The Firebird Read Online Free PDF Page A

slightly in surprise. ‘I’ve never known a woman yet to travel with no suitcases,’ he told me. ‘You’re my first.’
    We’d reached the fringes of the town now, where elegant-looking Victorian homes perched on steeply banked tidy front gardens, with lights coming on to glow warmly in windows against the descent of the dark.
    I closed my eyes a moment and reached outwards with my thoughts, a little hesitant from being out of practice. Not that it would matter, I felt sure. He was better at this than I was, his own thoughts so strong that unless he were actively blocking me, it would be like hearing somebody shouting at me in a room full of whisperers. And even if he blocked me I would ‘feel’ the block – a solid wall of static.
    I felt nothing. That might have discouraged me more had I not been aware of my limits. He might have been able to reach me in London, and do it without really trying, but I’d never managed that kind of a range.
    I was trying again when the driver asked, ‘Where would you like me to drop you, then?’
    I wasn’t altogether sure. Where did one get dropped off in Eyemouth, I wondered? It wasn’t a large place. On inspiration, I turned to him. ‘Do you know where the police station is?’
    His eyebrows lifted higher but he gallantly said nothing, only took the necessary turns and stopped outside a cream-painted stucco house, trimmed with red brick, that looked just like an ordinary house till I noticed the blue ‘Police’ signs. The lights were on here, too, and my driver remarked, ‘You’re in luck. It’s not always manned.’
    And that was all he said about it, as though it were commonplace for him to drive young women with no suitcases to places where they didn’t live, and drop them at police stations. I tipped him very generously.
    The wind was fierce. It struck me full on as I climbed the few steps to the marked public entrance that bade me to ‘Please knock and enter’. Inside, the small reception room was clean and warm, with nobody in sight behind the glassed-in service counter. I felt ridiculously nervous, so much so that when a friendly young constable came out from the back room to see what I wanted, I stumbled on the words. ‘I’m looking for a man.’ Then, as
his
eyebrows started to rise, I collected myself and explained, ‘A policeman. He works here, I think.’
    ‘Oh, aye?’
    ‘Yes. Rob McMorran.’
    The constable’s grin was good-natured. ‘And why are you looking for him, then? I’m clearly the better man.’ But through the teasing I knew the first part of his question was valid, and needed an answer before he would help me. After all, for all he knew, I might be intending to lodge a complaint.
    I smiled back, in an effort to show I was harmless. ‘I’m a friend of his.’
    ‘Oh, aye?’ he asked me again. ‘Not a local one, though, or I’d surely have seen you.’
    I said, ‘I’m from London.’
    ‘From London? A long way to travel to visit a friend. Did he ken you were coming?’
    I shook my head. ‘That’s why I’m trying to find him.’
    The constable studied me closely a moment, then seeming to reach a decision he picked up the phone. ‘He’s not working the day, but I’ll see if I can’t hunt him down for you.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    I waited.
    The first number he dialled got no answer. ‘He’s not got his mobile. I’ll just try the flat.’ When that didn’t work either, he frowned for a moment, then tried a third number, growing so purposely charming that I guessed it was a woman he was talking to. After exchanging a quick bit of banter that I couldn’t follow because of the accent, he said, ‘I’ve a lady from London here with me who’s wanting to find Robbie Keenan. Would ye ken where he might be?’
    ‘It’s McMorran,’ I corrected him. ‘Rob McMorran.’
    He gave a nod to reassure me as he listened, then he thanked the woman and rang off. ‘He’s on a shout the now,’ he told me, ‘with the lifeboat, but Sheena