Free Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney Page A

taking you away from a class.’
    â€˜No problem. It’s one of my more civilised groups. The room should still be there when I get back.’
    â€˜What it is –’ is something I’ll have to work up to. So let me cover my tracks a little by saying – ‘I was just wondering. Scott must have left some things at the school. I mean, he didn’t exactly know that he was leaving. I’m thinking of papers and stuff like that. Something that might help me to understand what he was going through at the end.’
    â€˜It’s possible.’
    â€˜I know it’s probably a terrible nuisance for you. But do you think you could check it out for me? Take a look at his room? And see if there’s anything there at all? That would give us a clue.’
    I was trying to read the pause that followed. I wondered if he was going to refuse.
    â€˜Actually,’ he said, ‘his room’s been taken over. You know? There’s somebody else in it now. It was a coveted room. Terrific windows for an art room.’
    I understood his hesitation. He hadn’t wanted to convey to me how quickly Scott’s dying had converted to administrative practicalities. One man’s death is another man’s sunlight.
    â€˜So I think it’s been cleaned out,’ he said. ‘But I’ll go up there today and have a look. I suppose there might be something.’
    â€˜Thanks, John. Oh. There’s something else,’ which I casually mention since it’s why I phoned. ‘Ellie Somebody? It’s a woman I thought I might try to speak to. But I can’t get her second name. Does that name mean anything to you?’
    This time the pause was impenetrable. Did he know about Scott and her? Was he instinctively deducing what I had just learned about them? Was he simply baffled by the name? The slowness of his answer, when it came, suggested alien matter caught up in his thoughts, grinding the machinery to a halt.
    â€˜Well,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. It’s not an unusual name. But there was a woman who worked here at one time. Ellie. But I don’t know if that’s who you mean. She’s left now. Ellie Mabon. Do you mean Ellie Mabon?’
    I didn’t know. But if all you have are shots in the dark, you’d better check out anything you hit to see if it’s what you’re after.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It could be. Anyway, thanks.’
    â€˜All right,’ he said at last, perhaps not sure what I was thanking him for. ‘I’ll see about Scott’s room. I’ll phone you if there’s anything.’
    â€˜I’ll be out and about today, John.’
    â€˜Well. If I can’t get you personally, I’ll try and look in at the Bushfield. Sometime in the evening. All right? I better go and see if the natives are getting restless. Cheers.’
    â€˜Cheers.’
    I put the phone down and went to look for Katie’s phone-book. I could hear someone walking about upstairs and imagined Mike pacing the psychological prison he seemed to have made for himself. The phone-book was behind the bread-bin. With Katie, it would be. We weren’t so different from each other as she thought.
    I was on my third Mabon before I found an Ellie. The first one hadn’t answered. The second was what sounded like an amazingly old man who insisted on telling me about a mix-up with the plumbing in his house. I promised to look into it. The third was at a good address in Graithnock. The voice was brusque but with interesting undertones, like a sensuous body in a business-suit.
    â€˜Hello?’
    â€˜Hello. I’m sorry to bother you. I may have a wrong number here. I’m looking for Ellie Mabon.’
    â€˜Speaking.’
    I knew this was the one. The realisation paralysed my mouth for the moment. She didn’t know how closely we were connected, what I knew about her.
    â€˜Hello?’
    â€˜I’m