An eager Rhona stood on tiptoes to observe them all over the rock buns.
Peaches and Willie were the last ones to step inside, rounding everyone up like collies shepherding Runner ducks.
‘What’s all this?’ asked McIntyre, his eyes shining.
‘Cairn Dhu wasn’t going to sit by and watch you struggle,’ Willie shouted above all the heads. This was met with a murmur of agreement.
‘We’ve been in the school hall,’ added Peaches. She looked delighted with herself in her peach-print dungarees and dyed, acid-yellow space buns.
‘Gathering provisions and people,’ said Aamaya Roy from her husband’s arms.
‘For what?’ Roz asked, moving through the centre of the group to find McIntyre, slipping her arm around his waist when she got to him.
‘For the repair shed’s comeback,’ said Ally. This was greeted with lots of nods and muttered agreement. ‘Because a minor setback is nothing but the set-up for a major comeback!’
‘I told you!’ Senga announced. ‘Cairn Dhu could never forego my baking!’
Heads turned towards her.
‘And, of course, the repairs are needed too,’ she allowed.
Roz beamed at her daughter who was happily watching her invasion unfold, her eyes following the conversation as it bounced around the room.
‘Was this your doing, Ally?’ Roz called to her.
‘It was a community effort,’ she said back, and her words were quickly caught up in a surge of voices repeating what she’d just said all the way to the far reaches of the crowd.
‘Tush!’ This came from Reverend Meikle and it silenced the room as though he was beginning an impromptu sermon. ‘It was Ally who rallied the whole town. It was her and young Jamie who approached me for help yesterday afternoon, prompting me to ask the school caretaker to open the hall for our meeting this morning.’
‘And between them, they chapped on every door in town,’ added Esma from the chippy. ‘Called in at every business too, and reminded folks that you’ve been here for them all this time and that if they wanted things fixing, there’s no time like right now.’
Jamie had been shrugging this off. ‘It was all Ally, honestly.’
What he wasn’t saying was that Ally had burst into the police station looking for him yesterday morning. She’d found him sitting behind one of the local officers, Constable Andrew Mason, watching as he typed something on-screen. Ally had registered the strange mood in the room at the time, and the frown on Jamie’s brow, before she’d stuck to her plan and begged him to help her.
‘You can take him, doll,’ the desk sergeant, who happened to be Andrew’s older brother, Robert Mason, had said, while Andrew had hidden a smirk. ‘He’s no’ much use to us.’
Ally hadn’t understood what that was supposed to mean, and hadn’t given it much thought since then, because Jamie had immediately gathered up his things and followed her out into the station car park.
‘What is it you need me to do?’ he’d said, with a focused intensity he hadn’t lost all the while they set about their task.
‘I see,’ McIntyre was saying now to the whole assembly. ‘We thought you’d lost trust in us.’
Some looks passed around the room, an awkward acknowledgement that maybe there was more than a grain of truth in that.
A hand lifted in the middle of the group and people stepped aside to reveal Carenza McDowell, Peaches’s mother, not quite as shamefaced as perhaps she ought to have been, but with the look of someone here to make amends, if they could.
‘Perhaps,’ she began, ‘one or two of us were of the opinion things weren’t quite above board at the shed, and perhaps…’ she faltered, casting a glance at Peaches who was filming the whole thing on her phone with a tiny hint of self-righteousness in her smile, ‘perhaps some of us were… overly vocal about our convictions. But after a visit from Special Constable Beaton late last night, he was able to satisfy us of some of the broader details of the stolen jewellery case, exonerating the McIntyres, and well… I apologise. It’s possible we overreacted when we asked the kids to stay away.’
Roz and McIntyre aimed hurried glances at Senga Gifford with looks designed to make her think twice about saying what was no doubt on the tip of her tongue about this U-turn; that Carenza had made it her business to spread the word the repair shop and café wasn’t a reputable or safe place to bring your prized possessions, or for your precious grown-up children to volunteer their time.
Senga harrumphed to herself instead, folding her arms across her bust, none too happy at not being allowed to speak her mind, but she held it in for the sake of community cohesion and her own little café venture.
‘So… you’re back?’ asked Roz, gesturing to Peaches and Willie. ‘And Willie, your parents are happy you’re here as well?’
‘We’re back!’ they said together, Peaches hopping on the spot excitedly.
‘You haven’t all brought a broken item, have you?’ McIntyre asked the crowd.
