The Steep Approach to Garbadale Read Online Free Page A

and dim and smells of last night’s cigarettes and spilled beer.
    Alban swallows about a quarter of the pint in one series of gulps, then smacks his lips. ‘So why are you looking for me, Fielding?’ he asks. ‘Specifically.’
    ‘Well, frankly, I was asked to.’
    ‘Who by?’
    ‘Gran.’
    ‘Good God, is the old harridan alive and compos mentis?’ Al shakes his head and takes another drink.
    ‘Al, please.’
    Gran - Grandmother Winifred - is the Wopuld materfamilias, the head of the family and one of its eldest surviving members. She’s also, in terms of voting rights, the most powerful person on the board of the family firm. She’s not perfect - at nearly eighty, who is? - and she can be prickly and fussy and sometimes even wrong, but she’s seen the firm and the family through tough times and good times and a lot of people still have a real soft spot for her, Fielding included. And she is very old and of course everybody feels protective of her, no matter how spirited and feisty she might seem, so it’s not good to hear somebody in the family dissing her. Fielding tries to let the hurt he feels show on his face.
    Al frowns at him. ‘You look like you’re straining.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘How’d you find out I was in Wales anyway?’
    ‘I talked to your girl . . . your friend, whatever you . . . you know: in Glasgow. What’s her—?’
    ‘VG?’
    ‘V D ?’
    ‘Vee, Gee. Those are her initials.’
    ‘Right. What was her name again? Foreign, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Verushka Graef.’
    ‘Ver-oosh-ka. That’s the one.’
    ‘Yes, I know.’
    This, frankly, does give Fielding pause for thought. ‘You and her really an item?’ he asks.
    Alban grins without any apparent mirth. ‘Fielding, I can see you looking at me with new respect and a degree of incredulity, but no, we’re not an “item”. We meet up now and again. Occasional lovers. Don’t imagine I’m her only one.’
    ‘Oh, I see. Anyway, she told me the last definite address she had for you was in this Llangurig place.’
    ‘That was good of her.’
    ‘Took some persuading.’
    ‘She knows I like my privacy.’
    ‘Well, hurrah for her. Actually, she took some finding herself, too. Had to go through the university. Are you part of some sort of weird cult or something? I mean, renouncing the use of mobile phones. What the hell is that all about?’
    ‘I don’t like being at other people’s beck and call, Fielding. VG . . . She just doesn’t like being disturbed.’
    ‘She for real?’
    ‘What do you mean, like not a robot or something?’
    ‘Fuck off, you know what I mean. Is she really this shit-hot mathematician? ’
    Al shrugs. ‘Think so. Glasgow University Mathematics Department seems to think so. Not to mention what you could justifiably call a plethora of peer-reviewed journals.’
    ‘So, really a professor?’
    ‘Yeah, really. Not that I actually saw her being invested or whatever it is they do when they make you one.’
    ‘She doesn’t look like a professor.’
    ‘That’d be the spiky blonde hair.’
    ‘It was black.’
    ‘Again?’ Al shakes his head, drinks. ‘She’s a natural blonde.’
    ‘Is she mad?’
    ‘She’s a little eccentric. Once dyed it mousy brown, just to see.’
    ‘Just to see what?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Right. Anyway.’
    ‘Anyway.’
    ‘So, Gran asked me to find you and talk to you. There’s stuff happening. Stuff you need to know. Stuff you might even want to be involved in.’ Fielding’s mobile is vibrating again but he’s ignoring it.
    ‘Really?’ Al sounds sceptical.
    ‘Yes, and I think you’ll agree when you hear it . . .’
    ‘This going to take long?’
    ‘A few minutes.’
    ‘Hold on then. Better take a leak.’ Alban stands up, draining his pint as he does so. He starts towards the exit, then pauses, turning back. ‘You could get another round in.’
    ‘Okay, okay.’
     
Alban made his way to the Gents in the Salutation Hotel, sighing and smoothing his hand over his