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And Rhuaridh Gillespie had never been distracted before. Not even when he’d been a junior doctor juggling a hundred tasks.
He didn’t speak. He could hear her breathing just behind his ear, leaning forward expectantly and waiting for some kind of answer. Eventually he heard a little sigh of frustration and she must have sat back as the waft of orange blossom scent he’d picked up from her earlier disappeared.
The road to the farm was like every road to a farm on Arran. Winding, dark, with numerous potholes and part way up a hill. This was why he needed the four-by-four.
He pulled up outside the farmhouse and frowned. There was one light inside, in what he knew was the main room. John usually had the place lit up like the Blackpool Illuminations. They liked to joke about it.
He jumped out, not waiting for his entourage to follow, knocking loudly at the front door and only waiting a few seconds before pushing it open.
‘John, it’s Rhuaridh. Everything okay?’
There was a whimper at his feet and his heart sank as he turned. Mac, John’s old sheepdog, usually rushed to meet anyone who appeared at the farm, barking loudly, but now he was whimpering in the hall.
He bent down, rubbed the black and white dog’s head. ‘What’s up, Mac?’
Even as he said the words he had a horrible feeling that he knew what the answer would be.
He was familiar with the old farmhouse, having visited here numerous times in the last few months. Mac stayed at his heels as he walked through to the main room. It was shambolic. Had been for the last few years, ever since John’s wife had died and he’d refused any kind of help.
The sofa was old and worn, the rug a little threadbare. A few pictures hung on the walls. But his eyes fixed on the sight he didn’t want to see.
‘John!’ He rushed across the room, already knowing it would make no difference as he knelt on the floor beside the crumpled body of the old man. Mac lay down right next to John, still whimpering as he put his head on John’s back.
John’s colour was completely dusky. His lips blue. ‘Here, boy,’ said Rhuaridh gently as he pushed Mac’s head away and turned John over onto his back.
His body was still warm, probably thanks to the flickering fire. But there were absolutely no signs of life. No breathing. No heartbeat. He did all the checks he needed to, but it was clear to him that John had died a few hours before.
It didn’t matter that this had been on the cards for a number of months. With his cardiac and respiratory disease John had been living on borrowed time for a while. But the fact was Rhuaridh had loved this old crotchety guy, with his gnarled hands through years of hard work and the well-weathered, lined face.
He looked peaceful now. His face more unlined than Rhuaridh had ever seen it before. Something inside Rhuaridh ached. John had died alone. Something he’d always been afraid of. If Rhuaridh had got here earlier—if he hadn’t taken so long over the hospital ward round—he might have made it in time to hold his hand for his last few breaths.
He lifted John’s coldish hand and clasped it between both of his. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered before he moved and closed John’s eyelids with one finger. He couldn’t help the tear he had to brush away. Mac moved back and put his head on John’s chest. He hadn’t thought it possible for a dog to look quite as sad as Mac did now.
He pulled his phone from his back pocket and made the obligatory phone call. ‘Donald, yes, it’s Rhuaridh Gillespie. I’ve just found John Henderson. Yes, I think he’s been dead for a couple of hours. You will? Thank you. I’ll wait until you get here.’
He sighed and pushed his phone into his pocket then started at the sound behind him.
Gerry had his camera on his shoulder and Kristie was wide-eyed. She looked almost shocked. A wave of anger swept over him. ‘Put that away. It’s hardly appropriate.’
Gerry pulled the camera to one side. Kristie seemed frozen to the spot. She lifted one shaking hand towards the body on the floor. ‘Is...is that it? There’s...nothing you can do?’ It was the first time her voice hadn’t been assured and full of confidence.
‘Of course there’s nothing I can do,’ he snapped. ‘John’s been dead for the last few hours.’
He didn’t add the thoughts that were currently streaming through his brain. If she hadn’t delayed him at the hospital, maybe he could have been here earlier. If she hadn’t distracted him at the doctor’s surgery, maybe he would have made John’s visit before he went to the hospital.
He knew this was all irrational. But that didn’t make it go away.
Gerry’s voice broke through his thoughts. ‘Do you have to wait for the police?’
Rhuaridh nodded. ‘They’ll be here in a few minutes, and the undertaker will probably arrive at the same time.’
He turned his attention back to John and knelt down beside him again, resting his hand on John’s chest. He felt odd about all of this. They’d stopped filming but it still felt like they were...intruding. And it was he who had brought them here.
Gerry seemed to have a knack of fading into the shadows, but Kristie? She stood out like a sore thumb. Or something else entirely. He’d been around plenty of beautiful, confident women in his life. What was so different about this one? She felt like a permanent itch that had got under his skin. Probably not the nicest description in the world but certainly the most accurate.
She stood to the side with her eyes fixed on the floor at first as his police colleague arrived then Craig, the undertaker. The unfortunate part of being a GP was that for he, and his two colleagues, this was semi-familiar territory.
When at last things were sorted and John’s body was ready to be loaded into the undertaker’s car, it was almost like the others knew and stepped back for a few seconds.
‘What about Mac?’ asked Donald, the police officer.
‘Right.’ For a few seconds Rhuaridh looked around. There was no one to take care of Mac, and they probably all knew that.
He looked over at the dog lying dolefully on the rug, his head on his paws. It didn’t matter how impractical. How ridiculous. ‘Give me a second.’ He moved back over to John’s body and slid his hand in to find the keys for the house in John’s trouser pocket. Someone would need to lock up.
He stepped back to allow them to take John’s body out to the hearse, then moved through to the kitchen and grabbed a bag, stuffing into it the dog’s bowl and a few tins of dog food from the cupboard.
Kristie and Gerry were still hanging around in the hallway, Gerry still with the camera resting carelessly on his shoulder.
‘You good?’ Donald asked as Rhuaridh appeared back out of the kitchen.
He nodded and walked through to the main room. It was almost as if Mac knew because he jumped up and walked over, tail giving a few wags as he wound his body around Rhuaridh’s legs.
‘Come on then, old guy,’ Rhuaridh said as he patted Mac’s head. ‘Looks like it’s you and me.’ He bent down and paused for a few seconds, his head next to Mac’s. Mac had lived on a farm his whole life. How would he like living in a cottage by the beach? A wave of sympathy and affection flooded through him as he looked at Mac’s big brown eyes. Of course he had to take this guy home.
It only took a few moments to put out the fire, flick the lights switches and lock the main door. Mac jumped into the back seat next to Gerry, who seemed quite happy to pat Mac on the drive back.
He dropped them at their rental and sped off into the dark as quickly as he could. His first day of filming couldn’t have been worse. ‘Please don’t let them all be like this,’ he murmured to Mac.
* * *
Kristie watched the car speed away. Her feet seemed frozen and she didn’t even care about the brisk wind blowing around her. After a few seconds, Gerry slung his arm around her shoulders. She’d just seen her second dead body. And she couldn’t work out how she felt about that—except numb. It w
as evoking memories that she just didn’t want to recall. The little old man’s house had been so...real. A few hours earlier he’d been there, and then he was just...gone.
This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted to do this job. It was touching at places she kept firmly hidden, pulling at strings in her memory that she preferred not to remember. She shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.
Gerry looked at the red lights on the now far-off car. ‘Funny kind of guy, isn’t he?’
Anger surged inside her. ‘He’s got a contract. They’re getting paid well for this.’
Gerry looked at her in amusement and shook his head, taking his hand off her shoulder and instead tapping the camera in his other hand.
‘You haven’t realised, have you?’
She shook her head. She had no idea what he was talking about.
Gerry smiled. ‘That stiff-faced, crotchety doc guise that he’s pulling. This? This tears it all apart.’ He gave another nod of his head. ‘Kristie Nelson, in here, we have TV gold.’
CHAPTER TWO
June
THE FERRY WAS much busier this time. It seemed that hordes of schoolchildren seemed to be going on some kind of trip.
