Page 100 of A Secret Scottish Escape

Tom had been so caring and compassionate when Mac died, and he had been enthusiastic and helpful when I had been commissioned to write a feature about ‘A Day in the Life of a Countryside Copper’ for a Sunday newspaper supplement.

Considering we’d also been at school together, I felt like I wasn’t being presumptuous … well, hopefully not too much, anyway.

Tom’s home phone rang out, but I did manage to reach him on his mobile. “But I’ve just come off duty,” he moaned into my ear, “and I promised Douglas we’d have a quiet night in with a takeaway.”

My silence was deafening.

“Oh Layla,” he ground out. “You owe me big time for this.”

I slid on my denim jacket. “Thank you so much, Tom. A bottle of plonk and a takeaway will be on me. I’m on my way to pick you up now.”

I steered my car over to the kerb where Tom was waiting under one of the town square’s street lights.

He gave his close-cropped dark head a mild shake as he clambered into the passenger seat. “Let me get this straight. We’re heading up to Coorie Cottage again, because of a hunch.”

I flicked a look sideways at Tom as I indicated out onto the main road. Roofs pricked the starry sky and silhouettes of moss-dotted brick walls and farmhouses slid past.

He listened while I expanded about Wendy’s Australian guest, the album title name this woman was using and my feeling that she had been responsible for the previous disturbance up at Mask’s cottage.

Tom considered what I had told him. “A stalker?”

I negotiated the country road, noting how the darkness made the hills appear like great slumbering giants. “I wondered about the stalker thing too.”

“And why are you so bothered, Ms Devlin?”

My attention flitted to my rear-view mirror, even though I knew there was no traffic currently behind me. “What do you mean?”

Tom’s full lips twitched. “Even at school you were always the one who would rescue an insect or stand up for the shy kids.”

I blushed. “And your point is?”

“I know you’re a compassionate soul, but this is different.” Tom fired me a look out of the corner of his hazel eyes. “This is the second time you’ve shot up to Coorie Cottage to help this guy – or at least, the second time I know about.”

I wriggled in my seat. “It’s called being neighbourly.”

Tom’s eyebrows twitched. “Is it now?”

I ignored his comment and swung my car around the corner.

There was an orange glow coming from Mask’s sitting room window and his pick-up truck was stationed, as usual, down by the left side of the cottage.

Apart from us, there was no other vehicle to be seen.

“This woman has a car,” I said, easing to a stop and turning off the ignition. “Wendy said she’d hired one.”

We climbed out and I locked my car, the scent of a burnished night mingling with my trepidation. I wasn’t sure what I thought I would be able to do, but the compunction to help Mask – to show him that someone cared – was overwhelming.

When I knocked on his front door, a hall light came on and I could see his tall figure wavering through the glass. “It’s Layla and I have Tom Bateman, a local police officer, with me.”

From what I could make out through the bevelled panes of glass, Mask was pulling on a hoodie that he had retrieved from a hook on his coat rack.

The door eased open and Mask materialised behind it.

Tom was beside me on the step and eyed him with a quizzical stare.

“Is there something wrong?”

I noted he hadn’t put on his mask, but the hood he was wearing was tugged forwards as far as it would go, which made it impossible for us to see his features. All that was visible was the very odd flash of his black dark-lashed eyes.