‘Hardly, but doesn’t it worry you?’
She saw her face grow serious. ‘How many soldiers have died in Iraq this year? Do armies knock off when a man is killed? Should I set my work aside because of some nutcase? Should I abandon my walks every morning, and shut myself up in my lighthouse? No, thank you. As I understand it, two of those crimes have been cleared up, and the third might have been. If there is still a madman out there, tough.’
‘Going back to your past career, you’ve exhibited in several major cities, and now you’re coming home. Where to next?’
She was about to hear herself reply, ‘Glasgow, probably,’ when her mobile rang. She picked it up and checked the caller ID.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I just thought I’d call to see whether you were okay.’
‘And I am.’
‘Listen, I know that this leap into the spotlight has been very sudden. I just want to say that although it’s going to look good on your resumé, if you feel you’ve been rushed into it, you can still back off.’
Caitlin laughed. ‘And miss the chance to meet the First Minister, the second most famous Scotswoman, after Lulu? No chance.’
Ninety-nine
Maggie sat and gazed at the television as the ITN newscaster read the story. ‘A man detained in Monaco yesterday has been named this vening as Dražen Boras. It was revealed that the business tycoon was wanted for questioning in connection with two murders, including that of a Scottish police officer. It is understood that Boras arrived in the principality under an assumed identity and was on the guest list for a reception to be given by the president of Bosnia.
‘His father, the billionaire Davor Boras, is also in Monaco to attend the same reception. He was said by an aide to be astonished by the turn of events. In a statement issued on his behalf, he said that he and his wife had had no contact with their son since he left the United Kingdom, but felt confident that he would successfully defend the charges made against him.
‘The Foreign Office said this evening that extradition proceedings were expected to be swift and that Boras would be returned to Britain on Friday.
‘A spokesman for Northumbria Constabulary said that the arrest was the result of a joint operation carried out with colleagues in Scotland, two of whom are understood to have travelled to Monaco to liaise with local officers.’
The background changed. ‘In London today. .’ the announcer continued. Maggie pressed the off switch on her remote, and let out a huge sigh.
‘You are wonderful,’ said her sister. ‘You did all that, and you never left the house. You must feel. . Christ, Margaret, I have no idea. How do you feel?’
‘Flat,’ she replied. ‘I wanted to be there, Bet. I wanted to see his face, to watch his eyes as he realised that he’d been nailed.’
‘That couldn’t be, and you know it. Mind you, I thought that a little public credit would have been in order.’
‘No, that can never happen. I should never have been allowed anywhere near the investigation.’
‘It might still leak out. Your friend from the Scotsman knows you were involved, and so does the woman you told me about, the stockbroker.’
‘Mo won’t say anything; I’m too good a contact to lose. As for Jacqui Harkness, if she does say anything I’ll claim that I was after a stock-market tip when I approached her. My part in the arrest will stay secret, and I’m fine with that. But I did so want to confront the bastard.’
‘Then you’ll just have to do it in court.’
‘Oh, I will. I’ll cheer when the sentence is passed.’
‘And when he gets out, are you still going to kill him?’
Maggie smiled. ‘No, I was joking when I said that. Anyway, I probably won’t have to. I’ve just given Mo Goode the story of his life.’ve told him that Dražen and his father have been agents for the CIA in the Balkans and that the Americans helped him escape and set him up with his new identity. I’ve also told him to take a look at the LTN Trust in Bermuda and see where it leads him.’
‘Can he run a story like that?’
’Too bloody right he can. And when he does it won’t just be Dražen who’s in trouble. He and his father will both be on the run from their own countrymen, and with their cover blown, they’ll find that they’ve run out of influence in America. Even if Davor isn’t incriminated in his son’s trial, he’ll need to hire a private army afterwards to protect him.’
She looked at Stevie’s photograph on the sideboard. ‘That’s as much as I can do for you, love,’ she said, ‘but I reckon it’s not bad.’
One Hundred
And Caitlin walked out again, along her beach path, for the fourth time since she had moved into the lighthouse. Yes, it was lonely, but she was content, for there were the birds. There were the gulls, and there were those that she now knew to be gannets, thanks to her afternoon visit to the Sea Bird Centre at North Berwick. She had been recognised there, from the television interview. When the manager had asked her if she would be prepared to help with fund-raising by staging a show there, she had replied, regretfully, that her work was not suitable for the venue, given the limitations of its hanging space.
She had spent the rest of the previous day logged on to her website, which had registered more than a hundred hits following her media coverage. Her work was displayed there, and her biography: single, born in Largoward thirty-one years earlier to an English father and a Fifer mother, educated in Canada and at the New York Academy of Art; successful exhibitions in Toronto, Québec and Calgary, as well as in major American venues. She had received twelve feedback messages, and she had replied to them all, including the man with the Australian Internet address who had asked her to marry him. She had told him to send a photograph. The others had been innocuous, most of them from people wanting to know where they could buy her work.
She was still smiling over the Australian as she closed the door behind her, but soon she had left him behind, as she listened to the cries of the gulls and watched the plummeting of the gannets, and the darting of the occasional puffin. They were good company, and so were the voices in her head.
The voices were always with her in the outdoors. Most people would have thought her crackers, told her to get a life, to seek help, but she liked the voices. They were her friends, they gave her comfort, they helped her plot every step she took, every path she trod. She listened to them as she walked, her hands plunged deep into the big pockets of her canvas jacket.
On previous mornings she had walked for four miles, to the site of the fossilised forest and a little beyond, then back to the lighthouse, trying not to look beyond, to the great grey mass of the nuclear power station, where two reactors supplied the energy to power huge turbine generators. This time, she had decided, with the consent of her voices, to walk all the way to Dunbar, although the second part of the journey would be even more isolated. She would be doing it only once more, maybe twice, before she had to concentrate on other things. ‘Mustn’t get too set in our ways, must we, Caitlin?’ she said, to the voices as much as to herself.
She walked on until she reached the petrified forest or, rather, the spot on which it had once stood, where now only holes in the ground remained to show where the trees had been, inland in those times, before the North Sea had encroached. She stopped, and looked at it for a few minutes, stilling her voices until she was ready to go on.
The terrain changed as she neared the Burnmouth Estate, where a modern forest grew. Caitlin knew her history: she had heard of the decisive battle at which General Leslie’s Cromwellian army had defeated the Covenanters before going on to punish the rest of the area for their insurrection. Three and a half centuries later, the place still had a dangerous air about it.