Whirligig (31 page)

As he walked, he began to hear the low dieselly whine of a van behind him, coming up the hill. As it got closer, he could tell that it was travelling in a high gear, in a hurry, and he instinctively turned to look at it as it came up on him. At the wheel he saw Milky, and the expression on that willowy shaven head with its black beard chilled him. As the van sped past him, and despite the fading daylight, Claypole could see that there was something desperate in Milky's eyes,
and they were reddened. He backed away into the shadow of a shop awning – the last shop on Harbour Street – and did not resume walking for a moment. The expression on Milky's face puzzled Claypole. Could the depressed hippy be so saddened by the planning permission given to the wind farm that he had wept? Was it anger that made him drive so fast? Perhaps he was just stoned.

He took up walking again. The next sound he heard, apart from the sea, the wind and the gulls, were footsteps. Fast footsteps hold no alarm if they are those of children. But these were of a man, running at full tilt, and that is never good news. He turned to see Lachlan Black heading his way, his donkey jacket flapping wildly around him and his steelcapped boots pounding on the pavement as if to break it. Claypole wondered whether he could be seen and realised with horror that he was now underneath a streetlight – one of only two on the whole of Harbour Street. Lachlan looked up and directly at Claypole.

‘Claypole!' he shouted, and Claypole jumped. He was Lachlan's target, and would surely be got unless he could think of something, fast. So he thought as he turned and ran up the hill. Why had he not taken the threat – the finger across the throat – seriously? Why was he not in the safety of the hotel instead of out in a deserted town about to be murdered? Did he deserve to get spatchcocked on a gloomy housing estate by the militant wing of the RSPB?

Claypole found himself running down an alley behind a pebble-dashed terrace. He hadn't tried to sprint in fifteen years, and his body objected most strongly. His stomach seemed to be swishing absurdly from side to side at the moment when he needed it just to
propel forward. His legs had stiffened after just twenty yards, and his lungs ached almost instantly. His heart too was galloping nastily. He looked back. Lachlan was catching up to him far more quickly than he expected. Well, of course he was, thought Claypole. That should be no great surprise. Lachlan was probably eighty times fitter than he was. So Claypole gave up running. If there was going to be a fight, and there was every sign that it would be to the death, it was better for Claypole not to be completely exhausted. That was the only way he stood a chance. That and possessing weaponry to rival the eight-inch hunting knife that Lachlan probably had concealed in his coat. Claypole looked around him and saw a plastic recycling box out for collection. He grabbed a large bottle, opened the knife that Dorcas had given him and stood in plain sight, ready for the last fight of his life. If Lachlan was going to slit Claypole's throat, as he had promised to do, he was going to have to do it with at least a few bruises and gashes of his own.

When Lachlan saw Claypole baring what remained of his teeth in a snarl and with his ginger nut glistening with sweat, brandishing an empty bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale and a tiny Swiss Army penknife, Lachlan's instinct was to laugh. But he knew there wasn't time to be amused by the fat man's fear and ineptitude.

‘You've got to come with me,' said Lachlan, panting.

It was a relief not to be instantly murdered, and Claypole wondered how long he could postpone his imminent death by talking.

‘You're going to kill me somewhere else?'

‘What?' said Lachlan frowning. ‘No. Look, I haven't got time to explain.'

‘Bollocks,' said Claypole simply. He was going to need a
good deal more reassurance. ‘Not moving an inch. You threatened me.'

‘Oh, aye. But that was before… Look, everything's changed.'

‘Oh, pray, do tell.' Claypole impressed himself by summoning sarcasm.

‘Oh God, you're a prick,' said Lachlan with feeling.

But Claypole just curled his lip and shrugged.

‘Oh, for fu
–
… Look, Milky's got Peregrine in the back of the van,' said Lachlan quickly, and his thumb gestured to the road out of town, along which Milky had sped in the camper. Claypole didn't know whether to be alarmed or amused.

‘What?' Claypole snorted. ‘He's…'

‘Kidnapped him, aye.'

Claypole lowered the bottle and the knife.

‘We were going to take you, but… that all changed when you… Anyway, I reckon Milky's lost his shit and I think I know where he's going.'

‘The beach?'

‘No. The old church at Glen Drum.'

‘Were you going to…?' Claypole gulped.

‘No, don't be daft. We were just going to keep you out of the picture until the wind farm was voted down.' Claypole nodded. He could see the logic. Lachlan continued. ‘But now that the wind farm is going ahead, Milky might be going to… Well, it might be more in the way of a punishment…'

Claypole examined the face of Lachlan Black and found it to be genuine.

‘Sorry, anyway,' said Lachlan quickly. ‘Look, if you won't help me, just lend me your car.'

‘Haven't got one. Twatted it into an elk.'

‘Oh.'

The two men both thought.

‘Look, if Peregrine's in Milky's van –' Claypole began.

‘My van.'

‘Your van… then why don't you take Peregrine's boat? It's quicker, apparently.'

Lachlan brightened instantly. ‘Brilliant!'

‘Thanks,' said Claypole nonchalantly, and put the beer bottle back in the recycling box and folded the knife away. When he had done so, he found that Lachlan, to his surprise, was still there.

‘I can't sail it on my own!' said Lachlan.

‘Well, I'm not… Brr. Find someone else to help you,' said Claypole.

Lachlan swallowed hard. ‘I haven't got time.'

Claypole closed his eyes with dread. Then he looked puzzled.

‘Hang on. Why do you care if Peregrine gets beaten up? I thought you and Peregrine had fallen out.'

‘I think Milky might do more than just give Peregrine a kicking…' Lachlan looked at the ground while Claypole watched him sceptically. While Claypole was assuring himself that no one, even strange Milky, would actually murder a man because of planning permission, Lachlan was making a calculation in his head. There was nobody alive – except Milky, of course – who knew what he was about to tell Claypole. But, he thought, he could tell Claypole because shortly Claypole would be gone from Loch Garvach. Anyway, what choice did he have? It would sound strange to voice out loud that which had only been in his head for two years.

‘And anyway… Peregrine is my father.'

GRIFFITH: Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.

Henry VIII
, Act IV, scene ii, William Shakespeare

A
s Lachlan and Claypole jogged to the harbour and towards Peregrine's boat, Lachlan indulged Claypole's curiosity with short bursts of information. Lachlan was a fit man, for his age. But he was also a smoker, so his answers were necessarily staccato. He knew that he should feel disinclined to give Claypole more information than was absolutely necessary, and yet telling someone provided a release that he had long needed, so he talked.

‘Mam used to work with old Mrs MacGilp's horses,' said Lachlan, accompanied by the rhythm of his boots pounding the road. Claypole nodded, reserving his breath for the appalling task of running. In between heavy breaths, Lachlan continued.

‘Peregrine was home from boarding school over the summer… Mam got pregnant… He paid for her to go to Glasgow and have an abortion… She went to Glasgow,
but kept the money, and kept me… Then one day she came back to Garvach… I don't remember it… I was five, and she took me to see him… We walked up the drive. Knocked on the door. Is young Mr MacGilp in? He's in the south parlour, miss. You can imagine the scene… She says, “Hello, Perry. This is your son.”…'

Lachlan looked at the ground and wheezed painfully.

‘Only thing he said was that I wasn't very good-looking, so I couldn't possibly be his son. Too short, he said… I was fuckin' five years old. Of course I was short… Anyway, he denied the whole thing. She didn't want money. She just wanted him to squirm. I dunno what she expected, but she didn't expect him to be such a… What a…'

After a pause, Claypole suggested ‘Wanker?'

Lachlan gave a sad smile. ‘I was going to say something worse.'

‘Right,' said Claypole. They were about to reach the boat. ‘So you're after a bit of payback?'

Lachlan stopped. With relief, so did Claypole. Lachlan looked very serious, and pointed at Claypole. ‘Absolutely not. I don't want anything from him.'

Claypole shrugged. ‘It would be fair enough –'

‘I just want him to own up. Or even… just to acknowledge it to
me.
'

When they had arrived at the boat, the two men immediately set about casting off. Lachlan began unwinding the bow painter from a cleat on the harbour wall, and Claypole did the same at the stern. They threw the ropes onto the deck and hastily jumped on board the boat themselves. They looked at each other as they caught their breath. Both standing in the helmsman's position, they continued to look at each other
expectantly. The boat drifted slowly away from the harbour wall. Claypole was the first to speak. ‘What do we do now?'

Lachlan looked surprised. ‘You mean you don't know how to sail this thing?'

‘No idea.'

‘But all posh people know how to sail.'

Claypole would have found the idea that he was posh amusing if he had stopped to think about it, and if he were not distracted by the fact that they were now on a very expensive fifty-foot yacht, drifting towards the open sea with increasing speed.

‘You grew up by the sea,' Claypole protested. ‘You must know how to sail.'

‘I grew up in Garvachhead. Till I left school I didn't know how to do anything except watch telly and take drugs.'

They both looked around for inspiration as the horizon began to twist and rock in the current. Claypole regarded the dials, switches and gimbles in front of the captain's wheel.

‘Can we drive it? You know, use the engine?'

‘No keys,' said Lachlan. ‘But… isn't there a
little
boat somewhere?'

They looked at each other before both running to the back of the boat and peering over the stern. There was a small dinghy with a small outboard motor being bobbed and bumped by the hull of the bigger boat.

‘There you go,' said Lachlan.

‘I'm not going in
that
,' said Claypole with feeling.

Lachlan sighed. ‘You have to. Milky's going to do something terrible to Peregrine, and I might not be able to stop him on my own.'

‘Why don't we… call the police?'

Lachlan's laugh was hollow. ‘Great idea. They might even arrive before the end of the weekend.'

‘But the police station's just next to the community hall,' Claypole protested.

‘Turned into flats. Nearest police is forty miles away.'

‘Oh,' said Claypole, feeling suddenly horribly tired. ‘What do we do about this thing?' He pointed at the deck they were standing on. The yacht was now moving at the full pace of the current.

‘Bollocks to it,' said Lachlan simply. ‘Does Peregrine want his boat saved, or himself?'

Whether Peregrine would rather have taken his chances with Milky than have the
Lady of the Isles
given even the mildest scratch was a question that Claypole and Lachlan could not answer. Even if Peregrine would rather have sacrificed himself than the boat, Peregrine would not have been able to confirm this owing to having, at that moment, a long-life hessian shopping bag over his head, his hands tied with the cord from a Moulinex Falafel King 2000, and a child's vest stuffed in his mouth. It was most strange for him to be one moment enjoying a celebratory cigarette outside the Loch Garvach Hotel, and the next minute being tossed about in the back of a filthy camper van on his way to God knew where. He had recognised his attacker as Lachlan's weird sidekick from the camp, which is why he had agreed to look inside the van. If it really did contain Beyoncé, his beloved black Labrador, injured but still living, as the tall streak of piss with the beard/shaved head combo had claimed, he wanted to tend to
the animal immediately, his only thought whether the poor bitch could survive the loss of another leg. How could he have known that the van contained nothing more animal than the smell of farts and body odour, and that he would be bundled inside and tied up at the hands of a crazed vegetarian?

While Lachlan was straining the tiny outboard motor on the dinghy which had until recently been attached to the
Lady of the Isles
somewhere on the Garvach headland, Milky was taking Lachlan's camper van along a barely used dirt track towards an old ruined church at a handsome gallop. After two minutes of furious bumping and lurching about, Milky finally halted the bruised vehicle. When he turned the engine off, he could hear muffled but heartfelt swearing coming from Peregrine, trussed up in the back of the van.