21 Cyrus

21

There are no signposts pointing to Glengowrie Lodge, either in the nearest village or on the approach road or at the entrance, which is flanked by sandstone pillars weathered by age. The electronic gates are open and we follow the crushed-gravel drive through a tunnel of oak trees and across a single-lane stone bridge over a salmon river, streaked with rapids.

The lodge is a large Adam-style house surrounded by manicured lawns with perfectly mown stripes running down to the river. Near the house, a walled kitchen garden includes a small maze around a central fountain. A number of four-wheel-drive cars and luxury vehicles are parked in the turning circle.

Our arrival is greeted with a volley of gunshots and my first reaction is to duck. Nerves frayed. Memories fresh. The guns fall silent but begin again moments later. On a distant hill, I see a column of men moving in a straight line, some waving red and white flags, others beating the bushes with sticks, or banging drums or blowing horns and whistles. Birds fly up and shotguns blast, knocking them from the sky.

‘What are they doing?' asks Evie.

‘Shooting grouse,' I say.

‘That's not a game. That's a massacre.'

A woman emerges from the house. Middle-aged, pear-shaped, with hair pinned high on her head, she is all business. ‘Have you brought the paté?'

We look at each other blankly.

‘You're not from the butcher's,' she says.

‘No,' I say.

She lifts the watch pinned to her apron near the breast pocket. ‘I knew they'd be late. I'm going to need a new entrée.'

She pauses to examine Florence, who is still dressed in her leathers, and then stares at Evie, and lastly at me. What an odd trio we make.

‘How can I help you?' she asks.

‘We're sorry to intrude,' says Florence, ‘but we're scouting for wedding venues and wondered if Glengowrie Lodge might be available.'

‘This is a private estate.'

‘Which can be leased.'

‘For grouse shooting and salmon fishing parties – small groups, not weddings.' She looks from Florence to me. ‘Who is getting married?'

‘We are acting on behalf of a prominent public figure, a famously private one, who is seeking to secure a wedding venue off-market, so to speak. Under the radar. Money being no object.'

‘Who is it?' she asks, intrigued.

‘We can't tell you that.'

‘I bet it's Lewis Capaldi, isn't it? Or maybe Ed Sheeran. My daughter loves Ed Sheeran.'

‘I think he's already married,' says Florence.

‘Oh, yeah. Well, Lord Buchan would have to agree.'

‘Lord David Buchan?' I ask, feigning surprise.

‘Do you know him?'

‘Only by reputation.'

The housekeeper is studying Florence. ‘Why are you dressed like that?'

‘I normally ride my motorbike when I'm scouting for locations. I left it in St Claire when we caught the helicopter. You might have heard us flying overhead a few hours ago. That's how we found this place.'

‘Oh, that was you,' she says, eager to convince herself that it must be true.

Evie turns her scepticism into a cough.

‘What nationality is your client?' asks the housekeeper.

‘Does it matter?' asks Florence.

‘Lord Buchan is quite discerning about his guests.'

‘Are you saying he doesn't like foreigners?'

‘No, it's not that,' she replies hesitantly. We wait for her to explain. Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘But if your client were to be . . .' She doesn't finish.

‘A person of colour?' asks Florence.

‘Muslim. He lost a childhood friend in the World Trade Center attacks. The best man at his wedding.' She stops herself, as though she's said too much. ‘I could ask Mr Collie about wedding bookings, but he's with the shooting party.'

That name again. ‘Who is Mr Collie?' I ask.

‘The gamekeeper, but he also manages the lodge.'

‘Is he any relation to Maureen Collie?'

‘Her father. Why?'

‘We've been staying at the Belhaven Inn, but Maureen didn't mention this place. Has Mr Collie worked here long?' I ask.

‘Longer than you've been born, laddie. His wife was the housekeeper until she passed away.' She points to a squat stone building, camouflaged by ivy. ‘They raised eight children in the gamekeeper's cottage. Four boys and four girls, Maureen among them.'

At that moment, a group of men appears from the far side of the treeline, carrying something between them. Leading the way is a heavyset man in an oilskin jacket and a tweed deerstalker hat. From a distance, I think it might be Lord Buchan, but this man is older, with white hair and a pirate's limp.

‘Call an ambulance, Diana,' he bellows.

‘Yes, Mr Collie,' says the housekeeper, who dashes into the main house, leaving us standing on the front steps.

The approaching group are carrying a wounded man, whose torn shirt is stained with blood and pitted with shotgun pellets.

‘Put him in the shade,' says Mr Collie.

The beaters do as they're told. Dressed in shabby clothes and old shoes, they look Eastern European or Polish or Balkan. Migrant workers.

‘You can bring him inside,' says the returning housekeeper.

‘Nae reason to get blood on the floor,' says Collie. His eyes come to rest on me. ‘Who are you?'

‘They came to ask about a wedding,' says the housekeeper.

‘We don't do weddings.'

‘That's what I told them, Mr Collie. But they're asking on behalf of someone famous.'

‘Who?'

‘They can't tell us.'

‘Can't or won't?'

He is still looking at me rather than Florence, having decided that I'm the decision maker and Evie isn't worth acknowledging at all.

‘They spotted us from a helicopter,' says Diana, trying to be helpful.

Behind her, across the estate grounds, the rest of the shooting party is returning, climbing a stile and emerging from the trees, then crossing the lawn towards the main house. The men are dressed in three-quarter-length trousers, flat caps and tweed shooting jackets. Their twelve-bore shotguns are broken, the barrels pointing to the ground, and birds hang from the belts of loaders and pickers-up.

‘Fookin' amateurs,' grunts Collie. ‘The sixth drive and one cunt cannae tell the difference between a bird and a beater.'

‘Do we need to call the police?' asks the housekeeper.

‘Nae. We'll sort this out.'

The beaters are standing over the man on the ground, talking in broken English. Collie leaves us and walks towards the group, summoning one of them by name. Together they walk across the garden to a pergola. Collie is a foot taller and twice as wide, but the smaller man is angry and waving his hands around. Eventually, Collie reaches into the inside pocket of his coat and retrieves an envelope, which he hands to the man who counts the contents, before slipping the envelope into the pocket of his corduroy trousers.

The hunting party has almost reached the house.

‘You should leave,' says the housekeeper.

‘What about the wedding?' asks Florence.

‘You'll have to get permission from Lord Buchan.'

‘Is Lord Buchan here?' I ask.

‘Now isn't the time. He's with a group of chums from London. You could leave your details,' says the housekeeper.

One of the hunters, a barrel-shaped man with ruddy cheeks, approaches the tree, asking after the beater.

‘What a bugger!' he says. ‘Damn gun misfired. How is he?'

A fellow shooter answers, ‘He'll be fine, Toby. Don't concern yourself.'

I recognise the voice and look more closely. Lord David Buchan takes off his flat cap, revealing his curly hair and bushy eyebrows. He's dressed for the shoot, in olive-green trousers and a matching oilskin jacket.

‘I should compensate him,' says Toby. ‘How much would be enough? Two hundred? More?'

‘I have it covered,' says Lord Buchan. ‘Go into the house. Get a drink. Calm your nerves.'

A butcher's van has pulled through the gates and is following the crushed-gravel drive, approaching the house.

‘At last, my paté,' says the housekeeper, scurrying to intercept the driver.

Lord Buchan is herding his shooting party into the house. Mr Collie has finished his business. ‘You're still here,' he says. ‘No weddings. You should leave.'

‘I need to use the bathroom,' says Evie.

‘Find a pub.'

‘I'm bursting.'

The old man sighs. ‘OK, make it quick.'

The housekeeper takes Evie inside as an ambulance steers onto the grass to allow the butcher's van to pass. Lord Buchan is standing on the steps when he notices us. He seems to do a double take at the sight of Florence.

‘Who do we have here, Wallis?' he asks.

‘They were just leaving,' says Collie. ‘They were looking for a wedding venue.'

Buchan doesn't respond. He is staring at me. ‘Have we met before?'

‘No.'

‘You look familiar. I'm very good with faces.'

‘I've met your brother,' I say.

‘Did he send you?'

‘No.'

‘You're not here about a wedding venue, are you?'

‘No.'

Collie interrupts, fuming. ‘Ah'll see them out.'

Buchan waves him away. ‘Lock up the guns, Wallis, and make sure my guests are looked after.'

The paramedics are treating the wounded beater, who is sitting up on a stretcher. Lord Buchan turns back to me.

‘You have two minutes to explain yourself. Then I call the police.'

‘My name is Cyrus Haven. I'm a forensic psychologist who consults for Notts police. This is Florence Gatsi, a lawyer, who works for Migrant Rescue.'

‘My brother's pet project,' says Buchan. ‘How is the people trafficking trade? Enough deaths for you? Enough misery?'

‘We don't cause the deaths,' says Florence.

‘You encourage people to come.'

‘We make it safer.'

‘Safer,' he says, laughing without closing his eyes. ‘The safest choice might be to stay at home, or to apply for asylum in the first safe country they enter.'

‘The 1951 Refugee Convention does not require a person to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach,' says Florence.

‘The Refugee Convention is no longer fit for purpose. It was written more than seventy years ago, in a different world, during the Cold War. The Soviet Union is no more. Refugees are coming from across the globe. And most of them are economic migrants, not fleeing persecution.'

‘Next you'll tell me that Britain is full?'

‘No. We have the space but not the infrastructure and the services. And the majority of people in this country feel that we're full.'

‘Because that's what you tell them.'

‘On the contrary. They see the queues, the surgery waiting lists, the lack of housing, the soaring rents, the congestion . . .' Buchan has an eye for an opening – and here is an opportunity to sermonise. ‘Do you think it's a good thing, Miss Gatsi, that so many people risk their lives trying to reach Britain in small boats?'

‘No.'

‘And is it a good thing that much of this illegal immigration is run by criminal gangs, who exploit refugees?'

‘Of course not, but Migrant Watch is not part of the problem.'

‘You keep telling yourself that. And while you're congratulating yourself, think about all of those undocumented migrants who are clogging up our courts, delaying proper asylum claims. Most know they have no hope of staying here, but they game the system, making appeal after appeal, working illegally. And when they're finally kicked out, they plan their next working holiday.'

‘You are demonising people who are asking for our help.'

‘Nonsense! I am not against immigration, and I believe Britain should take our fair share of the persecuted and oppressed. What I am against is people taking advantage of our hospitality and our welfare system and our courts. Our nation is a mess and I want to clean it up.'

‘You're right, it is a mess,' says Florence, her features hardening. ‘But it's not a mess caused by fruit pickers from Romania, or Nigerian nurses, or Syrian cleaners, or Polish nannies, or Estonian car washers, or Vietnamese manicurists. It's a mess because the financial elite avoid paying their taxes, and failed banks get bailed out by the state, and the richest one per cent hold more wealth than seventy per cent of the population. Migrants didn't make councils stop building council houses, and they didn't drive down wages or cut funding to the National Health Service or cause inflation at double figures or increase our energy prices or vote for us to leave the EU. Yet they get blamed because it takes the focus away from the real architects of the mess. People like you.'

Buchan blows out his cheeks, impressed rather than annoyed. ‘Where are you from?' he asks.

‘I was born in Zimbabwe.'

‘Did you come here to study?'

‘No. My parents are lawyers. They claimed asylum.'

His lips curl into a half smile. ‘Of course they did.'

Florence bristles with indignation. ‘Our house in Harare was fire-bombed and my parents were arrested because they exposed corruption and vote-rigging.'

‘And we gave them a new home. I hope they appreciate our generosity.'

‘Why?' she asks, looking ready to kill him. ‘I'm sick of being told I should be grateful. My parents are both trained lawyers, but they arrived here with nothing. They shared a three-bedroom house with four other families. They worked multiple jobs, double shifts, in dry cleaners and factories and restaurant kitchens. They paid taxes. They obeyed the law. They earned the right to be here and made sure that I would never have to struggle the way they had to. Yet all the time they were told to be grateful and never complain and to bow and scrape to people like you, who treated them as culturally inferior. So, pardon me if I don't genuflect and say, "Thank you, master."'

Lord Buchan seems unsure whether to argue or applaud.

‘You are a very impressive young woman. What does my brother pay you?' he asks.

‘That's none of your business.'

‘Come and work for me. I'll give you five times as much.'

‘I think I'm the wrong colour for you.'

The comment lands like a slap.

‘Whatever you may think of me, young lady, I am not a racist.'

‘No, you're a hypocrite.'

Almost before Florence utters her next sentence, I want to warn her that she's said enough. But her blood is up, and she has this man in her sights.

‘Where are these men from?' she asks, pointing to the beaters who are sitting in the shade, some of them eating sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, and sipping on bottles of cordial that have come from the kitchen.

‘A local employment agency.'

‘Are they documented?'

‘I assume so. That's the law.'

‘But you don't know for sure?'

‘Mr Collie handles the staffing of the estate.'

Again, I try to stop Florence from continuing, but she ignores me. ‘Are you funding illegal patrols in the North Sea that are deliberately sinking refugee boats?'

‘That's enough, Florence,' I say. ‘We have no proof.'

‘No. I want to hear this,' says Buchan. ‘What makes you think I had anything to do with that tragedy?'

Florence finally keeps quiet.

‘Did my brother send you here?' asks Buchan. ‘Is that what he told you?'

‘No,' I say. ‘We're sorry for the intrusion.'

Lord Buchan only has eyes for Florence. ‘I am not a monster, Miss Gatsi, but I will fight to protect my reputation. If you defame or slander me, I will seek recompense, and you will pay.'

‘Just like your other victims.'