“No one,” said Jake sullenly. “I’m just saying. If you want her you should treat her right, and if you don’t you should let her go politely, it’s not fair.”

“Yeah,” said Cormac. “Also, can you tell me how much ransom money you want for holding Jake?”

“I’m just saying!” said Jake.

“Jake, if I want disapproval I can call my mother.”

“And you need to call your mother. I saw her the other day.”

“I do call her! All the time! She says she’s too busy and then makes sarcastic remarks!”

“She’s an old lady with her hand in a sling,” said Jake.

Cormac sighed. Outside, the sun was beating through the window and his little room was uncomfortably hot.

“Do you think I should come back? It’s the Fordell Fair this weekend.”

“No!” said Jake quickly. “No, it’s fine.”

“Jake,” said Cormac, unable to keep the smile out of his voice, “is there someone doing my job and living in my house who is, in fact, herself a nurse that you might be rather fond of in a very un-Jake-like fashion and you really don’t want me around?”

“You could not,” said Jake stiffly, “be further from the truth.”

And Cormac was still chuckling by the time they rang off and rather cheered. Though Jake, irritatingly, was right about Yazzie, and Cormac vowed to do better. Once he got Robbie on the coach. Lennox had a certain amount of tolerance for wounded birds, and though he was worried about the drinking, he’d agreed to give him a trial. Cormac walked him to Victoria bus station, bought him new clothes from Primark, a toothbrush, and a washcloth, then could do nothing but wish him his best.

“Nemo me impune lacessit,” he said as Robbie turned to go.

“Black Watch,” said Robbie in return. Then, falteringly: “I’ll try.”

“They’re good people,” said Cormac. “Go well.”

Chapter 48

Nina called Lissa, and they went together.

“If you could just check him over,” Nina said. “He’s going to live out in the barn . . .”

“If he’s an alcoholic, he shouldn’t be coming off drink right away,” said Lissa. “That could be worse. I’ll check him over, sure.”

She tried to make her voice sound neutral.

“So, this is a friend of Cormac’s?”

“I think so . . .”

The coach steamed up to the little stand at Inverness bus station, and a few road-crumpled people got off. The girls were both a little nervous; Nina had left little John behind at the farm.

Nina smiled. “The last time I was here, I was picking up Zoe and Hari.”

“Really? What was she like?”

“Very, very dirty,” said Nina, grinning. “Gosh, I thought it was going to be a disaster. She was just so miserable.”

Privately Lissa thought Zoe was one of the happiest-looking people she’d ever met. But even she had turned up battered and bruised by life.