Chapter 2
‘Here, get this down you.’ A chunky cut-glass tumbler half-full of amber liquid was thrust into Giselle’s hand.
The tang of oak-aged whisky hit her nose before she took a sip, the liquor sliding down her throat without her tasting it, the heat warming her stomach. She wished there was something she could drink to warm her heart. She’d never felt so cold, so numb.
Someone had draped a soft woollen blanket over her shoulders (she thought it may have been Cal), but the fabric did little to dispel the chill settling into her bones.
Mhairi was dead. Giselle hadn’t been able to save her.
‘There’s nothing you could have done, hen.’
Giselle looked around to see Cook smiling sorrowfully down at her.
Cook continued, ‘She was an old lady and—’
‘I was late.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I was late,’ Giselle repeated woodenly. ‘I was supposed to be here at eleven. If I’d been on time, I might have—’ Her voice broke and she bit her lip, her chin trembling.
‘You did your best, hen.’
Giselle wasn’t convinced. Her best would have been if she’d managed to save her. Those ten minutes could have made all the difference. Mhairi had only just passed…
Tears fell at last, hot and fast, and she sobbed, her shoulders shaking. She felt an arm around her and looked into Avril’s white, grief-stricken face.
Her friend’s cheeks were wet. ‘I should have known something was wrong. She always rang for her morning tea. Always.’
‘She was waiting for me to join her,’ Giselle said through her sobs. ‘I shouldn’t have been late.’
‘Stop blaming yourselves.’ Cook shoved a second tumbler at Avril.
‘It was her time to go.’ Although she said it in a matter-of-fact tone, her eyes brimmed with tears.
Cook (not her real name, but her title) had worked at the castle for years, long before the craft centre had come into existence.
Although the castle’s kitchen was now run by a head chef and an array of kitchen staff, she was still a formidable presence and saw to Mhairi’s meals personally, the way she’d done for forty years.
The two women had grown old together, although Cook was over a decade younger than Mhairi.
‘Did they say what it was?’ Avril asked.
Giselle lifted a shoulder in a shrug and the blanket slipped down her arm. Cook hoisted it back up, then lowered herself slowly into the chair next to her after moving a book aside. They were in the library, having been ushered out of the parlour when the paramedics arrived.
‘Heart attack or stroke, I expect,’ Cook said. ‘There’ll have to be a post-mortem.’ Her expression was pained and sorrowful, her face pale with shock. Mhairi’s loss would hit her the hardest out of all of them.
When Cal walked into the room, everyone stared at him, falling silent as they waited for news.
He shook his head, his grief apparent in the set of his jaw and the tension around his eyes. ‘They’ve taken her to Broadford,’ he said. ‘I wanted to go with her, but there wasn’t any point.’ He blinked hard, sank into a chair and buried his head in his hands.
‘What’s happened?’ Jinny demanded, hurrying into the room, breathless and anxious. ‘Why was the ambulance here? Who’s hurt? One of the guests?’ Jinny, the gift shop’s manager, also had a close working relationship with Mhairi. She was going to take the news hard, too.
Giselle’s face crumpled again and she pressed her hands to her face. ‘It’s my fault.’
Cook patted her on the arm. ‘Hush, hen, it’s not your fault.’
‘What’s going on?’ Jinny repeated.
Cal spoke. ‘It’s Mhairi; she’s dead. A stroke or a heart attack, they think.’
Jinny shook her head. ‘No, no, that can’t be right. I sent her yesterday’s sales figures first thing this morning, and she… Oh, hell.’ She began to cry.
Avril asked. ‘What do we do now?’
Cal’s face twisted as he fought to control his expression.
‘The show must go on. We’ve got guests in the castle and a couple of coach tours on site.
We can’t simply turf them out. And I’ve got to tell the others – they’ll have seen the ambulance, and I want them to hear the news from me.
Then I’ll need to inform her solicitor.’ He looked drawn and grey, his tan faded by grief.
‘But Cal! She’s dead!’ Jinny looked appalled.
‘I know. I was with her when they called it.’
‘Called it?’ Avril asked.
‘Made the decision to stop resuscitation.’
Giselle gasped. ‘I thought she was dead before I…’ She put a hand to her mouth.
‘She was. There was nothing you could have done. The paramedics had to try, but she was already gone.’
‘But we can’t carry on as though nothing has happened,’ Jinny protested.
‘We have to,’ Cal said. ‘We can’t simply ask the guests to leave.
And if we did, how long would we shut the castle and craft centre for?
The rest of the day? The weekend? Next week?
’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Mhairi made her wishes clear. In the event of her death, we have to keep everything running as normal until I take instruction from her solicitor.’
Jinny subsided, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘I don’t think I can. And look at Avril – and Giselle. You can’t expect them to just go back to work.’
Cal caught his bottom lip between his teeth. ‘Avril, would you like to go home?’
Avril shook her head. ‘I’d rather keep busy.’
Giselle couldn’t face opening her studio today. She kept feeling Mhairi’s birdlike chest under her hands as she desperately tried to pump life into her.
She wanted to go home and cry in private.
Then Cook asked the question that had been hovering in the back of Giselle’s mind, and probably in everyone else’s. ‘She’s not got any living relatives as far as I know, so who will inherit Coorie Castle?’
And although Giselle was deeply distressed over the death of the castle’s owner, she too couldn’t help wondering. She hoped whoever it was would keep Coorie Castle and Craft Centre just the way it was – because if they didn’t, it would be her fault.
She would never forgive herself for being ten minutes late.
‘Can I have a word?’ Rocco Moore’s mother caught him just as he was about to enter the finance director’s office.
Rocco hesitated. ‘Yeah, sure. Can it wait, though? I’ve got a meeting with Claire.’ He was already late, having been caught up in a longer than expected conference call with a client.
‘It’ll only take a minute. But not here. In private.’
Uh-oh. He didn’t like the sound of that.
Even though the CEO happened to be his mother, Beverly Moore wanting ‘a word in private’ was rarely a good thing.
Rocco wondered who was for the chop. It wouldn’t be himself, obviously, because not even she was that ruthless, and besides, Rocco owned substantial shares in the company.
He followed her along the plush carpeted hallway and into the corner office with its views over London.
‘Close the door,’ Beverly instructed, as she took a seat behind her chrome-and-glass desk.
Rocco often wondered how she managed to avoid getting finger marks over its polished surface.
As usual, there was very little on it, except for a glass paperweight, which was purely decorative since the company was largely paperless, and a computer screen so slim that it was barely wider than a credit card.
Rocco hovered, debating whether this unexpected meeting would be worth sitting down for.
His mother gazed pointedly at one of the leather chairs, so Rocco sat.
‘Nice suit,’ she began. ‘Is it new?’
‘I’ve had it a couple of months. What’s this about, Beverly?
You didn’t bring me in here to discuss fashion.
’ Rocco called his mother Beverly when they were at work – it seemed more professional and less sycophantic, somehow.
It also put them on a more equal footing as senior executives, and not mother and son.
And now he called his mother Beverly most of the time. It was easier that way.
Beverly steepled her manicured fingers, her elbows on the glass, as she leant forward. ‘Mhairi Gray is dead.’
‘Who?’
‘Your great grandfather’s sister. She’s your cousin, twice, or three times removed.’ Beverly wafted a hand in the air. ‘I can’t remember which. Anyway, she’s dead.’
He took a second to process the information. ‘I thought she was already dead?’ He hadn’t heard her name mentioned in years.
‘She was very much alive and living in Scotland – until this morning. Her solicitor has just been in touch with ours.’
Rocco nodded absently, vaguely remembering something about her, and wondered what the relevance was and why his mother had deemed it important enough to delay his meeting with Claire.
They had some crucial figures to go over and it was going to take some time.
He sighed, knowing that yet again he wouldn’t be leaving the office until late.
Then again, he wasn’t a nine-to-five person, and neither was his mother.
Nor Claire. It was expected that they’d stay until whatever needed to be done was done.
‘Mhairi owns a castle,’ Beverly was saying. ‘Or she did. You own it now.’
Rocco tilted his head as he studied her. Was she joking? Rocco didn’t think so. His mother wasn’t one for humour.
‘I own a castle?’ he asked slowly, certain he must have misheard.
‘That’s right. Your great-great-grandfather, Tandy Gray, bought it at a knockdown price in the late nineteenth century when the laird who owned it ran up substantial gambling debts and was obliged to sell.
It was in a sorry state and Tandy didn’t have the funds to do anything with it. But Mhairi’s father did.’
‘Wasn’t he the wealthy shipping magnate?
’ Rocco had heard stories from his father, but he’d assumed that’s what they had been: stories.
He hadn’t actually believed any of them.
And to be honest, he hadn’t much cared, being more interested in the here and now rather than ancient family history.
But his father had been dead eight years, and Rocco hadn’t thought about those stories in a very long time.