A Debt of Honour – Episode 16
A Debt Of Honour
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- 1. A Debt of Honour – Episode 16
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She waited, her heart beating rapidly in her chest, and tried again.
“He’s not in,” a voice came from next door.
“I’m looking for Neil Caldwell,” Shauna replied. “Does he still live here?”
The neighbour was silent.
Informal data protection, Shauna thought.
“I’m on holiday from Australia,” she pressed on. “He’s one of the people I’m trying to track down. Our families were very friendly in the past.”
The woman absorbed this new information.
“It’s Professor Caldwell,” she finally replied. “Is that the same man?”
Professor? It couldn’t be, Shauna thought miserably. Neil had been training to be a bank clerk – he might even be a manager by now.
Yet this was the address on the records of the undertakers.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “We haven’t been in touch for years.”
“He teaches at Edinburgh University?” the neighbour prompted.
Shauna shrugged her shoulders.
“Maybe.”
“He’s away for months on end.”
With the dam breached, the woman seemed happy to chat.
“He goes down to the South Pole with international scientific research teams. Usually in winter, because that’s their summer.”
“I think I must have traced the wrong person,” Shauna admitted, the taste of failure bitter in her mouth.
“Professor Caldwell’s back in Edinburgh right now. Such a nice man. You could maybe phone his secretary and ask?”
“Maybe,” Shauna replied, not feeling hopeful.
“Have you come far today?”
“Just Stirling,” she replied dismissively. “I should go.”
She retraced her steps towards her car, conscious of the other woman’s eyes following her.
Opening the car door, she slid slowly and wearily behind the steering wheel.
Shauna’s mind was in turmoil. She had expected a banker – anything but a research professor.
Yet the name was the same, and the address was the one she had scribbled.
Should she drive back home, then maybe write or phone from the hotel?
Being closer to Edinburgh than home, could she park somewhere and find her way to the university to chase up this new information?
It would be embarrassing if she got it wrong, but at least she would find out if she needed to start again.
Gamble – or chicken out?
Shauna sighed, reaching for the keys in the ignition.
She had come too far to give up now.
Calum reached for Ellie’s luggage – a rucksack, sleeping bag and tightly packed tent.
“Is that everything?” he asked, wedging the sleeping bag and rucksack in the car beside his own.
“I think so,” Ellie replied, handing over the tent bag.
He paused in the act of fitting it into the hatchback.
“Are all the parts included?” he asked. “Have you checked?”
Ellie winced.
“Penny said it was OK when she used it last, but that was when she was in the Girl Guides,” she confessed.
Calum shrugged.
“Oh, well. Let’s go.”
“There’s a condition,” Ellie said.
Reaching across, she handed him a neatly folded piece of newspaper.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A job advert from ‘The Herald’. It sounded tailor-made for you.”
Calum made as if to crumple up the paper.
“It would be a waste of time,” he grumbled. “Another failure.”
“What if it isn’t?” Ellie demanded.
Snatching back the newspaper, she waved it gently at him.
“Unless you promise me that you will apply, then it’s all off.
“I’m not getting into the car until you make that promise. I mean it.”
Calum frowned at her.
“There will be other jobs,” he reasoned.
Ellie stood silently, holding up the paper.
Calum sighed.
“OK,” he said. “I promise to apply. Can we go now?”
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s get a move on. I can’t wait!”