Page 69 of The Cottage in the Highlands

Flynn Talbot started to reply but I cut him off. “I’m not the one who lied to a journalist.”

“I’m sorry,” he ground out. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Then why did you?”

Flynn sighed into my ear. “Let’s just say my previous experience of journalists hasn’t been a positive one.”

He then tried to move the conversation on. “It turns out there’s enough going on in my family as it is without any more complications and the press camped out on the doorstep, if they found out about the Chandler thing. Present company excepted, of course.”

That’s big of you, I thought to myself, before my mind took off in another direction with so many questions I wanted to ask and not just about Flynn’s grandfather being the infamous artist.

“Flynn, what did you mean when you said you hadn’t had a great previous experience with journalists?”

I could hear him considering my question. “Let’s just say it was to do with affairs of the heart and a trust issue.”

“Ah.”

I wanted to ask more, but his deafening silence told me that he wasn’t prepared to divulge anything further. At least not for now.

My stunned thoughts careered back to the Chandler revelation. “How long have you known?” I asked, failing to conceal the thrill in my voice.

“That my grandfather was Chandler?”

“Yes.”

“Since I was fifteen, so… twenty years now. My father found out by accident when he visited my grandfather one day. They both got a bit pissed and my grandfather told him.” Flynn let out a short laugh. “My dad thought he was rambling, but he showed him preparatory images he had been working on that had only just been released into the public domain. He also knew Chandler’s secret signature. That’s how any forgeries or copycats can be identified, so they know it’s a real Chandler piece of art and not a fake.”

“It’s a black CH in a box,” I rambled, my enthusiasm threatening to spill over. “And it always appears on the image somewhere.”

“That’s right,” faltered Flynn into my ear. “Wow. How do you know that?”

“My ex-boyfriend used to work on one of the Scottish nationals. So, they didn’t get caught out by fake artwork purporting to be by Chandler, the artist anonymously contacted the paper, making it known he had started signing his work that way and that all his future paintings would always feature that secret moniker.”

I was still fizzing with this revelation. What an exclusive this would be! I was struggling to contain myself, let alone process it. Photos of an interview with Chandler and my by-line underneath scrolled through my head. I gave myself a talking-to. A promise was a promise. “I won’t tell anyone what you’ve just told me,” I reassured Flynn. “But if you or your grandfather ever change your mind about revealing his alter-ego, I’m here.”

Flynn grunted into my ear. “I doubt that very much, when he wouldn’t even talk to me.” He made a resigned noise. “That’s nothing new. My family are, shall we say, unconventional. I’m sure you got that impression already.”

“When was the last time you saw your grandfather?”

There was an awkward hush. “Must be about five years now.”

“What?!”

“All right! All right! We can’t all have families that bake cakes and reminisce over the piano every Sunday.”

Baking cakes and reminiscing over the piano?! My family had never done that and I didn’t know any other families that did either. I was tempted to make a joke of it, but something told me that right now, Flynn wouldn’t appreciate it.

“My grandfather is like one of those huge, ornate diaries with a padlock,” he went on. “Impenetrable and contains so many secrets. He tends to keep people at arm’s length.”

Just like you, I concluded to myself. I considered his description. “So, in that case, what’s the next step?”

Flynn snorted. “There is no next step. My grandfather wouldn’t take my call. End of.”

“But aren’t you curious about Merry Wood and why he told you all it was sold?”

“Nothing that man does surprises me,” barbed Flynn. “He’s a law unto himself. According to my parents, he holed himself up in Cairntilloch years ago.” The frustration was evident in his tone – resigned and irritated. “Look, Ms Baxter, I know you’re curious about all this and you want to do right by this Lily friend of yours, but if I were you, I would just forget you ever saw that letter and move on.”

I frowned down my phone. “But that seems to be the issue. Lily can’t move on, even though she should.”