Page 10 of The Secret Castle in the Highlands

Taking a few snaps on my phone, I switched off the light and headed towards the door.

It was then that I noticed a pile of stray junk mail resting on the broad ledge of the front window. A thought struck me as I gathered up the envelopes. Couldn’t that ledge be used for something? Maybe some of my smaller pieces of artwork and some of Katie’s dinky ceramic pots and bowls?

I jabbed the idea into the ‘Notes’ section of my phone, feeling more excited than I was a second ago, and locked the door behind me.

Crossing the courtyard, I unlocked the door of the first cottage and stepped inside. The windows were hazy with condensation, I noted, and there was a brisk chill. I huddled further into my jacket, and wandered from room to room, entering more random notes and observations into my mobile. I repeated the process, my heart sinking further, as I locked up one cottage and moved onto the next. When I shut the door behind me on the sixth and final cottage, I stood back and surveyed each from a distance.

They all possessed very similar fixtures and fittings, and the palette of colours they were decorated in was limited: mustard walls and dark wood fittings, with carriage lights in many of the rooms. Even the carpets were either steel-grey or russet.

I’d been heartened to see dashes of Scotland in the form of a couple of tartan cushions and the odd checked throw on the sofa, but there was nothing original, bright or modern about any of them. They were all uniform and bland, with the same colours, the same style of furniture and the same tired atmosphere.

I got the impression Mum and Dad had accepted defeat when reservations began dropping. The cottages had the potential to be so welcoming and cosy, but right now, they were just drab.

I thought of the vast array of painting shades that I used for my artwork – hot oranges, dreamy blues, fiery reds, woodland greens. If I could give each cottage its own particular look and identity, that would be a start.

Tourists needed to feel like they were experiencing a real taste of Scotland. And the cottages were just that. They were so close to the swell of the sea and an impressive array of wildlife – the puffins, the seals that would bob up in the harbour, the majestic stags who would roam the hills, McKerron Castle and its colourful, enthralling past and rugged splendour – but we didn’t seem to be capitalising on it or reflecting it. It wasn’t even uncommon for the odd bottlenose dolphin to be seen from the cottage windows, arching through the air or zipping past the fishing boats.

I took a few more pictures. Then I walked around to the rear of the cottages and captured several shots of their modest square patches of garden, complete with a bank of thick hedgerow. The grass in each of the gardens was a neat oblong of emerald green, but Dad had insisted on allowing the six hedgerows to grow uninhibited. Mum had been a little reluctant, until she’d seen the spiralling leaves and the nesting birds they attracted, and so they only received a very occasional basic trim over the years to maintain them. It would be interesting to see what a wrought-iron outdoor table and chairs would look like in the gardens, I thought, and hastily added that to my many notes.

Wandering back around to the courtyard, I was so occupied that I didn’t hear Katie pull up in her lavender Mini.

‘Morning!’ she called out. ‘How was your first night in the annexe?’

I almost dropped my phone. ‘Bloody hell! You’re like a silent assassin! Are you on castors?’

She grinned. ‘Will you accept some takeaway coffee and hot croissants by way of an apology?’

‘Apology for what?’ I asked suspiciously.

I noticed Katie’s freckles were being eclipsed by blushes. ‘I think I may have inadvertently dropped you in it. Let’s go to the annexe and have breakfast and I’ll confess all.’

Once we’d pulled up two stools in the kitchen and took several grateful gulps of hot coffee, Katie dished the four warmed golden croissants onto plates.

‘So, come on, then,’ I urged. ‘What do you want to confess to?’

Katie broke off a piece of her croissant and chewed. ‘Well, when I was in the bakers just now buying this lot, a guy I’ve never seen before came in and was asking about the Scarlet Highwayman.’

My eyebrows danced. ‘Really? I wonder why?’ I tried to process this. The Scarlet Highwayman tale had been popular once, but in the last decade or so had fallen out of popularity. The locals used to revel in his scandalous history, but lately it just seemed to be me, my portrait of him and the reams of research I’d undertaken.

Why was someone enquiring about him? My curiosity rose. Katie’s chocolate-coloured eyes popped out of her creamy complexion. ‘I tell you, Popps, if I wasn’t married to your brother…’

‘Nice, was he?’

She grinned lasciviously. ‘Nice doesn’t even come close. Delectable.’

I pulled a face. ‘Yes. Well, I’ve had enough of that sort, thanks very much.’

I waited for her to expand on why this man was asking about the Scarlet Highwayman, but she had become quite giggly at the thought of the stranger. ‘You should’ve heard his accent, too. All deep and antipodean.’ She proceeded to imitate his Australian accent but sounded more like a confused Scandinavian tourist.

‘So, when you’ve quite recovered, perhaps you can tell me what Adonis wanted?’

Katie snatched up her coffee. ‘Well, Mrs Kendrick, who was just behind me in the queue, said his name is Mason Cooper. He’s a thirty-six-year-old Australian historian and author.’

‘Mrs Kendrick even knows how old he is?’

She broke off another chunk of croissant and waggled it in the air. ‘Never underestimate her research capabilities. Apparently he’s just moved to Port Starr. She said he visited the area a while back and liked it, was very taken with McKerron Castle, not surprisingly, and then, when he heard about the Scarlet Highwayman, decided he wanted to investigate.’ She gave me a knowing look. ‘Rumours are he’s got a TV production company on board to make a documentary.’

‘Who needs Google when you’ve got Mrs Kendrick?’