The Day She Can’t Forget: Psychological suspense you’ll just have to keep reading

by Meg Carter

  Barely able to believe her good fortune, Zeb rushes towards the building with three worn stone steps at the front, leading up to a glass-windowed front door that’s been left ajar.

  Pushing the wooden panel just above the old-fashioned knocker, Zeb feels the door give a little before any further movement is halted by the tautening of a heavy black security chain. She steps back, as her efforts have triggered a cacophony from a bunch of cowbells suspended from the ceiling. Noticing a neatly printed sign, Zeb sees the shop does indeed open each Sunday – but from 10am. Checking her watch, she finds it’s five to nine. Only when she looks up again does she notice the figure moving around inside.

  Could this be her? she wonders as the shop assistant starts moving her way. The woman is tall with short grey hair and dressed in a charola jumper and black velvet ankle-length skirt.

  ‘Yes?’ the assistant inquires. Her tone is brusque, but as she registers Zeb’s matted hair, her air of awkward anticipation, her whole demeanour changes. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I’ve come to see Anna,’ Zeb begins as the rain abruptly thickens from persistent drizzle to steady pelt.

  The woman cranes her neck to glance at the sky. ‘Come in, just for a minute,’ she says, standing to one side.

  The shop is dark and cluttered. Ancient oak shelving crammed with music books and piles of stacked sheet music line each wall. In the centre of the room an assortment of classical instruments is displayed on two large wooden tables which have been pushed together. A selection of violins and associated stringed instruments sit upright on stands along the counter, where an ancient till dominates the rear.

  Dropping her bag from her shoulder and placing it on the floor, Zeb scans the room with undisguised surprise, amazed that shops like this could still exist in the internet age. ‘What an amazing shop,’ she exclaims.

  The woman nods, then scrutinises her visitor closely. ‘What do you play?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Zeb laughs, shaking her head. ‘At least not any more. Just at school, really – I played the piano. Though my mother was a talented musician.’ Suddenly, she thinks of Matty. ‘Maybe it’s jumped a generation—’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re out of luck,’ the woman interrupts. Perplexed, Zeb frowns. ‘Anna’s not here.’

  Struggling to mask her disappointment Zeb exhales, slowly. ‘Oh.’

  ‘She’s usually here on a Sunday but has today off for a piano recital in her local church. She’ll be in later in the week, though, if you’d like to pop back then.’

  Zeb bites her lip.

  The thought of having to wait days feels unbearable. ‘I’ve just come up from London and I was so hoping to see her this afternoon,’ she blurts out. ‘Anna is an old friend of my dad’s, who died recently. I don’t suppose you can give me her number, can you? I’m sure she won’t mind.’

  The woman prevaricates. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m afraid that’s just not possible. I am more than happy to pass on a message, however.’ Zeb notices a line of slim boxes containing an assortment of local flyers neatly arranged along the sill. ‘Wait while I find something to write on.’

  Zeb isn’t listening, though, but staring instead at the bundle of leaflets promoting a recital taking place that evening at a church, St Mary’s, in a town called Beauloch. For some reason she can’t quite recall the name seems familiar. ‘Don’t worry,’ she calls out brightly. ‘I’ll pop back. Actually, I’m not staying far from here. In Beauloch?’ She smarts at her clumsy pronunciation. ‘Someone recommended the local B&B.’

  By the time the older woman looks up Zeb has pocketed the flier, stepped away from the window and is examining a piece of sheet music. Something or other by Bach. ‘Glen View?’ Zeb nods. ‘Why, that’s just next to the chapel,’ the women observes, putting down her pen and paper. ‘You’ll find Anna there a little later, I’m sure. That B&B is good but small and often fully-booked this time of year. In which case you should try the hotel on the far side of the village.

  A place called McLellans.

  * * *

  The journey takes less than half an hour, though the town’s one-way system and the winding B-road make it seem longer. But at last they pass the simple sign that marks the Beauloch boundary, and the cab pulls up outside a single-storey pre-fabricated village hall a few minutes later.

  Zeb pays the driver and climbs out of the car. She stows her change. Glen View is indeed fully occupied, she can see from the wooden sign outside. She will have to try McLellans, she decides with a mounting sense of anticipation.

  A cold blast of wind slaps her back, as she walks along the road towards the other side of the village, where she finds the hotel with little trouble. It is a bleak four-storey lodge with a shallow roof and net curtains at every window.

  Close up, the hotel’s wooden window frames are cracked and perished and pebble-dash is just visible beneath a thin veil of white paint. Screwed to the wall at eye level next to the main entrance is a pair of antlers. A plaque beneath details some indeterminate endorsement of the quality of service one can expect within.

  The place looks traditional at best, Zeb decides as she opens the front door. But its anonymity is perfect.

  The young woman behind reception is dressed in a dark suit and a cream silk shirt with matching cravat. On the desk, a striking arrangement of dried heathers sits self-consciously in an antique porcelain tureen. There is an open stone fireplace beyond flanked by leather sofas which, though aged, are meticulously buffed. Upmarket glossies fan across the oak coffee table. Walls tastefully hang with artistic black and white shots of the surrounding landscape.

  Zeb adjusts her expectations. Despite its lacklustre façade McLellans is clearly an establishment with pretensions.

  ‘Good morning,’ the woman at the reception desk offers, brightly, as a burst of laughter erupts from the far side of the lobby. Turning to its source, Zeb sees a group of retirees decked out in top-of-the-range walking gear are making final adjustments to day packs, binoculars and shooting sticks. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for a room.’

  The woman swivels towards a flickering computer screen on the desk behind her. The gesture strikes Zeb as odd, given that from the outside the building doesn’t look as if it accommodates more than five or six bedrooms, but there must be some kind of extension at the rear.

  ‘Well, I’ve the double with a full ensuite on the second floor. Or a generous single in the stable block at the rear – but it doesn’t have a bath, just a shower.’

  ‘I’ll take the double, please,’ Zeb replies, staring at the framed list of room tariffs on the wall. Though aspirational, the establishment is still affordable – by London standards, at least.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a little early,’ the receptionist apologises. ‘But it should be ready within an hour: if you leave your bag here I can have someone take it to your room. We’ve a comfortable lounge where you could wait. Or we serve breakfast until twelve.’

  Gratefully, Zeb hands over her bag. ‘Actually, I could do with some fresh air,’ she smiles. ‘Do you have a local map?’

  * * *

  St Mary’s is at the end of a row of terraced dark stone cottages, a few streets up the looming hill above the main road.

  The church is set back from the road behind a rough stretch of ragged ground and uneven headstones, the larger of which provide sufficient shelter for leftover snow. It is a modest building – with grey stone walls, plain windows and a sombre wooden door – and an empty one, too, judging by its darkened interior.

  Zeb tucks the map away then zips her jacket back up. Above her, dark clouds twist like fish and it looks like there is snow to come. Adjusting her beanie to cover her ears, she proceeds further up the shingled pathway lined on either side by grey piles of swept snow. At the door she twists the iron handle, willing it to provide fleeting shelter from the wind. But the heavy latch refuses to budge.

  Anna is probably at home getting ready or rehearsing, that’s all, she
thinks, clapping her hands together for warmth. Though a quick glance around her confirms she is indeed completely alone.

  Heading back to the churchyard gate, Zeb spots a small bench set against a stone retaining wall which separates a raised tier of family plots – reserved for the local gentry, perhaps – from the communal path on which she currently stands. Humbler headstones stretch out below.

  Suddenly hungry she takes a seat, grateful for the natural cover from the damp cold provided by a broad-limbed cedar tree. Having forgotten both last night’s supper and this morning’s breakfast, she is ravenous. It’s almost lunchtime, which might also explain where everyone has gone. Maybe she should wander back to the pub in the village centre, find something to eat then come back later – though the thought of sitting alone in a bar in a strange place is hardly appealing.

  Perhaps it would be better to return to McLellans instead and call for room service. She hears voices. Zeb turns around in her seat and sees a man and child.

  ‘Come on Dad, let’s go home – I’m hungry,’ a girl about the same age as Matty pleads. The pair are walking across the raised bank behind where Zeb is sitting.

  The child’s blonde hair has been worked into two rough plaits, the ends of which are visible beneath a red crocheted tam o’ shanter. The girl is wearing a navy duffel coat toggled to the throat and non-matching wellies – the right is black, the left is green. Watching her weave to and fro between the plots, bobbing in and out between the bushes, makes Zeb’s heart skip.

  ‘We’ve got shepherd’s pie,’ the young girl trills. ‘And you know it’s my favourite.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ the man concedes. Rising to his feet from the graveside where he has just placed fresh flowers, he raises his hands in mock surrender. Tall and thin, the father is dressed in walking boots, jeans and an orange mountain rescue jacket. Unlike his daughter, his head is uncovered and wind and rain have tousled his thick blonde hair. ‘Say bye to Nana and I’ll drive you back to your mam’s.’

  ‘Bye Nana,’ the girl dutifully repeats. Without warning, she jumps down from the bank and lands on all fours by Zeb’s feet.

  ‘Hello,’ Zeb smiles.

  The little girl frowns. ‘Hello,’ she replies, cautiously.

  ‘Evie?’ the man’s voice calls from behind some bushes.

  ‘Over here, Dad.’

  A moment later, he jumps down onto the path beside his child. ‘Ta-daaa!’ he declares, reaching down to scoop her up onto his shoulders. Only then does he notice Zeb. He nods. ‘All right?’

  Zeb smiles. ‘You?’

  ‘Sound, eh.’ He sniffs, reaching out his hand to the child who grabs it fast as he pulls her up. ‘Just visiting?’ he says, nodding towards the locked church door. ‘It’s one of this area’s oldest, though the village now has to share the priest, so there are only services here alternate weekends.’

  ‘Kind of,’ Zeb replies. ’I’m staying at the hotel down the road. I came up here for a musical performance that was due to take place, but I think I must have made a mistake.’

  ‘The recital?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s been cancelled, hasn’t it, Evie?’ The man looks down at the child who nods her head, glumly. ‘She and a couple of her school friends were due to take part, but the organ broke so it’ll have to be another time.’ A crestfallen smirk is the only response Zeb can muster. The stranger smiles. ‘Goodness, you look even more disappointed than this one did when we got the call yesterday.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Zeb mumbles. ‘It’s just I’ve come a long way to see an old family friend and now it looks like I may miss her.’ She struggles for a moment to remember the surname she’d seen on the flier in The Bass Clef. ‘Anna Dee?’

  The stranger blows on his hands then tugs a pair of gloves from his jacket pocket. ‘The piano teacher who lives up at the Duffys’? Yeah, I know her. I’ve got to drop off my daughter at my ex’s place back near the village centre. But if you like, I can show you – if we take the back road down, it’s on the way.’

  Zeb barely dares to believe her luck.

  ‘Fraser.’ He holds out his hand.

  ‘Zeb,’ she replies, self-conscious as she sees his eyes make a quick sweep of her from feet up. Her running shoes. Jeans. Her shower-proof jacket.

  Fraser sniffs the air. ‘The weather is closing in. And it is a little way up the hill on the outskirts of the village.’ He winks. ‘But don’t worry about those shoes – I’ve got a car.’

  Wondering what’s wrong with her trainers, Zeb glances up at the lowering sky. But then she remembers the last time she was in Scotland. The snow-clad morning when she was picked up by Jean, coatless; her feet sodden. How easy it is to underestimate how much colder it is up here; how changeable the conditions, too. ‘That would be great, Fraser,’ she smiles. ‘Thank you.’

  He is also a visitor – of sorts – to Beauloch, he tells her, as they climb the stony footpath to the top of the churchyard. On the other side of the back gate sits Fraser’s four-by-four, a tank-like vehicle of indeterminate colour, thanks to a coating of dried mud and salt residue from snow-covered winter roads. For though he grew up here and returned, briefly, with his childhood sweetheart to raise Evie, the marriage was over almost before it began.

  Fraser describes himself as a born outdoorsman. Even so, after university he turned down an offer of a job with the local mountain rescue team in favour of making a fast buck in the City as a graduate trainee. Which he did for a while until, tiring of London, he returned to Scotland and hooked up with his girlfriend Jeanette, who’d known him since school.

  But once Evie came along the dynamics of their relationship which had worked so well before no longer made sense. Frustrated by the hours Fraser had to put in setting up his new adventure activities business, Jeanette moved back to her mother’s place in Beauloch from their house in Aviemore, and never went back. Now, the pair live apart and Evie is with him alternate weekends. Though he has been off work in Beauloch for the past fortnight following the death of his mother, once the village primary school’s head teacher.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Zeb says, eyes fixed on the pitted road ahead. ‘Really, I am. As if it isn’t bad enough coming to terms with what’s happened, there’s all the administration, the paperwork, the arrangements to be made. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite so overwhelmed, or alone. Because though everyone has been so kind, it’s something we all end up having to deal with in our own particular way on our own. Goodness,’ she exclaims, her line of thought broken as one of the front wheels catches in a jagged pothole. ‘It’s just my dad… he died, too. A month ago. And, well, it was – still is – such a shock.’

  ‘It’s tough,’ Fraser answers. ‘The not knowing, I mean. We had a little warning as we knew Mum had cancer, but still, nothing ever prepares you for your first parent dying.’

  Zeb prickles with sympathy. ‘I guess not,’ is all she can say as the track on which they are driving steepens and the car slows to little more than a walking pace. For a moment there seems to be nothing more to say. Until the silence is broken by a burst of fairground music from the back seat where Evie sits, playing on Fraser’s mobile phone. The short sequence of notes stops then repeats, again and then again, producing a refrain which is at once saccharine and sinister. Candy Crush Saga, Zeb notes, thinking how much Matty loves that game. She will call him as soon as she gets back to the hotel, she decides.

  Fraser pulls into a tight passing space and kills the engine. Zeb is overcome for a moment by the smell of him – soft notes of heather, soap and tobacco – it takes her a moment to process what she can see. The slope above must rise at an angle of at least thirty degrees. At its peak is a house with an unkempt front garden staring out across patches of lowland too rugged to farm. Iron Age circles of ragged conifers. Pied hilltops. The building is stone-roofed, austere; its façade, pitted with tiny windows set deep into the rain-lashed stone. It seems impenetrable.

  But Zeb’s attention is drawn back to just
one feature. A few feet above the front door a circular window peers out from the stone like a Cyclops’ eye. The echo of Billy’s picture makes her left hand tense around the door handle. For this is the place where she came before. The house where she was invited in for tea. Where she was asked to wait while her host popped out for milk. And where something unspeakable happened while she was waiting.

  ‘Looks to me like there’s no one in,’ Fraser observes. ‘She converted the place into flats when her husband died, you see. But neither of the cars that are usually there are parked out front and none of the windows are open, see?’

  Stunned, Zeb answers automatically. ‘They have them open in winter?’

  ‘You southern types with your City shoes and central heating,’ he teases. ‘Yes, in winter, too – though I think some might count this as early spring.’ Fraser looks at his watch. ‘Mrs Duffy will most likely be out at the shops. Davy will be out setting his traps. And Miss Dee will be music tutoring, I’d expect. Right, it’s later than I thought and I really should be dropping Evie off. Sorry, I should have thought this through.’

  The temperature is falling as Zeb makes her way to McLellans by foot from the crossroads in the village centre where Fraser drops her off. The weather is indeed closing in, which gives the hotel lobby a certain womb-like allure. Though grateful for the temporary excuse not to investigate further, she knows she will have to return. As Zeb approaches the reception desk to pick up her room key she sees a new receptionist. This one has a heavily lacquered helmet of silver hair and makes no effort to end her phone call.

  Taking a seat in the leather armchair by the side of the desk, Zeb spots a large, leather-bound visitors’ book and pulls it towards her. Opening the cover, she flicks through its heavy, gold-trimmed pages to pass the time. Despite the inhospitable time of year, dozens of visitors have stayed at the hotel in recent weeks from places as far afield as Hong Kong, New York and Ontario. As she waits for the woman to finish her call, a mobile phone rings. It is a tone Zeb does not recognise, so it takes her a moment or two to extract it from her coat pocket.