Chapter Eight
Without telling Ezz, Thea or Dev, Valentina had booked dinner at the Broadford Hotel to celebrate her being in Rothach for the weekend. Ezz had never felt less like getting dressed up for an unexpected treat, despite a stunning festive menu and their table being near the most sumptuous Christmas tree she’d ever seen. It looked as if it had been draped in crystals.
Hopefully the surprise element accounted for Thea’s air of discombobulation, which Ezz was sure she wore too, though she tried to add a smile for Valentina’s sake and say things like, ‘This is ace.’ Grief at leaving Rothach Hall lay like ice in her stomach and she was sure Thea felt the same.
Dev, freshly shaved and his dark curls tamed, looked as if he’d pinned his smile on with an effort.
But Valentina was busy drinking prosecco that shimmered with glitter, in an off-duty mood as Barnaby and Gary were miles away with Gary’s family. ‘I’m so excited,’ she enthused, easing aside an elegantly Christmassy table decoration of white candles and red-berried holly. ‘My goal’s to have the refurbishment of the cottage complete by early June, so we can spend the summer holidays here. When our annual leave’s used up, we’ll just work from home. Do you think there will be a good, local registered childminder for when you can’t help with Barnaby?’ she asked Ezz.
‘Bound to be. We’re excited too. It’ll be fabulous to have you here for weeks at a time.’ Ezz couldn’t look at Thea or Dev for fear of seeing their gazes haunted by the knowledge that they might have relocated by the time the summer holidays arrived. She’d already spotted kind, concerned Dev giving Thea quick, consolatory hugs and dropping kisses on her hair. Luckily, there was no longer any trace of the tears Thea cried when Ezz had broken the news that they’d been so disastrously overheard.
Eventually, Valentina looked over her glass of glittery prosecco. ‘Is something up? My big-sister senses are pinging.’
Ezz sent Thea a look that she hoped said leave this to me . ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I had a problem at work this afternoon that involved a frank exchange of views with one of the Larsson sons.’ She remembered how jokily he’d begun the interview – getting her defences down, she now realised. ‘He’s an entitled arsehole.’ She was acutely aware that she couldn’t tell Valentina she’d resigned without telling her why.
Continuing the fabrication, Thea made a show of patting Ezz’s hand. ‘It’s not just you. I don’t like him.’ She made an apologetic face at Valentina. ‘We didn’t mean to bring the party down, but we’ve been so happy at Rothach Hall and now this knobhead’s making life difficult. Let’s not talk about him.’ She raised her orange juice. ‘Let’s toast your new second home, Valentina. I’m hoping to join you in the morning to check it out.’
Dev toasted with his pint, his dark curls falling towards his eyes. ‘To Valentina’s new cottage. Lang may yer lum reek – or good luck and good fortune for the future.’
‘What Dev said.’ Ezzie raised her tonic water, quite impressed that between her and Thea they’d conjured up a reason for their subdued demeanours.
Valentina returned the toast. ‘OK. But let me know if you need any help.’
Half-heartedly, Ezz thought about heading off any involvement from Valentina with, I know my employment law, thanks, but that seemed like inviting a heated discussion about whether a manager needed advice from a lawyer, instead of dancing lightly over the subject, so she said, ‘Are you coming to look at the cottage too, Dev?’
Dev slipped one arm around Thea. It wasn’t an unusual display of affection from him, but Ezz thought it particularly protective, and was glad her little sister had such a fantastic partner. ‘For at least part of the time, I hope,’ he said. ‘But I have an online meeting with a client. As a start-up I can’t afford to turn even weekend meetings down.’
Seeing an opportunity to create a stepping stone to Thea and Dev having a plausible reason to leave Rothach village if they had to, Ezz asked, ‘Have you told Valentina about being approached to lecture to students on sports business courses?’
As she’d known she would, Valentina leapt on this interesting development, and Ezz could relax and eat her steak and chips. When Thea sent her a grateful look, she was able to grin back.
OK, so she and Thea had resigned without notice, but it was a gnarly problem rather than the end of the world. Thea and Dev could sell Thistledome and move somewhere near a city. And Ezz? She’d decide what to do when she’d recovered from the immense blow of losing her position at Rothach Hall. Ezz was a calm, competent person. She could start again somewhere else, even if Grete and Erik wouldn’t provide a reference. Her tenancy at her cottage could be ended. Furniture could be sold, transported or stored. She’d always fancied the cruise ships. She could probably get an admin job on one of those. Or she could simply circulate her CV around the hotels on Skye and continue to live on the island.
No, it definitely wasn’t the end of the world.
It was just the end of working somewhere outstandingly beautiful in a job she adored.
At just after nine on Saturday morning, they congregated outside Overlook Cottage, the last of the row at Fishermen’s Cottages. Skye was living up to its name of the Misty Isle and Ezz, Valentina, Thea and Dev were enclosed in a cloud that allowed them to see no further than the top of the Causeway or the rocks at the end of the Quays. At the edge of the mist, the sea was a shifting sheet of pewter, though its shushing and sighing seemed muffled.
‘Ta-dah!’ Valentina brandished the key and then tried to use it in the lock, as they all huddled into their coats and pulled their hats over their ears. ‘Grr,’ she growled, as the key refused to turn.
‘Let me try.’ Dev was able to turn the key after a struggle, but then had to put his capable shoulder to the door to force it open. ‘Oops,’ he said ruefully when the woodwork gave an ominous crack.
‘No problem,’ Valentina laughed. ‘Keith the builder’s coming at eleven to measure up for a new door and frame. This one wouldn’t keep the mice out.’
‘It kept us out,’ Ezz observed, following her into a dim and musty interior. The wooden stairs rose before them, painted at the edges, as if a carpet runner had covered the rest. They coughed at the dust coating every inch of chipped paintwork and the filthy wallpaper bestrewn with faded pictures of boats.
‘Why do empty houses always have screwed-up newspaper on the floor?’ Valentina demanded, nudging a ball of it with her toe. ‘Apparently, the old guy who lived here wasn’t house-proud. After he died, his daughter and son couldn’t agree on whether to put money into doing the place up before selling, so it’s been just mouldering away while they bickered. Come look at the kitchen.’
Gingerly, they followed, careful of a frayed rug with a curling lino surround as they passed through the living room to a cramped area where ancient cupboards buckled from damp around an cracked pot sink. They paused to peer over each other’s shoulders.
‘Phew,’ Thea complained. ‘Stinky.’
But Valentina was smiling. ‘Keith thinks I should be able to knock into the bathroom behind this and create a bigger kitchen, with skylights.’ She waved grandly at the sagging ceiling above them, then led them through the back door into a patch of jungle.
Deadpan, Thea observed, ‘Ezz, this is even wilder than your garden.’
Ezz laughed. She liked her garden untamed for the bees and other wildlife, and Thea’s gardener’s soul was offended that Ezz’s idea of ‘doing the lawn’ was to sprinkle the grass with wildflower seeds. She huddled into her blue ski jacket. ‘Barnaby will have a great time making dens in these bushes.’
‘No, he won’t,’ Valentina responded reprovingly. ‘Because it’s all going to be dug out and lawned. A very little lawn,’ she admitted. ‘Let me show you one of the reasons I wanted the house.’
They trooped back through the mouldy kitchen and musty living room, and then cautiously up the creaking stairs. ‘Some of the treads could do with replacing,’ Valentina allowed. ‘But come into the biggest bedroom.’
She led the way into a room where the carpet was filthy with mould and mouse droppings and the wallpaper was no better than downstairs. ‘Look.’ Valentina had had the foresight to bring up a scrunch of newspaper and now she rubbed fiercely at the largest window to reveal a view of Rothach Bay. The mist shifted just in time for a shaft of light to touch the grey wintry sea. ‘Wow,’ Ezz breathed. ‘This is going to be awesome.’
‘It is,’ Valentina agreed gleefully. ‘And the garden will have a wonderful view of the sea too, when the jungle’s chopped down.’
‘Fantastic.’ Thea gave Valentina a big hug, obviously sharing her sister’s excitement. ‘Where will the new bathroom be?’
‘In here.’ Valentina showed them the other bedroom, which would have a fine view of the beach at the front and a less lovely one of the cliff face at the rear. ‘The back section will become the bathroom, leaving Barnaby a nice room at the front.’
Then she looked at her watch. ‘Keith should be here soon. I think it might be an idea to start collecting the rubbish to bag up— Damn! I bought rubble sacks especially for that, but I’ve left them in my room at your house, Ezz.’ Frowning, she glanced at her watch.
Ezz turned towards the stairs. ‘No problem. I’ll nip back. You wait for the builder.’
After the fusty interior of the cottage, it was great to be in the fresh air again even when enveloped in the soft mist. As far as Ezz could see, Harbour View was deserted except for gulls bickering loudly over something on the road, threatening each other with hooked beaks and flapping grey wings. Taking deep breaths to clear her lungs of dust and mould, it took only five minutes for Ezz to get home, panting from the steepness of Creag an Lolaire.
When she reached her front path, she was just reflecting that the muffling mist felt like a cocoon, if a damned chilly one, when a man climbed from a nearby car. The likelihood of this being Brodie or some other neighbour made her glance up with a smile and a greeting ready on her lips.
But then the man said, ‘Ezzie,’ and she froze. It was Mats Larsson. He hovered closer. ‘Can we talk?’
Before, her heart had lurched once or twice when she’d seen him, but now it pounded as if she was in one of those videos where a human comes face to face with a bear and doesn’t know whether to freeze or run like hell. It took her an instant to remember that she also had words to draw on. ‘I’m busy.’ She sidled a step up her front path.
Mats took two steps forward, his smile rueful. ‘I thought of calling first, but knew you’d ignore me.’
She waggled her head, the universal body language for ‘maybe’. Keys in hand, she took the last few steps to her door, the wet, long grass either side of the path stooping as if to wipe her boots.
She could step inside and slam the door in his face.
Satisfying as that thought was, she’d need to come out again in a few minutes, so all he’d have to do was wait. There was no way out of the back of her house apart from scrambling over the fence and then risking the steep rock and scree between Chapel Road and Friday Furlong.
That would be idiocy. Would it, though … ? Yeah, it would.
Reluctantly, she turned to face him. He paused. His golden hair poked from below his black beanie hat and his expression was hard to read.
She tried not to let her voice wobble. ‘I’m in the middle of something.’
‘Ah, yes.’ He nodded. ‘Your big sister’s visit. You told me about it. But nobody answered my knock at your door, so I presume she’s not here. Maybe she’s at Thea’s?’
Sweat broke out on the back of Ezz’s neck. Thea’s address was a matter of record at Rothach Hall, just like hers, and she wanted him there even less than she wanted him here. Sooner or later, he’d run across Valentina, who’d demand to know what was going on and treat Mats like the knobhead and entitled arse that Ezz and Thea had dubbed him. Anger made her lips tingle. ‘What do you want?’
‘Can I come in?’ He even took a half-stride, as if certain she’d say ‘yes’.
‘No. Say what you need to say out here.’ She stared him down.
But then he took her by surprise. He said, ‘I think you’re in trouble and I want to help.’
Trouble. Pain shot through her temples as tension clamped its steely hands on her skull. ‘No idea what you’re on about.’
He took another half-step. She could see every line in his face now, and the shades of grey and blue in his eyes. Even flecks of green. His voice was husky as he held her gaze. ‘People don’t resign without notice unless they’re staring down the barrel of a gun. You’ve been a perfect employee for nearly a decade, so I think you’re scared. And if you’re not scared of getting hurt yourself, you’re afraid for someone you love,’ he added. ‘At first, I was angry when you wouldn’t explain what I overheard about a criminal record. Then, of course, my mother was upset when you resigned.’ He gave her another rueful half-smile. ‘But later, after Astrid and Alvin were asleep, I went down to your office to switch off the computer and the lights. I sat in your chair and saw the email half-written, your pad full of notes and reminders, and I knew that for you to abandon us like that, the gun barrel must be very big.’
Shockingly, Ezz’s throat began to ache with unshed tears.
When she didn’t – couldn’t – answer him, he added, ‘Mum’s sad and baffled. She’d only told me a couple of days earlier that the Wynter sisters ran Rothach Hall and it’s obvious that she’s fond of you both. I explained yesterday’s conversation as best I could, but I hardly understood it myself – except that I defended my family blindly and was accusatory, demanding explanations instead of inviting confidences.’ Grimacing, he added, ‘I haven’t told Dad yet. I wanted to talk to you first.’
Ezz could no longer see him, not because the mist had swallowed him up but because of a veil of tears.
A sigh came from deep in his chest. ‘Any HR department at Larsson Fiskeri would be horrified at me. But I’m not your employer, Ezz. My parents are. Can you confide in me as a friend?’
She swallowed what felt like a golf ball. ‘When did we become friends?’ Refusing to let him see her wipe the tears from her eyes, she blinked and hoped the moisture would evaporate.
‘I’d like to be your friend. I’m concerned about you.’ Then, when she didn’t reply he asked softly, ‘Is it Thea? Mum reminded me that she had trouble with a man. Is he threatening her? Has she done something he can blackmail her with? As long as my family won’t be hurt by whatever she’s done—’
The reflex to protect Thea sprang to life. ‘It was me,’ she snapped. Then she clapped a hand to her mouth, appalled the words had escaped, after all the years of pretending, bending the law, hiding the truth. She tried to retract. ‘Thea was protecting me, but it’s nothing to you. It won’t harm you, your kids or other family.’ Again, she swallowed. ‘I’d like you to leave. I’m sorry if our resignations are inconvenient.’
She might as well not have asked him to go. He carried on doggedly. ‘If it’s you , why’s Thea so petrified of being on camera? If she’d just said, “Thanks, but I’m not interested in Garden Gladiators ” I’d have let the approach drop. But she was hostile to the point of rudeness. As were you.’
He paused and shifted his gaze, as if the mist didn’t exist and he could look along Chapel Road at the cottages climbing up the bowl in which the village stood, up to the copse hiding the footpath to Rothach Hall. ‘I feel like crap,’ he continued quietly. ‘Because I acted – no, reacted – like a jerk, only concerned for me and mine.’ He smiled faintly, disarmingly. ‘But we have agreed that I’m an entitled asshole.’
‘Arsehole,’ she corrected, feeling the tiniest drop of tension ease away. She found a tissue in her pocket and blew her nose. She thought of Thea, Dev and Valentina waiting in the dirty little cottage that was soon to be transformed into Valentina’s gorgeous retreat and that she and her family would be here so much more often than presently, when she lived full-time in Inverness, miles away.
And she thought about Thea on the brink of leaving Skye. With bone-deep certainty she knew that despite it being convenient for Dev to work from somewhere more central, he loved Thea too much to ask her to leave Thistledome if it could be avoided, because it was going to rip out her heart. The name of the cottage was a play on words meaning ‘This’ll do me’ and Thea hadn’t changed it when she bought the little home. Ezzie sighed. If she took the risk of trusting Mats Larsson with the truth, then there was a chance that Thea – and Ezzie – could keep their jobs. All that would happen was that one more person would be in on the secret.
Except … ‘It’s possible that if I explain, even if you accept my explanation, that then you’d run off and tell Grete and Erik and all your family. No doubt they’d tell others, and it would be common knowledge. That’s not an option.’
He rocked on his heels while he considered. ‘In your opinion, do they need to know? Will it hurt them not to?’
Her turn to consider, the mist chilling her face. ‘I don’t think so. But then I don’t think you need to know either. If I’m the trusted employee of long standing that you suggest, you should accept my word that I’m not a danger.’
A frown puckered his brow. ‘This is just swordplay. I’d prefer you to accept my word that if I agree with you that Mum and Dad don’t need to know, I’ll keep your secret.’
Ezz wavered and wondered. If they ran again, she and Thea wouldn’t just be leaving behind their lives on this wonderful island, they’d be leaving without a fight. And if Mats felt compelled not to keep her confidence … well, then running away would still be an option. But there was a chance. She felt as if he wanted her to take it.
She turned to her front door. ‘You’d better come in.’
In silence, he removed his coat and hat to hang in the hall. His coat was cherry red and expensive-looking. She took him into the kitchen. ‘Mind the step,’ she said automatically as she stepped down from the hall, all too familiar with unwary guests entering the kitchen in an ungainly sprawl.
Her small kitchen table stood against a wall, so the two black shiny chairs faced each other. Without offering a coffee or other hospitality she took one seat and indicated that he take the other. Her home was bigger than Thea’s, but not by much. They’d shared the house when they’d first come to Rothach, before Thea had felt settled and stable enough to move into Thistledome, so that they each had a place of their own. The memory of their cautious optimism that they’d found forever homes prompted fresh tears to prickle in her eyes.
‘I’ll just text Thea to say I’ve been delayed.’ Quickly she stabbed out on her phone screen, Mats has turned up. Stay there. Tell Valentina I’m on a work call. The terse message would cause a jolt in Thea’s heart, but Ezz knew she’d do exactly as asked, trusting her sister to know what she was doing, just as Ezz would have trusted her if their roles were reversed. Silencing her phone, she stuffed it into her pocket and lifted her gaze to Mats’ eyes, as silvery as the wintry sea.
Heart thudding, she felt as if she was about to put all her money on one number on the roulette wheel. ‘About ten years ago, in England, I was driving Thea’s car and hit a cyclist,’ she said tersely. ‘He’d stopped around a blind bend and had been impossible to avoid, but I panicked. I’d been partying the night before and thought I’d still be over the legal drink-drive limit. I … I’d served a ban for drink-driving before. Though the cyclist accepted the blame, I would have gone to prison because he received life-changing injuries – that’s the law. As it happened in an isolated spot, it was possible for Thea to say she was the driver and pass the breathalyser test. Later, the cyclist kept involving Thea in his life because she was on Garden Gladiators and had a following, which he wanted to tap into. At first it was just a road safety campaign, which Thea was happy to help with, but then he reinvented himself as a social media influencer and became a nuisance. We were nervous about the attention, so left our old jobs and relationships and started again up here.’
Her hands had curled into fists as she talked but she tried to relax them, concentrating on Mats’ face.
His fair brows knitted above his eyes, causing furrows on his forehead. ‘That’s everything?’ he asked unemotionally.
She tried to be objective and factual. ‘That’s the crime – covering up a crime is a crime. But then in the summer, the cyclist discovered where Thea was and when she wouldn’t join him in a fresh social media campaign, he claimed to have remembered that it wasn’t Thea driving. When someone discredited him, he gave up.’ The someone had been Dev, who’d put a lot on the line to create the illusion that the truth was a lie, but there was no way she’d expose him when he’d done it for Thea. ‘So, we thought it was finally behind us, until the production company for Garden Gladiators contacted you.’
His brows lifted a fraction. ‘I see why you reacted so negatively to my enthusiasm over them filming Thea at Rothach Hall.’
She nodded.
He sighed, sinking back in his chair and rubbing his forehead. ‘Who’s the Fredek I heard you mention?’
‘The cyclist.’ Fatigue swept her, not just from the tumultuous day yesterday but from living with a decade of fear and regret. ‘Just to be clear, if you feel compelled to share this information with the police and they can prove the case, Thea and I will be in deep shit, because the punishment for perverting the course of justice can be stiff. You might think that’s what we deserve, of course.’ Ice formed around her heart at the thought.
‘I see.’ He gazed at her contemplatively. ‘And your remarks about having an unhealthy relationship with alcohol … ?’
She understood that he was asking for full disclosure. ‘After my parents died, I drank too much and became dependent. I told you the truth that I’m not an alcoholic, because I was never diagnosed. As far as I know, I was just a heavy drinker. After the accident, I stopped. What if I had been over the limit? What if it had been my fault? What if I’d killed someone?’ She took a steadying breath. ‘But sobriety’s hard. Unfortunately, alcohol’s all too bound up with celebrations, with gifting, with unwinding. What works for me is to try to be in control of when I’ll encounter it. I’m always scared I’ll slip back into letting drink affect my life.’
‘And I ambushed you when I asked you to take Josefin into a pub.’ Understanding shone in his eyes.
‘That’s right.’ Wearily, she leant her forehead on her hand. ‘But in view of everything else, it doesn’t really matter.’
While he sat silently, looking too large for the chair, brow furrowed, her gaze roved aimlessly around her kitchen. The units and worktop were tired but serviceable. It had been her home all through the years of half-expecting the past to catch up with her and spoil the peace she’d found here on Skye. Despite Thea buying Thistledome, Ezz had clung to the reassurance that a rented home made it easy to move on. But once Fredek had been vanquished, and even before Valentina had dropped her bombshell about buying a cottage here, Ezzie had entertained thoughts about giving up her status as tenant. There was a cottage for sale on Friday Furlong, which would have a stonking view of the bay. She’d even conjured up a cute name for it – Heaven’s Haven. Pipe dreams now, probably, to plan a kitchen and decide on palest sage green for the outside walls.
She closed her eyes, dreading that Mats Larsson would call the police and inform them what she’d confessed to. No matter how much it was her word against his, she and Thea could be called for interview. Fredek would almost certainly get a chance to renew his accusations. Any attempt to make the police think the evidence was circumstantial and anecdotal would entail repeated denials and lies. Lies. Her life had been filled with them for a decade.
When would it ever end?