Scrap Metal by Harper Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

stood up, wiping my oily hands on a rag. We very seldom got passing visitors.
    Oh, great. There on the track that led down from the main road, jouncing and rolling on its ruts, was the white police 4x4 from Lamlash. The only man privileged to drive that was the last one on the island I wanted to see. I thought about a dive for cover, but it was too late. He’d spotted me and was raising a hand in greeting.
    It wasn’t that I hated him. In fact it was impossible for me even to dislike him, and I’d got used to thinking of him as PC Archie Drummond, our friendly local bobby, carefully burying memories of the passionate affair we’d carried on until he’d woken up one morning with the urge to join the police. He’d decided the Strathclyde Constabulary would like him better without a gay lover on his bio sheet, and that had been that. I hadn’t had a leg to stand on. I’d accepted my offer from Edinburgh uni, so I was leaving too. I just hadn’t known that the changes would mean the end of my life’s first and only love.
    Hadn’t seen that one coming at all. I cringed inwardly when I recalled my shock, my protests. Jesus, I’d made a fool of myself. Of course it all felt faint and far away to me now, but still I found it hard to play it cool around Archie. I’d been living like a hermit for the past twelve months and had scarcely seen him. It might have been nice if he’d arrived when I was striding through the meadows with the wind in my freshly washed hair instead of here in the yard, daubed from head to foot in motor oil and manure. You know how it is with ex-lovers—you like to look as if you’re doing okay. Just ordinary pride, not at all a desire to shove down their throats what they’re missing…
    Archie stopped just beyond the gate. He got out of the Rover, being careful to avoid the mud. I’d once accused him of wanting to join up just for the sake of the uniform, and he did make it look good, the smart black setting off his rangy build and the hair we’d agreed long ago was a nice shade of auburn, not ginger. He was in his dress jacket, every silver button neatly done. He looked so prim and proper. I knew better.
    I ran across the yard and climbed up to lean over the top of the gate. “Morning, Sergeant Howie! Are there no’ any missing bairns on Summer Isle for you this morning?”
    He slammed the Rover’s door. The once-over he gave me had something of its old appreciation in it. Come to think of it, Archie had never minded me dirty. “Oh, a Wicker Man crack,” he said, nodding and smiling patiently. “How original. No, no bairns—just a couple of stones gone from the top of your roadside wall. Everything been all right here?”
    “Yeah, fine.” I got off the gate and swung it open for him. “Haven’t got time to keep the fences right, let alone the drystone. How are you?”
    “Oh, grand. On my way to some secret policeman’s ball or other on the mainland. Thought I’d just run down and see you were shipshape… Och, Nicky.” He came to a halt in the gateway, squinting up at the barn’s eastern wall. “Have you had a break-in?”
    I winced. He was always too sharp-eyed for my own good. And Nicky was for lazy, long-gone days at our camp on Kildonan beach, rolling around in the seagrass. “No. Just the wind last night. I patched the windows up.”
    “What—the wind cleverly broke just those two little panes? Have you checked to see nothing’s missing?”
    “Like what? A sheep? A bale of hay?”
    He rolled his eyes. “How about an ATV or the contents of your oil tank? You need to sharpen up, you know. People are getting desperate around here. Eamon at Corriegills had six hundred gallons of boiler juice siphoned out just last Friday. Come on. Let’s have a look around.”
    He set off for the barn door and I followed him, not having a lot of choice. I was grateful to be feeling more cheerful this morning. A visit from him yesterday might have put me on my knees in tears at his