43
E ssie’s phone rings one more time. She looks at it. It’s an incoming Zoom call.
It’s her interview. It was today, and she completely forgot.
She looks at it for one long moment, longingly, a little.
But then she thinks of the scandals, the greed, the misery of where she’s been working.
And she thinks of what it has done to Dwight and her community, and remembers the happy days they have had, building the place from nothing; looking after the pups, scraping the wallpaper, helping Verity choose the furniture.
She stares at the phone for a long time.
Then she closes her eyes very tightly, and presses ‘cancel’.
*
After twenty minutes of not hearing a thing outside, the longest twenty minutes of Essie’s life, desperately needing to catch the return flight, she creeps downstairs, through the opposite exit of the mews, tries to walk innocently, which is a very difficult thing to do if you haven’t had to do it before, and jumps on a tram straight back to the airport.
Gertie is surprised to see her on the turnaround.
‘Hiya!’ she says. ‘That was fast!’
‘Gertie,’ says Essie, ‘do you think if anyone asks if they saw me today you could possibly say you didn’t?’ She has had enough quick thinking for one day. ‘I was organising a surprise for Mum. For her birthday.’
‘Oh, how lovely!’ says Gertie. ‘I should do something like that for my mum; she’s always complaining she doesn’t see enough of me because she only sees me three times a week.’
Essie smiles awkwardly.
‘What did you book?’
‘I . . . can’t . . . remember.’
Gertie frowns, but she is an understanding type of soul, so she leaves Essie be.
Essie sits on the left-hand side of the tiny plane, near the back, and, unable to move right at this moment, her hand inside her handbag, holding tightly on to the letter, the adrenaline draining from her body, she instantly falls asleep as a tall man sits down beside her, pulling out his police file.
Financial crime is not normally quite as interesting as this.
*
The End of the World pub is shut when Janey pulls up to it in the afternoon light. She can hear the shouting from the outside.
Shelby is comparing Dwight to their idiot dad, which is a terrible comparison.
Janey remembers him; he made Colin look like Man of the Year.
At least Colin had stayed till the kids left home.
Kenny was a drifter, in and out of their lives, always with a guitar on his back, and a sad song.
He would make huge promises to his children then never turn up at all.
Or turn up out of the blue, arrive at the school with gifts and surprises that completely overwhelmed them.
It was an awful thing to witness, Shelby trussing herself up every day with the eyelashes and the make-up, just in case that was the day her daddy came, even years after it was clear he wasn’t coming at all.
Their mother dragging them to all those dances and competitions, in the hopes of once again catching the eye of the steel guitar player.
Janey feels the utter shame of her family doing this to their family, as if they hadn’t been in the same boat.
She knocks quietly at the back door. Shelby answers, her face murderous.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she says. ‘I hear Little Miss Princess scuttled back to the city.’
Someone must have seen her at the airport. Janey looks past her. Dwight is sitting at a table, hat in front of him, whisky in front of him, head drooping. His normal cockiness has completely gone; instead, he is pale and shell-shocked by it all. He doesn’t even raise his head.
‘She didn’t even come to say sorry,’ spits Shelby. ‘Took our money, took our home, and waltzed off fancy as you please.’
‘Shelby,’ says Dwight. ‘This is all my fault. There’s no point in trying to pretend it isn’t.’
‘None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for her!’
‘I had a choice,’ says Dwight. ‘I was greedy. It’s my fault. I had my shot, and I missed it.’
‘Um . . . ’ says Janey. This is obviously a conversation that has gone round and round the houses. ‘ . . . I’ve got a message.’
‘We don’t want to hear it.’
Shelby goes to shut the door in her face.
‘Let her talk,’ says Dwight, suddenly, pale white, his knuckles clenching the glass, as if she might have brought a tiny bit of hope.
Janey thinks of the bank loan, the mortgage, the deeds. Can this possibly work?
She takes out the piece of paper she managed to get printed.
‘There’s a small possibility . . . ’
Dwight squints. ‘What’s this?’
‘Essie has gone to Edinburgh and “reclaimed” the land deeds. You need to sign this to withdraw them from sale. And the deeds as well.’
He frowns.
‘There’s a cooling-off period,’ says Janey. ‘The problem is it expires today. And the office closes in just under three hours.’
‘We can’t get there,’ says Dwight.
‘Can you email it?’ demands Shelby.
‘I’m afraid not.’
Janey had already phoned Morag, the local pilot, to see if there was anything she could do.
Morag is sympathetic but says it’s not even a question; there isn’t a slot for them at Edinburgh airport and even if there were, it would cost more than the price of the houses in the first place. That’s not the answer.
‘I could drive,’ says Dwight.
‘You’d die,’ says Shelby. ‘Stupid idea. It’s three hundred miles.’
Janey sighs. ‘We’ll think of something. Essie will have the deeds back here soon enough.’
Dwight’s phone rings. His face creases.
‘It’s the police,’ he says. ‘They want to interview me.’
*
The little plane bounces and hops to a stop in Carso on its afternoon run, the sun chasing their tail all the way north.
It’s one of the most beautiful trips in the world on a good day, the Highlands in all their glory stretching out on all sides.
Essie doesn’t notice a bit of it. She holds her bag with her fingers on the papers.
Essie gets down the steps just as the policeman is getting his bag. She doesn’t notice him.
Her mother is waiting in the draughty tin shed that functions as an airport and runs towards her. Essie discreetly shows her the envelope.
‘Oh, my God,’ says Janey. ‘You’re an international criminal.’
‘I’m a fricking idiot,’ says Essie, ruefully. ‘I’m . . . Mum, I’m . . . ’
Janey shakes her head and hugs her. ‘You’re everything.’
Dwight is waiting outside by his car. ‘The policeman’s here,’ he says. ‘I’m meant to meet him.’ He glances up in terror.
Then, from Dwight’s car, an absolute vision emerges.
It is Shelby. Her bright blonde hair is piled high on her head. Her face is made up perfectly and she is wearing a lacy white top that makes her enormous bosoms look even larger, on top of a denim skirt and pure white pointed cowboy boots. Her eye-watering perfume fills the air.
‘Can you get us a couple of minutes?’ says Janey urgently.
‘Can I?’ says Shelby.
And she walks – no, she sashays, in a way that cannot help reminding Essie of Bute – over to the policeman who is already slightly disorientated by the freshness of the air, the great long views out to sea, the sense that the mountains and bens are all behind you and that you have landed at the very tip of the world.
Shelby touches his arm and smiles up at him with her huge spidery eyelashes. He turns to her, like a hypnotised man.
‘ Quick !’ hisses Janey to Dwight. ‘Sign them! Sign them now.’
Dwight scribbles his name on the page, his hand shaking, and Janey whips them away. Shelby glances back, and Dwight takes a deep breath.
Janey fumbles the papers, drops them as she tries to stuff them in her bag and retreats towards her own car in confusion. Fortunately she looks like any other slightly overworked middle-aged woman who has lost her car keys, and everyone completely ignores her.
‘Mr McFlynn? shouts a voice across the car park.
Shelby stands back, satisfied.
‘Oh, God,’ says Essie. ‘Remember, don’t mention the houses. Just the money.’
‘Damn it all to hell,’ says Dwight, straightening up.
Then he grabs Essie, pulls her tightly towards him, kisses her full on the mouth with a force that leaves her limp and breathless, then strides off without a backwards glance to meet the policeman.