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 Kenneth Walker McHoan; he weighed three and a half kilos and looked like his father.
Lewis, Verity and young Kenneth travelled up to Lochgair two weeks later.
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 tanned - Helen from Switzerland, Diana from Hawaii - sat together in the tall-ceilinged Solar and heard that they were to inherit the estate, with the exception of various pieces of glass held in the castle, which - as the twins had already known - were to be donated to the Glass Museum attached to the factory. Mrs McSpadden - sitting hunched and crying with what was, in retrospect, a quite baffling quietness - received the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, and the right either to live on in the castle, or receive a similar amount if the property was sold or if she was asked to vacate her apartments by the twins or their heirs. Fergus had asked to be buried in the old castle garden, but as they never did recover the body a monument was decided on instead. A memorial service would he held in Gallanach at a later date.
The Range Rover was part of the estate, but the Bentley Eight had been willed to my father. Fergus had changed his will after dad’s death - following promptings by the good lawyer Blawke - and so the car and its contents passed to me instead, which came as something of a surprise.
There were various other bits and pieces - bequests to charities and so on - but that was the gist of it.
The lawyer Blawke handed me the keys to the Bentley after the reading, while we were standing around awkwardly drinking small sherries dispensed by a quietly tearful Mrs McSpadden and I was still in a slight daze, thinking, What? Why? Why did he give me the car?
I talked to the twins. Helen just wanted to get away, but Diana had decided to stay on for a while; I agreed to come and help her pack stuff away in a few days time. Fergus’s personal effects were going to be stored in the cellar, and of course the glass had to be packed up to be taken to the museum. The twins said they still hadn’t decided what to do with the castle long-term, and I got the impression it depended on what Mrs McSpadden chose to do.
I said my good-byes as soon as I decently could. I had intended to take mum’s Metro straight back to Lochgair; I’d told Helen and Diana that I’d probably come back that afternoon with mum, to take the Bentley away. But for some reason, when I got out of the castle doors, I didn’t go crunching over the gravel to the little hatchback but turned and went back into the Solar and asked if I could take the Bentley to Lochgair instead, and come back for the Metro later.
Diana told me the garage was open, so I walked round to the rear of the castle where the garage and outhouses were. The Bentley sat inside the opened double garage, burgundy bodywork gleaming like frozen wine. I opened the car, wondering why the will