The moment I mentioned Samir, her shoulders sagged. ‘So you’re a journalist?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Don’t tell me. A podcaster. We’ve already had one of them sniffing around here. I do not understand this obsession with true crime.’ There was something hypnotic about the way she said ‘true crime’. The two rolled Rs.
‘I’m not a true-crime reporter,’ I said. ‘My last film, it wasn’t about solving the case, as such. It was about shining a light on the story around what happened.’ She didn’t react. ‘I was hoping you would be able to tell me how far the investigation got.’
A fluffy cat strolled into the room, heading straight for Susan, who scooped him up and kissed his head. ‘Hamish, you are a beauty.’
‘Hamish?’ I said. ‘He’s famous around here. He brought a snake into Charles’s house.’
‘What? When?’
‘Yesterday, when we arrived.’
Susan furrowed her brow. ‘He can’t have. He was at the vet’s all day yesterday. I only picked him up this morning.’
Jasmine returned. ‘Oh, wow,’ she said, spying Hamish. She’d missed the conversation about snakes, which had left me unnerved. If Hamish wasn’t responsible, that meant the adder must have got in on its own.
‘What makes you think I’m going to give you any information?’ Susan asked, putting Hamish down. Hadn’t Morag said he was Brenda’s cat? He seemed very at home here.
‘Isn’t it in the public interest?’
‘One of my favourite phrases. May I suggest you contact the Scottish Police press office. I can also direct you to the coroner’s report.’
‘What did it say?’ I asked. ‘Death by misadventure?’ I already knew this was the case from the newspaper reports.
‘That’s right.’
She was starting to look annoyed, and I did feel a little guilty. She was off duty, baking bread, and here were two strangers asking questions in her kitchen. But something told me that she actually wanted to talk about it. After all, she wasn’t kickingus out. Maybe, I hoped, she was dissatisfied with the outcome of the investigation, too.
‘What did the report say?’ I asked again.
She sighed. ‘It said that this young man, like so many before him, went into the elements without realizing how fast the temperature can drop around here. There was no indication of foul play.’
‘But don’t you think it’s strange that he came here without telling anyone what he was doing? And that no one knows how he got here?’
As I asked these questions, a scene formed and played out in my imagination. This was always how it worked for me; it was why I had wanted to become a film-maker in the first place. When I heard stories that affected me, I saw it play out in my mind’s eye. It was happening now, as if I was watching a movie in my head.
A young man crawls across stony ground. Bitter rain stings his face and soaks his T-shirt. His limbs are numb and he can’t feel his hands or feet. His wet clothes cling to his wet skin.
‘I was expecting him to appear for his dinner.’ In the scene in my head, Samir’s mother was sitting in a chair in front of a black background that accentuated her grey hair. Her name appeared in a caption on the screen. ‘I knew something was wrong, you know? Mother’s instinct.’
‘Are you okay?’ Susan asked me. ‘You look like you’re miles away.’
I snapped back into the room. I needed to be careful. I didn’t know if this was a story I would set out to tell yet, and I had to stop myself from caring too much. It was hard, though. As soon as I’d seen Samir’s parents in my head, it was as if the mystery had implanted hooks in my skin.
Susan hadn’t answered me yet, so I repeated the question. ‘Isn’t it weird how no one knows how he got here?’
‘Of course it is. But believe me, people do strange and stupid things every day. Like you two, walking here despite the weather forecast.’ We all looked towards the window. The sky had grown awfully dark out there since we’d started talking and, right on cue, the heavens cracked open. Not rain, nor snow, but sleet: long white streaks that splatted against the window and slid down the glass.
Susan stared at it impassively. ‘I hope you brought an umbrella.’
‘Are you really not able to tell us anything?’ I asked, aware she was about to usher us out. ‘What about witnesses? Is it true that nobody saw him? That he didn’t stop off in the pub? No one saw him arrive or head into the hills?’
‘Correct.’
‘Did he have any injuries? Any sign that someone had harmed him? That he’d been in a fight? What about drugs and alcohol? Did he have any of that in his system?’
