A Debt of Honour – Episode 19
A Debt Of Honour
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- 1. A Debt of Honour – Episode 19
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In the busy café, Shauna’s mobile phone rang on and on. She stared at it, transfixed, before her hand edged slowly towards it.
“Hello?” Her voice was little more than a croak.
“Shauna? Is that really you? Where are you?”
His voice was unmistakable, even after all these years.
She had found the real Neil Caldwell.
“Neil?” she said. Then her voice failed her.
“Where are you?” he asked again. “Are you still in Edinburgh?”
“Yes,” she replied.
She gave him the name of the café.
“Stay there,” Neil demanded.
The line went dead.
Shauna didn’t have long to wait before Neil erupted through the café door.
He took one look around, then came striding straight over to her table.
His face broke into a smile of delight.
“Shauna!” he exclaimed. “I would have known you anywhere! You haven’t changed a bit.
“What a wonderful surprise! How are you? Why are you back in Scotland?”
“Too many questions.” Shauna smiled.
“Let’s settle for one,” he said. “It is so good to see you again. Are you here for long?”
“Until Ellie, my daughter, graduates. Then I go back home to Australia.”
“Excellent! The graduations are about a month away.”
“Not for Stirling,” Shauna replied. “It’s only a couple of weeks.”
Her face coloured.
“I thought I would take the chance of looking you up again while I was here.”
Reaching across the table, he took her hand.
“I’m so glad you did,” he said.
A waitress materialised at his side.
Neil looked up.
“Another one of these?” he asked Shauna.
She shook her head.
Neil glanced at her uneaten bun.
“Have you eaten? Properly?”
“Not really,” she admitted.
He stood up.
“Then I know a nice wine bar just around the corner. It will be empty right now.
“We can have some sandwiches, and it’s a quieter place to chat.”
He glanced at the waitress.
“How much?” he asked.
“It’s already paid,” Shauna told him. “I wanted to be able to make a fast escape if I’d contacted the wrong Neil Caldwell.”
Holding her arm, Neil gently steered her outside into the sunlight.
“How did you trace me?” he asked.
“By fair means and foul,” Shauna said wryly. “Mostly foul. I’m sorry that I barged past your secretary’s defences . . .”
He grinned.
“I inherited Alexa,” he said. “She was trained by a professor who took himself more seriously than I do.”
Neil grimaced.
“There’s nothing like being trapped in a tent for three days in a blizzard to make you realise just how futile titles really are.”
His smile widened.
“When she told me that a rude Australian woman had refused to take no for an answer, then had the cheek to leave her name and phone number . . .
“Do you know, I dared to hope before I opened the note and saw your name?
“It will do Alexa good to find someone she can’t boss around.
“Am I walking too fast?” Neil asked.
“No,” Shauna replied. It wasn’t the walk which was leaving her breathless.
They turned into a small wine bar, shaded and quiet, where Neil ordered wine and sandwiches for both.
Perhaps it was eating which made their small talk dry up.
More likely it was that the first wave of delight at meeting had swept past, and each was wondering how to start the next set of questions.
Shauna decided to deal with her own particular elephant in the room.
She set down her glass.