Free Cradle to Grave by Aline Templeton Page B

right.’
    ‘But if you so much as breathe a word of it around the lads, I’ll . . .’ She paused to consider her options.
    ‘Have my guts for garters?’ MacNee suggested helpfully.
    She gave him a quelling look, then with triumphant recollection went on, ‘I shall see to it that it gets around what happened when you tried to arrest Annie Maclehose for soliciting.’
    MacNee looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, ‘Fair enough.’ He couldn’t resist returning to the topic, though. ‘You didn’t know he was coming?’
    ‘Wasn’t it obvious? Cat had said something about Joshua and a band called Destruction, but when I knew him, he was Joss and the band was Electric Earthquake. Then he went off to the States and I thought he’d sunk without trace, like most pop bands do.’
    ‘You didn’t exactly hang around for long talking about “Auld Lang Syne”, though, did you?’
    Fleming looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, you know his nose is crooked? Bill did that.’
    ‘ Bill? Here! Are we talking about the same guy – the “hardy son of rustic toil”, good-natured to a fault?’
    ‘Well, there were . . . reasons.’ Fleming’s colour deepened further.
    ‘Reasons?’ MacNee knew the value of persistence in interrogation, and when Fleming sighed, he reckoned she was cracking. To encourage her, he said, ‘And if I knew the story, I’d not be so likely to find myself speculating to Andy Mac, just accidentally, mind.’
    Fleming acknowledged defeat. ‘There’s no time just at this moment. I’ll tell you on the journey back. Now, not an ideal site, this, is it? They don’t seem to have given much thought to what it would be like in weather like this.’
    The rough field up at the back of Rosscarron House was on a slope and near the bottom it was marshy already, with visible streams trickling down. Although only half-a-dozen vehicles had arrived, the ground had been churned up by the lorries bringing in equipment to the upper field, and it was hard to see how the numbers arriving later could be catered for.
    There was a gate with a Portakabin beside it, presumably for security staff, though there was none in evidence. When they drove through, though, a youth with a row of rings in both ears appeared in the doorway and shouted, ‘Hey! You need to show your tickets.’
    Fleming drew up and produced identity, looking round. ‘Haven’t much here to stop gatecrashers, have you?’
    ‘Team’s coming this afternoon. Just a couple of us at the moment. Not much doing anyway, weather like this.’ He shot back inside.
    ‘The security’s rubbish,’ Fleming said, as she coaxed the big Vauxhall up the slope. ‘Asking for trouble, frankly. And I’d have taken the four-wheel drive this morning if I’d known about these conditions. I tell you, Tam, I’m worried.’ She parked beside an elderly camper van, which seemed to be the hub of activity.
    It was brightly painted with amateurish flowers, and its sliding door was open. From it, a canopy had been rigged up as protection from the rain and a dozen people were huddled under it, laughing and talking. From a speaker Mick Jagger was belting out ‘Satisfaction’, and inside a bulky woman was dispensing tea from a huge teapot, and a large grey-haired man, similarly middle-aged, had a crate of beer at his feet, which seemed also to be for sharing. They must have been a good twenty years older than the next oldest in the group but for the moment at least were the life and soul of the party.
    The man was in conversation with a young man with unnaturally blond hair and a petulant expression, but as Fleming and MacNee got out of the car, he broke off to call out to them, ‘Come one, come all! Beer or tea – beer from yours truly, and tea, if you fancy it, from my good lady Angela.’
    Then, as they approached, he frowned. ‘Not really dressed for it, are you, my loves?’ he said, looking askance at Fleming’s walking shoes and MacNee’s trainers. ‘You’ll learn