‘Heather, are you there?’ Doug’s voice echoes in the silence of the barn. There is, I think, genuine concern in his voice. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’ll – I’ll be back in a bit.’ I slip the radio back into my pocket.
This is probably a very stupid idea. I know the sensible thing would be staying put, in the warmth and safety of the Lodge. But I’m sick of doing nothing. And I don’t mean simply these last few days. Because, really, I’ve been doing nothing for so long, running away, hiding from everything. Here is a chance to prove something to myself.
I’ve kitted myself out from the storeroom. Even sturdier hiking boots, a pair of binoculars, a multi-tool. I have my mobile in my pocket, which is only really useful as a torch, unless I can get any signal up on the peak. I didn’t bother with the camo gear, of course – it would be almost as visible as anything else against the white of the landscape. Oh, and I sling a rifle over my shoulder. I’ve only shot once, and I wouldn’t say it exactly came easily to me. But it’s better than nothing. It will act as a deterrent, if not a weapon.
As I walk, I summarise what I know of Iain. Not much, is the answer. I don’t even know his surname. He’s mentioned his ‘missus’ to me a couple of times, but I’ve never met her. I can’t recall, trying to summon a mental image of him, whether he wears a wedding ring – but then I can’t even precisely recall the features of his face. On the whole, when he has been here, he has seemed part of the landscape. He has gone about his work without any consultation with me, on – I have always assumed – instructions direct from the boss.
If anything, the snow is thicker still on the flank of the Munro. I slip and fall several times – the gradient is almost too much for my hiking boots, even this low down. This is exactly the sort of behaviour we would counsel the guests against. Do not go out without the proper equipment. At least I’ve got the radio in my pocket, if necessary.
I take a deep breath. I haven’t come up here for a long time.
The ruins, and the standing stable block, look particularly dark against the fresh fallen snow. I hate this place. I can smell the burn on it, and it smells like death. It smells like everything that I have run away from. Well, I’m not running any more.
‘Heather? Heather – where are you? It’s been almost an hour.’ My radio is crackling. It’s Doug, of course.
It’s the faint note of panic in his voice – something I’ve never heard, even when he was telling me about his past – that compels me to answer.
‘I’m … outside.’
‘Why? What are you doing?’ He sounds angry.
‘I just wanted to do a bit more exploring, that’s all – I’ve had an idea about something.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Heather – are you mad? Tell me exactly where you are. I’m coming to find you.’
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘You have to keep an eye on the guests.’
Before he can reply, I cut him off. I need to concentrate.
The door of the stable block is locked, just as it has always been, the little screen of the passcode panel blinking. It looks so incongruous against the old stone. Iain told me once, right at the beginning, that the building isn’t structurally sound. It could fall down at any point. And then we’d end up with a horror of a lawsuit on our hands. ‘The big man wants to make sure it’s really secure,’ he said. ‘Don’t go anywhere near it. We don’t want any guests going in there and killing themselves when the roof falls in on them.’
I have always been very happy to give the place the widest berth possible. I have never come near the Old Lodge unless I can help it. When we were searching for the missing guest, we came up here. I tried the door, felt the unyielding resistance of the lock against my hand, and hurried away again. So now is the first time that it has occurred to me to wonder why I have never been given the passcode. At the time I had simply seen the locked door and assumed that meant that there was no way the guest could be within.
It feels, suddenly, like a secret that has been under my nose the whole time and which I’ve never stopped to see, so wrapped up have I been in my inner world, the long legacy of my grief. If I hadn’t been, would that guest have died? I push the thought away. It is not worth thinking about now.
There is no way I can force the door: it’s an ancient, heavy, oak affair, and there’s no give against the lock when I push it. And if I shove too hard, I’m worried I really might bring the building down on my head. So I walk around to the back. All the windows are boarded up, impenetrable.
Ah, but now that I’m looking, I can see that one of the boards higher up is a little loose. There’s a dark gap showing through a chink between it and the next one. If I stand on one of the rocks below I might just be able to reach it. I clamber onto one of the fallen stones, I take the multi-tool from my pocket, open up the pliers and use them to grip one end of the plank. The stone I’m standing on rocks beneath my weight ominously, and the rifle knocks against me. I take it off my shoulder. I’m sure the safety is on, but I have a sudden vision of myself slipping and discharging the gun.
I work the pliers back and forth, using all my strength, until I feel the board begin to give. With a pop! a nail springs free, and the board swings downwards to expose a gap the length of my arm. After that it’s easy to wrench the neighbouring boards away to expose a square foot of space. I peer inside, gripping the ledge of the plank below with my hands, feeling the rock tilt dangerously beneath me. There’s a musty smell – and yes, just discernible – the century-old smell of burned things. Can that be possible, or is it just my imagination? I can make out very little – but what I can see is that the space is not empty. There is something in the middle of the room, a pile of something. I climb down and take out my phone, flip it onto the torch function. For a moment I have the strongest impression of being watched. I check in every direction, but see just the undisturbed sugar shell of snow – save the track of my own footprints. It is probably just the silence up here. The Old Lodge does that to you. It has a presence all of its own.
I cast the beam towards the object in the middle of the room. I can see it now, but can’t quite work it out. It isn’t one object, but a collection: a teetering stack of packages, tightly wrapped with clear film, each individual package roughly the size of a bag of sugar.
Actually, whatever is within, bulging through the clear wrapping, looks a little like sugar: some whitish substance. And then the penny drops. I’m suddenly fairly certain that whatever is inside those packages is something very different from and far more valuable than sugar.
As in a nightmare, I hear the footsteps behind me.
‘What are you doing up there?’ Almost polite, conversational. I drop down in shock, my hands catching the rough wood on the way down, splinters tearing into my flesh. My legs hardly support me; they are suddenly weak with fear. I reach for the rifle and hear rather than feel the loud crack of something hitting the back of my skull. My sight is snuffed out like a blown candle.
When I come to it takes several seconds for my vision to clear. When it does, I make out a figure standing over me. At first I don’t even recognise him, through the haze of pain in my head, and because of what he’s wearing: a huge down jacket, even bigger than mine, that makes him look almost double his normal size. His face is pinched with cold, blue about the lips. He looks like someone who has been sleeping rough. But it is Iain.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say, stupidly. ‘I thought you were at home. Where have you—’ I stop, because I see that he is carrying a gun. He holds it loosely, at the moment, but he hefts it in his hands. The gesture, I am sure, is to show his ease with it – and how simple it would be to lift it and aim it at me.
‘I told you not to come up here,’ he says. ‘I told you to keep away.’
‘Because you said it wasn’t safe,’ I say.