Alas, it might be better so, but my heart tells me there is substance to my fears, and that we shall all rue the consequences of Charles Urquhart’s un-timely death.
“Mummy!”
Alison woke instantly, a mother’s response to a child in distress. It was still dark as pitch in the bedroom, but she could feel Chrissy shaking her shoulder. “Baby, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” She reached up and switched on the lamp, blinking against the sudden brightness.
Chrissy knelt beside her on the bed, fully dressed, even to her trainers. “No, it’s not me,” said Chrissy. “It’s Callum. Mummy, you have to get up.”
“Oh, Chrissy, no. Don’t ye start that again.” They’d had a huge row earlier in the evening. Chrissy had answered the phone, then come to her with some tall tale about Callum saying he was ill. Assuming this was some strategy on Callum’s part to get back in her good graces, Alison had refused to give any credence to it, and she’d been furious that he’d use such tactics on a child.
When Chrissy had added that Callum had said there
was something wrong with his whisky, and then the phone had gone dead, Alison had considered her theory proved.
She’d ignored Chrissy’s pleas and sent her to bed.
“I tried to ring him back,” Chrissy said now. “He didn’t answer.”
“Well, of course he didn’t answer.” Alison looked at the clock and groaned. “It’s past one in the morning.”
“No, I’ve been trying ever since you went to bed. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why, you wee sneak—”
“Mummy, please!” Chrissy insisted, her face pinched with misery. “I know something’s wrong. Callum didn’t sound like himself at all, and I could hear Murphy whining in the background. Please. We have to go.”
“If you think I’m going to drive out to that bloody stable in the middle of the night . . . ,” began Alison, but she didn’t finish her well-worn tirade. Doubt had begun to set in. She had never seen her daughter so adamant, and Chrissy was not one for dramatics. What if—what if there was a remote possibility that Chrissy was right?
She could ring the police, she supposed—that would be the logical thing—but what would she say to them?
That her nine-year-old daughter had told her that Callum MacGillivray had poisoned himself on bad whisky? They would think she’d gone off her head, and the same applied to ringing Callum’s aunt Janet.
“Mummy—”
“Oh, all right.” Alison peeled back the duvet and scooted Chrissy aside. She was desperate for a fag now, which meant going outside. At least a run in the car would give her a chance to smoke. “But just remember, you owe me big-time for this.”
Chrissy gulped back a sob of relief and smiled.
“Right, go get your coat, then, while I get some clothes
on.” God, she was daft, thought Alison as she hurriedly pulled on jeans and boots, as daft as Callum MacGillivray. She had not much petrol in her car, which was unreliable at the best of times; she had no mobile phone, because she couldn’t afford one; and she had to open the shop in the morning, which meant being at work a half hour early.
She was worse than daft, she was mental.
Chrissy met her at the door, bundled into her pink anorak and carrying the small torch they kept in case of power failures. “Good girl,” Alison told her, giving her a squeeze as they started down the stairs.
For a moment, she thought her old car would let her down, but the engine caught on the second try. The night had turned cold, but not so cold that Chrissy’s teeth should be chattering. As they drove north out of Aviemore on the deserted road, Alison cranked up the heater, saying, “It’ll be okay, baby. You’ll see.”
Chrissy said quietly, “Mummy, when you told that policeman that Callum killed Donald, you didn’t mean it, did you?”
“No,” Alison admitted after a moment’s thought. “I don’t suppose I’d be here if I did, not even to please you.”
“Then why did you tell them he did?”
Alison shrugged. “Because I was angry with him. And because I was angry that Donald was dead.” But . . . if she didn’t believe Callum had killed Donald, who had?
And what if that person had meant to hurt Callum, too?
He’d told Chrissy there was something wrong with his whisky—what if it had been poisoned?
Alison’s pulse began to beat in her throat, and she pushed harder on the accelerator, praying that she was wrong, that it was a hoax, after all.
The road seemed to swoop and curve endlessly
through the darkness, but at last Alison saw the stable’s sign. She turned into the drive and stopped, halfway between the farmhouse and Callum’s cottage. Both were in darkness.
“Okay, right,” Alison muttered as they got out of the car. The bowl of the sky seemed enormous above them, and the silence of the night pressed down like a weight.
Then a dog barked, a crack of sound in the darkness, and she and Chrissy both jumped.
“It’s Murphy.” Chrissy started towards the cottage, holding the torch out in front of her like a sword.
“Here. You let me go first,” hissed Alison, catching her up and taking the torch. They could hear the dog clearly now, whining and scrabbling at the cottage door, but no light appeared in the window. If Callum were all right, wouldn’t the dog have woken him?
When they reached the cottage door, Alison pushed Chrissy firmly behind her. “You stay back until I tell you.” Taking a breath, she called out, “Callum! Are you in there?” There was no response except more frantic whining from the dog.
Alison tried the latch. It gave easily, but the door only opened an inch. Something was blocking it. She pushed steadily until Murphy’s black nose appeared in the gap, and a moment later the dog had wriggled out. He jumped at them, whimpering, and Chrissy wrapped her arms around his sleek, black neck.
“Stay back,” Alison instructed her again, and eased her body through the opening. The stench hit her like a wave—vomit and whisky. She clamped her hand to her mouth, swallowing hard, and shone the torch down at the object blocking the doorway.
It was Callum. He lay on his side, his head only inches removed from the pool of vomit. “Oh, bloody Christ,”
whispered Alison. Was he dead? She couldn’t see his face.
Squatting, she grasped his shoulder and called his name. “Callum!” When he didn’t respond, she forced herself to touch the exposed skin of his neck. His flesh felt slightly warm, but he didn’t move. Alison leaned closer, listening. She thought she heard a faint, snoring breath.
“Mummy?” Chrissy called from outside.
“Hold on, baby,” Alison shouted back. Bloody hell, she had to get some light, so that she could see what she was doing. She stood, searching for a light switch, then remembered Callum hadn’t any electricity. “Daft sodding bugger,” she muttered, scanning the room with the torch.
There, on the table, was a paraffin lamp. It looked just like the one her granny in Carrbridge had had when she was a child.
She checked the lamp’s reservoir. Empty. But the beam of the torch showed her a paraffin tin near the stove, and she quickly filled the lamp. She lit the wick with the lighter she carried in her pocket and stood back as the bloom of warm light illuminated the cottage.
Callum lay with one arm beneath him, the other curled over his head. A foot from his hand, she glimpsed the metallic gleam of his phone, but when she snatched it up, she saw that the battery had died. She knew that Callum only charged it in the van.
Swearing under her breath, she hurried to the door and slipped through. “Here, Chrissy. You take the torch. Go up to the big house and wake Callum’s auntie. Tell her to ring for an ambulance.”