Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains (40 page)

‘I’m having you on,’ he said. ‘It’s not me and all my comrades. It’s just me. My father was a valet and brought me up to it, but I went into the printers’ union and ended up a newspaperman, then about three years ago or thereabouts I went freelance. I’m going to write a book. About the twelve of us and the two of them. Only now, of course, I can’t decide between the book I was going to write and the one I found myself in the middle of. I know which one would sell more.’

I could not help my eyebrows rising.

‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘The idea of making a bit of money does have a universal appeal.’

Harry’s grin snapped off again.

‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. So don’t go telling your friends in the police about cells of spies in the servants’ halls because I’ll deny I said any such thing and no one will believe you.’

‘Well, I shall keep an eye on the review pages,’ I said, ‘and I look forward to reading whichever book you write in the end. It’s bound to be pretty thrilling stuff.’

‘Here,’ he said, giving me a very hard stare, ‘don’t you go stealing my thunder and writing your own.’

‘I?’ I said, pressing my hand to my heart. ‘I shan’t have the luxury, Harry my boy. I shall be onto the next job. I’m a working woman, you know. We can’t all be freelance like you.’

And so we parted, Harry and I, Lollie and I, the rest of the servants and I, none of us unchanged by those nine tumultuous days. How, I asked myself, could I begin to describe my part in them to Hugh, if he should ask me? As I pulled the door closed and climbed the stairs to fetch Bunty, I decided to stop off at Alec’s on my way home.

Facts and Fictions

The Balfours’ house at 31 Heriot Row is mostly 3 Moray Place and some 5, 6 and 7 Charlotte Square, with just a hint of 29 Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, which was where I first had the idea for this book.

The Balfour family is entirely fictitious, as is the account of their various banks, mansions, mines and oilfields around the world. I was, for once, following the good advice of Jim Hogg and ‘just making it up’.

The details of the strike are based on accounts in the TUC-produced
Strike Bulletin
and the one Edinburgh newspaper which was published during the nine days.

The miners’ village and colliery where Mattie’s family live and work, although imagined to be near Smeaton in Midlothian, are not based on any of the pits which made up the Lothian or Dalkeith Companies.

Catriona McPherson was educated at Edinburgh University, and spent a few years as a university lecturer before writing her first Dandy Gilver novel (shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger). Catriona now writes full-time and lives on a farm in Galloway.