Secrets Dispelled Read Online Free PDF Page B

stopped speaking abruptly and colored. “Let’s say we don’t see eye to eye on everything. And something weird is going on. Hell, I’ve only been back in the swing of things a wee while and even I can see that. Last year it was poults—young pheasants,” she added.
    Coll nodded again, he knew what she meant.
    “Yeah, well, this year it seems to be sheep that are going missing.”
    “Are you sure?” Coll asked neutrally. “They all look the same to me.” It was a lie, he had been born and brought up on a sheep farm in the lowlands, but it seemed a safer way to phrase the question and keep his body intact.
    “Oh, I’m sure, but I’ve no idea what’s exactly going on or how. All I know is that I’ve spent the best part of the week moving sheep around at my boss’s behest. And I’m damn sure the numbers are going down.”
    “They’re all marked, aren’t they?” His dad’s were and he was damned sure Lachy wouldn’t be so lax as not to do so. What he’d learned of Lachy, he was impressed by. Donny, whom he guessed Finn worked directly for, not so much. As far as Coll could see, Donny was a waste of space whom Jeff, Jess and Lachy were giving enough rope to drop himself in it. It seemed that for Finn’s sake, it couldn’t happen quickly enough.
    She gave him a pitying look. “To a townie, maybe. But to be sure, I marked one of the ones I thought would be a prime animal to half inch, I mean steal, differently.”
    “I know the expression. Reminds me of my mum’s mum.” He smiled as he remembered that formidable lady with fondness. “She was a cockney who used to say, ‘See that one over there, what a tea-leaf, he’d half inch your nose if it wasn’t attached’.”
    Finn giggled, as he meant her to. “Exactly, it reminds me… Well, anyway. That sheep isn’t there today, and I was made to move the flock again and this time it’s to long acres, which is the big field near the road up the loch side. Oh shit, look, this isn’t sour grapes and I don’t have any proof, but I’m sure all this moving around is camouflage. And if it is, well…” She let her voice trail off.
    “Have you told Lachy?”
    Finn shrugged and looked embarrassed. “Tell him what? Why am I moving all the sheep every day? D… Ah, bugger it, why not be hung for a sheep as a lamb, now that’s an apt expression in the circumstances, isn’t it? He’d go to Donny, who would say it’s down to the grazing, which I guess in all fairness it could be, but I dunno.” She bit her lip. “Do you believe in the itch? Where you know something’s not right and you can’t quite say what?”
    “Oh, yes.” He’d had it more than once, especially with regards to his lifestyle.
    Finn let her breath out in one long whoosh. “Phew. Then you won’t think I’ve got a screw loose when I tell you I have the itch about this. Even more so since I’ve searched and searched and that blasted sheep is not on this estate. And I reckon we’ve lost a dozen or so since I came back, and that is not through natural wastage, believe me and I will not be blamed,” she ended fiercely. “So I decided to look around tonight. And, well, you know what happened.”
    “Yep.” He moved onto the settee next to her and gave her a swift hug before he kissed her nose.
    Finn wriggled it. “What was that for?”
    “You looked as if you needed a hug, and you wrinkle your nose so cutely.” He ducked the cushion she threw at him. “You have to tell Lachy.”
    She sighed. “I will, tomorrow.”
    “Fair enough. And out of interest, where is Donny?”
    Finn colored.
    Interesting. He waited to the count of ten and then raised his eyebrows in query. She sighed.
    “Dammit I hate grassing someone up, but needs must, I guess. In bed with his lady friend, I reckon. His wife and kids are away this week. I was told not to disturb him unless it was Lachy or Jeff after him. I wished to hell Marie would come back unexpectedly. I’d certainly not warn him. After all