Authors: Jean S. MacLeod
‘My name’s Katherine Rivers,’ Katherine offered swiftly. ‘I’m looking after Sandy.’
A quick glance passed between the proprietress and her captor.
‘I thought Callum could pick up Miss Rivers’ car and take it into Killin in the morning,’ Charles Moreton said. ‘I hadn’t time to look at it.’
The small, dark woman held out her hand.
‘You’ve had quite an adventure, I understand,’ she remarked guardedly. ‘You must be ready for a wash and something to eat.’ She turned back to Charles. ‘I’ve put the wee one to his bed,’ she explained. ‘He was tired and fair bewildered by all that travelling when Callum brought him in. It was lucky you met him on the road and he could bring Sandy here while you went back to look at the car.’
So that was how Sandy had travelled so far in the meantime, Katherine thought. Charles had met a friend on his way to the hotel and passed Sandy on to him while he turned back to the lay-by in search of her. He had all the luck!
‘Thanks, Morag,’ Charles was saying. ‘I knew you would help all you could.’
‘Why not?’ Morag’s dark eyes searched his face. ‘If there’s anything else I can do you have only to say the word.’
‘I know that,’ Charles agreed, ‘but we’ll go on in the morning, I think. I want to get back to the Lodge as quickly as possible.’
To my ultimate prison, Katherine thought dramatically. But surely this sort of thing couldn’t happen in this day and age?
Charles Moreton’s attitude to their hostess was completely relaxed, and they were evidently on the friendliest of terms as they spoke about local matters standing in the low, raftered entrance hall for several minutes before they ascended the stairs. It would be hopeless to appeal to Morag, Katherine thought, while she so openly trusted Charles and was so eager to help him.
‘May I see Sandy?’ she asked at the top of the narrow staircase.
Another quick glance passed between her hostess and Charles Moreton.
‘He’s sound asleep,’ said Morag as if at some unspoken command. ‘It would be a pity to disturb him. You’re near enough,’ she added. ‘I’ve put you in the room next door.’
And where would Charles Moreton sleep? Somewhere not too far away along the same corridor, Katherine imagined, a grim guardian between her and the stairs.
As soon as she was left alone in the small single room which was more than adequate for her needs she opened the door, making sure that the corridor was empty before she moved silently towards the door on her left. It was ajar and she pushed it open, to be immediately confronted by a pair of questioning grey eyes.
‘Were you looking for me?’ Charles Moreton enquired with a faint smile. ‘Or was it just for the quickest way of escape?’
‘Neither.’ Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment and a vague anger. ‘I was looking for Sandy’s room.’
‘To make sure I hadn’t spirited him away again?’ he queried. ‘Why are you so suspicious of my intentions, Miss Rivers? I told you he was safe enough.’ He came across the room to stand looking down at her. ‘We don’t exactly trust each other,’ he concluded, ‘and that’s quite natural under the circumstances, wouldn’t you say? How long have you really known Coralie?’ he demanded.
‘I told you we were at school together, but it was some time ago. Over six years ago, in fact. We met again at Millie Downhill’s party.’
‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’ he asked coldly. ‘When I noticed you it seemed that you were the best of friends.’
‘I don’t care what you thought,’ said Katherine. ‘I’m telling you the truth. I was coming north next day and I promised to take Sandy to his aunt in the Lake District.’
‘Because I was about to snatch him,’ he suggested. ‘I suppose that was what Coralie told you.’
‘Well, weren’t you?’ Her voice was suddenly harsh.
‘Not without discussing it,’ he declared. ‘I went to Millie’s party because I knew she would be there and she had been refusing to see me. She left rather hurriedly, you have to admit.’
‘She’d gone to meet someone—a business contact, I think—only he didn’t turn up and she felt she was wasting her time.’
‘But she hadn’t,’ he said carefully. ‘She’d met you and you’d promised to smuggle Sandy out of London early in the morning before anyone noticed.’
‘You did!’ she said. ‘You must have seen me leave my flat with Sandy in the car. Perhaps that was why you asked to see me home from Kensington the night before. It wasn’t really because it was raining and I might get wet, was it? It wasn’t even because you were—attracted by me as a person,’ she rushed on, remembering that disturbing kiss. ‘It was because you wanted to know where I lived so that you could check on my movements.’ The memory of the kiss he had pressed against her lips as a matter of course wouldn’t go away, the goodnight kiss he had imagined she would expect, and a bright colour flooded her cheeks. ‘You thought I was the kind of person you could cheat easily,’ she accused him, ‘fair game in your plot to take Sandy away from his mother, but you’ll find I’m not. I won’t stand idly by and allow you to kidnap him!’
Charles held the door wide open.
‘To prove that my intentions are not as diabolical as you think they are,’ he said smoothly, ‘we’ll look in on Sandy now, but don’t forget he’s a very tired little boy you’ve driven over three hundred miles with hardly a stop in order to avoid me. He needs his sleep.’
‘How did you find my car?’ she asked, hesitating on the threshold of Sandy’s room.
‘It was an amazing stroke of luck,’ Charles admitted. ‘I lost you just north of Bassenthwaite because I was ahead of you. I had a fair idea you’d chose the Caldbeck road because it was the less obvious one, but I thought you’d gone straight off from the confectioner’s. Instead, I suppose you went back to the cottage for Sandy, and I should have thought of that. When I didn’t catch up with you I rejoined the motorway, which was my second mistake, though it did get me here ahead of you.’
‘You had no idea where I was going,’ she protested. ‘How did you feel so sure I would choose the Trossachs?’
‘Because you talked about them at the party and I took a chance when I discovered that Aunt Hattie was no longer available,’ he said.
‘I came by the west coast after Carlisle,’ Katherine admitted, ‘by Erskine Bridge and Loch Lomond, but I could quite easily have branched off to Oban—or anywhere else,’ she pointed out.
‘My luck was in,’ he said. ‘I felt it might be. There are very few roads—main roads, anyway—in this part of the Highlands which you could have taken, and I didn’t think you would stray into the byways. When you weren’t here, at the hotel, as I fancied you might be, I set out to look for you. It was still a chance in a million that I found you—or rather, Sandy.’
‘Abandoned?’ she said harshly. ‘But you must have known I’d be at my wits’ end when I got back to the car and found him missing.’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t think about that,’ he said coldly. ‘Not too much, anyway. I made my decision quickly because he’d wakened up, but I suppose I’d made up my mind from the beginning not to let you go quite so easily so that you could contact Coralie again.’
Katherine stepped across the threshold of Sandy’s room without answering him and he allowed her a brief glimpse of a tired little boy with chubby arms flung out across a flowered quilt and his clothes neatly folded on a nearby chair.
‘Touching, isn’t it?’ he queried.
She turned away.
‘I don’t know how you can speak so casually when you’re determined to take him away from Coralie. She’s his mother.’
‘Coralie appears to forget that when it suits her,’ he said grimly, closing the door on the sleeping child. ‘When you’ve had a wash and change there’ll be a meal waiting for you downstairs,’ he added. ‘Morag and her daughter are old friends of mine.’
‘Staunch allies, I suppose you mean!’
‘If you like,’ he agreed. ‘They would never let me down.’
Someone had carried her suitcase up to the adjoining room, but her car keys had not been returned. Impulsively she thought to ring and ask for them, and then she knew that they would still be in Charles Moreton’s possession. It was as effective a way as any to keep her prisoner.
Running a bath, she watched the brown spring water gushing from the taps, finding it soft and caressing to the touch as she stepped in. A shower wouldn’t have been quite so comforting at the ending of such a stressful day, she thought, luxuriating deliberately in this unexpected luxury in such a remote place, but eventually she had to step out and towel herself dry. There were movements in the next room, a rush of water as a shower was turned on, and the banging of a door as someone went downstairs. Charles, no doubt, in a hurry to brief his friends again before she reached the dining-room.
Almost reluctantly she left her own room, pausing for a moment at Sandy’s door to listen, but there was no sound from within. Sleep had taken over inevitably, and if she had driven too far and too quickly in one day she was quite sure that Sandy would rise refreshed in the morning. He was a sturdy little boy who would cope well enough with a couple of days’ motoring.
Two days, she thought, almost unable to believe that it was so short a time since she had met Charles Moreton for the first time and allowed him to escort her home from Millie Downhill’s party. It seemed, even now, that he had been in her life for a very long time.
The friendly welcome of a log fire met her when she reached the foot of the stairs. It was almost dark now, but the lights in the hall had not been lit and it was only as she approached the fireplace that she was aware of someone sitting there. A tall girl in a woollen dress the colour of spent heather rose to her feet, the firelight picking out the glow of her magnificent red hair as she held out her hand.
‘I’m Emma Falkland,’ she introduced herself. ‘Chay and I are lifelong friends.’ For a moment a guarded hostility masked her candid hazel eyes. ‘I live here,’ she added. ‘I’m “poor Emma” who never quite made it anywhere else.’ The admission was ruefully amused. ‘I help my mother to run the hotel, but perhaps Chay has already told you that?’
‘No.’ Katherine moved nearer to the hearth into the circle of firelight where she could study Emma Falkland to better advantage. ‘He hasn’t told me very much, as perhaps you know,’ she said.
It was no use pretending that she had come here willingly as Charles Moreton’s guest, she thought, for these were his acknowledged friends who would know all there was to know about Sandy and Coralie and perhaps about her own part in this strange adventure. They would have prejudged her as Coralie’s friend and would be ready to treat her as a potential enemy.
‘I know that Chay’s terribly worried about Sandy,’ Emma Falkland informed her almost aggressively, ‘and I can’t imagine what you hope to gain by all this. Surely you can’t expect to win when you have Chay to contend with,’ she added. ‘He’s the most ruthless man I know when he believes himself justified—the complete adversary. Having said that, I suppose I should wish you luck.’ She continued to study Katherine. ‘How long have you known Sandy’s mother?’ she demanded.
‘We went to school together.’ Katherine was tired of so much explanation. ‘She was slightly older than I was and I suppose I looked up to her from a distance, as schoolgirls do.’
‘And now?’ Emma demanded sharply.
‘We met at a party in London a few days ago.’
Emma’s eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise.
‘As recently as that?’ she said. ‘The infatuation must have been complete!’
Katherine’s steady gaze held hers.
‘You can call it fascination if you like—even a schoolgirl crush—but I felt compelled to help Coralie when I saw how distressed she was. Wouldn’t you have done the same?’
Emma hesitated.
‘I may not be so easily taken in,’ she said, switching on the wall lights as Charles appeared at the outer door.
‘You still have my car keys,’ Katherine reminded him. ‘May I have them back, please?’
‘They’ll be needed in the morning,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been to look at your car, but I can’t do anything. Someone will take it to the garage in the morning. Hullo, Emma!’ he added, giving the older girl a warm, if not to say affectionate smile. ‘How’s the latest sculpture coming along?’
‘Not too well.’ Emma seemed to be avoiding his direct gaze. ‘I’ve had other things to think about these past few weeks.’
‘Of course.’ He turned back to Katherine. ‘Emma is our local artist,’ he explained. ‘She fashions marvellous little animals out of wood and stone which Sandy finds irresistible, but we’re finding it difficult to persuade her to make a proper career of it at present.’
‘How can I do that when I’m mostly up to my elbows in flour and baking powder?’ Emma demanded. ‘Besides, I like being here. “Making a proper career” would mean branching out, going to Edinburgh or London where I would be recognised if I was good enough.’
‘But you are good enough,’ Charles said with conviction. ‘You have a considerable talent which you’re hiding under the proverbial bushel at present.’
‘Chay, don’t exaggerate!’ Emma’s protest was accompanied by an affectionate smile. ‘You know that what I do is quite ordinary and I do it largely to please myself. It’s a grand hobby, making the days pass more quickly, and in the summer months I get to know the tourists who come to the studio to watch. And buy!’ she added with a touch of modest pride.
‘You don’t take yourself seriously enough,’ said Charles, but somehow Katherine knew that he didn’t believe that. Emma was very serious indeed.
Morag Falkland came through from the kitchen to announce that their meal was ready.
‘Emma has set it in the snug,’ she said. ‘We’re only family tonight.’
The intimate meal in the small room off the dining-hall was something Katherine hadn’t expected. Seated between Charles and her hostess with the watchful Emma facing them, it was difficult to relax, although Morag Falkland seemed to be friendly enough. She was a cheerful little woman who had news of everyone for miles around which she dispensed for Charles’s benefit, pausing occasionally to sketch in a background here and there for her guest.
‘Everybody knows everyone else in these parts,’ she explained. ‘We’re a scattered community, but we keep in touch. Distance is no object when we visit, for instance, and when anyone is going to Perth or Oban they generally set out with a formidable list of shopping to do. It has been known for the odd ram to be brought back in the back of a Range Rover, or a freezer or even a suite of furniture!’
It was general information, Katherine realised, with nothing personal to distinguish it from the ordinary run-of-the-mill conversation which could have been expected in a wayside inn, yet underneath it was the suggestion of reserve, a caution which must be largely due to her own presence among them.
Charles was a little more relaxed in his friends’ company, she noticed, probably because he was now master of the situation, but he, too, kept the conversation general as the meal progressed.
‘We’re not quite as isolated as you might think,’ he told her as Morag produced a plate of home-baked oatcakes to eat with their cheese, ‘and we’re busy enough not to worry about it.’
‘Sandy spoke of a place called Glassary,’ Katherine remembered.
‘As I see it, Glassary is Sandy’s home,’ he returned grimly. ‘We’ll be going out there in the morning.’
It had all been taken care of, planned, no doubt, even before he had left for London in search of his son. Katherine looked across the table at Emma Falkland, wondering what part she had to play in the drama of Glassary, but Emma was busy with their empty plates, gathering them on to a tray to be carried into the kitchen when the meal was finished.
‘We’ll have our coffee by the fire,’ said Morag, rising to lead the way. ‘The Forestry boys will be in later on and then there’ll be no more privacy! It’s early yet for visitors,’ she turned to Katherine to explain, ‘but we’re the nearest rendezvous for the Forestry settlement in the glen. They come for darts and the odd dance from time to time, but there’s nothing special this week. Just the usual high spirits plus an argument or two!’
‘Do you mind if I go to bed early?’ Katherine was genuinely tired now. ‘If we’re leaving again in the morning ’
‘There won’t be any particular hurry,’ Charles assured her. ‘We’re almost at Glassary.’
Wondering why he hadn’t gone straight to their destination instead of coming to the hotel, she supposed that ‘almost’ could mean anything up to another fifty miles or even more, and he had been genuinely concerned about Sandy’s fatigue. When the first of the Forestry workers made their appearance she drank what was left of her coffee with undue haste, rising to go. Escape, she thought, might be the better word. Charles crossed to her side.
‘Had enough for one day?’ he enquired casually. ‘It’s going to be noisy down here for a while, but you won’t hear it in your room. The walls are very thick.’
Like the walls at Glassary, she thought; prison walls, shutting out sound.
‘How far is Glassary?’ she asked.
‘Less than thirty miles. There’s no need for you to feel lost. I’ll find you a map in the morning,’ he offered.
‘It sounds remote,’ she suggested.
‘Not too remote. It’s a sizeable house with a village settlement at the head of the glen.’
‘Your own particular kingdom!’ she observed dryly.
‘More or less.’ He looked satisfied with the suggestion. ‘I take a certain pride in it, though part of my time I have to work elsewhere.’
‘In London, for instance?’