18

When Paula drove into Port Bannatyne, instead of taking the right turn that would lead to the ferry at Rothesay, she took the left and drove down the stretch of road that would bring her to what the locals called the ‘wee ferry’ at Rhubodach.

The ferry was indeed ‘wee’ and the journey across to Colintraive was very short, little more than a stone’s throw. Thomas, in a short-lived attempt to learn the Gaelic told her that Caol an t-Snaim – meant ‘swimming narrows’. A name, Thomas told her, that came from a time when cattle were swum over from the Isle of Bute to Colintraive on their way to the cattle markets of lowland Scotland.

She heard his voice in her ear, repeating this history. He loved all that kind of thing and would tell her every time they took this route home. Depending on her mood Paula would listen, pat the back of his hand and say, ‘Sure, babe.’ Or if she was cold, tired and desperate to get home, she’d groan, say, ‘Heard it already,’ and turn up the car radio.

What she would give to say ‘Heard it already’ one more time.

The rest of the trip to Glasgow took on the aura of a pilgrimage. As she drove off the ferry and out of the village of Colintraive, she looked to her left, across the water and up towards the hillside road that led down into the village of Tighnabruaich. She remembered standing up there, looking down over the Kyles of Bute and hearing Thomas’s laugh as he recalled reading about Magnus Barelegs, a Viking king who was given the nickname after adopting the short kilt of the Celts. Apparently Magnus bargained with the Scottish King Malcolm that he could have rule over the islands around which he could sail.

Paula could almost feel Thomas’s arm over her shoulder as he pulled her close. She recalled the smile in his voice as he had told her that Magnus had a hankering for the land of the Cowal peninsula, so he duly had his crew carry his boat overland across the isthmus at Tarbert, with him sitting at the helm as if he was still a-sail.

‘That’s the ingenuity you need to get on in business, sweetheart,’ he said.

His voice was still thrumming in her ear when an hour later she noticed the turn-off to Lochgoilhead. It was near here that Thomas proposed all those years ago, standing over The Tinker’s Heart. That was the first time she’d ever heard of the place. It was a sacred site to travellers – where the old Strachar road met the road to Hell’s Glen. For centuries, as far back as the 1700s, they’d come for miles and miles, Thomas told her, to get married, christen their children or bless their dead.

X didn’t mark the spot. Instead it was a heart shape formed by ancient, white quartz crystals embedded in the old track. That part of the route containing the heart was now in the middle of a field.

Thomas had parked the car, drawn her out and ignored her protests as he climbed across a fence, cajoled her over it with and into the field where that part of the old road now lay.

‘See,’ he said and pointed down. She was too busy worrying about the large Highland cow and its calf to be caught up in the romance of it all. Until Thomas got down on one knee.

What happened to that young man? Where did he go? His eyes were bright, his face eager, his hair flattened by the constant drizzle. At least she’d had the good sense to wear a jacket with a hood.

‘Get up off your knee, you daftie,’ she remembered saying, thinking his jeans would be muddy. But he refused to move until she gave him an answer. How could it be anything but a yes? She’d known they were going to be together from the moment he approached her the night they first met.

At her answer, he’d whooped, pulled her off her feet and covered her face in kisses. They’d gone from that, over the years, to a state of indifference. They said the opposite of love was hate, thought Paula. It wasn’t. It was irrelevance. Feeling that the person you love actually didn’t care much whether or not you were there. At least that was how it had often felt over their last few years together.

But then, the cottage … A physical demonstration that he wasn’t indifferent to her. More that they were lost in a maze of miscommunication and had forgotten their way back to each other and to their love.

Paula spotted a sign that warned of a layby. She drove there and parked with that long-ago moment filling her mind. She sagged under the thought that the two most important people ever to feature in her life were now fragments of bone and memory.

And in Thomas’s case, lies.

Thomas had the cottage renovated while they were barely talking to one another. Did he really think they could rebuild their relationship like that?

She looked out of the window into the distance. The light was failing and the far-off hills were a dark smudge against a weak sky. The light from a vehicle approaching from behind lit up the interior of her car. She slumped down in her seat as if hiding. It rushed past. And Paula was alone again.

She told herself to get a grip and sat upright in her seat. People have worse, a lot worse to deal with.

The cottage.

The notebook.

She pulled it out of her bag, turned on the interior light and had another read.

Did that symbol at the end of each chain of numbers and letters really mean a million? Pounds, dollars, euros? Her head spun with possibilities and explanations.

She opened it at the one page that had been written on. Studied each line. Again she saw that the first six numbers on each were clumped together. Then eight numbers, starting with a double zero each time. Then it became random, with letters and numbers and then it ended with the 1M.

Her chequebook was at home in the study. Fewer people accepted cheques these days, so they rarely used it. An image came to her – from the last time she’d opened it. The pattern of numbers along the bottom of each cheque were similar to a section of the numbers on each line on the page of the notebook. Could these numbers be bank accounts?

Thomas, what on earth were you up to?

Bill at the funeral asking about the will.

Kevin Farrell searching through her office.

One was afraid, the other fairly confident, but they both wore an expression where hope and expectation sat.

Bill, Kevin and Thomas were an unlikely grouping. She couldn’t see that working. But she couldn’t un-see the faces on each of those men since the funeral. Thomas always told her she should trust her gut. Perhaps on this occasion she really should listen.

Why the secrecy?

Would she still be blithely unaware if Thomas were still alive? If this was about money, what the hell was he doing with it? All ten lines of it. That was a crazy amount of cash. If it was secret, did that mean it was illegal?

She thought of the two sides of Anton. The death stare she’d first thought he had given her on the ferry, and the familiar and affectionate tone he’d used in the cottage. Was he involved? Should she be worried about him?

Another car passed in a blur of light and sound. Instinctively she ducked down in her seat.

And sat back up again once it passed.

What was she doing? She was acting like a crazy person.

But still. This whole situation was strange. With all of the bizarre things that were happening to her recently it was no surprise she was being just that little bit more careful.

She looked at the numbers once more. Read them again. And again. It was time she put her memory – famous among those her knew her – to the test. She sat there for the next half an hour until she could recite each line correctly and completely.

Then she tested it ten times for each line. If this was cash she couldn’t get it wrong. Equally if it was cash she couldn’t go around with a notebook on her person that held this much of a secret. Then, when she was at last satisfied, she tore out the page, being careful to leave a jagged edge, making it obvious that a page was missing.

She tore the numbered page into as small pieces as she could manage, opened the window and released them into the breeze, like a brief display of confetti. Then swallowed down her concerns as she put the notebook back in her handbag.

If somebody demanded to know what she found, she had something to show them. An empty notebook with a torn-out page. In the meantime she would resist making for the first computer she could find and keying one of the lines in. If someone was watching her movements, that would be a dead giveaway.

She had a flash of self-awareness and cringed at her behaviour. She was continuing to behave and think in a very strange manner.

But if she was right, there was a huge amount of money involved.

An amount of money that people might kill for.