That’s your full fry-up, Ronnie,” said Eck, the proprietor of the Cormorant Café, as he slid a plate brimming with eggs, bacon, sausage, black pudding, and tomatoes across the table.
Ronnie Macaskill held a hand to the edge of the Formica top to stop the plate from overshooting and ending up in his lap. He rolled his copy of the Daily Record into a tube and placed it at the side of the table next to the battered black notebook and mobile phone. “Thanks, Eck,” he said, glancing up at the man as he sidled back to his place behind the counter, wiping his hands on his stained white apron.
He took a large mouthful of his breakfast just as his mobile rang. He pulled a small paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and wiped his hands, and then picked up the phone, checking the source of the call on the screen before hitting the SPEAK button. “Good morning, Betty,” he said, gulping down his food. “How are things with you in Fort William?”
“Oh, it’s a fine day here now, Ronnie,” the office manager at Seascape replied in her euphonious voice. “That wretched cold weather seems to have moved on, so maybe we’ll be getting that Indian summer after all.”
“Aye, that would be suiting us now, would it not?” Ronnie replied, before taking a swig of hot, sweet tea from his mug.
“And what like is it in Oban?” Betty asked.
“Much the same.” He looked out of the window, catching sight of a seagull settling itself awkwardly on the top of the winch drum of one of the trawlers. “There’s quite a stiff breeze down here at the harbour, but the sky seems settled enough.”
“So have you been buying for us today?”
“Aye, I have.” He reached over for his notebook, opened it, and flicked through the pages. “I gave you a call earlier, but your phone was engaged.”
“Och, I can well believe that. It’s been havoc here this morning. Jimmy called in from Buckie, and then Patrick from Mallaig, so the line has been red hot.”
“Patrick’s up in Mallaig, is he? Now, how would he be managing that?”
“He went up with this new chappie from London. Did you not know about him working for us?”
“No. Never heard a word. How long has he been with Seascape?”
“Just over a week now. Dan Porter’s his name. He came up with his son Josh, and they’ve both been working in the packing house to get the feel of the place. This is the first morning that Patrick and he have been off buying together.”
“And what’s this Dan Porter from London like?”
“He seems to be a pleasant enough man. He’s managed to put Patrick in a better mood, at any rate.”
“And does he know anything about the prawn?”
“He knows more now than he did a week ago. He’s been a banker in his life—not a fisherman or the like.”
“A banker, eh? So what happened to the lad that we were to be getting from Ocean Produce in Aberdeen?” Ronnie broke the yoke of his second fried egg with a piece of bread and put it in his mouth.
“The company’s not letting him away for the next four months. Dan Porter is only here temporary-like, just to give Patrick a hand.”
“And how does Patrick seem to be keeping?”
Betty’s voice seemed to hush. “I wouldn’t say he’s that good, Ronnie. When did you last see him?”
“Not for a couple of months or so.”
“Well, you’d see a big change. He’s still walking around on sticks, but to my mind, it’s awful dangerous for him. He’s fallen over in the office a number of times now.”
“Aye, it’s truly a bad thing, especially for a man so active as himself.”
“If he wasn’t so active, it might be a great saving to him. Since Dan Porter has started in the job, Patrick has been coming into the factory at seven o’clock every morning.”
“That’s Patrick for you, though. He’ll keep going to the end.”
“Which could well be hastened, Ronnie, if he goes on like this.” Betty rustled some papers. “Look here, I’ve been speaking too long again. You’d better be letting me know what you have for us.”
Ronnie ran a stubby finger down the page as he gave Betty the names of the boats, the number of boxes that were coming off each, and the price paid. He read slowly, knowing that Betty would be entering them in the database as he spoke. Bonnie Maud, 4 boxes, £14 per stone; Misty Blue, 5 boxes, £16 per stone; Minch Hunter, 6 boxes, £18 per stone. They weren’t the best, having been caught by deep-sea trawlers working the inky depths of the Minch. He much preferred to buy off the small fishing boats that set their creels close into the rocky shoreline of the Mull of Kintyre. That was where the clonkers were caught.
“And that’s it for the day,” Ronnie said, holding the mobile between his cheek and shoulder and slipping the elastic band over the notebook.
“Thanks, Ronnie. Will you be buying from Oban tomorrow as well?”
“I’ll have to find out if there are any boats due in. If not, I might just take a ride down to Campbeltown and see if I can pick up some clonkers for you.”
“Well, we certainly could do with some. Mercamadrid were on the phone this morning from Spain looking for some big ones.”
“I’ll do my best, Betty. Speak to you tomorrow.”
He pressed the button on his mobile and put it down on the notebook, and went back to enjoying his breakfast.
“Mind if I join you?”
Ronnie looked up to see Billy Inglis, the buyer for one of Seascape’s rival companies, standing in front of him. He glanced over to the table that Billy had been occupying up until a moment ago, and wondered why he wanted to come over to his table. Besides being rivals at the bid, Ronnie never felt that he had much in common with the lanky East Coast man.
“Aye, if you wish,” Ronnie said, pointing to a chair with a fork laden with bacon and black pudding.
Billy pulled out the chair and sat down, and immediately leaned forward on his elbows and blinkered his eyes with his hands.
“Is something wrong, Billy?” Ronnie asked, his brow creased questioningly.
“Have ye no’ seen the car that’s just pulled up oot-side?”
“No.”
“Well, hae a look.”
Letting out a sigh, Ronnie laid down his knife and fork, got to his feet, and went over to the window. He angled his vision so that he could see farther up the pier, and caught sight of the ageing BMW, lovingly polished as always so that its bright red paintwork gleamed in the morning sun.
“Och, for heaven’s sakes,” he mumbled to himself. “It’s the bloody politician.” He returned to the table, where Billy continued to shield his face. “Aye, I see what you mean. What the hell’s he doing down here?”
“Probably bored a’body else on the West Coast.”
“Did he see you?”
“I canna be sure aboot that. I’m takin’ no risks, though.”
The door of the café opened and a large man in his early thirties with a bull neck and a supercilious smile on his florid face heaved himself up the steep step. His football-sized head was prematurely balding and those few strands of hair that still survived were splayed out across his scalp like parched rhizome roots in a desert. He pulled off a pair of string-backed driving gloves, finger by finger, before unbuttoning his blue serge overcoat to reveal an enormous belly that overhung the trousers of his charcoal grey suit.
“God’s sake,” Ronnie murmured, sliding lower in his chair so that he could use Billy as a screen. “Imagine getting that stuck in your fishing net.”
“Is it him?” Billy asked, darting his eyes from side to side, trying to use his peripheral vision to catch a glimpse at what lay behind him.
“Who else? He’s not seen us yet, though.”
Ronnie noticed that Eck, the owner of the Cormorant Café, had done his utmost to avoid catching the eye of the man, but eventually had to turn from the grease-splattered cooker to thump yet another full fryup on the counter. The man greeted him loudly, and did a jumpy little dance as he tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers and pulled them up. He had called Eck by name and followed it by casting his piggy eyes around those tables closest to the counter to see if anyone had noticed that he had done so. But no one took a blind bit of notice of him. It was clear that others felt the same as Ronnie and Billy—that being acquainted with the man would do nothing to enrich one’s life.
Unfortunately, Ronnie was acquainted with him. It wasn’t that Maxwell Borthwick had ever done him any harm or injustice. It was just that he was one of those self-opinionated, thick-skinned, conniving individuals that Ronnie had done his best to avoid most of his life. He came from Inverness and spoke in a thin, whining accent, and Ronnie had always imagined him as the kind of young boy who either would have been dragged off into some teacher-free corner of the school playground to get beaten up quite regularly or, if he was ever lucky enough to be involved in a game with the other boys, would have been made to play the role of “the enemy.” That was probably the reason why he had gone into politics—to give back a little of what he had received, and to give himself the power that he knew he had so blatantly lacked in his earlier days.
Not that his chosen career had been as successful as he would have liked. When the new Scottish Parliament had been formed, he had put himself forward as a Scottish Socialist Party candidate for the Highlands and Islands. He wanted to see a Democratic Scotland—power to the people and not allegiance to the Crown. He wanted Scotland for the Scots and he wanted to rid the country of the parasitic presence of its landowners, no matter if they were English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, or whatever, those who lived privileged existences, in many cases in absenteeism, off the struggling labours of those unfortunate enough to work for them or live as tenants on their vast estates. Absolute partition was the only way forward.
It was a simplistic manifesto, yet an emotive one, and during the run-up to the election, Maxwell’s words were seldom out of the local press, his high-pitched voice constantly heard on Moray Firth Radio, expounding his views with such nationalistic vehemence that it appeared that he was not going to be satisfied until he had seen every haw-haw–speaking toff living in Scotland lose his head on the guillotine. He wanted a new pecking order in his country, and he wanted to be at the top of it.
Maxwell felt that nothing could stop him from taking his seat in the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, and he therefore adopted for himself an image that he thought reflected the importance of his new status. He bought his clothes from Austin Reed, joined a new golf club on the outskirts of Glasgow that was frequented by some of the hierarchy of Scottish politics (even though it was a good four-hour drive from his home in Inverness and he barely knew the difference between a driver and a putter). He made sure he was seen at all the events that would be featured in Caledonia magazine, and to transport himself from Inverness to his place of work in Edinburgh, he had purchased the second-hand BMW 525i.
However, it was all to no avail. Five weeks before the election, he had had to undergo an operation on a delicate part of his anatomy, and even though he craved notoriety and publicity for himself, he was mortified when some Conservative-voting doctor or money-grabbing porter in the hospital had leaked it to the newspapers. Most of the tabloids had picked it up, but the most humiliating for Maxwell was the Daily Star, which printed a short, four-line paragraph directly opposite the right nipple of the Page 3 girl under the headline “Borthwick Drops a Ball.” It was assured that everyone was going to read it.
Maxwell had thereafter gone to ground, or to be more precise, had hidden himself for a week beneath the stiff white sheets of his hospital bed before leaving the scene of his betrayal in sunglasses and a broad-rimmed hat to return, tail between legs, to the neat little council house of his doting mother in Inverness. There, he had been able to unleash the full power of his political authority by banning her from reading a newspaper or watching any programme on the television. Not that anyone in the media was remotely interested in Maxwell Borthwick anymore.
But then he had bounced back, still fired by his convictions, and found himself a job as a junior councillor with the Highland Regional Council. It was only a stepping-stone, in Maxwell’s view, until the realms of Holyrood opened up their arms and welcomed him as a key figure in the development of the New Scotland. Until then, he made sure that he was going to be seen in all the places where he felt there were ardent, “grass-roots” feelings for his policies. Places like the Cormorant Café in Oban.
He took the cup of coffee that Eck had banged down on the counter, and having poured the contents of the saucer back into the cup, he gently stirred it with the bent teaspoon as he glanced around the place.
“My wordie, he’s seen us,” Ronnie said, rubbing his fingers across his forehead.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Maxwell said brightly, his voice sounding like an over-revving chainsaw. “Would you mind if I have a seat at your table?”
“Ye can have mine, if ye like,” Billy said, getting up from his chair.
“I’m sure that Mr. Borthwick can quite easily pull one over from another table,” Ronnie responded, giving Billy a look that dared him to leave at his peril.
“Of course I can. No need to move, Billy.” He put his cup down on the table, and as he turned his back on them to retrieve a chair, Billy shot Ronnie a sneering thanks and sat down again.
“So,” said Maxwell, spilling his bulk over the edges of the red plastic chair, “what’s the trade been like?”
“Above average,” Ronnie replied, knowing that the man’s understanding of the fish trade was below minimal and that he could have said anything. Billy, however, had decided not to be so forgiving.
“Prawns the size of elephants this morning. It’s aye good when the boats are fishin’ aff the Azores.”
Maxwell nodded understandingly. “Yes, so I have been told.”
The two buyers caught each other’s eye across the table. Ronnie took a drink of tea to stop himself from laughing and Billy dug frantically in his pocket for a handkerchief and gave his nose a prolonged blow.
“So who have you been buying for today, Ronnie?”
“Seascape.”
“Ah, right. I hear that the Englishman is not keeping so well.”
Ronnie glowered at the man. “Now, would that be Patrick you’re talking about, MacSwell?” He always liked to get the accent wrong on his name. He felt that it was more fitting for the bumptious blimp of a man.
“Of course. There’s no other Englishman that works for Seascape.”
Ronnie cocked his head to the side. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong, MacSwell. Seemingly, Patrick has just hired another man to help him. From London, I believe. A banker, no less.”
Maxwell stared at Ronnie, unaware of the dribble of coffee that ran down the deep, podgy cleft at the side of his mouth. He placed his cup with a clatter onto its saucer. “Now, that’s just typical, isn’t it?”
Billy drummed his fingers on the table. “Whit dae ye mean by that?”
Maxwell clasped his sausage fingers together and rested them on his stomach. “Well, it just seems to me that there are plenty of good men up here looking for jobs. Why give priority to someone coming up from the south?”
Ronnie let out a quiet sigh. He was a Scotsman through and through, yet he didn’t like these “us and them” ideas that Maxwell had spouted so readily to the media. His own father had been a forester all his days, working on an estate up near Lochcarron in Wester Ross. Ten years ago, it had been bought by a Danish industrialist who had ploughed money into the place to improve its infrastructure. He employed thirty staff where before there had only been ten, and had funded the building of the new community hall, which thereafter became the main focal point of the area, being the venue for the various local council meetings and for the Saturday night ceilidhs. His father had always maintained that the Dane would have got a poor return on the capital that he had invested in the property.
“So what brings you down to these parts, Mac-Swell? You’re a long way from your jurisdiction, are you not?”
“Always good to get out and meet the people,” Maxwell replied with a smug smile.
“Does yer boss ken that ye’re doon here?” Billy asked, narrowing his eyes at the man.
Maxwell drew himself up in his chair. “I am my own boss, Billy. I have been for some time now. I am one of two coordinators of business development for the Highland Regional Council.”
Billy scratched his head quite theatrically, giving the impression that he was totally perplexed. “Aye, that may be so, but are we not in Argyll at the minute?”
“Well, yes, but . . .” Maxwell spluttered.
“Maybe he was just wanting to give the car a wee bit of a run,” Ronnie said to Billy, a wry smile on his face. “It’s still going well, I suppose?”
“Like a dream,” Maxwell replied, glad that the direction of the conversation had changed. “I had it tuned the other day by Frangalini Motors in Inverness.”
“Tuned, eh?” Ronnie sang out as he drained the last of the tea from his mug. “Well, there’s a thing.”
Maxwell glanced over both shoulders, and then leaned forward in his chair. “I got it up to a hundred and fifteen miles an hour on the A9 this morning.”
Billy had taken a tin of tobacco from his pocket and was busy rolling an anorexic cigarette. “In that case, ye’d better watch oot for yersel’, boy.” He licked the paper, squeezed the cigarette, and put it in his mouth. “Itherwise ye’ll soon be withoot yer precious car.”
Maxwell flumped back in his chair. “Oh, I don’t worry about that kind of thing. I’ve got a radar detector fitted.”
“Aye, I reckon you would have,” said Ronnie, picking up his notebook and mobile phone. “Well, gentlemen, it’ll do me no good sitting around gossiping all day.” He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “So if you will both excuse me.”
“Aye,” said Billy, hurriedly getting to his feet. “And I’ve got tae see a man aboot a dog.”
Maxwell watched the two men as they hurriedly paid Eck at the counter and then jostled with each other to get to the door. He turned back to the table and finished off his cup of coffee with a smack of his lips. So the trip had been worth it. He had found out about this new Englishman working for Seascape. That was not good news. That bloody man Trenchard had always got up his nose. Maybe the time would be right to have a quick word in the ear of Allan Duguid in Buckie. His prawn business had been suffering from the day that Trenchard took over Seascape. A little leverage on his part in Allan’s favour might well be rewarded quite handsomely.
As Maxwell pushed himself to his feet, pulling the folds of his overcoat around his stomach, a mobile sounded in his pocket. He extracted it from the depths and pressed the button.
“Hullo? . . . Oh, yes, good morning, Cyril. . . . Where am I? Oh, well, at the minute, I’m in, er, Dingwall. . . . Yes, Cyril, as soon as I can. . . . Well, I can’t be there that soon because my, er, car is in the garage. . . . No, I can’t take the bus, because the garage is here in Dingwall, and I couldn’t then . . . all right, Cyril, I’ll get there as soon as possible. Thank you, Cyril. . . . Goodbye.”
Maxwell’s face had changed from ruddy red to deep purple. He waddled quickly over to the counter and paid his bill, then left the café at speed. It would be that creep Cyril Bentwood, he thought to himself, as he pressed the key fob to open the doors of the BMW. He had always seen it as the final insult, having an Englishman as a boss.