By Hamish Brown

He sat on the big ledge to bring Betty up. Norrie could feel the red rock warm on his back. His feet hung out over space. There was a solitary blaeberry on the ledge and he popped it into his mouth.

"Climb when you're ready."

"Climbing!"

He watched her picking her way up, hands moving gently fondling the rock, then gripping while she arched out and up onto the next foothold. She climbed steadily and well. Betty wasn't a bad soul really. It was just Allan riled her so. Ach, life had got everything the wrong way round he felt. And to escape its toils and coils he was going to commit murder. They'd never used the word in going over the details. It was 'an accident' always. But the doing of it was his responsibility even if Allan often reminded him they would both be equal beneficiaries.

"It wouldna bother me!" Allan had boasted.

Norrie had thought, "No, it wouldn't; you're a richt bastard".

The pitches were climbed steadily. The very routine of climbing is one of its comforts. You get lost in it and everyday cares drop away beyond the horizon. Norrie reached the top, pulled in some slack and went straight to the belay. He'd done Agag's three times before and didn't forget moves or such details. It was the finest V. Diff in Scotland. Classic.

"Climb when you're ready!"

"Climbing," came Betty's echo.

Norrie grimly muttered "Falling" to himself and then switched off the nasty close future to concentrate on taking in the rope. Betty let her eyes sweep over the Moor, with the threads of roads laid on its sequinned serge and the cocked hat of Schiehallion away in the east, then turned to the kindly rock. Aye, she could lead this no bother. She went up the last pitch and pulled over the top onto Crowberry Ridge.

As she did so, Norrie stood up, throwing the colourful coils of rope off his legs and began undoing the belay. Betty unclipped the rope from her harness and began untying the figure of eight. She turned, as one always does, to look down the sheer 300 foot route just climbed. It was Norrie's moment.

"Betty."

She turned her head to see his outstretched arm.

"Would you like a sweety?"

There were two or three in his palm and she chose a mint. This was all part of their routine too.

"Ta."

They sat in silence (but for a plane high overhead and the occasional rattle of a mint on teeth) and Betty thought happily to the following weekend. Apart from bloody Allan, life was pretty good. Norrie was thinking of Allan too, imagining him coming back from the Fort, the intended hours late, not to find flashing lights and the bustle of police and mountain rescue but an irate wife and a silent partner sitting at the car park. They would be ruined. And so what? He just couldn't do it.

He reached out a tentative hand and laid it briefly on Betty's shoulder so she turned to look at him. He gave her a smile that held a hundred secrets in it. Betty smiled back. She put out her tongue with the mint on it like a little girl might have done. They laughed.

Allan, having seen them set off; had gunned the car along the straight to Alltnafeidh and on for the Coe, his voice roaring out a song. They were saved! What a sucker Norrie was, being persuaded like that. Allan just hoped he could be the person who broke the news to the old man; the shock would be as good as sticking a knife in him. The bastard had even set this up with all his talk a few years back about having adequate life insurance. Well, the insurance would certainly save some lives, and the detestable business.

It did too, though he never knew how - not in the way he'd planned.

He swept round the bend at the Study just as a dithery old couple pulled in to see the falls which took his eyes off the road momentarily. This meant he was slow in reacting to a bulky, long HGV grinding up the glen. All he could do was swerve. The barrier bounced him back and he was exhaling a Whew! when the tail of the lorry smashed in the corner of the windscreen and removed half his head in a single stroke.

Betty's father was more smug than ever when the insurance cheque came through. And his little lily blossomed. Maybe it was as well however, that a year later, he did not see her solo Agag's Groove while her fiancé, Norrie, looked on. While they were climbing on the Buachaille he was hoeing the rose bed he'd planted round the statue of the winged Mercury which Norrie had sold to him.

Be sure and check out Hamish's books on the family page.

You can reach Hamish by snail mail at 26 Birkcaldy Road, Burntisland, Fife KY3 9HQ.

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