Some Things Really Are Black and White
 
Oddly enough, it was Stacy who gave me the first clue and I wasn't even looking for it! We were playing a game of chess in the living room while Mum was making our supper. Dad was going to be late back from Aberdeen so we probably wouldn't see him. Then Stacy suddenly said: “Have you noticed he's got one exactly like Dad's?”
     I felt myself blush to my roots, so hung my head low over the board, pretending to examine various possible lines of play, while I tried to work out what Stacy meant? Who has one like Dad's> Like Dad's what? Mum had taken her to see Dr Graham this afternoon, she thought Stacy's glands were a bit swollen and she got a prescription for some pain killers and a line for a couple of days off school. I'd have given her a cold shower and called her a 'Fat Chancer' but it wasn't up to me. But was it Graham she meant, and what was it? His cock? Hadn't most men?
     “Who has?” I managed.
     “Your Dr Montgomery!”
     “He's not mine.”
     “Well he kept talking about you, telling Mum he's pleased to see you keeping well, thinks you've been getting more exercise and it's working wonders.”
     “Exercise?”
     “Yeah, he says you got a programme from Sister Novicki, some kind of combined nutrition and exercise thing.”
     “Oh, that,” I remembered Pavel's Mum gave me a couple of xerox sheets – nothing special, just about Healthy Living – well, I thought that between George and Graham (now that would be interesting, I almost laughed. “Yeah, you can have a look.”
     “Ta,” said Stacy, offering no more clues to what she had been saying about Graham and Dad.
     “So what's the Doctor got?”
     “An identical set.”
     “Of what, teeth?” This was getting like pulling teeth, but it was always the same with Stacy, and it's probably what makes her so tenacious now, in her new job as Leader of the Scottish Socialistish Party in the Scottish Parliament facing up to our sweet cousin, Ginger Goldfish, the First Minister.
     No, Chess, obviously!”  
     Ah, now I get it, “No, I hadn't noticed it.”
     “It's on the shelf behind his desk, beside the photo of Jimmy Savile.”
     “But this is just bog-standard, there must be millions like it!” I wasn't going down without a fight.
     “Not this one, the one he keeps upstairs.”
 
     “The Battle of Culloden ones?”
     “Yep. The very same.”
     “Was that not a Presentation set?”
     “Yeah, he was the Champion one year – Edinburgh University Chess, Draughts and Dominoes Association.”
     “That's right, it's got a wee plaque on the edge of the Board. Crikey. Stace. You've got Eagle Eyes. Has the Doc's got a wee plaque as well?”
     “Yeah, the year after Pop.”
     Suddenly things began to come together in my head – they had both been at Edinburgh, doing different things, but were members of the same Chess Club. Although Dad was Champion the year before Monty, that didn't mean they didn't know each other. I began to wonder if there was any chance in Graham coming here to Practice, and staying – after delivering ME? I couldn't show Stacy that I was excited about this, I wished I could enlist her help, but without being told why, there would be no chance. I would have to be Nancy Drew and solve the mystery on my own. And next time I was under his desk, I'd see if there wasany chance of wangling a visit to Dr Montgomery's home. That would be where I would learn more about him, and possibly his connection to my Dad – and Mum!