Old sins, p.1
Old Sins, page 1
OLD SINS
ALINE TEMPLETON
For my friend Jenny Mayhew, who introduced me to tea and cocktails
‘Old sins cast long shadows.’
English proverb
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
FEBRUARY, 2020
That night, the Inverbeg Inn was busy as usual. On Saturdays there was almost a ritual gathering to keep the little pub in business, so the craic was always good and it drew in custom too from half-a-dozen of the little townships round about. With the nearest police station only open 9 till 5, Tuesday and Thursday, it was the old-fashioned rules that applied: you were reckoned fit to drive if you could keep the car in a straight line and turn a corner when you got to one. Though admittedly, there were quite a lot of those.
Flora Maitland always made a point of coming. The well-worn path back up to the croft might be rugged terrain, particularly in February, but as her father had always said, she was sure-footed as a mountain goat. So even at seventy she saw no reason to curtail her pleasures and she always made an evening of it to justify the effort.
She looked forward to Saturday. She’d no regrets about leaving London; here in the peace and the silence, tired at night after hard physical work, she was sleeping as she hadn’t slept for years, deeply and peacefully, but she had to admit that getting any kind of stimulating conversation out of a sheep was a bit of a challenge, so she relished the company. The natives were friendly and there was always a changing group of workers from the rewilding project on the Auchinglass Estate – young folk, often. She always got on well with the young who seemed to realise that her grey hair and wrinkles were just a clever disguise so that no one would ask the rebellious seventeen-year-old inside for ID.
Tonight she was propping up the bar in the centre of a group of them arguing with a fellow-crofter Angus Mackenzie, her neighbour and friend, about bringing the wolf back to Scotland. He was not, to put it mildly, in favour.
‘They’d threaten my livelihood, that’s what they’d do. They’re not daft – are you really saying that when they got a bit peckish they’d go after red deer? You’ve maybe noticed they’re the ones that run like the wind and have antlers, but you still think your pals wouldn’t pick up a few lamb chops on the hoof instead when they were up for a takeaway? Oh, it’s dead romantic, right enough – the grey ghosts, slinking through the trees with only the golden eyes glowing and giving a wee howl or two for effect. Just don’t try telling me this is to save the trees.’
‘But you’d get compensation,’ one lad argued. ‘And at least it would help keep the deer numbers down to give the saplings we’re planting a chance.’
Flora’s eyes glinted with mischief. ‘But there’s always the traditional way,’ she said provocatively, raising an imaginary shotgun to her shoulders. ‘Healthy food and local employment—’
One of the girls, very young, with green-streaked hair and piercings, obligingly rose to the bait. ‘No!’ she protested. ‘That’s just barbaric, killing beautiful animals for sport!’
Flora was just about to say, ‘And the wolves’ methods are more humane?’ when she caught sight of a group coming in.
Flora froze mid-word, feeling the blood draining from her face. Banquo’s ghost, she found herself thinking wildly: her moral failure appearing before her, like an apparition in human form. Immediate and present danger. She had to escape …
‘Are you all right?’ one boy said anxiously. ‘You’ve gone awful white.’
‘Oh, sorry – didn’t meant to be rude,’ the girl mumbled.
‘No, no, it’s nothing. My fault.’ She turned hastily. ‘Actually, I’ve been feeling a bit fluey. I’d probably be sensible to get on home.’
There was a finger of Scotch left in her glass. She downed it for Dutch courage, then with a brief, too-bright smile, slipped through as they stood aside to let her pass. She was aware of the concerned looks and the little buzz of conversation behind her as she reached the side door and stepped outside, zipping up her jacket.
It was bitterly cold after the cosy fug of the pub, a crystal-clear night with the ground, even at ten o’clock, already glinting with frost. The light from the windows fell in golden patches on the forecourt and there were lights in the car park but beyond that, nothing but blackness.
It took her eyes a few moments to adapt. It was the dark of the moon but the stars were showing bright – millions and millions of stars covering the sky that seemed like a bowl upturned over her head, wheeling, whirling, pressing in on her so that Flora staggered for a moment, feeling dizzy.
Panic, she told herself, stopping to take deep breaths of the icy air. She had to stop this at once, start thinking rationally. She’d a good brain; she’d made her living on that. She switched on her torch and set off up the rough path.
Flora was pretty certain she couldn’t have been recognised. She’d turned away instantly while the group was still making their way in, and surely a grey-haired elderly lady in a tired-looking green padded jacket wouldn’t be easy to identify as the defiantly hennaed, professionally immaculate manager she’d been.
She’d known someone could come looking for her, of course. She’d had the sense of trouble coming, though that wasn’t what had prompted her to end her long and financially successful career. At the beginning, when she was young and wild, the business, with its historical overtones of outwitting a greedy state, had seemed edgy and defiant and romantic – oh yes! Romantic above all. Now it was different, hideously different, and she just couldn’t live any longer with that sick feeling of disgust at what she’d allowed herself to become. With some skill, she’d managed to bow out gracefully into retirement without alarming the bosses, making the shameful decision to keep silent.
But when she heard an investigation had indeed begun, she’d realised her own peril. She had no illusions: doing the right thing, handing herself in to the authorities and throwing herself on the mercy of the court when it came to complicity, would be signing her death warrant. She must simply disappear.
Her father had just died and the croft he’d inherited from his father was hers now. She’d never talked about her background and there was only one person she’d ever told about her childhood, idyllic in retrospect. Perfect. She was ready for a quiet life; she reverted to her maiden name, stopped dying her hair and moved in. It was certainly rugged compared to what she’d been used to but in some strange way it felt as if she was sloughing off the dead skin of the past and emerging clean. She’d barely left the place since.
Surely they couldn’t have known, she told herself, as she followed the cliff path up to the croft house. If the bosses had known, she wouldn’t be here now, she’d be at the bottom of the bay there in a sack with a stone tied to her ankles. Coincidence, that’s all, she told herself. Just a passing visitor. I can lie low, keep out of the way for a bit.
She’d never liked coincidences, though. Mostly, when you looked into it, they were no such thing. What could be the connection? Then it hit her.
The present owner had been there for a while. But before that … Remembering how she’d got involved in the first place, Flora shuddered. She must be mad; she’d actually chosen to hide in plain view.
So danger had come from the direction she hadn’t thought of, deadly danger. She’d have to leave tomorrow, first thing. She’d phone Angus, ask him to check on the sheep until she could sell up. The sooner she got home to prepare the better, and she tried to speed up – she wasn’t quite such a brisk walker these days and the gradient was taxing.
The windless night was very still. She was used to the silence here, the sort of silence that was oddly unbroken by the gentle swishing of the waves below or the sudden cry of a startled bird, but tonight it almost seemed oppressive, as if it was waiting for something to shatter it. Nerves again, she told herself, but she did look back over her shoulder.
She could see the lights of the pub below, and more lights further along on the other side coming from the sprawl of the salmon farm. A few of her ewes were sleeping on the turf nearby, their fleeces a light patch against the darker outline of scrubby gorse bushes and as she looked lower down, one started up suddenly, as they so often did – did they have bad dreams? That woke her neighbour and they bundled off in the direction classified as ‘away’ in their woolly brains.
There was no other sign of movement and Flora hurried on, a bit breathless now, round the final turn in the road that skirted the drop down to the beach before the croft house came into view. It was only then she felt the sudden rush of movement behind her, heard pounding footsteps, heavy breath ing.
She tried to spin round, but a blow in the small of her back knocked her off her feet. As she struggled to get up, her flailing legs were pinioned in a strong grip and she was pushed across the turf, across the rough grass, small stones grazing her face, right out over the edge. She scrabbled desperately, breaking her nails as she frantically fought for purchase on the frozen ground, but only dislodged one of the little stones that fell with her as she crashed head first down, down, down to the rocky shore.
‘That ewe – I’m a fool,’ was her last conscious thought.
They were standing waiting in the church hall where tea and sandwiches were waiting after the crematorium service, brief and basic in accordance with Flora Maitland’s wishes. Her brother, his wife and their daughter had formed a sort of receiving line ready to greet the other mourners when they came straggling in.
‘Always said she drank too much. Catches up with you sooner or later,’ William Maitland muttered. He was a big man, balding and paunchy, and his mouth was set in the downward curve it usually took when he mentioned his sister.
‘You might at least try to sound sorry,’ his daughter said, giving him a look of dislike. Plump and pouting, her hair was a harsh shade of blonde that did her no favours and the black eyeliner flick was clumsily applied. ‘You never saw her the worse for wear. She could drink anyone under the table.’
‘That’s not really an accomplishment, you know, Danielle,’ her mother Moira said gently, and William added, ‘Typical! I know you thought we’d a down on Flora but that’s exactly what made us feel she was a bad influence. Encouraging you to go the same way she did.’
Danielle glowered. ‘So what’s wrong with that? Flora was dead cool. And she was the only person who really got me, who knew how I felt. And it wasn’t just that you had a down on her for – you were pissed off that your father left the croft to her, not to you.’
William gave an unconvincing laugh. ‘Don’t know where you got that idea from. It’s more or less a bothy. Anyway, here’s people coming now.’
There were thirty or forty in the congregation, mostly older people from the farming community. The Maitlands had an appointment with Flora’s solicitor in Lochinver later that morning and William wasn’t encouraging when they lingered as they offered their condolences.
There was one exception. Danielle, standing awkwardly a little behind her parents barely listening to what was said, noticed that his attitude changed when a tall man in a smart suit came up. He made the usual noises, then said quietly, ‘This isn’t the time, but you know my position and you’ve got my contact number. Let me know when you’re ready to talk.’
‘Of course, of course,’ William said cordially. ‘Once we’ve got the details straightened out …’
‘Danielle?’ She turned. An elderly man with a shock of fluffy white hair was standing at her shoulder. ‘I’m Angus – Angus Mackenzie. Flora was my very good friend. I’m going to miss her a lot.’
There was no mistaking his sincerity and her face softened. ‘I’m going to miss her ever so much too. She was just, like, the greatest aunt ever. We’d some brilliant laughs. And it’s Danni – I really, really hate Danielle.’
He smiled at her. ‘Danni, then. She told me all about you, you know.’
‘Did she? We used to have the best times together when she was still in London – went to all these really cool places. It’s so awful – I can’t believe she’s gone. I can’t believe she was drunk, either. I’ve seen her drink plenty, and she never showed it, even a tiny bit.’
Angus looked at her, suddenly serious. ‘To be honest, I can’t believe it, either,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘I saw her that night. She was on her first drink, then something upset her and she left suddenly. There was no reason for her even to be near the edge of the cliff. I said that to the police, you know, but they weren’t interested. I tried to suggest to your father that he could maybe take it up with them, but—’
‘Danielle!’ William Maitland called sharply, ‘Get your coat. We’ll be leaving shortly for that appointment.’ It was said loudly enough to prompt people to start finishing their drinks hastily, but Danni scowled.
‘I’m talking to Angus,’ she said defiantly.
‘I’m sure he’ll excuse you,’ her father said and Angus, with a polite nod, went on his way.
She waited until they got into the car to drive across to Lochinver before she started. ‘Dad, he thinks there’s something funny about Flora’s accident. He says he told you that, so what are you going to do?’
Even from the back seat in the car she could see red blotches appear on his neck. ‘For God’s sake, Danielle! Some old boy who’s probably senile thinks there’s something “funny” about my sister’s death – what do you think I’m going to do? Absolutely bloody nothing, that’s what. Look, I spoke to the police, I read their report. They’re satisfied, and so am I. End of. Got it?’
Danni subsided. There wasn’t a lot she could do. They hadn’t paid any attention to Angus and they wouldn’t to her either. It wasn’t as if there was anything to say except that it wasn’t like the Flora she knew to do something seriously dumb like staggering off a cliff. But of course she hadn’t actually seen her since she left London to come and live up here in the back of beyond and she was pretty old now – she could have got doddery. And what would be the point, anyway? Even supposing they did find out that it wasn’t an accident, Flora would still be dead.
The Lochinver solicitor’s office was in a bungalow looking across to the busy harbour, with the Sugar Loaf top of Suilven looming up behind it. Flora had used her father’s lawyer, Donald Mackay, who was waiting for the Maitlands with three chairs set out opposite him.
He remembered William Maitland, a big, blustering man who had been openly outraged that his father had left his meagre estate to his sister, with the exception of the ‘bairn’s part’ that Scots law obliged him to pay his other child. He’d tried to argue that the old man had lost it and didn’t know what he was doing but Mackay had given him a very dusty answer. Maitland Senior had certainly been as sharp as a tack in summing-up his children: ‘He’s a great, fat, greedy sumph. She’s maybe not always just kept to the rules, but I’ve aye had a weakness for a black sheep.’
Flora Reith, slim, sophisticated, with dark red hair and bright red nails, had sat in perfect calm, letting her brother rant on and leave, and then proceeded to deal with all the arrangements in a slickly professional way. When, sometime later, she’d come in to make her will Mackay had hardly recognised her in the grey-haired woman with roughened hands and broken nails who had gone back to her maiden name.
She’d laughed openly at his confusion. ‘I’m just a shepherdess now,’ she said. ‘Weather-beaten, exhausted, losing money and a stone heavier but I’m perfectly happy.’
The size of her estate had come as a surprise to him. Whatever it was she’d done that hadn’t obeyed the rules had obviously been profitable.
When he saw the Maitlands’ car draw up outside he went to meet them. As they shook hands and he murmured, ‘Sorry for your loss,’ William’s smile was distinctly forced.
Moira made appropriate noises as the daughter hung back, looking sulky. He smiled at her, going to shake her hand. ‘You must be Danielle. I’ve heard a lot about you.’
William stiffened. ‘I hate to think what that might have been,’ he said sharply. ‘I wouldn’t believe it all – my sister was inclined to exaggerate.’
A very unwelcome suspicion was obviously already forming in his mind as Mackay led them through to his office, so obviously that he might as well have spoken it out loud: Flora couldn’t have – could she?
Once they were seated, Mackay opened the file lying on his desk and said, ‘I’ll give you the terms in detail, of course, but I should say at the start that it’s actually a very simple will. There’s a couple of other bequests, one to a neighbour on condition that he takes on her flock of sheep, but the rest is to come to you, Danielle.’
Of the three gasps that followed the announcement, the loudest was Danielle’s. Looking stunned, she said, ‘She left it to me?’
William’s face had turned an ugly purplish-grey. ‘You mean my father’s croft, that he inherited from his father and his father before that – I’m being bypassed again?’
