43
It didn’t look like home. Sophie peered out the window as Lana’s jet banked, dipping its wings towards the dark North Sea. There were droplets of rain on the glass and the clouds they had just descended through were grey-black. Beneath her the lights of Inverness airport glittered in the dusk, like stars reflected from the sky. To her right was the vast rippling plain of the sea, cut off by the lights of Inverness, and beyond, the brooding sketched outline of the Highlands.
She tensed as there was a thump underneath her feet and Josh squeezed her hand.
‘Just the undercarriage going down,’ said Lana in the seat opposite. ‘Don’t be so jumpy.’
That’s the pot calling the kettle black, thought Sophie. Lana had been edgy and tense ever since they had met her at Miami airport, snapping at the slightest thing and chewing on her once immaculate nails. They had considered going to Scotland without her, but they had a deal with her to find the money together, and besides, she had the private jet to get them there.
Sophie had expected Lana to be excited and grateful when they had met at the Gulfstream and Josh had told her he had cracked the code, but she had been quite the opposite, making sniping remarks about ‘Daddy’s lucky girl’ and her ‘childish treasure map’. Sophie would have confronted her about it, but she was terrified that Lana might simply leave her and Josh on the tarmac. After all, she knew the map co-ordinates, all she had to do was go and pick up the loot, but Josh pre-empted any plan to maroon them by pointing out that as the clue had been given to Sophie, there was always a chance that the money – or whatever was waiting in Scotland – would have to be collected by her too.
So they had made the eight-hour journey from Miami to Inverness in near silence, each of them brooding on what they might find at the end of their long quest. Sophie guessed that Lana had probably been unsettled by the idea that the Russians were also on the trail: if Josh could work out that Ben Grear was a mountain, so potentially could Sergei. Perhaps she was picturing Asner’s millions slipping from her grasp; that could make anyone snappy.
Sophie sat back in her seat as the jet bumped on to the runway, turning to watch the grey rain-lashed airport buildings as they taxied towards them.
‘Not quite Florida, eh?’ said Josh, looking past her out of the window. ‘This is what we call summer in Scotland, I’m afraid.’
‘Let’s just find this damn mountain and get this over with,’ said Lana, picking up her overnight bag. One of the many things they had neglected to discuss on the flight over was what happened if they did find the money at the foot of Ben Grear. Was Lana planning on just taking her investment and disappearing back to her house in London? Sophie doubted that very much; in fact she was sure that Josh’s assessment of the situation was correct: Lana intended to take the lot. How she would do that, Sophie hadn’t the foggiest, but as Josh had pointed out, they would have to deal with that when it happened. Right now, Sophie was only concerned with getting through customs.
Numbly, she followed Lana and Josh as they walked across the wet tarmac into the terminal building. Aside from being allowed to go down the mostly empty ‘fast track’ lane, this time they had to follow the same security procedures as everyone else. Sophie glanced at a clock on the wall as she handed her passport to the border guard: almost eight o’clock in the evening UK time. Would she be in a jail cell talking to Inspector Ian Fox by nine? she wondered, then realised she actually wouldn’t mind. She was tired: tired of running, tired of lying, tired of trying to work out what everyone was thinking. All she wanted to do was curl up and sleep for a month, and at this moment, a hard bench and a thin blanket would be just fine.
‘Miss?’ said the guard. Sophie looked up, fully expecting someone to put their hand on her shoulder and lead her away. ‘Your passport?’ he said, holding it out for her.
‘Sorry,’ she stuttered. ‘I was miles away.’
‘Long journey, huh?’
Sophie gave a thin smile. ‘You could say that.’
And then she was gliding through customs and out into the rain. She was back, she was home. It just didn’t seem real, like she had been plucked from one place and dropped into another. The difference in temperature from Cap Ferrat, Miami – even the balmy London night – was shocking. Her thin T-shirt and jacket were no protection from the night breeze whipping down from the mountains.
‘Josh, what happened?’ she said, shivering. ‘How come we got through?’
‘Feels weird, doesn’t it?’ said Josh, taking off his jacket and draping it around her shoulders. ‘I guess Hal Stanton thought our theory about finding the missing Asner millions via a name scrawled in a file was somewhat ridiculous.’
Sophie gave a grim smile.
‘When you put it like that,’ she nodded, ‘I suppose it does sound like a wild goose chase.’
‘Exactly. So why would he waste time trying to trace your mobile or talking to foreign policemen? He probably forgot all about us the moment they pulled out of the diner car park.’
Sophie shook her head and turned her face up to the now dark sky, feeling the misty rain on her face. It felt good, actually. It felt familiar – even the taxis queuing up outside the arrivals hall smelled different from the ones in France or America; they smelled right.
‘Are you two going to stand out there in the rain all night?’
They both looked up; Lana was climbing into the passenger seat of a black Range Rover. As Josh and Sophie ran over, the driver got out and handed Josh the keys.
‘You’ll be driving, sir?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Josh, looking at Lana.
‘I have a migraine coming,’ she huffed. ‘And I can’t be expected to drive in these conditions.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be out in this either,’ said the driver, as he helped them load their bags into the back. ‘You folks going far?’
‘About forty miles north,’ said Josh, his accent noticeably stronger, ‘up towards Lairg.’
‘Over the Bonar Bridge?’ said the man. ‘You’ll be lucky if it’s open in this weather.’
As he waved them off, Lana turned to Josh, her eyes flashing.
‘Don’t listen to him,’ she ordered. ‘We’re going straight to the mountain.’
‘Look, Lana, I grew up around here,’ said Josh. ‘When the storms come, it’s like God has had a really rough night and is taking it out on us. We don’t want to be on the roads in this if we can help it.’
‘Do as I say,’ she snapped.
‘Okay,’ sighed Josh. ‘You’re the boss.’
It was slow going. Even with the windscreen wipers on full, the rain reduced visibility to about twenty yards, and more than once Josh had to swerve to avoid some debris blown into the road. By the time they had left the coast and limped inland towards the bleak and scattered stone outbuildings of Lairg, the roads were awash and they could all feel the gusting wind from the north broadsiding the car when they topped a rise.
‘Look, Lana,’ said Josh, ‘there’s a sign for Ben Grear just up ahead. But even if we make it, we’re not going to be able to see a bloody thing. I know you’re worried about the Russians getting there first, but if they’re here – and that’s a big if – they’re in the same boat.’
‘Very well,’ said Lana. ‘There is somewhere we can stay just past Lairg. We’ll start for the mountain at sunrise.’
They turned off the main road and on to a low single-track road, skirting the dark waters of Loch Shin, so wide it looked like an inland sea. Finally they pulled up at a grey stone building; from what Sophie could see, it looked like an old hunting lodge.
‘This belongs to Edward, one of Simon’s friends,’ said Lana as they got out. ‘I told him I might be stopping by. I think you’ll find it comfortable enough.’
Sophie stepped out of the car. The rain had stopped at least. Circling her shoulders to relieve knots of tension, she breathed in the cold Highland air. It was gone nine, although her body clock was telling her it was mid-afternoon. Still, she felt dog tired. Lana went round the side of the building and returned brandishing a large brass key. As she pushed it into the lock of the heavy oak door, they were met by a gush of warm air.
‘Wow,’ said Sophie. She had been expecting some spartan shack with musty carpets and no electricity. Instead it was like a ski chalet imagined by Ralph Lauren. There was a moose head over a huge fireplace, dark wooden floorboards and sumptuous leather furniture. It even smelt good – of heather and hollyhocks and cinnamon, like drawing up close to a rich man wearing really expensive cologne.
Lana went over to the wall, where there was a framed map of the area.
‘We’re here,’ she said, pointing to the southern tip of the loch. ‘Ben Grear is here, beyond the north-west side, but there’s a direct road around the loch.’
‘Yeah, it’s maybe forty minutes away, weather permitting,’ said Josh, looking over her shoulder.
‘We leave as soon as it’s light,’ said Lana briskly. ‘I’ll take the master suite in the attic; you can have the double at the top of the stairs.’
Shrugging, Josh took their bags and went upstairs.
‘Drink?’ said Lana to Sophie, crossing to a well-stocked bar next to the fireplace. ‘I’m sure Edward has some rather fine whiskies.’
‘No thank you,’ said Sophie, tight-lipped.
Lana shrugged, pouring herself a tumbler of the amber spirit.
‘You hate me, don’t you?’ she said over the rim of the glass.
‘Not really,’ replied Sophie wearily. ‘I blame you for turning my life upside down, for putting me through so much. But hate? No.’
She wanted to tell Lana the truth, of course: that she loathed her for everything she had done, for playing with her life in such a cavalier fashion, for making her fall in love with a man who wasn’t even real, for putting her life in danger again and again. But what would that achieve? What was it Josh always said? Give them the story they want to hear. Until she could see how the game was going to play out, she needed to keep Lana on side.
‘But then if it wasn’t for you,’ she added, ‘maybe I’d be dead already. Sergei’s men would have found me first and I might have ended up like Nick. And for that I’m grateful.’
Lana nodded. ‘Nick did care for you, you know.’
Sophie flinched at that. Days earlier, they were words that she would have given anything to hear. She had felt so used and betrayed that even the glimmer of hope that Nick had really felt anything for her would have been a lifeline, something to grasp with both hands. But now she didn’t want to hear it, because it made her feel cheap and guilty. Yes, her affair with Nick Beddingfield had been a fabrication, a lie he had created, just another job, but Sophie had really liked him – or so she had thought. And yet now, only days later, she had slipped into a relationship with someone else. Josh. A relationship with Josh? She almost laughed out loud. Tomorrow this would all be finished. Tomorrow they would find the money and this crazy roller-coaster ride would be over. Could she really expect Josh to be there for her? In that dark motel room in Miami as he had held her, their skin still slick from lovemaking, he had talked about them going to some exotic island together, of running away and leaving the world behind, just the two of them. But had that been the post-coital endorphins in his bloodstream, or maybe even just the romance of the situation? Had it just been the words of two people bound together in an extraordinary situation by excitement, danger and adrenalin? She just didn’t know and it made her heart ache to think of it.
She looked at Lana for a long moment.
‘What are you going to do with the money, Lana?’
She surprised herself by asking the question. The old Sophie Ellis of a month ago, maybe even a week ago, would never have dared be so direct. Nice girls didn’t – it wasn’t polite. But the past few days had hardened her. You couldn’t do what she had done, see what she had seen, without coming out the other side a different person.
‘That’s for me to negotiate with the authorities,’ said Lana briskly.
‘For us to negotiate,’ said Sophie firmly, meeting Lana’s gaze. ‘I have a stake in this too.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Lana. ‘And what exactly will you be asking for?’
‘I want all lines of investigation against me dropped and I want my mother to receive a lump sum that will make sure she doesn’t have to sell her house, plus a decent income for whatever time she has left.’
‘My, my,’ smiled Lana thinly. ‘Aren’t we the little Donald Trump?’
‘I’m getting there.’
Lana folded her arms and stepped towards Sophie.
‘So seeing as we’re playing twenty questions: did you kill him?’
‘Kill who? Nick?’ said Sophie incredulously. ‘No!’
‘So what was it?’ said Lana. ‘An accident whilst you were making whoopee in the bathtub?’
Sophie shook her head. ‘It was Sergei’s men.’
Lana raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? Did you ask him?’
Sophie frowned; she realised that they hadn’t.
‘No, but it’s the only thing that makes sense,’ she said. ‘The Russians came looking for me and found Nick instead.’
Lana gave a cruel laugh. ‘Do you really think Nick Beddingfield protected you? He would have told them everything he knew to save his skin.’
‘And maybe he told them about you. Maybe they knew about you all along.’
She was pleased to see a momentary look of concern pass over the other woman’s face.
‘Why the surprise?’ said Sophie. ‘Nick would do anything for money, you knew that. Why wouldn’t he have sold you out to another interested party if they paid slightly better?’
‘So why kill him?’ said Lana, recovering her composure.
‘I don’t know,’ said Sophie, suddenly feeling very tired. ‘Maybe he asked for too much money, maybe he screwed Sergei’s wife, who knows? There’re a lot of things I don’t know, and I’ll be honest with you, Lana, I’m sick of asking questions.’
She gave a weary shrug.
‘I’m going to bed. I’ll see you at sunrise.’
Stupid, thought Sophie as she climbed the stairs. So much for keeping Lana on side. But she’d been so smug, so condescending, Sophie hadn’t been able to stop herself. Standing up for yourself now? Another new side to mousy little Sophie Ellis, she thought with a smile. She wanted to talk to Josh about it, but as soon as she entered their room, she could tell he was already asleep, his back turned towards her.
Suddenly Sophie was filled with sadness. Were the barriers already up? Would she ever share a room with him after tonight? They had barely known each other more than a handful of days, and yet already she felt this man was a part of her. She stood there for a minute watching his chest rise and fall, then slowly pulled off her jeans and slid in next to him. She leant forward to kiss the back of his neck. He twitched but he did not waken, and Sophie lay there listening to the rain on the glass.