The Crow Road

The Nimrod rendezvoused with the light aircraft at 1516 GMT. It decreased speed and flew almost alongside, a little above and ahead of the Cessna for twenty-five minutes, attempting to make radio and visual contact. The Nimrod crew reported that the single occupant of the plane seemed to be unconscious, slumped back in his seat.

At 1541 GMT the Cessna's engine started to cut out and the plane — presumably out of fuel — began to lose altitude. The engine stopped altogether less than a minute later. The plane pitched forward, causing the pilot's body to slump over the controls, whereupon the aircraft went into a steep dive and started to spin. It fell into the sea, impacting at 1543.

The Nimrod circled, dropping a life raft and reporting the position of the wreck to nearby shipping. The plane sank twenty minutes later, as the sun was setting. There was little visible wreckage. An East German trawler picked up the Nimrod's liferaft during the following morning.

The crew of the Nimrod reported that at no time had the figure on board the light aircraft shown any sign of consciousness.

"Hello?"

"Prentice?"

"Speaking. Is —?

"It's Ashley. I just heard about Fergus."

"Ashley! Ah… Yeah. I heard this afternoon. I was going to call; I don't have your work number."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Do you know any more than what's been on the news?"

"Well, mum went up to the castle to see if Mrs McSpadden needed a hand, and she said she seemed kind of shell-shocked; kept talking about soup."

"Soup?"

"Soup. Cullen Skink, specifically."

"Oh."

"Yeah, well, apparently Fergus seemed in good spirits, but he'd had some chest pains, the night before. Anyway, he drove up to Co

"Hmm… so what do you think?"

"Well, I don't know. Mum said she asked Mrs McSpadden who he was going to see, and she said she didn't know who it could have been. The police had already asked her that, apparently; they said they would make enquiries."

"Right. You think it was a heart attack?"

"I don't know. Umm…

"What?"

"Well, apparently Mrs McSpadden said Fergus had a phone call the night before. She took it initially, then handed the phone to him."

"Yeah? And?"

"Whoever it was, they were Scottish, but it was an international phone call; a satellite call. Mrs McSpadden thought she recognised the voice but she wasn't sure."

"Hmm. Recognised the voice."

"Yeah. Did… I mean, did she know Lachy?"

"Yes. Yes, she did. They both worked behind the bar in the Jac, about… twenty years ago, maybe."

"Ah-ha."

"Ah-ha indeed."

I took a deep breath. "Look, Ash, I've been mean — " I heard a noise in the background.

"Shit, that's the door. What?"

The breath sighed out of me. "Ah… nothing. Take care, Ash."

"Yeah, you too, bye."

I put the phone down, put my head back, looked up at the plaster stalagtites that formed the ceiling frieze in the study of the Ippot house, and howled like a dog.

The Strathclyde Police received a telephone tip-off at their headquarters in Glasgow that a drug ring was using Loch Coille Bharr — just south of the Argyllshire village of Crinan — as a hiding place for cocaine, at 1325 on January the 23rd. The tip-off was quite specific, talking of weighted, water-tight plastic cylinders towed behind yachts coming from the Continent and transferred to the loch to await pick-up by dealers from Glasgow. The loch was cordoned off that day and police divers started searching the south end of the loch the following morning, while policemen in small boats used grappling hooks to drag the rest.

No drug-packed cylinders were ever found, but on the second day one of the boats snagged something heavy. A diver went down to free the line from what was expected to be a water-logged tree.

He surfaced to report that the line had hooked onto the rear wheel of a motor-bike which had, tied to it, the remains of a body.

The bike and the body were brought to the surface that evening. The corpse had decomposed and been eaten by fish, to the point of being a skeleton held together more by the clothes it still wore than by the few pieces of co

What they did know was that the bike — a Suzuki 185 GT registered in 1977 — had been reported stolen by its owner in Glasgow in 1981, after it had been loaned to a friend and never returned. Probably that alone would have led to the police coming to Lochgair to see us, but one of the local policemen with a long memory had already put two and two together when he'd heard the make and model of the bike.

The corpse carried no identifying papers, but dental records matched. We knew then it was Rory.

The skeleton had been found wearing a crash-helmet, but it must have been put back on after Rory had been murdered; according to the pathologist's report, he'd been killed by a series of blows to the back of the head with a smooth, hard, spherical or nearly spherical object, approximately nine centimetres in diameter. He was probably unconscious after the first blow.

And so, after the coroner had released the remains following the inquest in late February, Uncle Rory's bones came back to Lochgair at last, and were laid to rest at the back of the garden, under the larches, between the rhododendrons and the wild roses, at the side of his brother. The stone-mason added Rory's name and dates to the black granite obelisk, and we held a small ceremony just for the immediate family and Janice Rae. It fell to me to read out the words Rory had, apparently, intended to close Crow Road with, by way of a funeral oration.

The passage came from Rory's nameless play, and began: "And all your nonsenses and truths…»

Janice cried.

I remarked to Lewis that the way things were going in our family it might work out cheaper in the long run if we bought our own hearse.

I do believe he was shocked. Or maybe he just wished he'd said it.

Technically the case remained open and Rory's murderer was still being sought, but beyond briefly interviewing mum, Janice and Rory's old flat-mate Andy Nichol, the police took no further action. I never did find out just how good at adding-up that policeman was.

The firm Ashley Watt was working for in London went into receivership in the last week of January. She was made redundant, but remained in the city looking for another job.

The war ended, in a famous victory. Only their young men died like cattle, and there was even talk of the US making a modest profit on the operation.

Verity's baby was born — bang on time — on March the 2nd, in London, in a warm birthing pool in a big hospital. The boy was registered as Ke

Lewis, Verity and young Ke

The lawyer Blawke read Fergus Urvill's will in Gaineamh Castle on the 8th of March. I had been asked to be present, and travelled down by train — the Golf was in for a service — with feelings of bitterness and dread.

Helen and Diana, solemnly beautiful in black, both looking ta