‘It’s bad,’ I say. ‘We found a body.’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Oh, God.’ But he doesn’t sound particularly shocked. Instead, I am certain I can hear him thinking – just like the politician he resembles – of how to manage this, of how to protect the estate.
‘And I’m afraid it doesn’t look like an accident.’
‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘You’ve called the police, of course?’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘just before I called you.’
‘I’d come up,’ he says, ‘but I’m not sure that would help matters.’
‘It’s likely you wouldn’t be able to get here anyway.’ I explain the situation with the weather, the fact that we’re essentially snowbound here.
‘It was Doug who found the body, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’ He asks it with a new sharpness in his tone. Maybe he’s wondering if there’s any way he could be sued for this.
‘In the waterfall near the old watermill.’
‘OK. And did you see anything? Did Doug?’
‘No – nothing in particular.’
‘Does Iain know, too?’
‘Er … no, not yet. He would have left on New Year’s Eve, once he’d finished his work for the day.’
‘Well, he’ll still need to know, of course. Important that you put him in the loop too.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Of course. I’ll try him now.’
‘Do. And keep me posted with any updates please.’
‘Of course.’ I tried for something assertive, but it came out as little more than a whisper. He sounds so businesslike, so removed. Perhaps it’s possible to be so where he is, far away in London … untouched by the atmosphere of death that has permeated every inch of this place.
I try Iain next. I only have a mobile for him, no home number. It goes straight to voicemail. The problem with only being contactable by mobile in this part of the world is that most of the time you don’t have enough signal to be reached. I’ll leave him a voicemail. I’m sure he’d be touched by the boss’s concern, but frankly he’s the least of my worries at the moment.
I’m about to leave a quick message when there’s a knock on the door.
It’s Doug. ‘They’re here,’ he says. ‘The guests.’ While I’ve been on the phone, he’s gone and rounded up the others from their cabins, shepherded them into the Lodge.
Doug looks awful – I’d noticed it earlier, but not really seen it, being too distracted by the immediate disaster. His eye sockets are a dark, bruised purple, as though he hasn’t slept for a week. It looks almost as though the guest’s death has affected him personally. His hand, I notice, is bandaged, a thick gauze covering most of the skin. I hadn’t seen it when we were outside, of course, because he had been wearing gloves.
‘What happened to your hand?’ I ask.
‘Oh,’ he says. He holds it up and looks at it as though he’s never seen it before. ‘I suppose I injured it.’
‘When? It looks bad.’
‘Don’t know,’ he says. He scratches the back of his head with his other hand. ‘A few days ago, I suppose.’ But that’s not true – it can’t be. He hadn’t been wearing a bandage at the Highland Dinner … I’m sure of that; I would have noticed it. And the injury beneath must be bad for him to have used the bandage: I’ve seen Doug with terrible cuts and bruises before, and he hasn’t even bothered with a plaster.
‘Shall I tell them you’re coming out to talk to them?’ he asks. I notice that he has hidden the bandaged hand in the pocket of his jacket.
Somehow the role of telling the guests has fallen to me: we seem to have agreed upon that without even discussing it. Trying to swallow down my mounting dread, I nod, and follow him out of the office.
The guests are assembled just down the corridor in the living room, waiting for the news. Just the London guests: the Icelandic pair are back at their bunkhouse. Doug and I decided to tell the group of friends first: the death, after all, will be a much more devastating revelation for them.
When I go into the living room they all look up at me. I have been on this side before, in my old job. All those anxious families waiting for news, me having to tell them the very last thing they want to hear. It was not successful. There was an unforeseen complication. We did everything we could.
I dig my nails into the skin of my palms. I have also been on the other side of this. I know exactly how it feels. Their faces swim before me, upturned, expectant, utterly intent on what I am about to say. I feel a lurch of nausea in the pit of my stomach. What I am about to tell them is going to change their lives for ever.
‘We have found her,’ I say. The questions begin almost at once; I put up a hand for silence. The important thing is to get the terrible news to them as quickly as possible now, to extinguish any lingering hope. Hope is a great thing, when there is still a chance of everything being OK. But in cases that are quite literally hopeless it can do much more damage than good. Though: I don’t think any of them really have hope any more. They know already. But the confirmation of that knowledge is something else.
‘I’m afraid it’s very bad news,’ I say. You could suddenly cut the atmosphere with a knife. The horrible power of being in this situation hits me with full force. I hold all of the cards, ready to lay them down in front of the guests – they will make of them what they will.
‘I’m very sorry to tell you that she’s dead.’
There’s the shock at first: they are united in that. They stare at me as though they are waiting for me to deliver the punchline. And then each begins to process the information and their grief in different ways: hysterics, mute incomprehension, anger.
I know that none of these reactions are any more or less valid. I saw all of these on the ward, whenever I had to inform next-of-kin. And as any paramedic will tell you, it’s often the quiet ones you need to worry about after a disaster: not those who wail and scream about their pain. But those who wail and scream are still in pain. Grief can be as different in the way it displays itself as the people who experience it. I know this all too well.
But the thought goes through me, all the same: is it possible that one of these displays is just that? A display? A performance? As they ask me questions about the body, how I found it, how it looked when I found it, I wonder: does one of them know all of this already? Does someone know more than he or she is letting on?
Back in the sanctuary of the office my phone rings. I seize it, expecting the boss again, or the police – perhaps with an update on when they expect to be able to get here. It’s not the police.
‘I can’t talk right now, Mum.’
‘Something bad’s happened. I can tell.’
How can she tell from six words? I clench my jaw. Then unclench. ‘I can’t talk now. I’m fine, that’s all you need to know at the moment. I’ll tell you about it later. OK?’
‘You didn’t call yesterday, like we agreed you would. So I knew something had happened.’ Her voice is ragged, frayed at the edges with worry. ‘Oh Heather, I knew I shouldn’t have let you go and live in that place.’