Page 1 of The Cottage in the Highlands

Chapter One

“Are you all right, Doug? You’ve gone very pale.”

Douglas Drennan, my editor, lowered his mobile so slowly that for a moment I thought he might be filming a scene for The Matrix.

He forced a tight smile from across our bijou newsroom, with its stack of last week’s edition of the paper and three walnut desks. There was an assortment of potted plants dotted around, a couple of old black and white photographs of Silver Ness back in the day decorating the walls and a faint scent of percolated coffee. “That was head office. I’ve been summoned to a meeting in town.”

Frances White, a married mother of two in her mid-thirties and our senior news reporter, gave a dismissive flap of her gold manicure from her desk, which was stationed across from mine. “It’ll be nothing, Doug. Well, when I say nothing, it’ll either be a gold star or a bullet up the arse.”

I shot a wary look across at her, before swivelling my chair to face Doug. I was very fond of Frances, but she wasn’t known for her finesse. “It will be something about nothing,” I assured him. “Probably one of those dreaded budget meetings.”

He dragged a hand down his tense, craggy face. “Er. Yes. Sure. That’s what it will be. A budget meeting.”

I frowned. Something was troubling him. Doug was one of those unstoppable journalists of old, in his sixties, not fazed by anything and convinced that a pint and a packet of pickled-onion crisps could solve the ills of the world. He would always joke that he had newspaper print running through his veins and not blood. Doug glanced down at his watch for the tenth time in a minute, before leaping to his feet and throwing on his crumpled suit jacket.

“Or is it another liquid lunch?” asked Frances with a twinkle. She snapped shut her silver powder compact. “You seem to have been indulging in a few more of those recently.”

Doug barrelled round. “I wish it bloody was! I just told you. I’ve been summoned to some shit-show of a meeting, ok?!”

Frances’s hazel eyes grew large and she held up her hands in mock surrender. “Ok! Ok. Bloody hell! No need to get all irate! I was only joking!”

Doug flipped his black and silver tie. He cleared his throat, his attention all at once focused on our beige office carpet. “The meeting is at half twelve, so I’ll head off now.”

He stalked towards the newsroom door. Then he swung to face me. “And Leonie, can I have five hundred words on that elderly lady in Carbeth Road you went to see this morning?”

“You mean the one whose dog found the message in a bottle on Silver Ness beach?”

My boss gave a stiff nod. He was struggling to concentrate.

“I’m already on it. What a sweetheart she is. She was telling me that cute dog of hers—”

“I don’t have time for a cosy chat right now,” he snapped, making me blink in surprise. “Just have it sent over to me when I get back. Please.”

Good grief. What was the matter with him this morning? He had been a little prickly and distracted recently, but in the two years I had worked here at my local paper, The Silver Ness News, I had never known Doug to be like this.

There was an awkward silence as he banged out.

Frances pulled a face. “Oooh! Somebody didn’t have their Weetabix this morning,” she whispered, once he had gone.

I fiddled with my pen. “Something’s bothering him.” I shot her a look. “Actually, have you noticed Doug hasn’t been himself the last few weeks?”

“Maybe a bit,” she conceded. “But I just put it down to him and Cheryl having a few problems.”

“Are they?”

Over Frances’s shoulder and out of one of the bevelled office windows, Silver Ness beach looked like one giant, golden smile in the hazy October sunshine.

She hesitated.

“Spill, Sherlock. You look like you want to say something.”

Frances bit the inside of her lip. “Haven’t you noticed the long days he’s been putting in here recently? Staying behind well after we’ve headed home?”

I considered what she was saying. Sure enough, he had still been stationed at his desk well after clocking-off during the past few weeks, his head buried in his screen. “So, you think Doug is having issues at home?”

“It all points that way.”

I thought again about Doug barging out of the office. “Do you think we should have a word with him when he gets back? Let him know we’re around for him, if he needs to talk?”