‘You’re here!’ Ally gasped in relief at the sight of him.
Roz had crossed the floor in a second to hug her son.
‘That I am.’ He looked exhausted, like he’d travelled a long road. Roz ushered him into the circle, finding him a chair.
‘Are you on leave again?’ Ally asked, not wanting to give away the things she’d gleaned from Andreas, at least, not in front of everyone. ‘Are you staying?’
‘If you’ll have me?’ he said sheepishly.
‘This is your home, always,’ said their dad, leaning across to pat his back.
‘You were saying?’ Ally fixed her twin with an intent look. ‘About us needing more space?’
Murray was sitting down, unzipping an expensive looking sports jacket. ‘From what I caught of your brainstorming exercise, if you’re going to host all these events, and you want them to grow, you’ll eventually need more floor space.’
‘That’s what I was saying,’ tutted Senga.
‘An extension to the barn?’ Roz didn’t look too sure. ‘That would be a lot of work, and expensive.’
‘If you applied for funding, you might secure a small sum to expand at the back.’ Murray pointed into the depths of the shed behind the café where his dad’s collection of parts and spares were stored on their tall shelves. ‘If you had someone with experience in writing funding applications…’ he tailed off into a cunning smile.
‘That’s Murray’s job settled, then,’ Ally said before he could back down and run off to Europe again.
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ Murray stopped her. ‘We have to prove there’d be a demand for these new services. You can’t just turn up in a community and do things to it. You have to be needed and offer something that’ll have a measurable impact.’
‘That’s why we need a great big repair café open day to launch our plans so far and to field local opinion, ask folk what they want and need from us.’ She hit a button on her laptop and a slide materialised that made Roz clasp her hands in delight. It read:
Cairn Dhu Community Repair Shop and Café, Open Day, Saturday 9th August, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., come along to our Skills Share recruitment drive and Societies soft launch. All welcome. Always Friendly and Free.
‘You’ve got it all figured out, sis,’ said Murray, and the whole shed agreed.
‘Not everything, I don’t,’ she said meaningfully, peering right at him. There was still the small matter of her brother going AWOL from work to get to the bottom of.
‘Uh, right, well…’ He stood. ‘If we’re finished here, I’ll, uh, get unpacked,’ he said, hiking a thumb towards the exit, shouldering his bag.
‘And that’s the end of the meeting,’ Ally blurted at lightning speed, following in the wake of her brother as he dashed for the door. He wasn’t going to get away with disappearing and reappearing on a whim like this, especially if he reappeared seemingly without a job, and without telling her at least some of what had happened.
But as the twins reached for the door handle and yanked it open together, they were halted by a great big body in black, his hand raised to knock.
‘Allyson McIntyre?’ said PC Andrew Mason.
‘Andy, we went to school together, you know who I am. What are you wanting?’
He dropped the formality immediately. ‘It’s Jamie Beaton. He’s in the Infirmary, assaulted while attempting to apprehend a suspect late at night in the Garten Valley. And he’s asking for you.’
19
A ride-along in a cop car would, Ally had always imagined, be laced with excitement and intrigue. On the hour-long drive to the Infirmary, however, it was all Ally could do to sit still in her seat. At least Andrew had let her ride in the front. Calls were coming in over the radio, but he didn’t respond to any of them. It transpired he was technically off duty.
‘Doin’ a favour for a pal,’ he’d said when pressed, and Ally had wanted to ask what kind of ‘pal’ he thought he’d been when he was mocking Jamie at every opportunity, but she kept her mouth shut as they made their way through the mid-morning traffic, passing the occasional tractor and many, many caravans holding up the road.
Andrew didn’t seem to know much about Jamie’s condition, or he wasn’t letting on. Which was worse.
Ally felt just as she had done the few times she’d flown on family package holidays to Lanzarote or Majorca when she was a kid. After take-off she hadn’t dared let herself nap or read her graphic novels, wouldn’t even leave her seat to go to the loo, because she felt somehow the pilot needed her to lend her powers of concentration to keep the plane in the air. So she’d sat, bolt upright, hands clasped tightly over the rests, keeping an eye on the wing, willing the plane to stay up in the air. That anxiety however, that exhausting channelling of willpower, was nothing compared to the sixty minutes she spent in that police car.
Jamie was asking for her. He wanted her. She had to get there quick and hope he was holding on and not thinking she wasn’t coming to him.
‘Can you not put your foot down a wee bit?’ she’d wailed eventually, seeing the building queues of traffic as they got closer to the city.
