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There was a moment's silence, then Bruce leant forward. ‘But Ken, your slick moves at Perth airport, the quick change in the brothel.'

‘Your evasions of two separate surveillance teams!' It was Shooten.

‘Scone Castle. The woods?' Rowntree.

It appeared to Dave that they thought he was a master spy of Bourne proportions instead of an alternately very lucky and unlucky son of a bitch.

All except Mal, perhaps. He leaned back and said, ‘How about a few corroborating details then, old son.' He'd lost a tooth in the tumble down the brothel stairs.

Colley leaned forward, ‘Please, from the beginning, Ken.'

‘Dave. Dave Kelly.'

Deidre gave another little yelp and shuddered. Dave sighed long. He rolled from her, groaning as his injured elbow pushed into the mattress.

‘Ye're a noisy lover, Angus,' said Deidre in a pleasingly dreamy voice.

‘Likewise.'

They both snuggled naked under the thick doona in the morning chill. Deidre's bed was in the corner of Deidre's one-room stone hut on the edge of a lake on one of the islands of the Outer Hebrides. There was a kitchen table and a sink and a wood stove. Everything except the big flat-screen television seemed from 1830 or thereabouts.

‘How are yir aches and pains?' she asked.

Dave felt his face. There were swellings, cuts and abrasions; mementos from Deidre's two suitors, as Dave suddenly recalled.

‘So, who's winning then?' said Dave. ‘Harris from Lewis, or Lewis from Harris?'

She thought about this before she said, ‘It's no' so much them winnin', as me gettin' tired and startin' tae lose. Maybe ah jus' wan' a bit o' fun before men and life happen tae me. It's grey country oot there,' she said, pointing sadly at the tiny window over the sink. ‘When ta sun shines, stand in it.'

‘Ah, where I come from, we say it's a brown land. When it rains, drink it.'

‘Ye're full o' it, Angus.'

‘I'm not. I'm a truth teller. Cross my heart.'

‘How the hell did ye manage to talk yir way intae ma bed?'

Dave met Deidre on a hilltop in the drizzling rain on a road on the Isle of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland.

He had left Ullapool on the car ferry at twilight. Ullapool was a picture postcard of white terraces overlooking the harbour. There were lochs amidst mountains. Fishing boats bobbed. Tourists wandered. Daytripping couples stood about in romantic fug.

Dave had managed to get a little sleep on the ferry but still had a nagging twinge some way along his intestines.

The ferry reached Stornoway at dawn. Stornoway was not cute like Ullapool. It was a working port with industry and bigger shops and lots of businesses all owned by the MacLeods. Even the castle looked pragmatic.

Dave went into an eatery called the Coffee Pot.

A cook was pushing plates of breakfast to a dockworker. When the cook looked up, Dave said, ‘Toasted bacon and egg sandwich?'

The cook stepped back, eyeing Dave suspiciously.

The cook said, ‘We don't dae toasted sandwiches.'

‘Oh. Bacon and eggs with toast thanks.'

‘No.'

Dave looked bewildered. He was bewildered. He looked up at the bacon and eggs on the menu and back to the cook, who held her ground.

Dave said, ‘You've run out?'

‘We don't dae toast.'

Dave missed Amsterdam. He hadn't asked for toast there, but he thought they'd offer it. In fact, was pretty sure they'd offer to toast just about anything.

‘It's a custom.'

‘Well, I guessed that.'

‘Ye were in Amsterdam?'

‘That's another story.'

Dave looked around the cafe to see if there was any evidence of toast on other plates. About half the patrons held their hands away from their plates so he could see they had no toast. But the others crouched forward, holding their hands in front, hiding their eating business. Clearly the patrons were listening to every word.

Dave was still trying to work out why they wouldn't do toast. Whether it was religious, or perhaps a political act of defiance against the English, or whether the toaster was broken.

Finally he asked, ‘What would you eat with bacon and eggs?'

‘A bap ye sumph.' She flicked a smile over Dave's shoulder at the other customers.

‘Sounds good to me. Bacon, eggs and a bap ye sumph, thanks.'

‘A bap is a breakfast roll.'

‘Yes. I found one on my plate.'

‘A sumph is a dunderhead.'

‘Ah, I thought it might be something like that. I understood the tone.'

Dave made no new friends while he ate breakfast. He made no new friends as he wandered Stornoway. He found MacLeod's Tote Betting Shop and watched stocky horses finish a steeplechase.

‘What do you fancy in the next?' Dave said to the only man in the place.

‘Not mine to do that,' he said, skittling back behind the counter.

‘What's your favourite number?' asked Dave.

‘Doon't have one,' he said.

Dave took out fifty pounds and laid it on the counter. He said, ‘Want to cut cards?'

‘Ye're no' fae round here, are ye?'

Dave shook his head. ‘Is there a horse number twenty-two in the next race?'

‘Nae.'

‘Oh. I had a lucky feeling about that. Hmm. Okay. Eleven?'

‘Aye.'

‘Fifty pounds on eleven to win.'

‘To win!'

‘Yes.'

The man wrote out a chit, eyeing Dave.

Dave asked, ‘Do you have a telephone directory?'

The man studied Dave, seeming to try to gauge what unspeakable kind of frivolity Dave might make with it, but finally gave the barest of shrugs before getting the directory from under the counter. It was slim.

Dave looked up Dewar.

‘Dewar!'

‘Yes, Dewar. I told you that when we met.'

‘Ye still haven't said why?'

‘I'm getting to it.'

‘Going ta long way for fook's sake.'

‘Will you let me finish?'

There were a few Dewars, but not many. Dewar, James. Ardvourlie Castle, Loch Seaforth, Isle of Harris. Well, as easy as that. Except that Dave was on the Isle of Lewis.

‘Oi, yir race is on.'

Dave looked up at the relevant television and the horses running. He looked back down to his chit and then up to find horse number eleven. It was five back on the outside and looking strong. He looked down at his stomach then his chest. His breathing was relaxed, his heart
sleeping. The horse, his horse, was making its move. It was third then even first then maybe second. It would lose by a nose. Dave monitored his internals. No rush. No hit. Nothing.

The teller grinned with three top teeth. ‘Ye knew. Dinae ye?'

Dave shrugged, seeing him count out a couple of hundred pounds.

‘Ye're the grumpiest winner ah huv seen.'

‘Can I hire a boat to go to Harris Island?'

‘Aye, at MacLeod's. Be easier tae drive.'

‘From Lewis to Harris?'

‘Aye. Tis only twenty mile by road.'

‘So, because I'm a bit slow on new concepts, I can drive from the island of Lewis to the island of Harris?'

‘Aye. If ye can get a car.'

‘Which ye couldna.'

‘Only the bike.'

‘Lot of hills.'

‘In my country we have water between islands. It's what makes them islands.'

‘Ta Isle of Lewis and Harris is surrounded by water and is off ta coast of Scotland. It's an island.'

‘But not two. Just one, with two names.'

‘Aye, ye sumph.'

The Isle of Lewis, part of the island of Lewis and Harris, contained few obviously particular geophysical features. There were no trees. There were many rolling hills of bog and rock. There was lots of water: lakes and puddles and rain. Sometimes the rain fell hard and blew sideways and hit Dave's skin like cold, sharp stones. When the rain eased, it stopped falling and just hung in the air, generally rather than specifically wet.

Dave pedalled, his bright red and blue coat sodden and heavy. He had not been able to hire a car and had to buy his bicycle outright for a ridiculous sum from a lounging young MacLeod. The young MacLeod had given Dave a particularly disrespectful grin which made Dave wonder if he actually owned the bike. He now believed the look of
ridicule to be about Dave's intention to ride.

Dave rode into the wind between five modern houses sitting amidst ruined stone crofts, constituting another tiny village. Black-faced sheep wandered the road. He caught sight of distant lochs as the hills grew steeper.

An hour after setting out Dave had to stop pedalling and push the bike to the top of a very steep hill. He turned to see a jeep coming up the hill. A battered jeep. He looked up at the next hill and could see many hills beyond. He stepped out into the middle of the road and waved down the jeep.

‘Who's this eejit ridin' in the rain? He's in ta road aboot to be run doon.'

‘You stopped.'

‘Aye. An' lucky for ye.'

‘Very lucky indeed.'

The jeep pulled up next to Dave. The window wound down to reveal a tangle-haired beauty. Her hair was red and her eyes green. She had a light sprinkling of tiny freckles on her high cheekbones. Dave had fallen in love.

‘Ye have nae shame.'

‘Are ye lost?' she asked.

‘No. But I want a lift. It's wet and cold and I'm knackered.'

‘Ye should be, for all ta sense that's in yir head.'

Dave gave his sheepish, winning, little boy grin.

‘Ta what?'

Dave smiled and she looked him up and down.
‘S fheàrr a bhith dhìth a chinn na a bhith a dhìth an fhasain,'
she said.

Dave said, ‘In my country that means, yes, hop in.'

‘It is better tae be without yir head than tae be without style,' she translated.

‘Um, hmm. Good saying. Meaning I have some?'

‘Ye gave that cheeky smile again.'

‘You had mud smudges on your cheek. I didn't want to say anything about it at the time.'

‘Dave Kelly,' said Dave huddling into his heavy wet jacket, as she jerked through the gears of the jeep.

‘From Australia, where they goo oot in ta rain with nae protection.'

‘Only rains at night there,' said Dave, deadpan, so she turned in confusion before she saw he was joking.

‘Ah'm only away tae Baile Ailein.'

Dave took out the damp tourist map he'd bought on the ferry. ‘Baile Ailein is Balallan, right?'

‘Aye, in yir English map, aye.'

‘How many hills between Balallan and Ardvourlie?'

‘Why are ye away there?'

Dave thought he heard a trace of suspicion. ‘See the sights. I want to see where the island of Harris meets the island of Lewis without water in between.'

‘Ye're wearing a lot of ta water in between. It's a fair ride, but Ardvourlie is before ta beinn. Beinn Dearg.'

The countryside got prettier, the flat bog giving way to more grass and lochs and tumbledown crofts as they drove south. Passing cars tooted horns and she waved as she explained that the newer, plainly rendered houses were part of an island renewal in the 1960s.

‘I'm Dave, by the way.'

‘Ye said.'

‘But you never said your name.'

‘Aye.'

‘Oh. Aye. Ye Scoots rrrr a coony loot.'

‘Aye. We huv tae be. Because mostly people come and take things from us.'

‘You got me. I was going to take your name. I was going to use it instead of Dave.'

She smiled.

‘Did not.'

‘Did.'

She smiled, but then pulled up at a junction that pointed to Leumrabhagh. ‘Ah'm away doon there.'

‘And I'm away up there?'

‘Aye, so ye say.'

‘Thanks for the lift. I think the rain's passed.'

She shook her head at his obvious sumph-dom.

Dave got his bike out of the back and came back to her window.

‘If ye're really sightseeing, there's nowhere to stay doon Ardvourlie. Ye doon't want tae try ta bealach. There's a hotel up here.' She pointed down the road she was about to turn into, where Dave could see a bigger building.

Dave gave her a smile and said, ‘In my country we have a saying too. You're a bloody lifesaver.'

‘Why are ye gooin' to Ardvourlie?'

‘A guy owes me money.'

‘If it's Dewar, ye won't get it.'

And that was that, Dave thought. He mounted his bike again, feeling a short spasm of pain in his abdomen. He pedalled, looking at the approaching mountains with the faintest of hearts. But then he came into the tiny settlement of Ardvourlie, in the shadow of the mountains. There was a loch called Seaforth on his map and a lone fishing boat headed in or out, sending slow glistening ripples in its late afternoon wake. There were sheep and small farms and finally a large country house, improbably signed Ardvourlie Castle.

Dave got off his bike and collapsed on the side of the road near an abandoned two-room schoolhouse. He fished in his pocket for Dewar's address. He looked up as a hire car went past. Lucky bastard, he thought, before he recognised the driver when she stopped at the junction.

Dave leaned back into the roadside fernery, not wanting Margaret to see him. The Margaret who he'd sat next to on the plane. The Margaret who'd left him naked and about to be truncheoned on the barge in Amsterdam. She looked up and down the road for cars and
then drove through the gate and down the long driveway towards a hunting lodge that backed onto the loch.

‘Who?'

‘Margaret St James.'

‘Who left ye naked?'