The little man’s pipe lighter flamed, and he sucked and puffed and sucked and puffed until he was satisfied that the pipe was burning well, then he put the lighter, the pouch, and the penknife back into his coat pocket.
“Anyway, anyway,” said the little man. “I believe you’re planning on staying here through the weekend.”
“Yes,” said Shadow. “Do you…are you with the hotel?”
“No, no. Truth to tell, I was standing in the hall when you arrived. I heard you talking to Gordon on the reception desk.”
Shadow nodded. He had thought that he had been alone in the reception hall when he had registered, but it was possible that the little man had passed through. But still…there was a wrongness to this conversation. There was a wrongness to everything.
Jennie the barmaid put their drinks onto the bar. “Five pounds twenty,” she said. She picked up her newspaper, and started to read once more. The little man went to the bar, paid, and brought back the drinks.
“So how long are you in Scotland?” asked the little man.
Shadow shrugged. “I wanted to see what it was like. Take some walks. See the sights. Maybe a week. Maybe a month.”
Jennie put down her newspaper. “It’s the arse-end of nowhere up here,” she said, cheerfully. “You should go somewhere interesting.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said the little man. “It’s only the arse-end of nowhere if you look at it wrong. See that map, laddie?” He pointed to a fly-specked map of Northern Scotland on the opposite wall of the bar. “You know what’s wrong with it?”
“No.”
“It’s upside down!” the man said, triumphantly. “North’s at the top. It’s saying to the world that this is where things stop. Go no further. The world ends here. But you see, that’s not how it was. This wasn’t the north of Scotland. This was the southernmost tip of the Viking world. You know what the second most northern county in Scotland is called?”
Shadow glanced at the map, but it was too far away to read. He shook his head.
“Sutherland!” said the little man. He showed his teeth. “The South Land. Not to anyone else in the world it wasn’t, but it was to the Vikings.”
Jennie the barmaid walked over to them. “I won’t be gone long,” she said. “Call the front desk if you need anything before I get back.” She put a log on the fire, then she went out into the hall.
“Are you a historian?” Shadow asked.
“Good one,” said the little man. “You may be a monster, but you’re funny. I’ll give you that.”
“I’m not a monster,” said Shadow.
“Aye, that’s what monsters always say,” said the little man. “I was a specialist once. In St. Andrews. Now I’m in general practice. Well, I was. I’m semiretired. Go in to the surgery a couple of days a week, just to keep my hand in.”
“Why do you say I’m a monster?” asked Shadow.
“Because,” said the little man, lifting his whisky glass with the air of one making an irrefutable point, “I am something of a monster myself. Like calls to like. We are all monsters, are we not? Glorious monsters, shambling through the swamps of unreason….” He sipped his whisky, then said, “Tell me, a big man like you, have you ever been a bouncer? ‘Sorry mate, I’m afraid you can’t come in here tonight, private function going on, sling your hook and get on out of it,’ all that?”
“No,” said Shadow.
“But you must have done something like that?”
“Yes,” said Shadow, who had been a bodyguard once, to an old god; but that was in another country.
“You, uh, you’ll pardon me for asking, don’t take this the wrong way, but do you need money?”
“Everyone needs money. But I’m okay.” This was not entirely true; but it was a truth that, when Shadow needed money, the world seemed to go out of its way to provide it.
“Would you like to make a wee bit of spending money? Being a bouncer? It’s a piece of piss. Money for old rope.”
“At a disco?”
“Not exactly. A private party. They rent a big old house near here, come in from all over at the end of the summer. So last year, everybody’s having a grand old time, champagne out of doors, all that, and there was some trouble. A bad lot. Out to ruin everybody’s weekend.”
“These were locals?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Was it political?” asked Shadow. He did not want to be drawn into local politics.
“Not a bit of it. Yobs and hairies and idiots. Anyway. They probably won’t come back this year. Probably off in the wilds of nowhere demonstrating against international capitalism. But just to be on the safe side, the folk up at the house’ve asked me to look out for someone who could do a spot of intimidating. You’re a big lad, and that’s what they want.”
“How much?” asked Shadow.
“Can you handle yourself in a fight, if it came down to it?” asked the man.
Shadow didn’t say anything. The little man looked him up and down, and then he grinned again, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Fifteen hundred pounds, for a long weekend’s work. That’s good money. And it’s cash. Nothing you’d ever need to report to the tax man.”
“This weekend coming?” said Shadow.
“Starting Friday morning. It’s a big old house. Part of it used to be a castle. West of Cape Wrath.”
“I don’t know,” said Shadow.
“If you do it,” said the little gray man, “you’ll get a fantastic weekend in a historical house, and I can guarantee you’ll get to meet all kinds of interesting people. Perfect holiday job. I just wish I was younger. And, uh, a great deal taller, actually.”
Shadow said “Okay,” and as soon as he said it, wondered if he would regret it.
“Good man. I’ll get you more details as and when.” The little gray man stood up, and gave Shadow’s shoulder a gentle pat as he walked past. Then he went out, leaving Shadow in the bar on his own.
II
Shadow had been on the road for about eighteen months. He had backpacked across Europe and down into northern Africa. He had picked olives and fished for sardines and driven a truck and sold wine from the side of a road. Finally, several months ago, he had hitchhiked his way back to Norway, to Oslo, where he had been born thirty-five years before.
He was not sure what he had been looking for. He only knew that he had not found it, although there were moments, in the high ground, in the crags and waterfalls, when he was certain that whatever he needed was just around the corner: behind a jut of granite, or in the nearest pine wood.
Still, it was a deeply unsatisfactory visit, and when, in Bergen, he was asked if he would be half of the crew of a motor yacht on its way to meet its owner in Cannes, he said yes.
They had sailed from Bergen to the Shetlands, and then to the Orkneys, where they spent the night in a bed and breakfast in Stromness. Next morning, leaving the harbor, the engines had failed, ultimately and irrevocably, and the boat had been towed back to port.
Bjorn, who was the captain and the other half of the crew, stayed with the boat, to talk to the insurers and field the angry calls from the boat’s owner. Shadow saw no reason to stay: he took the ferry to Thurso, on the north coast of Scotland.
He was restless. At night he dreamed of freeways, of entering the neon edges of a city where the people spoke English. Sometimes it was in the Midwest, sometimes it was in Florida, sometimes on the East Coast, sometimes on the West.
When he got off the ferry he bought a book of scenic walks, and picked up a bus timetable, and he set off into the world.
Jennie the barmaid came back, and started to wipe all the surfaces with a cloth. Her hair was so blonde it was almost white, and it was tied up at the back in a bun.
“So what is it people do around here for fun?” asked Shadow.
“They drink. They wait to die,” she said. “Or they go south. That pretty much exhausts your options.”