Chapter Eight

‘I’m sorry but you can’t come in.’

Before the male nurse closed the door, Rosalie had time to catch a glimpse of Geoff lying in bed, an oxygen mask over his face, surrounded by medical staff and equipment.

Her legs suddenly weak, she leaned against the wall for support. Up to now she had dismissed the seriousness of Geoff’s condition and found plenty of reasons for his extended stay in hospital. His blood pressure was high because the car crash had shaken him, because he liked whisky, rich foods and cigars a little too much. And of course he enjoyed being the centre of attention and having people – women especially – run around him. But what if she had got it wrong and he was seriously ill? Lorna had said he was anxious to speak to her. Perhaps he was dying, and he had sold Raventhorn to put his affairs in order.

She took a few steps to the window overlooking the car park and rested her forehead on the glass just as four floors below Rupert was coming out of the hospital. His face red, his pale blond hair dishevelled, he strode towards a black sports car, gesticulating with his hands. He appeared to be arguing with the dark-haired young woman walking next to him. Rosalie peered at her more closely. Dressed in knee-high boots, miniskirt and a short black fur coat, she had to be the girlfriend Alice had told her about.

Rosalie clenched her fists as she watched them get into the car and speed away. There weren’t many people she disliked, but Geoff’s cousins were definitely the exception. Elaine was a snob who’d always looked down on her mother and herself, and Rupert was a thug. She hadn’t exaggerated when she’d told Marc Petersen that he had made her life a misery for as long as she could remember. Almost from the first day her mother had taken her to Irlwick Primary School, Rupert had picked on her, tripped her over in the playground, sneaked worms or dead flies in her coat pockets or her lunch box, smeared dirt or paint over her books and clothes and generally made it his mission in life to terrorise her. Elaine had dismissed the incidents as harmless pranks, and Rupert had carried on tormenting her.

At secondary school things had taken a more unpleasant turn. Rupert and his friends would make clucking sounds or sing the ‘Greased Lightning’ tune every time she walked past, call her a dirty hoachin and claim she had nits or scabies. They regularly snatched her school bag and slung it into a muddy puddle, and even slashed her coat with scissors once. Rupert was clever enough to get his friends to do his dirty work so he never got blamed for anything.

She recalled a particularly nasty incident in which he’d been involved. She was thirteen. It was winter, it was snowing and she had missed the school bus because she’d stayed too long searching for her coat in the PE changing rooms. She eventually found it crumpled on the floor in a toilet cubicle. It was ripped, wet and soiled. Swallowing her tears of anger and frustration, she had thrown it into a bin bag – she’d rather pretend she’d lost it and be punished by her mother than tell her the truth about Rupert’s bullying. Wrapping her red woolly scarf around her, Rosalie had walked the three miles home, shivering in her school blazer. As she forked right towards old Raventhorn bridge three shadows had jumped in front of her.

‘Isn’t that Little Red Riding Hood walking home in the dark?’ Rupert had exclaimed with a mocking voice. ‘Watch out for the big bad wolf.’ He had blocked her way.

‘Leave me alone,’ she had mumbled, eyeing warily his two friends who stood on either side of him.

‘Or what?’ he asked. ‘Are you going to tell your mummy … or your daddy? Oh, but I forgot. You don’t have a daddy, do you? I bet you don’t even know his name. Not surprising, really, considering what a slut your mother is.’

Her blood ran cold and she gasped. ‘You’re wrong. I know my father’s name, I know everything about him, and one day he’ll come and beat you up, you’ll see!’ She had clenched her fists and swallowed hard. She mustn’t cry. She mustn’t show him how hurt and scared she was.

Rupert had laughed, imitated by his two cronies, then had swaggered closer. Three years older than her, he was already tall and bulky at sixteen and she’d recoiled, fearful he was going to hit her. He’d stopped laughing, shoved his fists into her chest and pushed her into the snow. His eyes narrowed in hatred, he had stood over her and pressed his thick-soled shoe down on her stomach.

‘You have no right to be at Raventhorn, bastard girl. It should be me living there, not you.’ He pressed so hard she could hardly breathe. ‘You’d better watch it because when I’m the laird, I’ll do whatever I want with you and your mum, and afterwards I’ll throw you both back out in the dirt where you belong.’ And he’d kicked her before turning away and gesturing to his two sidekicks to follow him.

She hadn’t told anyone about the incident, partly because she didn’t want to cause any trouble between Geoff and Elaine, but mainly because Rupert’s words had hit a raw nerve. It was true, she didn’t have a father. All she knew about him was his first name – John – and she wasn’t even sure it was his real name. Her mother had always met her questions with a stony silence and Rosalie had been reduced to making up stories about him. He was an American rock star, a secret agent, an explorer who had disappeared whilst searching for a treasure in the Amazonian forest.

Nothing could take away the hurt and the shame of being nobody’s daughter. What made it harder too was that her mother didn’t have any relatives. Rosalie had grown up without grandparents, aunties or uncles, and as talking about the past always upset her mother, Rosalie didn’t ask any questions. She supposed she could count herself lucky to live at Raventhorn with Geoff and Lorna as substitute family.

‘Excuse me.’ A man’s voice nearby made her jump.

She turned round and found herself face to face with a doctor.

‘How is he?’

‘Stable for now but it was a close call. I’m afraid he needs a heart bypass. I am scheduling the operation for tomorrow morning.’

A black mist closed in on her once again. So Geoff was truly ill. So ill he might very well die.

‘Are you all right, miss?’ the doctor asked. ‘Do you need to sit down?’

‘No, thanks, I’ll be fine. Can I see him?’

‘Only for a few minutes.’

She followed him to Geoff’s room. How pale he was against the white hospital linen, and how grey his hair looked. With the drip stuck to the back of one hand, an oxygen mask on his face and the monitors wired to his body, he looked old and frail. A glimmer lit his pale blue eyes when she walked in and his fingers clutched at the sheet as if he wanted to pull them off and sit up.

‘Don’t move, don’t even try to talk,’ she warned, pulling a chair closer to the bed to sit down. ‘You really are the most annoying person I know.’ She tried to keep her voice light and cheerful. ‘There I was, ready to have it out with you for letting the insufferable Marc Petersen into my life, and for …’ she coughed to clear her throat ‘… well, you know, all the other things you should have told me about, but once again you’ve managed to wriggle your way out of trouble.’

She took his hand and pressed it lightly. Geoff closed his eyes. His breathing deepened. He lifted a hand to pull the mask off his face.

‘I have to speak to you, darling,’ he whispered. ‘There are things I must say … it’s important.’

She placed the mask back on his face. ‘Now isn’t the time for explanations. You get better first, then I’ll go mad at you.’

She glanced at the heart monitor with its green dot flashing on the screen and leaned towards him. Whatever his faults, he and Lorna were the only family she had left. She blinked the tears away and smoothed his hair on his forehead.

He lifted the oxygen mask off again. ‘Rupert said you’d had trouble on the road last night. Someone went after you, caused you to have an accident.’

She frowned. How had Rupert found out about the previous night’s car chase already? Unwilling to alarm Geoff, she shrugged as if it was no big deal. ‘It was nothing, some stupid driver, that’s all.’

‘He also told me about Duncan’s cab getting vandalised. Please, you must be careful. Promise me.’

His face became ashen and his nostrils were pinched as he struggled for breath. ‘He found us … after all this time, he found us. He found you.’

What was Geoff talking about? Who had found her?

‘Stop talking and put that mask back on,’ she scolded but Geoff shook his head and became even more agitated.

‘He’s dangerous, that’s why she left, why she had to hide. Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me …’ He had trouble breathing and his skin took on a waxy yellow shade.

Alarmed, Rosalie replaced the mask on his face once more. ‘Calm down. Breathe slowly. That’s it. Again.’

A nurse walked into the room, pulling a trolley of equipment behind her. ‘I’m sorry but you have to leave now. We have to run more tests before the operation.’

Rosalie nodded and started to rise. She kissed Geoff’s hand. ‘I love you. Everything will be all right. I’ll be here when you wake up.’

One last time, he tried to pull his oxygen mask off to speak but she put her hand over his to stop him. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Be good.’

She followed a nurse into a small office and was handed a pile of forms to fill in and sign since Geoff had nominated her as his next of kin. The nurse said there was no need for her to come in the morning as bypass operations usually lasted several hours. The hospital would ring her when Geoff was out of theatre.

She managed to hold back the tears until she was alone in the lift, but once she started crying, she couldn’t stop. Her hand in front of her mouth to stifle her sobs she almost staggered out of the hospital, oblivious to everything and everyone around. She had no idea how long she sat in the cab, staring at the thickening layer of snow covering the windscreen.

‘Are you there, Rosalie love?’ Fergus’s voice on the cab radio startled her.

She coughed to clear her throat. ‘Yes, Fergus. What’s up?’

‘I’m just lettin’ you know that Petersen isn’t happy. He called me twice in the past twenty minutes. You were supposed to phone him, he said. You’d better do it now before he comes after you or alerts the constabulary.’

She sniffled, wiped her damp cheeks with her pink scarf. ‘I completely forgot about him. I’ll text him now.’

‘Aye, you do that. Don’t give the man a hard time. I think he’s genuinely worried about you. We all are.’ Fergus paused. ‘You sound a wee bit upset.’

In a broken voice she told him about Geoff’s heart condition and about the very real possibility of him not surviving the operation. Before starting the cab, and although she didn’t like having to account to Marc Petersen for her every move, she sent him a text to say she was on her way back.

After yet another hot and restless night, Marc was ready to believe that Isobel McBride’s bed was indeed enchanted. Once again it hadn’t been nightmarish visions of his father’s helicopter crash that kept waking him up, but dreams of the same mysterious woman as before. He could feel the texture of her skin as he pinned her under him, taste her sweetness, lose himself inside her, but every time he woke up his bed was empty and his hands closed onto crumpled sheets instead of on the warm, soft body that drove him crazy with lust. He eventually managed to fall into a slumber some time after four and got up, feeling rough and ill-tempered as daylight threw a gloomy grey into the room through the curtains.

After another tepid shower, he went down to the kitchen, his footsteps echoing in the empty house. Rosalie had already left to take Lorna to the train station and visit McBride in hospital, so he gave her a quick call to make sure she was safe. He made scrambled eggs on toast and a pot of coffee, and listened to the castle’s creaking, groaning and clinking sounds as he ate at the kitchen table.

There was something he hadn’t had the chance to do yet, he thought as he put his plate and mug in the sink – to explore Raventhorn, and find out where all these noises came from. He smiled. Perhaps he’d dislodge one or two ghosts on the way.

It was a strange, but not unpleasant feeling, to walk along the long corridors, wonder what treasures lay hidden behind the closed doors, and think all this was, for now at least, his. Most of the ground floor rooms looked unlived in, with furniture stacked up or covered with dust sheets, except for an imposing oak-panelled dining room, an inviting billiard room and a music room complete with a grand piano, a beautiful harp and a deflated bagpiper sitting on an old chair – ghostly Finghall’s bagpipes, perhaps?

There was also the beautiful, but messy, library he’d visited briefly the night before to get a map and the keys to the Range Rover. Today he took the time to look at the books and papers scattered on the desk, next to an ashtray filled with half-smoked cigars and a tarnished silver flask. There was no need to unscrew the top to know what was inside. He’d already gathered that McBride enjoyed his whisky.

Among the books were a detailed history of the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, old papers about Denmark and countless original and translations of poems and sagas. Next to the desk towered a tall pile of manuscripts, all of them transcriptions of runestones. A note scribbled on the sheet stated that all of them had been found in North Jutland.

Memories flooded Marc’s mind, so vivid his breath caught in his throat. Summer meadows and deep forests. Endless empty beaches and crashing waves under a sky so vast and so blue it made the soul fly.

North Jutland was where his father’s family was from and where he’d spent the happiest holidays of his life. Never since had he felt happier or freer than when he left his English boarding school for the summer and spent two glorious months on his grandfather’s farm, roaming the countryside, climbing ancient burial mounds, looking for runestones. And dreaming.

His grandfather had told him about the people who used to live on the land, and some of their stories and legends. Enthralled, Marc had listened to his tales of Norse gods and mythical creatures, and to stories of Viking expeditions around the world. And when one summer, he had taught Marc how to decipher some of the inscriptions on the runestones that scattered his land, he had opened up a whole, ancient and magical world.

These exciting summers had stopped abruptly when Marc reached his thirteenth birthday, and his father decided he should make more productive use of his time by attending summer schools. There had been no more holidays in Hanstholm, and he’d only seen his grandfather once more after that – in his coffin at his funeral. Eager to sever his links with his humble Danish roots, his father had then sold the farm and the land.

What he didn’t know was that Marc had bought the farm back a few years ago. He hadn’t returned there yet – he rented it out – but one day he would, when he wasn’t so busy … or afraid to be confronted with ghosts of the past and childhood memories.

What was ironic was that his father should buy the Scottish estate of a man obsessed with the very Danish ancestors he had spent his life disowning. Not for the first time Marc wondered what he’d been thinking of. Leaving the library, he made his way upstairs. Many of the rooms on the first and second floor were closed and he didn’t like to intrude, but one door was ajar. He pushed it open and stepped into an elegant bedroom – a woman’s, judging by the rose blooms adorning the wallpaper, the dressing table covered with perfume bottles and the tall, narrow vase in which stood a single white lily. The bed was made. A book lay on the bedside table, with a pair of reading glasses folded neatly on top. It was almost as if its occupant had just left. Almost, because there was an echo of sadness and loss that made Marc quickly step back and close the door softly behind him.

He went up to the third floor where a spiral staircase led to the top of one of the towers. The old, rackety door at the top didn’t take much effort to open, and he stepped outside, onto the battlement. Oblivious to the cold, he stood against the parapet, taking in the sweeping view of the loch that reflected the lead grey sky, the snowy forest all around and the white peaks of the Cairngorms in the distance.

The vast, unspoilt scenery called to him. Soon, he promised himself, he’d work out an itinerary and hike up to the mountains, explore their crags and glens and secret places. Perhaps there, at last, the photos of the wreckage of his father’s helicopter that were etched into his brain would start to fade. What would never fade however was the guilt of knowing that the accident had probably been his fault.

He was about to turn round when a gust of wind ruffled the surface of the loch and he noticed a large shadow under the water about fifty feet from the shore. He narrowed his eyes. It was much too large to be a rock. Perhaps it was the remains of a sunken boat or a submerged islet. Then he remembered what Rosalie had told him the day before. A hunting lodge once stood on the shores of the loch, before a freak storm changed it from a small tarn into what it was now.

A freak storm caused by Harald Johansen’s – Harald the Cruel’s –grief and anger at having his new bride taken away from him. He had to admit that Rosalie’s story suited the mood and atmosphere of the area perfectly. The image of a feminine silhouette standing in the moonlight on top of the Armitages ruined castle flashed in front of him. He shrugged. Even he was falling prey to the romanticism of the place, it seemed.

He turned round, pushed the squealing door shut and went back downstairs. He tried to call Rosalie, but her mobile was switched off, so he phoned Fergus at Love Taxis and demanded that Rosalie phoned or text him, and never mind if he sounded a little too sharp.

After another pot of black coffee, he settled down to work in the drawing room. He had hardly fired up his laptop since his arrival and he had just started to look at his emails, when he heard a car drive up the lane, followed a couple of minutes later by loud banging at the kitchen door. It must be the cleaner. Fergus had warned that his wife would call today.

A small, wiry woman ensconced in a thick anorak as bright orange as her hair stood at the kitchen door, her face unsmiling. He opened the door wide to let her in.

‘You must be Marion. Good afternoon. Please come in.’

‘Why isn’t the key in its usual place?’ the woman asked, in lieu of greeting.

When he told her it would be kept in a safe place from then on and not in the planter where anybody could find it, she pursed her lips and pushed past him in disapproving silence that lasted the whole of five minutes, the time for her to take off her fur boots and parka, slip an apron and felt slippers on. Holding a dust rag and can of polish spray, she then followed him to the drawing room where she set to find out everything she could about him.

Once again he revealed far more about himself than he ever intended. The women of Irlwick were very skilled at extracting personal information, it seemed, or perhaps he was so tired he let his guard down.

‘Petersen. That’s not English.’ Marion stopped her energetic dusting of a massive oak dresser. Narrowing her eyes, she inspected him from head to toe.

‘My father’s family is from Denmark.’

‘You’re Danish? But, of course! Now I understand why you’re here. Geoff needs your help to translate his old papers, doesn’t he?’

She waved her dusting rag at him. ‘Have you seen the mess he made in the library? You can’t walk for fear of tripping over books and parchments but Geoff, that old fool, forbids me to move anything. I hope you’re going to sort things out.’

He would be quite incapable of translating McBride’s papers, since it was many years since he’d read any text in the Futhark alphabets most runestones were written in, but he didn’t set Marion right. If anything, pretending to be a translator was a great cover to explain his presence at Raventhorn since Rosalie didn’t want anyone to know the truth – it was certainly better than pretending to be a trainee taxi driver.

Marion frowned and a suspicious look crossed her face. ‘That’s funny, I could swear you’ve a bit of a French accent, like that chef on the telly.’

Did anything get past this woman? Half-amused, half-exasperated, Marc proceeded to explain that his mother was indeed French and that although he’d been brought up in England, he’d lived in Paris for some years.

‘Really? French and Danish, that’s glamorous!’

Marion left the room and he turned to his laptop again. His mind however kept wandering – to McBride and his fascination for Scandinavian history, to Rosalie and the thugs who had run her off the road, and to Loch Armathiel, and the tragic story of Harald and Isobel. He shook his head. He was daydreaming again, neglecting his work and putting off his phone call to Kirsty.

She must be fuming that he was here, in Scotland, when he knew that she wanted him to be in London on Saturday night. ‘I have been working on a proposal,’ she had told him before she left for Paris on Monday, ‘a very interesting proposal that I’m sure you won’t be able to resist. We’ll discuss it further at the weekend.’

He didn’t need to ask what she meant. Kirsty was working on a possible merger between Petersen Holdings and an American firm that his father had wholeheartedly supported. Marc, however, was not keen on the idea of relocating to the States – with or without Kirsty.

As he keyed in her number, he wondered fleetingly why he hadn’t thought about her these past couple of days. She was every man’s dream woman – beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated, successful – she just wasn’t his dream woman. He raked his fingers through his hair and blew an annoyed breath. How ridiculous … he was thinking about the mysterious woman that haunted his dreams here at Raventhorn!

When Kirsty didn’t pick up, he left a message on her voicemail and scrolled down his emails for an update from the Hong Kong police about his father’s helicopter accident. He was still waiting to hear whether or not his father had been piloting the helicopter – for confirmation that their phone conversation had upset him so much he hadn’t paid enough attention and crashed the craft against the side of the mountain. There was nothing from Hong Kong, so he turned his attention to Carl Fitzpatrick’s file. The man was an incompetent idiot and fully deserved to go bankrupt. Yet there was no way he would let that happen, no way he would risk another man’s life.

Marc reclined against the back of the chair, pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes. Figures and business projections scrolled across his mind, and soon a risky scheme started to take shape. Yes, that might just work. It was worth a try. If Fitzpatrick was willing to follow his advice.

Satisfied, he opened his eyes and blinked in surprise when he saw how dim the room had become, in sharp contrast with the white storm raging outside. Banging noises resounded in the corridor and Marion strode in, pulling an antique looking vacuum cleaner behind her.

‘That blasted boiler’s stopped working again,’ she grumbled. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve told Geoff to do something about the heating, but he always says he can’t afford to have it fixed. You’d better fetch some wood from the shed across the yard. It’s going to get bleemin’ freezing in here before long.’ She plugged in the vacuum cleaner, which roared like a plane about to take off and spurted a cloud of dust.

A couple of hours later, Marc watched Marion’s car skid around the bend towards the bridge. He stamped his feet on the mat to get rid of snow sticking to his shoes and walked back into the castle. Eight inches, at least, of snow now covered the ground and it was coming down hard. The wind had picked up too. It blew through the pine trees in gusts so strong the whole forest shook, moved and groaned as if it were alive.

He was greeted by the cheerful glow of the fire he’d lit in the drawing room. Next to the fireplace was a satisfyingly high pile of logs, which he hoped would last all evening. Resolving to phone a heating engineer the following day, he put a couple more logs in the grate then stood a moment, arms folded on his chest, staring at the flames, and puzzled over the mystery surrounding Love Taxis again.

Why would anyone go to so much trouble to harass a small taxi firm in the Highlands? Hoax calls were unpleasant but hardly life threatening. They were the kind of stunt a bored teenager would pull. However physical attacks and material damage, like the vandalising of Duncan’s cab and the previous night’s car chase, were completely different. What were the perpetrators hoping to achieve? Put Rosalie out of business, perhaps, but it wasn’t as if there was a turf war between rival cab companies. Maybe he was looking at this the wrong way. Maybe this was personal and Rosalie was the intended victim. If that was the case, it seemed unlikely that whoever was threatening her had any intention of stopping anytime soon.

The most sensible thing would be to close Love Taxis – he didn’t have to look at the books to know it was the most unprofitable business he’d ever owned. That would however feel like giving in to the threats, and was out of the question.

His phone rang, breaking the silence.

‘What are you thinking of, letting me down at the last minute? Don’t you realise what strings I had to pull to get the opera tickets and a table at Jules’ for Saturday night?’ Kirsty snapped at the other end of the line.

‘I’m sorry. This trip to Scotland is turning out to be more complicated than I originally thought.’

She let out an exasperated groan. ‘I had arranged the whole evening so that Ben Turner and his wife could be with us. Ben is vital to our New York project. Now I’m going to have to ask Maguire to come with me.’

‘Don’t bother Maguire. It’s his anniversary tomorrow night. He’s been talking about it for weeks. His wife hasn’t been well and he’s taking her to some country hotel for a break.’

‘Well, he’ll have to celebrate another day.’

He frowned. ‘Turner can wait. In fact, the whole New York project can wait. Maguire’s wife is very ill. There may not be another chance for him to—’

‘Then she should be resting,’ Kirsty cut in. ‘Anyway, since when have you been a champion of your employees’ family life? You don’t usually care about the people who work for you. And rightly so, I might add. They get paid to work, not to socialise with their wives.’

The tone of her voice riled him, especially since she was only stating the harsh truth. He worked hard, rarely took any time off, and expected his staff to be as committed to their job.

‘I don’t want you to bother Maguire this weekend,’ he repeated. ‘I’m sure you can ask someone else from the office to accompany you or go on your own.’

She fell silent. ‘All right then, since Maguire’s anniversary is that important to you, I’ll leave him alone. What are these complications you’re talking about?’

‘I’m not entirely sure but it looks like I’ll have to stay up here longer than I expected.’

She laughed. ‘Come on, Marc, admit it, you’re enjoying being the lord of the manor, aren’t you?’

‘No, of course not.’ There was the noise of an engine outside, followed by a door slamming. Glancing out of the window he saw Rosalie’s cab in the courtyard. At last, she was back.

‘I have to go. Sorry about the opera and the restaurant but I’m sure you’ll be fine.’