The Wicker Tree Read Online Free Page A

forms a kind of honour guard from the castle's porte cocher, past its stables, to the great gates that lead to the little town of Tressock, is so unusual as to be condemned in local guide books as 'odd'. Foreigners, unused to British English, do not always realise how severe a censure this adjective implies, for the carefully pruned yew trees that parade along each side of the drive suggest rows of jaunty phalluses.
    On the comparatively rare occasions when the sun penetrates the grey, purple cloud cover over the Tressock hills, it waits until it has risen high enough for its warmth to seep through, casting pale shadows on the castle's lawns. But just occasionally it surprises by rising clear and bright over the heathered hills at dawn.
    On such a day, Sir Lachlan and Lady Morrison found themselves awakening in their Tressock Castle home to great shafts of blinding sunlight coming through the windows of their bedroom and penetrating the half drawn curtains of their huge four-poster bed. Four broad-bosomed, bearded hermaphrodites, carved in ebony, supported the canopy above the awakening couple. Lady Morrison closed the bed curtains hastily, shutting out the sun, and thought, perhaps for the thousandth time, how she hated the hermaphrodites and how extraordinary it was that Lachlan admired them.
    She watched her husband slowly awaken. In the fifteen years of their marriage she had become accustomed to the unexpected from Lachlan, save in a small number of foibles and habits where he was as consistent as a well-oiled chiming clock. Unusually for a Scot, he never took a bath, subjecting himself to freezing showers instead, and he shaved with a cut-throat razor that had belonged to his greatgreat-great-grandfather, Sir John Morrison (VI of Tressock), who had served with the Coldstream Guards at Waterloo under the Duke of Wellington. It lived, this razor – actually there were several – in the long-dead soldier's leather travelling kit. The sound of it being sharpened on its stone slab always put Lady Morrison's teeth on edge. So she had bought Lachlan a state-of-the-art electric razor as a May Day present. He thanked her with his customary civility and suggested she use it on her legs.
    But now he was completing what, for him, was the ritual of becoming totally awake. His eyes stared at her, unblinking, unwavering for at least thirty seconds – a long time, at any rate. It was as if some battery inside him was slowly activating and then, suddenly, startlingly, he was again the vivid presence that filled her days, her life. He was speaking to her, speaking urgently.
    'Delia, I want you to be ready to go to Glasgow tomorrow early,' he was saying. 'This wretched concert is so late this year it gives us very little time to do what must be done.'
    'But I've still got the feasts to plan,' said his wife a little plaintively. 'Unless you think we could persuade everyone to celebrate May Day a little later… well, people do it with birthdays.' She had seen the expression on his face and knew at once the absurdity of her suggestion. 'I'm joking, of course,' she added hurriedly.
    At breakfast, Lachlan's mobile cell phone rang repeatedly. Beame, a tall, corpulent butler with a mincing walk poured coffee while Lachlan fended off a series of business calls. Delia took the phone from him so he could finish his breakfast. It rang again almost at once and she answered it.
    'This is Lady Morrison. My husband is having breakfast, Mr Tarrant.' She put her hand over the phone and looked questioningly at Lachlan. He scowled and stretched out his hand for the phone. By the time he spoke his voice was quietly composed:
    'If you want a statement from me in reply to your article – in the Echo was it? Yes… you can have one. Call my office and make a time to come in, Mr Tarrant. It's Magnus isn't it? I am always anxious to be completely open with the press, you know that… Well you should. I'm away for a few days. But as soon as I get back… I