Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

Nevertheless, their presence bothered me. It was not as if they had paid me any attention when they had arrived; it was that they had gone out of their way not to pay me attention, or even look in my direction.

But the truth was my little trip into the village had been as much to show the dogs the hare as anything else.

I contemplatively swirled the last quarter of my tepid pint sluggishly around the glass, then I took the pipe out of my pocket and filled it, inexpertly, with tobacco, before quietly smoking it as I sat. Or at least sat quietly struggling to stop the pipe from going out while the two newcomers at the bar studiously avoiding looking in my direction.

I didn’t think they were policemen but, coppers or not, it made no sense that the two heavies at the bar were there on my account. Whatever the connection between Ellis and this part of the world, there was no way anyone could have known I was on my way up here. Unless, of course, mine host at the bar had been told to make a call if anyone out of the ordinary called in at his establishment. Maybe that would explain why it had taken so long for my mutton pie to arrive, lukewarm, in front of me.

Or maybe I was just letting my paranoia run away with me again.

I decided to put them to the test. I downed the last of the pint, got up and left. Again the only eyes on me were the geriatrics at the bar.

I walked to the bridge over the river and leaned on the stone parapet, smoking my pipe while really waiting to see how long it would take for the two burly types to come out of the inn. They didn’t.

A false alarm, clearly. If you’re going to get through this, Lennox, I thought to myself, then you’re going to have to calm down. Nothing gets a wanted man caught like panic. Or self-doubt.

I found my way to the far side of the village and started to hike uphill. The byway I was on was obviously used by occasional traffic, but was unmetalled and more like a farm track than anything. It took me up past the farm and its outbuildings, but it became clear there must have been a second, parallel route up to the large manor. I guessed that would be a better maintained way than the one I was on. As I passed the farm, I was aware of two men in the yard stopping whatever it was they were doing to watch me pass. I made sure I kept going, my pace unbroken and determined, like some wintertime nature lover striking out resolutely to attain the hilltop.

After a while, when I’d climbed a hundred feet or so, the path thinned out to little more than a trail or bridleway. I guessed I had reached the upper limit of the farm’s land and the path was now only for hill walkers. It took a turn behind an isolated copse before continuing up the hillside and I ducked into the trees. Tree cover was rare in Scotland. The entire country had originally been dense with the Great Caledonian Forest, in turn populated with bear, wolf, lynx and elk. Stone Age Scots, a breed still evident in parts of Glasgow, had eradicated more than ninety percent of the forest, with subsequent generations reducing it even more. Now there were only these odd clumps of ancient woodland. The bears, wolves, lynxes and elks had long ago gotten eviction orders.

I used the trees as cover while I checked out the farm through the binoculars. It had been a good fifteen minutes since I had passed it, but the two men in the yard had been joined by a third, and they were still looking up the path I had taken, as if they were waiting for me to re-emerge from behind the trees. There was a lot of discussion, then, eventually, they went back to their work, the third man returning to the farmhouse.

From this position, I could see not just the farm down and to my right, but also the manor-type house. I had been right about the approach to it: I saw a wider, metalled way leading down to the village, but coming out onto the main road on the other side of the inn, near the edge of the settlement. My guess was that this had been the historical route for the local laird to take, avoiding having to pass through the forelock-tugging riff-raff of the village.

I watched both locations alternately. There was no activity at the main house that I could see, and what there was at the farm was the expected drudgery of agricultural winter maintenance.

It was about an hour later when I saw the farmer — or at least the man I had seen coming out of the farmhouse to talk to the two workers — walk out through the farm gates and cross the fields, taking a direct route to the big house. There was no way of knowing if his visit was provoked by the presence of a stranger, or if he was simply the farm’s manager reporting to its owner in the laird’s house.

He certainly knew his place, going around to the back door before disappearing inside. He came out again half-an-hour later and strode back across the fields to the farm, never once looking in my direction.

Whatever the purpose of his visit, it didn’t provoke any activity and, after another hour, by which time the chill had succeeded in penetrating my clothing, I decided to strike off across country and down onto the road that ended at the gates of the big house.

By now, and given everything that had happened to me over the last few days, I didn’t care about being provocative. I wanted something to happen. Anything.

I slowed down as I passed the house. There it was: a name embossed on the gate capital. The name of the house. I was aware of my pulse in my ears as I passed it. This would confirm whether I had, after all of this time, found Tanglewood.

Collieluth House. I muttered a curse.

This name of the villa was Collieluth House. The farm over the way had been Collieluth Farm and, I guessed, the hamlet was called Collieluth.

I scanned the house, or as much of it as I could see through the gates. There was nothing unusual or untoward. No Hungarian heavies, no heavies of any denomination. No one on look-out. As far as I could see, I was passing by unnoticed and unremarked.

I tried not to panic. I was stuck up here in the middle of nowhere, another winter night closing in, without transport, having wrecked McBride’s prized Cresta. I had wasted time I could ill afford, money, and effort in chasing after ghosts, based on the flimsy evidence that a cross on a map looked like a T. And now, I was stuck here. To get transport back to Glasgow would attract a whole lot of attention, even if I just started walking and sticking my thumb out when the rare car, truck or tractor passed by.

I reached the road, walked all the way back through the village, across the bridge and headed back up the hillside to the bothy. I needed time to think everything through. I’d spend the night in the bothy. Something would come to me.

It would have to.

Back in the bothy, I lit a fire with some of the wood from the store. I was no longer worried about attracting the attention of Ellis’s Hungarian chums, but I was mindful that I was still a man on the run.

The only thing that stuck with me was the two men I had seen in the inn. It was a hell of a coincidence that they happened along just at the same time I had, tourists in a season that was as off-season as it was possible to be.

The bread I had brought with me was stale and hard, but I toasted it at the fire and heated up some beans from a tin on the billycan. Another mug of tea, swimming in leaves that I had to pick off my lips and from my teeth, warmed me up.

It was only seven p.m. but pitch dark outside. My feet and right shoulder were aching, so I piled up the fire, unrolled the sleeping bag and went to sleep.

I woke up twice through the night. The first time was when I heard a desperate screaming. I sat bolt upright, trying to work out if I’d dreamt the scream. Then I heard it again. And again. It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t human. A fox, it sounded like to me.