The House Between Tides (25 page)

“Oh God. The body! I'd forgotten. It was found
here.
” Emma's strident tones reached her across the hall, and Hetty heard her telling Giles what the local media had said; they'd clearly milked the scant facts for all they were worth, bulking them out with conjecture. “Who do
you
think it is, Mr. Cameron?” James gave a curt response as he led them back into the hall, and Emma flashed a smile at Hetty. “It'll add interest, whoever it is. A real live murder mystery!”

James's face was set hard. “If there's nothing else—”

“What a place!” Giles said as he joined her, squeezing her arm.

“. . . in a pretty poor state, alright,” Dalbeattie was saying, “but the right contractors can work miracles.”

“Shh,” hissed Emma. “We'll talk tonight, over dinner.”

James passed her without a glance and stood at the door while they filed out. He banged the door shut behind them and fixed the lock while the visitors stood together, still talking. He looked down at the keys for a moment, then slipped them into his pocket, glancing up at Hetty as he did. “I'll be off, then,” he said. “But you know where to find me.” And he was in the Land Rover before she could protest. The vehicle bounced down the track towards the gateposts and swung out of them, spraying mud along the side of the shiny black Land Rover as it went.

2010, Hetty

Next morning, Giles offered to go to the shop to fetch fire-lighters. Neither of them had been able to get the peat to light, and the storage heaters were again refusing to cooperate. Giles had gone off with a readiness which seemed to acknowledge the coolness there was between them. The chill had deepened over dinner last night with Emma and Andrew, where there had been plenty of talk of partnerships, finance packages, and shared risk. They had all talked across her, and while much of this was unfamiliar to her, Giles had compounded her annoyance by telling her, in kindly tones, that he would explain things to her later. She was only just able to remain civil. Later she had tried to explain to him how she felt, but had been rewarded again with an injured look and an assurance that he had only come up to help.

She glanced in consternation at the plans behind her on the table, left there after Emma and Andrew's departure. They had brought some artist's impressions, done from old photographs, they told her, showing how the house might appear when restored. It looked fabulous but could be achieved only at a cost. That much she had learned.

At least she could try again to light the fire, so she went and knelt by the hearth. Giles had left her just a handful of sticks, as well as a litter of failed matches, and it was pretty pointless anyway, as they'd have to go for the ferry straight after lunch. But it was cold and wet outdoors, and she was childishly determined to get
it lit before he returned. Then she heard him banging on the door. Too late.

“It's open, just push hard. It jams,” she called and struck another match. Footsteps crossed the kitchen and stopped.

“You've used
all
of those sticks in a week!” She looked round and there was James, not Giles, leaning against the door-frame, arms folded, in characteristic pose. “But then Dùghall's given you poor peat, the old miser.” He straightened and stepped forward, holding out the keys to Muirlan House. “I forgot to give you these.”

She looked at them, then up at him. “No, you didn't.”

He gave a faint smile and dropped them onto the table. “No? I just drove past your . . . Giles, isn't it? Which is good, as I want to talk to you on your own.”

“Do you.” She rose, but his eye had been caught by the plans, and he stopped, then pulled out a chair and sat, elbows on the table, studying them with the same intensity he had shown yesterday. After a moment he glanced up at her, pointing to the red highlighter line on the estate plan. “This is what you believe to be the boundary?”

“Yes.”

He said nothing more, but his finger traced the line, his lips moving as if committing it to memory.

“You wanted to talk to me,” she said sharply, and he sat back, looping his arm around the chair back, and looked at her.

“Are you sure you want to go along with all of this?” he said at last.

“Meaning?”

“Are you really committed to what's being proposed?” He gestured to the artist's drawings. “This lot will cost millions. Much more than I suggested. You know that, don't you?” He didn't wait for a reply. “I'm assuming you don't have millions, so you'll have to borrow them or go into partnership, which means either huge debts or huge compromises. You do realise all this?”

“You imagine that I don't?” He was as bad as Giles.

His eyes flashed a smile, quickly gone. “You do. Then good. But make sure you understand what you're getting into before you're in too deep.” She remained silent. “And believe me, it goes deep.” He looked back at the map. “Besides, your man's wrong,” he said, tapping the sheet. “This shows the estate at the time of Blake's death, before Emily Armstrong made a number of settlements to existing tenants.”

“How can it be wrong?”

“God knows.” He bent over it again. “It shows the reserve, alright, but not the Forbeses' land or the land made over to the crofters. It even seems to claim the old farmhouse is still part of the estate.” He sat back and contemplated her. “But land ownership is only part of it; the machair is a rare and valuable habitat. The reserve will fight you tooth and nail—”

“With your support?”

“—and you'll find yourself in dispute with tenants who can claim—”

“They can claim what they like, but facts are facts.” Giles had stepped unnoticed through the open back door and now stood, fire-lighters in one hand and a bottle of malt whisky in the other. “Otherwise why bother to come and warn her off?”

James rose slowly while Giles slipped off his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair where James had been sitting. Marking his territory.

“Drink?” asked Giles, proffering the bottle with an affable smile. James began to refuse and then seemed to change his mind and sat again. Hetty went to get glasses. “What did you mean, Forbeses' land?” she heard Giles ask. When she returned, he had pulled up a chair opposite James. She sat too, at the head of the table, in neutral territory.

James pointed to the map. “That land belongs to Aonghas Forbes, the man who owns the old factor's house.”

“Really?” Giles slid a glass towards him. “I imagine the agents will have done their homework.”

James looked across at Hetty. “Blake created new crofts at the far end of the island a few years before his death, and they're still worked even if not inhabited.” And she thought of the socks on the washing line . . . “Emily Blake formed a trust with her brother's remaining money to be used for the benefit of the islanders, but she made the farmland over to Donald Forbes, along with the farmhouse.” Setting things right after her brother's death?

“But if that was so—” she began.

“Then Mr. Forbes will have the deeds.” Giles stretched out his legs with another genial smile, his hand cupping his glass. “And it'll be officially recorded in the normal way.” He took a drink, raising an eyebrow at James. “Don't you think?”

James nodded grimly. “There's documentation. Aonghas has it.” He sat forward, tapping the plans again. “And that patch of land has an existing tenant.”

“Ah, yes. The potato man.”

James glanced towards Hetty, that odd look in his eye again. “I strongly advise you not to challenge John MacPhail over his rights—”

“But all this can be sorted out through the official channels, Mr. Cameron,” Giles interrupted, “and Hetty has lots of support, you know. My own firm has represented her family's interests for several years. And, let's face it, the property
is
hers.” He turned to smile at her. “Besides, the house is of national importance,
Scottish
national importance, Mr. Cameron.”

“It's a rich man's conceit.”

Giles's jaw dropped. “Theodore Blake—” he began.

“Blake was a gifted painter and it's his paintings which are his legacy, not his father's house. Those paintings captured the spirit of this place, the same spirit which bound the islanders to the land.
That's his legacy. And the island has preserved its special quality because of his reclusive years, so we can thank him for that too.”

“But the house—”

James ignored him. “Did you find the place in your painting, Hetty?
Was
it Torrann Bay?”

“Yes.” Had he used her name before?

“And what did you see there?”

She paused, considering. “Why, nothing . . .” His eyes held hers. “Only the sand, and the sea.”

“What else?”

He spoke quietly, encouraging her, and the scene rose again before her: the light shafting across the wet sand, the tang of salt on the soft air, wind rustling through the silvery grasses, and the gulls' cries blown back from the sea. Emptiness— “Rocks, and waves breaking along the beach. Shore birds—” she said, addressing the expression in his eyes and Giles looked from one to the other, uncertain.

James held her gaze for a moment longer, then nodded and gave her a smile as he got to his feet. “Just so.” It was a smile of approval. Then he glanced again at the plans. “I said what I came to say to you, and returned your keys.” He picked them up and took her hand, pressing them into it. “You heard what the man said. It
is
all yours. And that includes Torrann Bay, you see. That's uncontested land. Unprotected, to do with as you think right.” He closed her fingers over the keys, and they dug into her palm. “And you know where to find me. Ruairidh too. When you need us.” He left his drink barely touched, nodded briefly at Giles, and was gone.

She heard the back door bang behind him, and a moment later the sound of the Land Rover starting up and driving off, and then fading as it headed along the road skirting the wide bay.

1910, Beatrice