A Debt of Honour – Episode 09
A Debt Of Honour
« Previous Post- 1. A Debt of Honour – Episode 01
- 1. A Debt of Honour – Episode 09
Want to listen to this instalment of our Daily Serial? Click the play button of our official audio player below:
Ellie sat down.
“How are you going to do it?” she asked. “Are you tracing him in census returns or something?”
Shauna shook her head.
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” she said.
Ellie ran her fingers through her hair.
“Could you get one of these search-your-ancestry sites to do the job for you?”
“He’s not an ancestor.” Shauna smiled. “He was only a few months older than me.”
Typical Ellie, Shauna thought, her daughter’s mind going into overdrive.
“OK, it’s your search.” Ellie smiled. “Where does the rented car fit in?”
“Any chance of another cup of tea?” Shauna asked.
“I put in an extra teabag and enough water – then left it to stew.” Ellie sighed, taking the empty cup.
She refilled it from the seldom-used teapot.
She had scoured it clean for her mum’s visit. It looked as if it was going to be well used.
Ellie returned.
“Well? How are you planning to tackle your search?” she prompted. “Where does the car fit in?”
Shauna sipped the new and stronger tea appreciatively.
“Lovely,” she said.
“Why so coy all of a sudden, Mum?”
Shauna ignored the jibe.
“I’m driving to Blantyre,” she said.
“To where we both lived. My family in Morris Crescent, his in Small Crescent.” Shauna smiled.
“But will he still be there after all these years?” Ellie frowned.
“Unlikely. But his family might be.”
“And will they still be alive?” Ellie asked.
“With luck,” Shauna said. “They should be in their late seventies.
“I’ve no idea how they will react to me. At the time they were more sad than angry. My own mum and dad were furious.”
Shauna paused, blinking.
“It’s so long ago,” she said quietly. “It’s like it happened to another person. Not me.”
Ellie reached out and gently took her mother’s hand. Shauna felt it and squeezed back.
“So that’s Plan A,” Ellie said, trying to be practical.
“What if you ring the doorbell and complete strangers look out?”
“That’s quite possible,” Shauna said. “But that part of Blantyre’s like a small village on its own.
“If Neil’s parents have gone, some of their neighbours will know what happened to the family.
“And if I can get in touch with the family, then surely they will help me get in touch with Neil.”
Shauna weighed up her own words in her mind. Small village syndrome.
It was maybe an old-fashioned way of tracing someone, but at least it was practical.
“OK,” Ellie said. “But let’s think of the worst-case scenario. What if their near-neighbours have all changed, too? What’s your Plan C, Mum?”
Shauna grimaced.
“I’ve still got what my granny would call ‘a guid Scots tongue in my heid’. I can ask around.
“Someone, somewhere, is bound to know something.”
“And if they don’t?” Ellie asked gently.
“Then I think of something else,” Shauna said quietly. “I have to.”
Time was hanging heavy, and that annoyed Ellie.
It was one of her few days off from the supermarket, hoarded carefully to give her time to see her mother settled in.
But now her mother was gone and there were no messages from Calum to let her know how he had done at the interview.
Crossly, she tidied up the flat – knowing full well that it would look as if Attila the Hun had rampaged through it as soon as her flatmates came back.
She was just about to check her phone when it buzzed with an incoming text.
Limping home. Missed out again. Heading back to Stirling.
Ellie felt a wave of anger, not directed at Calum but at the world in general.
The jobs always seemed to go to the ones who were full of themselves and confident.
The ones who promised everything, then turned out to be all words and little use. Her team in the supermarket was carrying two of these.
If only panels would take time, coax the shy candidates like Calum to relax, to show their real worth.
But in real life, the quiet ones either stepped aside – or got trampled.
Don’t despair, she texted back. Stand you a coffee and a bun when you get home. Don’t worry, a better job will come up in a couple of weeks. xxx
Frowning at the text, she deleted the xxx she had added, then checked her watch and leapt to her feet.
With barely an hour from Edinburgh, Calum was likely to reach the rail station before she could get there herself.
Throwing on a jacket, she raced down the stairs and along to the bus stop.