This was, Gaby supposed, the Laird of wherever they were, the owner of Dimross Castle. As she approached, Iqbal waved to Rajiv Rana, who came sauntering up to be introduced. He was in costume, sporting an outfit of what could only be described as disco tweed, a riot of marshy-greens and acid-yellows topped with a deerstalker hat. There was an awkward moment as he caught sight of her and hesitated. The bastard was actually looking around for an escape route. Gaby was stunned. Who did he think he was? She had been doing him the favour, not the other way round. She controlled her anger and waited while Rajiv was introduced to the red-faced man.
‘This is the Lord of Dimross. My Lord, this is our hero, Mr Rajiv Rana.’
‘Lord,’ said Rajiv. ‘It’s an honour to meet you. What a cool place you have.’
‘Um, thank you.’ Dimross turned rapidly to Gabriella. Beneath his fogeyish exterior he was probably in his early forties. He looked pleased to see her.
‘And who might this charming lady be?’
Iqbal made a vague gesture with his hands. ‘Our publicity girl, Camilla — Jamila-ah —’
‘Gabriella Caro. How do you do?’
Dimross shook her hand vigorously. ‘Dimross. How do you do? Call me Kenny. Are you part of this outfit, then?’
‘I work for a public-relations company in London. You’re very lucky to live in such a beautiful place.’
‘Thank you, my dear. Of course there was nothing here at all eighty years ago. Just a pile of rubble.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Oh, yes. Absolutely true. Once upon a time there was some kind of fortification on the rocks over there, but it all collapsed. Or was it razed? I can never remember. My grandfather was something of a romantic. Sword in the stone and all that. Made a lot of money in coal and got it into his head that he ought to have a family seat. So he bought the title and most of the land hereabouts and built the place from the ground up. Rather successfully, if one does say so oneself
Gabriella was disappointed. ‘I thought it was medieval.’
Dimross looked perversely pleased by this. ‘Shows what an eye the old man had. It’s far more picturesque than any of the real ones, and the tourists certainly don’t know the difference. British heritage at its best, I’d say.’
Rajiv and Iqbal seemed annoyed that they were being ignored. Rajiv put an arm around Dimross’s shoulders and asked him if he hunted. Dimross gingerly removed it before he replied.
‘Well, depends what you mean. I own a grouse moor. And occasionally one shoots rabbits, that kind of thing.’
Rajiv promised him that if he were ever in India they would go hunting together. As a celebrity he could, he hinted, get government permits for certain species which were normally off limits. When he launched into a description of a shotgun he coveted, Gabriella had an opportunity to speak to Iqbal.
‘You’ll have to ask the mother,’ he said. ‘Everything goes through her now.’
She found Mrs Zahir enthroned on a folding chair, her face almost hidden behind a vast pair of dark glasses. One of the runners hovered nervously as she held a conversation with a man who was plainly a reporter. She peered at Gaby, who realized that her appearance was being assessed. A sour whiff of hostility rose up from the chair. Mrs Zahir finished the interview, shooed the man away, and snapped open her phone.
‘What pretty shoes,’ she said.
‘Thank you. What a pretty top.’
The atmosphere of malice was complete.
Gabriella waited while Mrs Zahir had a conversation with some kind of astrologer about the placement of her chair in relation to a nearby spotlight. She was concerned that the radiation was disrupting her connection to the healing energies of the universe. Ought she to move? The answer appeared to be yes, and the runner was duly instructed to shift the chair. Safely repo-sitioned two metres to the left, she turned her attention to Gaby, who explained what she wanted. After a ritual raising of difficulties, a phone call was eventually put through to Leela on the battlements. Yes, she was willing to talk to the press. Yes, in a group. Photos. All fine. Gaby set off to spread the good news.
She looked into the souvenir shop, tightly packed with kilted teddybears, tins of shortbread and books of soft-focus pictures. There were Glencoe Massacre board games and kits from which you could build a small cardboard croft. There was a cuddly midge. The best location for a press conference would clearly be the snack-bar. She borrowed one of the runners, told him to set out a table and went off to procure a microphone.
An hour later things had got completely out of hand.
One by one the vehicles had turned into the car park, ten, fifteen, twenty of them — outside-broadcast vans, taxis shared by squabbling newspaper people. They were from Taipei and Moscow and Frankfurt and LA. They had been told to get here as quickly as they could. The press pack, more or less manageable before, now numbered nearly 200. Backed into a corner by a jostling crowd who all had questions, special requirements and reasons for demanding priority over the others, Gaby found herself simultaneously trying to move the conference to the hotel and call her office for support. Finally she grabbed a particularly irritating tabloid reporter by the lapels and asked her what the hell they were all doing there.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she told Dan Bridgeman a few minutes later. ‘There’s a tape. Of the terrorist. No, I don’t know what he’s saying, but apparently it’s a message to her.’
By this time filming was impossible. Leela had fled inside the castle. Rocky was throwing a fit, screaming at anyone who came into range to clear his set. Gaby found that if she retreated behind the snackbar counter it was at least possible to limit the number of people who could get at her. Unhelpfully, Iqbal forced his way through and started to berate her for losing control of the situation. She did her best to be polite. Outside, the production manager failed to stop a pair of photographers rushing the bridge on to the island, and a brief fistfight took place between some riggers and a Portuguese news crew who had moved a reflector.
Standing at the counter facing the mêlée, Gaby felt like she was working the Saturday-night shift at the bar in hell. Miss Film Buzz was trying to attract her attention, waving and smiling ingratiatingly. From somewhere the woman had acquired a tam-o’-shanter hat, which perched in her hair like a Black Watch bird’s-nest. Through the window Gaby caught a momentary glimpse of Rajiv Rana, surrounded by a group of Asian teens. They seemed to be trying to remove his shirt.
Finally she made a break for it, telling anyone who caught on to her clothing that the press conference would now take place at the Clansman’s Lodge Hotel. She found Rob D. and growled at him to turn round one of the production vans, ready for a getaway. They managed to bundle Leela inside before being spotted, but Rob still had to inch his way on to the main road through a crowd of people holding cameras up to the windows and tapping on the glass.
Flash and shutterwhine. Leela sinking down in her seat. Her mother grinning and making clipped little royal waves at the lenses.
At the hotel, the manager bolted the doors. On the front lawn a line of TV reporters set up for pieces to camera, using the lake as a backdrop. Gaby took phone calls and tried to get a copy of the terrorist’s tape.