‘Please. It’s not far from here.’
We both turned towards her red Fiat, which was parked in front of the row of houses.
‘All right. Fine. You’re persistent, aren’t you?’
We got into the car.
‘You know this place,’ I said after a minute. ‘Is there anywhere warm out there? Some place that she might have stumbled across. Empty houses? Business that are closed for the winter?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Please. Try to think.’
She did. ‘There’s a place close to the caves. The bothy.’
‘Bothy?’ I asked. I only vaguely knew the word.
‘It’s a shelter for hikers. A little stone building that’s open to anyone who needs it. It’s on a path a little further up the hill.’
That must have been the little house I thought I’d hallucinated when I’d first told Susan what had happened.
The snow was coming down so hard that Morag had to put the wipers on full. Even then it was hard to see, especiallywith no street lamps. In the beam of the headlights it was like we were driving into a full-on blizzard.
‘This really isn’t a good idea,’ Morag said. ‘And it’s not how I pictured myself spending Hogmanay.’
It was silent, apart from the swish of the wipers. Breaking that silence, I said, ‘I really appreciate you doing this. I’m surprised there aren’t more people out there looking.’
‘Huh. I’m not.’
‘The Grants really aren’t popular around here, are they?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Is it… because of what happened with your brother? With Jimmy? Do people blame the Grants for that? Holly told me that she and Lewis were there with you that night. New Year’s Eve, 2006, right?’
‘She’s told you about that night?’ She had her eyes on the road– what she could see of it, anyway– but turned her head towards me for a second, clearly surprised.
‘Only that the four of you went to the caves to drink and smoke some joints. She told me the police questioned them afterwards. But it was an accident, wasn’t it?’ Seeing her reaction, I said, ‘Sorry, I know this is painful for you. I should shut up.’
‘It’s fine. It was Jimmy’s fault. He drank way too much, smoked too much weed. Holly left because… well, she thought I’d done something to her.’
‘What was it?’
I was about to discover the source of the tension between Holly and Morag.
‘It was stupid. A dumb mistake. I gave her a pill. I thought it was molly but, well, I had two plastic bags in my pocket and I gave her a pill from the wrong one.’
‘What was it?’
‘One of my mum’s sleeping pills. I’d taken them from her bedside drawer, used them occasionally when I was too wound up to sleep. Holly totally freaked out and immediately went home, saying she needed to get back before the tablet kicked in. I told her to take my bike, because I thought Lewis would be able to drive me home.’
Morag went on. ‘Then me and Lewis left, and Jimmy stayed behind, saying he was going to chill out for a while before heading home himself.’ There was a long pause, and I could tell she was back in the past. Nineteen years ago tonight. ‘I should have persuaded him to leave with us, but I don’t think he wanted to get in the way. He knew I liked Lewis. Leaving him there was the biggest mistake I ever made.’ A pause. ‘The second biggest.’
I stayed quiet, waiting to see if she would tell me the rest.
28
2006
