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four hundred thousand pounds, and she very specifically said that the lunch was on her. Now Bruce had to pay for both of them, as well as the wine, which he had offered to pay for anyway, but which was largely untouched. Still, at least he would get his job back, until the time arrived for him to resign on his own terms.
    But that was not to be. He returned to the office half an hour or so later to find a note from Todd awaiting him on his desk. He could speak to the cashier about his final cheque, the note said (he would be paid up to the end of that month), and would he please ensure that all personal effects were removed from his desk by four o’clock that afternoon? He should also return the mobile telephone which the firm had bought him and duly account for any personal calls that he had made on it during the period since the last bill.
    Bruce stood there, quite still, the note in his hand. Several minutes passed before he let the piece of paper fall from his hand and he walked out of his office and made his way to the end of the corridor and pushed open Todd’s door.
    â€œYou should always knock,” said Todd. “What if I had a client in here with me? What then?”
    â€œI’m going to take you to a tribunal,” said Bruce.
    â€œGo ahead,” said Todd. “I’d already spoken to the lawyers about getting rid of you and they assured me that the making of a fraudulent survey report constitutes perfectly good grounds for dismissal. So by all means take me to a tribunal.”
    Bruce opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. It was difficult to know what to say. Then the words came to him. “You have a ridiculous name, you know, Mr Todd. Raeburn! That’s the name of a gas cooker, you know. That’s what you are, Mr Todd–you’re just a gas cooker.”
    Raeburn Todd appeared undisturbed by the insult. “A gas cooker, am I?” he said quietly. “Well, I’ve just cooked your goose for you, young man, would you not say?”

9. Sally’s Thoughts
    After he had lost his job–or resigned, as he put it–Bruce went home to Crieff for several days to lick his wounds. His parents had been concerned over his resignation, and they had quizzed him as to what lay behind it.
    â€œIt’s not much of a firm,” Bruce had explained airily. “I found myself–how shall I put it?–a bit thwarted. The job didn’t stretch me enough.”
    His mother had nodded. “You thrive on new challenges, Brucie,” she said. “As a little boy you were like that. You were a very creative child.”
    Bruce’s father had looked at him over the top of his spectacles. He was an accountant who specialised in the winding-up of companies, and he had a strong nose for lies and obfuscation. The trouble with my son, he thought, is that he’s vain. He’s lost this job of his and he can’t bring himself to tell us. Poor boy. I suppose I can’t blame him for that, but I wish he wouldn’t lie to us.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” asked his father. “How are things in surveying at the moment? Are they tight?”
    Bruce shrugged, and looked out of the window of “Lochnagar”, the family’s two-storey granite house in Crieff. One thing one has to say about the parental house, he thought, is that it has a good view, down into the strath, over all that good farming land. I should marry the daughter of one of those farmers down there–those comfortable farmers (minor lairds, really, some of them)–and then things would be all right. I could raise Blackface sheep, in a small way, and some cattle, some arable. It would be an easy life.
    But then there was the problem of the farmer’s daughter–whoever she turned out to be. Some of them were all right, it had to be said, but then the ones he might find worth looking at tended to move to Edinburgh, or even to London, where they had