The Missing Years

by Lexie Elliott

  “Christ,” says Ali, with the air of a man who’s just got rather more than he bargained for. “But . . . the flies couldnae be planned.”

  I shake my head. “No, I don’t think they could.” He’s quick, Ali. “But maybe someone took advantage of that situation. They would have had to have been watching the house to know to move that stuff.”

  “If that’s true, it can’t have been Fi,” says Ben unequivocally. “She could barely stand at the end of that night.”

  “True.” At least, I think it’s true. It occurs to me that Fiona could be a very good actress. Did she really drink that much, or did she merely pretend to? But I’m being ridiculous: Fiona couldn’t have known Carrie and I would be joining them that evening. Still . . . I try for an innocent tone. “Did either of you two know about her obsession with this house?”

  Ali shakes his head, and Ben does, too, after a beat, but then he says reluctantly, “Well, I knew she liked the building.” His eyes roam around the kitchen, as if he’s trying to see it afresh. “But lots of people do. It’s the most impressive piece of architecture around here, barring the hotel. And like I told you tonight, she thinks it’s kind of special.”

  “Ah yes. Time folds here.”

  “Dinnae mock,” says Ali seriously. “What happened at the kirk—if anything could stick a pin through all time, it would surely be that.”

  I sigh. “Not you too?”

  “There are more things on heaven and earth and all that. And anyway, there are plenty of genuine reviews online suggesting that this place is haunted.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe there’s one person posting lots of malicious reviews online.”

  “Maybe.” But his face tells me I haven’t convinced him.

  “What did you mean by what you said about Callum and animals?”

  “The wee lad has a gift with them. He’ll be a vet, or a horse trainer, or something,” Ali says. It doesn’t surprise me. I can imagine a grown-up Callum as a vet. There’s something straightforward and calming about him. The animals would surely sense they’re in safe hands.

  Ben nods. “If he says they won’t come in here, I would bet serious money he’s right.”

  “So you think someone brought the raven and the fox here.”

  Ben’s nod is a slow considered movement, Ali’s a hurried jerk. It’s startling how unalike they are, in every way. There’s Ben with his caramel hair and face as open as a windswept moor, sitting back in his chair, facing the table squarely, his mug cradled in his palm. Whereas Ali, dark and twitchy as ever, is hunched over his mug, his eyebrows so low they blend with his eyelashes. “Obviously the question is who,” Ben says.

  Ali grunts. “To state the bloody obvious.” He looks at his coffee, then mutters, half to himself, “I suppose if someone brought it here, it could have come from anywhere.” Then he looks at his coffee again. “You got anything stronger? That is, if I can crash at yours, Ben, and Ailsa, you dinnae mind us leaving our cars here overnight?”

  I push my chair away from the table and head for one of the kitchen cupboards. “Fine by me. I think we’ve got—ah, here.” I pull out a bottle of Glenmorangie and put it on the table in front of them, and take a seat again.

  Ali picks it up immediately with an appreciative nod. “I thought you didnae like whisky.”

  “I don’t. Carrie picked it up.” Beer, whisky—Carrie’s drinking habits have been full of surprises for me.

  “Good taste, your sister,” comments Ali. Half sister. And it doesn’t look like I know even that much of her. “She willnae mind?”

  I settle back at the table with a shrug. “She’s not here.” Where is she? I wonder again. “I can always buy a replacement bottle.”

  “Glasses?” asks Ben, standing up. “No, don’t worry, I’ll get them.” He heads to the cupboard I’m pointing at. Ali’s hooded eyes follow his friend across the kitchen with an intensity that catches me by surprise. Then his gaze stutters back to me and the moment is gone.

  “So, who?” says Ben again, when he and Ali each have two fingers of amber in their glasses.

  “You tell me. I’m the newcomer; the only people I’ve spoken more than three sentences to are those I met in the Quaich the other night. And Callum, and Glen McCue.”

  “It’s not going to be any of that list,” declares Ali.

  “Maybe,” I say, carefully stirring my coffee that needs no stirring.

  Ali glares at me. “Maybe?”

  I have the attention of both of them. “It did cross my mind that it could be either of you.” I throw in a smile to lighten it, but nonetheless, Ben’s eyes leap to my face. He looks oddly stricken.

  Ali, on the other hand, is instantly furious. “How d’you figure that? You saw Ben find it. He almost bloody tripped on the fucking thing.”

  “I didn’t see it when we came in. Ben could have had it in the back of the car the whole time. Or you, Ali.” Ali looks faintly repulsed by the suggestion. Ben could be carved from marble. “It seems to me that you, Ali, haven’t been my greatest fan from minute one, and that Ben would rather I hightail it out of here and sell him the Manse. So, it could have been either of you. Or maybe you cooked this up between you to get rid of me.”

  “You’re a fucking piece of work, you ken that?” Ali stands up abruptly, almost knocking over his chair.

  “Relax,” says Ben laconically. He has recovered himself, but now I can’t read his expression. It’s disconcerting on his ordinarily open countenance.

  I start to speak, but Ali can’t be derailed. “Relax? I dinnae have to listen to this bint tell me she thinks I’ve been launching a hate campaign for no reason. You can fucking well clean up your own fucking fox corpse, you—” He stops, and then starts to laugh, in a cold high chuckle. “Ah, but not for no reason, am I right? You think it’s a revenge campaign, on account of your thieving father.” The vitriol in his voice—thieving father—robs me of everything I was about to say. I wonder that Ali can look at me at all with that hatred for my father wrapped up inside him. He searches my face, his own expressing a warring mixture of triumph and something else. “You do, don’t you?” Indignation. The something else is indignation. It’s more convincing than any words he could say. “You’ve got a fucking low opinion of people if you think—”

  “She doesn’t think that,” breaks in Ben mildly. “Not really. She’d hardly be confronting us about it alone in an isolated house if she thought that. After all, who knows what we might do to her if we really are harassing her.” He looks at me pointedly. “Right, Ailsa?” I nod numbly, though his logic is flawed; without knowing the aim of the harassment, it’s unclear whether I’m at risk or not. But I’m still stuck on thieving father. Suspecting that a lot of people feel that way is very different to hearing it in person. “Ali, sit down,” Ben commands. “She was just thinking aloud. Right, Ailsa?”

  “Right. This bint was just thinking aloud.” It comes out with deliberate tartness, now that I’ve refound my voice.

  Ben barks a surprised laugh, and I’m taken aback to see that even Ali finds a reluctant smile touching his lips. “Ah. Well. Sorry about that.” I look at them both in bafflement for a moment, then find I’m inclining my head and smiling, too. I don’t quite understand how insulting Ali has brought more civility from him toward me than I’ve ever seen before, but somehow it has. Ali hooks his chair with his leg and sits down again, a touch sheepishly. I look at Ben. His face is carefully blank. It’s oddly chilling.

  “All right,” says Ben. “So if we can proceed on the basis that neither Ali nor I are out to bury you under a heap of dead animals, who else might be in the picture?” I raise my eyebrows but don’t say anything, and I watch his face, waiting for the penny to drop. Now there’s no longer a lack of expression; I can see every thought. “No, wait . . . you don’t mean . . .” He trails off.

  “She wouldnae,” says Ali stoutly
. And then, after a beat, “And anyway, it couldnae be her. She was too smashed to go stealing bin bags, remember?”

  “That doesn’t rule her out from fun with animal carcasses.”

  Ali’s mouth twists. “You have a hell of a turn of phrase.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Dinnae,” he says sourly, but there’s a gleam in his eye. He likes this, this back-and-forth on the knife-edge of too much. He gets a kick out of it.

  Ben ignores our traded barbs. “Come on, is it actually realistic to suggest that there’s more than one person terrorizing you?” he objects again.

  I pick up my mug and take it to the sink. “It doesn’t seem realistic to me that there’s anybody terrorizing me at all.” But the alternative—that I’m imagining things—is too unthinkable. For me, at least; Carrie was certainly thinking it with the flies. “But nonetheless I found myself ducking a stone in my garden. Are there problems with gangs of kids round here?”

  They both shake their heads. “There are barely enough kids round here to make up a gang,” Ben says.

  “Fi, Jamie, Piotr, Glen . . .” Ali counts them off on his fingers. “Do you ken anybody else?”

  I start to shake my head and then stop. “Well, there was that woman at the hotel who was rude about my mother.”

  Ben winces even as Ali asks, “Who was that?”

  “Mor—” I start, but Ben is speaking over me.

  “Your mum,” Ben says gently to Ali.

  “Ah fuck,” says Ali dismally, scrubbing his face with his hand. “Holly—my sister-in-law—said she’d gone off on one, but I didnae get the details.” He turns to me. “I’m sorry about that. She has Parkinson’s. And dementia too, now, we think.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Not half as sorry as she is,” he says dismally, but there’s no meanness in his words. “But it wouldnae be her; she’s all talk and no trousers. And she’s not allowed to drive anymore, so she couldnae even get herself here.” He thinks again for a moment. “It doesnae make sense. Nobody has anything to gain.”

  “You said you’ve felt like you were being watched. Have you actually seen anyone?” Ben presses on.

  I hesitate. “Once,” I admit. I hesitate again, remembering that triangular shape. “I thought I saw someone . . .”

  “Where?” asks Ali.

  “I was at the end of the garden. I thought I saw someone inside. In the upstairs window.” I’m leaning against the countertop now, and I find myself throwing an involuntary glance out the kitchen window, as if I might see myself at the end of the garden, looking up. “In the box room. It was locked before I got the locksmith over, but when he opened it up, there was dust everywhere, except on the boxes.”

  “Christ,” says Ali faintly. Then he rallies. “You need some security cameras. We sell them at the shop; come and see me there tomorrow and I’ll sort you out.” My face must be showing my ignorance, because he explains. “I’ve got a hardware shop in town. The other family business,” he adds, with unexpected humor. “We’ve got a whole line of this stuff, motion sensors, the lot. I’ve even got a guy who will fit it all for you. Here.” He fishes in a pocket for his wallet and pulls out a card to hand to me. Alistair Jamieson, Managing Director, Jamieson’s Hardware.

  “Thank you.” I’m unexpectedly filled with something that might be approaching warmth for him. I put the card carefully on the counter. “You know, Ali, you’re in danger of being nice to me.”

  He grunts. “Dinnae worry, it willnae last.”

  “I wouldn’t vote for Scottish independence.”

  He groans theatrically. “And that’s it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Fucking Sassenach,” he mutters, half smiling as he reaches for the bottle again.

  “Fucking Sassenach bint, surely.”

  “Aye, that too.”

  “Carrie’s not coming back tonight?” Ben asks. I shake my head. “You shouldn’t be here alone,” he says, with sudden authority. He means to railroad me again; I can feel it. He will suggest he stays here too, or that I stay at his. “Don’t try and be a hero about it. Better to be safe than sorry. I’ve a perfectly decent spare room.”

  “Wait a minute, I thought I’d just bagged the spare room,” argues Ali, through a yawn.

  “You can have the sofa,” Ben tosses back.

  “He can have the spare room. I’m not staying.” They both start to argue, but I speak over them. “I’m not trying to be a hero, honestly. I just think . . .” What do I think? Do I really think either of these men mean me harm? I look at them both as if I can see their intentions on their faces, but there’s nothing but tiredness on Ali’s. And Ben is once again giving nothing away. “I don’t think I should leave. If someone is trying to scare me out, they should see that it’s not working.” If I let myself leave now, I might never return—especially if it’s all in my mind. I can’t allow myself to be chased out of here. The decision shouldn’t be tied up with Carrie, but somehow it is—it would feel like giving up at the first hurdle. On both Carrie and the Manse. “Anyway, if the pair of you are leaving your cars outside overnight, surely that will deter any harassment.”

  They look at each other again. “I suppose,” concedes Ben. He glances at his watch. “Don’t you need to check on your mum, though?” he asks Ali.

  “Nah, my brother or Holly are checking in on her tonight.”

  Presumably she’s on her own too, since Ali’s father upped and offed to continental Europe. It’s odd to think that we have something in common, Ali and I: we both grew up without a paternal presence. I reach for the photo of that immortalized dinner party that hasn’t yet left the kitchen. “Is this your mum?” I’m pointing to a small but curvy woman with a smile on her face who’s standing next to Ali’s dad. Even though I’m looking for similarities, I can’t see how she turned into the shriveled old woman, with her spiteful pinched mouth, that I encountered in the hotel.

  Ali takes it and squints slightly. “Aye. And my dad. Was that taken here, aye? God, she looks young then.” There’s a sadness around his eyes, and concern in Ben’s as he looks at Ali.

  “Funny to think our parents all knew one another, and here we are, having a drink together,” I muse.

  “That might be odd in London Town, but it’s pretty much par for the course round here,” says Ali, putting the photo down. “Very hard to escape the sins of our fathers when everybody around knows exactly what they were.” He glances at me. “Shite. Sorry. Let’s talk about something much less controversial. Like, erm, Scottish independence or something,” he says, tongue in cheek.

  “I’m against, as Ali well knows,” says Ben, in a screamingly obvious attempt to reinforce the change of subject. He takes the bottle that Ali pushes toward him. “You sure you won’t have any, Ailsa?” I shake my head.

  “Fucking Aussie,” grumbles Ali. “Three of us here born in Scotland, and I’m the only one with any national pride. It’s a disgrace.”

  “It’s common sense, is what it is.” Ben clinks his glass against Ali’s. “Ali’s a hopeless romantic, you see.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought the first time I met him,” I say. They both grin at that, and I wonder what this little tableau must look like from the outside. Friends sharing drinks in the warmth of the magnolia kitchen, laughing and smiling and teasing. I glance out of the window, but all I see is the golden glow of the reflected room. If there was anyone out there in the darkness looking in, I wouldn’t be able to see them.

  * * *

  • • •

  I wake in the morning to the sound of a car on the gravel, followed by the fading thrum of the engine as it leaves along the road. I’ve slept unexpectedly solidly; it takes a minute for my brain to fire up. Possibly it’s hindered by the pounding headache I’m experiencing, which feels akin to a hangover, though I don’t deserve one after only a couple of gl
asses of wine at dinner.

  Ben or Ali, I realize. One of them must have been collecting his car. I don’t know enough about cars to be able to determine which from the vehicle noise. I don’t want to be undressed and unshowered if the other knocks on the door when picking up the remaining vehicle, so I reluctantly head for my bathroom and find Carrie’s open bedroom door staring insouciantly back at me across the landing. I wonder again where she can possibly be waking up. Perhaps she and Jamie went to a hotel?

  I make it down to the kitchen, clean and dressed, just before there’s a rap at the front door. There ought to be a peephole in the door, I think, as I swing it open. A peephole, and security cameras and possibly a full troop of highly trained security guards on rotation. I’ll settle for the security cameras, though. It’s Ben that’s waiting for me on the doorstep. Ben and no obvious sign of any animal carcasses of any kind.

  “Morning. Coffee? Scrambled eggs?”

  He glances at his watch. “I wouldn’t say no to both, actually. I don’t start work till eight thirty.” He looks a little like last night’s Glenmorangie has taken the shine off him. “How did you sleep?”

  “Pretty well,” I admit. Probably better than I have on any previous nights, if I’m honest. I peer past him, into the sun-strewn front drive. I can only see Ben’s BMW. “Did I hear Ali picking up his car earlier?”

  “Yeah, he was opening up at the shop this morning, so he came ahead of me.”

  In the kitchen I twist the dial to turn on the radio and focus on the scrambled eggs, one of the few dishes I’m confident about, while he picks up yesterday’s paper, which is still lying on the table. When I place his plate in front of him, he smiles his thanks, then starts eating in a dedicated, thoughtful way without seeming to notice the taste at all. I get through two thirds of my own portion of eggs then realize I’m no longer hungry and put my fork down. “What’s wrong?”

  His eyes jerk to my face. “Nothing . . . nothing.” After a moment he puts his own fork down and yields with a gesture as if to say, Okay, fine. “It’s just . . . I guess in the light of day, with no whisky—”