Page 85 of The Christmas Competition

“After that I didn’t keep well. I had a stroke. Then, when I got diagnosed with dementia . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I knew time was short. Until I forgot about him, I mean. I decided I had to try one last time. I’d come up to Auchness on the bus, knock on some doors, and see if anyone knew anything. I don’t think I really thought the plan through, to be honest. I was unwell with a bit of a cough, and then after I left it got worse and I developed a fever.”

I nodded in understanding. “You had the chest infection. It caused a delirium and impacted your judgment. You wouldn’t have been thinking straight when you made the journey. Then you got really unwell and even more confused after you arrived, and you were found wandering. You couldn’t remember why you were here or where you lived. That’s how you ended up in hospital in Inverness, then here with us. Do you still live in Glasgow, then?”

“Yes,” she said.

That explained why we couldn’t find any trace of her nearby. She had been discharged to our community hospital under the assumption that she lived in the locality because this was the area she had been found wandering in. But really she lived one hundred fifty miles south of here and had only been in our area because she had been searching for her son, as the area he used to live in.

She looked out the window. “That’s it, isn’t it? I’ll never find him now.”

My mind still raced, desperate to think of an answer. “Maybe we could just search social media for all the James MacDonalds in Edinburgh?” Ugh, of course not. It’s such a common name and there’ll be hundreds of them. But there must be something we could do. I would have to ask around, see if anyone had any bright ideas. Perhaps Kerr could think of something, he had a very logical mind.

Anna glanced over. “He wouldn’t go by my surname, I don’t think. He would have kept James’s.”

Of course. I hadn’t thought about the fact that MacDonald was likely Anna’s maiden name. “What was James’s surname?” I asked, hoping it would be something less common than MacDonald.

“Murdoch,” she said, and a lightning bolt struck me in the chest.

“Murdoch?” A thousand thoughts flashed through my mind as I drew all the parallels. Anna had left a controlling husband when her son was little. Kerr said his mum had left his controlling dad when he was ten. Anna’s ex had died, their son having left for uni. Kerr had said that his dad had died during his first year at university.

It could all still be coincidence; Murdoch wasn’t that uncommon a name either. And Kerr’s and James Junior’s first names didn’t match. Unless . . .

“Anna,” I said slowly. “Did James Junior have a middle name?”

She nodded, smiling. “Yes, and he used to like me to call him by it, when his father wasn’t around. I don’t think he much liked having the same name as his dad, but James Senior had been very determined that his son have his name and wouldn’t abide him being called by his middle name in his presence.”

I cleared my throat, my heart about to beat out of my chest. “Anna. What was James Junior’s middle name?”

“Kerr,” she told me, her voice wistful.

Kerr

I ABOUT COLLAPSED into the front seat of my Range Rover, scrubbing a hand over my face. It had taken all morning to get through the entire herd of cows for their vaccinations and I was knackered. But at least keeping busy was some degree of a distraction from my spiraling thought processes.

However, it only took about thirty seconds of sitting alone in the car for everything to come flooding back. Nisa kissing Drew on her doorstep, right in full view of everyone on the street, including me. How could I have read this so wrong?

I recalled the voice at the back of my mind—the one that always told me I wasn’t enough, that no one wanted me—piping up to remind me that although I had told her I had never liked anyone as much as I liked her, she hadn’t said the same back. Sure, she’d said that she liked me. But nothing else. We hadn’t even had a discussion about whether we were exclusive or not—I’d just assumed. Like a fucking idiot.

Plus, she had clearly blotted out my message in the snow, which would have signaled that she didn’t feel the same way, even if the visual message sent by her kissing another man on her doorstep hadn’t already registered loud and clear.

I let out an involuntary laugh that sounded short and harsh even to my own ears. This was precisely the situation I had been wary of from the beginning. I knew I’d end up eviscerated, and yet I’d carried on, let my guard down, and allowed myself to believe things would be different this time. Well, I suppose they had been different for me; I had finally let go, at least to a degree, and fully fallen for someone. But the way it ended up had followed the same pattern, and that was no surprise.

The next time I saw Ranjeeta and Greg I was going to tell both of them that their advice sucked and I was never going to let myself get so emotionally entangled with someone again.

I started the engine to make my way to the next farm, checking my phone to see if there was a signal to message Greg, but there was nothing. I’d have to try again once I got down from the next farm this afternoon.

The next job came and went, and by the time I was climbing back into the Range Rover every muscle in my body ached. The physical labor of the farmwork was likely to blame for that, but the general tension in my posture from my internal wranglings had no doubt contributed.

Partway back to Inverglen I remembered to message Greg, firing off a quick voice note when I realized the battery on my phone was about to die because it hadn’t charged properly last night. The car charger had broken a few weeks ago and I kept forgetting to replace it.

I got home and killed the engine, flopping back and closing my eyes for a couple of breaths before climbing out of the car and deliberately not looking toward Nisa’s house in case I was hit with a flashback of the gut-wrenching sight of her kissing Drew.

Once inside I set about gathering what I needed, and the last thing I did before leaving was scribble a quick note. I got back in the car to set off, still keeping my eyes off Nisa’s place, and headed for the beach. It was only after I was on my way that I remembered I had forgotten to fetch a phone charger for the car again. Never mind. Where I was going I didn’t need the phone anyway.