by Francis: TO THE HILT

She gave me a sideways glance. 'Have you banged your face?'

'Mm,' I said.

She gave me up as a prospect and dumped me half a mile from the trains. I walked, ruefully thinking of the offer I'd declined. I'd been celibate too long. It had become a habit. Bloody feeble, all the same, to pass up a free lunch. My ribs hurt.

Lights were going on everywhere when I reached the station and I was glad of the minimum shelter of its bare ticket office, as the air temperature was dropping alarmingly towards night. Shivering and blowing on my fingers I made a telephone call, endlessly grateful that this instrument at least was in fine working order and not suffering from a clone of Donald Cameron.

A reverse charge call via the operator.

A familiar Scots voice spluttered at the far end, talking first to the operator, then to me. 'Yes, of course I'll pay for the call… Is that really you, Al? What the heck are you doing at Dalwhinnie?'

'Catching the night train to London. The Royal Highlander.'

'It doesn't go for hours.'

'No… What are you doing at this moment?'

'Getting ready to leave the office and drive home to Flora and a good dinner.'

'Jed…'

He heard more in my voice than just his name. He said sharply, 'Al? What's the matter?'

'I… um… I've been burgled,' I said. Td… um… I'd be very glad of your help.'

After a short silence he said briefly, 'I'm on my way,' and the line went quiet.

Jed Parlane was my uncle's factor, the man who managed the Kinloch Scottish estates. Though he'd been in the job less than four years we had become the sort of friends that took goodwill from each other for granted. He would come. He was the only one I would have asked.

He was forty-six, a short stocky Lowland Scot from Jedburgh (hence his name), whose plain common sense had appealed to my uncle after the turmoil stirred up by an arrogant predecessor. Jed had calmed the resentful tenants and spent maintenance money oiling many metaphorical gates, so that the huge enterprise now ran at a peaceful profit. Jed, the wily Lowlander, understood and used the Highlander's stubborn pride; and I'd learned more from him about getting my own way than perhaps he realised.

He came striding into Dalwhinnie station after his twelve or more mile drive to reach me, and stood foursquare in front of where I sat on a brown-painted bench against a margarine wall.

'You've hurt your face,' he announced. 'And you're cold.'

I stood up stiffly, the overall pain no doubt showing. I said, 'Does the heater work in your car?'

He nodded without speaking and I followed him outside to where he'd parked. I sat in his front passenger seat while he re-started the engine and twiddled knobs to bring out hot air, and I found myself unexpectedly shuddering from the physical relief.

'OK,' he said, switching on the car's internal light, 'so what's happened to your face? You're going to have a hell of a black eye. That left-hand side of your forehead and temple is all swollen…' He stopped, sounding uncertain. I was not, I guessed, my usual picture of glowing good health.

'I got head-butted,' I said. 'I got jumped on and bashed about and robbed, and don't laugh.'

'I'm not laughing.'

I told him about the four pseudo hill-walkers and the devastation in the bothy.

'The door isn't locked,' I said. 'They took my keys. So tomorrow maybe you'll take your own key along there - though there's nothing left worth stealing…'

'I'll take the police,' he said firmly, aghast.

I nodded vaguely.

Jed pulled a notebook and pen from inside his jacket and asked for a list of things missing.

'My jeep,' I said gloomily, and told him its number. 'Everything in it… food and stores, and so on. From the bothy they took my binoculars and camera and all my winter padded clothes and four finished paintings and climbing gear and some Glenlivet… and my golf clubs.'

'Al!'

'Well, look on the bright side. My bagpipes are in Inverness having new bits fitted, and I've sent my passport away for renewal.' I paused. 'They took all my cash and my credit card… I don't know its number, though it's somewhere on file in your office - will you alert them? - and they took my father's old gold watch. Anyway,' I finished, 'if you have a credit card with you, will you lend me a ticket to London?'

'I'll take you to a hospital.'

'No.'

'Then come home to Flora and me. We'll give you a bed.'

'No… but thanks.'

'Why London ?

'Ivan Westering had a heart attack.' I paused briefly, watching him assimilate the consequences. 'You know my mother… though I suppose you don't actually know her all that well… she would never ask me to help her but she didn't say not come, which was as good as an SOS… so I'm going.'

"The police will want you to give a statement.'

"The bothy is a statement.'

'Al, don't go.'

'Will you lend me the fare?'

He said, 'Yes, but-'

'Thanks, Jed.' I fished a piece of charcoal stick out of my shirt pocket and opened the sketch-pad I still carried. 'I'll draw them. It'll be better than just describing them.'

He watched me start and with a touch of awkwardness said, 'Were they looking for anything special?'

I glanced across at him with half a smile. 'One of them kept saying "Where is it?"'

Anxiously he said, 'Did you tell them?'

'Of course not.'

'If you'd told them, they might have stopped hitting you.'

'And they might have made sure I was dead, before they left.'

I drew the four men in a row, face on: knees, boots, glasses, air of threat.

'Anyway,' I said, 'they didn't say what they were looking for. They just said "Where is it ?" so it might have been anything . They might have been fishing for anything I valued. For what I valued most, if you see what I mean?'

He nodded.

I went on, 'They didn't call me by name. They'll know it now, because it was all over things in the jeep.' I finished the composite sketch and turned to a clean page. 'Do you remember those hikers who preyed on holidaymakers last year in the Lake District? They robbed trailers, mobile homes.'

'The police caught them,' Jed agreed, nodding. 'But those hikers didn't beat people and throw them down mountains.'

'Might be the same sort of thing, though. I mean, just opportunist theft.'

I drew the head of the 'Where is it?' man, as I remembered him the most clearly. I drew him without glasses.

'This is their leader,' I explained, shading planes into the bony face. 'I'm not good at voices and accents, but I'd say his was sloppy south-east England. Same with them all.'

'Hard men?'

"They'd all done time in a boxing gym, I'd say. Short-arm jabs, like at a punch-bag.' I swallowed. 'Out of my league.'

'Al…'

'I felt an utter fool.'

'That's illogical. No one could fight four at once.'

'Fight? I couldn't even connect .' I broke off, remembering. 'I scratched one of their faces… He was the one who crashed his head against mine.' I turned to a fresh page in the sketch-pad and drew again, and his face came out with a clawed cheek, eyes glaring through round glasses and a viciousness that leaped off the paper.

'You'd know him again,' Jed said with awe.

'I'd know them all.'

I gave him the sketch-pad. He looked from drawing to drawing, troubled and kind.

'Come home with Flora and me,' he repeated. 'You look bad.'

I shook my head. 'I'll be all right by tomorrow.'

'The next day is always the worst.'

'You're a laugh a minute.'

After a while he sighed heavily, went into the station and returned with tickets.

'I got you a sleeper for tonight, and an open return for whenever you come back. Ten oh one from here, arrives at Euston at seven forty-three in the morning.'