Ursula's Secret (37 page)

The single-track road coiled like a lethargic serpent beneath the craggy peaks of Stac Pollaidh and the shores of Loch Lurgainn. Lexy had seen no other vehicle for the last few miles and was beginning to wonder if she’d somehow lost her way. The possibility of taking the wrong road seemed remote, though, as there’d been no alternative to this for several miles. Indeed, the last turning that was anything but a track or glorified footpath had been over half an hour ago. Nonetheless, she pulled into a passing place in the unlikely event that there’d be anything coming behind her on this godforsaken road and opened the map she’d bought when she’d filled up with petrol before leaving Inverness, a prudent move she was relieved she’d made, as roadside service opportunities had been as non-existent as traffic jams. Or traffic lights, come to that. There’d been none of those since Inverness either.

She pulled the map across from the passenger seat but instead of opening it let it rest in her lap as she looked around her. She rolled her neck and heard the cracks of tension snap like kindling. She’d been travelling for nearly twenty-four hours and the inside of her eyelids felt like they’d been pebble-dashed, as if she’d been drinking too much caffeine, even though she’d had nothing but half a polystyrene cupful of lukewarm watery tea on the train from King’s Cross. She was exhausted but too jittery to sleep.

But perhaps she should just rest up for a little, anyway. This road was treacherous to the uninitiated, and that was certainly Lexy.

* * *

She woke up with a start as a rusty red pickup rattled past, a blast on the horn suggesting annoyance at finding her parked at the side of the road. It was a passing place, not a parking one, and perhaps the locals took badly to tourists using them for snoozes.

The cricks in her neck were even louder this time as she rolled her head from side to side to help her come to. The sun was in her eyes now, lower on the horizon. Seemed she hadn’t been too jittery to sleep after all. Nearly an hour of unconsciousness hadn’t improved things, though, and if anything she felt worse. The hangover without the party.

She shook herself awake and checked the map. As far as she could see she hadn’t taken any wrong turnings. There had been none to take. It looked like it was straight ahead to the end of the road, or a T-junction at least. Things might get a bit trickier after that.

She turned the key in the ignition, and as the engine kicked into life, she glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard: 20.53. Long late evenings this far north. She was thankful for that. The road was anything but straight ahead as it meandered up and down and through twists and turns that alternated between being mesmeric and nauseating. Occasional sheep slowed her progress and she had to concentrate hard. This wasn’t a style of driving her city upbringing had accustomed her to, nor was the road itself in any condition to encourage speed. She juddered and jolted past shimmering lochs and the green lower slopes of mountains she could see in her peripheral vision, but nothing was encouraging her to take her eyes off the road.

Eventually the mountains fell behind and the landscape opened into flatter terrain. The car rattled over a cattle grid and then a small bridge over a river tumbling its way down to the open sea on her left. The road widened so Lexy slowed and risked a sweep of her eyes over the open country. The road was straighter here, stretching like a grey ribbon across a flat plain. Far ahead of her she could see the red pickup again, all but throwing up clouds of dust in its wake as it sped through the green expanse, silhouetted against the low evening sun. As the thin ribbon of road swept down toward the promised T-junction, the pickup turned left and she found herself mildly disappointed. She’d seen no other cars, no sign at all of any living being, for the last hour and there was something comforting about knowing she wasn’t entirely alone, even if its horn had shattered her slumber.

But at the junction Lexy turned right, driving into a blood-orange sky streaked with purples and deep blues as the sun glowed and dipped behind a headland. She wondered how long she had before darkness fell,
if
it fell at all this far north. She was regretting her gung-ho decision to leave Inverness so late in the day. She should have checked in to a hotel for the night and then headed out in the morning. Still, the Cul Beg Hotel, the only hotel Google had offered her on this remote peninsula, couldn’t be far now.

And there it was. A weather-blasted green board with almost illegible gold letters rusted by rain, a hand-painted white arrow on a thin piece of ply tacked to the post beneath it and another murderous shriek from a cattle grid at the foot of the track leading up to the small hotel, and she was finally there. She hoped she wouldn’t be too late for dinner. She’d seen nothing resembling a shop of any description and doubted it would be the kind of hotel that had a room-service menu. She pulled her bag out of the back seat and reached in for her jacket. As she shrugged it on she was surprised to hear the sound of a car. She looked up and saw a red pickup slow down and pause at the entrance to the hotel and then speed away again. Strange. Disconcerting, in fact. How many vehicles of any description had she seen since she’d turned off the main road, and what were the odds of seeing two rust buckets like that in such a remote area within ten minutes of each other? Probably about the same as her getting locked in a room with a snake, or her mother being killed in a hit-and-run, or Ursula falling down the stairs.

She pulled her jacket tighter around her. Had she been followed all the way from Malawi?
To
Malawi?

She didn’t want to pursue that thought. She wouldn’t let her own suspicions intimidate her, scare her into giving up now. Not when she was so close to finding out the truth, the last piece of her particular puzzle. She was tired, overwrought. Maybe it
was
just coincidence. After all, it was a rural area, hardly affluent, and perhaps strangers were such a rarity that any unrecognised car merited a second look. But she doubted it.

With one last look back down the driveway, she picked up her bag and walked briskly into the sanctuary of the gloomy hotel.

An hour later she scraped the last of the lukewarm cream of tomato soup onto her spoon and swallowed, grimacing as she did so. Never one of her favourites, but there had been little choice. None, in fact. She crammed the last triangle of sliced bread spread with margarine into her mouth and reminded herself to be thankful. The night porter or whoever he was hadn’t offered anything other than the restaurant opening hours, which were long past. She’d had to push hard for this impromptu supper, for which she would no doubt be charged a king’s ransom, but, as Izzie would say,
beggars can’t be choosers
. Nutritional content zero, but at least she wouldn’t feel guilty about ordering the full Scottish breakfast in the morning. She’d need all her strength to confront her uncle and, she hoped, her grandmother.

Helen stared at the door. The echo of the knocker still reverberated around her in the cold stone-floored hallway.

It wasn’t Izzie.

For a moment she’d thought it was, the long curls swinging, the features blurred with distance, slowly coming into focus as the woman walked up the track from her car towards the house. But as she drew nearer, Helen’s mind began to work. This woman was too young. This wasn’t Izzie. It couldn’t be. It was a version of her, perhaps, but it wasn’t Helen’s baby girl. She rebuked herself – of course it wouldn’t be. In Helen’s memory Izzie was a toddler, but in real life that toddler had grown into a woman, a middle-aged woman, with a child of her own.

Helen had gasped and stepped back from the window, stumbled into the windowless sanctuary of the hallway. It was Izzie’s daughter. That woman had to be Izzie’s daughter. Why? Why hadn’t Izzie come? Was she so angry, so unforgiving that she wouldn’t come herself, that she’d sent this young—

The knock on the door had stopped her thoughts. She had a decision to make. Izzie would have known she was expected, so Helen couldn’t very well pretend not to be there. Or could she? No precise date or time had been arranged. But what if Ross appeared from the workshop? He was usually so absorbed in his work that he was hard to distract. But this. A car, then a knocking at the croft door. It was so unusual even he—

The knock came again, louder this time, more impatient. What should she do? She pressed herself back against the wall behind the coat stand as the letter box rattled and lifted.

“Hello? Hello? Anyone in?”

The letter box flapped shut again. Helen’s heart was racing, her hands shaking. Why was she so frightened? She’d agreed to see Izzie, so why was she so reluctant to see Izzie’s daughter, her own granddaughter?

But this woman was a stranger. And even though Helen knew Izzie, the grown Izzie, was a stranger to her too, there was a connection. She’d held Izzie in her arms, loved her. And Izzie had loved her back. This woman at her door had no reason to love Helen. The woman who had abandoned her mother, refused to reclaim her, let her grow up an orphan when all the time—

More knocking. And the letter box again. Then a voice.

“I know you’re in there. Please! Just open the door. Let me speak to you.”

Helen knew she wouldn’t give up. She had no choice really. But she didn’t have to admit to anything.

“Yes?” Helen’s voice was cold, her head tilted as she peered down her nose to the woman on the doorstop below her.

“Oh. Thank you. I’m looking for … Are you … are you Helen Buchanan?”

“No.”

“Oh.” The younger woman looked surprised, lost for words. Helen took her chance, stepped back and started to close the door.

“No!’ A hand shot out to hold the door back. Helen looked at it pointedly, avoiding the eyes that were so like Izzie’s staring up at her in puzzlement, doing her best to keep her face completely expressionless, to suppress the curiosity that was surging through her. Praying all the while that Ross would stay where he was.

“Please, wait. I … I think you are.”

Helen didn’t move.

“I’ve seen photos, you see. Old ones. And … and …” The younger woman swallowed, cleared her throat. “And I can see my mother in you. I’m Lexy. Izzie’s daughter, you see, and I just want to—”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t welcome visitors. Take your hand off the door and leave, please.”

“But I’m your granddaughter!”

“I don’t have a granddaughter. And I’ve asked you to leave.”

The younger woman’s face moved from puzzlement to anger, as quick to change mood, as revealing of that mood, as Helen knew her own face used to be. Until she’d mastered the mask she now presented to the outside world.

“No! I won’t. Why are you being like this? I know you were expecting my mother.”

Helen caught her breath, and the younger woman leapt on it.

“See? I’m right. You were, and I’ve come because … I’ve been looking for you and because … she … My mother …”

Tears welled in the visitor’s eyes. Helen watched her struggle to contain them, struggle to find the words to finish her sentence. Despite herself, Helen felt compassion. She wanted to reach out and touch this girl, this woman, comfort her. Yet she couldn’t, was too afraid.

“You’re mistaken,” Helen began. “I can’t help you and I think you should leave.”

“My mother’s dead.”

The words fell like stones onto the doorstep between them. The young woman dropped her hand from the door and turned away as she wiped tears from her eyes. The hands dropped to clench in fists at her side. Helen watched this as if in slow motion as her own brain struggled to take in the words. She knew, of course she knew, this was Lexy, Izzie’s daughter, so if this woman was saying her mother was dead, then it meant Izzie was—

Helen slammed the door, pressed her back against it, breathed hard. It couldn’t be true, could it? Izzie dead? Why wouldn’t Ursula have told her? Why would Ursula have arranged for Izzie to visit, hounded Helen until she agreed to meet her daughter? Why?

There was a thudding at the door.

“Open up! Don’t shut the door in my face! I need to talk to you. I need to understand. Why did you do this? Why did you all lie to me?” The voice was shrill, ranting, shouting.

“Go away!” Helen shouted back through the door. “I don’t want you here!”

“Please! I need to know. I … There’s no one left to ask. My mother … Ursula … they’re dead. I don’t know …”

The words faded as Helen shook her head to try to clear it. Ursula? Ursula was dead too? What had happened? Why? How? This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. If Ursula was dead, and Izzie too … Oh God. She couldn’t deal with this. She needed time to take it all in.

“Please! Open up. I’m not going to leave until I’ve talked to you. I’m going to sit here on this bench all day, all night if I have to, but you will talk to me.” The woman was clearly crying, her voice catching as she forced the words out. Helen was stunned. Unsure. Frozen to the spot.

*

Lexy shivered. Despite the watery sun on her face, the air was cool and damp and chilled her. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there, but her legs were stiff and her back was beginning to ache. The wooden slats of the bench groaned as she shifted her weight, stretched out her legs, wondered if she’d be able to make good on her threat to stay here until Helen agreed to see her. She knew Helen must have worked out who she was, so why wouldn’t she speak to her? If she’d been prepared to talk to Izzie then why not to Izzie’s daughter? It didn’t make sense. But then very little about this whole crazy scenario made sense. She opened her eyes, let them settle on the mountain ridge in the distance, a faint shimmer of silver on the sea beneath them in her peripheral vision. It was so peaceful here. If she could just stop her mind racing and relax, if she could just pretend none of this was happening, if she could—

A movement to her left snapped her out of her reverie. Sitting upright, she swivelled round, just in time to see the door of the low adjacent building click shut. Someone had been watching her. She shivered again, not from the damp this time. Hugging her coat tightly around her, she stood, waited.