Fair Game (Keith Calder Book 4) by Gerald Hammond

Author:Gerald Hammond [Hammond, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-05-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Over the weekend the sun decided that it had poured out enough unaccustomed warmth over Scotland. High cloud drew shadow over the land. People resumed the vests and cardigans which they thought they had put away until Autumn. ‘Back to normal,’ became a usual greeting.

Keith had crammed a fortnight’s work into a few days and he was glad to collapse into the luxurious grip of the Rolls. Somehow Molly had seemed to perpetually at his elbow and yet never quite available for a chat. Now, seated cosily between the two men, she chattered nonstop to the solicitor without seeming to ignore her husband. The two men sank into stunned silence.

There was drizzle over the high centre of Scotland, but they descended at last into a calm, close, misty day that held the west in a moist cocoon.

Mr Enterkin, without any great enthusiasm, suggested that they might join him for lunch at the inn; but Molly stated flatly that she had telephoned Whinkirk House and committed herself and Keith to lunching there. The solicitor quitted the car, singing to himself, while they drove on to Whinkirk House. Keith discovered, without surprise, that Molly had also bespoken separate rooms.

They ate a good but silent lunch, under the eye of Mr Roach. The idea was dawning on Keith that he must have done something wrong, although he could not for the life of him think what it could be. He decided that she would probably tell him in her own good time. ‘I’ve got to go out,’ he said.

‘To the inn?’

‘No. Ralph Enterkin’s coming over here later. Do you fancy a dander in the country, or is the weight getting to be too much for you?’

Molly said that she thought she’s stay and find her way around the house and garden.

*

Mr Enterkin’s lunch, although plainer and served later, was also more cheerful than Keith’s. He had to wait until the bar closed before Penny Laing was free to join him in the dining room. They sat down together. Penny was in great form. Since the demise of her husband under a runaway tractor some six years before, she had rarely had the pleasure of eating a meal that she had not herself cooked. To have a paid-for meal, as slap-up as the inn could provide, in the company of her lover and served by her boss at his most paternal made the meal into a great occasion for her.

‘Did you have the car in London with you?’ she asked.

Mr Enterkin, pending the disposal of a large mouthful of chop with assorted veg, shook his head.

‘It’d have done your image good with all the other lawyers,’ she pointed out.

‘You can’t get the use of a car in London these days, and nobody gets out of the way for a Rolls any more. At home,’ Mr Enterkin added, ‘Keith walks around all the time with a shotgun, and everybody gets out of his way. Perhaps I should try that.’

‘The Rolls didn’t come back here.’

‘Keith had it.

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