‘Lachlan?Lachlan?’
A pause. I didn’t know about him, but I had an encyclopaedia’s worth of questions to ask, I just didn’t know how to phrase any of them.
‘I think we need to talk,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I said faintly. The light was sliding over his shoulder and spearing me in the retinas, so I couldn’t see anything other than the outline of Lachlan on a white background. It briefly crossed my mind that we might be dead, but I dismissed that because of the phone call. I doubted that The Other Side had Wi-Fi and a phone signal.
‘All right. Look, don’t say anything at all for a minute or two. Whatever and whoever you see, don’t speak. I’m going to take you somewhere quiet and get you up to speed, all right?’
‘But my brother is here.’ I really meant, whyyou? Why isn’t Lenny here, dragging me out of the cellar doorway and into…?
Into the castle. Which stood around us, firm and four-square. The hall, its floor now sanded and varnished, the great fireplace empty but for an arrangement of flowers fanning from a ceramic urn.
‘Like I said, best stay quiet for a minute.’ Lachlan’s voice was low and urgent.
‘But—’
‘Honestly.’ Lachlan took my arm and led me out. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that he hustled me, almost bundling me along. We moved out onto the steps, concrete now, and I could see the headland spread out in front of us. There was no sign of the muddy stable yard or the rickety cottages. Yet the postern-gate archway was complete, the wall running around the periphery stood undamaged and, over at the far side of the site, a group of people were crouched in a wide area stripped of grass. Two of them were David and Mal.
I gasped and tried to say ‘What’s happening?’ but Lachlan kept bustling us along until we stood in the shadow of a buttress, immaculately mortared and pointed, with not the least sign of imminent collapse. ‘Take a deep breath, Pax. You’re green.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, against the available evidence. My legs were shaking and my palms were sweaty, and I did have the horrible lurchy feeling that I might, at any moment, throw up. ‘Please tell me what’s going on.’
Lachlan let go of my arm and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He was wearing another horrific jumper, I noticed, hairy and looking hand-knitted from scrubbing-brush bristles and pan scourers. ‘I’m not entirely sure where to start.’ Then he moved forwards suddenly and caught me up in a tight hug that squeezed what breath I still had out of my lungs and scraped a layer of skin from my cheek. ‘God, I’m glad to see you,’ he said, with such fervour that I gained another layer of worry.
‘Lachlan.’ I took a small step back; he was squashing me so hard that I feared for my ribcage.‘Please.’
‘Well, we’re back. But…’
He was interrupted by a sudden looming presence. ‘Oh, you found her, good man.’
It was Lenny, looking smarter than I’d ever seen him, with his hair cut and wearing designer jeans.Designer jeans? Lenny?‘Lenny?’ I said, with my voice crawling out as a pathetic thing. ‘Lenny?’
Then I took a further step away from Lachlan and flung myself at my brother in a sudden flurry of sobs and unaskable questions.
‘Oh dear,’ Lenny said. ‘You must have hit your head. You haven’t hugged me since you were seven. What’s up?’
He sounded so normal, so untroubled, so… so…Lennythat it made me sob harder.
‘Probably relief,’ Lachlan said. ‘And my overwhelming presence, of course. We’ve not seen each other for two days and if Pax isn’t subsumed beneath Scottish culture every twenty-four hours she goes all to pieces.’
Two days.I stored that away. Even with my shaky brain and sudden outburst of emotion I hadn’t lost my ability to reckon time, and it could only have been a few minutes since we’d stood together in that cellar. Then the rest of his words filtered through and I let Lenny go.
‘Oy,’ I said, snottily. ‘Less of the making me feel as though I’m incomplete without a Scotsman, Lachlan.’
Both men laughed a casual and amused laugh. On Lenny’s part it did not sound like the laugh of a man who’d been urgently searching for his sister for the best part of a month and Lachlan’s sounded a little forced.
‘Did you hit your head?’ Lachlan asked me, cocking his head. Then he whispered, ‘Good move, that will help,’ under cover of handing me a handkerchief. This one was a good deal cleaner than the previous one.
‘I think… I might have done?’ I mopped my face.
‘I found Pax in the cellar.’ Lachlan looped a casual arm across my shoulders and Lenny didn’t say a thing. ‘She maybe fell down that deathtrap of a stairway.’
‘Oh, Pax!’ Lenny gave me a look. ‘We’vealwaysbeen told to stay away from that bloody place!’
Always been told.Another phrase to squirrel away. Nobody had ever mentioned the dangerous staircase, except for Lenny’s passing remark of ‘We’ll have to get that sorted’ when we’d first arrived on the site.
‘I’m having a bit of problem with my memory,’ I said, feeling Lachlan squeeze my shoulders in acknowledgement. ‘I seem to have got a bit of a gap, and I can’t remember the last…’ I petered out.
