Chapter 13 Young Dave's crimes

'Funding?' said Christopher. 'What do you mean, funding?'

He hadn't meant to sound quite so abrupt, even when there was a woman from the Council on the other end of the line; he wished he hadn't bothered to do this before going out with the parcel of money. Being a sitting target for various villains might be preferable to dealing with the woman from the Council.

'Yes, your annual grant,' she said. There was a rustling of papers and a clicking of computer keys. 'Seven hundred and eighty-three pounds. Received on - let me see,' - click, click, rustle - 'December the fourteenth last year.'

'Annual grant?' he said faintly.

'You are Mr Wilson, aren't you? Christopher Wilson?'

He was beginning to doubt even that, but he said meekly, 'Yes, that's me.'

'Don't you remember signing the funding agreement?'

He wasn't sure what to reply to that. He certainly didn't remember, but that obviously wasn't the answer she wanted.

'Sorry,' he said at last. 'I'm going to have to look into this a bit more. Consult the rest of the steering group and so on. I'll call you back as soon as I can.'

'That's fine,' she said. 'But if there's a problem, you realise we'll have to get it sorted out before we can allocate any more funding?'

'Fine,' he agreed and rang off.

It wasn't fine at all.

He could just do without all this. Why did it have to happen now, when his life had already complicated itself beyond his wildest nightmares? It was as if, he thought gloomily and fancifully, the loom that had been programmed to weave a plain and simple fabric for his life had gone out of control, twisted the threads into ever more intricate patterns and introduced new colours which clashed horribly with the old ones.

It wasn't until he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee that he thought of the most likely explanation for the confusion over funding: the Council had got it wrong again. They had mixed up PLIF with another, more organised organisation which had actually got itself into a position to apply for funding by having all the requisite policies, procedures, office-bearers in place and by knowing exactly which boxes to tick on which official forms and which impossible deadlines they had to meet.

On the other hand, he reasoned, if Amaryllis really wanted to pursue her vision of re-building the village hall, the confusion would have to be cleared up before PLIF could get funding for that. So he couldn't just push this whole thing to one side and ignore it for the next ten years as he would otherwise have done. It was up to him to rescue the village hall project from oblivion by forcing the Council to admit their mistake and, more important, record their admission.

This was of course the last conclusion he wanted to reach. But once he had reached it, his conscience kicked in. With a heavy heart he dialed the number for Linda McSween from the Council again, talked his way through various layers of bureaucracy and found himself speaking to her at last.

'It's Christopher Wilson. From PLIF.'

'Yes,' she said, sounding cautious.

'Are you sure about the annual grant? I mean, are you sure it was paid to PLIF? It's just that we don't seem to have a record of it...'

'There's your bank statement, surely,' she pointed out.

'Bank statement? But - '

'It was definitely paid to a bank account in the name of the Pitkirtly Local Improvement Forum,' she said firmly. 'That's what PLIF stands for, isn't it?'

'But why - ? I mean, did we apply for it?'

'You are the chairman, aren't you, Mr Wilson?'

'Yes, but - '

'In that case you're the person ultimately responsible for the funding application - even if you delegated that responsibility to somebody else.'

'Delegated?'

Christopher told himself to try not to sound like such a complete idiot. It was hard not to, when he felt like one.

'Maybe somebody else filled in the form for you,' she explained patiently. There was a rustling again. 'But you do seem to have signed it, Mr Wilson. You and a Mr Jackson.'

'Mr Jackson?'

'Mr Jackson, your treasurer.'

'Treasurer? But - I mean, I see. Sorry to have bothered you.'

'No problem.'

She seemed to have a smile in her voice this time as she rang off. He was sure his phone call would provide plenty of harmless amusement at the West Fife Communities and Knowledge Department. Goodness knows they must need it in their line of work.

Mr Jackson was Young Dave. But it was news to Christopher that he was treasurer of PLIF, unless Mrs Stevenson had delegated this responsibility to him since he last spoke to her. Could somebody have forged both his and Christopher's signatures on the form, set up a bank account in the name of PLIF and walked off with the princely sum of seven hundred and eighty three pounds? And would it be worth anybody's while to do that?

With an even heavier heart Christopher realised he would have to speak to Young Dave as soon as possible. He feared Young Dave would go on the defensive right away - which of course was his default position in most situations - and once that happened they wouldn't be able to have a proper conversation.

After he had finally decided this could wait until later, and in fact wouldn't Young Dave be at work at this time on a Tuesday, the phone rang almost under his hand. He couldn't remember dealing with so many phone calls in such a short time since his father had died and he had to ring round assorted relatives to break the news. At least this time nobody had died, he told himself, shutting out the voice in his head that added 'yet' to the sentence.

'Why, Christopher!' said Maisie Sue - or was it Susie Mae? He still hadn't got the name fixed in his head. 'You sure have been a busy bee this morning! I've been trying to reach you for an hour.'

'Hello,' he said.

'It's Maisie Sue McPherson? I wonder if you have a minute to talk?'

Yes, I wonder that too, thought Christopher; even a minute to stand irresolutely without talking or even thinking would be nice. Instead of putting this into words he said, 'Yes, of course, Maisie Sue. But only a minute - I have something urgent to do - um, somewhere - after that.'

'I've had an idea?' she said. 'It may sound wacky or way-out to you, but once I had it, I said to myself, I must call Christopher about this! Pearson said no, leave the man alone, he doesn't want to be bothered with it, but I - '

'Pearson?' he interrupted, unwilling to engage with the woman but unable to suppress his curiosity.

'Pearson - that's my husband? I can't believe I didn't mention him to you already!'

She said something else in an undertone, and he heard her laughter and perhaps someone else's in the background.

'Pearson can't believe it either?'

'I'm sure he can't.'

'Anyways - where was I? Oh, yes, I've had an idea? If you don't want to take up my previous idea of barn-raising, maybe you'll like this one better. Are you listening?'

'Yes.'

'How about we all get together and hold a yard sale?'

'A yard sale?'

'Oh, sorry, you don't use that term for it. Pearson says to tell you it's a kind of Christmas fair? To get money for the village hall? I and my little group think it would be really neat if we had some place like that to meet, and we'd like to help.'

'A Christmas Fair. Hmm.'

'You don't like it!'

'No, it isn't that at all,' Christopher lied through his teeth. He hated the idea; he was sure a Christmas Fair would have all the ingredients of one of his worst nightmares. Still, Christmas was quite a way off. A lot of water would have flowed down the Kirtly burn by then. Maybe it wouldn't do any harm to agree to the suggestion for now, and review it later, deciding reluctantly that it wouldn't work, for some reason that didn't immediately spring to mind but that he felt he could rely on Jock McLean to dream up. 'I think it's a great idea,' he added.

'Oooh!' A girlish scream hit the ear he was holding the phone to, and he quickly transferred it to the other ear to give the first one a chance to recover. 'I'm so sorry, Christopher,' she added at a lower level of decibels. 'I got carried away by the excitement? We'll start organising right now! I can't wait to tell the girls.'

'Good,' he said. It sounded hollow to him but maybe Maisie Sue didn't notice.