‘The Old Lodge?’ Bo asks.
‘Yes. The original lodge burned down just under a century ago. Almost everything went. So not a great deal to see, but it makes a good point to aim for, and there are fantastic views over the estate.’
‘Can’t imagine anyone survived that?’ Giles says.
‘No,’ she says. ‘Twenty-four people died. No one survived apart from a couple of the stable hands, who slept in the stable block with the animals. One of the old stable blocks is still there, but it’s probably not structurally sound: you shouldn’t go too near it.’
‘And no one knows what started it?’ Bo asks. We’re all ghoulishly interested – you could hear a pin drop in here – but he looks genuinely alarmed, his glance flitting to the roaring log fire in the grate. He’s such a city boy. I bet the nearest Bo normally gets to a real fire is a flaming sambuca shot.
‘No,’ Heather says. ‘We don’t know. Perhaps a fire left unattended in one of the grates. But there is a theory …’ Heather pauses, as if not sure she should continue, then goes on. ‘There’s a theory that one of the staff, a gamekeeper, was so damaged by his experiences in the war that he set fire to the building on purpose. A kind of murder–suicide. They say the fire could be seen as far away as Fort William. It took more than a day for help to come … by which time it was too late.’
‘That’s fucked-up,’ Mark says, and grins.
I notice that Heather does not look impressed by Mark’s grin. She’s probably wondering how on earth someone could be amused by the idea of two dozen people burning to death. You have to know Mark pretty well to understand that he has a fairly dark – but on the whole harmless – sense of humour. You learn to forgive him for it. Just like we’ve all learned that Giles – while he likes to seem like Mr Easy-going – can be a bit tight when it comes to buying the next round … and not to speak to Bo until he’s had at least two cups of coffee in the morning. Or how Samira, all sweetness and light on the surface, can hold a grudge like no one else. That’s the thing about old friends. You just know these things about them. You have learned to love them. This is the glue that binds us together. It’s like family, I suppose. All that history. We know everything there is to know about one another.
Heather pulls a clipboard from under her arm, all business, suddenly. ‘Which one of you is Emma Taylor? I’ve got your credit card down as the one that paid the deposit.’
‘That’s me.’ Emma raises a hand.
‘Great. You should find all the ingredients you’ve asked for in the fridge. I have the list here. Beef fillet, unshucked oysters – Iain got them from Mallaig this morning – smoked salmon, smoked mackerel, caviar, endive, Roquefort, walnuts, one hundred per cent chocolate, eighty five per cent chocolate, quails’ eggs’– she pauses to take a breath – ‘double cream, potatoes, on-vine tomatoes …’
Christ. My own secret contribution to proceedings suddenly looks rather meagre. I try to catch Katie’s eye to share an amused look. But I haven’t seen her for so long that I suppose we’re a bit out of sync. She’s just staring out of the big windows, apparently lost in thought.
EMMA
I check the list. I don’t think they’ve got the right tomatoes – they’re not baby ones – but I can probably make do. It could be worse. I suppose I’m a bit particular about my cooking: I got into it at university, and it’s been a passion of mine ever since.
‘Thank you,’ Heather says, as I hand the list back.
‘Where’d you get all this stuff?’ Bo asks. ‘Can’t be many shops around here?’
‘No. Iain went and got most of it from Inverness and brought it back on the train – it was easier.’
‘But why bother having a train station?’ Giles asks. ‘I know we got off there, but there can’t be many people using it otherwise?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Nor have there ever. It’s a funny story, that one. The laird, in the nineteenth century, insisted that the rail company build the station, when they came to him with a proposal to put a track through his land.’
‘It must have been almost like his own private platform,’ Nick says.
The woman smiles. ‘Yes, and no. Because there were some … unintended consequences. This is whisky country. And there was a great deal of illegal distilling going on back in the day – and robbery from the big distilleries. The old Glencorrin plant, for example, is pretty nearby. Before the railway, the smugglers around here had to rely on wagons, which were very slow, and very likely to be stopped on the long journey down south by the authorities. But the train was another matter. Suddenly, they could get their product down to London in a day. Legend has it that some of the train guards were in their pay, ready to turn a blind eye when necessary. And some’ – she stops, poised for the coup de grace – ‘say that the old laird himself was in on it, that he had planned it from the day he asked for his railway station.’ She sits forward. ‘If you’re interested, there are whisky bothies all over the estate. They’re marked on the map. Discovering them is something of a hobby of mine.’
Over the top of her head, I see Julien roll his eyes. But Nick is intrigued. ‘What do you mean?’ he asks. ‘They haven’t all been found? How many are there?’
‘Oh, we’re not sure. Every time I think I must have discovered the last one, I come across another. Fifteen in total at the last count. They’re very cleverly made, small cairns really, built out of the rocks, covered with gorse and heather. Unless you’re right on top of them they’re practically invisible. They disappear into the hillside. I could show you a couple if you like.’
‘Yes please,’ Katie says – at the same time as Julien says, ‘No thanks.’ There is a slightly awkward pause.
‘Well,’ Heather gives a small, polite smile, but there’s a flash of steel in the look she gives Julien. ‘It’s not compulsory, of course.’
I have the impression that she may not be quite as sweet and retiring as she looks. Good on her. Julien gets away with a little too much, as far as I’m concerned. People seem prepared to let him act as he likes, partly because he’s so good-looking, and partly because he can turn on the charm like throwing a switch. Often he does the latter after he’s just said something particularly controversial, or cruel – so that he can immediately take the sting out of it … make you think that he can’t really mean it.
This might sound like sour grapes. After all, Mark is always blundering around offending people just by being himself: laughing inappropriately, or making jokes in bad taste. I know who most people would prefer to have dinner with. But at least Mark is, in his way, authentic – even if that sometimes means authentically dull (I am not blind to his faults). Julien is so much surface. It has made me wonder what’s going on beneath.
My thoughts are interrupted by Bo. ‘This is incredible,’ he says, staring about. It is. It’s better than any of the places anyone else has picked in the last few years, no question. I feel myself relax properly for the first time all day, and allow myself just to enjoy being here, to be proud of my work in finding it.
The room we’re standing in is the living room: two huge, squashy sofas and a selection of armchairs, beautiful old rugs on the floor, a vast fireplace with a stack of freshly-chopped wood next to it – ‘We use peat with the wood,’ Heather says, ‘to give it a nice smokiness.’ The upper bookshelves are stuffed with antiquarian books, emerald and red spines embossed with gold, and the lower with all the old board-game classics: Monopoly, Scrabble, Twister, Cluedo.