Bitter End Part 32

'That's the b.l.o.o.d.y rain started again,' Mrs Menzies thought, just as Fizz's inventive powers let her down. 'I told Shaw not to wash the windows but now look at them.

He'll have it all to do again.'

'It occurred to me, for instance,' Fizz plodded on, pretending she didn't notice the mumbling, 'that if a new buyer considered the house a little on the small side which it could be for some people -we could suggest extending it towards the rear. You hadn't considered that yourself at any time, I don't suppose?'

'What? Building on at the back?' Menzies said in a staccato bark, and his brows came down like stormclouds.

'What about the terrace? The dining room opens out on to that. We have breakfast out there in the summertime.

You'd ruin the whole rear aspect of the place.'

'Yes, I'm afraid you would, Mr Menzies.' Fizz agreed sympathetically. 'But the extra room would probably be more important nowadays, particularly to the type of customer we'd expect. It's unlikely to be sold to a private owner, you know. More likely it'll end up as a country house hotel or a nursing home. That is, if it's not bought by a developer who'll want to demolish the house and cover the grounds with residential property.'

'Demolish the house?' Menzies glared around him as though he felt himself attacked on all fronts. 'No, I'll not have that. You hear that, missy? You tell your Mr Whittaker aye, and Tam Buchanan too -that the house is not to be demolished. I don't want anybody smashing up the dining room terrace either. It's to be left the way it is.' 199. 'Silly old fool,' said Mrs Menzies, apparently to the bronzed young man who was now showing her how to build a lean-to shelter out of tree branches.

Fizz clasped her hands earnestly. 'With the best will in the world, Mr Menzies, I don't see how we can do that. If somebody buys your estate they can do what they like with it -subject to the planning regulations. We can, of course, ask them their intentions but they are not bound to disclose them and, in my experience, if they suspect we might not approve of them they are quite likely to lie.'

Menzies chewed on that for a minute or two, during which his good lady told herself that she'd have to go, but she didn't specify where and she didn't move from her chair. Fizz gave Menzies time to think over what she'd told him and then twisted the knife.

'There doesn't appear to be any reason to suppose that planning permission, even for a development of residential property, would not be forthcoming. The property market in the Borders is on the up, and your land is close enough to Berwick to make it a viable proposition for a developer.

I think you'd have to live with that scenario.'

'I have to admit it,' he said, ma.s.saging his shiny knuckles distractedly. 'I never pictured that sort of vandalism. I know . . . yes, yes, of course I know, my dear, that I've no right to put restrictions on the sale, but it's hard to think of Lammerburn going to the dogs like that. I think I told you when you were last here that I always had a soft spot--'

'I'll really have to go,' thought Mrs Menzies in an irritable murmur.

'Well, b.l.o.o.d.y go then, woman!' quoth the patriarch, unexpectedly allowing his irritation to surface and surprising himself as well as Fizz.

Mrs Menzies heaved herself to the edge of her seat and got organised with her Zimmer frame while Fizz, perceiving that speed was of the essence, opened the door for her.

'Sorry, my dear girl. Do forgive me, but one has to be quick.' Mr Menzies' craggy face creased in a smile. 'She 200. doesn't always register her thoughts, you see.'

Fizz, still on her feet, glanced at the rows of books on the shelves beside him and noticed a bunch of what could only be photograph alb.u.ms. She nodded her head at them and asked, 'Do you have any old photographs of Lammerburn?'

He followed her eyes. These are full of Lammerburn snaps. Take a look, if you care to.'

Fizz lifted down the alb.u.ms and sat down again to leaf through them. Every page was covered with carefully mounted black-and-white photographs showing baggy- trousered young men and short-skirted women, ghillies in plus-fours and maids in severe black dresses and white caps.

There were several pictures of a ruggedly handsome Mr Menzies and his pet.i.te wife in a huge black car that might have been borrowed from Al Capone, and several of them were set against the luxurious background of Lammerburn House and its environs. Those were the days, was the message: the halcyon summers of youth and optimism when everyone was happy to have survived the second world war and was looking forward to living in a land fit for heroes.

That was my first car,' Mr Menzies said, touching the page with a crooked forefinger and smiling with remembered pride. 'And that's my sister June who died in ninety-eight. And, look, that's the family having breakfast on the terrace like I was saying. And there, see that?

Know what that is above the doorway?'

'Yes. I do know what it is, actually.' Fizz nodded, smiling at his surprise. 'It's the antlers of a twelve pointer. The only stag you ever shot.'

He blinked at her disbelievingly. 'Now, how on earth would you have known that?'

'Because I saw them when I was at Lammerburn last week. Niall said you were very fond of them.'

'Ah yes.' As a squall of rain lashed the windows he took the book on to his own knee and smoothed a hand over 201. the faded image. The only stag I ever shot. Old Rusty, we used to call him. I loved watching him every year, guarding his hinds, roaring away like billy-o in the rutting season.

He was a great old character. He was a good age when he finally broke his foreleg in a fight and I wouldn't trust anybody else to put him out of his misery.' He closed the book quietly. 'He went down with one bullet in the head, grand old beast that he was. G.o.d, it broke my heart to do it to him, but I promised the old fellow a place on my wall as long as I lived. And didn't he look magnificent?'

'Yes, he certainly did and I know exactly how you feel,'

Fizz said, trying to ignore Buchanan's warning voice whispering in her ear. It was impossible to predict how the news she was about to deliver would hit Mr Menzies, but the chances were that it would be more likely to affect her cause favourably than otherwise. 'I knew a stag like that once, when I was growing up. A real character. You never forget them, do you? Which is a pity, because I have to tell you: Mrs Menzies disposed of that head with the rest of the furnishings she didn't want.'

'What? Not Old Rusty? She wouldn't do a thing like that! She knew how I felt about him.' He reared back his head as though he were in real pain, then sagged. 'Yes, she would,' he admitted. 'She would. It's a sad thing, my dear, but some people simply cannot accept that some objects are beyond price. My wife is a fine woman, but she never did share my love of Old Rusty. Dear, dear me. I wouldn't have had that happen for the world.'

He seemed to have slipped down in his chair and, to Fizz's somewhat contrite eyes, the spirit seemed to have gone out of him. He sat for a moment, looking at his useless hands, a sad old man, accepting that he was subject to the will of insensitive people, then he glanced up. 'The head went to the sale room last week with all the other stuff, I suppose?'

'Actually,' Fizz said, with downcast eyes, 'I may be able to locate it for you.' 202. Menzies made a sudden uncontrolled movement that made him wince. 'My dear . . . are you serious? You might be able to get it back?'

Fizz couldn't resist beaming like a game show host. 'I might,' she said pertly, and he laughed with delight. 'But, in return, I want you to do something for me. I want you to think, very very carefully -just think, that's all whether you might not be happier living at Lammerburn for a few years. You'd be able to enjoy life so much more.

With a little estate truck you could be driven around the grounds, and even when you were stuck indoors you'd have something more pleasant to look out at.'

He drew down his thick eyebrows in a frown but his eyes were twinkling underneath. 'And, quite incidentally, the staff could still go on living in the cottages, eh? Well, well, I won't say it hasn't crossed my mind these last few days, but I'm not going to promise anything.'

'Just think about it, okay?'

'I'll think about it.'

'Right,' Fizz stood up, and said, not unlike the Fairy G.o.dmother in Cinderella, 'I'm going to need two extra pairs of hands and a thick blanket.'

This request presented no difficulty to Mr Menzies and in a couple of minutes the nurse and a gangly youth called Shaw met Fizz in the hallway with a choice of travelling rugs. It was, by that time, lashing with rain but the adjacent cloakroom held raincoats for them all and at least half a dozen to spare. Fizz was allocated the plastic mac she'd seen the nurse wearing at her last visit -a tatty- looking object, but with a hood which would keep her hair dry.

Buchanan's face, as he observed the advance of her little army, was rigid with trepidation and the idea of letting her perform an immediate antlerectomy did not grab him at all. It took all Fizz's invective, plus many soothing a.s.surances from the nurse, to persuade him to allow them access. It was very obvious that he'd have preferred to see 203. Old Rusty's last remains hacked into manageable pieces but in the end, between the four of them, the removal was effected without doing any damage.

Fizz was tempted to leave Shaw and the nurse to restore the antlers to their owner but she couldn't resist going back with them to see the old boy's delight. He was waiting in the hallway to meet them, grinning like a boy, the c.o.c.kles of his heart not just warmed but done to a turn. Behind him, Mrs Menzies watched the return of Old Rusty with baleful eyes.

'We'll have them up there, Shaw,' said the old man, waving one of his two sticks at the s.p.a.ce above the front door. 'I don't want them down low where folks will be hanging their hats on them. Away and get your step ladder, laddie, and do it now.'

'Ugly, flea-bitten old eyesore,' thought his wife, referring no doubt to Old Rusty but glaring at Mr Menzies, so it was impossible to be certain.

Fizz said she had to be on her way and started to remove the borrowed coat but Mr Menzies waved a hand at her. 'You'll need that to get back to the car. Throw it in the bin when you've done with it.' He shuffled towards her and dropped a kiss on her cheek. 'You'll drop in again when you're pa.s.sing, I hope?'

Fizz said she would, knowing she probably wouldn't, and headed for the door.

The world would be a better place,' she heard Mrs Menzies muttering, 'if people would just mind their own business.'

Fizz had to smile. How often had she heard that before? 204.

Chapter Seventeen.

The morning went well for Buchanan, partly because Fizz

was not in the office to keep him off his work and partly

because he was motivated to get his In-tray emptied in

time for him to squeeze in a fast nine holes before it got

too dark. The rain had stopped some time through the