The House Between Tides Page 27

2010, Hetty

  Hetty sat on the floor of her sitting room with Blake’s letters spread about her and nursed a cup of coffee. So that was it. She had read and reread them, and there wasn’t another drop to be squeezed from them. But what had she really learned? She picked up the handful of early ones, written in the critical years of 1910 and 1911, and thumbed through them. Some useful insights gained but few concrete facts, and there had followed a long gap of almost two decades before the next ones. And there had been no further mention of Beatrice.

  Jasper Banks had come round earlier that afternoon, keen to see her painting of Torrann Bay, and had stood in front of it for a long time. “So much talent in one so young, and he’d the world at his feet then, you know.” He went over to the picture of the deconstructed Beatrice, then turned back, looking speculatively at her, and said, “There was a desperate look in your eye that day at the auction, which is why I let that one go. I recognise obsession when I see it. Now, about these bones—”

  Matt, it transpired, had told him the essentials. And she found herself explaining not only the bones but also the conflict over the land, her dilemma regarding the hotel, and her concerns about the island itself. “I was looking to start afresh, you see, to build on my family’s connection with the island, but I’ve been told the house is past saving and that the hotel scheme would not be welcome, even if I could get the money together. The last thing I want is to get into conflict with the people there.”

  “And be cast as a despoiler!” He smiled, then shook his head. “You know, I’ve never been up there, and I can’t think why not. But your project sounds interesting, and I’d like to hear more.” Then his phone had gone off and he’d glanced at it. “Must go. But let’s talk again.” She’d felt a flicker of apprehension as he left, thinking that another heavyweight putting his oar in was the last thing she needed. “And keep asking about that other painting, won’t you? We’ve got to track it down.”

  So she had felt honour bound to send an email to Ruairidh asking if he knew anything about it, and took the opportunity to fill him in with what she had gleaned from the letters. It also gave her an excuse to tell him that a second survey of the house had now been commissioned, and after a moment’s hesitation she copied the email to James. It was cowardly not to phone, of course, but the situation was so awkward.

  She took her empty cup through to the kitchen. Head versus heart. Was it actually as simple as that? But for the dispute over land ownership, surely some compromise could be reached. A more modest project, perhaps, which balanced everyone’s needs and allowed her to realise something of her own dream. Maybe it would be worth talking further to Jasper Banks.

  She made another cup of coffee and took it back to the sitting room, and checked her emails. No reply from Ruairidh, who was probably at work, but as she sat there, James’s response crashed into her in-box. I don’t know about a lost painting, but I do know about the survey. I almost threw them off the island yesterday, very indignant they were. I don’t know what you expect them to tell you that’s different—you have the facts already. Trust me on this. You have the choice of pulling the place down or shackling yourself to the Dalbeattie and Dawson bandwagon and accepting the consequences. Do you really want that great morgue of a place hanging around your neck? I could build you a fabulous cottage on the site. Go the other route and you’ll be in for a whole heap of trouble. I needn’t elaborate, you’re an intelligent woman, just trust your instincts, but don’t take too long about it.

  That’s all I’m going to say. Must go. But it’s make-your-mind-up time, and I haven’t quite given up on you yet.

  Given up on her! Indignantly, she clicked the reply button, then hesitated, her fingers poised over the keyboard. Emails could be dangerous, dashed off in haste and then regretted. She took a breath before typing, more calmly. It’s good of you to keep an eye on the place, but you must see that I have to wait for their report before I can decide. This is a big decision, and I’ve got to get it right. She reread it and, satisfied that it struck the right tone, pressed send. The response was swift.

  You will.

  Indignation evaporated, and she indulged a moment in the thought of having a cottage there, with that incomparable view across the strand. A place of refuge, with none of the hassle.

  The thought sustained her through the day and grew on her as she clung to the overhead strap in the underground, and as she stopped to pick up some groceries from the corner shop and walked home. There would be time there for all those things, she promised herself—walks, reading, photography, time to think, and she could still work from home.

  But she couldn’t see Giles there.

  As she unpacked her bag, she heard his key in the front door and looked up in enquiry. Had he said he was coming round? She must have forgotten.

  “I was in the area,” he explained, and put a bottle of wine on the counter. “Thought I’d drop by.”

  Something in his tone rang false. “Great. Are we celebrating?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He pulled the cork. “Let it breathe for a bit.”

  She waited for more. “Are you staying to eat?”

  Then the phone rang, and it was Emma Dawson. “We wanted you to know immediately,” she said, “but your Mr. Cameron is trouble.” Hetty sat down. “We don’t know exactly what he’s planning—” Hetty listened with a growing disbelief. In telling her story, Emma managed to combine professional concern with good old-fashioned spite, and when she had finished, Hetty put the phone down and sat staring at the table. Giles was watching her from the kitchen door, and she now knew why he had come round, clutching the bottle of wine: he’d already been told. She kept her eyes fixed on the table, because lifting them would mean encountering his inevitable smugness. “I can help you with the figures, darling, but I’m not a property guru,” he had told her when he had first pressed her to engage Dalbeattie and Dawson. “So take them on. Property development is a shark-infested business.”

  And it appeared that Emma had unmasked a great white.

  She picked up a pen and spun it compulsively on the table, rerunning the telephone conversation in her mind. “He and a man called Andrew Haggerty, who styled himself principal development officer, had a scheme to restore Muirlan House three years ago, before you came on the scene.” Hetty said she knew. James had told her. “But now he’s up to something else.” Emma insisted; she had a mole in the planning office. “But he’s not working with Haggerty this time but with a woman, Agnes McNeil, and six months ago they were enquiring about restoring the farmhouse and outbuildings for public and commercial use. It’s only an initial enquiry, but it must be for a hotel, what else? And so that explains why he was so keen to condemn Muirlan House. Sabotaging the competition! Don’t you see? And apparently he’s got some very big backers behind him. American money.” Emma had paused to draw breath. “There was something about James Cameron.”

  Hetty had begun to think so too.

  But this news stunned her, beggaring belief, and she sat there as her daydreams crumbled to dust around her. Could it be true? She could still feel the imprint of the keys he had pressed into her palm and see the warm approval in his eyes, and just now that two-word vote of confidence in response to her email. Had she so completely misread him? And what about Ruairidh? He, surely, was genuine, the embodiment of integrity, but if the farmhouse was his grandfather’s and James was planning to develop it, then he must be involved too. She felt quite gutted by the thought.

  Giles strolled over, carrying two glasses. “I know, don’t tell me. Andrew rang me at work this morning.” Of course he had. “But what a facer, eh? Cameron’s a cool operator, I’ll give him that.” He handed her a glass and sat down opposite, leaning back in the chair, watching her. “Although he seems to have rather overplayed his hand—”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “No? Well, rumour has it that he’s shipped out. Uncontactable. Ask Emma. She’s been trying all afternoon. And your policeman f
riend’s gone on holiday with his family somewhere.”

  “James emailed me this morning.”

  Giles sat forward. “He did? What did he want?”

  “Just the roof fall. And other stuff.”

  “Pressuring you to decide?”

  Yes, pressuring her to decide. “But he encouraged me to get a second opinion.”

  “Like I said, he’s a sharp operator. But look, sweetheart, it doesn’t matter.” He leant forward, cupping his glass between two hands, demanding eye contact. “His ship has sunk before it sailed, holed below the water line. Andrew’s had confirmation that the factor’s house, and associated land, does still belong to the estate. To you.” She looked dully back at him. “The Forbes family have been tenants for generations and, as such, will have rights, even though no rents have been collected for decades. But in the eyes of the law, the house, the farm, and all the contested land belong to the estate. That’s what I came to tell you.” He raised his glass in a toast. “So Cameron’s high and dry, my dear. Game, set, and match.”

  She stared back at him. “But he said there was documentation.”

  “He also said that land to the west was croft land still worked by some old geezer, but as the last record of a tenant there was 1956, with an address in Toronto, he can only be a squatter. Some local derelict, I expect.”

  The wine suddenly tasted sour. She put down her glass and went over to the window. Darkness was falling, and she watched the daily trudge back from work pick up momentum. Grey figures shuffling along the grey pavements back to grey homes. That neatly kept croft belonged to no derelict.

  And who, in all this, was Agnes McNeil?

  She tried to phone James and left a message, and two days later she had still failed to get any response. Emma Dawson was right, he’d vanished. She had phoned repeatedly and always got the answerphone, and emails went unanswered. Ruairidh was not replying either, presumably still away. She made one last attempt to reach James from her mobile before leaving a client’s office at the end of the working day, then snapped it off, declining the invitation to leave yet another message.

  You know where to find me, he had said.

  And then, as she stood in the office lobby, she remembered. What a fool! There was no signal at his cottage, and his last email had been sent from his phone, so he could be away too. She rang the mobile number from which it had been sent, but this too went to answerphone, so she typed a rapid text demanding that he ring her. He’d switch it back on sooner or later, and then he’d have to respond; for God’s sake, he couldn’t hide forever.

  She stepped out into the street, dodging the traffic and ignoring an irate taxi driver’s horn, and crossed to the bar where she was meeting Giles. He’d become supercharged since this new development, an almost unstoppable force, and so far she’d felt too shaken to rein him in. “Look, forget it,” he said repeatedly. “It doesn’t matter. They haven’t got a leg to stand on and Emma and Andrew are coming up with a range of very promising opportunities. There’s a company interested in a franchise for the shoot, and the trout fishing, as well as some eccentric banker who’s keen to develop the golf course. He’s offered to buy you out completely . . .” He had paused, letting the last suggestion sink in, then continued hastily at her expression. “There might be European funding to be had for a wind turbine, you know, out of sight of the house, of course, but the demand for power would be high. Now that it seems we can restore both houses, the opportunities are endless. Those old stables would make a wonderful spa.”

  We . . .

  She saw him as she entered the pub, buying drinks at the bar. “More news!” he said, as she joined him. “Got caught at the last minute, by Andrew.” He raised a hand at her expression. “Don’t bite my head off, he tried to get you first. But look, I can’t stay long, I’ve got to meet a client. Let’s grab a seat.” He led her to a table in the corner, then broke his news. “Andrew’s discovered who your tenant is. A John MacPhail.”

  “Yes, James Cameron told us.”

  “Ah, but what he didn’t say was that John MacPhail is Mr. MCP Software Inc., did he? Worth millions. One of the biggest software companies in Canada. And he was James Cameron’s backer for his previous scheme. He’s been over recently, quite a regular, it seems.” And she remembered the craggy-faced, soft-spoken North American, the exchange of looks with James in the café, the narrowing of eyes, and her heart sank.

  She had been played for a fool. “So all that time—”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter. But if he could interest MacPhail, so can we! Don’t you see? And you’ve got Jasper Banks, with his millions, eating out of your hand. And one big investor attracts others, you know they hunt in packs, and Jasper Banks could be a great advocate. With him on board, we can put together something more convincing than some half-baked local scheme.”

  “Wait—”

  “Andrew wants to contact MacPhail and sound him out—”

  “No.”

  “Whyever not?”

  “Because I’ve met him.” She heard again that great joyful laugh as the man steered the wild-child duckling back to the flock, and saw the carefully restored croft house with its neat potato patch. There could be little doubt where his sentiments would lie.

  Giles stared at her. “You did? How? When?”

  “When I was up there. And he’s on James’s side.” She picked up a cardboard coaster and began bending it in two, her brain whirring.

  “Then get Andrew to talk to Banks instead—”

  She ignored him. “I’m going back.” The coaster snapped along the crease. “It’s the only way. Ùna’ll have to be back for school, so Ruairidh’ll be home soon, and I’ll just sit on James Cameron’s doorstep. He can’t stay away forever.”

  “You’re not going on your own—”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I could try and rearrange my appointments.”

  “No, really, don’t—”

  “Then get some backup from Emma and Andrew, at least.”

  “I will if I need to, but I’d rather deal with it on my own.”

  He gave her an exasperated look, then reached back to pick up his jacket, ushering her out of the bar, hailing a passing taxi. “Don’t just leave like you did last time, with no warning,” he said as she got in. “Let me know—”

  The taxi left him standing there and sped through the puddles, sending up an arc of spray, and for a moment she was transported back to that first evening when she had seen James’s Land Rover racing the tide across the strand. That first evening, when it had all seemed so easy.

  Chapter 36

  1911, Beatrice

  There was a light morning mist on the foreshore on the day that Theo left, and the tide was well in. Cameron and Donald loaded his travelling trunk into the boat, and Theo paused on the sand to look back at Beatrice where she stood with her shawl clasped around her, shivering in the damp air. “Go indoors, Beatrice, the mist is chilling.”

  “I will, in a moment. Safe journey, Theo.”

  He nodded briefly before stepping aboard. “I’ll send word when to expect me back.” She saw a look, almost of grief, cross his face and felt an instant of remorse.

  And she knew then that this separation would mark a watershed, that things could never be the same again, and she moved forward, uncertain, as if to halt the moment and go back. Too late— Theo lifted his head and bid her a curt farewell as Donald took up the oars and Cameron pushed the boat out into deeper water and then stood back. Cameron walked past her as she watched it pull away, waiting to see if Theo would look back and wave, and when he did not, she walked slowly back up the track.

  Cameron was leaning against the boundary wall shredding the leaves from one of the yellow iris buds, watching her as she approached. “I believe I have you to thank for my reprieve,” she said as she reached him. “You, and the Glasgow trade unionists.” He gave her a questioning look. “You dropped a hint to Dr. Johnson that I was unwell.”

  “I d
id,” he said, his attention on the iris. “But the trade unionists?”

  “It seems they threaten riot and disorder, and so it was safer if my husband went alone.”

  He gave a short laugh. “God bless the working classes,” he said, then looked shrewdly at her. “But your reprieve came at a price, I think.”

  The torn iris lay at her feet. “He thinks I’m half-crazed by the loss of the baby.” She looked back at the departing boat. “Perhaps I am.”

  Cameron contemplated her a moment longer, then straightened, tossing the remains of the iris over the wall. “He impressed on me that I should not disturb you, madam, and left me a good long list of tasks. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be about my work.” He too glanced at the boat now midway across the strand, gave her a curt nod, and strolled off up the track.

  The breeze blew fitfully as Beatrice mounted the top of the dunes next day, and she looked down on the white sands stretched out before her. It was deserted but for seabirds balancing on the wind. The sun had woken her early, and she had seen it glinting on the waters of the bay and felt an echo of last year’s joy. She had pulled out an old dress and grabbed a shawl, swallowed some breakfast to satisfy Mrs. Henderson, and set off. There was only one place she wanted to be today—Torrann Bay, with its limitless horizons and the pounding surf.

  She stood now on top of the dunes, at the place where Theo told her he had set up his easel, on the one occasion they came here together. And he should be here now, she thought in despair, where the cries of the gulls were blown back from the waves, not miles away, displaying the place’s likeness in a crowded exhibition hall.

  How had they so comprehensively failed each other?

  Dropping down to the beach, she disturbed the shore waders, which rose in a cloud as they had done a year ago, when she had come here with Cameron, when they had seen the divers off-shore, exploring the coastline seeking mates and congenial nesting places. Cameron Forbes had been entangled in that failure from the beginning, absorbing Theo’s attention and taking it away from her—and then, as last summer progressed, he had begun absorbing her own. She stooped to take off her stockings and shoes, and walked along the edge of the tide, gasping as the icy water covered her feet, and let the wild sounds and the emptiness wash over her.