when Duncan asked him about it, he was rather . . .
vague. There were some things that made Duncan think he might have come to Scotland.”
“Tim?” This time Hazel gaped at her. “You think Tim was here?” The implication sank in. “You think
“No, of course not,” Gemma reassured her. “But I’d feel better if I was sure Tim went off for a weekend on his own in Hampshire. Hazel, how do you suppose he learned about Donald?”
“I don’t know. There was nothing— I didn’t—” Hazel clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, how could I have been so stupid? There was an old photo. I left it under my office blotter, along with Donald’s card. But even if Tim saw those, why would he have thought anything of it? I mean . . .” She looked away, as if embarrassed. “I tore up Donald’s notes, and there was nothing else . . .”
“Did Tim know about your past relationship with Donald?”
“Well, yes,” Hazel admitted. “I’d told him a little when we first met. You know how you do, recounting life stories. That was why he never liked me to talk about Scotland, or the past.”
“So Tim’s always been jealous?” Gemma asked, her unease growing.
“I suppose you could say that,” Hazel agreed reluctantly. “Although I never really thought of it that way. It wasn’t like he thought every man I met was trying to have it off with me.”
“Just Donald,” Gemma said flatly. “But he didn’t say anything when you told him you’d planned to come back to the Highlands for the weekend?” When Hazel shook her head, Gemma added, “Did he seem as usual before you left?”
“I suppose so. A little edgy, maybe,” Hazel admitted.
“But I know Tim would never hurt anyone. No matter what I did.” Hazel’s voice held just a touch too much conviction.
The road had dipped, risen again, and now ran through a cleft of rock that looked as if it had just been scooped out by a giant hand. Then, to Gemma’s surprise, a valley opened before them. At its bottom flowed a river, willow lined, pasture flanked, a scene of pastoral perfection set amid the blasted moor.
“Where are we?” Gemma asked, glad to change the subject.
“It’s the River Avon. Some of the best fishing in the Highlands. Donald and I used to come here. He always liked to picnic,” Hazel added, her voice expressionless.
“How typical of the man—he could seat twenty in his dining room, but his ideal meal was outside on a blanket.
It was the whole Victorian legacy, the gentry sporting in the fresh air.”
“Was that so bad?”
“Donald’s family were farmers originally, like mine. It was just that they gave themselves airs.” Hazel fell silent, picking at her pullover again, and Gemma sensed constraint between them.
“Hazel, about Tim— It’s just that when something like this happens, you have to consider all the possibilities.”
“You may, but I don’t, and that’s one I refuse to think about. It’s just not possible.”
“Hazel—”
“Look, we’re coming into Tomintoul,” Hazel said, and Gemma realized there was no point arguing with her.
Glancing about her, she had an impression of a village built all of a piece, set round an airy square, a little island of civilization in the wide expanse of moorland.
“It’s the highest village in Scotland,” Hazel continued.
“Built by the duke of Gordon after the Battle of Culloden, when this was still a major military thoroughfare for the Hanoverian armies.” She pointed ahead, towards the end of the village. “You turn left at the junction.”
“Carnmore is farther still?” Gemma heard the hint of dismay in her voice, and saw Hazel’s fleeting smile.
“Another ten miles. Often in winter you can’t get from Tomintoul to the Braes. And the stretch of road that runs through the Lecht Pass, between Tomintoul and Cock-bridge, is the first in Scotland to be blocked by snow every winter.” This said Hazel with the native’s pride in extreme weather.
Gemma took the turn Hazel indicated, and within moments, the village disappeared from her rear view as if it had never been. “Didn’t you go mad, snowed in for months at a time?”
“No. I loved it, to tell the truth. It’s as if the world shrinks . . . everything seems more focused somehow . . .
Life can be hard here, but people are amazingly tough and self-reliant—at least until you uproot them. My father—” Hazel shook her head. “It wasn’t so bad for my mother when they left here; she came from Braemar, near Balmoral. But my father had spent all his life in the Braes. I watched him wilt and die, and I swore that would never happen to me.”
“Is that why you were so determined to sever your connections, why you didn’t keep in touch with Heather, or come back to visit?”
“Poor wee girl,” Hazel said softly. “She was always intense; even as a child, she took things to heart. And she loved Carnmore with a passion rare in a child, even more than I did, I’m afraid. I don’t think she ever forgave my father—or me.”
“But if your father had no choice—”
“Adult choices don’t mean much to a child. And choice is relative, isn’t it? There was a slump in the whisky industry, yes, but my grandfather, Will, survived much worse without giving up.”
Glancing at her friend, Gemma said, “You never forgave your father, either.”
Hazel considered this. “No, I suppose I didn’t. We Scots are notorious for holding grudges.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you refer to yourself as a Scot.”
Hazel didn’t meet her gaze. “Here’s the Pole Inn, the last outpost of civilization as you enter the Braes. You’ll turn to the right.”
A beckoning wisp of smoke rose from the chimney of the pub, but Gemma obeyed Hazel’s direction. They entered a single-track road that wound round a conifer-covered hill, then followed a bubbling stream through farm pastures and into the small hamlet of Chapeltown.
There was a scattering of houses, a church that Gemma assumed gave the village its name, and a whitewashed distillery. Pointing, she said, “Is this—”
“No. That’s Braeval. Built by Chivas Regal in the seventies, to make whisky for their blends. Unlike Carnmore, they could weather the changes in the market, with corporate might behind them.”
“And the church?”
“Our Lady of Perpetual Succor. Built on an old site around the turn of the century. This was a Catholic stronghold,” Hazel explained. “A haven for Jacobites and smugglers.”
“Smugglers?” asked Gemma, intrigued. “What did they smuggle?” The paved road had come to an end, and at Hazel’s affirmative nod, she nervously eased the car
along a rutted track that seemed destined to dead-end in the hills rising before them.
“Illegal whisky. These are the Ladder Hills; they’re honeycombed with smugglers’ paths. We used to follow them in the summer . . . Heather and I, always hoping to find a working still. It was our version of cowboys and Indians—smuggler and excise man.”
“Were your family Catholic, then?” asked Gemma, thinking about what Hazel had told her.
“Nominally, yes. But my grandfather Will didn’t hold with religion, so my father wasn’t brought up in the church, and my mother was Presbyterian.”
“Did you know your grandfather?”
“No. I wish I had. But he married late, and my father and uncle weren’t born until he was in his fifties. He died before I was born.”
They passed farms, their yards filled with rusting implements, as the track twisted and turned, following the curve of the hill.
Then, as they rounded a bend, a house and outbuildings appeared before them, white-harled, tucked into the fold of the hill Hazel said was called Carn More. “There it is,” she whispered now. “Carnmore.”
Gemma climbed out of the car, looking curiously about her. On closer inspection, she saw that both the house
