Chapter 46
Jake walked out into the bright sunshine.
Marcus had been waiting just outside the door. He fell in step, walking alongside Jake back to the car. ‘I got through on my phone eventually, and everyone I’ve spoken to so far swears blind they have no idea we are developing something on land outside Aviemore,’ said Marcus, under the false impression that Jake was at all interested in what he had to say. ‘I need to get to London as soon as possible. I swear to god someone’s head’s going to roll when I find out who gave the go-ahead to buy that land.’
Jake scuffed his shoe on the kerb and glanced back at the house.
‘Are you listening to me?’
Jake didn’t answer.
‘You were a long time. I thought they’d gone ahead and admitted you.’ He laughed. ‘I had the impulse to leave you here, do us both a bit of good.’
Jake glanced at Marcus, not really hearing what he was blabbering on about. He fished in his pocket and brought out the envelopes.
‘No luck, then?’
Jake glanced at Marcus and shook his head. He fished again and found the post-it on which Lawrence had written down Arnold’s last known address. He put the photographs back in his coat pocket.
Reaching the car, Jake looked back at the house.
‘You’re very quiet.’
Jake was.
‘Do you want me to drive?’
Jake turned slowly from the house to face Marcus. ‘Please,’ was all he could summon.
Marcus switched on the engine, put the car into gear and took the handbrake off. He turned to Jake. ‘I’m not insured to drive this.’
‘Just drive,’ Jake said impatiently without looking up.
They reached the end of the driveway. ‘Where to?’
Jake looked up from the post-it in his hand. He tried to keep his voice level. ‘Head back to town.’
‘Back to Aviemore? I want to go to the airport.’
‘We will. I’ve just got one more stop before we leave.’
‘You said that last time,’ mumbled Marcus.
Lawrence had helpfully given Jake directions to a row of terraced stone cottages a few miles from the village, down in the valley, not easily located if you weren’t familiar with the area.
Jake checked the address on the post-it again. ‘It’s the next right.’ Jake looked out of the window as they turned down a steep, narrow track. It levelled off, cutting a winding path through the valley floor.
The cottages could be around the next bend. Jake didn’t want to risk sailing straight past them; the narrow road would make it difficult to turn around, and who knew how many miles they would have to travel further on until they could double back.
‘Slow down. It’s not far.’
Marcus glanced at him. ‘What’s not far? Where are we going, Jake?’
Jake didn’t reply. He kept his eyes peeled for any sign of the cottages while Marcus kept his eyes on the road. Jake, his attention momentarily diverted by the beauty and serenity of the heather-covered mountains rearing up on either side, happened to look Marcus’s way and catch him grinning insanely into his rear-view mirror.
Jake flipped the sun visor down and looked in the vanity mirror to see a young couple, looking decidedly irate, swinging a tatty red Ford Fiesta left and right on their tail, trying to get past and escape Marcus’s twenty-miles-per-hour crawl. Jake looked again at Marcus, who was clearly enjoying himself.
How was it possible that Marcus, who had just found out that he was not fully in control of his father’s business affairs, could be so cheerful? Jake was guessing that Marcus was relishing the thought of that surprise visit he was going to spring on the London office of the Ross Corporation. As Marcus had said, heads were going to roll. Jake thought of Aubrey ensconced on the top floor of the company apartment building in London and considered wiping the smile off Marcus’s face by telling him the business side of things was not the only thing he was losing control of. He decided it could wait.
Jake turned in his seat to look out of the back window. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, will you just pull over and let them pass?’
Marcus frowned and swung the car abruptly towards the kerb. Jake looked past Marcus out of the driver’s side window as the young couple passed by. The young woman in the passenger seat was mouthing something that Jake guessed was probably quite obscene. He wondered what Marcus was mouthing back.
‘Marcus!’ Jake said to the back of his head.
Marcus turned in his seat to look at Jake.
‘Now I’ve got your full attention, can you stop faffing about and help me find this address?’ Jake held up the post-it.
Marcus’s eyes shifted to look past Jake out of the passenger window. ‘Well, blow me – isn’t that the house?’ Marcus pointed.
Jake turned and looked out of the window to find they were parked directly outside.
‘I’m guessing this is the home address of one Mr Wright. Am I right?’ Marcus laughed at his own play on words.
Jake grimaced and got out of the car.
‘I’ll just sit and wait then.’ Marcus got the message.
Jake shut the car door and looked up at the house. Like Lawrence had said, the terraced cottage was one of a small row of six standing alone, deep in the valley. There wasn’t another house in sight, even though the village was just a few miles up the road.
The stone cottages had dark wooden windows that just added to the dreariness, and they had a distinctly neglected, forgotten feel, not helped by the fact that one of the row, the one next door, had all four windows boarded up. Somehow, he couldn’t quite connect this drab house to the bright, cheerful, Arnold Wright.
Jake walked up the overgrown pathway. He stood in the small, pitch-roofed porch and knocked on the door. He waited. The strong smell of damp wood coming from the firewood stacked high on one side of the porch made Jake want to step back outside for some fresh air.
An old man answered the door. ‘Yes?’
Jake hesitated, unsure what to say, unsure exactly what he was doing here.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Did ... does Arnold Wright live here?’ Jake still could not believe what was on that computer screen. He had to check it out for himself. There just had to be a logical explanation.
‘What is it you want?’
‘Do you know Arnold Wright?’ Something in the old guy’s tone made Jake think he did.
‘Are you going to continue answering my questions with a question?’ The old man blinked at him.
‘No, of course not. Pardon me. My name is Jake Campbell-Ross, and I’m looking for an Arnold Wright who knew a woman called Martha.’ The uninterested look on the old man’s face said that Jake was wasting his time. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I’ve obviously got the wrong house.’ Jake stepped out of the porch, glad to be free of that damp woody odour. ‘Sorry,’ he repeated to the old chap, who was still standing in the doorway. Jake started back down the path.
‘My son.’
Jake was halfway down the overgrown pathway when he heard the old man’s voice. He turned back to see the man standing in the porch, leaning heavily on a wooden walking stick. He looked well in his nineties.
‘Come in, why don’t you?’
Jake walked back up the pathway as the man opened the front door wide.
Jake walked into a gloomy entrance hall.
‘Through there.’ The old man lifted his walking stick off the carpeted floor and pointed at a door.
‘In here?’ Jake tentatively opened a door.
‘Isn’t that what I just said?’ Standing in the hallway, the man regarded him for a moment before walking off.
Jake walked into a neat, cosy sitting room.
The wall opposite the window contained floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined with books. ‘A little light reading, anyone?’ said Jake, randomly picking Dostoevsky’s War and Peace off the shelf. It weighed a ton and hurt his hand. Jake put it back, scanning the other bookshelves, which were crammed with literary classics.
The old man walked into the room, carrying a tall glass of clear liquid. ‘I like to read.’
Jake turned away from the bookshelves. ‘Really?’ he said sarcastically, biting his tongue to stop any more verbal damage. He hadn’t meant to be rude, but the events back at the hospice had wound him up like a tight coil and he needed answers. His son must be dead, so why was someone pretending to be him? It wasn’t exactly a question he could just ask outright.
‘Yes, really.’ The old man eyed him warily as he placed his glass on a small circular table set under the window. He left the room.
Jake walked over to the wooden mantle shelf set over an open fire blazing in the hearth. The long narrow shelf was jam-packed with framed family pictures, some colour, and some black-and-white. Jake picked up a framed picture of a woman in bright sunshine, kneeling on grass holding a toddler, her face next to his, smiling for the camera.
‘My grandson.’
Jake glanced over his shoulder as the old man entered the room carrying another tall glass.
‘Cute.’ Jake replaced the picture on the mantle shelf.
‘Not anymore.’ He offered Jake the glass. ‘All grown up now, moved to Edinburgh.’
Jake took the glass and gave a little sniff – he could smell lemons. Jake took a gulp of the white liquid; it stung the back of his throat. ‘It’s good,’ said Jake in a croaky voice.
‘It should be. It’s homemade lemonade, none of that supermarket rubbish.’ The old chap seated himself in a worn leather chair to one side of the hearth. He put on a pair of pince-nez and picked up a book that was balanced on the thick arm of the chair.
He started to read.
Jake stared at him. He had just let a perfect stranger in off the street and made him a glass of homemade lemonade, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And it was.
Sometimes Jake longed to return to this part of Scotland; he often imagined what it must be like to live in a community where you could welcome somebody into your home without fear, know your neighbours as friends. It was another world. And it could be his, if he chose it.
‘Is this Arnold?’ said Jake, holding out a photograph he had found on the mantle. It was just a guess, going by the age of the photo, but unfortunately it wasn’t a close-up, and the photo was slightly out of focus, so he couldn’t make out the man’s features.
‘Let me see.’ The old chap put down his book and held out his hand. He studied it. ‘I haven’t seen this in a long while.’
‘It was tucked behind some other photos – there.’ Jake pointed.
The chap thrust the photo back at Jake. ‘Put it back where you found it, please.’
Jake put it back, but not so out of sight this time.
‘Arnold – his wife died, sudden-like.’
Jake turned back to find the old man taking off his pince-nez. He put them beside the book on the table.
‘May I?’ Jake sat in the vacant leather chair opposite and leaned forward to place his empty glass on the brick hearth.
‘At first he came to live here awhile because he couldn’t bear to return to his empty house in the village.’ The old man continued, ‘I knew how that felt when my wife died – god rest her soul.’ There was a moment’s contemplative silence. ‘But after some time, I suspected he was staying on for other reasons – not that I was complaining, mind,’ he added quickly, ‘I like company.’ He picked up his glass of lemonade from the oval table beside his chair and took a sip.
‘Other reasons?’ said Jake.
‘I had a neighbour – Martha.’
Jake nodded.
‘She lived next door until she took ill. Very nice lady, kept herself to herself mind, but I could always call on her to run me an errand, and she always had time for a friendly natter over the garden fence.’
Jake smiled.
‘Arnold – he rather took a fancy to her, see.’
Jake did.
‘But we think she had a man friend already.’
‘Man friend?’ Jake didn’t understand the turn of phrase.
‘Yes, used to visit her, regular-like. He was a smart looking fella, always turned up in a fancy car – different one each time. Poor Arnold didn’t think he’d be in with a chance. Especially after I heard them talking in the garden; said he was building them a house.
‘Building them a house?’
‘Yeah, but she didn’t sound that pleased about it, said she liked where she was just fine. I must say I was pleased to hear that because she was such a nice neighbour. Not soon after that she nearly burnt the place down and mine with it. That’s why it’s boarded up next door. She had a lucky escape; left a pan boiling on the stove and clear forgot about it. Took her to hospital and that was the last I saw of her or her man friend.’
Jake nodded. So, that was when she’d returned to Cedar Grove to live out her days under supervision. Jake instinctively knew who that man friend was who visited – it wasn’t what the old man thought. It was her brother. It was Aubrey.
‘Did she have any other visitors?’
‘Only Arnold. He’d find any excuse to pop next door; would she like her lawn mowed? Would she like this, would she like that? I kept telling him to leave the poor woman alone. But he wouldn’t give up, and before long they were going to the pictures and having quiet little dinners at hers. Honestly, the women of today!’ He downed the remainder of his lemonade and put the empty glass on the table beside the book. ‘I’m sure it was all quite innocent, but oh how Arnold loved the excitement, the thrill of being the other man .’
Jake didn’t want to bring up who the man was who’d been visiting Martha. Instead, he asked, ‘Did she mention her son – Ralph?’
‘She had a son?’ The old man looked surprised. He raised his eyebrows.
‘But Arnold’s not in any kind of trouble, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ Jake wasn’t sure why he’d said that. Of course he wasn’t. He was dead and gone. Jake still had it on the tip of his tongue to ask, do you know why someone is impersonating your son?
The old man rose from his chair. ‘I think it’s time you left.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Jake said quickly.
‘Look here, I don’t know what you’re after or who sent you, but I want you to leave.’ The old man moved surprisingly quickly to the front door and opened it.
Jake walked past him and out the door. He turned around in the porch. ‘There was some misunderstanding. I came here to, um … to check he is dead. Jake winced. He shouldn’t have said that, but it was obviously in the back of his mind.
The old man eyed Jake: his face softened.
‘If you don’t believe me, about my son,’ he said before closing the door, ‘visit the old oak.’
‘The what?’