They crossed a stream, Addie still a good fifty yards ahead of him, then turned up the far bank before climbing around the southern flank of Sgùrr Èilde Beag. Away to their right, sunlight reflected in diamond clusters on the dark waters of Loch Èilde Mòr. It wasn’t long before he realised that he was starting to gain on her, as if the pace that she had set to defeat him was too much for her. And he was getting his second wind.
They were cutting diagonally across the steep slope of the hill, the odd copse of fir trees breaking the monotony of the snowy wastes. And finally he was at her side, matching her stride for stride. He heard her laboured breathing, though whether it was from exertion or anger he couldn’t tell.
He swung his gaze around what was an almost featureless landscape and said, ‘How do you know where we’re going?’
She took a moment or two to respond. ‘I’ve walked this so many times in all seasons, following the same stalker’s trails. I know every feature of this land by heart.’ Then, as if annoyed with herself for even speaking to him, she stopped abruptly, turning in anger. ‘Why are you here? Really? And don’t tell me it’s your fucking job.’ He almost smiled at her propensity for cursing, just like his own. ‘I mean, what can you possibly hope to achieve?’
‘We need to talk, Addie.’
‘No, we don’t! I haven’t needed to talk to you for ten years, and I’ve no intention of starting now.’
‘Please, just hear me out.’
‘No! And don’t you dare tell me that somehow I owe it to you. I owe you nothing. Betrayal doesn’t deserve forgiveness. Because that’s what you did, you know. Betrayed us. Both of us. With that...’ She searched for a word that would give full force to her contempt and loathing, but came up short. ‘How could you bring her to the funeral, how could you?’
‘Addie, it wasn’t like that. She was my partner at work. She was only there for moral support.’
‘And you’re going to tell me that you didn’t have a relationship with her?’
He let his head fall. ‘Only afterwards. And that was a mistake.’
Addie was scathing. ‘Oh, so you didn’t live happily ever after, then?’
He looked up to meet her eyes, but they were hidden behind the lenses of her sunglasses. ‘No, we didn’t. Jenny wanted it, but I couldn’t. She moved in, but it didn’t last six months. When she left, she said there was no way she could compete with a dead woman.’
For a moment Addie was at a loss for words.
‘I could never be free of Mel. Or my guilt.’
And his daughter’s defiance returned. She removed her sunglasses to glare at him. ‘So if you weren’t having an affair, what did you have to feel guilty about? I mean, what are you saying? That my mother’s last words were a lie?’
It was almost painful to look at her. As if it was Mel standing there on the side of a mountain railing at him. Her eyes, her mouth. His temper. He wanted so much to take her in his arms and tell her he was sorry. But sorry, he knew, wouldn’t cut it with Addie, so he kept it to himself. And she turned abruptly, replacing her sunglasses and pressing on up the slope. She was the one who had the second wind now.
As the slope grew steeper, they began to zigzag until they reached a ridge just short of the first minor peak of Sgùrr Èilde Beag. Brodie stopped to catch his breath and take in the view. Already it felt like they were approaching the roof of the world. The land around them rose and fell in snow-covered splendour as far as the eye could see. Directly across from them, Sgùrr Èilde Mòr rose to its majestic summit, and sunlight glanced off the deep blue of the loch far below.
Addie paused, too. Though she must have seen them many times, he saw the wonder in her gaze as she cast it across the mountaintops. ‘Always takes my breath away,’ she said, forgetting for a moment that she was talking to him. And then, self-consciously, she turned to press on along the line of the ridge.
Steep, snow-covered slopes dropped away left and right now, the ridge itself still rising and running out to Binnein Mòr. In the distance stood Ben Nevis, and they saw the shadows that cast themselves in deep, dark blue to the east and north of the Grey Corries.
The land dipped away slightly to a bealach, a mountain pass, before rising again along the narrowest of ridges that curved around to the peak, the gradients on either side of them falling almost sheer away. Brodie was glad of the crampons that bit into the crusted surface of the snow, and he allowed himself to tip a little of his weight on to his walker’s ice axe to keep his balance and fight off the temptations of vertigo.
He loved the mountains for their sense of solitude, and the context they gave to the problems of his life, which seemed so much smaller up here than when he returned to the turmoil of life below. But he was unaccustomed to having company, and for the first time, it felt like he had brought those problems with him, and somehow the presence of his daughter was magnifying that.
A strong breeze blew in their faces now. The icy breath of the Arctic. His eyes watered and his face grew stiff from the cold. He was glad when finally they reached the weather station and he could stop to regain some equilibrium in his breathing and let his legs recover a little. Right now they felt like jelly, and he wondered how they were going to carry him back down the nearly four thousand feet of this highest mountain in the Mamores range.
He was surprised how small the installation was — a flimsy tripod bolted to the rock, sprouting sensors and solar panels and aerials. He watched her remove her sunglasses, then kneel down to clear away the snow and check its components carefully. ‘How in God’s name does that survive up here?’
‘It’s based on the one they built for Everest. So Binnein Mòr’s a doddle.’
‘And you were up here checking on it the day you found the body?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And there’s another four or five of them that you check on across the range? The ones your helpers are doing today?’
She kept her focus on what she was doing. ‘Six in total. Did you read that in your briefing notes?’
He squatted down on his haunches. ‘You’d be surprised how much I know about you.’
Her fingers froze for a moment on the lid of the box she had opened to check on the battery, and she cast him a sideways glance. ‘Oh?’ She closed the lid. ‘Like what?’
‘I know you quit Glasgow University after six months. A sudden change of mind. Went to Edinburgh instead. Did an honours degree in meteorology. Then got a job at the Scottish Met Office.’
She turned to look at him directly now. If anything, it seemed that the hostility in her gaze had intensified. He was almost discomposed by it, but pressed on.
‘You came up here, leading a team to install these weather stations along the Mamores. Which is when you met Robbie. The local cop. And fell for him.’ And he added wryly, ‘Not, I’m quite sure, as the result of any kind of father fixation.’
She stared at him in silence for what felt like a very long time. ‘So you’ve been spying on me. Like some kind of stalker.’
‘Is it wrong for a father to take an interest in his own daughter? Especially when she’s never going to tell him anything about her life herself? A daughter who never invited him to her wedding. Didn’t even tell him she was getting married.’
‘But you knew anyway.’
He nodded, and returned the intensity of her gaze. ‘What I didn’t know was that you’d given up full-time work to have a kid.’ And he saw anger flare in her eyes.
‘So that’s why you’re here?’