‘Idiot boy!’ Bertie snapped happily. ‘I’ll have you horsewhipped if you’ve marked the wood on that Purdey.’
When the Land Rover was loaded, Poe opened the passenger door. There was no way Bertie was travelling in the back if Poe was driving. He wasn’t a chauffeur. Bertie climbed in without comment.
‘Now, where are you taking me?’ he said when Poe got behind the wheel.
‘Er, I thought I was taking you to see Estelle.’
‘Nonsense. There’s a pub not too far away that does a very good pie. If we’re quick, we might get there before the landlord gives them away to the poor.’
Poe, who had only just eaten a pie the size of a hubcap, said, ‘OK.’
Uncle Bertie was actually quite good company. Poe liked him.
He’d marched into the White Swan and demanded two pies and two pints and two whiskies. He then told two city-types that they were sitting in his seat and he said it in such a way that they picked up their drinks and moved.
‘Lady Doyle tells me you were in the army,’ he said when they were seated. ‘What regiment?’
‘Black Watch,’ Poe said, sipping his pint of Black Sheep. It was a nice pint. Darker than Spun Gold, but very drinkable.
‘Knew a man in the Black Watch. A captain. His Adam’s apple was the wrong way round. Didn’t like him.’
And that was the end of their military reminiscing. Bertie didn’t offer any information on his own career, although Poe knew he’d had one. He’d been a colonel in one of the armoured regiments. Doyle hadn’t known which one. Bertie looked like a tanker, though.
The landlord brought their pies over.
‘It had better not be chicken, sir!’ Bertie said.
‘It’s beef and ale, Bertie,’ the landlord said, winking at Poe.
After the landlord was back behind his bar, Bertie added, ‘Damn fool served me fish once. Fish! In a Yorkshire pub. I should have had him horsewhipped!’
‘Do you evenhavea horsewhip?’ Poe asked.
‘What?!’
‘Never mind.’
‘Now, what’s this nonsense about a wedding? Lady Doyle’s finally getting hitched, eh?’
‘She is, sir.’
‘And which weak-chinned, in-bred, dribble-faced moron has finally tamed her?’
‘That would be me, sir.’
‘You!’ he shouted, his eyes twinkling. ‘But you’re just a thief taker!’
Poe thought Bertie knewexactlywho Lady Doyle was marrying. That he was having fun at Poe’s expense. He said, ‘I was apubic hairthief taker yesterday.’
Bertie grabbed Poe’s whisky. ‘You won’t be drinking this, I assume?’
Poe shook his head. ‘I’m driving.’
‘Good.’ He rolled the whisky around his mouth before swallowing. ‘Lady Doyle thinks a lot of you.’
‘I hope so.’
‘She does. She told me. And that’s no small thing for Elcid Doyle’s daughter to admit. Known her since she was a baby and she’s the most wilful woman I’ve ever met. She also warned me not to give you any grief. She said I wouldn’t like what would happen if I did.’
