Face the Wind and Fly Read Online Free Page A

jobs, he’d nipped into the garden centre outside Hailesbank to purchase a new pair of secateurs. Mistaking him in his overalls for an assistant, someone had asked him for petunias.
    ‘It’s April,’ he’d said shortly, ‘and we’re in Scotland.’ He’d left them staring at him, open-mouthed, then apologised to the girl on the till. ‘I can’t stand idiotic questions,’ he admitted, vexed at his own rudeness, ‘that’s why I squirrel myself away in people’s gardens.’
    Rain had washed away the scant snow. Cutting the grass was out, but there was a lot of tidying to do.
    ‘Morning Ibsen,’ read the note on the nail in the shed, ‘I’m out this morning. Please can you build a new compost heap today? The old one really needs to be cleared out. Maybe see you later. Thank you. Helena Banks.’
    He smiled, liking her directness. ‘That’s Mrs B for you, eh Wellington?’ The instruction scuppered his plans for tidying, but she was right – the compost did need attention. There were some planks of wood in the corner of the shed, and he found a ball of string and strolled out, whistling. He was going to enjoy his morning.
    Wellington, picking up the smell of a rabbit – or maybe a hedgehog – followed it, nose down, into the undergrowth and disappeared.
    They were both happy.
    ‘Ibsen? Ah, you’re still here.’
    Ibsen straightened up. ‘Morning, Mrs Banks. What’s the time?’
    ‘Almost one.’
    ‘Is it really? I lost track.’
    A strong breeze whipped Helena Banks’s dark auburn hair across her face and she pushed it back with slim fingers and laughed. ‘So you were enjoying yourself.’
    Ibsen thrust his spade into the ground and grinned. ‘Guess I must have been.’
    ‘Nearly finished?’
    ‘Just about to tidy up. Want to see?’
    She peered round him. ‘Looks very neat. Sorry about the lawn, maybe it’ll be drier by next week. Time for a coffee?’
    ‘Thanks. Maybe a quick one.’
    Ten minutes later, Ibsen had kicked off his boots and washed his hands, and was seated at the large scrubbed pine table in Helena Banks’s homely kitchen.
    ‘That smells terrific.’
    ‘There’s some soup, if you prefer?’
    ‘Coffee will do me fine, honestly.’
    Helena filled two mugs, pulled out a chair and sat down to join him. ‘Have a biscuit at least. Alice baked yesterday.’
    ‘I never could resist your daughter’s baking.’ Ibsen picked up a macademia and white chocolate cookie the size of his fist and bit into it with relish.
    ‘What do you think of this wind farm, then? We’re a little worried we’ll see the turbines.’
    ‘Wind farm? What wind farm?’
    ‘Oh, hadn’t you heard? The planning application was in the paper a few days ago. They’re building it on top of Summerfield Law.’
    Ibsen stopped chewing. His hyacinth-blue eyes shaded to ink as they narrowed into slits. ‘ What? ’
    ‘It’s far enough away, of course, and anyway, David and I are firm supporters of renewable energy, but—’
    Ibsen laid down the cookie and pushed back his chair. ‘I’d better go.’
    ‘Ibsen? You’ve hardly touched your coffee. And what about Alice’s—?’
    ‘I’ll be back on Monday as usual. Thanks Mrs B.’
    He pulled on his boots, picked up his tools, and strode round the house to his van.
    A wind farm? On Summerfield Law?
    Not if I can stop it.

    The climb to the top of Summerfield Law was not a long one, but it was steep. The track was muddy and uneven, and the grassy verges turned to bracken and heather as it rose to more than a thousand feet. Ibsen started briskly, then instead of slowing as he gained height, took the steepest part of the climb almost at a run, pushing himself to go faster and faster so that he arrived at the summit breathless but invigorated. Wellington bounded ahead, covering twice as much ground as he ran a hundred yards forward, then doubled back to check that his master was still on course for the top.
    The last few hundred yards wound through a Sitka