Chapter 23
Jake was making good time. He could hear Marcus snoring in the back of the car. They were travelling into the Highlands, and the landscape on either side of the road had given way to the beauty and magnificence of heather-covered moors, rolling hills and the distant peaks of the Cairngorms as he drove towards Aviemore.
Jake stopped at a small service station to stretch his legs and admire the views. Marcus didn’t stir as Jake parked the car and made his way to the shop. He ordered coffee and bought one for Marcus too – he had a feeling he would need one when he woke.
When Jake returned to the car, Marcus was still asleep. He considered waking him but thought it best to let him rest.
Jake turned back on to the main road. He passed a road sign stating how many miles it was to Aviemore. He was home. Scotland. He had been born there, he had been orphaned there as a child, and although he had only spent a few short years of his early life living there, it still felt like a homecoming, every time.
Jake kept a casual eye on the road signs; he had been down this route many times. Those had been good times, returning to The Lake House for Christmas. A sudden wave of nostalgia for his old life hit him, along with the thought that returning was a mistake.
The exit approached.
Jake was having serious doubts about Plan B, about this whole business. It was meant to be a holiday, and there he was, driving towards his past. He wanted to drive right on by the exit, perhaps find a hotel further on, but exactly how much further would that be? There were hotels and B another four-wheel drive much like the last had overtaken him and swallowed up the road. ‘Don’t you recognise it?’
Marcus had known when he’d boarded the flight that the destination was Scotland, but he would never have guessed they were returning to Aviemore.
‘Of course I do!’ he said indignantly. ‘But what the hell are we doing here?’
Touchy , thought Jake. ‘You wanted to sleep, so I’m taking you to a hotel,’ said Jake matter-of-factly.
‘You’re telling me you couldn’t find a single hotel in Inverness, so you had to drive all the way to Aviemore?’
Jake ignored the sarcastic remark. Instead, he handed Marcus his takeaway cup of coffee. ‘Here, drink this – I think it will help you wake up.’ And hopefully improve your mood , he thought.
Marcus leaned forward, clutching the back of Jake’s seat as he took the cup. ‘Urrgh. This coffee is luke-warm.’
Jake wasn’t surprised. ‘You were out like a light. I didn’t want to wake you when I stopped at a service station a while back.’
‘What are we doing here?’ Marcus reiterated.
‘What do you think I’m doing here?’ Jake threw the sarcasm back. ‘Do I need to remind you that this is my holiday? It was your choice to follow me. Well, here we are. This is where I have chosen to spend it.’
While not a strictly accurate account of how he’d come to be in the area, Jake declined to reveal how he had impulsively agreed to meet somebody he didn’t know before he had even found out where exactly they were calling from. And what was worse, how he had been stupid enough to go anyway.
‘I’m not turning back now. I’ve got an appointment.’ Jake could picture it; Marcus would want out of this place so badly that he’d be pleading for Jake to take him to the nearest airport.
‘What do you mean you’ve got an appointment? I thought you were on holiday?’
Jake smiled to himself. He was going to re-kindle the embers of his nearly-destroyed holiday once he’d fulfilled his commitment to Mr Wright and had got rid of Marcus on the next available flight back to London.
‘Who the hell have you got an appointment with?’
Jake looked in the rear-view mirror and felt an I told you so coming on. He couldn’t resist. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to come on holiday with me?’
Marcus slumped back in his seat. All Jake could see was the mop of black, greasy hair plastered to the top of his head. ‘This is the last place I’d expect you to have come for a holiday,’ he said quietly, ‘or for any reason.’
You and me both , Jake thought sadly as he drove into Aviemore. The town was busy whatever the season. Aviemore attracted a lot of tourists. The traffic crawled along the main shopping street, passing the train station, and Wilbur’s Bookstore on the other side of the road. It had been some time since he’d stepped inside that shop. As he passed by, he wondered when Wilbur would retire. He had popped in there from time to time, over the years, and Wilbur had talked about his grandson, an aspiring writer, whom he hoped would take over his store.
Further along, he spotted the community centre and a couple of modern supermarkets that were open all hours. The town was dominated by thriving shops selling walking and skiing apparel, catering for tourists. Jake came to halt in traffic outside one of the few shops that wasn’t aimed at tourists. It always surprised him that the place was still there – Gillespie’s General Store.
He raised his eyebrows at the double-fronted shop as he passed by. Something had changed. He’d been in there once or twice, in the past, and had met Mr Gillespie. The shop, like its owner, was functional, practical, no-nonsense. Mr Gillespie wasn’t the sort of guy to cater to the whims of the tourist and do fancy window displays to entice people in. But something had definitely changed. There had once been a jumble of goods in the front window, and more of the same spilling out onto the street in a haphazard display. It was a relic from the past, a dying breed still serving what was left of the local, elderly community who, he imagined, shopped there out of loyalty or habit. It was a place they could go where someone would ring up their purchases on an old-fashioned till and even pack your shopping himself – so unlike modern, impersonal supermarkets with self-service checkouts.
The items on the pavement outside of the shop were gone. The window displays had changed quite radically. One side still had groceries displayed in the windows, but these were no longer thrown together haphazardly; they were organised on shelves in baskets.
It was the other window display that had really caught his eye, though, and made him wonder if the place had changed hands. Either that, or Mr Gillespie had had the foresight and business acumen to realise that if his shop was going to survive the competition of the influx of modern supermarket chains, he would have to change with the times and sublet half of his shop to another retailer.
He smiled. If Eleanor had been there, she would have loved the other window display. It was full of curtains, cushions and fabrics, which were draped over a small, upholstered chair and illuminated by a standard lamp in the background. He could just imagine her popping in there to buy some materials to make something. How she had loved being creative with interior design, he thought sadly. It was what she had wanted to do with her life.
Jake read the name above the shop window aloud: ‘ Robyn’s Interior Design .’
‘What was that?’ Marcus asked from the back seat.
Jake sighed. For a moment, he’d forgotten his back seat passenger. ‘Nothing.’
Jake followed a line of cars as he headed out the other side of the town, where large imposing houses nestled down quieter, more secluded lanes surrounding the village. Jake noted the stream of traffic behind thinning out along the main road as people turned off to their homes or holiday homes at the edge of town.
Jake was heading for just such a place.
There was a rustle of movement at the back. Jake glanced in his rear-view mirror as Marcus slid by to his left and looked out of the car window. ‘You missed the turn-off!’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘But it’s back there.’ Marcus added sarcastically, ‘I think I can remember.’
Jake stayed silent.
Marcus said, ‘We’re not staying at The Lake House.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘No.’ Jake had been planning to book into a fancy hotel in Aviemore, but with his bandaged hands, and Marcus’s unkempt appearance, he’d had a change of heart. Instead, he remembered a little wooden single-storey lodge. It had a bar that served food. Apparently, there were rooms for rent there too, although the place was not well advertised. It was located so far off the beaten track that the three of them had joked that it would be the perfect place to hide out from the law if they were in trouble. He hoped the place was still there; he didn’t want to stay in town, and he didn’t want to stay for long.
Jake took a left turn at the town limits. If he remembered rightly, it was at the end of a dirt track. Not many people besides the townsfolk themselves, and a few people from neighbouring communities, knew of its existence. Jake often wondered why the owners had never erected a billboard on the road advertising the place to drum up more business. But driving through town, Jake thought he could guess why: the remote location was idyllic, and they’d probably find themselves overrun with tourists. From what he remembered, it was one of the few establishments that remained exclusively for the locals, and they wanted to keep it that way. Jake was anticipating a frosty reception when he arrived.
He remembered the first time the three of them had stumbled onto the place, years earlier. They had been teenagers looking for a pub that was so out of the way that they could pretty much guarantee they would not run into the senior Rosses, who they were sure had believed – bless their trusting hearts – that they were at the pond , the frozen-over lake, ice-skating.
Their surprise had therefore been immense when they’d stepped foot inside the place and had seen Aubrey Jones – the same Aubrey Jones who always declined their invitation to spend Christmas with them in the Cairngorms – sitting just across the room, surrounded by half a dozen townsfolk. Jake remembered that the three of them had frozen just inside the door. They couldn’t think of anyone worse they could have bumped into, save Eleanor and Marcus’s parents themselves. Aubrey was William’s right-hand man. He sorted things out. And he would sort them out good and proper if he caught them attempting to buy alcohol.
Looking back, Jake didn’t know how they’d done it, but they’d retreated backwards out of the bar, three sets of eyes staring fixedly at Aubrey. All he’d needed to do was look up; he couldn’t have missed three teenagers in brightly coloured ski wear backing out of the door. But he hadn’t looked up, and to their relief he hadn’t caught them. That was the first and last time Jake had visited the place. He remembered the question on all their lips – what had Aubrey been doing there? Of course, that incident had long been forgotten – until now.
The question on Jake’s mind now was: had the place survived? Was it still there?
Jake drove slowly along the rutted track through the forest of tall pines, which were densely packed on either side.
Half a mile down the track, Jake reduced his speed. He must be getting near. The car crawled into a large clearing. He let it slow to a halt.
Nothing.
‘Good.’ Marcus sounded smug. ‘I’ve had enough bad experiences for one day, without staying at the Norman Bates Motel.’
Jake looked over his shoulder as Marcus lay down on the back seat, resting his head in the crook of his arm. So, Marcus remembered the place too. He was right: their overriding memory of the place was how creepy it had been, right in the middle of nowhere.
‘What is wrong with you, anyway?’ said Jake, glancing over his shoulder. He’d had plenty of sleep. Why wasn’t he bucking up?
Marcus shut his eyes.
Was the current physical state of Marcus just down to the shock of spending all those hours deprived of his liberty, or was it because he had been deprived of something else? Jake was beginning to wonder whether Marcus’s casual drug-use had extended beyond the weekend into something a lot less casual and a lot more serious.
Jake looked back at the clearing. He opened the car door, swung it wide and got out. He needed to stretch his legs. He walked over to where the lodge had once stood. He scuffed the earth with his foot and hit something. Another scuff with his shoe unearthed a piece of wood. Jake squatted and picked up the wood, turning it over to reveal green, peeling paint. At least that confirmed he was in the right place. He tossed it away and stood up.
‘Now what?’ Hands on his hips, Jake closed his eyes and breathed in the pine-scented forest air.