The major looked after her, mumbled something, and went off mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.
Charlie Baxter, the Roths, and all the rest were already in the lounge. A cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth. The heavyset waitress lumbered in and threw a pile of old tea leaves, cabbage stalks, and old rolls on the fire, which subsided into a depressing, smoking mess.
Heather examined all their leaders and tugged at the knots. Several gave way. “I wish you wouldn’t say you can tie these things when you obviously can’t,” said Lady Jane to the major.
“You are supposed to tie them yourselves,” pointed out Heather.
“Like a bloody schoolroom,” muttered Lady Jane. “Oh, here’s that wretched man again.”
Constable Macbeth lounged in, water dripping from his black cape. He removed it and squatted down by the fire, raking aside the sodden lumps of congealed goo and putting on fresh coal and sticks. Then, to Alice’s amusement, he lay down on his stomach and began to blow furiously until the flames started leaping up the chimney.
“This hotel has central heating, hasn’t it?” Amy Roth shivered. “Why doesn’t someone turn it on?”
“Now I want you all to try to tie your leaders properly this time,” came Heather’s voice. Everyone groaned and began to wrestle with the thin, slippery nylon.
Constable Macbeth had ambled over to an armchair by the window. Suddenly Alice saw him stiffen. It was almost as if he had pointed like a dog. He got to his feet, his tall, thin frame silhouetted against the greyness of the day.
Overcome by curiosity, Alice rose quietly and walked to the window. Whatever, or whoever, Constable Macbeth was looking at was absorbing his whole attention.
Alice looked out.
A slim, blonde girl was getting out of a Land Rover. She had a yellow oilskin coat and shooting breeches and green Wellington boots. Her beautiful face was a calm, well-bred oval. She was struggling to lift a heavy wicker basket out of the Land Rover.
The policeman turned around so quickly he nearly fell over Alice. He seized his cape and darted from the room and reappeared a moment later below the window. He said something to the girl, who laughed up at him. He leaned across her and wrested the basket from the Land Rover. The girl locked the car, and then they walked away, the constable carrying the basket.
I wonder who she is, thought Alice. Rich-looking with that cold sort of damn-you stare. Not a hope there, Lady Jane would no doubt say.
“This goddamn thing has a life of its own,” came Marvin Roth’s voice.
“What we need,” said Lady Jane, “is some useful slave labour. Some sweated labour, wouldn’t you say, Mr Roth?”
“Watch that mouth of yours, lady,” grated Marvin Roth.
There was a shocked silence. Oh dear, thought Heather, I should never have tried to cope with them alone. That dreadful woman. She keeps saying things which sound innocuous to me but which seem terribly barbed to the person they’re directed against. She’s got that mottled red about the neck which usually means high blood pressure. I wish she would drop dead.
“And now,” said Heather out loud, amazed to hear how shaky her own voice sounded, “I will pass round some pieces of string and teach you how to tie a figure of eight.”
To Heather’s relief, her husband came into the room. “We’re running a bit late,” he said: “Better get them started. We’ll issue them with rods again, that is, the ones who want to rent stuff – I think only the major has brought his own – and then we’ll get them off to the Upper Alsh and Loch Alsh.”
Alice pulled on her waders in her room and checked she had everything tucked away in the pockets of her green fowling coat – scissors, a needle (for poking out the eyes of flies – artificial ones, she had been glad to find out – and for undoing knots), and a penknife. She placed her fishing hat on her head and made her way back downstairs, hoping the other guests thought she was a seasoned fisherwoman.
In the car park, John was passing out maps, explaining that Loch Alsh was some distance away. Water dripped from his hat on to his nose. Rain thudded down on the car park. “At least it will keep the flies away,” he said. “Now, let me see – Jeremy, you’ll take Daphne.” Alice had a sinking feeling in her stomach as John went on to say she was to come along with himself and Heather and young Charlie Baxter. Alice felt Lady Jane’s eyes on her face and angrily jerked her already sodden hat down on her forehead.
The journey seemed endless. The mountains were blotted out by the mist. The windscreen wipers clicked monotonously back and forth. Alice looked at Charlie. He was hunched in the far corner. Alice did not know what one talked to children about. “Enjoying yourself?” she asked at last.
The child’s hard, assessing gaze was fixed on her face. “No,” he said at last. “I hate that ugly fat woman. She’s cruel and mean and evil. Why doesn’t she die? Lots of people die in the Highlands. They get lost and starve and die of exposure. They fall off cliffs. Why can’t something happen to her?”
“Now, now,” said Alice reprovingly. “Mustn’t talk like that.”
There was a long silence, then, “You’re very silly, you know,” said the child in a conversational tone of voice.
Alice coloured up. “Don’t be impertinent.”
“You were being impertinent,” said the maddening Charlie. “Anyway, you hate her just as much as I do.”
“If you mean Lady Jane, she is very trying,” said Heather over one plump shoulder. “But her faults seem worse because we’re such a small group. You wouldn’t notice her much in a crowd.”
“I would,” said Charlie, putting an effective end to that bit of conversation.
Alice began to feel carsick. The big estate car swayed on the slick macadam surface of the road and cruised up and down over the many rises and bumps.
At last the car veered sharply left and lurched even more over a dirt track where clumps of heather scraped the side of the car.
When Alice was just about ready to scream that she was about to be sick, they lurched to a halt.
She climbed out, feeling stiff and cold.
A rain-pocked loch stretched out in front of her and vanished into the mist. All was still and silent except for the constant drumming of the rain. Heather and John began to unload the rods as the others drove up.
“Now, who wants to row the boat?”
“Me!” cried Charlie, showing rare animation.
“Then you can be my ghillie,” said Lady Jane, a ghillie being a Highland servant. “Too many bushes around here. I’d be better in the middle of the loch.”
“With a stone around your fat neck,” muttered Amy Roth. She caught Alice staring at her and blushed like a schoolgirl. “She’s such a lady,” thought Alice, amused. “I bet she feels like fainting any time she says ‘damn’.”
Heather hesitated. Charlie was looking horrified at the idea of rowing Lady Jane. On the other hand, Charlie seemed to be the one member of the party that Lady Jane had so far not managed to intimidate. And he could be rescued after an hour.
“Very well,” said Heather. “The Roths and the major can go with John further up the loch and fish the river. We should get good brown trout or small salmon so you will only need light rods.”
“What about me?” asked Alice.
“You come with me and I’ll start you off,” said Heather. “Jeremy, you go along to the left and Daphne to the right. Keep moving now. We’ll only fish for a little bit and then we’ll meet back here in two hours’ time.”
Alice kept looking hopefully in Jeremy’s direction while they assembled their rods. Daphne had caught her fly in her jacket, and Jeremy was laughing and joking as he wiggled it free for her.