There were ten other people in the restaurant, one couple she’d seen who were staying in the hotel, the others, judging by their accent and conversation, local. Hanlon studied the manageress with detached interest. She was lean and radiated an air of slick professionalism. But when you looked closer, she was tired; the make-up didn’t hide the bags under her eyes. Her mouth was a resentful red, compressed, narrow line of lip-balm. She worked the room energetically, refilling glasses, bringing dishes from the kitchen in tandem with Johanna, who had shown Hanlon to her table and was proving a model of exemplary efficiency.
She thought she recognised Harriet’s accent from her former boss, Tremayne, who had pilloried a former colleague from Edinburgh about the way he spoke, which Tremayne had claimed was prissy.
She had heard that Edinburgh Morningside way of speaking enshrined in jokes that Tremayne had told her, like:
Q: What’s sex in Morningside? A: What you put your rubbish in for the binmen.
Q: What’s a crèche in Morningside? A: When two cars collide.
What was this sophisticated Edinburgh woman doing, working for an idiot like Big Jim? For some reason, although Harriet had been both polite and efficient, Hanlon was conscious of disliking her. Hanlon was a naturally prickly person, quick to take offence. She had an uncomfortable feeling that Dr Morgan would have something to say about this. Harriet seemed to be patronising her. Whether or not she was didn’t really matter. That was how she felt. And there was something about Harriet that didn’t ring true, as if she were pretending to be more sophisticated than she was. Maybe it was a British thing, where people disguise their accents to hide a working-class background. Was it a class thing? She shrugged to herself. It really didn’t matter one way or another. Her meal was now nearly over. She finished her pineapple tarte Tatin and Johanna took her plate away.
The manageress came over. ‘Can I get you a coffee, tea, a liqueur?’ offered Harriet. Her voice lingered on the word ‘liqueur’. Hanlon had drunk only water and she had the feeling that Harriet disapproved.
‘Coffee. I’ll drink it in the bar, if that’s OK.’
‘By all means. I’ll have it brought to you.’
Hanlon stood up and walked out of the dining room, across the hall with its sad, tattered carpet to the bar.
It was small with a commanding view of the sea. At moments like this you could see how the hotel could really work; the potential was certainly there. Its view was breath-taking. In the distance you could make out the hills of the Argyll peninsula. It was still light outside although it was nearly ten at night. The soft, unearthly light, like nothing she had experienced before, almost hallucinatory, bathed the huge calm grey ocean in a strange lambent glow. This more than anything else made her realise just how far north they were. It would be dark back home. A couple of fishing boats passed in the distance, heading in the direction of Islay. Their presence only emphasised how vast the sea was. A seal broke the surface nearby and its sleek, dog-like head stared curiously at the yacht before it sank back beneath the Atlantic waters.
There were a few people in the bar, including a small group who were obviously from the yacht, the Lorelei, that could be seen moored outside, its port and starboard lights glowing red and green in the gathering dusk. She guessed its owners were the two men, in their late forties, early fifties, one bald and trim-looking, the other with a comb-over and a sizeable beer belly that an ill-advised polo shirt couldn’t contain, spilling over his white chinos. They looked like the kind of men who would own a boat like that. They were accompanied by three girls who were young enough to be their daughters but probably weren’t. The two men were British, the girls, judging by their accents, foreign. They were drinking champagne.
Hanlon sat at a table in the corner, took her phone out and toyed with it, not because she had any desire to check messages or look at anything in particular, just so she didn’t look out of place and alone.
Comb-over guy said something loudly and the girls laughed hysterically. They looked to be in their mid-twenties, in ripped jeans and T-shirts. Two brunette, one blonde. Comb-over had his hand on one of the blonde girl’s thighs, stroking it intently. She patted it absent-mindedly, as you would a dog. He was sniffing loudly at intervals. His eyes were bulging; they glittered alarmingly. Hanlon glanced over disapprovingly and the girl noticed her look and scowled. Hanlon shrugged and went back to looking at the news on her phone. More accurately, pretending to look. There was no signal. She had forgotten to ask about Wi-Fi.
Another gale of laughter. Hanlon looked up, frowning. The blonde girl with a stud in her pierced nose, caught her eye, sneered and, surreptitiously, so only Hanlon would see, gave her the finger. She sighed to herself and shook her head, trying not to let the girl’s contempt rile her. But it did. She put the phone down and looked at the bar.
There was an elaborate Gaggia coffee machine, hissing and steaming, and the barman, Kai McPherson, she remembered from the group photos at reception, busied himself with it and brought Hanlon over her coffee. He was young, good-looking and he knew it. There was a mirror on one wall and she could see the blonde girl staring at Kai with undisguised attention. She guessed that Kai was everything that the yacht owner wasn’t. Unfortunately, that included poor.
As the barman put her coffee on the table and
