Lingerie Wars (Invertary 1)

“That wasn’t the end of it. While Kirsty was in hospital, that devil fiancé of hers ran away with all her money. They think he’s in Brazil.”

“Probably living with that guy who robbed the train,” someone called.

Dougal gave up pretending to collect the dishes. He was holding court now. Lake quietly sipped his drink. In his experience, if you were silent long enough, people always told you everything you wanted to know and often more—as he was learning the hard way with Betty.

“So,” Dougal said with a flourish, “poor Kirsty had no choice but to come home here and start again. Her mum lent her the money to buy her shop and now she’s working hard to get ahead again.”

As one the group nodded solemnly. Suddenly, Dougal realised who he was talking to.

“You’re not going to use this information to harm our Kirsty, are you?” Dougal shouted.

Lake could feel the mood of the pub shift against him. They were talking about a treasured child of Invertary and he was the outsider. The English outsider, lest he should forget.

“Why would I do that?” he said calmly.

“To make her shut her shop,” Dougal said, as though Lake was the idiot.

“Dougal,” Lake said in a conciliatory tone. “What happened to Kirsty has nothing to do with this competition between our shops. They are two different things. I’m not going to use this to shut her down.”

There was silence in the pub for a second before Dougal spoke.

“Good, because we’ll have none of that around here,” he declared.

The noise resumed. As Dougal bustled away with Lake’s empty plate, Lake reread the information on Kirsty. Nope, it wasn’t any use for winning the war, but it might come in handy for charming her out of her underwear.

Something Dougal said made Lake’s trained suspicions stand to attention. He flicked through the photos of the accident until he came to the one he wanted. His lips thinned as he magnified the image as much as possible. There was definitely another set of tyre tracks on the road where Kirsty’s car had plunged down the ravine. He punched a number into his phone and waited.

“John,” he said by way of hello. “I need you to look into something for me.”

Kirsty marched back up the hill from the pub to her flat, all the while cursing the audacity of Lake Benson. As she crossed the road to her home, she spotted something move in the lane between Betty’s shop and the fishing tackle shop. Curiosity got the better of her, so she detoured to see what was going on.

“Billy!” she said when he spotted the plumber.

He jumped straight up in the air.

“Kirsty, I almost died.”

Billy grabbed his chest with his hand and huffed.

“Too many pies and cakes.” Kirsty pointed at him.

“Here I was thinking it was stress from being blackmailed into illegal activity.”

Kirsty wandered up the narrow alley towards him. His tool kit was open at his feet and there was a huge wrench thing hanging from a pipe.

“Blackmailed?”

He gave her a look that said he wasn’t fooled by her profession of ignorance.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know, Kirsty Campbell. Mum’s got a bug in her ear as big as the Loch Ness monster. All I’m hearing is that we’re at war with the English. I think she’s making badges in her basement with the other women in the knitting group. Apparently they’re mobilising!”

Kirsty felt the hair on her neck stand on end. If the Knit Or Die group were sneaking around that meant only one thing—her mother was involved in her war. Come morning she’d be having a word with Margaret Campbell.

“But blackmail?” she asked as Billy fidgeted with the pipe.

“Mum said she’ll tell Mandy that I went to a football game, when I told her I was doing a job in Glasgow.”

“Ah,” Kirsty said.