those bastards at Roundhay Spinney?’
‘How on earth do you know about them?’
‘Not much gets by me, not here at the Arms. They’ve been bothering people in the neighbourhood for weeks.’
‘Well, they won’t be a problem to anybody, Betty, not any more.’ He placed his jambiya on the bar.
There was a sound of vehicles passing outside, and one of the men went to the window. He turned. ‘Well, I’ll be damned. All they shites be on their way out.’
‘Yes, well, they would be,’ Michael said.
Betty put down a glass. ‘No one loves you more than I, Paul Rashid, no one except your blessed mother, but I do recall your temper. Have you been a naughty boy again?’
Kate said, ‘The awful man attacked Mummy, he beat her.’
The bar was silent and Betty Moody said, ‘He what?’
‘It’s all right. Paul cut his ear off, so they’ve gone away.’ Kate smiled. ‘He was wonderful.’
The silence in the bar was intense. ‘She wasn’t too bad herself,’ Paul Rashid said. ‘As it turns out, our little Kate is very handy with a rock. So, Betty, love, let’s open a bottle of champagne. I think copious helpings of shepherd’s pie wouldn’t come amiss, either.’
She reached over and touched his face. ‘Ah, Paul, I should have known. Anything else?’
‘Yes, I’m going back to Sandhurst tomorrow. Could you find time to see if Mother needs any help? Oh, and excuse the fact that the child here is too young to be in the bar?’
‘Of course on both counts.’ She opened the fridge and took out a bottle of Bollinger. She patted Kate on the head. ‘Get behind the bar with me, girl. That makes it legitimate.’ As she thumbed off the cork, she smiled at Paul. ‘All in the family, eh, Paul?’
‘Always,’ he said.
Later, after the meal and the champagne, he led the way across the road and through the graveyard to the porched entrance of the Dauncey parish church, which dated from the twelfth century.
It was very beautiful, with an arched ceiling and, the rain having stopped, a wonderful light coming in through the stained glass windows and falling across the pews and the marble gravestones and carved figures that were the memorials of the Dauncey family across the centuries.
Their peerage was a Scottish one. Sir Paul Dauncey it had been until the death of Queen Elizabeth, and then when King James VI of Scotland became James I of England, his good friend Sir Paul Dauncey was one of those who galloped from London to Edinburgh to tell him. James I had made him Earl of Loch Dhu – the black loch or the place of dark waters – in the Western Highlands. As it usually rained six days out of seven, though, the Daunceys had understandably remained at Dauncey Place, leaving only a small, broken-down castle and estate at Loch Dhu.
The one signal difference between Scottish and English peerages was that the Scottish title did not die with the male heirs. If there were none, it could be passed through the female line. Thus, when the Earl died, his mother would become Countess. He himself would receive the courtesy title of Viscount Dauncey, the other boys would be Honourables and young Kate would become Lady Kate. And one day, Paul, too, would be Earl of Loch Dhu.
Their footsteps echoed as they walked along the aisle. Paul paused beside a lovely piece of carving, a knight in armour and his lady. ‘I think he would have been pleased today, don’t you?’ He recited part of the family catechism, familiar to all of them: ‘Sir Paul Dauncey, who fought for Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, then cut his way out and escaped to France.’
‘And later, Henry Tudor allowed him back,’ young Kate said. ‘And restored his estates.’
‘Which inspired our family motto,’ Michael added. ‘I always return.’
‘And always have.’ Paul pulled Kate close and put his arm about his brothers. ‘Always together. We are Rashid, and we are Dauncey. Always together.’
He hugged them fiercely and Kate cried a little and held him tight.
After Sandhurst, Paul was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards, did a tour in Ireland and then in ninety-one was pulled into the Gulf War by the SAS.
This was ironic, because his father was an Omani general, a friend of Saddam Hussein’s, who had been seconded to the Iraqi Army for training purposes and found himself caught up in the war as well, on the other side. No one questioned Paul’s loyalty, however. For the SAS behind the Iraqi lines, Paul Rashid was a priceless asset, and when the war ended, he was decorated. His father, however, died in action.
For his part, Paul accepted the situation. ‘Father was a soldier and he took a soldier’s risks,’ he told his two brothers and sister. ‘I am a soldier and do the same.’
Michael and George also went to Sandhurst. Afterwards, Michael went to Harvard Business School and George into the Parachute Regiment, where he did his own tour in Ireland. One year was enough, however. He left the army and joined a course in estate management.
As for young Kate, after St Paul’s Girls’ School she went to St Hugh’s College, Oxford, then moved into her wild period, carving her way through London society like a tornado.
When the Earl died in 1993, it was totally unexpected, the kind of heart attack that strikes without warning and kills in seconds. Lady Kate was now the Countess of Loch Dhu, and they laid the old man to rest in the family mausoleum in Dauncey churchyard. The entire village turned up and many outsiders, people Paul had never met.
In the Great Hall at Dauncey Place where the reception was held, Paul went in search of his mother and found one such person leaning over her, a man in his late middle age. Paul stood close by as his mother glanced up.
‘Paul, dear, I’d like you to meet one of my oldest friends, Brigadier Charles Ferguson.’
Ferguson took his hand. ‘I know all about you. I’m Grenadier Guards myself. That job you did behind Iraqi lines with Colonel Tony Villiers was fantastic. A Military Cross wasn’t enough.’
‘You know Colonel Villiers?’ Paul asked.
‘We go back a long way.’
‘You seem to know a lot, Brigadier. That SAS operation was classified.’
His mother said, ‘Charles and your grandfather soldiered together. Funny places. Aden, the Oman, Borneo, Malaya. Now he runs a special intelligence outfit for the Prime Minister.’
‘Kate, you shouldn’t say that,’ Ferguson told her.
‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘Everyone who is anyone knows.’ She took his hand. ‘He saved your grandfather’s life in Borneo.’
‘He saved mine twice.’ Ferguson kissed her on the forehead, then turned to Paul. ‘If there’s anything I can do for you, here’s my card.’
Paul Rashid held his hand firmly. ‘You never know, Brigadier. I may take you up on that some day.’
Being the eldest, Paul was selected
