Page 2 of The Cottage in the Highlands

Frances nodded her shiny black hair. “You know Doug isn’t into all that touchy-feely stuff, but it’s a nice gesture.”

I flipped open my reporter’s notebook and began to rattle off the introduction to my message-in-a-bottle story. At least we could let Doug know we were there to help.

It was my turn to go and get lunch from the seafront deli.

I studied the array of cold meats and cheeses through the panoramic window and let out a frustrated sigh. I didn’t know what I wanted. I experienced this dilemma every day of the week, mind you, such was the delicious array of fillings that were always available.

I had worked for The Silver Ness News as a junior reporter for two years now and I loved it.

Silver Ness, where I was born and still lived, was a quaint little Scottish seaside town a good hour’s journey away from the centre of Glasgow. It was all pretty bed and breakfast cottages and family businesses along the seafront. The shops there sold everything from buckets and spades to dramatic artwork depicting the golden stretch of beach. We also had mysterious historical links to pirates and smuggling, which the day-trippers, tourists, and local children got rather excited about.

Before joining my local paper, I had worked in an uptight advertising agency on the south side of town for three years as a copy writer after graduating from my four-year journalism degree course. I struggled to find a job in journalism after university and remembering Mum’s advice of “It’s easier to go to a job from a job” (together with the fact that I needed to survive financially) I took the ad agency vacancy.

I hated every minute of it.

Cut-throat; synthetic; stressful; not to mention the grind of the daily commute, which had sapped well over two hours out of my life each day. Everyone at the agency looked every bit as downtrodden as I was.

The term “work–life balance” was treated with derision and even taking a proper lunch break away from your desk was frowned upon. I was twenty-five at the time, but felt like I was ninety-five. I don’t know how I managed to stick it for so long. I think the very competitive salary was a large part of why I stayed, until even that palled and I knew that for my mental wellbeing, I couldn’t carry on working there.

When my mum tipped me off that she’d bumped into Frances, senior reporter at our local paper, who told her their current junior was leaving to join his girlfriend in London, I knew I had to apply for the vacancy.

I was delighted to hear I had secured an interview and then spent the next few weeks preparing for it, swatting up on my home town. I’m embarrassed to say I had rather taken Silver Ness and its reputedly colourful past for granted.

I read up on everything about the birth of the local paper too, devouring information on its circulation, regular local correspondents, and previous reporters of note.

It was Doug and a stern-faced character from the Clarity Newspaper Group Human Resources team who interviewed me and I was thrilled to hear a couple of days later that I was being offered the job of junior reporter.

I threw myself into the role, bearing down on individuals with my Dictaphone, notebook, and a wide smile or sympathetic ear. I managed within a matter of months of dogged determination to establish a solid set of contacts in the local police force, the council, and the fire service.

It was a joy, working for a local newspaper that so many members of the community relied upon and which had been a part of their family for over a hundred years. I felt as if I were achieving something; giving something back to the sleepy seaside town where I was born and brought up.

I could smell the sea air from my desk, listen to the gulls bickering over the waves, and I could actually relax and take a breath when I got home.

I inspected the array of tasty breads again in the deli window. Even though it was only the first day of October, the deli owners had enthusiastically placed a couple of small pumpkins in the window, together with plastic bats and a witch’s broom.

The idea of Doug being called to a snap finance meeting like that in town niggled me. For the two years I had been working at the paper, Head Office always made sure they gave Doug a clear heads-up on when these meetings were due to take place and on the odd occasion when he couldn’t attend or was on holiday, Frances would take his place. I recalled her saying that they were an utter pain in the arse, but that they were well-organised and the minutes and papers were emailed through ahead of time.

Something about this didn’t seem right.

I inwardly rolled my eyes and tried to give myself a reassuring internal talking-to as I continued to hover outside the deli window. There was a stiff breeze working its way from up the beach and I huddled deeper into my coat. I caught sight of my pensive expression in the glass, with my smattering of cinnamon freckles across my nose, and pushed my array of spirally, conker-brown hair away from my face.

No. Stop, Leonie. Don’t catastrophise. Crikey, I would have myself out of a job in a minute!

I sucked in a sweep of air, clotted with seaweed and salt, and tried to be more rational. That meeting Doug had been summoned to could be about anything. Anything at all. Doug was always a bit on-edge before these sorts of “shit-shows”, as he called them, anyway. And remember what Frances said about Cheryl, reminded a voice. The long hours and late nights he had been pulling. That would explain his tetchy, barking moods of late.

Maybe it was all to do with him and Cheryl having marriage problems and had nothing to do with work after all.

Yes. That would be it. I was letting my imagination run ahead of me.

I glanced down at my watch. Shit! Frances would start chewing her keyboard if I didn’t return with her salmon and cucumber salad bagel in the next ten minutes.

I opted for a salt beef bagel and made my way back along the high street towards the office. Not many people could boast of a view like this from their workplace. The sea was brushing against the rocks in a mirror of turquoise and to the right, the harbour reached out like a gnarly hand towards a couple of creaking fishing boats.

Behind me, the multi-coloured fishermen’s cottages and eclectic array of shops were slung like a string of rainbow beads.

This sure beat being stuck on a train an hour each way every day, inhaling other people’s armpits.

“Ms Baxter?”