Tam’s mouth opened and uttered strange Scottish sounds which might have been asking if Charles was ready to go straight away.
‘Yes,’ he hazarded. ‘Will I need a rod?’
Tam laughed derisively. Legal fishing methods were obviously a myth created for the tourists.
They set off, following the burn up the hill. Conversation was limited. Tam would occasionally comment on things they passed (a dead sheep, for example) and all Charles’ acting skill would be required to choose the right ‘Yes’, ‘Really?’, ‘Too true’, ‘Did they indeed?’ or omnipurpose grunt. He did not have the confidence to initiate subjects himself, reacting was safer. Mr Pilch’s words came back to him. ‘They’re a proud lot, the locals. Oh yes, you have to be careful what you say. And they have this great loyalty to their masters. In many ways, it’s still an almost feudal society. Very poor though, I’m afraid. Not a lot of jobs available round here. It’ll change of course when the oil comes-if it comes, which heaven forbid. You know there are plans to put up platforms just outside Loch Fyne? I hope they don’t ruin the West Coast. Eh?’
None of that offered very promising conversational topics. What’s it like being proud? Or living in a feudal society? Are you really very poor? What is your feeling about the proposed development of natural oil resources off the West Coast of Scotland? Somehow none of these seemed quite the right question to ask Tam, and fortunately the gamekeeper did not appear to find the silence irksome.
At last he indicated that they had reached their destination. It was the linked series of pools where Charles had been the day before. Again the trees overhead changed the note of the running stream and the heavy dripping of rain was muffled.
‘Do the salmon really get up this far?’
Tam managed to communicate that they certainly did. He had got a twenty-pounder out a good half mile farther up into the hills.
‘Whereabouts do they go? Do we just look for them swimming about in the pools?’
Apparently not. In these conditions they lay still just under the bank. The skill was to spot them and whip them out of the water quickly. Tam would demonstrate.
They edged slowly down the slippery rocks to the waters edge. As they drew closer, the noise of the water increased. Swollen by rain, the cataracts pounded down on the rocks below. It was easy to see how the deep cleft had been worn down into the rock over the years.
Silently and efficiently, Tam lay down on the rocks at the waterside and peered into the bubbling green depths.
‘Anything?’ Charles hissed and was reprimanded by a finger on Tam’s lips. The gamekeeper slid crabwise along the rocks, still looking down. Then he froze for a moment and got up.
‘Big one,’ he whispered. Either Charles was getting used to the accent or it was clearer close to.
‘Where?’
‘Directly under that rock. Have a look. But be quiet and don’t move suddenly.’
Charles eased himself down to a kneeling position and, with his hands gripping the slimy edge of the pool, moved his head slowly out over the water.
At that moment his left hand slipped. It saved his life. As his body lurched sideways, he saw the flash of the brass head of Tam’s Priest as it came down. The blow aimed to the skull landed with agonising force on Charles’ shoulder.
The shock of the attack stunned him even more than its violence. For a moment he lay there, the rocks hard under his back, his hair soaked with spray from the pounding water just below. Then he saw Tam advancing towards him with the Priest again upraised.
The gamekeeper must have thought he had knocked his victim out; he was unprepared for the kick in the stomach that Charles managed from his prone position. Tam staggered back clutching himself, reeled for a moment at the water’s edge, then fell safely on to the rocks.
Charles had one aim, which was to get the hell out of the place. Winding his assailant had given him the opportunity. He scrambled manically over the slimy rocks, grabbing at tussocks and branches to heave himself up the gradient. His right arm screeched with pain like a gear lever in a broken gearbox. But he was getting away.
He turned for a moment. Tam was standing now, but Charles had the start. Then he saw something whip out and uncoil from the gamekeeper’s hand. As the treble hooks bit into his leg and he felt the inexorable pull down towards the boiling cauldron below, Charles knew it was the ripper.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
O’er all there hung a shadow and a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!
In the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh Charles said a little prayer of thanks, and reflected how frustrating it must be for God only to be in demand in times of danger, like a brilliant tap-dancer waiting for tap-dancing to come back into fashion. Still, God had saved his life and Charles Paris was suitably grateful.
There was no other explanation than divine intervention. The pain from his shoulder and the long furrows gouged in his left leg made the scene hard to forget. He could see the bank slipping past him as he was dragged painfully down to the water. He could feel the kick in the stomach with which Tam had immobilised him, and see the Priest again raised for a blow that was not going to miss.
And then, as Charles closed his eyes and vainly attempted to put his mental affairs in order, the threat vanished. Almost literally. The blow seemed a long time coming, so he crept one eye open. And Tam had disappeared.
The gamekeeper’s foot must have slipped on the rocks and, caught off balance, he had fallen into the water. The force of the stream had swept him over the ledge of one pool and into the next, where he floated round like a giant face-cloth with a bubble of air caught in it.
Charles had tried to disengage the ripper from his leg, but the pain was too great, so he used a long stick to guide the body to the water’s edge. Then, using both arms (though the right one felt as if it was being severed from his torso with a blow lamp), he had heaved the sodden mass on to the bank.
To his amazement, he found that Tam was still alive, unconscious, but with a strong heartbeat and pulse. Rediscovering a scrap of knowledge that had lain dormant since some aunt had given him a Boy Scout diary in his teens, Charles turned the body over and, after working the shoulders for a few minutes, was rewarded by a flow of water from the injured man’s mouth. He then reckoned it was safe to leave Tam there; there was no danger of either death or escape. The body was propped up against a mossy bank and Charles started his painful course back to the hotel.
Mr Parker took control with instant efficiency. Suddenly Clachenmore did not seem so isolated. A doctor was summoned and a party of local forestry workers who were in the bar went off to fetch Tam.
The doctor did not comment on the story of two men slipping on the bank, Tam falling into the water and Charles getting tangled in the hooks and banging his shoulder on a rock; he just got on with the job. Removing the barbs of the hooks was the worst bit, but he was used to it. He explained that a pair of pliers was an essential part of a doctor’s equipment in that area, though most of the hooks he came across tended to be lodged in the cheeks of people walking behind over-enthusiastic fly-fishermen. Treble hooks, he admitted, were trickier, but the principle was the same-push the hook through until its barb stood clear of the flesh, snip it off with the pliers, and then work the remains of the hook out. While this excruciating operation was conducted, Charles made a rash vow that he would give up fishing; he had never thought what it felt like for the fish before.
In spite of the pain they caused, the scrapes on his leg were not deep. The highest one needed a couple of stitches, but the others were just cleaned and dressed. The shoulder presented even less problem. There was nothing broken, just severe bruising. The doctor strapped it into a sort of sling and went to tend the still-unconscious Tam, who had just been brought back.