The bedroom also contained the greater part of Mrs I's collection of camphor-wood chests; a few too many, perhaps. Despite the visual and tactile splendour, olfactorily it was like sleeping in a chemist's.

However, the sad truth is that being surrounded by art treasures designed to excite the eye, gladden the gland and animate the avarice does not guarantee a full night's kip. I'd woken at about half-six, lain there restlessly for a bit, then given up trying to get back to sleep and got up to have some toast and a cup of tea.

I'd put the TV on in the kitchen and found we were at war.

I sat and watched it for a while; heard the CNN guys in Baghdad, saw the reporters report from Saudi airfields, listened to the studio pundits gibber about surgical strikes and pinpoint accuracy, and discovered that, these days, war is prosecuted, not waged. Actually, both words struck me as possessing greasily appropriate connotations in the circumstances.

"Fuck it," I said to myself. What was telephoning somebody you hardly know on the other side of the planet and asking them impertinent questions about their sex life, compared to this gratuitous malfeasance? I strode up the stairs to the reception-room study, determined to make the phone call.

I settled on the direct approach and the truth about myself.

And Lachy Watt put the phone down on me.

Maybe he just wanted to get back to the TV and watch our exciting Third World War for a bit.

I'd stayed in the Lochgair house over Hogmanay itself. We had plenty of drink in, and mum and I had prepared loads of food, but not many people actually visited after the bells. Verity went to bed about ten past midnight after struggling to stay awake from about ten o'clock. She had a very small glass of whisky at the bells. Some people from the village came in about one, Aunt Tone and Uncle Hamish arrived about two for half an hour of strained conversation, and some of James's pals called in after four, but mostly it was just mum, Lewis, James and I together. James conked out about six, but Lewis and I were determined to see the dawn come up just on principle.

We sat in the conservatory, talking and listening to CDs on the gateaux blaster, which I'd brought down with me from Glasgow because it sounded better than the Golf's own sound system (which anyway didn't include a CD player). We were drinking whisky, chasing it with pints of mineral water; pacing ourselves. Lewis felt we were both starting to nod off at one point and so suggested a game of chess. I mooted for the River Game, but we'd have had to have dug the board and everything out and read through all the rules, so we decided chess would be simpler.

"I've been too sensible," I told him, while pondering a pawn exchange.

"Sensible?" Lewis sounded surprised. "You?"

I grinned. "Well… Look at me; I'm studying, I'm living quietly, I'm coming home to mother each weekend… I even bought a sensible, reasonably cheap car. All that money I got… " I shook my head. "I'm twenty-two; I should have blown it all on floozies or dangerous drugs, or just took off round the world, or bought a Ferrari."

"You can't buy a Ferrari for forty grand," Lewis said, chin in hands, studying the board.

"I didn't say it had to be a new one."

Lewis shrugged. "Well, you've still got most of the dosh. Go ahead; go do some of that stuff."

"Yeah, but I sort of promised mum I'd get this degree."

"Okay, so wait till the summer and then do it."

"But mum'll just worry if I get a fast car."

"So take off round the world."

"Yeah. Maybe. I might."

Lewis looked up at me. "What are you intending to do, anyway, Prentice?" He grimaced, stretched, rubbed his face. "I mean, are you still just going to wait and see who's recruiting graduates and then take what sounds like the best job, or have you settled on something yet? Something you actually want to do?"

I shook my head. "Still open, that one," I said. I took the pawn Lewis had offered. He looked vaguely surprised. "I still like the idea of just being a historian," I told him. "You know, ideally. But that means staying in academia, and I don't know if that's what I want. Somehow I don't think they let you go straight from graduation onto prime-time TV with a twenty-six part dramatised history of the world."

"Sounds a little unlikely," Lewis agreed, taking my pawn. "You given up on the diplomatic service?"

I smiled, thinking back a year to Uncle Hamish's party. "Well, I'm not sure I'm cut out for that. I've met some of those people, they're bright… But in the end you have to do as you're damn well told by fuckwit politicians."

"Ah! Politics, then?" Lewis said.

I bit my lip, looking the length and breadth of the board, trying to work out if the bishop I wanted to move next was going to cause any problems in its new position. "Na, I should have started by now anyway, but… shit; you have to make deals. You have to lie, or come so damn close to lying it makes little difference. It's all so fucking expedient, Lewis; they all have this thing about my enemy's enemy is my friend. 'He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch. I mean; good grief. What a crock of shit that is. I despair for our species."

"Not politics, then."

"I wonder if Noam Chomsky needs an assistant," I said.

"Probably got one," Lewis said.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Probably."

Lewis looked quizzical. "Everything else all right?"

"Yeah," I said, feeling awkward. "Why?"

He shrugged, studied the board again. "I don't know. I just wondered if there was anything…»

"Hi guys."

We both looked over to see Verity, hair in spiky disarray, face soft with sleep, wrapped in a long white towelling dressing gown, padding into the conservatory holding a glass of milk.

"Morning," I said.

"Hi there, darlin," Lewis said, swivelling so she could sit on his lap. She put her head on his shoulder and he kissed her forehead. "You okay?"

She nodded sleepily. Then she straightened, drank some milk and ruffled Lewis's hair. "Might get dressed," she said, yawning. "Been having nightmares."

"Aw," Lewis said tenderly. "You poor thing. Want me to come to bed?"

Verity sat on Lewis's lap, rocking back and forth a little, her bottom lip pouting. She frowned and said, "No." She smoothed Lewis's hair again. "I'll get up. You finish your game." She smiled at me, then looked up. "Nearly dawn."

"Why, so it is," I said. Beyond the glass of the conservatory there was just the faintest hint of grey in the sky over the house.

Verity waved bye-bye and went off, head down, rubbing her eyes, back into the house.

I moved the bishop. Lewis sat and thought.

I had won a knight and another pawn for the bishop when Verity came back. She was washed and dressed; she looked fabulous in leggings and a black maternity dress with a black leather jacket over the top. She stood at the doors, clapped her hands together and — when we appeared quizzical — waved some keys at us and said, "Fancy a drive?"

We looked at each other and both shrugged at the same time.

We took Lewis and Verity's new soft-top XR3i — roof down, heater up full — out into the grey-pink dawn and drove through Lochgilphead and then into Gallanach and just cruised about the town, waving at the people still walking around the place and shouting Happy New Year! at one and all. Lewis and I had brought the whisky, just in case we met anybody we felt we ought to offer a dram. So we started with each other, and all that water during the night must have done us the power of good because the whisky tasted great.

(I'd looked back at the castle, as we'd passed the hill on the outskirts of Gallanach, feeling guilty and ashamed and nervous because I still hadn't done anything about my suspicions, but telling myself that I still didn't have any real evidence, and anyway I was off-duty now; this was the season to have fun, after all. Hogmanay; let's-get-oot-oor-brains time. And, naturally, an end-of-year truce. Hell, it was traditional.)