Ken McClure - Deception

When evening came and the tide finally swept in to cover the sand pies and the ornate castle they had spent so long building, Steven and the three children stood in a line and watched in silence. A moment came when Jenny looked up at him and a lump came to his throat when he saw the sadness in her eyes. For a moment, just a fleeting moment, they were Lisa’s eyes. ‘Cheer up,’ he said softly. ‘There will be other days. I promise.’

Twenty minutes into the journey home and all three children fell asleep. Steven switched on the radio but kept it low. He managed to catch the news on Radio Scotland and heard the word, Blackbridge, mentioned. It sounded loud because he was sensitised to it after reading about it in the file he’d gone through so thoroughly. It was like hearing your own name spoken in a crowded room. Turning up the volume a little, he took in a report on an abortive attempt to damage the experimental crop on Peat Ridge Farm. Although the police had got there on time to prevent the planned arson attack, and no charges had subsequently been made, feelings were running high in the village and the farm owner had now decided to go ahead with plans to call in a private security firm.

There followed an interview with Ronald Lane, who spoke with a South African accent and insisted that the rule of law must be upheld. An unfortunate accent for that kind of assertion, thought Steven. This was followed by a ‘balancing’ interview featuring an inarticulate ramble from a villager about ‘them’ not really knowing if things were safe or not. The report ended and Steven turned off the radio. He adjusted his rear view mirror momentarily to take a look at the three in the back. They looked like sleeping cherubs, cheeks all rosy from their day in the sunshine.

Steven left at ten next morning amidst much waving and promises to be back soon but there was a last minute hitch when Robin decided that he must have left one of his toy spacemen in Steven’s car. A quick search of the back uncovered the missing astronaut, trapped down the back of the rear seat squab where his ray gun had been of little use. The sky grew progressively darker as he headed north and it started raining just after eleven, turning the dual carriageway into a series of spray curtains thrown up by heavy lorries. By twelve o’clock, when he entered Blackbridge, it was coming down in torrents.

Maybe it was the darkness or maybe it was the fact that it was raining heavily but Steven took an immediate dislike to the place. It seemed to have very little in the way of redeeming features; an ugly little village full of ugly houses in the middle of nowhere, although, in reality, it wasn’t that far from the capital. He felt it was the sort of place you would normally splash through in the car without even noticing. Two sweeps of the wipers and it would be gone.

Steven toured the streets slowly, taking in as much as he could and generally orientating himself with the actuality of what he’d studied on the map. He kept the said map sat on the seat beside him, referring to it from time to time to identify things. Finally he drove up the hill that separated Peat Ridge Farm from Crawhill Farm, crossing the bridge over the canal near the top where he thought about the three boys who’d had the canal adventure.

At the top of the road, he turned off into the track that would lead up to Peat Ridge Farm, just with the intention of turning his car round. Two men in yellow waterproofs stepped out in front of him. One had an Alsatian dog on a short lead, the other a mobile phone in his hand. Steven opened the car window, getting wet in the process.

‘What’s your business?’ rasped the one with the phone.

‘Just turning my car,’ replied Steven.

‘Don’t bloody do it here in future,’ snapped the man.

‘Gotcha,’ smiled Steven, noting the logo on the man’s poncho that said he belonged to, Sector 1 Security. He drove back down to the village. The rain was keeping everyone off the streets. He wasn’t going to learn anything by walking around today. He’d have to do his snooping indoors. That gave him a choice of two places. There was a grim looking pub at the East End of Main Street called the Castle Tavern and there was a small white-painted hotel in the middle called, The Blackbridge Arms.

The hotel had a number of official looking cars parked outside it so Steven concluded that this was where anyone from MAFF or the Scottish Executive would be. He was impressed that they were working on a Sunday, or maybe the English contingent was actually staying there, he considered. He knew that the risk of meeting anyone he knew or of seeing anyone that he recognised would be small but he decided not to take it anyway. Macmillan had said that this was to be an unofficial look around so he opted instead for the pub.

The Castle Tavern was as ugly and dirty on the inside as it was on the outside but it seemed popular: in fact, on a Sunday afternoon, it was crowded. His immediate thought on entering was that the atmosphere seemed positively aggressive but then he reminded himself that a Scots accent could make the Lord’s Prayer sound aggressive. There were simply a lot of men in the room, all of them apparently talking at the same time.

As he entered, he took in the layout of the place, noting that there were tables and chairs to the left of the door, all occupied and with several domino games in progress. There were two pool tables off to the right and a bank of electronic games machines sited along the long wall behind them; they were adding electronic noise to the general cacophony.

One of the men at the pool table turned as Steven entered and said in a deliberately loud voice, ‘Fuck, here’s another one o’ them.’ It made his friends laugh. It made Steven wonder what he was supposed to be. He made his way to the bar counter and saw the barman deliberately adopt a neutral expression. He asked for a beer and was served and charged without a word being exchanged.

Steven took a sip of his beer and looked about him, observing the beer slops on the plastic bar top, the uncleared tables, the thick blue tobacco fug in the air and the ring of cigarette butts on the floor around the bar. He heard the word ‘fuck’ so many times in its various forms in the first few minutes that he was reminded of an assertion in some recent radio programme that swearing was so much on the increase that soon all other words in the English language would become extinct. ‘Fuck’ would be the only word left for communication purposes. Information and ideas would be exchanged through the use of different inflections on it. The suggestion was being given a serious try-out by Sunday lunchtime drinkers in Blackbridge.

‘So, what paper are you with?’ asked a voice at his elbow.

Steven turned to find a short man with ginger hair and a moustache standing there. ‘I’m not,’ he replied. ‘I’m not a journalist.’

‘Sorry, I thought you must be one of the English stringers,’ said the man. ‘I’m Alex McColl, by the way. I’m covering the attack on the GM crop story for the Clarion.’

‘I heard there had been some kind of trouble,’ said Steven. ‘It was on the car radio.’

‘Not much of a story. The police got there before the buggers could set fire to the crop like they’d planned.’

‘You sound disappointed.’

‘One man’s misfortune is another’s front page story,’ said McColl. ‘You’re a stranger here; what line are you in?’

‘I’m a civil servant.’

‘Another one? Place is crawling with them. How come you’re not drinking with your mates up at the Arms?’

‘I’ve just arrived. I don’t know my way about yet. This was the first place I came to. How come you’re not there if it’s a story you’re after?’