Fiona Jameson, recently-qualified Scottish Wildlife officer, clamped her uniform cap firmly over her brown hair, now gathered securely in a tidy bun low on her neck. She was not used to the headgear, having previously preferred to keep her head and hair free of encumbrances even in wild weather, but now that she was an official, as it were, she was required to dress the part when on official business.
Her assigned territory was mainly north of her home base of Oban, and stretched from Skye on the west coast to Glencoe in the interior. It comprised everything from rugged mountain terrain to coastal plains; tourist towns to estates and castles and all manner of landscapes in between.
Fiona was as excited at the prospect as she had ever been about anything in her whole life. Indeed, it felt as if her life had been merely a preparation for this job. Her independence, driving skills, love of wildlife photography and delight in closely observing Argyll’s open spaces, were the key to her successful graduation.
She would be reporting to the local office of Scottish Natural Heritage in Fort William and could not wait to earn a good reputation for solid decision making and concise reports.
Her courses in sustainable economic growth, and management of Scotland’s conservation and protection areas, had opened her eyes to the importance of securing the natural heritage of the country. As a former taxi-service driver she thought she had seen many beautiful areas of her homeland but she now had an understanding of its special land and seascapes and a new, fierce pride in maintaining them for future generations.
For the next several months she would be under the close supervision of senior managers. She knew she was only one of some seven hundred staff doing a huge variety of jobs but she was determined to succeed in the one job she wanted to claim for life. She knew her Granny in heaven would be proudly smiling down on her.
She checked her equipment, counting off the GPS, the powerful binoculars, the mobile phone with earpiece and a backup large-scale book of maps. She carried a laptop for reports which could be sent directly to the head office when in a WIFI zone, and her own special, Digital Single Lens Reflex camera, a gift from Anna and Alina on her graduation. Should the occasion arise to take some spectacular photographs, she would be ready. The very thought sent a shiver of anticipation through her.
Today’s tasks required two stops at vastly different areas. She had been told to ‘keep an eye on’ the Glencoe Wood Estate. Apparently some Canadian had purchased a section of mainly wooded hillside land and divided it up into lots sized from just one square foot to a maximum of 10, 000 square feet.
These lots were sold to exiled Scots in Canada who wanted to possess property in a conservation area and thereby obtain the paperwork to enable them to use the courtesy title of Laird, Lord or Lady.
Fiona was shocked when she heard about this. She could not believe it was legal but was assured that the owner of the company, Scottish Lands, had some legal entitlement and the expressed intention to save this section of land adjacent to Loch Linnhe from developers.
The main concern of Natural Heritage was to protect and preserve, not only the ancient oak and birch woods on the site, but also to save the mammals, bats and birds that made their homes there.
Fiona had been made aware that a rare Nathusius’ Pipistrelle bat had been sighted in the area, in 2011.
She had no clue what, if anything, a person from Canada would do with a couple of square feet of land in a wood in Scotland but she understood the necessity to watch carefully for any damaging activity.
The only Canadians she knew well were Anna Mason and Jeanette McLennan, George’s wife. Both seemed eminently sensible to her and not the types to take risks in a vulnerable forested area but, then, her previous experience of many kinds of people warned her not to make assumptions.
She pulled the Land Rover off the A828 well south of the village of Duror and decided to climb the hillside and survey the Glencoe Wood site through her binoculars.
The length of the loch was the predominant land feature and it took some adjustment to find the site in question. She began by focusing on the top of the hillside opposite and found at once the silhouette of a noble red deer. Although the autumn hunting season was in full swing she prayed that the deer would flee before a hidden marksman could find him. She watched with bated breath until he turned his antlered head and vanished swiftly down the other side of the hill.
Before she could re-focus, she heard the sound of an axe and quickly scanned downwards until she found the source. Partly hidden by a densely-wooded section was a small caravan, what the Americans called a trailer. Outside this, a man was chopping down a sapling.
Fiona’s heartbeat increased substantially as she realized what the man intended to do. He had set up a portable barbecue, and he obviously planned to cook some food on it once he had burned enough wood to create the required heat.
She ran down the hill at top speed and threw herself into the Land Rover grating the gears as she slammed into forward. In a few seconds she was on a lochside trail near the caravan and jumped out of her vehicle, remembering, at the last minute, to bring her camera to record the infraction.
It required several calming breaths before she could bring herself to talk in the quiet manner she had been instructed to use.
“Excuse me sir, can I ask what you are doing?”
“Can’t you see, miss? I am cooking my lunch.” His aggrieved tone of voice incensed Fiona further and she once more used deep breathing to settle her temper. Was this man an idiot?
“I must ask you to douse the fire at once, sir, and remove your vehicle from this area before any further damage is done.”
“Excuse me! This is my property and I own the rights to it.”
“Can you prove that, sir? This is a conservation area and therefore protected.”
“Look here, I have come all the way from Nova Scotia to claim this land. I mean to stay here for a day or two and take pictures to show the folks at home. I have a certificate of sale and a title deed and a reference map in the trailer if you insist on seeing it. “
“I do insist, I’m afraid! You may have some title to this plot of land but you do not have permission to drive a trailer across other land to reach it. You have broken several laws already and the potential for further damage is obvious.”
“But, but I have paid for this!” He drew himself up to his full height of 5 and a half feet and puffed out his chest, saying, “Do you know you are addressing Lord Mackenzie?”
Fiona could hardly restrain her laughter. Her cheeks flamed with the effort. So the information about these fake titles was only too true. She had heard that some small Hebridean islands off the west coast were sold to rich foreigners who owned the titles that the original owners of the island had held, but this wee man on a tiny plot of land declaring a lordship was too ridiculous to be believed.
Her instinct was to laugh out loud and dismiss his claims but there was also a faint sense of pity that he had paid good money in Canada to participate in this scheme, and no doubt cared deeply about his Scottish family heritage. He had the clan name for certain sure. She knew many Scots over the centuries had fled from their native land to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and beyond. Wasn’t Anna’s family originally from Glasgow?
“Now, let’s be sensible, sir. I can see you are not intending to cause any harm. You are just a bit unaware of the laws here in Scotland. Let’s douse the fire and we’ll say no more about it for now.
I’ll be back tomorrow to confirm that you have moved on to a supervised campsite nearby. I am sure you will not damage any more trees. Take as many pictures as you wish.” As she spoke, she moved over to the barbecue and poured her own drinking water supply over the flames until the heat was gone. ‘Lord’ Mackenzie was deflated by the official manner and appearance of the young girl and he decided to cut his losses and eat cold snacks for lunch. He reasoned that if he argued the toss with her, he would be wasting time on ‘his’ expensive plot of land and who knew if he might end up in a Scottish jail?
Murmuring under his breath about crooks who stole a guy’s hard-earned money and misrepresented their claims, he climbed back inside the caravan to find something to eat and to fetch his video camera.
Meanwhile, Fiona had taken a few photographs of her own and settled into the driver’s seat of her Land Rover to write up an official report. There was no harm in lingering on for a few minutes so the man would realize she meant every word she said.
“Well! I think that was a successful intervention,” she proclaimed, with a satisfied smile as she saved her report to be sent on its way to Fort William later in the day.
Her next location was one she had requested specially.
Ever since she and Anna Mason had found and hand-raised a tiny Scottish wildcat kit, she had been fascinated with the rare species. Few Scots had ever seen one of the breed as they were masters at keeping out of sight. The tiny abandoned kitten in the barn at Anna’s farmhouse would have died without the care and attention the two women had lavished on it.
Fiona was particularly proud that they had tried, deliberately, to keep their scent away from the animal so that it would not be truly domesticated. Despite this intention, they had named it Sylvester and watched with delight when the tiny creature began to grow on a diet of enriched milk.
Long before he had shown his true wild and aggressive nature, Sylvester had been claimed by the local vet and taken to an animal shelter. Fiona and Anna paid visits to the sanctuary from time to time and found, to their delight, that the adult wildcat had not forgotten them even though he was now mated to a semi feral cat and had a litter of his own.
Fiona never regretted the intervention. Her relationship with Anna Mason had really developed during the period when the kitten was living deep in the recesses of one of Anna’s kitchen cabinets. That relationship, and the coaching Anna had volunteered, had been essential to Fiona’s present career and now she was in a position to repay her debt to Sylvester.
Scottish Natural Heritage had determined that wildcats had been shot by gamekeepers thinking they were killing off feral cats who preyed on the eggs and young chicks of grouse and other wild birds.
A program to help gamekeepers to distinguish between the two types of cat had been initiated and early results were positive. Once the keepers had seen a series of pictures showing the comparative sizes of the wildcats to their much smaller domestic relatives, the incidents of wildcat deaths were reduced.
Fiona was anxious to help cut these unnecessary deaths to the lowest possible number and had asked if she could visit any estates in her area where gamekeepers had not yet been contacted.
She had been given a location on a large estate where there were two gamekeepers. The busy autumn season meant these two men were often out on the hills with hunting parties or escorting fishermen to prime sites on the fast-flowing rivers that poured out of the mountainous areas.
Previous attempts to contact the keepers had been unsuccessful and Fiona was determined to correct that situation.
Following procedure, she entered the estate by the long driveway that led eventually to the Scottish baronial castle. As she parked on the gravel forecourt, she noted it was a fine example of the style with the main tower building stretching five stories high into the sky, surmounted by the imposing triangular gables the local people called ‘crow-stepped’. Turrets could be seen projecting from both corners with the decorated, stone supports that kept the turrets from falling. She estimated their original purpose was to provide the castle owners with a longer view of whoever might be advancing to attack.
Several lower buildings had been added to the structure over the centuries and these housed stables and store rooms, but Fiona felt the strength of the building lay firmly in the defensive tower itself.
She reached up to tidy her hair and pull her jacket firmly into place. The castle was on land belonging to the Duke of Argyll and she was not sure who of the clan Campbell might be in residence there. She had better be prepared to meet anyone. Straightening her shoulders, she marched up to the old oak doors on the ground level of the tower with a firm step that contrasted with the nervous quivering she felt inside. There was a metal pull attached to a bell at the side of the door which she managed to reach by dint of standing on her tiptoes. A deep clanging sound reverberated somewhere inside the tower and she waited to see if there would be any response. Silence. She was just about to try again for the third time when the door creaked and slowly opened.
Fiona thought it was like a scene from a horror movie. Who would be behind the door? Perhaps a wizened old family retainer, a dark-clad butler with a haunted face, or a tiny ghost child from a long-past era?
She was scaring herself into what her Granny used to call ‘a blue funk’ so she stepped back to calm herself. She was not usually given to flights of fancy and this was not like intrepid Fiona Jameson at all.
A tousled young man in stained work clothes and with filthy hands stood in the narrow opening of the door and berated Fiona before she could say a word of explanation.
“What are you doing here? No one uses this door nowadays. You should have come to the stables or the estate office. I am in the middle of mucking out and I am on my own today. I can’t stand here listening to you, whatever you may need. Follow me and hurry along!”
With this aggrieved complaint, the man hustled her through the narrow door opening and into a dark hallway with stairs ascending to another level. He pushed the front door back into place by leaning his body against it.
Fiona immediately saw how difficult it must have been to open the old door and felt annoyed that she had not been told which entrance to the estate she should have used.
The hallway was even darker now the outdoor light had been excluded and Fiona blinked to adjust her vision and almost missed the hurried figure disappearing through another door hidden at the back of the staircase. Fortunately, this door was left ajar for her so she followed the sound of rapid bootsteps and eventually came to an outside exit to a large cobbled yard around which stables were arranged on two sides.
The figure she was following had already disappeared again. Calculating that she had not exactly made a good first impression, she decided not to yell out her name and business, but began to walk from horse box to horse box along the L shape, peering inside and feeling increasingly grateful that large and curious horses were not peering back at her. She finally tracked down the stableman shovelling manure onto a wheelbarrow and from the tension in his back view she confirmed that he was not happy to be disturbed.
Clearing her throat, Fiona asked politely, “I won’t interrupt your work if you can just direct me to the location of either of the estate gamekeepers?”
This attempt produced no result at all so she tried again. “I am on official business, you know. I represent the concerns of Natural Heritage.”
He straightened up at this pronouncement and wiped sweat from his brow leaving a large brown smear there. “Well, I represent a very busy, hard-pressed man trying to keep this place running and I don’t appreciate being lectured to by a slip of a lass.”
Fiona’s blood was up. She had tried to be polite and professional but this fellow was really getting under her skin. She remembered her training just in time but it was with a considerable effort that she was able to produce a calm tone.
“I don’t believe I have been lecturing. I am here to provide a service and I don’t appreciate your verbal attack. Perhaps I will return on another day.”
She turned on her heel with her head held high, and walked smartly away looking for an exit gate.
What a rude man! Who does he think he is? We are all busy people with a job to do. I hope I don’t run into him the next time I come here.
This refrain running in her head was abruptly interrupted by a loud shout of “Wait!”
Couldn’t be for me, she determined, and kept walking toward a double-railed gate.
“Please, wait!”
At the second call, she turned slightly and found the stableman running after her.
What have I done wrong now? This can’t be good.
“I apologize! You caught me at a bad moment. Neither stable boy turned up for work this morning and a group of riders are arriving in a couple of hours. That is not an excuse for being so rude to you. Please tell me your purpose. The keepers are both occupied but I can contact them by mobile phone if there’s an emergency.”
Fiona looked up into grey eyes in a tanned face topped by floppy dark hair and liberally smeared with what might well be manure. There certainly was more than a whiff of the smell around him. His boots were positively clarty, as Granny would say, and his shirt sleeves, rolled up to his elbows, had not escaped contamination. He untied a cotton scarf from his neck and wiped at his hands and face as he stood waiting impatiently for her information.
“It’s about the wildcat survey,” she began quickly. “I wanted to show the keepers some pictures to identify the species so that unnecessary culling of these very rare mammals can be prevented.”
“Do you mean you have called me away from my work to tell me about cats?”
There was no mistaking the irate tone of voice and the red tide that flooded his face. Fiona stepped back and went directly into a bold frontal attack before she could stop her reaction.
“Look here! The Scottish wildcat species is the last remaining example of the type in the whole of the British Isles. Gamekeepers have been slaughtering the few that are left because they think they are just wandering feral cats. On the contrary, they are a magnificent wild animal and this information may help to preserve them into the next century.”
She stopped abruptly in her tirade and realized she had been speaking to this stableman as if he had personally threatened the kitten that Sylvester had once been. She had totally lost the required professional objective manner that had been drilled into her and, undoubtedly, destroyed any vestige of sympathy and cooperation this man might have provided.
“Excuse me!” she continued. “I must be talking to the wrong person. When could I meet with the estate owner to discuss this matter?” She tried to maintain some kind of dignity in her speech although it was not easy under the circumstances.
A wry chuckle escaped his lips at this question. “You’ll have a distance to go to find him, I’m afraid.
He’s likely in a palace in Qatar at this moment and doesn’t set foot in this place very often which is why we are seriously understaffed.”
“Oh, I see! Well, I will leave you to it. I apologize for wasting your valuable time.”
“Wait a minute!” He almost reached out to catch her sleeve then withdrew his hand when he saw its condition. “I can’t fault someone who feels so passionate about Scottish wildlife. Give me any materials you have and I will promise to show them to Fergus and Roddy when they return. Come back in a few days, Miss ……..?”
“Ah, it’s Fiona, Fiona Jameson. Thank you, Mr.…...?”
“Just call me Gordon. As I was saying, come back to collect the materials and you can assure yourself the task has been done properly.” He reached into a slit pocket in his tweed waistcoat and drew out a card which he offered between two comparatively-clean fingers.
“Call me on one of these numbers and I’ll make sure to be here. I don’t want to be labelled as someone who stood in the way of Scotland’s natural heritage.”
Fiona was unsure whether or not he was laughing at her but she chose to believe his words were sincere. She dared not criticize any further or her probationary period might be in jeopardy should he place an unsatisfactory comment on her record.
“Thank you. I’ll be off then,” she said, and she sprinted to the gate leading to the gravel parking area and the safety of her Land Rover, with nary a backward glance.
On the drive back to Oban she berated herself for losing her temper and being so high-handed with someone who was not responsible for the situation.
She rehearsed, and rejected, a dozen versions of the official report on the visit that she would soon need to submit. If she phrased it carefully she might not be in danger of a formal rebuke.
She quite forgot, for some days, to examine the grubby card she had been given.