in more detail. There was equipment popping out of every pocket — a pair of headphones, a clipboard, a torch and pens attached to every available flap.

“What’s all that stuff?” Fergus asked. Murdo looked a bit embarrassed.

“Oh just some bits and pieces I use,” he said sounding like he wanted to avoid the subject. “What were you doing on that manhole cover anyway?”

“I … I was about to time how long it took me to walk home from there,” Fergus said unconvincingly. Murdo looked slightly puzzled by this explanation, but didn’t say anything.

At that moment Fergus realized that in the crash, he had not only dropped his small bag of shopping, but his piece of paper with the details of the lost cats was also blowing away down the street. Spotting the problem, Murdo nipped over on his scooter and slapped the paper down with his foot. Picking it up and looking at Fergus’s scribbles he said cautiously, “Are you looking for the cats as well?”

“Ummm … well I thought I might have a go,” said Fergus.

“You’ve only got two on your list,” said Murdo, trying to smooth out Fergus’s rather crumpled piece of paper.

“I only copied them down five minutes ago,” said Fergus defensively, wondering about Murdo’s line of questioning. “Have you got a list?” Murdo hesitated, looked around as if to see if anyone else was watching, and then took off his rucksack and unbuckled the top. He pulled out a loose-leaf folder, which had bits of paper almost fighting each other to get out. Squatting on the pavement, he opened it, flicked through the well-thumbed pages and looked up smiling. Each page was a photocopy of a different lost cat poster. Fergus’s eyes widened.

“Wow … there must be about forty there!” he said. Murdo looked impressed.

“Forty-three actually,” he replied.

“Have you been collecting them over the years?” said Fergus.

“No, that’s just it,” said Murdo, the excitement rising in his voice. “These are all from the last three months and all from within two miles of here!”

Fergus eyes widened still further. He then started putting two and two together and began to come up with a very large number. “How much do all the rewards add up to?” he said trying not to sound too interested. Murdo pointed to a list on the inside cover of his folder which had every cat’s name and a number beside each entry. “£750 and five more which promise ‘a substantial reward,’” said Murdo with a gleam in his eye.