Kate wiped her eyes with the handkerchief, feeling even more like a little girl now as she said, “I’m just so disappointed. It was better than a dream, Mr. Cunningham. When I looked out of my bedroom window in the tower I felt like I was a princess in my own little fairytale castle. I’m sorry, I know that must sound so stupid.”
“No need to apologize—I understand. I’m not saying you have no choice other than to give up Greystane and walk away from Glen Cranoch; all I’m saying is that it’ll take no little imagination to think of a way to keep it.”
Trying to get her act together, Kate said, “What other sources of income does the estate have?”
“Not many, I’m afraid. There are a dozen crofts—little mixed farms run by the tenants to feed their families and the laird or lady, earn a little spending money and pay a token rent—but that’s all it is, a token rent. There’s no real money in it for the crofters or the estate. The crofts are really just a way for people who love the land to be able to live on it, and for the estate to employ at least a handful of essential workers it couldn’t afford to pay in cash. They’re almost like a last remnant of the old days, when people paid rent by giving service and a share of their produce to the clan chief,” he said. “You could always try raising their rents but, realistically, they couldn’t afford to pay. They barely get by as it is.”
Kate wiped away the last of her tears and, thinking about the terrible events Finlay had related that morning, said, “Raising the rents isn’t an option, Mr. Cunningham.”
The lawyer nodded. Looking at some notes he’d made on a yellow legal pad, he said, “There’s some revenue from timber, supplying a few specialist local markets—quality furniture-makers and the like—on a small scale.”
“Couldn’t we make more by supplying bigger markets further afield?” Kate asked, more in hope than expectation because she guessed there must be some reason why such a course of action wasn’t already being followed.
Sure enough, the lawyer said, “The Cranoch’s hillsides are too steep, the forest not really extensive enough, the roads in and out too poor to make it a real money-earner. You can’t supply the big buyers with the bulk they need and, even if you could, you can’t compete on price.”
“Have you not got any good news for me, Mr. Cunningham?” Kate asked.
“There is a silver lining to all the clouds,” he said. “I know you’d rather not sell, but if you decide you have to, there’s a buyer who’s expressed the sort of interest that’s likely to translate into an offer it would be difficult to refuse.”
“No matter how much money I was offered for The Cranoch, I wouldn’t find it difficult to refuse.”
“I understand that, Lady Kate, but you have to face up to the fact that you won’t have a choice unless you can come up with a way of turning the estate around.
“Anyway, this party has been interested in The Cranoch for some time. They wanted to meet Colin Chisholm to make an offer but he had no use for money—he was too old to spend it. They must have been keeping an eye on the situation, though.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The day after Mr. Chisholm’s death notice appeared in the local newspaper they were in touch with me, as executor of the estate, asking to arrange a meeting; and then Finlay reported seeing a stranger ‘snooping around’, taking lots of photographs of Greystane and the glen and obviously out for more than a walk. He turned up again the next day, and Finlay confronted him—rather angrily, by all accounts—because he guessed the man was checking out the estate, circling like a vulture.
“Anyway, I didn’t want to meet with the prospective buyer until I’d had this talk with you.
“As luck would have it they called just before you arrived, saying they’re in the area at the moment and asking if they could meet me to discuss the estate. I suggested a business dinner at five o’clock in The Caledonian Thistle Hotel, just around the corner, so that if you’d like to hear what they have to say it won’t involve you in another trip into town. If you’ve got other plans, though, or would rather let me act as intermediary and give you the lowdown later, that’s fine.”
Kate sighed heavily. Fighting back the urge to dismiss the offer of a meeting out of hand, as Colin Chisholm had done, she said, “I suppose there’s no harm at least hearing what they have to say.”
“Indeed not. I don’t have to be present other than to introduce you, but I would strongly recommend that you let me sit in. These people have a thousand little tricks for pressuring you into making on-the-spot decisions you might regret later. They might well say there’s a time limit on their offer, come up with some apparently plausible reason why the deal has to be done tonight or by noon tomorrow or 5 p.m. on Friday, when in truth that’ll almost certainly not be the case. They’ve been interested in the estate for over a year, by my reckoning, so the chances are they’ll still be interested in it a few weeks or months from now.”
Kate nodded to show she understood.
“But I wouldn’t wait too long,” the lawyer cautioned.
“Why not?”
“While it’s not a good idea to accept an opening offer, if you leave the unpalatable decision until you can’t hang on any longer they’ll take you to the cleaners because they’ll be the ones bargaining from a position of strength. They’ll sense your desperation, because that’s part of what they do, and they’ll move in for the kill without mercy, because that’s another part of what they do.”
“Just exactly who are they, Mr. Cunningham, and why are they so interested in Glen Cranoch?”
“They are Yeoman Holdings, a London-based development company. As for why they’re so interested in Glen Cranoch in particular, that’s a little harder to say because their portfolio is so wide. From what I can make out, it seems to cover everything from residential developments through to commercial and leisure interests.” Archibald Cunningham looked at his watch and said, “It’s just coming up to four o’clock now; how about if I meet you in the hotel bar about ten to five and we’ll go into the restaurant together?”
Kate nodded.
“I have another client at four, but you’re most welcome to pass the time in the waiting room, and I’ll get Mrs. Cunningham at the desk there to bring you a coffee.”
“Thanks, but Finlay’s waiting to drive me back to The Cranoch. I better let him know what’s happening.”
“On the subject of Finlay—and Miss Weir, for that matter—they’re likeable souls, but you can’t let the tail wag the dog.”
“What do you mean?”
“This has to be about what’s best for you, Lady Kate, not what’s best for them.”
“You’re right, Mr. Cunningham, they’re likeable souls,” Kate said. She was about to get up to leave but the lawyer stopped her, saying, “There’s one more thing. I almost forgot, because it’s literally a peripheral matter.”
Kate settled back in her seat.
“It concerns the ruins of a small cottage on the estate.”
“Jamie’s Cottage?” Kate had intended asking him about the derelict cottage and its new owner, but the matter had slipped her mind after hearing just how dire the estate’s financial position was.
“Yes, Jamie’s Cottage. I take it Finlay’s mentioned it to you?”
“Briefly.”
“And you’ll have seen Jamie’s portrait and know why it’s turned to face the wall?”
Kate nodded.
“Well, being the youngest son, instead of inheriting the estate he was just given the cottage to live in, and the right to collect a little rent in kind from some of the clansmen.
“After his flight from Culloden and fall from grace his wife and son left the glen. I suppose she didn’t want her child to be brought up in a place where he’d hear his father’s name being blackened. They never returned, and that line of the family was conveniently forgotten …
“At least until a little while ago. In his later years Colin Chisholm got interested in genealogy, possibly so he cou
ld find out if he had anyone to leave the estate to. He bought a computer and seems to have got quite clued-up about using it. He even set up a little business on the Internet, tracing Scottish family trees. He wasn’t making more than pocket money, but it probably helped him feel he was doing something productive with his time.
“As well as tracing your line, which is how we knew roughly where to look for you, he traced Jamie Chisholm’s. Colin never found any trace of Jamie himself—what happened to him is a complete mystery—but he managed to trace the black sheep’s issue down the years. Almost without exception Jamie’s male descendants seem to have served in the army. Maybe they felt they had a point to prove when it came to courage, or maybe they were never told about Jamie, and the army connection is just a coincidence.
“Whatever, just before Colin Chisholm died he traced the sole surviving member of Jamie’s branch of the family, and called me to put a codicil in the will regarding the cottage.”
“Why would he want to do that?” Kate asked. “I’m not asking because I resent it,” she added quickly. “I’m just curious, since this Jamie seems to still be held in contempt two and a half centuries after Culloden.”
“I can only guess about that, but perhaps there’s a clue in what Jamie’s living descendant does, or did: his name’s Cameron Fraser and he saw active service in the Balkans with The Black Watch—that’s a Highland regiment. At a guess, something about that might have struck a chord with Colin Chisholm, a man who was so badly wounded in the service of his country.
“Also, it’s been my experience that when people get to the age Mr. Chisholm had reached, their mind often turns to unfinished business. He maybe saw Jamie’s Cottage as just that. Whatever Jamie’s disgrace, the cottage had still belonged to his wife and child—and so, by extension, Colin Chisholm maybe felt it rightfully belonged to Jamie’s heirs.”
“Do you know anything about this Cameron Fraser?” Kate asked.
Archibald Cunningham hesitated, as if considering a delicate matter, then said, “All I know is that he recently left the army under something of a cloud.”
“What sort of a cloud?”
“The kind that doesn’t have a silver lining, I would venture to suggest.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He resigned his commission just before his term of enlistment was up.”
“So?”
“That’s a most peculiar thing to do, given that his pension benefits would be determined by the rank he held on leaving. He could have left as a lieutenant; instead he left as a private.”
“That does seem strange. Why would someone do that?”
“All I can imagine is that it was either a matter of conscience or of necessity. It’s as if he felt the army had done something so dishonorable that he had to register a protest, or he’d done something so dishonorable the army insisted he do the honorable thing.”
“Did he fall or was he pushed, in other words.”
“Yes, quite.”
Archibald Cunningham’s phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said to Kate. He picked up the phone, listened for a few moments, then glanced at his watch and said, “Thanks, dear. I’ll be with him in a minute.”
He hung up and said to Kate, “My four o’clock client’s here. Probably just as well—we were holding a bit of a board of inquiry into Mr. Cameron Fraser, which was rather naughty of us given that the man’s not even here to defend himself.” He pulled back his chair and got to his feet.
Kate did likewise.
“So, I’ll see you at ten to five in the bar of the Caledonian Thistle, then?” Archibald Cunningham asked.
Kate nodded and shook his hand.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have better news, but the day might yet have a happy ending.”
Kate tried to force a smile but didn’t come close to pulling it off.
A few minutes later she was settling down on a bar stool beside Finlay in The Piper’s Arms, the bar she’d arranged to meet him in.
“It’s a sare fecht to be surrounded by that…” Finlay said, looking at all the bottles of Scotch behind the bar, “… and reduced to drinking this,” he said, holding up a glass of fresh orange.
“I’m sorry, Finlay, but I don’t even trust myself to drive on the roads back home, let alone over here.”
Finlay sighed, looked into his drink and said, “So here isn’t going to be home, then, I take it?”
“I wish with all my heart that it could be, Finlay, believe me.”
“But…”
“From what Mr. Cunningham told me, it doesn’t look like I can afford to keep Glen Cranoch, however much I want to.”
“I understand.”
“I hope this doesn’t seem like I’m rubbing salt into a wound, Finlay, but I’m having dinner with someone who wants to buy the estate.”
“That’ll be the English ‘gentleman’ I saw snooping around the other day, I take it.”
“Yes, I think so. Anyway, I wonder if you’d mind hanging on to give me a lift back to the glen afterwards.” She reached into her handbag and brought out her purse. “I’d like to buy you a meal while you wait,” she said, offering him a £20 note.
“It’s all right, Lady Kate, I’ll wait without the money.”
“Please,” she said, feeling like she was trying to salve her conscience in some small way, and that perhaps Finlay didn’t want to let her.
Finlay’s next words, and the way he spoke them, told Kate she’d been right. “Thank you, but that’s quite all right, Lady Kate,” the ghillie said. “Miss Weir has a meal waiting for us back at Greystane, and I’m sure it’ll be far nicer than anything I could be buying with £20 in any fancy restaurant.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll call and let her know we’ll be late and that only one of us will be eating.” With that he got up and walked over to the payphone at the far end of the bar.
Kate watched him as he stood with his back to her. He rummaged in the pockets of his tweed jacket for change, then just stood there for a moment, leaning against the phone, and she thought his shoulders slumped ever so slightly. Finally he put a coin in the box, punched in a number and, moments later, started talking into the headset.
He talked for two or three minutes, and Kate guessed that he was informing Miss Weir of much more than just their late return.
Finlay went to the toilet after hanging up, and was gone for so long that Kate was starting to get concerned.
When at last he came back, she said, “Finlay, are you all right?”
“Aye, I’m fine,” he told her. “I’m just feeling I owe you an apology, Lady Kate. I was terribly, terribly short with you and I’d no right to be. It’s just been a difficult time for myself and Miss Weir, what with the uncertainty of it all. We’d been prepared for the worst, but then we finally met you and saw what you were like and how much you seemed to like Greystane and Glen Cranoch—”
“I do, Finlay, and not just Greystane and Glen Cranoch, but you and Miss Weir. If there was any way …”
She was about to tell him that in any case nothing had been decided yet, but stopped because she knew that, whatever she felt in her heart, the decision had effectively been made.
KATE ARRIVED AT THE CALEDONIAN THISTLE AT QUARTER to five. There was no sign of Archibald Cunningham, so she ordered a sloe gin to calm her nerves while she waited. Before she could get her purse out to pay for the drink a man of about her own age walked up to the bar, held out a £5 note, and said to the barman, “I’ll get that.”
“It’s all right, thank you,” Kate told him, uncomfortable at the idea of accepting a drink from a man who hadn’t even introduced himself.
However, the barman had already turned away with the money in his hand.
The man who’d bought the drink was more than a head taller than Kate. He strained the seams of his charcoal grey suit at chest and shoulder, and the collar of his white shirt. He had a thick head of coal-black hair and eyes that were almost as dark. His face was heavy fea
tured, and there was a deep dimple in his ample jaw.
It was a description that Kate might have found appealing if she’d been reading it in a book, yet she didn’t find the man standing next to her attractive in the slightest. She liked self-assurance in a man, but loathed over-confidence of the kind she saw in this man’s expression and sensed in his body language. “Thank you, but I don’t accept drinks from strangers,” she told him, making no move to reach for the cocktail.
Other men might have called it quits and walked away with an attempt at a couldn’t-care-less shrug of the shoulders, or mumbled an embarrassed apology. But this man smiled and said, “Tony Carling, pleased to meet you. Now we’re not strangers, so you can accept the drink.”
His accent was English, and Kate decided she didn’t like it. She wasn’t sure what to do, but just then the cavalry arrived, albeit in a form as unlike John Wayne as possible—the portly figure of Archibald Cunningham. “I hope you’ve not been waiting long,” the lawyer said to Kate. His smile died away when he sensed the tension between Kate and the big man next to her.
Kate shook her head. “Nice to see you,” she said pointedly. Then she turned from Archibald Cunningham to Tony Carling and said, “I’m sorry, I have an appointment.”
The solicitor took his cue and called across to the barman, “Charlie, I have a table booked for five o’clock.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Cunningham. Table six should be ready for you now, if you want to be going through.”
“Excuse us,” Archie said firmly but politely to Tony Carling. Putting an arm around Kate’s shoulders in fatherly fashion he guided her towards a dimly-lit room dominated by a log-burning fire.
Kate’s relief was short-lived. She had the feeling they were being followed, and looked back to see the big man walking just a few paces behind her.
Archibald Cunningham turned to see what was wrong. He stiffened, and Kate sensed that physical confrontations weren’t his strongest suit. She guessed that not many people would relish a confrontation with Tony Carling—and that Carling knew it, and enjoyed moments such as this. “I’ve told you we have an appointment,” Kate said, making no effort to hide her irritation.
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