I picked up the menacing black King. It was surprisingly heavy, and I realised that there was a weight set in its base. I held it up, and gasped at the way its pinprick eyes seemed to follow me, glowering.

  ‘Did you make these?’ I asked. ‘They’re brilliant.’

  He smiled, and I could see that he was the sort of bloke who’s embarrassed by his talent. ‘Thank you. They’re just a one-off, though. I couldn’t do them commercially. Take too much time. My model soldiers are easier.

  ‘Right, Oz, you’re black.’ The game didn’t last long. He marched his soldiers out methodically, as I pursued my usual tactic of going for a quick kill, crashing my main attacking pieces all around the board, looking for an opening. He took my offensive apart, pawn by pawn, knight after knight, until all but nine of the men were on his side of the board. Finally he zapped me with a Queen-rook move that I saw only when I was beyond redemption.

  He nodded as I tipped over my King. ‘Excellent. You’ll do for my daughter all right. People approach chess in the same way they approach their lives. You, Oz, play with your heart, rather than your head. Exactly like Primavera; you couldn’t be better matched.’

  Right on cue, my beloved appeared in the doorway. ‘Come on you two. Lunch.’ She led us through to a long dining room at the rear of the house, where a long table - more Corleone Family than Addams this time - was set for five.

  ‘It’s as if we were expected,’ I said to Prim; quietly, I thought, but her mother can hear a mouse break wind at the foot of the garden.

  ‘Sunday, Oz,’ she boomed. ‘We always cook a big bird on Sunday. It does us for a couple of days.’ The big bird turned out to have been a goose, but before we got that far we were faced with the sort of thick soup that my Granny Blackstone used to make. You know the kind; you can draw your initials in the middle and they won’t go away till you spoon them up. As I tackled and conquered the strong-flavoured goose, I looked out of the window. The Phillips’ back garden was of the market variety. On one side vegetables were set out in rows; potatoes, carrots, leeks, pea stalks, runner beans. On the other, there were lines of raspberry canes, with strawberry patches next to the house and rhubarb under the boundary wall.

  ‘What do you do with all that?’ I asked Dad Phillips. ‘You can’t handle it all, surely?’

  ‘Of course we can,’ he said. ‘We’re not completely Norman Rockwell, you know. We do have a freezer. Everything we can’t eat fresh goes in there, potatoes included, either cut into chips or sautéed.’

  Naturally, there were raspberries for desert.

  As we sat over our coffee, Mr Phillips looked across the table at Dawn over the top of his big glasses. Suddenly he was stem. ‘Now, young lady. Perhaps you’ll tell us why we had the police at our door yesterday, looking for you.’

  Dawn went white for a second, then flushed bright scarlet.

  ‘Didn’t they tell you?’ said Prim, with a combative edge to her voice.

  At once, Dad Phillips abandoned his attempt to be the heavy father. It isn’t a role that suits him, anyway. ‘No, they didn’t. They said something about wanting her to assist with an enquiry in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. But it’s got nothing to do with Dawn really. A man was found dead in a flat in Ebeneezer Street, on my stair. The police want to talk to all the neighbours, to find out if they saw anything. But Dawn was here when it happened, so she can’t tell them anything. End of story.’

  I could tell that he didn’t believe her. But I could tell also whose word is law in the Phillips family, when push comes to shove, and that, whatever was happening, he trusted her to handle it. Dad and Mum don’t really want to play in the Nineties, and sometimes the world frightens Dawn just a bit. If Semple House, Auchterarder, was an independent state, Prim would be Foreign Secretary.

  ‘Poor chap,’ he said. ‘Yet it was a bit much of the police to come chasing Dawn up here, in the circumstances. Could you two talk to them when you go back to Edinburgh?’ He glanced at me.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘That’ll probably keep them happy.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’ Prim asked.

  ‘They asked me a straight question, so I gave them a straight answer. I said that Dawn had been here, but that she was away for a day or two with a friend in Perth. I said that she’d be back on Sunday, and we’d ask her to contact them as soon as possible. They seemed happy enough with that.’

  ‘When are you two going back?’ said Mrs Phillips.

  ‘We thought we’d stay overnight,’ said Prim, ‘if that’s all right?’

  ‘All right! Of course it is. Your bed’s made up, Primavera. I put sheets on it after you phoned. Thee’s fresh linen under the stair for the fourth bedroom.’ My heart sank, and I think my face must have gone down with it, for Prim kicked me under the table. I supped my coffee to cover my tracks.

  There’s not a lot you can do to escape a Scottish Sabbath, but eventually, after the girls had washed the dishes, Dad had massacred my goblin army on the chess-board a few more times, and we’d had totally unnecessary tea, scones and jam, Prim came up with a cover story. ‘Mum, I think I’ll take Oz to meet Julia.’ It was around 6.30 p.m.

  ‘Who’s Julia?’ I asked.

  ‘My best pal from school. I visit her every time I’m here. She lives at the other end of town. We’ll walk. Dawn, you come too.

  ‘Oz, go and get our stuff out of the car, there’s a love.’ Mrs Phillips was crossing the hall when I came back inside. When she noticed that I was carrying just one bag, she glanced at me and I’ll swear a tiny smile flickered around the corners of her mouth. I guessed that there was something left of the woman who had christened her daughter after the time of her conception. She’s a great believer is Prim’s Mum. She believes in God, in her family and in all of life’s certainties; the return of the seasons, and all that.

  Of course, Julia wasn’t in. We could have telephoned first, but we didn’t. Instead we walked all the length of Auchterarder’s Main Street to find out, then made a detour up to the Gleneagles Hotel, which turned out to have been our real objective after all.

  I thought we’d be lucky to be served in denims, but the Phillips sisters are well known there. We sat in the big bar sipping half-pints of Pimms, which Dawn insisted on buying with her movie money. Eventually I asked her how much she was being paid. When she told me I think she heard me grind my teeth. Sometimes it takes me more than six months to make the dough that Dawn was earning for a couple of weeks’ work.

  ‘Don’t think it’s all like that. Once this gig is over, chances are I’ll be back in Edinburgh, doing stock plays at the Lyceum and being paid sweeties for it. That’s if I’ve got a job at all.

  ‘I won’t complain if that’s how it turns out. I like the Lyceum. You feel really close to your audience there, and the regulars feel close to us. Our Chairman came up with a really good idea last year. He started a theatre club for us performers and for our season ticket holders and regulars. We’ve got our own bar, and we can go in there after rehearsal - anytime really - and mix with the punters, making them feel part of the theatre family. We get some odd sorts turning out.’ Her expression darkened all of a sudden. ‘That’s where I met Willie.’ She sat there for almost a minute, in silence. Prim and I said nothing, letting her come through it in her own time. At last a faint smile returned to her lips. ‘Willie. A bird with a broken wing all right.

  ‘But he was just one among many. We’ve got a real cross-section of members. We’ve got civil servants, lawyers, a couple of hairdressers, housewives, flash young guys out to pull an actress. We’ve even got a member who’s a prostitute. She offered Rawdon a freebie one night! I doubt if he took her up on it though! Oh yes, and we’ve got one policeman. A real Mr Plod, but he’s dead keen. Surprising: you’d never guess it to look at him. McArthur, his name is.’

  My eyebrows rose. ‘What! A big beefy bloke with a red face?’

  ‘Yes, that’s him. He comes to every play, and he’s in the bar about every second night.’

  ‘My God,’ I said, shaking my head in disbelief. ‘McArse the theatregoer. You never know the hidden depths of people.’

  It was just after nine-thirty when we finished our third round of Pimms and decided that it was time to call it quits. Night was still a way off as we strolled up the Gleneagles driveway and out towards the road, but the sun had gone and there were patches of darkness under the trees. IfAuchterarder is famous for anything other than Gleneagles, it’s because it lays claim to the longest Main Street of any Scottish town. All of it lay between us and Semple House as we turned into it and set off three abreast, with me in the middle and Dawn on the outside.

  A pint and a half of Pimms seemed to have relaxed Dawn. As we walked she asked us how we had traced her, and laughed as Prim described our encounter with Rawdon Brooks. ‘Poor old Rawdon,’ she laughed. ‘You shouldn’t be hard on him. I know he’s outrageous, he’s a bit of a junkie, and he could seduce the College of Cardinals, but he’s really nice. Gay men can be the kindest people, you know. There’s no-one better when it comes to sharing your troubles. No offence, Prim, but they’re even better than sisters.

  ‘You can tell them anything you like, and they won’t hold it against you, or tell a soul. So many people have cried on Rawdon’s shoulders, they must be mildewed. He helped me a lot when I was going through agonies with Willie. He did his best to help Willie too, being a friend, and making him ask himself whether he was certain about what he was doing.’

  ‘A real heart of gold,’ I said, and she dug me in the ribs with her elbow.

  ‘So tell me, you two. What d’you think I should do, then?’ she asked, lisping slightly.

  ‘No doubt about that,’ I said. ‘First thing tomorrow you should get your shapely arse back up to Connell or wherever the next stop is, and cuddle up to the leading man. “Tell her if she’s got a problem, Old Miles’ll sort it out.” That’s what he said. I’ll tell you, I reckon he could, too. When you’ve got as much clout as Miles Grayson, you can sort out most things.

  ‘Yes, Dawn. You head back to the Highlands and cuddle up to Miles.’

  She looked up at me, then across at her sister. ‘Hey, Prim,’ she called. ‘Where did you find this guy? I like the way he thinks!’

  We were laughing so loud we might have not heard the car, but there was something about the engine tone that broke through to me, something about the way it kept on revving when the driver should have been changing gear. I looked up, just in time to see a black shape, travelling flat-out, swerve and head towards us, at racing speed, climbing on to the pavement.

  If there had been a high wall on the other side of us we’d have been dead. All of us. But, thank God, there was only a low stone thing, with a sickly privet hedge behind it. The car was almost on us as I grabbed each sister around the waist and jerked them off their feet - diving, plunging over the wall and through the hedge. In mid-air, I felt something catch the outside of my left foot, twisting it, but somehow we made it, all three of us, to the other side.

  Behind us we heard a crunch, the sound of breaking glass and the scream of metal as the speeding car crashed into the wall. We lay there breathless waiting for it to stop, but it went roaring on, on down the longest Main Street in any Scottish town, and away into the gathering night.

  I helped the girls to their feet and looked around. We were in a long garden. It stretched for at least a hundred yards, up to a big detached villa. We waited for lights to come on but none did. Amazingly, no lights came on in the surrounding houses either. Auchterarder’s a bit like that. Plenty of Levites, but not too many Samaritans.

  Eventually, I took a chance and stuck my head out of the garden, checking to see if the black car had come back, if it was lying out there, waiting for another shot. I felt like a character in a Stephen King novel.

  ‘Who was it?’ said Prim behind me. ‘Did you see?’ It was remarkable that not one of us thought for a second that it might have been a drunk driver.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Och it was probably a drunk driver.’ Even through the gloom, I felt the eyes of the Phillips sisters boring into me.

  ‘Did you get the number?’ asked Dawn.

  ‘Do us a favour. I was too busy saving your life.’ I shuddered and tried to replay the scene in my mind’s eye. Again, I saw the car screaming towards us. I tried to freeze the picture. Suddenly, unexpectedly fragments of detail came back. ‘A Mondeo, I think. Navy or black. “N” registered.’ I tried to push everything else from my mind. ‘The last two registration letters could have been “BL”. But I couldn’t swear to it.’

  ‘“BL”?’ said Dawn. ‘Then it could have been hired.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’ asked Prim.

  ‘The film unit have hired minibuses. And Miles has a big stretched Ford thing. They all have “BL” registrations. But what does that tell us?’

  ‘It could tell us that whoever did that didn’t want to be putting their own car in for repair. Or it could tell us that it was a visiting Yank, driving, pissed, away from Gleneagles.’

  We stood there for another five minutes, waiting, listening, watching every passing car, before we braved the road again. My jarred foot pained me with every step I took. We had been walking, or in my case limping, for less than a minute, when a taxi drove by, I hailed it and it stopped. The driver was a guy in his late twenties. He knew Prim and Dawn from school.

  As we drove towards Semple House, I squeezed Dawn’s hand. ‘Hey. Remember what I was saying about cuddling up to Miles.’ She nodded. ‘I don’t think you should wait till morning. I think you should go tonight.’

  ‘Why? You don’t think that was meant for me, do you?’

  ‘No, of course not. I can’t think why it should be meant for any of us. But whoever that was, it wasn’t an autograph hunter. The best place for you is back with the crew.

  ‘Tell your Mum and Dad you have to be back early. Then get on your way. Tonight.’

  In which Mother offers black pudding, and we take a decision.

  I don’t know how long she’d been knocking. The sound started as part of a dream, a nice dream of domesticity, in which Prim and I were, I think, in the process of living happily ever after. I tried to dismiss it, but it was persistent, forcing its way from the back of my mind right up to the front.

  Eventually it carried me back to the world of the wide-awake. I propped myself up on an elbow, taking care not to disturb the dozing blonde bundle lying beside me, on top of the quilt. One of Africa’s gifts to Primavera is the ability, when she feels secure, to sleep through virtually anything.

  ‘Morning,’ I called drowsily to the door.

  ‘Wakey, wakey Oz.’ Mum Phillips sounded bright and breezy. ‘Breakfast in twenty minutes. D’you like black pudding?’ I squeezed my eyes tight to clear them, and looked at my watch on the bedside table. It was ten past eight.

  ‘Thanks,’ I called. ‘See you there. And, yes, I love black pudding!’

  ‘Good.’ There was a pause. ‘By the way, you haven’t seen my daughter, have you?’

  ‘I’ll look under the bed.’

  Beside me, Prim was beginning to stir, uncoiling, like a cat, sighing, murmuring, stretching. Eventually she shook her head and looked up at me, puzzled at first, then remembering. She pulled herself up and leaned against the heavy walnut headboard, flinching slightly from the coolness of the wood on her back, even through her nightshirt.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked her. ‘Have I got that job?’

  She smiled, rubbing her eyes. ‘I don’t think that this is quite the place for the audition!

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I couldn’t sleep for thinking about what happened last night. So I came in here, thinking you’d be in the same state. You were out like a light.’

  ‘No imagination,’ I said. ‘That’s my trouble.’

  Her right breast hung a few inches away from me. Automatically, as if I had done it a hundred times before, I rubbed my forehead against it, and flicked my tongue across the protuberance of her nipple, through the cotton of her shirt. She shivered, then slid, supply, down the covers once again to lie beside me. I could feel her warm breath on my face as we kissed. Her nightdress, which was no more than a long tee-shirt, had ridden up around her waist. I laid my hand on her naked hip and pulled her closer to me as I kissed her again. Her tongue sought out mine, and her fingers wound through my hair. Suddenly she rolled over on top of me, moving her body against me. I could feel the heat of her through the covers, and her eyes burned into mine.

  I smiled, ‘What’s it to be?’ I said. ‘Me, or your Mum’s black pudding?’

  She laughed. ‘You lose,’ she said, biting the end of my nose, gently. ‘For now.’ She pushed herself back and sat upright, straddling me. I gasped, and her eyes widened, as her weight bore down on my most critical region. ‘It’s nice to know I can command your attention when I want to,’ she murmured.

  ‘Darling,’ I said, ‘right now you’re commanding a hell of a lot more than my attention!’

  Gymnastically, she raised herself up again and swung her legs around to sit on the edge of the bed. When she turned and looked at me again, the tease was gone from her eyes.

  ‘Who, Oz?’ she pondered. I had fallen asleep asking myself the same question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘Unless...’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, forget it.’

  ‘Come on!’ I grunted. I hate it when someone sets me up and then says, ‘No, forget it.’

  ‘Well, why would anybody want to kill us?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, why would anyone? Not because of what we know. The only person who knows that we know about the money is Ray Archer, and right now we’re his only chance of getting it back. And not because of what we’ve got This gets complicated, but whoever is after the fiver doesn’t necessarily know that we know what it’s for. And they wouldn’t want to kill us, would they, at least until they’d got it?’