“Trevor Kerr,” the phone barked at me.
“Kate Brannigan here. I’ve spoken to the police, who were very interested in what I had to tell them about the fake KerrSter,” I said. “They said they would investigate that angle.”
“You pulled me out of a production meeting to tell me that?” he demanded.
“Not only that,” I said mildly. It was an effort. If he carried on like this, I reckoned there was going to be a five percent surliness surcharge on Trevor Kerr’s bill.
“What, then?”
“You mentioned you’d had a round of redundancies,” I said.
“So?”
“I wondered if anyone who’d gone out the door had been subject to a golden handcuffs deal.”
There was a moment’s silence. “There must have been a few,” he admitted grudgingly. “It’s standard practice for anybody working in research or in key production jobs.”
“I’ll need a list.”
“You’ll have one,” he said.
“Have it faxed to my office,” I replied. “The number’s on the card.” I cut the connection. That’s the great thing with mobile phones. There are so many black holes around that nobody dares accuse you of hanging up on them anymore.
I took out my notebook and rang the number Alexis had given me earlier. The voice that answered the phone didn’t sound like Lord James Ballantrae. Not unless he’d had an unfortunate accident. “I’m looking for Lord Ballantrae,” I said.
“This is his wife,” she said. “Who’s calling?”
“My name is Kate Brannigan. I’m a private investigator in Manchester. I understand Lord Ballantrae is the coordinator of a group of stately-home owners who have been burgled recently. One of my clients has had a Monet stolen, and I wondered if Lord Ballantrae could spare me some time to discuss it.”
“I’m sure he’d be happy to do so. Bear with me a moment, I’ll check the diary.” I hung on for an expensive minute. Then she was back. “How does tomorrow at ten sound?”
“No problem,” I said.
“Now, if you’re coming from Manchester, the easiest way is to come straight up the M6, then take the A7 at Carlisle as far as Hawick, then the A698 through Kelso. About six miles past Kelso, you’ll see a couple of stone gateposts on the left with pineapples on top of them. You can’t miss them. That’s us. Castle Dumdivie. Did you get all that?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said weakly. I’d got it, all right. A good three to four hours driving.
“We’ll look forward to seeing you then,” Lady Ballantrae said. She sounded remarkably cheerful. It was nice to know one of us was.
9
richard didn’t even stir when the alarm cut through my dreams at ten to six like a hot wire through cheese. I staggered to the shower, feeling like my eyes had closed only ten minutes before. Until I started this job, I didn’t even know there were two six o’clocks in the same day. Richard still doesn’t. I suppose that’s why he suggested a club after the latest Steven Spielberg, enough popcorn to feed Bosnia and burgers and beer at Starvin‘ Marvin’s authentic American diner. We’d been having fun together, and I didn’t want it to end on a sour note, so I’d agreed, with the proviso that I could be a party pooper at one. It goes without saying that we were still dancing at two.
Even a ten-minute power shower couldn’t convince my body and my brain that I’d had more than three hours sleep. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t jacked in the law degree after two years, so I could have become a nine-to-five crown prosecutor. I put a pot of strong coffee on to brew while I dressed. Just what do you wear for a Scottish baron that won’t look like a limp dishrag after four hours behind the wheel? I ended up with navy leggings, a cream cotton Aran jumper and a military-style navy wool blouson that I inherited from Alexis. I’d told her in the shop that it made her look too heavy in the hips, but would she listen?
By the third cup of coffee, I felt like I could be trusted to drive without causing a major pileup. Not that there was a lot of traffic round to test my conviction. For once, it was sheer pleasure to motor down the East Lanes, road. No boy racers wanting to get into a traffic-lights grand prix with my coupe, no little old men with porkpie hats and pipes dithering between lanes, no macho reps waving their mobile phones like battle honors. Just blissful open road spread out before me and Deacon Blue’s greatest hits. Since I was going to Scotland, I thought I’d better opt for the native sound. When I left the motorway at Carlisle, it was just after eight. I promised myself breakfast at the first greasy spoon I passed, forgetting what roads in the Scottish borders are like. There was nothing for the best part of an hour, and then it was Hawick. I ended up with a bacon-and-egg roll from a bakery washed down with a carton of milky industrial effluent that they claimed was coffee.
At a quarter to ten, I spotted the gateposts. When Lady Ballantrae had said pineapples, I was expecting some discreet little stone ornaments. What I got.was two squat pillars topped with carved monstrosities the size of telephone kiosks. She’d been right when she said I couldn’t miss them. I turned into a narrow corridor between two beech hedges taller than my house. The road curved round in a gentle arc. Abruptly, the trees stopped and I found myself in a grassy clearing dominated by Lord Ballantrae’s house. I use the term “house” loosely. At one end of the sprawling building was a massive square stone tower with a sharply pitched roof. Extending out from it, built in the same forbidding gray stone, was the main house. The basic shape was rectangular, but it was dotted with so many turrets, buttresses and assorted excrescences that it was hard to grasp that at first. The whole thing was surmounted by an incongruous white belvedere with a green roof.
One of Ballantrae’s ancestors either had a hell of a sense of humor or a few bricks short of a wall.
I pulled up on the gravel between a Range Rover and a top-of-the-range BMW. What they call in Manchester a “Break My Windows.” Like Henry, Lord Ballantrae clearly kept the trippers’ coaches well away from the house. By the time I’d got out of the car, I had a spectator. At the top of a short flight of steps like a giant’s mounting block a tall man stood staring at me, a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. I walked toward him, taking in the tweed jacket with leather shooting patches, cavalry twills, mustard waistcoat and tattersall check shirt. He was even wearing a tweed cap that matched the jacket. As soon as I was in hailing distance, he called, “Miss Brannigan, is it?”
“The same. Lord Ballantrae?”
The man dropped his hand and looked amused. “No, ma’am, I’m his lordship’s estate manager, Barry Adamson. Come away in, he’s expecting you.”
I followed Adamson’s burly back into a comfortable dining kitchen. Judging by the microwave and food processor on the pine worktops, this wasn’t part of the castle’s historical tour. Beyond the kitchen, we entered a narrow passage that turned into a splendid baronial hall. I don’t know much about weapons, but judging by the amount of military hardware in the room, I’d stumbled upon Bonnie Prince Charlie’s secret armory. “Through here,” Adamson said, opening a heavy oak door. I followed him through the arched doorway into an office that looked nearly as high-tech as Bill’s.
A dark-haired man in his early forties was frowning into a PC screen. Without looking up, he said, “With you in two shakes.” He hit a couple of keys and the frown cleared. Then he pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet. “You must be Kate Brannigan,” he said, coming round the desk and thrusting his hand toward me. “James Ballantrae.” The handshake was cool and dry, but surprisingly limp. “Pull up a seat,” he said, waving at a couple of typist’s chairs that sat in front of a desktop that ran the length of one wall. “Barry, Ellen’s in the tack room. Can you give her a shout and ask her to bring us some coffee?” he added as he dragged his own chair round the desk. “How was your journey?” he asked. “Bitch of a drive, isn’t it? I sometimes wish I could ship this place stone by stone to somewhere approximating civilization, but they’d never let me get away with it. It’s Grade Two listed, which means we couldn’t even have satellite TV installed without some bod from the Department of the Environment making a meal out of it.”