the villagers.
“That will be all right,” said Fiona quickly, noticing Jamie’s suppressed anger. “I’m sure we’ll all be glad of a break. Is there anywhere around here to have lunch?” She felt cross and cold and edgy. The manse had a stone floor, and she was sure the permafrost was creeping up her legs. She longed for a cigarette, but the minister’s wife had said she disapproved of smoking.
“There’s nowhere here,” said the minister, “but my wife and I were just about to have lunch. You are welcome to join us.”
“No, we’ll go back to Lochdubh and get something there,” said Jamie. “Care to join us, Patricia?”
“Thank you…Jamie,” said Patricia, feeling quite elated with all this first-name camaraderie. “So everything has been arranged in Drim?”
“It’s a start,” said Fiona, “that’s all. I’ll be back up with the production manager, accountant, lawyer and so on to get everything properly and legally agreed on.”
¦
As they sat together having lunch in the Napoli in Lochdubh, Sheila, looking out the window, saw white sheets of snow beginning to block out the view.
“I think we’d better get back to the Tommel Castle Hotel and find beds,” she suggested. “We can’t travel in this.”
Jamie finished his wine, wiped his mouth on his napkin and said evenly, “If you don’t mind, we will leave for Glasgow immediately.”
“I really do not think a young lady like Sheila should be driving in this weather, or anyone else, for that matter,” said Patricia. “I, for one, will find accommodation at the hotel.”
Jamie smiled at her. “Send us the bill. No, no, least we can do. Come along, Sheila.”
“She’ll never make it,” said Fiona as she climbed into the van.
“It’s Sheila’s job to drive,” snarled Jamie.
So Sheila drove on up over the hills, peering desperately through the blizzard, swinging the wheel to counteract skids. They were up on the moors when the van gave a final wild skid and ploughed into a snowbank. In vain did Sheila try to reverse.
“You’d better get out and go and find some help,” said Jamie.
“No,” said Fiona flatly. “No one’s going anywhere. We’ll need to sit here and hope to God someone finds us.”
¦
Hamish decided to go to the Napoli that evening. The blizzard was still howling, and the police station felt cold and bleak.
In the heady days when Hamish Macbeth had been promoted to sergeant, Willie Lamont, who served him in the restaurant, had been his constable. But Hamish had been demoted over the mixup of the bodies at Drim, and Willie had married the pretty relative of the restaurant owner and left the police force to join the business.
When Hamish had ordered his food, Willie leaned against the table and said, “We had the fillum people in here.”
“Oh, aye,” said Hamish. “I gather they’re going to use Drim.”
“Just look at that snow!” said Willie, peering out the window. “A wee lassie to have to drive in that.”
“What are you talking about, Willie?”
“I heard that writer woman from Cnothan saying as how they should get beds at the hotel, but the man said that the lassie wi’ the blond hair should get on the road.”
Hamish swore. “Damn it. That’s suicide. Keep my meal warm for me, Willie.”
He hurried back to the police station and called the mountain rescue service, saying finally, “I don’t think they could possibly have got far.”
“We can’t do anything until daylight, but we’ll have the chopper out at dawn.”
“I’d better see if I can find them myself,” said Hamish gloomily, forgetting about his dinner.
He took out a backpack, made a pot of coffee and filled a thermos flask with it. Then he cut some sandwiches and added them to it. He put on a ski suit and goggles, strapped on his snowshoes and set out, cursing under his breath and damning all townees who wittered on about nature, as if nature were some cuddly Walt Disney animal and not a wild, unpredictable force.
He gave up after two hours and headed back to Lochdubh. Like the mountain rescue service, he, too, would have to wait until dawn.
¦
At four in the morning, the van engine rattled and died.
“Get out and open the hood and see what’s up,” shouted Jamie.
But Sheila found they were now buried so deep in snow that she could not open the door. White-faced, Fiona said, “We’ll suffocate.”
Fiona and Sheila were in the front and Jamie behind them.
“I’d better see if I can get something to make holes in the snow,” said Sheila. She scrambled over the seats and into the back of the van. To her delight she found a length of hollow steel tubing. What it was doing there, she had no idea.
“I’ll open the window and push this through so we can get some air.” She handed the pipe to Fiona and then scrambled back. She rolled down the window and began to scrabble with her fingers at the solid wall of snow until she had made a tunnel. Then she took the pipe and thrust it into the tunnel and rammed it upwards. “I’ll need to draw it back in from time to time and make sure it isn’t blocked,” she said.
“We have no heating,” wailed Fiona. “We’re all going to die. How could you have been so stupid, Jamie?”
“It’s not me that’s stupid,” yelled Jamie. “It’s all the fault of that stupid bitch, who doesn’t know how to drive. When does it get light here?”
“About ten in the morning in winter. And we’ll never live that long.”
¦
But the sky was pearly grey at nine o’clock when Hamish Macbeth set out again into the bleak white world. The snow had stopped and everything was uncannily quiet, as if the whole of the Highlands had died and now lay wrapped in a white shroud.
He marched ahead on his snowshoes, out of Lochdubh and up to the moors, keeping to where he guessed the road was but looking always to right and left in case they had skidded off it.
Hamish suddenly thought of Patricia and her holiday in Greece. Somewhere in the world outside this bleak wilderness the sun was shining and people were lying on the beach.
He wanted to get as far away as possible from Sutherland. His mind drew back from the sunshine of faraway places and settled on the thought of the film company. I’d like to get away before it happens, he thought.
He tunnelled with his gloved hands into the snowbank, and then he saw the gleam of green metal. Found them, he thought with relief. Now let’s hope they’re alive. He heard the clatter of a helicopter in the distance.
He scraped away at the snow until he had the back window of the van clear. He peered in. Fiona, Sheila and Jamie all seemed to be huddled together for warmth on the backseat. He knocked on the glass, but the still figures did not stir.
He stood back and waved frantically to the approaching helicopter and then crouched down beside the snowbank made by the covered van to protect himself from the flying snow as the helicopter landed.
Sheila struggled awake as she heard the roar of the landing helicopter. “Fiona!” she cried, shaking her companion. “We’re being rescued.”
They both tried to rouse Jamie, but he appeared to be unconscious.
Sheila was never to forget that moment after daylight appeared around the van and the door was wrenched open. She tumbled out into Hamish Macbeth’s arms and burst into tears. “I thought that bastard had killed us,” she sobbed. “I’ll never forgive him.”
“Aye, well, into the helicopter with you,” said Hamish. “They’ll take you all to hospital.”
The head of the mountain rescue team supervised the lifting of Jamie’s unconscious body into the helicopter.
