Jenny Colgan - Where Have All the Boys Gone?

Suddenly, she reached a clearing. As if out of nowhere, a building appeared amongst the trees. It consisted of a wood frame in a peculiar rhombus shape. The walls were sheer glass, rising diagonally outwards from the grassy forest floor. It looked exactly like what it was: the office of the forest. It was beautiful.

Katie got out of the now mud-encrusted car and took a deep breath. She could see two shadowy figures inside – presumably they could see her a lot better from the inside out. She squinted at the glass, trying to work out where the door was. She had a vision of herself walking straight into a wall and breaking her nose. Maybe she’d get sick leave and have to go straight home. And they’d give her a nose job on the NHS.

She spied the door and walked through it.

‘Hello?’ she said tentatively. There was no answer. She could hear voices, and stepped through the wood-panelled foyer.

‘Hello?’

Inside the large clean open-plan room, with a picture perfect view, two men were poring over a single newspaper.

‘Hello?’

‘PRICKWOBBLING DICKO!’ shouted one of the men suddenly. Katie recognised Harry’s voice immediately.

The other man was heavier set and his voice much more accented. ‘God, if only we had someone to deal with the bloody papers, like.’

‘Ta dah!’ exclaimed Katie.

Both the men whirled around, startled.

‘Yes?’ said Harry, his dark eyes flashing at her in a cross ‘can I help you?’ kind of a way.

She walked towards him, smiling confidently. ‘Hello, I’m Katie Watson.’

Harry stopped and looked her up and down, clearly trying to place her from somewhere.

‘Olivia at LiWebber sent me,’ she said. ‘For a temporary assignment.’

‘Hello,’ said the older man. ‘I’m…’

‘I remember you!’ said Harry. ‘You’re the girl that came up on the train!’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I think I asked them to send me somebody else. I’m sure I did. Didn’t I?’

Katie decided to ignore this, and shook hands with the other man.

‘Derek Cameron,’ he said. ‘I’m the…’ he coughed suddenly. ‘Executive assistant. Which isn’t like a secretary or anything. Nothing like it.’

‘Derek, make us both a coffee, while I sort this out,’ said Harry loftily.

‘Sure thing, boss,’ replied Derek, disappearing into the back.

‘Well,’ said Harry, sitting back in his armchair and eyeing her carefully. ‘Uh, welcome.’

‘Thank you,’ said Katie. He stared at her again, then blinked. With his dark eyes and thick curly hair, Katie suddenly realised who he reminded her of – Gordon Brown. When he was younger and thinner. Much younger and much thinner, she thought. But there was the same brooding, distracted air and lack of speaking terms with combs.

‘Find your way up all right from the big smoke?’

‘Yes,’ said Katie, ‘although we’re not staying in a very nice place.’

‘Really?’ he leaned over his desk, suddenly looking interested. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

Katie described at length the horrid food, scary demeanour and general grimness of the Water Lane guest-house. About halfway through, realising that Harry was still staring at her, she remembered suddenly that there were only about nine people living in the town and he must know all of them.

‘…so, but, actually, apart from that, it’s lovely, great and we’re very happy,’ she finished in a gush.

Harry was quiet.

‘She’s your mum, isn’t she?’

‘Not quite.’

‘Gran?’

‘Aunt, actually. Brought me up after my mum died.’

Uncharitably, Katie’s first thought was, ‘well, that explains a lot’. Her second was, ‘how annoying, having that to throw in every time you wanted to win a conversation’. Fortunately it was her third that actually came out of her mouth. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ said Harry. ‘And she couldn’t cook then either, to the best of my recollection.’

Katie stared at the floor, her face burning.

‘Well, anyway,’ said Harry finally. ‘I find it’s probably best to…buy your own sheets, stuff like that. There’s a woman in town gives you a discount if you tell her where you’re staying.’

‘Thanks,’ said Katie, thinking it best not to mention that the plans she and Louise had discussed that morning included moving out as soon as humanly possible, burning the place to the ground, then salting the land.

‘So, what’s my first assignment?’

Derek returned, bearing three cracked mugs bearing pictures of trees on the side. They said ‘Don’t commit TREEson, come see us this SEASON’.

These people need help, thought Katie.

‘The prickwobbling dicko,’ prompted Derek.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Harry. ‘Iain Kinross. Iain Kinross of the West Highland Times. Yes, yes. Iain Kinross.’

‘Our evil arch-nemesis,’ added Derek helpfully.

Harry brandished the paper and threw it down on the desk. ‘You have to sort him out.’

Katie picked up the paper.

‘He’s pursuing a vendetta against us,’ said Harry gravely. The headline read ‘Further Deciduous Cuts’. It meant nothing to Katie.

‘He writes that we’re killing all the trees.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘We start by weeding out the gay and disabled trees.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Derek.

‘No,’ said Katie, who’d come to this conclusion on her own.

‘Yes!’ said Harry indignantly. ‘Wages paid by me, both of you. Now, you –’ he pointed at Katie ‘– go into town. Introduce yourself to Kinross. Simper a bit, you know, do that girlie thing. Toss your hair a little.’

‘I will not,’ said Katie. ‘I’m not a horse.’

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘Just tell him you’re new here and that you were kind of hoping he’d go easy on you until you’ve settled in.’

‘That’s not the kind of thing I’ve usually found works on journalists,’ said Katie. ‘Especially not evil ones.’

‘Well, what’s your great plan then, Miss Whoever-you-are?’

Katie didn’t know, but given the atmosphere of outright hostility, she was on Iain Kinross’s side pretty much already. ‘Let me go and talk to him,’ she said, trying to sound professional.

‘Exactly. Bit of the old eyelash-fluttering. See, Derek, I told you a lassie would help things around here.’

‘Of course, boss.’

‘They’re like Mr Burns and Smithers.’

Katie had run into Louise with comparative ease, given that there were only three streets in Fairlish, and only one person on any of them.

‘Great,’ said Louise. ‘I’m starving. Let’s cut our losses and run. We could be in Glasgow in five hours, and it rocks.’

‘I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,’ said Katie, looking around her. ‘Do you know, Starbucks would clean up around here.’

‘Who from? Mrs Miggin’s pie shop?’ Louise pointed to a little bakers-cum-teashop. It still had the original round glass panes in its tiny windows, and was painted pink. It looked cosy and welcoming, with condensation fogging up the glass. ‘Why isn’t it that easy? They can take the high road, and we’ll take the low road, and we’ll be shopping at LK Bennett’s before them.’

The heavy bakery doors clanged as they walked in. The shop was hot, steamy and full of old men chattering away in a musical brogue. Everyone fell silent immediately. Katie and Louise were about the same height as most of them.

‘Do you sell coffee?’ Louise asked the friendly-looking red-haired chap behind the counter, which would have been fine if she hadn’t felt the need to over-enunciate in a very posh-sounding way while making the international signal for coffee by shaking imaginary beans in her hand, and looking a bit of a Gareth Hunt in the process.