Oh, he’d gone to Sunday mass, had even donated towards the building of the new chapel, but that was an expected part of life in the Braes. Had it ever been more than a social duty on his father’s part?
Will thought of his dad as he had seen him most often, in his office at the brewery, spectacles sliding down his nose, reading the books he brought back from Edinburgh.
These had not been books of which the church would approve, Will suspected—Darwin, Huxley, Robert Owen, Haeckel. And once, when Will had questioned him about the Jacobites, his father had said that Catholicism was responsible for a good part of Scotland’s grief. That was the sort of opinion one kept to oneself in this part of the Highlands, when one’s family’s loyalty in the ’ was a matter of honor, and Will had never repeated it. But God, now, what if there were no keeping secrets from God?
The track leveled out and Will quickened his pace, more surefooted now. Would it matter if he prayed?
Could he intercede for his father? And what if Father Mackenzie prayed as well?
He ran now, into the village, down the path to the chapel house, snow flying under his boots, and slid into the door with a thump. Panting, he banged hard with his fist, the words in his mind forming a silent chant. Please don’t let him die, please don’t let my father die.
He waited until Louise’s breathing steadied and slipped into what it would infuriate her to call a snore, then he eased out of bed. Pullover and trousers he’d left within easy reach on a chair, but he’d been careful to remove his belt and empty his pockets as a preventive against telltale jingling.
Once dressed, John crossed to the window, taking care to step over the creaking floorboard. He cranked open the
casement and perched on the sill, leaning out to light his cigarette. It was a vice he seldom allowed himself, but considering the evening, he felt he deserved some small compensation.
A bloody disaster, the whole thing, and just when he needed Donald’s good will more than ever. Damn Callum! It must have been Callum who had told the woman where to find Donald, but why would he have done such a stupid thing?
Not that John had ever fathomed what made Callum MacGillivray tick. He gazed down at the moonlit garden.
All was still and quiet. The lights were out in the barn and the other bedrooms in the house, although he hadn’t heard Donald come in.
Well, he’d have to chance it. He flicked his fag end into the flower bed below and drew back into the room, listening. Louise slept on, making tiny whuffling noises in her dreams. John stopped once, holding his breath as the house made an infinitesimal shift, then he slipped out the door. It was getting late, and he had an appointment to keep.
Carnmore, November
Will was too late. He knew, the instant he saw his mother’s bowed head and the nurse’s comforting embrace, but he refused to believe it. Dropping to his knees beside his father’s couch, he shook the unresisting body, shouting, “No! Wake up!” But his father’s face, blue-white as the marble Madonna in the church, remained still.
It was the priest who disengaged his hands and led him to a seat by the fire. “It’s all right, son,” Father Mackenzie said gently. “This is what God intended for your father. You’ll learn to accept it, in time.”
Watching as Father Mackenzie took the unguent from his case and knelt beside his dad, making the sign of the cross, Will felt his anger sink deep inside him, hardening into a fiery core.
What use had he for a god who would take his father from him? There was no justice in it, and no pity. His father had been a good man, a kind man, who had lived by his principles and bettered the lives of those around him.
If that had counted for nothing, if God had chosen to punish him for his beliefs, then Will was finished with him.
He would have no part of such a god.
Gemma drifted in and out of troubled dreams in which a phone rang endlessly as she searched for Duncan and the children. She had tried ringing home again before she went to bed, but the line had once more been engaged.
Nor had her wait for Hazel’s return proved any more fruitful, although she had outlasted all the other guests in the lounge before finally giving up and making her way back to the barn alone.
Now she rose towards the surface of awareness, sensing Hazel’s presence in the room, but she could not quite rouse herself to full wakefulness. Sleep claimed her again.
Some time later, she heard a door close—or had that been part of the dream as well?
The early dawn had come when the sound of a gunshot echoed in the fringes of her consciousness. Just someone potting rabbits, a dream voice reminded her, and reassured, she sank deeper into the clinging fog. Then, a few minutes later, she came fully awake with a gasp.
Had she heard a shot? She sat up and turned on the light. Hazel’s bed was empty, although the indentation in the duvet indicated that she had at least rested there. But
her overnight bag was gone, as were her bits and pots on the dressing table.
Gemma jumped out of bed, barely noticing the frigid flagstones beneath her feet, and checked the bathroom.
No toothpaste, no toothbrush, no shampoo hiding in the corner of the tub. Back in the bedroom, she pulled aside the curtains and peered at the still-shadowed drive. The red Honda was gone as well.
Fighting the beginnings of panic, she shoved on jeans, sweater, and boots, then looked round the room once more for a note. Surely Hazel wouldn’t have abandoned her without leaving a note? Unless she’d gone to Donald Brodie’s for a spot of illicit sex . . . but then why take all her things?
She grabbed a jacket and went out into the drive. The sun hovered behind the screen of trees to the east, casting deep shadows in the garden. There was no sign of life from the house, and she hesitated to knock anyone up so early. Her fears would sound absurd, surely, if she voiced them to anyone else.
Donald’s Land Rover, she saw, was still parked in the drive—had he gone with Hazel in the hire car?
She rocked on her heels for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Well, she could at least investigate the gunshot, put her mind to rest on one score, and perhaps by the time she came back the house would be astir.
Starting towards the track that led into the woods, she pushed away the nagging fear that Hazel and the gunshot were somehow connected. Pure paranoia, she told herself firmly, but her mouth went dry and her heart gave a painful squeeze.
Gemma slowed her pace as she entered the trees, listening, scanning automatically for signs of a disturbance. Halfway along the path she found something, an
area of crushed bracken and bluebells, as if something heavy had lain there. But there was no sign of violence, and she breathed a bit easier as she came to the end of the wood.
From that point, the path was bordered on one side by the meadow and, on the other, by a tussocky mix of bracken and heather. She almost turned back, almost convinced herself that her fears had been groundless, but she couldn’t quite silence the nagging disquiet.
And then she saw something, a few yards farther along the track, a flash of red half hidden in the heather. An abandoned sweater or jacket, Gemma told herself, but a wave of dread made her stomach lurch. Realizing she had halted, she forced herself to go on, one deliberate step at a time. And as she drew nearer, other shapes began to attach themselves to the splash of scarlet—a white strip here, a brown patch there.