by Marie Laval
However she grudgingly sent him a text from the hospital one hour later. After being told that Geoff had been moved to a single room in the Coronary Unit, she took the lift, and tried to ignore the queasy feeling rising from the pit of her stomach. The air smelled of disinfectant, medicine and sickness. Of sadness, of death.
Hospitals would forever bring back terrible memories of heartbreak, crushed hope, and despair. Images of her mother’s gaunt face and hollowed eyes flashed back into her mind. She curled her fingers tightly around the strap of her handbag and forced deep breaths in.
It was different this time. Geoff wasn’t as ill as her mother. He would soon get out, and be his normal, charming, infuriating self again. She had almost managed to calm down her racing heart when the lift door slid open with a pinging sound. She stepped out and walked straight into Rupert.
‘Rosalie. Long time no see.’ Elaine’s son slapped his large hands on her shoulders and shoved her aside.
She gritted her teeth. ‘Rupert. What are you doing here?’
Rupert’s blue eyes narrowed, and his mouth twisted in a scowl. ‘Same thing as you, I imagine. Visiting Geoff.’
‘I hope you haven’t been pestering him for money.’
His face turned red and he clenched his big fists by his sides. ‘I’m entitled to ask him for money. I’m his cousin, whereas you’re … well, let’s face it, you’re a nobody.’
So the past few months he’d been away hadn’t changed him one bit. He was still a lazy good-for-nothing. She ignored his last, nasty remark. She’d heard it too many times before to care.
‘Geoff is not well, can you not leave him alone?’
Rupert shrugged. ‘He didn’t look that ill to me.’ He walked into the lift, turned to face her, and the doors closed on his smirking face.
She was making her way to Geoff’s room when an alarm went off. Immediately three nurses came hurrying down the corridor. One of them was pulling a trolley with medical equipment on it. They rushed inside a room at the end of the corridor.
Chapter Eight
‘I’m sorry but you can’t come in.’
Before the male nurse closed the door, Rosalie had time to catch a glimpse of Geoff lying in bed, an oxygen mask over his face, surrounded by medical staff and equipment.
Her legs suddenly weak, she leaned against the wall for support. Up to now she had dismissed the seriousness of Geoff’s condition and found plenty of reasons for his extended stay in hospital. His blood pressure was high because the car crash had shaken him, because he liked whisky, rich foods and cigars a little too much. And of course he enjoyed being the centre of attention and having people – women especially – run around him. But what if she had got it wrong and he was seriously ill? Lorna had said he was anxious to speak to her. Perhaps he was dying, and he had sold Raventhorn to put his affairs in order.
She took a few steps to the window overlooking the car park and rested her forehead on the glass just as four floors below Rupert was coming out of the hospital. His face red, his pale blond hair dishevelled, he strode towards a black sports car, gesticulating with his hands. He appeared to be arguing with the dark-haired young woman walking next to him. Rosalie peered at her more closely. Dressed in knee-high boots, miniskirt and a short black fur coat, she had to be the girlfriend Alice had told her about.
Rosalie clenched her fists as she watched them get into the car and speed away. There weren’t many people she disliked, but Geoff’s cousins were definitely the exception. Elaine was a snob who’d always looked down on her mother and herself, and Rupert was a thug. She hadn’t exaggerated when she’d told Marc Petersen that he had made her life a misery for as long as she could remember. Almost from the first day her mother had taken her to Irlwick Primary School, Rupert had picked on her, tripped her over in the playground, sneaked worms or dead flies in her coat pockets or her lunch box, smeared dirt or paint over her books and clothes and generally made it his mission in life to terrorise her. Elaine had dismissed the incidents as harmless pranks, and Rupert had carried on tormenting her.
At secondary school things had taken a more unpleasant turn. Rupert and his friends would make clucking sounds or sing the ‘Greased Lightning’ tune every time she walked past, call her a dirty hoachin and claim she had nits or scabies. They regularly snatched her school bag and slung it into a muddy puddle, and even slashed her coat with scissors once. Rupert was clever enough to get his friends to do his dirty work so he never got blamed for anything.
She recalled a particularly nasty incident in which he’d been involved. She was thirteen. It was winter, it was snowing and she had missed the school bus because she’d stayed too long searching for her coat in the PE changing rooms. She eventually found it crumpled on the floor in a toilet cubicle. It was ripped, wet and soiled. Swallowing her tears of anger and frustration, she had thrown it into a bin bag – she’d rather pretend she’d lost it and be punished by her mother than tell her the truth about Rupert’s bullying. Wrapping her red woolly scarf around her, Rosalie had walked the three miles home, shivering in her school blazer. As she forked right towards old Raventhorn bridge three shadows had jumped in front of her.
‘Isn’t that Little Red Riding Hood walking home in the dark?’ Rupert had exclaimed with a mocking voice. ‘Watch out for the big bad wolf.’ He had blocked her way.
‘Leave me alone,’ she had mumbled, eyeing warily his two friends who stood on either side of him.
‘Or what?’ he asked. ‘Are you going to tell your mummy … or your daddy? Oh, but I forgot. You don’t have a daddy, do you? I bet you don’t even know his name. Not surprising, really, considering what a slut your mother is.’
Her blood ran cold and she gasped. ‘You’re wrong. I know my father’s name, I know everything about him, and one day he’ll come and beat you up, you’ll see!’ She had clenched her fists and swallowed hard. She mustn’t cry. She mustn’t show him how hurt and scared she was.
Rupert had laughed, imitated by his two cronies, then had swaggered closer. Three years older than her, he was already tall and bulky at sixteen and she’d recoiled, fearful he was going to hit her. He’d stopped laughing, shoved his fists into her chest and pushed her into the snow. His eyes narrowed in hatred, he had stood over her and pressed his thick-soled shoe down on her stomach.
‘You have no right to be at Raventhorn, bastard girl. It should be me living there, not you.’ He pressed so hard she could hardly breathe. ‘You’d better watch it because when I’m the laird, I’ll do whatever I want with you and your mum, and afterwards I’ll throw you both back out in the dirt where you belong.’ And he’d kicked her before turning away and gesturing to his two sidekicks to follow him.
She hadn’t told anyone about the incident, partly because she didn’t want to cause any trouble between Geoff and Elaine, but mainly because Rupert’s words had hit a raw nerve. It was true, she didn’t have a father. All she knew about him was his first name – John – and she wasn’t even sure it was his real name. Her mother had always met her questions with a stony silence and Rosalie had been reduced to making up stories about him. He was an American rock star, a secret agent, an explorer who had disappeared whilst searching for a treasure in the Amazonian forest.
Nothing could take away the hurt and the shame of being nobody’s daughter. What made it harder too was that her mother didn’t have any relatives. Rosalie had grown up without grandparents, aunties or uncles, and as talking about the past always upset her mother, Rosalie didn’t ask any questions. She supposed she could count herself lucky to live at Raventhorn with Geoff and Lorna as substitute family.
‘Excuse me.’ A man’s voice nearby made her jump.
She turned round and found herself face to face with a doctor.
‘How is he?’
‘Stable for now but it was a close call. I’m afraid he needs a heart bypass. I am scheduling the operation for tomorrow morning.’
A black mist closed in on her once again. So Geoff was tr
uly ill. So ill he might very well die.
‘Are you all right, miss?’ the doctor asked. ‘Do you need to sit down?’
‘No, thanks, I’ll be fine. Can I see him?’
‘Only for a few minutes.’
She followed him to Geoff’s room. How pale he was against the white hospital linen, and how grey his hair looked. With the drip stuck to the back of one hand, an oxygen mask on his face and the monitors wired to his body, he looked old and frail. A glimmer lit his pale blue eyes when she walked in and his fingers clutched at the sheet as if he wanted to pull them off and sit up.
‘Don’t move, don’t even try to talk,’ she warned, pulling a chair closer to the bed to sit down. ‘You really are the most annoying person I know.’ She tried to keep her voice light and cheerful. ‘There I was, ready to have it out with you for letting the insufferable Marc Petersen into my life, and for …’ she coughed to clear her throat ‘… well, you know, all the other things you should have told me about, but once again you’ve managed to wriggle your way out of trouble.’
She took his hand and pressed it lightly. Geoff closed his eyes. His breathing deepened. He lifted a hand to pull the mask off his face.
‘I have to speak to you, darling,’ he whispered. ‘There are things I must say … it’s important.’
She placed the mask back on his face. ‘Now isn’t the time for explanations. You get better first, then I’ll go mad at you.’
She glanced at the heart monitor with its green dot flashing on the screen and leaned towards him. Whatever his faults, he and Lorna were the only family she had left. She blinked the tears away and smoothed his hair on his forehead.
He lifted the oxygen mask off again. ‘Rupert said you’d had trouble on the road last night. Someone went after you, caused you to have an accident.’
She frowned. How had Rupert found out about the previous night’s car chase already? Unwilling to alarm Geoff, she shrugged as if it was no big deal. ‘It was nothing, some stupid driver, that’s all.’
‘He also told me about Duncan’s cab getting vandalised. Please, you must be careful. Promise me.’
His face became ashen and his nostrils were pinched as he struggled for breath. ‘He found us … after all this time, he found us. He found you.’
What was Geoff talking about? Who had found her?
‘Stop talking and put that mask back on,’ she scolded but Geoff shook his head and became even more agitated.
‘He’s dangerous, that’s why she left, why she had to hide. Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me …’ He had trouble breathing and his skin took on a waxy yellow shade.
Alarmed, Rosalie replaced the mask on his face once more. ‘Calm down. Breathe slowly. That’s it. Again.’
A nurse walked into the room, pulling a trolley of equipment behind her. ‘I’m sorry but you have to leave now. We have to run more tests before the operation.’
Rosalie nodded and started to rise. She kissed Geoff’s hand. ‘I love you. Everything will be all right. I’ll be here when you wake up.’
One last time, he tried to pull his oxygen mask off to speak but she put her hand over his to stop him. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Be good.’
She followed a nurse into a small office and was handed a pile of forms to fill in and sign since Geoff had nominated her as his next of kin. The nurse said there was no need for her to come in the morning as bypass operations usually lasted several hours. The hospital would ring her when Geoff was out of theatre.
She managed to hold back the tears until she was alone in the lift, but once she started crying, she couldn’t stop. Her hand in front of her mouth to stifle her sobs she almost staggered out of the hospital, oblivious to everything and everyone around. She had no idea how long she sat in the cab, staring at the thickening layer of snow covering the windscreen.
‘Are you there, Rosalie love?’ Fergus’s voice on the cab radio startled her.
She coughed to clear her throat. ‘Yes, Fergus. What’s up?’
‘I’m just lettin’ you know that Petersen isn’t happy. He called me twice in the past twenty minutes. You were supposed to phone him, he said. You’d better do it now before he comes after you or alerts the constabulary.’
She sniffled, wiped her damp cheeks with her pink scarf. ‘I completely forgot about him. I’ll text him now.’
‘Aye, you do that. Don’t give the man a hard time. I think he’s genuinely worried about you. We all are.’ Fergus paused. ‘You sound a wee bit upset.’
In a broken voice she told him about Geoff’s heart condition and about the very real possibility of him not surviving the operation. Before starting the cab, and although she didn’t like having to account to Marc Petersen for her every move, she sent him a text to say she was on her way back.
After yet another hot and restless night, Marc was ready to believe that Isobel McBride’s bed was indeed enchanted. Once again it hadn’t been nightmarish visions of his father’s helicopter crash that kept waking him up, but dreams of the same mysterious woman as before. He could feel the texture of her skin as he pinned her under him, taste her sweetness, lose himself inside her, but every time he woke up his bed was empty and his hands closed onto crumpled sheets instead of on the warm, soft body that drove him crazy with lust. He eventually managed to fall into a slumber some time after four and got up, feeling rough and ill-tempered as daylight threw a gloomy grey into the room through the curtains.
After another tepid shower, he went down to the kitchen, his footsteps echoing in the empty house. Rosalie had already left to take Lorna to the train station and visit McBride in hospital, so he gave her a quick call to make sure she was safe. He made scrambled eggs on toast and a pot of coffee, and listened to the castle’s creaking, groaning and clinking sounds as he ate at the kitchen table.
There was something he hadn’t had the chance to do yet, he thought as he put his plate and mug in the sink – to explore Raventhorn, and find out where all these noises came from. He smiled. Perhaps he’d dislodge one or two ghosts on the way.
It was a strange, but not unpleasant feeling, to walk along the long corridors, wonder what treasures lay hidden behind the closed doors, and think all this was, for now at least, his. Most of the ground floor rooms looked unlived in, with furniture stacked up or covered with dust sheets, except for an imposing oak-panelled dining room, an inviting billiard room and a music room complete with a grand piano, a beautiful harp and a deflated bagpiper sitting on an old chair – ghostly Finghall’s bagpipes, perhaps?
There was also the beautiful, but messy, library he’d visited briefly the night before to get a map and the keys to the Range Rover. Today he took the time to look at the books and papers scattered on the desk, next to an ashtray filled with half-smoked cigars and a tarnished silver flask. There was no need to unscrew the top to know what was inside. He’d already gathered that McBride enjoyed his whisky.
Among the books were a detailed history of the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, old papers about Denmark and countless original and translations of poems and sagas. Next to the desk towered a tall pile of manuscripts, all of them transcriptions of runestones. A note scribbled on the sheet stated that all of them had been found in North Jutland.
Memories flooded Marc’s mind, so vivid his breath caught in his throat. Summer meadows and deep forests. Endless empty beaches and crashing waves under a sky so vast and so blue it made the soul fly.
North Jutland was where his father’s family was from and where he’d spent the happiest holidays of his life. Never since had he felt happier or freer than when he left his English boarding school for the summer and spent two glorious months on his grandfather’s farm, roaming the countryside, climbing ancient burial mounds, looking for runestones. And dreaming.
His grandfather had told him about the people who used to live on the land, and some of their stories and legends. Enthralled, Marc had listened to his tales of Norse gods and mythical creatures, and to stories of Viking ex
peditions around the world. And when one summer, he had taught Marc how to decipher some of the inscriptions on the runestones that scattered his land, he had opened up a whole, ancient and magical world.
These exciting summers had stopped abruptly when Marc reached his thirteenth birthday, and his father decided he should make more productive use of his time by attending summer schools. There had been no more holidays in Hanstholm, and he’d only seen his grandfather once more after that – in his coffin at his funeral. Eager to sever his links with his humble Danish roots, his father had then sold the farm and the land.
What he didn’t know was that Marc had bought the farm back a few years ago. He hadn’t returned there yet – he rented it out – but one day he would, when he wasn’t so busy … or afraid to be confronted with ghosts of the past and childhood memories.
What was ironic was that his father should buy the Scottish estate of a man obsessed with the very Danish ancestors he had spent his life disowning. Not for the first time Marc wondered what he’d been thinking of. Leaving the library, he made his way upstairs. Many of the rooms on the first and second floor were closed and he didn’t like to intrude, but one door was ajar. He pushed it open and stepped into an elegant bedroom – a woman’s, judging by the rose blooms adorning the wallpaper, the dressing table covered with perfume bottles and the tall, narrow vase in which stood a single white lily. The bed was made. A book lay on the bedside table, with a pair of reading glasses folded neatly on top. It was almost as if its occupant had just left. Almost, because there was an echo of sadness and loss that made Marc quickly step back and close the door softly behind him.
He went up to the third floor where a spiral staircase led to the top of one of the towers. The old, rackety door at the top didn’t take much effort to open, and he stepped outside, onto the battlement. Oblivious to the cold, he stood against the parapet, taking in the sweeping view of the loch that reflected the lead grey sky, the snowy forest all around and the white peaks of the Cairngorms in the distance.