Chapter 3 - Sniffer Dog

Douglas Ewart Cairncross had a mental age, but no one was quite sure what. He'd lived in Dunkillin all his life, which included most of his mental years and all of his age.

Few would have heard the army vehicle arrive in town, not at that time of the morning, but Douglas Ewart Cairncross was not merely an early bird, he could be nocturnal as the wolf, sometimes prowling by day, sometimes by night. He was prowling that night, prowling till morning.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross made up for his lack of sense through his acute senses. As he wove down the street on his small wheeled performance bike, dodging potholes, negotiating scattered debris, he kept to the middle of the road, away from the potential ambush area of the pavement, away from the twin museum ranks of rusting hulks of car, forlorn wreckage long since stripped of tyres and parts and now collapsed, chassis down, on the legacy of tarmac below.

This morning, as Douglas Ewart Cairncross sniffed the air, he caught a hint … just a hint … of engine … of engine … not noise, it was hardly loud enough to be 'noise' … but … it sounded like … like an engine. He rubbed at his nose and sniffed the air again. He didn't know why, it was just something wolves did.

At 5.00 am on a Scottish midsummer morn there was abundant light, enough to paint pastel shades and promise shadow, though the sun had not yet risen. A few garden birds sang – it was a long time since the town echoed to the raucous assaults of seagulls … they'd returned to the sea when food litter became too precious to scatter in the cities. A few birds – blackbird, thrush maybe - the usual background noises which Douglas Ewart Cairncross filtered from consciousness. He stopped his bike, and stood, breathless, wheels silenced, listening, listening for that hint of something that wasn't noise. He sniffed.

Crouched low over the handlebars he peered the hundred metre length of the street to its junction with London Road, a once affluently-lined highway leading to the south and the English border. At that distance, and hidden behind the skeleton of a once blue utility vehicle, nothing and no one passing along London Road would notice him.

Crouched low, he watched as the vehicle coasted past the road's end … its electric engine barely purring. In the days of dogs it might have caused a twitched ear or two, maybe even a bark from the more neurotic ones … which humans took as evidence that these were conscientious guard dogs. Tonight, only Douglas Ewart Cairncross heard it passing. His ears didn't twitch, but his heart jumped. And he sniffed.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross had recognised it immediately. A military patrol vehicle, the sort once used by the Scottish Army, soft-skinned, high ground clearance, robust, canvass covered at the rear. The military were practically the last people to use the roads – domestic and commercial traffic had melted away over a decade or two. Douglas Ewart Cairncross hadn't seen any military activity for months. Many months.

How many men were in the vehicle, he wondered as he waited. It had passed and he waited. The military usually travelled in convoys. Not this time. This time, it was on its own.

That puzzled Douglas Ewart Cairncross as much as it piqued his curiosity. He sniffed. What would a single army vehicle be doing on the London Road at this time of the day? The Laird would want to know about it. The Laird would ask questions, would demand to know where it had gone and what it was doing. Douglas Ewart Cairncross resolved to follow, pushing off on his bike and pedalling furiously to the road end where he turned a sharp right, expecting to see it some distance away.

London Road was deserted.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross listened, certain he could still hear the engine, certain the noise was coming from what the informed would have described as his 'left'. He resumed frantic pedalling. The Laird would want to know, and the Laird was good to him, not like other people.

Taking the first left, he was just in time to see the vehicle's tail disappear round the corner of the next intersection. London Road had been pretty much cleared of obstructions – it was still one of the town's main thoroughfares and carts and barrows were regularly used to bring produce in from the outlying farms and homesteads. Once off this main road, even an army vehicle, built for rough ground, could be slowed to a crawl by debris and the abandoned detritus of a car-bound era.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross reasoned this in less eloquent language. Douglas Ewart Cairncross reasoned this the way a lab rat reasons its way through a learned maze. He knew the road network of Dunkillin blindfold, knew that he was far more mobile on side streets than any four-wheeled vehicle, no matter how powerful its engine or how adept it was at handling rough terrain.

He sniffed. The Laird would want to know where it had gone.

Turning left again – and concepts of 'left' and 'right' were as incomprehensible to Douglas Ewart Cairncross as they were to any lab rat – turning in the direction his eyes took him, he was confronted by an empty street. Again, nothing moved. There was silence. The vehicle, Douglas Ewart Cairncross reasoned, must have pulled in somewhere. He rewarded himself with a nod of agreement. And a sniff.

Dismounting, Douglas Ewart Cairncross wheeled his bike cautiously along the pavement. Wolves on the prowl do not push bicycles as they hunt their prey, but that was lost on Douglas Ewart Cairncross. Nevertheless, silent as a wolf, he crept along, senses alert to any hint of movement or sound, if not smell. Silent as a wolf. Silent as a wolf.

Rounding a slight bend in the road … Douglas Ewart Cairncross thought … he thought … he was sure, sure he'd heard sounds.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross concealed his bike within a thickly overgrown hedge - he was as masterly at camouflage as any trained soldier – and crept along the pavement, bent low as he picked his way across itinerant creepers, through encroaching bushes and boughs, and over paving stones tossed up by underground roots.

The sounds had come from this side of the road. He thought for a moment, rubbing at his nose, then sprinted silently across to the other side to take cover behind the carcass of a van. He could see the army vehicle again. It had drawn off the road and was parked in the narrow driveway before a two storey sandstone house. Judging by the integrity (not a word Douglas Ewart Cairncross would have understood) of its shutters and the relatively weed-free driveway and pavement before it, the house had remained occupied, whether by squatters or … or … he recalled an old woman he'd seen pushing a pram up and down this street.

As he watched, a soldier appeared – boots, combat uniform, chequered scarf knotted about his head and wound around the lower half of his face, dark goggles propped on his forehead. Not a big man, scarcely the size of Douglas Ewart Cairncross, but with a carbine cradled in his arms.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross shrank back as the man stepped out onto the pavement and gazed up and down the street. When he looked back, the soldier had gone.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross waited for a few minutes. There were no further signs of life around the house, no further noises, so he stepped hastily across the pavement and made his way into the thick undergrowth of an overgrown front garden. He waited, listening, heart racing, then negotiated his way across three more gardens, one heavily overgrown, the next gravelled … he padded, silent as a wolf across that … and the last, once neatly paved, now a chequerboard geometry of weeds and mosses. He crawled across that until he was diagonally opposite the soldier's … the old woman's house … and lay behind the end of its once gated low wall, concealed behind an overturned refuge bin which had long ago been stripped of its wheels.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross lay there for some time, trying to ignore his sense of fear and exposure, peering through the narrow gap between wall and overturned bin. He could hear occasional sounds from the sandstone house, but for a long time there was no further sight of the soldier.

And then the man reappeared, dragging what seemed to be a rolled up mattress. It seemed too heavy for a mattress. The man struggled with it, struggled as he hauled it across the road and into the neighbouring front garden. There were sounds … . There were sounds, as if the soldier was breaking down the front door, and then more noises from within the bungalow, something, or some things, being smashed.

Presently the soldier re-emerged, crossed back over to the army vehicle, and took a jerrycan from its rear. If that was full of petrol, even half full, the Laird would have paid handsomely for it. Again, the soldier crossed to the bungalow. This time he reappeared after only a few minutes, still holding the jerrycan, but it looked a lot easier to carry this time.

The man stopped in the middle of the road, carbine slung across his back, and put the jerrycan down. It had a hollow ring to it. Douglas Ewart Cairncross watched. Had he better understood human emotions he might have imagined that the soldier was crying, for the man visibly stooped and put a hand to his masked face.

The soldier stood in the middle of the road, intent on the bungalow. Douglas Ewart Cairncross pressed himself low to the ground, watching through an anarchic clump of coarse grass as the soldier straightened and stretched. There came a … a thump from the bungalow and Douglas Ewart Cairncross sensed a hint of something burning. Presently, thin wisps of smoke emerged from the bungalow, thin wisps which thickened and spiralled into the now sunny air.

Each of the silent watchers endured slow minutes of concentration as the smoke became denser and flames took hold of the bungalow. And still the soldier stood in the middle of the road, careless of the fact that the column of smoke must be visible across half of Dunkillin. Stood and watched the burning building, from time to time shaking his head.

And then he bowed slightly, bent to pick up the jerrycan, and, having returned it to the rear of his vehicle, disappeared back into the sandstone house.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross lay there, alternating his gaze between the sandstone house and the burning bungalow. Lay there, afraid to move … until he heard the shot.

It's effect was that of a starting pistol. Douglas Ewart Cairncross leapt from concealment, sprinted back across the road to his bike, and pedalled demonically away from the sandstone house and burning bungalow. Pedalled and pedalled and pedalled, waiting for the crack of the carbine and the impact of the shot, pedalled until he was round the corner and out of sight, pedalled round the next left turn, pedalled, all the while imagining the purring sound of the military vehicle giving chase.

He pedalled until he reached the outskirts of New Farm, a sprawling 20^th century housing scheme. Pedalled on through it, taking footpaths and alleyways along which no army vehicle could follow, pedalled until he saw the road block which regulated access to the Laird's castle. Pedalled until he recognised the yellow haired man with the funny name.

- - - - - - - - -

Custard McGinty raised the shotgun to his chest as he saw the bike hurtling towards the roadblock.

"Sniffer Doug's here," he called to the men in the bunker of concrete blocks which occupied a pavement and half the street. One of them emerged and strode over to the red and white barrier which closed the other half of the approach to the castle.

"What's he bringing us today?"

"Nothin! Hasnae got his dog cart wi him," observed Custard.

"Fuck, looks like he's seen a ghost," said the man, Brian McBride by name, kicking away the chocks from behind the wheels and hauling open a fraction the red and white cheval de frise.

"Morning Sniffer, what's got into you?"

"Need to see the Laird. Need to see him."

McBride had never seen Sniffer this agitated. The boy … well, he was in his mid-twenties, but no one ever thought of him as anything but a 'boy' … the boy was usually nervous or hyperactive, sniffing uncontrollably when he was excited about a trade or had information to sell, but this morning he looked like someone had put the fear of death into him.

McBride didn't hesitate, didn't bother questioning him, just signalled the boy to follow. Douglas Ewart Cairncross fell into step behind, wheeling his bike along.

The 'castle' – a fortified 20^th century tenement block – stood apart from several rows of two storey, semi-detached houses. This morning, Scott Mackie, universally known as 'The Laird', was in the one behind the row guarded by the road block. There, the two houses nearest the castle had been stripped out and converted into a stable block. It was before these that the Laird was … .

McBride approached, gaze directed down to ground, trying to conceal his look of embarrassment.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross had never seen anyone having their portrait painted. He stopped twenty or thirty metres short of the Laird, currently sitting astride the huge chestnut stallion which went by the name of 'Gan Daft'. Douglas Ewart Cairncross didn't much like horses, and this one was huge, and it worried him that even its name warned of its craziness.

Unable to get Sniffer to approach any closer, the Laird dismounted, and walked over to the 'boy'. The artist, busy sketching outlines and deciding on his 'colour palette', resumed his studies of 'Gandalf', once again choking back the question he needed to ask some day. Wasn't Gandalf supposed to be Grey or White?

The artist's presence struck the Laird as ironic. His interrogation of Sniffer was less like drawing teeth, it was more like drawing a dentist, drawing teeth. Whatever the boy could tell him, he couldn't answer the crucial questions. What was the Army doing in town? Did the Army, in fact, still exist? And if Sniffer had seen one soldier, how many more were there?

The column of smoke certainly advertised someone's presence. A number of people had already pointed it out to him. Burning buildings weren't that unusual, but each one needed investigation, even if there was no way of putting fires out once they caught hold.

Twenty minutes later, while the artist scowled in frustration, the Laird rode off down the road, rifle holstered in front of Gandalf's saddle.

Douglas Ewart Cairncross watched him depart, sniffing nostalgically. He'd been invited to have a Narky Visit, and Douglas Ewart Cairncross liked Narky Visits. It wasn't just that he got a slice or two of nice cake, though the cake reminded him of his childhood in the big house, with its big, always warm kitchen, and his big bedroom with its toys, and the people who had been his 'Mummy' and 'Daddy', and the happy times before he'd been put into that other big house with all the rough children and his mummy and daddy and his toys had all gone away.

No, Douglas Ewart Cairncross enjoyed his Narky Visits because he liked Doctor Rossi, who wasn't a doctor for sick people, but who was always nice to him and took an interest in what he did and what was happening in his life.

Few people were interested in the news Douglas Ewart Cairncross carried – who had he seen, what was happening around the town and countryside. Only the Laird and Doctor Rossi. No, most people were only interested in what Sniffer had found, and what he could get.

"I need some barbed wire, d'you know what that looks like?"

Or, "If you come across a stepladder, about this high … ."

Or, "Baking tins, Sniffer, so I can make loaves … here's one, they look like this."

And Douglas Ewart Cairncross, who knew every street and alley and pathway in and around Dunkillin, whose eyes spotted and catalogued and filed away details of even the most mundane of objects to be found in abandoned buildings or left to rot in the open, Douglas Ewart Cairncross would find barbed wire, and stepladders, and baking tins … and tools, and containers, and raw materials, and a teddy bear, and a thousand other things which would be secured in or on or to the little dog cart he usually trailed along behind his bike.

But Doctor Rossi, who never called him 'Sniffer' and who wasn't for sick people, and Douglas Ewart Cairncross wondered if this was because he hadn't learned enough yet which was why he was always asking questions, Doctor Rossi never asked for anything, except of course books and paper which he was always wanting, and pens if they could be found, and other funny things. No, all Doctor Rossi asked for was Douglas Ewart Cairncross's time and company, and Narky Visits always meant slices of cake and, often, a glass of the sweet lemonade they made in New Farm, or hot soup in winter. And fresh bread! And they'd wash his clothes for him and give him clean ones. And Doctor Rossi, who wasn't a doctor for sick people, kept telling Douglas Ewart Cairncross how important it was to wash any cuts or injuries he might pick up when four-age-jing.

So Douglas Ewart Cairncross told Doctor Rossi all about the hearing of the soldier's vehicle and his pursuit of it across London Road and how he'd watched the soldier take things into the bungalow and how the man had stood there watching the place burn, and how Douglas Ewart Cairncross had been frightened by the sound of the shot, and how he hoped the Laird would be all right on his own and wouldn't be shot at.

- - - - - - - - -

At one time there had been something like 50,000 people in Dunkillin. Today, there were probably only 800. Scott Mackie, Dunkillin born and bred, former police inspector, and now Laird of New Farm, the most densely populated area of town, didn't expect to see anyone on his way to the scene of the fire. What he didn't want to see was any extensive evidence of the Army's presence.

Nothing stirred. Gandalf was left to maintain a leisurely pace over the three quarters of a mile which separated the castle from … from whatever was happening. And, apart from the smoke, neither horse nor rider witnessed anything unusual or unfamiliar on the journey. A natural silence prevailed, one broken only by the sound of birdsong, breeze, and the rhythm of shod feet clattering on hard road.

They stopped at the road junction. The house where the soldier had been seen was out of sight round a slight bend, but the burning bungalow was visible, flames blending with smoke. There was scarcely a breeze, so it seemed unlikely the fire might spread to any neighbouring house, but fire was unpredictable, as far as the Laird was concerned. He'd instituted a stringent fire prevention policy back at New Farm, and every one of the two hundred and fifty or so people there knew what to do in the event of a fire. He was confident they could deal with one, but maybe they should think about setting up a mobile fire service to tackle a blaze anywhere in Dunkillin.

The Laird unholstered the rifle and coaxed Gandalf up the street until he could see the outline of an army vehicle parked in the driveway of a sandstone house. He'd just pressed the binoculars to his eyes when a soldier emerged from the house and stared back at him. For some reason, the theme from an ancient Western began to play in his mind. What was it called?  "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"!