by Amy M. Reade
I woke up panting and sweaty. I must have thrashed around, because Seamus woke up at the same time. He sat up and I felt his hand on my arm in the dark.
“Sylvie,” he whispered, “calm down. You were having a nightmare. Calm down, love. You’ll make your head hurt.”
“Too late,” I moaned. “It hurts so much.” I felt his cool hand on my forehead, caressing my skin and smoothing my hair. I settled back under the sheet, but sleep would not come after the dream. Eventually he turned over and went back to sleep; I could hear him snoring after only a few minutes. My head was pounding. After an hour of trying to find a comfortable position, I got up and made a pot of tea. I didn’t think it would hurt too much to look through the photos of London I had printed out, so I sat at the kitchen table and perused the pictures. I wanted to get more from the studio, but I was afraid to go in there at night by myself. I hated to be scared, but I knew the feeling would go away someday.
Mum was always a light sleeper—I should have known I would wake her up if I went into the kitchen. She padded in and sat down across from me.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked.
“No. I’m sorry if I woke you,” I replied.
“You didn’t wake me,” she said. I knew she was lying. “I’ve been restless.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I suppose I worry about Greer and James. And now you and Seamus, too.”
“I know why you’re worried about me and Seamus, but don’t be. Seamus won’t go away again and he’ll make sure nothing happens to us. Why are you worried about Greer and James?” I asked.
“Greer can’t decide if they should get married.”
“I think they should. They’re perfect for each other,” I said.
“I agree, but she’s worried she’ll make another mistake,” Mum said with a sigh.
“She won’t,” I said with certainty.
“You know that and I know that, and even James knows that, but Greer has to know it for herself before she makes a decision. James will wait as long as it takes.”
“There can never be another Neill,” I pointed out. “He broke the mold.”
Mum chuckled. “He really did. That man was daft.” She paused for a moment. “Greer is afraid that James has some secret he’s keeping from her. But I’m convinced he doesn’t. They’ve known each other for several years—if he had a secret she’d know about it by now.”
I was silent, thinking back to that receipt. I knew what it was like to think your mate has a secret, even though I trusted Seamus.
“I can understand how she feels,” I said. “She just wants to be sure. But I wish she would hurry and come to her senses. I feel like going to a wedding.”
Mum smiled. “You get better, then you can dance at your sister’s wedding without getting a headache,” she advised. She pushed herself away from the table. “I’m going to try going back to sleep. What about you?”
“I may as well clean out the fridge since I can’t sleep,” I said. “I’ll nap later. What else is there to do?” I laughed.
She gave me a hug and went back to the guest room. I started cleaning the refrigerator, possibly my least favorite household chore. It was hard trying not to think about anything in particular.
Just as the sun was rising I heard Seamus moving around in the bedroom. He came into the kitchen scratching his beard. “What’re ye doin’ out here? I was worried when I woke up and you weren’t in bed,” he said, wrapping me in a big hug.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I might as well clean,” I said, smiling up at him. “Tea’s ready. Want some?”
He sipped his tea while I finished wiping down the walls inside the refrigerator. “What are you doing today?” I asked.
“I’ll be in the shop and the studio, working and finishing the clean-up from the break-in. Then I have to submit photos and documents to the insurance company.”
“I wish I could help,” I said.
“You just concentrate on getting better. That’ll help me more than anything else,” he said.
Mum came in while Seamus was in the shower, then the three of us had breakfast together before Seamus opened the shop for business. He had already enlisted Mum’s help in getting the shop and gallery ready for customers—he had spent some time cleaning up the mess while I was in hospital, but most of it remained to be done.
I was taking a break from mopping the kitchen floor when the phone rang. It was Peter, Felix’s assistant from the Lundenburg.
“I’ll see if Seamus is busy,” I answered when Peter asked to speak to him. I peeked into the studio, where he was deep in conversation with a young couple.
“Can I have him ring you back?” I asked.
“Actually, I can probably just ask you,” he answered. “Seamus was going to get us the deposit information for the sixty thousand pounds from the gallery opening. Do you happen to have the account number handy?”
I stared at the phone in my hand, dumbstruck.
“Hullo?” he asked. “Are you there, Mrs. Carmichael?”
“Aye.” I was struggling to understand what he had said.
“And do you have the account number?”
“Um, no. I’ll have Seamus call you back.” I was fumbling for words in the face of this news. Sixty thousand pounds? And he told me he only made fifteen thousand? What’s going on here?
My head was starting to hurt.
Forgetting about the mopping, I went into the bedroom to fetch Seamus’s laptop. I didn’t know what I was looking for—I just felt compelled to check his email, his spreadsheets, anything I could think of to attempt to figure out what was going on.
I knew all his passwords. Typing quickly, I accessed his email and scrolled through his inbox and folders. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Orders, updates from galleries that sold his work on consignment, advertisements, and spam. I accessed his spreadsheets next—he kept records of earnings from different galleries, museums, gift shops, and cultural centers. There were no entries from the Lundenburg. That’s odd.
Seamus would never leave financial records from such a huge gallery opening to memory. They had to be somewhere. I had to find them.
I closed his emails and spreadsheets and started scrolling through other files. But it quickly became obvious that there were too many files for me to search, so I shut down the laptop before he came looking for me.
I didn’t know what to do or where to look for more information about his earnings. Should I confront him? There was a forty-five thousand pound difference between what he claimed he made and what Peter told me he made. Surely he knew about it. Perhaps he had been mistaken. But why wouldn’t the amount be on the spreadsheet with all his other earnings?
Something wasn’t right.
I felt that familiar need to talk to someone. Mum was just a few meters away in the shop, but I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know there was a problem, as I didn’t want her to worry. I rang up Greer. She answered on the first ring.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Not great,” I answered, then launched into an explanation.
“That’s a bit different from finding a random receipt, Sylvie. You need to talk to him about this. That’s a huge discrepancy.”
“But why would he do something like that?”
“I honestly don’t know. He could have accounts you don’t know about, but I think you’re entitled to know how much he’s making.”
“I hate to approach him about this.”
“I know. But I think you need to this time. It could be nothing,” she said in a hopeful voice. “Maybe it’s nothing more than a misunderstanding.”
“That’s a pretty big misunderstanding.”
“It is,” she agreed.
After we ended our call I went back into the kitchen, where Seamus was eating a scone over the sink.
“How’re ye feeling, love?” he asked.
I shrugged. “All right, I suppose.”
He arched his eyebrows at me
. “Are ye overdoin’ it? The kitchen floor’s clean already. You don’t have to mop. Why don’t you have a lie down?”
“Seamus, I—” I began.
“Hmm?” he asked, turning back to the sink.
“I think you’re right. I think I will lie down for a bit.”
He pecked me on the cheek before going back to the shop, then Mum came in. She ate a container of yogurt at the table. There had been a lot of customers throughout the morning, she told me, and she hadn’t had time to do much tidying up in the studio. She stood up to discard the yogurt cup and looked at me with a critical eye.
“You’re not looking verra good, Sylvie. I think you need to rest this afternoon. No more cleaning. Mum’s orders. Seamus would agree, I’m sure.”
I nodded. I desperately wanted to tell her about the money, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything.
Though I tried resting during the afternoon, I knew I wouldn’t be able to quiet my mind. My thoughts were a vicious cycle of worry about my concussion, about Seamus, and about my concussion getting worse because of my worrying.
I was in a ragged state by dinnertime. Seamus came into the bedroom to let me know that dinner was ready and found me curled into a ball on the bed, my head in my hands.
“Sylvie! What’s the matter?” He hurried to my side and sat down.
I couldn’t stand the wondering any longer. “Seamus, I need to talk to you.”
“What is it, love?”
“Peter, from the Lundenburg, phoned earlier. He wanted to know if I knew your account number, because he wanted to deposit the sixty thousand pounds you made at the gallery.” I stopped, waiting for his reaction.
None came. He didn’t blink, didn’t frown, didn’t do any of the things I thought he might. Instead he simply said, “I’ll call him back.”
“But Seamus, you told me you made fifteen thousand pounds. Which is it?”
“I have to look into it,” he said vaguely. He looked away.
“Seamus? Is there something we have to discuss?”
“Nay. It’s time for dinner.”
He was lying. I was sure of it. I could tell by his short, clipped sentences and the way he wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“I’m not hungry. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Nothin’s goin’ on, Sylvie.”
“I know when you’re lying to me.”
“It’s nothing!” he roared. I was stunned into silence. He walked out the bedroom door, slamming it behind him. He didn’t speak to me the rest of the evening, and Mum went to bed early, exhausted from her long day. Seamus left our room early the next morning, clearly not wishing to talk to me again about the discrepancy I had brought to his attention. I got up once I knew he was in the shop. After my shower and breakfast, I wondered again how I was going to spend a day that stretched for so many hours in front of me. I couldn’t visit Eilidh, since she was working at the potter’s. I could talk to Mum, but she was needed in the shop where Seamus would be nearby, and I didn’t want to talk to him. I could call Greer, but I knew she had a class to teach.
I could call Chloe. She might be able to shed some light on whatever was happening with Seamus. She might be at work, too, but I took the chance that she would be available to chat for a few minutes.
She did, indeed, have some time to talk.
“What’s new, Sylvie?” she asked. I didn’t know if Seamus had spoken to Felix about the break-in, so I gave her a brief summary of the attack. It seemed so long ago.
She gasped. “Are you all right? Would you like Felix and me to come up there to help?”
“That’s verra kind, but you don’t need to do that. My mum is here visiting, so she’s helping Seamus in the shop and in the gallery whilst I’m not able to work.”
“I can come up just to keep you company,” she suggested.
“That’s lovely of you, but if you and Felix are still planning to visit at the end of the month, there’s no need to come before that. It’s a long drive. Hopefully I’ll be fully recovered by then and I’ll be able to show you around and hike the Highlands with you both.”
“If you’re sure…” she said.
“I’m sure. I actually didn’t ring you up to tell you about my injuries. I phoned to ask you about something else.” I hesitated.
“I’ll help if I can,” she said.
“I was wondering if Seamus ever spoke to Felix about the money he made during the time he was working at the Lundenburg.”
“I don’t know. Felix hasn’t mentioned it. Want me to ask him?”
“No, no,” I said hurriedly. “If he hasn’t said anything, I don’t want to draw his attention to it.”
“Can I ask why you need to know?”
I sighed. I had asked her an unusual question, and I felt it was only fair that I tell her why. “He told me he only made fifteen thousand pounds from his time at the gallery. But Peter called here yesterday and said the amount was sixty thousand pounds.”
“You know, Felix did mention that Seamus had done very well at the gallery. He wouldn’t have said that if Seamus had made only fifteen thousand pounds. Not that fifteen thousand isn’t good,” she hurried to add, “but I know what Felix considers ‘very well,’ and it’s more than fifteen thousand.”
“That was my initial reaction, too,” I said. “Seamus told me I should be grateful, because it’s a lot of money.”
“And he’s right, but it’s not sixty thousand pounds. Tell you what. Let me try to get the information out of Felix without actually asking him. I’ll get back to you.”
I didn’t know what to do after Chloe rang off. I tried cleaning, but my efforts were half-hearted and sloppy. I was bored, and the feeling made me tired. I was frustrated because there were so many things I wasn’t allowed to do.
But I could go for a walk. After telling Mum where I was going, I slipped out the front door, making sure it was locked behind me. I wasn’t afraid to be outside in the daylight, though I wondered if I would ever be able to go out at night again.
I wandered up and down the lanes of the village until I arrived at the potter’s shop. The heavy bell above the door jangled when I walked in. Eilidh, who had been standing with her back to the door, turned around.
“Hi! What are you doing out of the house?”
“I was so bored. I had to get out before I went mad. How are things going here?”
“Great! I’m glad you came by.”
I wandered around the shop, admiring all the pieces of pottery. Eilidh followed me, chatting, since there were no other customers.
“I love working here,” she said. “My boss is great, and the people who come in love to talk,” she said with a laugh.
“Hmm,” I answered, picking up a serving bowl and examining it.
“What’s up, Sylvie? You’re barely listening to me. I can tell your mind is somewhere else.”
I put the bowl back on the shelf and let my hands fall to my sides. “I think Seamus is hiding something from me. Remember the receipt that had me all upset? Well, it’s more serious this time. I think he lied about how much money he made in London.”
“What did he tell you?”
“I found out yesterday that he actually made four times the amount he told me.”
“You’re joking.”
“I wish I was joking. I’d be much happier right now.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“I tried, but he yelled at me and said he would look into it.”
“That doesn’t sound like him.”
“I know. That’s what has me so worried.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said. I was hoping she would have some helpful advice, but she didn’t. After a few minutes of browsing I left and continued walking.
As I walked my thoughts kept returning to Hagen. He knew about the map hidden behind the Leitch painting. He had shown an interest in the painting—so much so that he had driven all the way from London to see it. He held a position
of prominence in the art world. He probably knew the value of a painting by an old Scottish master, even if it was impossible to put a value on the map behind it and the discovery of the ancient jewels from the Honours of Scotland.
And he was tall. And brawny. He could easily have been the one who broke into our cottage and attacked me.
It had been Hagen. I was sure of it now.
I turned on my heel and walked briskly back to the cottage. Oddly, the realization that I knew who had been in my home rattled me enough to send me scurrying back for safety. I unlocked the kitchen door and charged into the room breathlessly.
Mum was standing over the sink, eating a banana. “What’s the matter, Sylvie?”
“Where’s Seamus?” I asked, ignoring her question and forgetting temporarily my anger and confusion toward him.
“He’s in the shop. Are you all right?” she asked, walking toward me.
“I’m fine. I think I know who broke into the house.”
“Who?”
“A man you haven’t met. His name is Hagen, and he’s a professor at the University of London.”
“How do you know it’s him?”
I held up my hand and walked to the shop doorway. “Seamus?” I called.
“Aye?” he answered. His voice was coming from the studio. I glanced around the shop. It was empty.
“Come here!” I called. “I’m in the kitchen.” I turned back to Mum and in just a moment Seamus came into the room.
“What’s going on?”
“I went for a walk, and whilst I was out I realized something. I think Hagen is the one who broke in.”
“Hagen?!” Seamus repeated.
“Aye. It had to have been him,” I insisted. “He was one of the few people who knew about the painting, he came all the way from London to see it, and he’s part of the art world, so he probably knows its value.” I sat down, exhausted from walking and thinking and speaking.