But we had both inherited the combativity and competitiveness of our father, expressed through different outlets. I confess to have done reasonably well at my rugby and cricket and had found that I could turn my hand to most sports. Mike also had that gift but took up pursuits that I had not – squash, hockey, biking and the like. The only area where we had a real common interest – and that developed later – was on the golf course.
Mike had gone into the army. He had discovered that if he joined up as a student he could earn a salary whilst studying. The only commitment he had had to make was to stay in the service for seven years after graduating. This didn’t bother him at all and he had stayed on after his seven years and carved out a satisfactory career for himself. He had been able to retire in his fifties with a perfectly adequate pension.
He had seen the world, with service in the various trouble spots across the disappearing British Empire, until he was, much to his regret, superseded by a younger generation. During the last fifteen years of his service he developed his administrative talents in a series of logistics postings. He had never married and now lived in Forfar, in striking distance of the Cairngorms, with Oscar, his black Labrador, where they could both continue to keep fit by wandering off into the mountains for a few days whenever he felt like it.
He was inordinately proud of his dog, claiming to have trained him to sniff out drugs at twenty metres, and he maintained that he could find his way home on his own from anywhere within fifty miles away. I hadn’t believed this piece of boasting and, a couple of years ago, Mike had proposed a bet (a green fee at Gleneagles) that he would prove it. We had driven forty miles up into the mountains and he had simply stopped out in the wilds, let Oscar out of the car and we had driven off back home. He had turned up two days later for breakfast. And on top of that Mike had beaten me three and two over the King’s course the next Tuesday.
I decided I would tell Mike first about his new brother and then we would both discuss breaking the news to Heather and Oliver.
I phoned Forfar and got him at home. “Hi, Mike, how’s life?” I asked. His cool, laid-back voice came back down the wire. “Fine, but unfortunately a bit quiet. I’ve been planning a hike but I’m going to have to delay it because the forecast is looking a bit dodgy.”
“Good,” I replied. “Fancy a bite to eat this evening? We haven’t seen each other in a while and I have to be over in Dundee this afternoon. Why don’t you drive down and I’ll buy you supper?”
We arranged a time and place to meet and I spent the rest of the afternoon going over all that Pierre had told me – trying to adjust to the concept of the newly-enlarged family.
Everything he had said had rung true and I found I liked him. I had absolutely no reason to doubt his story but, on the other hand, I had no way of checking any of it. Dad was dead and he had kept nothing from his time in France. Also, if it was all made up, what possible reason could Pierre have of inventing such a tale? It’s not as if there was an estate to claim or any potential material advantage that could come his way. Could there be some other motive? Then I remembered that he had said that there were two reasons for the dinner invitation. What could the second one be?
Chapter 3
Mike arrived at the small Italian restaurant just five minutes after me. I was already seated at the table which I had reserved in advance. He breezed in, causing a few female heads to turn as he made his way over to me.
Although still a bachelor, and liking it that way, he had never had any trouble in attracting the opposite sex. He was not a big man but he had presence. His graying hair was kept short, military fashion, his features were clean cut, his skin tanned from his outdoor life and he projected an aura of total self-confidence, without any hint of egoism. I’m here, I enjoy life, take me as I am or leave it, it doesn’t bother me.
Not long after he had bought his current house and decided to settle down I had paid him a visit. I had been amused to discover that, in his living room, he had a collection of fifteen or twenty framed pictures on the walls and on the bookcases of attractive women of various ages and seemingly different nationalities.
“All your conquests?” I had asked him. “Not all,” he had replied with a grin. “A bit strange to put them all on display,” I said. “It sort of happened by accident,” he replied and then proceeded to explain.
“In fact the whole idea started as a bit of joke years ago. I had a couple of pictures then and I once forgot to hide them when I invited someone back for the night. On that particular occasion the girl stayed for about a week and then left to go back to Australia. A week later I got a parcel through the post with that photograph over there inside it”.
He pointed to the photo of a fun-looking brunette smiling at the camera, perched on the roots of a palm tree on what looked like a tropical beach.
I strolled over and picked it up for a closer look. As I was putting it back I noticed the message scrawled in blue ink on the back “For your collection! – X”.
“So I decided to leave them out permanently and the collection has just ‘kinda grown’ – like Topsy,” he said with a grin. “I suppose I must attract the type of girl that doesn’t have any permanent designs on me so they think it’s rather fun and when they send me photos ‘for my collection’ I stick them up!”
I didn’t mind his collection at all, but I did know that Heather was rather disapproving of it.
“Well, how’s tricks?” he asked, as he sat down, “and what world-shattering event has induced you to put your hand in your pocket to buy your wee brother a meal? It’s you that’s paying, isn’t it?”
“Oh, nothing much. I’ll tell you after we’ve ordered – and, yes, I’ll pay this time.”
We dispensed with the logistics of ordering lasagne and a bottle of wine, and after a bit of small talk – Seen Heather recently? – How’s Oscar? – I decided to plunge in, but not without dipping my foot in the water first to judge the temperature.
“Mike, did Dad ever talk to you much about the time he was in France during the war? He never discussed it much with me but, you being in the army, I wondered if he spoke to you about any of his experiences.”
“Nope – hardly a word. All I know is that he was some kind of a liaison officer with the Resistance and it was a question of living on your nerves non-stop for months. I think he lost a few friends and I just assumed he didn’t want to drag up old, bad memories.”
Or perhaps old good memories, I thought to myself. We had, all three, been very fond of Dad – perhaps the relationship with the boys had been closer because we had had more common ground – sport especially – and he had been an only child and hadn’t been quite so comfortable with girls. I was hoping that Mike’s reaction to the news I was about to tell him would be much the same as mine. I suspected it would.
“Why?” He looked at me thoughtfully, put down his fork and took a sip of his wine. “That’s something we’ve never talked about before – so what’s the reason now? Has something cropped up to do with that?”
“Not something, but someone.” He looked intrigued. “Someone who was out there with him? Whoever it is he must be in his nineties by now. Go on.”
“Well, yesterday I had a visitor – a Frenchman – who said he was over here on holiday and he invited me out to dinner at Fernie Castle. He seemed a pleasant enough guy so I accepted.”
“Very nice too. But how did you manage? You don’t speak much French.”
“Oh, that was OK. He speaks perfectly good English. And shut up for a minute. Don’t interrupt while I tell you what happened.”