‘We’re bored stiff,’ complained Barron when Dewar spoke to him in the afternoon. ‘What the hell are they waiting for?’
‘I’m damned if I know,’ replied Dewar. ‘But it sure isn’t going to come from the institute now. The Porton mob took away the lot.’
‘Maybe they’re just sitting tight to make us think we were wrong all along,’ suggested Barron.
‘Or maybe they’re waiting until a new target institute’s been identified and then they’ll move on.’
‘As long as it isn’t in the UK,’ said Barron.
‘Self, self, self,’ said Dewar.
Karen phoned just after five to say that she had arrived at her mother’s. When would he be joining them?’
‘About seven?’ replied Dewar tentatively.
‘No excuses,’ replied Karen in a sotto voce voice that suggested her mother was listening in.’
‘Would I?’ said Dewar.
‘Hmmm.’
As good as his word, Dewar turned up at the house in North Berwick just before seven and kissed Karen lightly on the cheek before doing the same to her mother and saying, ‘Good to see you again, Jean.’
‘I understand you’re working in Edinburgh just now, Adam. What brings you up here?’
‘A problem at one of the research institutes,’ replied Dewar, accepting the glass of sherry that Karen held out to him.
‘Nothing to do with that foreign student who hanged himself a few weeks ago by any chance?’
‘He was a student at the same institute,’ conceded Dewar.
‘Foreigners,’ snorted Jean, ‘Intrinsically unstable.’
Dewar looked at Karen who shot him a warning glance.
Dewar said nothing. He had prepared himself for an evening of reactionary nonsense from the woman in tweeds. He was not to be disappointed as Jean put forth her views on the absolute necessity of arming the police, using the handle of her knife to emphasise important points by banging it down on the table. She followed up with a treatise on repatriation of coloureds and the introduction of more stringent immigration laws. Finally she outlined her master plan of imposing curfews on all UK streets after ten in the evening. She was of course, willing to relax regulations on certain days like new years eve — ‘I’m not a monster, Adam.’ — and certain other festive dates. Naturally some people would have to be exempted from the rules.
Dewar couldn’t help but feel that among those would almost certainly be certain elderly women, wearing tweeds, body warmers and substantial stockings who lived in large comfortable houses in North Berwick on money left to them by their late husbands.
Karen, suspecting that Dewar’s patience was running thin, suggested that he and she should have a walk round the harbour before doing the dishes. Dewar leapt at the chance.
‘How come you turned out normal?’ he asked Karen as they walked down the cobbled street leading to the harbour.
‘She’s not as awful as she sounds,’ said Karen. ‘She has a good heart really.’
‘I’ll take your word for that,’ said Dewar ruefully.
‘Granddad — Mum’s father, was a colonel in the army like Dad. She’s always been used to standards influenced by the ruling classes. She didn’t like it when the world changed so she and her friends built a little world for themselves. They stick together and pretend nothing’s changed. They all have money so it’s not difficult to find tradesmen and professional people who will pander to them and maintain the illusion.
‘That still doesn’t answer my question. You’re not like her.’
‘I might have been had I not gone to university and learned to think for myself. Then I did voluntary service overseas and saw just how little some people had to live on. Working in Public Health has been a bit of an eye opener too, seeing just how little some people in this country have. Unlike my mother, I know what the real world’s like; I’m not afraid of it like she is. I have no illusions about it but I don’t feel threatened all the time. I feel okay.’
Dewar put his hand on Karen’s buttock and squeezed lightly. ‘Yup, you do,’ he agreed.
‘Trust you to lower the tone.’
‘Now you’re sounding like your mother.’
Karen gave him an elbow in the ribs and said, ‘You haven’t told me how your investigation’s going.’
Dewar told her what he could.
Karen shivered slightly and Dewar suggested they start back. ‘You are going to stay over?’ she asked.
‘If you want me too.’
‘Of course I want you to. Mother would take it as a personal slight if you didn’t.’
‘Even though she can’t stand the sight of me?’ said Dewar.
‘Don’t be silly. Being slightly to the right of Mussolini herself, she sees you as an incipient red menace because you care about people and tend to say so.’
‘So do you in your job,’ said Dewar.
‘Ah but she sees that differently. She thinks of me as doing charity work People like her have always done that. You know, the knitting socks for soldiers bit, the WVS tea van, driving ambulances and the like.
Dewar took a deep breath before they entered the house and Karen smiled. ‘I’m proud of you,’ she said. ‘Keep it up. She’s an early bedder.’
Karen’s mother asked if they’d noticed the graffiti down by the harbour. They hadn’t. ‘Young thugs with nothing better to do with themselves,’ declared Jean, using this as a starting point to expound her views on the shortcomings of the young and how they should be tackled. ‘And what do they get if they’re caught? Probation,’ she snorted. ‘As if that’s going to stop them. They’re laughing at authority, that’s what they’re doing.’
‘I think I know how to stop recidivism,’ said Dewar.
Karen shot him a warning glance but it was too late.
‘Really Adam?’
‘Hang first offenders,’ said Dewar with a straight face.
‘Well, you know my views about hanging, dear … ‘ Jean began then she realised she was being mocked. ‘That’s silly, Adam,’ she said with a sour expression.
Karen closed her eyes momentarily then said, ‘It’s about time we did the dishes, Adam.’
‘Right.’
‘I think I’ll go up to bed dear,’ said Jean. ‘I think I’ve got a migraine coming on.’ She kissed Karen on the cheek and said a frosty good night to Dewar.
‘And you were doing so well,’ said Karen, making a start to the washing up.
Dewar came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. ‘Sorry,’ he said, nuzzling her neck.
Karen moved her head to one side and held up her rubber gloved hands. ‘Don’t think you’re going to get round me that way,’ she said but she was smiling.
‘Are you going to let me come to your room?’
‘No, we agreed, it’s right next to Mother’s.’
‘Well, you can come to mine.’
‘You’re on the other side of her,’ said Karen.
‘I bet she planned it that way,’ complained Dewar. ‘With all that military background in the family, I bet she’s a tactical genius.
‘A little exercise in self restraint won’t do you any harm at all,’ said Karen.
‘On the other hand … ‘ said Dewar sliding his hands down on to Karen’s hips.
‘What? … ‘
‘I could have you right here over the kitchen sink.’ He slid his hands down further to grip Karen’s skirt and start hitching it up.
‘Adam!’ protested Karen in a stage whisper.
Dewar continued to nuzzle the side of her neck as he brought her skirt right up over her bottom and drew her back into him.
‘I don’t really … think this … is a very …good idea,’ moaned Karen in a voice that suggested it wasn’t entirely a bad one. ‘You randy b … ‘
‘Karen darling, I should have said, you really must use up the … ‘ Jean’s voice behind them faded away. Dewar closed his eyes and prayed for the ground to open up. Karen just froze.
‘Well, really!’
‘Oh God, tell me that didn’t happen,’ prayed Dewar aloud.