Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
“Aye.”
“You’ll spread the word?”
“As I can.”
“Without spreading panic, of course.”
“Well, that’s the trick of it.”
“Aye. That’s the trick.”
I eat one more chip I don’t taste. I push the plate forward an inch. I lift my hand for MacLeod, as if I’ve been doing this all my life, and he comes over with the tab on a small folded slip.
“Thank you, Ms. Galloway.”
“It’s just Iris,” I reply. I lay cash on the slip—too much, because I always tip too much when I’m rattled—and I sling the canvas bag over my shoulder as I stand.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Iris.”
I turn toward the door.
Sinclair is looking at me. Not openly; just enough to see who I am.
I drive the whole way home with both hands tight on the wheel and the same sentence replays in my head.
Dark hair. Tall. Dragged into the water.
Alasdair this morning. Black trousers, black shirt, bare feet on a horse with no bridle, telling me to come down to the rocks after dark, where he’d come up out of the water to meet me.
A lot of the men on this coast have dark hair. A lot of them are tall. Sinclair said the witness couldn’t see clearly. I’m building a case out of nothing.
Except I’m not.
I know I’m not.
I get home. I lock all the doors and check the windows several times.
The light goes at nine and the bay turns slate, then to iron, then black as sin.
I sit at the kitchen window and watch the rocks at the foot of my spit go shadowy, and then darker, and then gone. I don’t walk down to them. I don’t see him come but I also don’t see him not come. The water is too dark by the time I’d have known either way.
It’s not long before I close the curtain and hope he wasn’t out there this whole time, staring at me, taking in all the fear and worry on my face.
I go to bed and fall asleep wondering whether I’ve just saved my own life or done something he won’t forgive me for.
And what I’m going to do about it.
Chapter
Ten
I’m at the kitchen table with my second coffee and a half-finished sketch of a knapweed I cut on the way back from the moor two days ago. The sketch hasn’t been going well. The petals keep coming out wrong no matter what I do, and the coffee isn’t helping.
I’m just about to go get a fresh cup when there’s a knock at my door.
Fucking hell, I think to myself, nearly jumping out of my skin. One would think that being in a cottage in the middle of nowhere would mean I wouldn’t have many visitors, but clearly that’s not the case. There’s someone knocking at my door nearly every damn day.
I stand up quietly and listen. Hear a man clear his throat from outside the door. At first, I am certain it was Alasdair, even though he promised—for reasons I can’t figure out and maybe don’t want to—he wouldn’t visit me at the cottage again, but Alasdair isn’t a man who coughs to fill the silence.
Alasdair is the silence.
I go pull back the curtain and peer through the window. There’s a cop car in my driveway, same one I saw at the Torridon Hotel a few days ago.
This can’t be good.
Automatically I think I’ve done something wrong, illegal, even, like I was caught driving on the wrong side of the road and didn’t realize it, or I didn’t know that honking at Highland cattle when they’re blocking the road is a crime.
I’m practically sweating when I open the door and see the same cop who had the conversation with the bartender.
“Can I help you?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant and not incredibly guilty over imaginary things.
He’s standing on the front step in plain clothes, his hands at his sides, the small respectful distance of a man who does this for a living. Up close he’s older than I thought at the pub, late forties, solid build with that older man paunch. His eyes are grey-blue and they’re taking me in, all of me. I’m suddenly very aware of how disheveled I must look with my hair pulled back in a greasy, messy bun—I’m due to wash my hair—wearing a black hoodie, lime green silky harem pants I snagged on sale, and fuzzy slippers.
“I’m Inspector Sinclair. I saw you at the Torridon a few days back. I’d hoped to catch you then but you left before I’d had the chance.”
“Ah, yes, I think I remember seeing you there.” I give him a shaky smile, trying to play it cool.
“Aye.” He gives a small nod, as if that settles something. “Sergeant MacRae down at Lochcarron sent your report up to me. You called him awhile back about a man on your property?”
Oh. “I did…”