He didn't know the answer to that one, but he had a clear idea who might. "I couid ask the Sentinel for you," he offered, eagerly. "He'd ken all about it."
Wally and Jeannie and I exchanged impassive glances and I sank back in my chair. "Yes, well," I said to Robbie, "I don't think that would be such a good idea."
"Dad doesn't have to know."
I blinked at that, surprised. We'd all been so careful not to mention Brian's opposition to our using Robbie in the field again. Whatever I thought of Brian McMorran, I couldn't bring myself to make him look a villain in the eyes of his own son. I'd simply forgotten that Robbie, while he couldn't tap his father's thoughts, could read the rest of us with ease. We had no hope of keeping secrets.
"Well now," Jeannie said, "it'd not be very nice, to do a thing your father didn't approve. And to do it without telling him would be the same as lying."
Robbie didn't appear overly concerned by the ethical implications. Suppressing my smile, I tried to bolster Jeannie's argument. "Besides," I reasoned, "it made you ill the last time, remember? We don't want that to happen again."
"But he wants to talk to you."
My eyebrows lifted. "To me?"
"Aye. He tries sometimes, but you can't hear him so he takes himself away again."
My fingers curved in reflex around my teacup. "He tries to talk to me?" I echoed Robbie's words, unable to form ones of my own.
"He likes you," was the boy's explanation. "I think ... I think you mind him of someone, Miss Grey. He sort of looks at you sometimes, and ... well, he likes to look at you."
"I see."
"Follows after you, he does," Robbie added, helpfully. "So you're always safe."
Safety, I thought, was a relative term. My fingers were still clamped tightly around the empty teacup and I quietly willed them open, flexing them to ease the painful tension.
Jeannie was watching my face. "It must be the hair," she decided.
"I'm sorry?"
"Men do have a weakness for bonny long hair."
I smoothed my plait back with a self-conscious hand and Wally shot me an appraising look, eyes twinkling.
"That's three ye've got noo," he observed. "Three wee shadows. Our Robbie, the dug, and an auld Roman bogle."
"I'm not a shadow," Robbie defended himself, his chin jutting out in a stubborn expression. "I'm a finds assistant, aren't I, Miss Grey?"
"Yes, Robbie, you're a very good assistant."
"And Kip's not a shadow, neither."
Under the table the collie stirred and shifted at the mention of his name. Yawning widely, he twisted his head around to look at me, giving a few hopeful thumps of his tail. Wally rose to his feet with a whistle. "Gaun yersel, then," he urged the dog, and Kip flipped eagerly onto his feet, padding across to the door. Pausing to stub his cigarette, Wally squinted through the rising haze of smoke and studied me. "Did ye want tae come wi' us, back up tae the hoose? I can carry thon thingies for ye," he added, nodding at my shallow box of potsherds.
It was, I thought, rather gallant of him—not his offer to carry the sherds, which weren't the least bit heavy, but his thinking I might not want to walk home alone this evening. Not up that long drive, with the trees telling things to each other in whispers. Not in the fading light, with darkness coming on.
"Thanks," I said, "that would be a great help." -
"Let me, Grandad," said Robbie, scooting forward to grab the tub. But as he climbed down from his chair, Jeannie intercepted him.
"You," she said firmly, "are taking a bath, my wee man, and then going to bed. Say goodnight to Miss Grey."
The stubborn chin came out again, but he knew better than to argue. Handing the sherds to Wally, he trailed over to give me a hug. As he drew back, he looked at me hopefully. “Am / a great help to you, too?"
"A very great help."
I meant it sincerely.
But that didn't stop me wishing, as I walked with Wally up the hill, with the warm evening air pressing close all around us ... it didn't stop me wishing Robbie wouldn't tell me everything.
"Bad dreams, last night?" Fabia steadied the camera against her eye and snapped the row of potsherds from a different angle. I glanced up rather vaguely from my desk. "No, why?"
"You left the light on."
"Ah." She would know, I thought. Fabia was always the last in at night, these days. She had cooled a little toward Brian, and I might have suspected she'd found herself a boyfriend among the students if it hadn't been for David's careful supervision of the camp. He hadn't gone so far as to set an official curfew, but after one or two incidents early on he'd made it quite clear that anyone who wasn't fit to work would have to answer to him, and since no one seemed willing to test that threat, the students were usually out of the pubs and tucked into their sleeping bags well before midnight. If some young man was keeping Fabia out late at night, I could safely say he wasn't one of ours.
At any rate, the late nights didn't seem to be doing her any great harm. She looked lovely this morning, eyes glowing with vigor and youthful good health, her movements quick and fluid. I felt dreadfully pallid by comparison.
"Well, I didn't mean to leave the light on," I lied. "I was reading, you see, and—"