Sentence the Fivehundredandseventeenth 

Which was when Little Levy Balquhidder heard it: he was lolling in his pram, beside his mum Rilla, in The Square in Melrose, and Rilla was reading The Southern Reporter, and the voice came from behind the pram, over towards The Ship Inn, and it seemed to be echoed, and it was quite curious, because the echo wasn't a repeat of the original words, rather it was almost as if someone was having a conversation with himself. but the voice was almost stentorian, competing with the clamorous singing which drifted out of the open door of the Pub and Little Levy's hearing was uncannily good and he could tell that the two voices were coming from several feet apart; he closed his eyes and his spirit did a little triangulation exercise - the sort of thing it did when it was the spirit of Pherson Dalwhinnie and had trained for SOE up in Arisaig - quite a simple exercise when you know the distance between your own ears and have a map, which of course the spirit did, in it's encyclopaedic memory banks, and can judge from years of practice the distance between the origination and your reception, and it could almost see the two men standing outside The Ship, on either side of the doorway, and the spirit filtered out the extraneous sounds of traffic, sight-seers, raucous singing and even the rustle of Rilla's newspaper as she turned the pages, and although it could not see the two men, it knew that they must be Professor Sir Clement Dane, illustrious archaeologist and bon viveur - though how on earth there were two of him, it couldn't imagine, for it's memory banks came up with the eminent professor's entry in Who's Who and he had no living siblings, no immediate family, only a rather tenuous link to the Dumbiedykes Clan - and while this was all going on inside the head of Little Levy, who appeared to be placidly playing with his Teddy (Galumph) and the plush Rabbit (Waggle), the spirit was recording the conversation for future examination and a more thorough appraisal, but what it heard was rather disturbing - and it went something like this:

"you conniving bastard!"

"me, conniving?"

"yes, you, you little runt!"

"if I'm a runt, then so are you!"

"shut your gob before I shut it for you!"

"you and whose army?" "you toe-rag!"

"not got your Yankee Platoon behind you now, eh"

"why, I'll . . . ."

"you'll what?"

"I'll finish you off for good!"

"the way you did old Pherson?"

"what do you mean?"

"you were seen you stupid twat!"

"who by?"

"by whom! forgetting your grammar, rat-face?"

"I'll . . . . ."

"your chummy auteur, old boy, Allan Massie, and not only him, our esteemed Landlord, Rusty Irons, you were the last person to speak to Dalwhinnie before, POOF!"

"who are you calling a Poof?"

"you blithering idiot, he went POOF! in a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke!"

"nobody saw me after he left The Square!"

"don't be so sure, Clemmie!"

"what do you mean?"

"I mean you were seen!"

"who by?"

"by whom! I can't say out here, someone might be watching and listening!"

"you're fucking paranoid. you are,"

"just as well one of me is, come on, cut along the vennel,"

and the voices faded away and Little Levy's spirit guessed they had gone down the lane to the little car-park on the far side of the burn: and was quite intrigued - he must find out who the second man was. and there was no-one he could ask, so he would have to check the paper without showing to his Mummy that he was a proficient reader, she might not understand and that could bring problems of it's own; and Teri stared at what she had typed, with absolutely no memory of any of it, as if it had been sent complete and entire to her mind from some other, and she thought about it: you couldn't make this up, it was quite bewildering, and she wondered if she was perhaps coming down with a fever!