Elsie said, ‘A shame, it was, a grand old house like that, with such a history. Samuel Johnson stayed there once, you know, with Mr Boswell, his biographer. Douglas, you used to have copies of what they both wrote about Slains. It was fair interesting.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I forgot about those.’ Rising from his leather chair, he left the room a moment and returned with a file folder full of papers. ‘You can keep these, if you like. I’ve other copies. Boswell’s account is by far the more colorful. Johnson’s is drier, but still good to read. There are one or two other bits in the folder that might be of help to you, having to do with the history of Slains. And somewhere,’ he said, looking round, at a loss, ‘I did have the old plans for the castle, that showed where the rooms were. I can’t think what I’ve done with it.’
Elsie said, ‘You may have loaned it out.’
‘Oh, very likely.’ He sat down again and smiled at me. ‘The curse of age. I can’t remember anything. I’ll see if I can’t find them for you though, those plans. You’d like to have a look at them, I’m sure.’
‘I would, yes. Very much.’
Elsie smiled. ‘It must be fun to write about the past. What made you interested in history?’
There was no short answer to that question either, but I did my best, and so we talked about my father’s love of genealogy, and the trips we had taken to places our ancestors came from, and all of the hours that I’d spent as a child walking with him in graveyards to search out the headstones of great-great-great grandfathers. All of those people were real to me. Their faces in the framed and yellowed photographs that hung around our house were as familiar as my own, and when I stopped to look at them their eyes looked back at me, and pulled me with them to the past.
The doctor nodded understanding. ‘Aye, my father had no great love of history, but he’d inherited a portrait, quite a good painted portrait, of a Weir who had been a sea captain. It hung in the study, when I was a lad. A fair bit of imagining, I did around that portrait. I don’t doubt it’s why I’m so fond of the sea.’
That reminded me. ‘Do you, by any chance, know where I could find out about Scottish naval history in the early eighteenth century?’
He smiled, and setting down his glass, looked over to his bookcases. ‘Well, now, I might have a few odd volumes on the subject.’
Elsie said, ‘He has a shelf full. Were you wanting information on the ships?’
‘The people, mostly. I need to do research on one of the captains Nathaniel Hooke writes about.’
‘Ah, Captain Gordon, is it?’ Dr Weir glanced at me to make sure it was, then stood to search the shelves. ‘There’s quite a lot on Gordon in The Old Scots Navy. I did have a copy here…aye, here it is. You can take that with you, if you like, and read it over, see if what you want is in there. If not, I have other books that you can—’
Someone knocking at the front door interrupted.
‘Do excuse me,’ said the doctor, and he went out to the entry hall. I heard the door swing open, and the muffled voices of the doctor and another man, a burst of laughter, and the stamp of feet as someone crossed the threshold.
Dr Weir returned, all smiles. ‘Your driver’s here.’
‘My driver?’
Stuart Keith came close behind him, handsome in his leather jacket, with his near-black hair. ‘I was just on my way home, and I thought you might need a lift down to the harbor. The wind’s picking up something fierce.’
I hadn’t noticed it earlier, while we’d been talking, but now I could hear the wind raging against the front window behind me. And I thought of walking back in that, alone, past Castle Wood, and of that dark and lonely stretch of path that led from Harbour Street up to my cottage on the hill, and having Stuart take me home seemed suddenly a very good idea.
So I thanked the Weirs for what had been a really useful evening, and I finished off my whisky in a rather too-large swallow, and with borrowed book and files in hand, I said good night.
Outside, the wind rocked Stuart’s low-slung car as I slid into it. ‘How did you know where I’d be?’ I asked.
‘Someone mentioned it tonight in the pub.’ When he saw my expression he said, ‘Well, I told you, now, didn’t I? One hour at the St Olaf Hotel and my dad can spread any news round half the village. Has he got you on a schedule, yet?’
‘Not quite. He just gave me a list of people he thought could help.’
‘Oh, aye? Who were they?’
‘I can’t remember their names, honestly. But I think I’m supposed to be getting a driving tour this weekend, from either a plumber or a schoolteacher.’
He smiled. ‘That would be the plumber. You don’t have to go—I can give you a driving tour.’ He turned the wheel smartly as he said that, and the back tires swung out as we made the turn down into Main Street.
I gripped my armrest. ‘I think that my odds of survival are better,’ I said, ‘with the plumber.’
He laughed, and I went on, ‘Besides, you’re off again this weekend, aren’t you? Down to London.’
‘Aye, but not for long.’ I felt his glance, although I couldn’t see him clearly in the dimness of the sports car’s warm interior. ‘I will be back.’
I knew he liked me. And I liked him, too, but not that way. Despite his looks, there wasn’t any spark, and although it had been some time since I’d felt a spark with anyone, I knew enough to know when it was missing. So I felt a little guilty when I let him park the car and walk me up the muddy footpath to my cottage. I didn’t want to lead him on, or give him false encouragement, but neither did I want to be alone. Not here. Not in the dark, when every hair along my neck was rising with the sense of something wicked on its way.