I make my way through the reception room; the place is set out with large round tables, laid for a light lunch and busy with people sitting chatting, already stuffing their gobs or still standing socialising. About a dozen staff are bringing tea and coffee and taking orders for drinks, plus the bar near the main doors is open. The Murstons have a reserved table of their own in the centre but everybody else just has to find their own place. The room’s pretty big: a first-floor image of the Mearnside’s main dining room, one storey below.
Ferg inspects me when we meet up in the giant bay window that forms most of the reception room’s eastern edge.
‘If it was beauty sleep you were after last night, I’d ask for your money back.’
‘Good to see you too, Ferg.’ I’m holding a whisky from the welcome table by the doors. Ferg, naturally, has two. ‘Who was that girl you were plying with drinks in the graveyard?’
‘Plying,’ Ferg says thoughtfully. ‘Plying. There’s a word one hears all too seldom these days, don’t you think?’
‘Avoiding the question. There’s a phrase one hears all too freq—’
‘Name’s Charlene. Used to cut what was left of the late Mr Murston Senior’s hair in the local tonsorial emporium. Emotional child. Probably cries after a good fuck. I hope to find out.’
I look round. ‘She still here?’
‘Back to work, but we sort of have a date afterwards, so I’m pacing myself, or will be once the grand behind the bar and the free bottles on the tables run out. Cheers.’
We clink glasses. ‘To Joe,’ I say.
‘Hmm?’
I sigh. ‘The deceased?’
‘Well, absolutely,’ Ferg says. We re-clink. ‘To the late Mr M.’ We knock back a whisky each like it’s cheap vodka. Splendid idea at this time of day on an empty stomach. We stash the empty glasses on the window ledge.
‘So…How was your quiet, or early, night, last night?’ Ferg asks. One of his eyebrows has bowed to an arch; this is almost enough to distract you from what is basically a leer filling the rest of his face.
‘Okay, what?’ I ask.
‘Oh, nothing. A friend said they saw you in El’s car yesterday evening, latish.’
I shake my head. ‘Fuck me,’ I breathe, ‘you get away with nothing in this town.’
‘Yeaah,’ Ferg drawls. ‘Tell that to the lady’s family.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Indeed I do. One reason I left. So?’
‘Experienced a visit from El’s brothers after I left Lee’s place yesterday.’
Ferg nods knowingly. ‘Thought you seemed a bit rattled yesterday, in the Formartine. They rough you up?’
‘A little.’
‘Fuck. I’m amazed you only look as rubbish as you do.’
‘Ta. Ellie heard and came calling just to mess with them.’
‘Retaliation. That the only way you can get a date these days?’
‘Wasn’t a date. We had a very pleasant drive, we talked a lot, she put together some dinner at hers and then drove me home. I was in her car and she was about to drop me off when you rang.’
‘What did you talk about? Anything salacious?’
‘Some interesting stuff; can’t divulge.’
‘Of course not,’ Ferg says, rolling his eyes. ‘You are a sort of bilge of last resort for interesting information, aren’t you, Stewart? You’re like one of these people who offer to accept the kind of chain-letter emails and texts that cretins think it’ll be unlucky to break: gossip gets to you and dies.’
‘One does one’s best,’ I murmur modestly in my best Prince Charles, tugging at a shirt cuff.
‘So you didn’t fuck?’
‘I can neither confirm nor deny—’
‘Oh, for—’
‘But no.’
‘Bodie!’ Dad says, arriving holding a whisky; he transfers it from one hand to the other to shake Ferg’s hand. ‘How’s it hingin?’
‘Little left of true, as usual, Stewart’s dad,’ Ferg says. Dad looks at him, puzzled. ‘
Dad laughs. ‘What you two hatching? Looked deep in conversation there.’
‘Ferg is far too shallow to have a deep conversation with,’ I tell Dad.
‘Your son hits the nail on the cuticle as ever, Al,’ Ferg says with a sigh. ‘I’m only deep on the surface. Inside, I’m shallow to the core.’
‘Thank you, friend of Dorothy. Parker,’ I say, smiling.
Al sports a tolerant frown. ‘Okay,’ he says, tapping Ferg on one elbow. ‘I’m going to leave you two to it. Stewart; couple of minutes, then we’ll go over to pay our respects, aye?’
‘Sure thing, Paw.’
‘Okay; I’ll be over at Mike and Sue’s table. See you, Bodie,’ he calls as he turns away.
‘Cheers, Mr G,’ Ferg says, then swivels back to me. ‘So, how
‘They stand erect, Ferg. Actually, they don’t; they more…recline.’ He looks at me. ‘You were expecting a straight answer, Bodie?’
Ferg looks at me for a bit longer, then finishes his second whisky.
‘You know, we ought to eat something. I mean, we ought to drink something, too, but we should line our stomachs or we could suffer later.’
‘You may have a point.’
‘Shall we to the groaning buffet tables?’
‘Yes, I suppose we—’
‘Stewart,’ a deep, purposeful voice says. ‘Ferg.’
