She thought again about Elise. About how she had been assaulted multiple times by her foster family. About how she had survived that and losing her parents, and managed to have a daughter of her own, even though her husband hadn’t stuck around, either. Janice had insisted on taking her mother’s maiden name, and it had been the only name available for Deb, too. They were Sutherland women, and the world had not been kind to them.
Cursed, Janice had said, so many times that Deb had lost count.
She needed to know.
‘It was a William and Eilidh Sutherland, and their bairns, Elsie and Tom.’ Anna looked up from the piece of paper, searching Deb’s face for a reaction.
Deb closed her eyes; she felt herself needing to lean against something.
Cursed. Janice’s word rang in her memory.Poor Elsie.She had a sudden vision of her grandmother as a child, walking away from a white-painted cottage very much like the one she was currently living in. Crying, holding her mother’s hand.Please, can’t we stay?
Deb could see it all happening in front of her, as if she was there, like a ghost.
In her mind, she held out her arms to Elsie and Tom, and ran towards them.I’ll save you, she called out, in the dream.I’m here.
Yet, try as she might, she was a ghost in the dream, and her grip was too insubstantial. She tried and failed to hold their hands, and the vision dimmed.No!she cried, wanting to stay, wanting to connect, feeling the terrible grief and dismay in Elsie’s heart at having to leave her home. She hadn’t known it was going to happen, of that Deb felt sure. There had been no warning – at least, her parents had known, but they hadn’t told the children. Perhaps hoping in their feckless way that it wouldn’t happen.
But, it did.
Unsteady on her feet, Deb sat down at the table as fat, heavy tears spilled over her cheeks. In that moment, she had no resistance to the grief that overpowered her.
SEVENTEEN
After some thought, Deb had emailed Hal the information, taking some pictures of the relevant entries in the Chamberlain’s Journal with her phone and summarising what she and Anna had found out.
As you can imagine, Hal,she’d written,this is a big personal blow. I don’t expect you to know, of course, but my grandmother – who was a child when she evicted from her home on Gyle Head – ended up going into care with her brother. In effect, this ruined her life, due to a series of abusive situations. She never really recovered from those experiences.
I’m not asking anything of you, but just felt that you should know, especially because of the current developments up on Gyle Head.
She hadn’t had a reply yet, but that wasn’t unusual. Hal was taking forever to reply to anything she sent him.
She had also thought about contacting Kyle with the information, but she wasn’t sure where she stood with him, and talking to him was just going to be awkward. So, when her phone began to buzz and she saw it was Kyle, she couldn’t hide her surprise, or the warm flush that began in her belly.
‘Hello,’ Deb answered the call as neutrally as she could. Playing it cool had never particularly been her strong suit when it came to men, though she was excellent at all kinds of negotiations and generally taking charge at work.
‘Hi. How are you?’ Kyle sounded a little guarded, and there was background noise – it sounded as though he was in the car.
‘All right. You?’ Deb sighed, wondering why he was calling her. She felt wrung out after the discovery this morning. She really just wanted to be alone to think.
‘Fine. Listen, I’m going to be passing you in about ten minutes and I wondered if you were home. Thought it might be a good idea to chat in person, after last time.’
‘Oh… Okay, sure.’ It was out of the blue, but Deb felt excited at the unexpected opportunity to see Kyle in person. ‘I’m home. Drop by when you’re ready.’
Ten minutes later, after Deb had hurriedly brushed her hair, changed from her jogging bottoms and loose T-shirt into a casual but flattering knee-length knitted black pencil skirt and a plain white fitted T-shirt, Kyle knocked at the cottage door.
She let him in, leading him into the cute lounge with its vivid floral wallpaper, where her laptop was open on the coffee table. He took off his work boots, which were caked in mud, by the door.
‘Been up at the site,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘Don’t want to track it into your nice pretty cottage.’
‘Thanks. I was just about to make a coffee. D’you want one?’ she asked, politely, trying not to think about the last time Kyle had been in her cottage, and what had happened. She worried for a moment about whether he would try to kiss her again, and then worried about the fact she was worrying about it.
‘Sure.’ Kyle sat down on the pink chaise longue, looking slightly incongruous on such a girly chair. ‘Thanks.’
‘The cottage décor is probably a bit feminine,’ she called from the kitchen, replying to his earlier comment about the cottage being pretty. ‘Whoever decorated it must have decided they were only going to rent it to women. Or men that like this kind of thing. I like it, though.’
‘Hm. It wouldn’t be my choice, but I think I can sit on a pink chair and not have my masculinity threatened,’ he replied; she could hear the characteristic smile in his voice.
She made the coffee, wondering what Kyle was going to say to her about their date. And whether she should mention what she’d found out about Elise and Gyle Head.
