Shadow Man, page 15
‘You didn’t deny it either. And you haven’t answered my question.’
The alarm goes off inside Fergie’s head. Only now it’s not a bell, it’s a bloody great klaxon. He glances at Mahler. Christ, what’s wrong with him today? Taylor had been co-operating, talking freely, and now it’s as though a switch has been thrown, erasing the rational, matter-of-fact man they’ve just been speaking to.
Taylor stands up, knocking over the coffee table, and the mugs tip onto the vanilla carpet.
‘Might have bloody guessed. Your investigation’s going nowhere, so you’re looking for someone to pin it on – and your local ex-army nutter with a missing sister is as good a bet as any, eh?’
‘No, of course not!’ Mahler eye-signals to Fergie. ‘That wasn’t—’
Taylor shakes his head. ‘Go on, get out, the pair of you! You’ve got thirty seconds until I let Bella loose. You should be fine, she’s not as young as she was.’ He grins at Fergie. ‘Not putting any money on you though, fatty. Plenty for old Bella to get a hold of on you, ain’t there?’
‘Mr Taylor, I’m sorry.’ Mahler backs up, still talking, and eases the door open. ‘You’ve been very helpful, and—’
‘Twenty-nine, twenty-eight . . .’
Through the door and down the drive, the monster barking its head off as it takes off after them. Mahler’s in the lead, but not by much, and Fergie’s damn sure he’s not getting left behind. Mahler reaches the gate, clears it and turns back to help, but Fergie’s already airborne. As he sails over the gate, he feels the heat of the dog’s breath on his rear as it makes a last-minute leap, but its jaws snap shut on empty air.
Before Taylor decides that opening the gate would be a fun way to end the proceedings, Mahler and Fergie sprint for the car. Mahler gets there first and throws himself inside, but Fergie’s only seconds behind. He jams the key in the ignition and reverses down the track at a speed that would normally have Mahler threatening him with a stint on traffic duties. And he doesn’t ease off until they’re back on the main road and heading for the A9.
‘That was . . . informative.’ Mahler glances at Fergie. ‘You okay?’
‘Arse is still in my trousers, if that’s what you mean. Jesus God, did you see the teeth on that thing?’
‘Oddly enough, I didn’t stop to examine it.’
‘Fair enough. You want to call Taylor in once he’s calmed down a wee bittie?’
Mahler shakes his head. ‘He’s told us what we needed to know. And he’s suffering from severe, stress-induced anxiety.’ An awkward silence. ‘Which I knew, and I still misread him. My fault.’
‘Ach, he was like a pressure cooker, man. No telling when he was going to go off.’ Except the signs had been there from the start, Fergie thinks. And you didn’t just misread him, boss. You didn’t read him at all. He glances at Mahler, clears his throat. And plunges in. ‘You all right, boss? It’s just, you know, if your Mam’s not so good . . .’ He lets the sentence hang. Too close to the line? Aye, probably. ‘Look, I didn’t mean—’
‘There are . . . issues at the moment. A new support worker, and she doesn’t cope well with change.’
‘Shit.’ That explains the stream of text messages. Christ, does he get any peace? ‘I’m sorry, boss.’
Mahler shrugs. ‘It’s hardly an excuse. I lost focus, that’s all – but we’re still a lot further ahead than we were this morning.’
‘We are?’
‘Taylor said Morven was taken aback when he didn’t agree, but no more than that.’
‘Because she thought he’d change his mind.’
‘Maybe. But Morven doesn’t strike me as the kind to give up that easily – she’d want to keep her options open in case of any setbacks. So maybe she had a plan B lined up, someone else up here she was planning to talk to.’
‘Could be, aye.’ Fergie launches the Audi into the Inverness-bound traffic. ‘And he said she had her iPad with her, didn’t he?’
‘Which wasn’t recovered from her room. Exactly. So, the killer took it. The question is, what did he do with it?’
‘Drive over it. Drop it in the firth,’ Fergie suggests. ‘What I’d do if I wanted to get rid. So where now, back to the shop?’
Mahler shakes his head. ‘Not right away. I think we’ll take a little trip over to the Black Isle first.’
‘Boss?’
‘You weren’t impressed by Taylor’s photographic talents, were you?’
‘Not much, no.’
‘Pity. You see, Taylor was obviously more taken with Morven Murray than he let on, because he made a trip to Bunchrew for her memorial service. And he took a couple of really interesting snaps there.’
Mahler takes out his smartphone, holds an image up in front of Fergie.
‘Recognise those two? Cazza MacKay’s heavies, both of them. And somehow I don’t have them down as grieving fans. Anna Murray said Ross Campbell had been staring at the crowd before he collapsed – in a sort of daze, she assumed. But what if he was staring at something very specific? Someone very specific.’
‘You think there’s a connection?’
‘I bloody know there is. And it might just explain—’ Mahler’s mobile buzzes. The boss listens for a moment, nods . . . and utters three words Fergie would have laid odds on never hearing him use in the same sentence.
‘Good work, Pete. Yes, right away.’ He ends the call and turns to Fergie. ‘Morven’s second mobile’s been traced, and the call logs are in.’
26
TUESDAY, 24 JUNE
Seven-fifteen a.m. An early-morning chill, already burning off as Anna leaves the house. Back in San Diego, the city would already be alive – traffic humming on the 15 and the I-5, KPBS playing on the drive into work. But Inverness doesn’t do rush hours, not at this time in the morning. A couple of cars pass her on Drummond Road and there’s a dog barking somewhere in the distance, but her footsteps are the only ones she hears as she walks down to the school.
Jamie’s silver 4×4 is waiting in the car park. The place is deserted, but she still glances over her shoulder as she gets in the car.
‘Someone tailin’ you, babe?’ He glances at her face and drops the cop-show villain impression. ‘You all right?’
‘Fine.’
‘That good, huh?’ He turns onto the main road, heads towards Inshes. ‘Look, if this is a bad time, we can always reschedule. The last thing I want to do is make your life any harder right now.’
‘It’s not that. It’s just . . . we got a few crank calls yesterday evening.’
‘Because of the Crimewatch thing? Yes, I can see that’d stir up the nutters. How are your folks bearing up?’
‘How do you think?’
Lukas Mahler had called to warn her the day before the broadcast, an odd, stilted kindness in his voice. She’d worried about her mother’s reaction when the programme aired, but in the end it was her father who’d got up and walked away, helpless to stop his imagination supplying the unvoiced horrors in Mahler’s careful narrative.
‘Sorry, stupid question. Listen, if you need to offload—’
‘Thanks, but today’s supposed to be about your project.’ She finds a smile from somewhere. ‘How about we focus on that right now?’
‘Works for me.’ As they cross the firth, Jamie outlines his plan to feature one family caught up in each of the most infamous Clearances and follow their stories in his documentary. ‘I’ve roughed out a quick draft, if you want to take a look?’ He indicates a folder lying in the footwell on her side.
She pulls out the folder and starts to read, mentally cross-referencing Jamie’s draft with the notes she’s made from the source material. But after a few pages, the words are jumping in front of her eyes. By the time they’re coming up to the Cromarty Bridge, her head is nodding forward and the folder slides to the floor.
‘Sorry.’ She bends to retrieve it, but he shakes his head.
‘Leave it. Look, we’ve got a tractor and two bloody caravans in front of us so we’re going nowhere fast. Why don’t you close your eyes for a bit? Don’t worry, I won’t dock your pay!’
‘Very funny.’ She starts to make a half-hearted protest, and gives up. Why? He’s right, she’s shattered. And a ten-minute catnap can’t hurt . . .
When she opens her eyes, the 4×4 is slowing outside a small, white-washed church, enclosed by moss-covered drystone walls.
‘We’re here?’
‘We are.’ Jamie pulls over on a patch of rough ground opposite the entrance. ‘Built by Thomas Telford, no less, in 1827. See, I’ve been doing my homework. Impressed?’
‘Very.’ Though as soon as she’d seen it, Anna had recognised one of Telford’s ‘parliamentary kirks’, intended to provide rural highland communities with places of worship. But none of the others, she suspects, is as intimately connected with the story of the Clearances as the one she’s looking at now. She gets out of the car and walks over to the gate.
‘Built to serve a community of more than two hundred souls,’ Jamie tells her. ‘Hard to imagine now, isn’t it?’
‘Just a bit.’ Anna looks down the long, empty valley. In March 1845 the people of Glencalvie had been served with writs of removal . . . and told it was their landlord’s wish to see them gone, not just from the strath, but their homeland itself. By 24 May, having nowhere else to go, ninety newly homeless people had built a makeshift camp in Croick churchyard. And had left a lasting memorial to their plight.
‘They’re down here.’ Jamie leads her past the weathered headstones to one of the side windows. ‘The messages are pretty hard to read, but the transcriptions—’
‘I know what they say.’
Anna walks round to the entrance and pushes open the door to reveal plain white walls, austere dark pews. And a century-old chill that all the central heating in the world isn’t going to shift.
‘They held out for three years, though,’ she points out when Jamie reappears. ‘And at least the reporter from the Times made sure their story got a hearing.’
He gives her a reproachful look. ‘So that makes it all right? When those ninety people walked out of this strath, they were walking away from everything they’d ever known. Not for dreams of a better life, not chasing an easier option – these people were forced from the lands they’d held for generations.’
‘I know. Jamie, I understand. I’m just . . . being a historian, I guess. Being balanced. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happened here.’
‘But you can’t—’ He glances at her, sighs. ‘I was preaching at you, wasn’t I? Sorry. I just . . . it gets to me, that’s all. I’ll shut up now.’
‘Nothing wrong with being committed to your subject. And preaching here would be kind of appropriate, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose. Look, I’m going to see if I can find the land agent’s grave. Rain a couple of curses down on him or something.’
Anna watches Jamie make his way across the grass. Odd to see this seriousness, this driven quality in him when his jokes are what she remembers most from university. But perhaps he’d played up the mischievous side of his character because he’d known that’s what she needed most? If so, she’ll always be grateful to him for that.
She takes a couple of snapshots of the church interior, including the transcriptions from the window, and starts to head back to the car. After years in the Californian sunshine, she’s forgotten how changeable the Highland weather can be. The sky, ice-blue when they’d arrived, is clouding over now as the warmth leaches from the day, but the light still lingers on the green and brown-gold hills. Hollywood’s version of the Highlands, this view she’s looking at. Stark and beautiful . . . and empty. And by the roadside opposite the church, with no irony at all, someone’s placed a neat placard advertising holiday lets at Croick manse.
A burst of anger, sparking through her veins. Holiday lets, for God’s sake.
‘Nice touch, isn’t it?’ Jamie comes over to stand beside her. ‘That’s what happens when people disconnect from their past, Anna. They forget it’s what made them. I know I got a bit carried away earlier, but—’
‘It’s okay. I get it.’ She’d been on the point of telling him she couldn’t continue working on his project. Her role has already grown beyond the few hours’ research they’d originally talked about, and it would be so easy to get drawn in even further. Easy, and oh-so tempting. What she’s seen and felt here . . . she could wrap the work around her, use it like a shield against the memories that won’t leave her, of walking up to Morven’s suite and opening the door to find—
Anna shakes her head, pushes the images away. She’d told herself spending time on Jamie’s project would be wrong, that her parents need all her attention right now. But he’s right, she’s shattered. Keeping the household running, fielding calls from exclusive-hungry journos . . . if she could sleep nightmare-free for more than a few hours, she could just about manage. But she’s getting close to running on empty, she knows that. If working with Jamie can give her something else to focus on, something to help blot out the images, even for a while . . .
‘We’ll make sure this isn’t forgotten,’ she tells him. ‘Remind people what happened here.’
He gives her his old grin, the one she remembers from uni. ‘For a moment I thought I’d frightened you off. How about I buy you brunch in Dornoch to celebrate?’
‘Find me a decent cup of coffee and you’ve got a deal.’
The restaurant is on Dornoch’s main street, not far from its tiny but picturesque cathedral. While Jamie orders, Anna reads through the rest of his draft proposal. And looks up to find him trying to gauge her reaction.
‘I amended the Culloden references after we talked last week. You think we’ve got the right opener now?’
‘It’s your project. But yes, I do. What sort of timescale have the production company given you?’
He looks blankly at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I thought you said BBC Scotland—’
‘They’re looking at it, yes. I can’t jump at the first offer I get, though, can I?’
‘I suppose not.’ Though she’d got the impression it was pretty much a done deal. She reaches for the folder to check something, and catches the gaze of a couple at a nearby table. Who immediately start studying their menus in sudden, unconvincing fascination, as though they hadn’t been listening in to every word.
‘Think you’ve got a couple of fans there,’ Anna stage-whispers to Jamie. ‘Over by the window, see? The ones carefully not looking at us.’
He glances casually over, shakes his head. ‘No way. With my glasses on, I’ve a very forgettable face, and—’
‘What?’ She looks round as the woman says something to her companion. The man looks up, turns towards them. And stares straight at Anna, the local paper in his hand. She can’t read all of the headline. But the first word . . . the first word is enough.
She pushes back her chair and runs for the entrance. In the shadow of the cathedral, she slumps down on the only tourist-free bench and shuts her eyes. Shuts out the world. Or tries to.
‘Anna, I’m sorry.’ Jamie standing in front of her, his shirt pulling out of his trousers, the way it used to when he was at uni. ‘Bloody Crimewatch! I’d hoped you could put the whole Morven thing out of your head for a few hours.’
Yes, because it’s that easy. ‘It’s always in my head, Jamie. What I saw won’t just go away.’
‘No, I . . . God, what a stupid thing to say.’ He sighs, sits down on the wall beside her. ‘Look, you’ve not said much about what happened. Do you think it would help? I’m told I’m a good listener.’
It won’t. But she tells him anyway, the words a rough and bleeding rawness in her throat. Tells him about the figure sprawled on the rug, blonde hair painted with darkness. The rug stickily damp beneath her knees as she reached out . . . She looks up to see him watching her, his eyes stunned, unfocused. ‘Who would do that to her, Jamie? To anyone?’
‘God, I . . .’ he makes a hopeless gesture with his hands. ‘I don’t know how to answer that. A crazed fan, a random psycho? Anna, there are nutters everywhere.’
She shakes her head. ‘What if that’s not how it was?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I just think . . . you didn’t see her. Whoever did it, it was like they were trying to destroy her. Like they hated her so much, they were trying to obliterate her.’
He shrugs. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what it was. Maybe it’s like . . . I don’t know, a serial killer’s calling card or something.’
‘In Inverness? And if it’s a serial killer, why haven’t there been more murders?’
‘How do you know there won’t be?’ She starts to say something, but he holds up his hands. ‘Sorry, that was a horrible thing to say. But I think I know where this is coming from.’ He puts his hand on her shoulder, gives it an awkward squeeze. ‘Look, don’t hate me, okay? But you and Morven, you lived in different worlds – you were strangers, really, until this crazy wedding stuff came up. And maybe you hoped the wedding might be a chance to straighten things out, yes? But it’s too late for that, so you’re trying to deal with it any way you can.’
‘That sounds like a plot from one of your novels.’
‘I’m right though, aren’t I?’
She swallows down the sudden rawness in her throat. ‘Maybe.’ But it’s more than that. She needs to understand what happened. Needs it to make sense. ‘Morven wasn’t some random victim on a psychopath’s hit list, Jamie. She was chosen.’
‘Oh, for God’s . . .’ He gets to his feet, dusts a scatter of gravel from his chinos. ‘OK, fine. She was chosen. By some unknown nutjob, for unknown nutjob reasons. Look, no offence, but can we drop it now? This wasn’t exactly how I’d seen us spending today.’
His face is ashen, carved into shocked, rigid lines, and she feels a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened, Jamie had encouraged her. But the little she’d told him was more than he wanted to hear, that much is obvious. ‘Fine by me. So where next, Badbea or Helmsdale?’
The alarm goes off inside Fergie’s head. Only now it’s not a bell, it’s a bloody great klaxon. He glances at Mahler. Christ, what’s wrong with him today? Taylor had been co-operating, talking freely, and now it’s as though a switch has been thrown, erasing the rational, matter-of-fact man they’ve just been speaking to.
Taylor stands up, knocking over the coffee table, and the mugs tip onto the vanilla carpet.
‘Might have bloody guessed. Your investigation’s going nowhere, so you’re looking for someone to pin it on – and your local ex-army nutter with a missing sister is as good a bet as any, eh?’
‘No, of course not!’ Mahler eye-signals to Fergie. ‘That wasn’t—’
Taylor shakes his head. ‘Go on, get out, the pair of you! You’ve got thirty seconds until I let Bella loose. You should be fine, she’s not as young as she was.’ He grins at Fergie. ‘Not putting any money on you though, fatty. Plenty for old Bella to get a hold of on you, ain’t there?’
‘Mr Taylor, I’m sorry.’ Mahler backs up, still talking, and eases the door open. ‘You’ve been very helpful, and—’
‘Twenty-nine, twenty-eight . . .’
Through the door and down the drive, the monster barking its head off as it takes off after them. Mahler’s in the lead, but not by much, and Fergie’s damn sure he’s not getting left behind. Mahler reaches the gate, clears it and turns back to help, but Fergie’s already airborne. As he sails over the gate, he feels the heat of the dog’s breath on his rear as it makes a last-minute leap, but its jaws snap shut on empty air.
Before Taylor decides that opening the gate would be a fun way to end the proceedings, Mahler and Fergie sprint for the car. Mahler gets there first and throws himself inside, but Fergie’s only seconds behind. He jams the key in the ignition and reverses down the track at a speed that would normally have Mahler threatening him with a stint on traffic duties. And he doesn’t ease off until they’re back on the main road and heading for the A9.
‘That was . . . informative.’ Mahler glances at Fergie. ‘You okay?’
‘Arse is still in my trousers, if that’s what you mean. Jesus God, did you see the teeth on that thing?’
‘Oddly enough, I didn’t stop to examine it.’
‘Fair enough. You want to call Taylor in once he’s calmed down a wee bittie?’
Mahler shakes his head. ‘He’s told us what we needed to know. And he’s suffering from severe, stress-induced anxiety.’ An awkward silence. ‘Which I knew, and I still misread him. My fault.’
‘Ach, he was like a pressure cooker, man. No telling when he was going to go off.’ Except the signs had been there from the start, Fergie thinks. And you didn’t just misread him, boss. You didn’t read him at all. He glances at Mahler, clears his throat. And plunges in. ‘You all right, boss? It’s just, you know, if your Mam’s not so good . . .’ He lets the sentence hang. Too close to the line? Aye, probably. ‘Look, I didn’t mean—’
‘There are . . . issues at the moment. A new support worker, and she doesn’t cope well with change.’
‘Shit.’ That explains the stream of text messages. Christ, does he get any peace? ‘I’m sorry, boss.’
Mahler shrugs. ‘It’s hardly an excuse. I lost focus, that’s all – but we’re still a lot further ahead than we were this morning.’
‘We are?’
‘Taylor said Morven was taken aback when he didn’t agree, but no more than that.’
‘Because she thought he’d change his mind.’
‘Maybe. But Morven doesn’t strike me as the kind to give up that easily – she’d want to keep her options open in case of any setbacks. So maybe she had a plan B lined up, someone else up here she was planning to talk to.’
‘Could be, aye.’ Fergie launches the Audi into the Inverness-bound traffic. ‘And he said she had her iPad with her, didn’t he?’
‘Which wasn’t recovered from her room. Exactly. So, the killer took it. The question is, what did he do with it?’
‘Drive over it. Drop it in the firth,’ Fergie suggests. ‘What I’d do if I wanted to get rid. So where now, back to the shop?’
Mahler shakes his head. ‘Not right away. I think we’ll take a little trip over to the Black Isle first.’
‘Boss?’
‘You weren’t impressed by Taylor’s photographic talents, were you?’
‘Not much, no.’
‘Pity. You see, Taylor was obviously more taken with Morven Murray than he let on, because he made a trip to Bunchrew for her memorial service. And he took a couple of really interesting snaps there.’
Mahler takes out his smartphone, holds an image up in front of Fergie.
‘Recognise those two? Cazza MacKay’s heavies, both of them. And somehow I don’t have them down as grieving fans. Anna Murray said Ross Campbell had been staring at the crowd before he collapsed – in a sort of daze, she assumed. But what if he was staring at something very specific? Someone very specific.’
‘You think there’s a connection?’
‘I bloody know there is. And it might just explain—’ Mahler’s mobile buzzes. The boss listens for a moment, nods . . . and utters three words Fergie would have laid odds on never hearing him use in the same sentence.
‘Good work, Pete. Yes, right away.’ He ends the call and turns to Fergie. ‘Morven’s second mobile’s been traced, and the call logs are in.’
26
TUESDAY, 24 JUNE
Seven-fifteen a.m. An early-morning chill, already burning off as Anna leaves the house. Back in San Diego, the city would already be alive – traffic humming on the 15 and the I-5, KPBS playing on the drive into work. But Inverness doesn’t do rush hours, not at this time in the morning. A couple of cars pass her on Drummond Road and there’s a dog barking somewhere in the distance, but her footsteps are the only ones she hears as she walks down to the school.
Jamie’s silver 4×4 is waiting in the car park. The place is deserted, but she still glances over her shoulder as she gets in the car.
‘Someone tailin’ you, babe?’ He glances at her face and drops the cop-show villain impression. ‘You all right?’
‘Fine.’
‘That good, huh?’ He turns onto the main road, heads towards Inshes. ‘Look, if this is a bad time, we can always reschedule. The last thing I want to do is make your life any harder right now.’
‘It’s not that. It’s just . . . we got a few crank calls yesterday evening.’
‘Because of the Crimewatch thing? Yes, I can see that’d stir up the nutters. How are your folks bearing up?’
‘How do you think?’
Lukas Mahler had called to warn her the day before the broadcast, an odd, stilted kindness in his voice. She’d worried about her mother’s reaction when the programme aired, but in the end it was her father who’d got up and walked away, helpless to stop his imagination supplying the unvoiced horrors in Mahler’s careful narrative.
‘Sorry, stupid question. Listen, if you need to offload—’
‘Thanks, but today’s supposed to be about your project.’ She finds a smile from somewhere. ‘How about we focus on that right now?’
‘Works for me.’ As they cross the firth, Jamie outlines his plan to feature one family caught up in each of the most infamous Clearances and follow their stories in his documentary. ‘I’ve roughed out a quick draft, if you want to take a look?’ He indicates a folder lying in the footwell on her side.
She pulls out the folder and starts to read, mentally cross-referencing Jamie’s draft with the notes she’s made from the source material. But after a few pages, the words are jumping in front of her eyes. By the time they’re coming up to the Cromarty Bridge, her head is nodding forward and the folder slides to the floor.
‘Sorry.’ She bends to retrieve it, but he shakes his head.
‘Leave it. Look, we’ve got a tractor and two bloody caravans in front of us so we’re going nowhere fast. Why don’t you close your eyes for a bit? Don’t worry, I won’t dock your pay!’
‘Very funny.’ She starts to make a half-hearted protest, and gives up. Why? He’s right, she’s shattered. And a ten-minute catnap can’t hurt . . .
When she opens her eyes, the 4×4 is slowing outside a small, white-washed church, enclosed by moss-covered drystone walls.
‘We’re here?’
‘We are.’ Jamie pulls over on a patch of rough ground opposite the entrance. ‘Built by Thomas Telford, no less, in 1827. See, I’ve been doing my homework. Impressed?’
‘Very.’ Though as soon as she’d seen it, Anna had recognised one of Telford’s ‘parliamentary kirks’, intended to provide rural highland communities with places of worship. But none of the others, she suspects, is as intimately connected with the story of the Clearances as the one she’s looking at now. She gets out of the car and walks over to the gate.
‘Built to serve a community of more than two hundred souls,’ Jamie tells her. ‘Hard to imagine now, isn’t it?’
‘Just a bit.’ Anna looks down the long, empty valley. In March 1845 the people of Glencalvie had been served with writs of removal . . . and told it was their landlord’s wish to see them gone, not just from the strath, but their homeland itself. By 24 May, having nowhere else to go, ninety newly homeless people had built a makeshift camp in Croick churchyard. And had left a lasting memorial to their plight.
‘They’re down here.’ Jamie leads her past the weathered headstones to one of the side windows. ‘The messages are pretty hard to read, but the transcriptions—’
‘I know what they say.’
Anna walks round to the entrance and pushes open the door to reveal plain white walls, austere dark pews. And a century-old chill that all the central heating in the world isn’t going to shift.
‘They held out for three years, though,’ she points out when Jamie reappears. ‘And at least the reporter from the Times made sure their story got a hearing.’
He gives her a reproachful look. ‘So that makes it all right? When those ninety people walked out of this strath, they were walking away from everything they’d ever known. Not for dreams of a better life, not chasing an easier option – these people were forced from the lands they’d held for generations.’
‘I know. Jamie, I understand. I’m just . . . being a historian, I guess. Being balanced. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happened here.’
‘But you can’t—’ He glances at her, sighs. ‘I was preaching at you, wasn’t I? Sorry. I just . . . it gets to me, that’s all. I’ll shut up now.’
‘Nothing wrong with being committed to your subject. And preaching here would be kind of appropriate, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose. Look, I’m going to see if I can find the land agent’s grave. Rain a couple of curses down on him or something.’
Anna watches Jamie make his way across the grass. Odd to see this seriousness, this driven quality in him when his jokes are what she remembers most from university. But perhaps he’d played up the mischievous side of his character because he’d known that’s what she needed most? If so, she’ll always be grateful to him for that.
She takes a couple of snapshots of the church interior, including the transcriptions from the window, and starts to head back to the car. After years in the Californian sunshine, she’s forgotten how changeable the Highland weather can be. The sky, ice-blue when they’d arrived, is clouding over now as the warmth leaches from the day, but the light still lingers on the green and brown-gold hills. Hollywood’s version of the Highlands, this view she’s looking at. Stark and beautiful . . . and empty. And by the roadside opposite the church, with no irony at all, someone’s placed a neat placard advertising holiday lets at Croick manse.
A burst of anger, sparking through her veins. Holiday lets, for God’s sake.
‘Nice touch, isn’t it?’ Jamie comes over to stand beside her. ‘That’s what happens when people disconnect from their past, Anna. They forget it’s what made them. I know I got a bit carried away earlier, but—’
‘It’s okay. I get it.’ She’d been on the point of telling him she couldn’t continue working on his project. Her role has already grown beyond the few hours’ research they’d originally talked about, and it would be so easy to get drawn in even further. Easy, and oh-so tempting. What she’s seen and felt here . . . she could wrap the work around her, use it like a shield against the memories that won’t leave her, of walking up to Morven’s suite and opening the door to find—
Anna shakes her head, pushes the images away. She’d told herself spending time on Jamie’s project would be wrong, that her parents need all her attention right now. But he’s right, she’s shattered. Keeping the household running, fielding calls from exclusive-hungry journos . . . if she could sleep nightmare-free for more than a few hours, she could just about manage. But she’s getting close to running on empty, she knows that. If working with Jamie can give her something else to focus on, something to help blot out the images, even for a while . . .
‘We’ll make sure this isn’t forgotten,’ she tells him. ‘Remind people what happened here.’
He gives her his old grin, the one she remembers from uni. ‘For a moment I thought I’d frightened you off. How about I buy you brunch in Dornoch to celebrate?’
‘Find me a decent cup of coffee and you’ve got a deal.’
The restaurant is on Dornoch’s main street, not far from its tiny but picturesque cathedral. While Jamie orders, Anna reads through the rest of his draft proposal. And looks up to find him trying to gauge her reaction.
‘I amended the Culloden references after we talked last week. You think we’ve got the right opener now?’
‘It’s your project. But yes, I do. What sort of timescale have the production company given you?’
He looks blankly at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I thought you said BBC Scotland—’
‘They’re looking at it, yes. I can’t jump at the first offer I get, though, can I?’
‘I suppose not.’ Though she’d got the impression it was pretty much a done deal. She reaches for the folder to check something, and catches the gaze of a couple at a nearby table. Who immediately start studying their menus in sudden, unconvincing fascination, as though they hadn’t been listening in to every word.
‘Think you’ve got a couple of fans there,’ Anna stage-whispers to Jamie. ‘Over by the window, see? The ones carefully not looking at us.’
He glances casually over, shakes his head. ‘No way. With my glasses on, I’ve a very forgettable face, and—’
‘What?’ She looks round as the woman says something to her companion. The man looks up, turns towards them. And stares straight at Anna, the local paper in his hand. She can’t read all of the headline. But the first word . . . the first word is enough.
She pushes back her chair and runs for the entrance. In the shadow of the cathedral, she slumps down on the only tourist-free bench and shuts her eyes. Shuts out the world. Or tries to.
‘Anna, I’m sorry.’ Jamie standing in front of her, his shirt pulling out of his trousers, the way it used to when he was at uni. ‘Bloody Crimewatch! I’d hoped you could put the whole Morven thing out of your head for a few hours.’
Yes, because it’s that easy. ‘It’s always in my head, Jamie. What I saw won’t just go away.’
‘No, I . . . God, what a stupid thing to say.’ He sighs, sits down on the wall beside her. ‘Look, you’ve not said much about what happened. Do you think it would help? I’m told I’m a good listener.’
It won’t. But she tells him anyway, the words a rough and bleeding rawness in her throat. Tells him about the figure sprawled on the rug, blonde hair painted with darkness. The rug stickily damp beneath her knees as she reached out . . . She looks up to see him watching her, his eyes stunned, unfocused. ‘Who would do that to her, Jamie? To anyone?’
‘God, I . . .’ he makes a hopeless gesture with his hands. ‘I don’t know how to answer that. A crazed fan, a random psycho? Anna, there are nutters everywhere.’
She shakes her head. ‘What if that’s not how it was?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I just think . . . you didn’t see her. Whoever did it, it was like they were trying to destroy her. Like they hated her so much, they were trying to obliterate her.’
He shrugs. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what it was. Maybe it’s like . . . I don’t know, a serial killer’s calling card or something.’
‘In Inverness? And if it’s a serial killer, why haven’t there been more murders?’
‘How do you know there won’t be?’ She starts to say something, but he holds up his hands. ‘Sorry, that was a horrible thing to say. But I think I know where this is coming from.’ He puts his hand on her shoulder, gives it an awkward squeeze. ‘Look, don’t hate me, okay? But you and Morven, you lived in different worlds – you were strangers, really, until this crazy wedding stuff came up. And maybe you hoped the wedding might be a chance to straighten things out, yes? But it’s too late for that, so you’re trying to deal with it any way you can.’
‘That sounds like a plot from one of your novels.’
‘I’m right though, aren’t I?’
She swallows down the sudden rawness in her throat. ‘Maybe.’ But it’s more than that. She needs to understand what happened. Needs it to make sense. ‘Morven wasn’t some random victim on a psychopath’s hit list, Jamie. She was chosen.’
‘Oh, for God’s . . .’ He gets to his feet, dusts a scatter of gravel from his chinos. ‘OK, fine. She was chosen. By some unknown nutjob, for unknown nutjob reasons. Look, no offence, but can we drop it now? This wasn’t exactly how I’d seen us spending today.’
His face is ashen, carved into shocked, rigid lines, and she feels a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened, Jamie had encouraged her. But the little she’d told him was more than he wanted to hear, that much is obvious. ‘Fine by me. So where next, Badbea or Helmsdale?’
