Chapter  THIRTY-FOUR

“Oh, it’s raining, Dad,” Charlie said in a depressed voice, his face pressed to the glass of the window, as the plane broke through the clouds to begin its final approach into Glasgow.

David stopped writing and leaned forward in his seat to look out the window past his son. “Yeah, well, it might not be at Inchelvie. It looks quite clear over there to the north.”

“But it never rained in Leesport.”

David smiled and reached out and ruffled his son’s hair, then, flipping over the cover of his writing-pad, he slapped his hand down on it in a gesture of completion. That was it. It had taken him the whole flight to work it out, but that was it. He had every piece of the jigsaw now in place, every one of those seemingly unconnected events linked perfectly together, running in sequence from the time that he had been asked to go out to America by Duncan right up to the present day.

There was no doubt now that it had all been a setup, all meticulously planned to take full advantage of both his father’s age and his own inability to cope with the situation. In retrospect, maybe they had left themselves wide open for such a thing to happen, either through complacency or inefficiency, but nevertheless, the way Duncan and Kirkpatrick’s had acted was, quite simply, heinous. But he did know only too well that that was how big business was conducted, slithering its way just above the threshold of legality, and giving scant consideration either to personal damage or to the consequences resulting. And this was now all too bloody apparent, with his father lying so critically ill in hospital.

The plane thumped down onto the tarmac, and the engines screamed violently as the pilot engaged reverse thrust. Harriet, who was sitting in the aisle seat next to him, instinctively reached out and grabbed hold of his hand. He held on to hers tight, smiling to himself as he remembered the last time he had done just that with the little Glaswegian tyke on his way across to America. God, so long ago. But now he was back. He gritted his teeth as he thought about his prepared show-down with Duncan. Yeah, now he was truly back, in every bloody sense of the word!

Dougie and Archie were there waiting for them at the Arrivals hall barrier, Dougie dressed somewhat uncharacteristically in a dark suit that accentuated every muscle in his squat frame, and this, coupled with the expression of hooded seriousness on his face, made him look like a highly experienced Russian bodyguard. David smiled to himself, realizing that it was probably exactly what he was going to need that day.

“Hi, Dougie,” he said, stretching out his hand.

“Hullo, Mr. David.” He took a firm grip on David’s hand. “Did you have a good flight?”

“Yes, thanks. No problem at all.” He turned to Archie. “Hello, Archie.”

The young man gave him a self-conscious smile and a brief nod of his head. “Dougie and I were just saying how sorry we were to hear about your father, sir.”

“I know, Archie. It’s very sad.”

“Aye, it’s more than that,” Dougie cut in, flicking his head to the side in a knowing gesture. “I ken fine well what brought it on. It’s just bloody criminal.” He touched his finger to his mouth, realizing that he had just sworn in front of the children. “Sorry, sir.”

David smiled and shook his head. “No, you’re right.” He took over control of the luggage trolley from Charlie. “So, come on. Let’s go and sort it out.”

They walked out of the terminal building and splashed their way across the rain-soaked road to the car-park. As they approached the cars, David turned to the younger man.

“Now, Archie, I want you to take the children straight back to Inchelvie, and make sure that you see Effie, the housekeeper, before you leave, okay?”

“Right, sir.”

“Then, after that, go straight to the distillery. I want you there when we meet with Mr. Caple, but you must not park in the office car-park, understood? I don’t want to risk you being seen, otherwise it might spoil the element of surprise. Go round to the loading bay at the back of the maturation warehouses and park over in the corner next to where the empty barrels are stored.”

The young man nodded.

“Right. Now we’ll go in convoy as far as Aviemore, and there we’ll split, because Dougie and I are going to head straight up to Inverness to see my father. Okay…” David looked at his watch. “… so it’s a quarter to eight now. We should be in Inverness by about half past eleven, if those bloody unmarked police cars aren’t on the A-Nine. I reckon we’ll be back at the distillery by half past one, so make sure that you are there by then, and keep an eye out for us coming down the road. Is that all clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, then, let’s make a move.”

He turned to Sophie, Charlie and Harriet, who had been standing silently beside him, and bent down and gave each a kiss.

“Now, you lot, go with Archie, and I’ll see you this evening at Inchelvie.”

“Will you tell Grandpa to get better soon, Dad?” Charlie said in a solemn voice. “Because he did say that he would teach me how to cast a salmon rod these holidays.”

“Yeah, I will,” David replied as lightly as he could.

Archie opened the back door of the car and Charlie and Harriet clambered in. Sophie held back for a moment, then took hold of her father’s arm and led him away to a safe distance from the car.

“Dad, do you think we could go back to The Beeches tomorrow? I think we all need to go home.”

David smiled at her, and putting his arms around her, he gave her a long hug.

“You’re absolutely right, darling. We all do need to go home—back to where Mummy is.”

He gave her a kiss on the forehead, then walked back to the car and opened the front passenger door for her. “Drive carefully, Archie,” he said, looking into the car. “You’ve got a particularly valuable cargo on board.”

The journey to Inverness took a little longer than anticipated, even though the weather, as he had predicted, improved as they headed north. The single-carriageway sections of the road were heavy with lorries, each having accumulated a tailback of cars that were boxed so tightly together that it made overtaking almost impossible. Although Dougie was quite adept at driving a half-mile stretch on the wrong side of the road to get clear of the hold-ups, Archie seemed to have taken David’s last remark to heart, driving with such care and attention that Dougie had to pull over into a lay-by on two separate occasions to allow his car to catch up, then watch in seething frustration as a recently overtaken lorry and its parasitical line of cars trundled slowly past.

However, once they passed Aviemore, the traffic thinned out, and having seen Archie and the children safely on their way to Inchelvie, Dougie put his foot down, eventually pulling the car to a squealing halt at the main doors of Raigmore Hospital just before midday.

David asked Dougie to wait in the car-park, then walked in through the main doors of the hospital and approached the main desk. An elderly lady, whose gentle smile made it look as if she’d been specifically bred for voluntary services, looked up from where she had been writing on a shorthand pad.

“Good morning, can I help you?”

“Yes. I wonder if you could guide me in the right direction. I want to find Lord Inchelvie’s room.”

David watched as she wrote down his father’s name on her pad. “And may I ask who you might be, sir?”

“Yeah, I’m Mr. Corstorphine, his son.”

“Oh, I see. Right,” she said, getting up immediately from her chair. “If you could just give me a moment while I get someone else to look after the desk, and then I’ll take you to his room myself.”

She turned and went into the office behind her. David watched through the window as she spoke to a colleague who was sitting having a cup of tea. The woman cast a glance at him through the window, then got up from her chair.

“Mr. Corstorphine,” the lady said, as they both came out of the office. “If you would like to follow me, I’ll take you up there now.”

They walked over to the lift and took it to the sixth floor. David followed her along the spotless corridor, both standing aside to allow an old lady in a pink winceyette nightie to push her drip-stand slowly past them, muttering incoherently to herself as she went. At the end of the corridor, they entered a long ward, and David’s guide stopped outside a door next to the nurses’ desk.

“You’ll find Lord Inchelvie in here, sir. I think Lady Inchelvie should be there as well.”

David thanked her and turned to watch her leave the ward. As he put his hand out to push down the handle of the door, it opened and Roger Spiers appeared. On seeing David, he held his finger to his mouth and closed the door quietly behind him.

“David!” the old doctor said, holding out his hand. “How nice to see you! Well done, you getting back so quickly.”

David shook his hand. “How is he, Roger?”

Dr. Spiers flicked his head to the side. “Not that good, I’m afraid. Nevertheless, he’s pretty comfortable and I know for a fact that he’s not in any pain, but, well…” He smiled warmly at him. “… like all of us of that generation, the old engine begins to get a little weary, and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep it from stalling.” He looked round at the door. “Your mother’s in there. She’s been absolutely marvellous. Hasn’t left his bedside since she got here”—he turned back to David—“so I know she’ll be delighted to see you home, my boy.” He gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, then shambled his way off down the ward. Taking a deep breath, David gently pushed down the handle and put his head round the door.

The small room was mottled with light that bled its way through the gaps in the closed blinds and a thin ray caught the side of his father’s cheek as he lay motionless on the bed, accentuating the pallor of his once ruddy complexion. A network of tubes ran upwards from his body to the plastic drip-bottles that hung above the bed. His eyes were closed and his mouth open, but what little sound he was emitting was drowned out by the constant bleeping of the heart-monitoring equipment which flickered out its glowing light into the semi-darkness of the room.

As David watched, his mother stood up from where she sat knitting beside his father, and gently pressed his chin upwards, closing his mouth. Then, stroking her hand over his forehead, she pushed away a strand of hair that had by some miracle displaced itself, and giving her husband a smile that would never be acknowledged, she turned to sit down again, executing a double take when she saw David at the door.

“Oh, my darling, well done!” she said in a whisper, dropping her knitting onto the chair and coming over towards him. As David walked into the room, he noticed immediately the look of sheer fatigue and sorrow in his mother’s eyes as she approached. He took her in his arms and held her tight.

“Let me have a look at you!” she continued to whisper, pushing herself away from him, yet holding firmly on to his arms. “You look so well! You’re brown!”

David smiled at her and looked over to his father. “I’m so very sorry that I wasn’t here, Ma. I really am so sorry.”

His mother turned to follow his gaze. “My darling, it is not your fault that this has happened, and you must not even begin to think of reproaching yourself for it. I mean it. That was exactly why I made a point of explaining that in my fax. The doctor did say that it could have happened at any time.” She turned back to him and reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “The main thing is that you’re here.”

David made no comment, thinking it neither the time nor the place to tell her that he had worked out what had been going on at the distillery. Instead, he walked past her and went over to stand by his father, reaching down and gently taking hold of his hand, taking care not to knock out the tubes that were protruding from his wrist.

“I’ve just had a word with Roger Spiers outside in the corridor. He says things aren’t looking too good.”

His mother walked around to the other side of the bed and stood looking down at her husband. “No, I’m afraid not. There was a marked deterioration overnight. They very kindly allowed me to stay in the next-door room, and they called me at about two o’clock this morning, because they were so worried about him.” She let out a long sigh. “But he seemed to rally again.”

David glanced over at his mother, and caught on her face an expression of unequivocal love as she looked down at her husband. “He’s always been a fighter, David. He’s very weak, but I have a suspicion that he’s been holding out until … you got home.”

David nodded and leaned over and stroked his father’s face, feeling a lump tighten in his throat and his eyes begin to smart with tears. “Well, I’m back now. I hope you can hear, Pa, because I’m back now, and everything, I promise you, is going to be just fine.”

He bent forward and gave the wrinkled forehead a kiss, wincing at the coldness of his father’s skin against his lips. He stood up and looked over to his mother. “Listen, I’m going to go to the distillery right now. I want to get this whole thing cleared up and finished with today. But I’ll be back later, once I’ve been to Inchelvie to see the children. Do you want anything from the house?”

His mother smiled at him. “No, I’ve got everything I need here.”

They both moved to the bottom of the bed, and David gave his mother a hug and a kiss before walking over to the door. He turned to give his father a last look, then, on impulse, returned to the bed and gave the dear, brave old man another kiss.

“We’ll get this sorted out. We really will,” he said, addressing no one in particular, but hoping that both occupants of the room could take comfort from his words. He opened the door and walked out, closing it gently behind him.

They drove in silence back down the A9, Dougie intent on getting back to the distillery as fast as possible, while David was quite happy to use the time to look through his notes, trying to get all his facts as clear as possible in his mind. As Dougie drove across the bridge over the Spey and turned hard left down the Glendurnich Distillery road, David glanced at his watch. It was half past one. He took in a deep breath. This was it. The show-down.

They descended the hill and turned the corner above the maturation warehouses. Archie was there, his car tucked away between two rows of barrels at the most northerly point of the concrete apron. Dougie flashed his lights, Archie responded, and his car immediately shot out and came round the side of the sheds, pulling in behind their car as they levelled out at the bottom of the hill and following them onto the car-park.

As soon as Dougie had stopped, David jumped out and looked around to make sure that Duncan’s BMW was there. It was. He turned round to Dougie and Archie, who had come to stand behind him.

“Right. Archie, has Dougie explained what’s been happening here?”

“Yes, he has, sir,” Archie replied seriously.

“Good. Well, as soon as things are back to normal here, I just want you to know that you are to be reinstated at Glendurnich. I take it that you don’t have another job yet?”

“No, I don’t!” Archie exclaimed, his eyes wide with delight.

“Right. That’s settled then. Now, I want you two to be present in the boardroom, just in case things get a little out of hand, okay?”

They nodded briefly, and David suddenly realized that both were dressed very much smarter than he was, he still being in the clothes that he had worn when he left Leesport. He felt a wry smile come over his face. What the hell! Better wearing old clothes for this kind of job. Blood would no doubt wash out much better from denim.

“Right. Let’s go.”

As they walked across the car-park, David turned to see that Dougie and Archie were making up a V-formation behind him. He smiled to himself. Perfect. Just like the Westerns. Everyone had his gun hand clear for the show-down.

They each took a separate door, bursting into the reception area at the same time, making the woman at the desk start back in surprise. David walked over and leaned both hands on the desk, and the woman, her mouth pursed in displeasure at their unmannerly entrance, pushed back her chair to distance herself from the menacing figure that stood in front of her.

“Excuse me, but who on earth do you think—?”

“Just be quiet and listen,” David said, holding up his hand. “I want you to get hold of Duncan Caple and both the marketing and financial directors, and tell them to meet me in the boardroom right now.”

The woman looked at him, her right eye twitching with both fear and indignation.

“Don’t be absurd! I—”

“I also want you to get in contact with Margaret, and tell her to get herself back here right now. Then, as soon as you have done that, I want you to vacate this desk. Is that understood?” He flashed her a brittle smile and turned and walked towards the boardroom, followed by Dougie and Archie.

“Excuse me!” Doreen called out after David, her voice shaking with anger. “But I have no idea who you are!”

David turned and gave Archie a wink, and as he and Dougie continued on to the boardroom, Archie broke formation and walked back to the desk. He leaned across, his face two feet away from the receptionist, relishing this moment of glory in his young life as he emulated every movement of his boss.

“You have just addressed Mr. David Corstorphine, son of Lord Inchelvie and the principal shareholder of Glendurnich Distilleries Limited. Now, if I were you, I’d get hold of Mr. Caple, Mr. Barker and Mr. Archibald right now, and tell them that they’re wanted in the boardroom immediately. And then call Margaret. You’ll find her number in the Glendurnich telephone book—probably at the top of the list.”

Doreen looked at Archie, her former expression of self-importance now replaced with one of utter fear.

“What shall I say to her?” she asked in a thin, trembling voice.

Archie pushed himself away from the desk and turned to walk over to the boardroom. “Just tell her that Mr. David’s back—for good!”

The young man took his time getting to the boardroom door, eager to hear Doreen talk with Mr. Caple on the telephone. In a faltering voice, she made her announcement, then, almost immediately, repeated it, and Archie imagined with almost sadistic glee the horror on Duncan Caple’s face as he learned of David’s presence in the building. Then, clenching his fist, he punched at the air, expelling through gritted teeth a silent Yesss before opening the door and walking into the boardroom.

When Duncan Caple entered two minutes later, accompanied by Giles Barker and Keith Archibald, David was standing looking out the window, his hands clasped behind him.

“David!” Duncan exclaimed, as he walked across the room towards David. “How nice to see you back. I was so sorry to hear about your fath——”

David turned and pointed to the table. “Sit down, all of you.”

Duncan stopped in his tracks and held up his hands, a sardonic smile on his face. “Of course. So how did things go in Ameri——?”

“Just sit down, Duncan!” David hissed through gritted teeth, as he turned to face the window once more.

The managing director shrugged, then pulled out a chair and sat, the other two directors having already taken heed of David’s request the first time round. Duncan crossed his arms nonchalantly, then suddenly became aware of both Dougie and Archie, who were leaning against the back wall of the boardroom.

“So what have we got here?” Duncan asked, casting a glance at them over his shoulder. “The heavy brigade? Are you going to get them to beat me up, David?”

David turned. “No, Duncan. They’re actually here to stop me from beating you up.”

Duncan reached forward and brought his hands hard down on the table. “Oh, come on! We can be a bit more mature about this, can’t we? You know, it’s quite easily explained—”

David held up his hand to stop him. “No … no, let me see if I can explain what’s happened. You just sit there and listen for a change, and if I do happen to go wrong at all, then you can put me right.”

He walked slowly around the table, glaring at the three as he went. They followed him with their eyes, the two directors visibly blanching as they waited for him to begin. David breathed deeply, trying to steady his emotions, and looking at Duncan’s thin aquiline nose, he found himself wondering what it would look like pushed flat against his face. He stopped and leaned forward on the table.

“So how much were you going to get paid, Duncan?”

For the first time, Duncan’s smile slid from his face. “I don’t think that really—”

“Because it must have been a hell of a lot to make it worthwhile for you to do what you’ve just done.”

He stared with such hatred at Duncan that the man began to rub his hands nervously together between his knees. David pushed himself off the table and walked over to the window.

“I don’t know the time-scale on this, but I’m not really bothered. What I do know is that you have … used my father and myself to your own advantage, with the result that he is now lying near death in hospital.” He turned and looked at Duncan. “And I want you to get something clear from the outset—and I’m really addressing all of you now—and that is whatever has happened or will happen to my father will be on your consciences for the rest of your lives. Maybe, at this very minute, it will mean very little to you, because I think that you’re too pig-ignorant to understand that … but Christ, I tell you, it’ll eventually catch up with you!”

David surveyed them all in silence. They sat in a row, Keith Archibald now biting at a finger-nail, as they waited for him to continue. David caught Dougie’s eye, and his ex-sergeant gave him a wink and a nod of his head in encouragement.

“Right!” David said, turning back to the window. “So let’s see how close I can get to your little plan.” He paused. “In May, against both my will and my father’s, you pulled me back to work, under the pretext that sales figures had slumped in the States. Number-one point. They had not, but you knew pretty well that the only person who might check up would be Robert McLeod, and you managed to slide him away from the company and replace him by—?”

He looked at the two directors, pointing his finger at each one. Keith Archibald slowly raised his hand.

“Right … you. Good. So Duncan, you decide to appoint a new distributor in the States. Deakin Distribution, a company run by a Mr. Charles Deakin, who just happens to have recently sold his company to a UK corporation called Kirkpatrick Holdings Public Limited Company.” For effect, he spelled out the full name in short, pronounced bursts. “So … I am sent over there, and because you have already given Deakin a full briefing on my own … personal loss and state of mind, he is able to play heavily on that, to such an extent that he suddenly, quite out of the blue, is able to stress the importance of my having a wife.”

He shook his head as he began to take in fully the ruthlessness of Duncan’s actions.

“And bang! It works! I fly out of the office, in a worse state than ever before.” He took in a deep breath before continuing.

“So that’s me out of the way. Deakin calls you and confirms all has gone according to plan. You then contact my father and tell him that you now need a marketing director, because I’m not in a fit state to fulfil my job.” He pointed to Giles Barker. “And you were brought in—from Kirkpatrick’s, I presume?”

The three directors were by now looking extremely uneasy.

“I take it from your lack of interjections that I’m not doing badly so far.”

Duncan shook his head, and blowing out an impatient breath, linked his hands behind his head.

“That only left you with my father to deal with. However, you managed to get him out of the way pretty easily by saying that there was no need for him to come into the distillery any more, and that you would keep him in touch by visiting him at home.” He turned and stared directly at the managing director. “How very thoughtful of you, Duncan.” He began pacing up and down the boardroom.

“Now, you have the full run of the distillery to yourself.” He held up a finger and waggled it in the air. “Ah, but what about Margaret? She commands the switchboard. How can you begin to receive endless telephone calls from Kirkpatrick’s without raising her suspicions? Easy! Get rid of her! So out she goes.”

He paused for a moment, as he tried to get the next point into his mind.

“Okay, so what about this take-over? What made you think that you could buy out a company that was in the hands of private shareholding? Ah, the workers’ stock-purchase plan. You found out that they now owned thirty-one per cent of the shares. Not enough to swing an outright purchase, but nevertheless, a good-enough thumbscrew when the time was right…” David turned and thumped his hands down onto the table. “… to approach my father!”

David took a deep breath.

“So what were you going to say to him? ‘Listen, old boy, you’re getting on a bit, and your son has lost all interest in the company and won’t want anything to do with it, seeing that he’s just had a nervous breakdown in the States. Much better that you realize your capital from the company now—anyway, thirty-one per cent of the shares are already owned by the workers, and they’re all for making a bit of money out of the deal, which I’m sure you will agree is owed to them after so many years of faithful service. So why not do the right thing, old boy’!”

David spat out the last words in sheer fury at the three men who sat in front of him. He turned away and stood rubbing at his forehead with the tips of his fingers, his eyes tightly shut.

“But then, I found out about Kirkpatrick’s, didn’t I? And I began putting two and two together, even though my evidence was somewhat sketchy. So I faxed Archie through Margaret, but of course, Margaret wasn’t there, so your … tame woman out there”—he pointed with a thumb over his shoulder towards the door—“brought the fax directly to you. And that not only spelt the end of Archie’s involvement with the company, but also made you realize that I had an inkling of what you were planning.”

He turned back and looked directly at Duncan. “But what gets me is that you continued. I can’t believe that—unless you were being pushed like hell by John Davenport in London.”

Duncan made no move to comment, and David shook his head. “Christ, I am doing well, aren’t I? So you went on. You told the work-force on Friday, and then, on Saturday afternoon, you began to put the pressure on my father … and the consequences of that we all know too well.”

Giles Barker broke the silence that followed by clearing his throat.

“So what do we do now?” David asked. “You tell me, Duncan: What do you think we’re going to do now?”

Duncan pushed himself forward in his chair and linked his hands together, placing them in front of his chin. “Well, we could still go ahead with it. It would still be hugely profitable for your family. If you would just, for one moment, consider—”

David turned, a look of sheer horror on his face.

“What? I don’t believe you said that! God, you are so fucking thick-skinned! Oh, no, Duncan, this is as far as it goes. Not only do I hold thirty-four point five percent of the Glendurnich shareholding, but under the circumstances that surround my father at present, I stand here in proxy of his thirty-four point five per cent shareholding as well! That is sixty-nine per cent, Duncan, just in case your mental arithmetic is not as sharp as your underhandedness. There is no way that you can swing this deal now! No, I think you have totally misunderstood my question. What I’m really saying is: What are you lot going to do now?”

Duncan was silent. He rubbed at his chin and glanced across to his fellow directors, who in turn looked back at him.

“I don’t know,” he said eventually. “What do you want us to do?”

David pulled out a chair and sat down opposite them, fixing each with a penetrating stare.

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, you have only one option, and that is to leave today, and never, ever set foot in Glendurnich again. But if you feel that you want to go against that option, then I’ll tell you exactly what I’ll do. Tomorrow morning, first thing, I shall call the Scottish correspondent of the Financial Times and the industrial editors of both The Scotsman and The Herald, and I shall issue them with a news release explaining exactly what has happened at Glendurnich. You’ll agree with me when I say that I know the story well enough. And when it is printed, I doubt that you three will ever get a job again in this country.” He leaned back in his chair. “I certainly don’t think John Davenport will want to know you. He would no doubt put his damage-limitation exercise into overdrive and distance Kirkpatrick’s as far as possible from your escapades up here. You’d take the brunt, I’m afraid.”

He glanced over to Dougie, who was looking down at his feet, slowly nodding his head. There was a soft scraping on the carpet as Giles Barker and Keith Archibald pushed back their chairs and made their way over to the door. David turned and watched as they silently left the room, then stared over at Duncan, who eyed him with disdain, as if determined to make his final stand of dominance in the company. At that point, there was a knock at the boardroom door.

“Come in!” David called out.

Margaret put her head around the door, and he saw immediately that there were tears in her eyes.

“Yes, Margaret?” he asked in a concerned voice.

“Mr. David. I’m so sorry. Your mother has just been on the telephone.” Her voice choked. “I’m afraid that your father died a quarter of an hour ago.”

David looked at her and then over at Duncan.

“You fucking bastard!”

The fuse blew in his head and, fuelled by the resultant overload of anger and hatred, he moved so fast around the table that Duncan had no time to get out of his chair. David pulled back his fist as he approached him, and the man cowered away, clamping his hands to his head to protect himself from the blow. He swung with all his force at the side of Duncan’s head, but just as he was expecting to feel the satisfying crunch of hard knuckle against soft cheek-bone, his hand was caught inches short of its target in Dougie’s rock-hard palm.

“No, Davie!”

David turned to look through his blurred vision into Dougie’s face.

“It would’na help, laddie. It just would’na help.”

David turned away, and pulling his hands across his head, he walked to the far end of the boardroom and let out an anguished cry.

“Oh, no, Pa! Oh, no, no, no!”

He looked up at the painting that hung above the fireplace and stood, for a time indeterminable, staring into the kind, gentle face of his father. His eyes watched him, his smile enveloped him, and it slowly began to dawn on him that his mother had been right. The old man had picked his time. He had done all that he could, and he had clung on long enough to make sure that his son was there to carry on.

He turned. There was no one in the boardroom. The chairs were left pushed away from the table. It was all over. Glendurnich was unequivocally back in the hands of the Inchelvie family.