Page 102 of A Scottish Country Escape

I indicated for Elsa to take up one of the armchairs beside me, while Angus and Gran seated themselves on the sofa opposite. ‘So, what are you able to tell us, Angus?’

He hesitated, shooting an alarmed glance at my grandmother next to him. Oh no! Don’t tell me he’s already experiencing second thoughts about talking to us.

Sensing his apprehension, Elsa offered Angus an encouraging smile. ‘It’s to help a friend of ours,’ she volunteered. ‘Elle has been struggling to get any information. Other people round here seem rather reluctant to tell her much.’

Angus’s weathered face broke into a brief, dry smile. ‘Now that I can understand.’

He placed his mug of half-drunk tea onto a coaster on the glass coffee table in front of him and dived one hand into his back trouser pocket.

The three of us watched him flip open his leather wallet. Gran frowned, straining to see what was occupying his attention. His eyes clouded over while he gazed down at a photograph. Then he handed it over to me.

I gasped at the black and white photograph of a handsome man, leaning against a wall. I studied it for a few moments longer. I turned to Elsa, noting her surprise as she looked at it too. ‘That’s your brother?’ I managed, struggling to take my eyes off it.

Angus nodded. ‘My older brother.’

I took in his waistcoat, long legs in drainpipe trousers, and head of thick black waves. He had a teasing smile.

Elsa clutched at the wallet. She passed it back to me. ‘Dexter,’ she faltered, saying aloud what was circling around and around inside my head. ‘He looks like Dexter.’

Chapter Sixty-Two

4th August 1964

‘I don’t want you out in the car tonight, Ross.’

‘Oh, don’t start all that again, Linda.’

Ross Ronald held his fiancée’s slender, honey-coloured arms between his hands. ‘I’ve already had a lecture from Angus. I’ll be careful.’

Linda wasn’t at all reassured. She removed her bare arms from Ross’s hands and rubbed them repeatedly. These odd sensations and dreams she had been having recently were becoming more and more frequent, more vivid and more troubling. They would bleed into one another, like raindrops mingling with splatters of bright paint.

Linda’s engagement ring – a square white diamond on a gold band – winked in the afternoon sunshine.

That same tide of panic was rising up inside of her again. She tried to swallow it back, but her pleading thoughts had other ideas. ‘Don’t do it, Ross. Pull out of the race. No one will think any the less of you.’

Her voice died as she picked up on the resolute cut of his jaw.

Ross stared ahead, watching a sprinkle of shoppers meander around Fir Haven’s main street. ‘Bloody Cameron Lomax will!’

Linda ran her agitated hand through her backcombed brunette bob. ‘Cameron Lomax is an arrogant idiot!’ She blinked her kohl-lined eyes at her fiancé. Why couldn’t he see sense and refuse to take part?

Ross’s chest heaved with frustration. ‘Why do you think he’s such an arrogant idiot? He’s like that because he’s so used to getting everything he wants, when he wants it.’

Ross’s wide blue eyes scanned Linda, whose growing desperation triumphed over her failing attempts to sound calm. ‘Please. Be the better man, Ross. Tell Cameron you won’t race him.’

His lips tightened. ‘No. I’m doing it.’ He offered her a reassuring smile. ‘We belong together, Linda. I’m going to race that idiot and then we’ll leave Fir Haven. We can start our lives over together somewhere else. We can get married; have a family.’

Linda’s shoulders sagged under her mint-green flared dress. Ross noticed. He detected tears swimming in her eyes. ‘Trust me. I will be careful.’

She didn’t answer. She was too busy drinking in every detail of the dark, pensive features of the man she loved.

Ross took his hand and traced it around the side of her face. ‘I hate it when you have these horrible dreams.’

But that’s it, Linda screamed inside, nuzzling her cheek against Ross’s warm palm. She was experiencing more of them. And they weren’t just dreams anymore.

The atmosphere in the sitting room was palpable.

Grandma jerked her head to look at Angus beside her. ‘But you always said Ross was killed by a hit and run driver.’