Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Iwoke up the next morning, feeling chilly even under the swathe of blankets I’d piled on. The central heating in the annexe was more laboured than I’d expected and apparently hadn’t been used for a while.
Throwing on my thick dressing gown over pink fleecy pyjamas, I wriggled my feet into a pair of woollen hiking socks and made a mental note to add ‘hot water bottle’ to my shopping list.
Opening the short petrol-blue curtains, I looked out on a damp Monday, grey mist clinging onto everything as if with determined talons. The empty cottages blinked back at me determinedly from across the cobbled courtyard.
I boosted the hot water supply and once it heated up sufficiently, I grabbed a shower and washed my hair, before throwing on my jeans and a thick pecan-coloured jumper. It wasn’t until I began applying makeup to boost my weary complexion that I began to panic again about what the hell I’d done.
The cottages carried such sentimental memories for me, but was I secretly trying to prove something to my parents?
Maybe I was subconsciously raising two fingers to Nick?
Trying to prove to him and to myself that I had put him behind me and was capable of so much more?
I mean, I wasn’t an experienced businesswoman, and an art degree didn’t exactly qualify me to renovate the cottages.
I twitched my freckly nose as I continued to examine my panicked reflection in the bathroom mirror. No. I just couldn’t allow Mum and Dad to quit the business; not so hastily and not without exploring other alternatives to give it a boost.
I tried to steady my prickling nerves.
Caleb had texted me last night, telling me the spare keys to all six of the cottages and to the office were bunched together on a starfish keyring at the back of the cutlery drawer.
After a brief rummage around, I located them. Shrugging on my quilted jacket, I pulled on my trainers and took another look around the annexe. It was a little sterile. A few cheerful-looking rugs and some pretty cushions would make it a bit homelier.
I decided to check out the office first, before heading over to the cottages.
The view over Port Starr harbour was still spectacular, even if there were swirls of smoky mist and cloud weaving their way around the spearing masts and creaking decks of the boats that were being slapped by the tide. To the left of the harbour, the beach spun away in a ribbon of deserted gold.
The office was a solid stone building with an old beechwood door. It used to be a stable for some of the wild horses that cantered across the countryside many years before.
The office door creaked open, the venetian blind suspended from it giving an indignant rattle as I closed it behind me. I switched on the main light and surveyed the cold, formal space.
All the family photographs of the four of us had been removed from the walls. Mum and Dad must have made a tentative start on clearing out some things before they put the business up for sale.
I trailed my fingers along the edge of the desk, a stout rectangular affair of dark wood surmounted by the computer, a little dusty laptop.
Opposite was a small kitchen with pebble-brown laminated flooring and two stools. Although it was all clean, the vanilla-coloured walls looked a bit weary.
I peered into the bathroom, which was situated next to a cupboard. That was the same. All clean and smelling sweet, thanks to an apple-scented air freshener, but the paint looked tired.
Taking a few snaps on my phone, I switched off the light and headed towards the door.
It was then that I noticed a pile of stray junk mail resting on the broad ledge of the front window. A thought struck me as I gathered up the envelopes. Couldn’t that ledge be used for something? Maybe some of my smaller pieces of artwork and some of Katie’s dinky ceramic pots and bowls?
I jabbed the idea into the ‘Notes’ section of my phone, feeling more excited than I was a second ago, and locked the door behind me.
Crossing the courtyard, I unlocked the door of the first cottage and stepped inside.
The windows were hazy with condensation, I noted, and there was a brisk chill.
I huddled further into my jacket, and wandered from room to room, entering more random notes and observations into my mobile.
I repeated the process, my heart sinking further, as I locked up one cottage and moved onto the next.
When I shut the door behind me on the sixth and final cottage, I stood back and surveyed each from a distance.
They all possessed very similar fixtures and fittings, and the palette of colours they were decorated in was limited: mustard walls and dark wood fittings, with carriage lights in many of the rooms. Even the carpets were either steel-grey or russet.
I’d been heartened to see dashes of Scotland in the form of a couple of tartan cushions and the odd checked throw on the sofa, but there was nothing original, bright or modern about any of them.
They were all uniform and bland, with the same colours, the same style of furniture and the same tired atmosphere.
I got the impression Mum and Dad had accepted defeat when reservations began dropping. The cottages had the potential to be so welcoming and cosy, but right now, they were just drab.
I thought of the vast array of painting shades that I used for my artwork – hot oranges, dreamy blues, fiery reds, woodland greens. If I could give each cottage its own particular look and identity, that would be a start.
Tourists needed to feel like they were experiencing a real taste of Scotland.
And the cottages were just that. They were so close to the swell of the sea and an impressive array of wildlife – the puffins, the seals that would bob up in the harbour, the majestic stags who would roam the hills, McKerron Castle and its colourful, enthralling past and rugged splendour – but we didn’t seem to be capitalising on it or reflecting it.
It wasn’t even uncommon for the odd bottlenose dolphin to be seen from the cottage windows, arching through the air or zipping past the fishing boats.
I took a few more pictures. Then I walked around to the rear of the cottages and captured several shots of their modest square patches of garden, complete with a bank of thick hedgerow.
The grass in each of the gardens was a neat oblong of emerald green, but Dad had insisted on allowing the six hedgerows to grow uninhibited.
Mum had been a little reluctant, until she’d seen the spiralling leaves and the nesting birds they attracted, and so they only received a very occasional basic trim over the years to maintain them.
It would be interesting to see what a wrought-iron outdoor table and chairs would look like in the gardens, I thought, and hastily added that to my many notes.
Wandering back around to the courtyard, I was so occupied that I didn’t hear Katie pull up in her lavender Mini.
‘Morning!’ she called out. ‘How was your first night in the annexe?’
I almost dropped my phone. ‘Bloody hell! You’re like a silent assassin! Are you on castors?’
She grinned. ‘Will you accept some takeaway coffee and hot croissants by way of an apology?’
‘Apology for what?’ I asked suspiciously.
I noticed Katie’s freckles were being eclipsed by blushes. ‘I think I may have inadvertently dropped you in it. Let’s go to the annexe and have breakfast and I’ll confess all.’
Once we’d pulled up two stools in the kitchen and took several grateful gulps of hot coffee, Katie dished the four warmed golden croissants onto plates.
‘So, come on, then,’ I urged. ‘What do you want to confess to?’
Katie broke off a piece of her croissant and chewed. ‘Well, when I was in the bakers just now buying this lot, a guy I’ve never seen before came in and was asking about the Scarlet Highwayman.’
My eyebrows danced. ‘Really? I wonder why?’ I tried to process this.
The Scarlet Highwayman tale had been popular once, but in the last decade or so had fallen out of popularity.
The locals used to revel in his scandalous history, but lately it just seemed to be me, my portrait of him and the reams of research I’d undertaken.
Why was someone enquiring about him? My curiosity rose. Katie’s chocolate-coloured eyes popped out of her creamy complexion. ‘I tell you, Popps, if I wasn’t married to your brother…’
‘Nice, was he?’
She grinned lasciviously. ‘Nice doesn’t even come close. Delectable.’
I pulled a face. ‘Yes. Well, I’ve had enough of that sort, thanks very much.’
I waited for her to expand on why this man was asking about the Scarlet Highwayman, but she had become quite giggly at the thought of the stranger.
‘You should’ve heard his accent, too. All deep and antipodean.
’ She proceeded to imitate his Australian accent but sounded more like a confused Scandinavian tourist.
‘So, when you’ve quite recovered, perhaps you can tell me what Adonis wanted?’
Katie snatched up her coffee. ‘Well, Mrs Kendrick, who was just behind me in the queue, said his name is Mason Cooper. He’s a thirty-six-year-old Australian historian and author.’
‘Mrs Kendrick even knows how old he is?’
She broke off another chunk of croissant and waggled it in the air.
‘Never underestimate her research capabilities. Apparently he’s just moved to Port Starr.
She said he visited the area a while back and liked it, was very taken with McKerron Castle, not surprisingly, and then, when he heard about the Scarlet Highwayman, decided he wanted to investigate.
’ She gave me a knowing look. ‘Rumours are he’s got a TV production company on board to make a documentary. ’
‘Who needs Google when you’ve got Mrs Kendrick?’
Katie grinned.
‘Well, it’s about time someone took an interest in the highwayman story, if you ask me.’ Then I eyed my sister-in-law. ‘Why do I think there’s an “and” coming?’
‘And…’ faltered Katie, closing her eyes for the briefest moment, ‘I happened to get chatting to him and I told him about your fascination with the Scarlet Highwayman ever since you were in short trousers.’
Horrified heat shot up my neck. ‘Oh, you didn’t. Shit, Katie, the guy is going to think I’m some kind of weirdo.’
She shook her frenzy of corkscrew curls. ‘No! He was delighted when I told him you had so much interest in the story and…’
‘And what? Come on, out with it.’
Katie’s cheeks glowed with colour. ‘I told this Mason Cooper about you and he’s coming up here within the hour to talk to you.’