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contraband but at least we were making up the numbers. It was only as we were leaving the hall that Old Thistle Knickers herself, Betty Robertson, wafted past us. I wasn’t about to ask her aboutmy application to the licensing committee, I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Jenny at least had been tactful enough not to mention it, but Betty volunteered the information, or rather, the lack of it.
    ‘Hello Mrs McNicholl. The Inverfaughie Council sub-committee are yet to deliberate on your case,’ she said, making me sound like a criminal. ‘You’ll be informed of our decision.’
    She was so obviously enjoying her game of bait-the-incomer. I would rather appear on ‘Embarrassing Illnesses’ than let Betty Robertson humiliate me like this, but what could I do?

Chapter 10
    I couldn’t believe it, there she was, exactly where I’d left her yesterday on the machair, still shouting down the phone, giving someone a right ear bashing. Did she still have the same clothes on? I couldn’t remember.
    After my last faux pas, hanging about waiting for her to get off the phone, I was all set to give her a friendly wave and walk past but the posh woman held out her arm to stop me.
    ‘Got to go,’ she shouted into the phone. ‘No, seriously, Julian; I’ve just run into an old friend, I’ll call you later.’
    And with that she hung up.
    ‘Hello!’ she cried, with an enthusiasm bordering on hysteria. This was more than was appropriate to the occasion and required me to stop.
    ‘Hello Dinah,’ I replied, ‘nice to see you again. It’s Trixie by the way, Trixie McNicholl.’
    ‘Oh crumbs yes, Trixie,’ she said, and promptly dried up, leaving me standing there like a numpty.
    Clearly she couldn’t think of the next pleasantry. I smiled. The wind blew a fine layer of sand along the beach. The moments ticked past. Bouncer and Mimi were by now barking and jumping all over each other, joyfully reunited, making our human discomfort all the more conspicuous.
    ‘Sorry about last time,’ she said, taking an awkward half-step towards me, slapping her leg and then retreating. She was much more jolly hockey sticks than I remembered her. She made an exaggerated phone gesture, her thumb and pinky at her ear, shrugged and pulled a face. ‘Business.’
    She went quiet again, forcing me to state the obvious.
    ‘So, did you decide to stay on?’ I asked.
    Dinah looked puzzled. I almost blurted out that because the last I’d heard, she was off to London in the morning. I managed to stop myself. I didn’t want her to think I’d been listening to her conversation. I wasn’t listening, I was involuntarily hearing. Two different things.
    ‘Have you extended your holiday?’ I said by way of trying to rescue a dead-in-the-water conversation.
    Dinah laughed. ‘Golly, no!’ she said, ‘I’m not on holiday. I only wish I were.’
    ‘Oh,’ I said. Now it was my turn to look stupid.
    ‘I live here. Over there.’
    She bobbed her head towards the other side of the loch. Did she really mean the castle on that huge big rambling estate across the loch?
    ‘You don’t mean Faughie Castle?’
    ‘Yup,’ she said, fists shoved in pockets, rocking forward on to the ball of her foot and then down again, her head bobbing. She seemed almost embarrassed. ‘Although I think the term “castle” is a bit of a stretch these days for the old ancestral pile.’
    ‘Have you just bought it?’
    Only that day I’d read in the
Inverfaughie Chanter
that the place was up for sale. Wow, I thought, she must be mega loaded. Even an old broken-down place like that, the land alone must be worth millions.
    ‘Bought it? God no. I was born here.’
    So, I reasoned, if she wasn’t buying she must be selling. There was some famous American billionaire interested in turning it into a polo resort, so the paper had said. The local council was backing his bid; they were right behind the jobs and the dollars it would bring into the area.
    The dogs ran along the