Page 4 of The Scottish Island Inn

Teresa Hadley was not one of them.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Sorrel had searched the bank statement in front of her for other payments to the same payee.

She had found five in total. And the values totalled over £20,000.

Sorrel had sat staring at the computer screen in disbelief, and then, her heart beating wildly, she’d picked up Simon’s phone from the desk – he’d left it there while he was in the shower – and opened up his messages.

She wasn’t even difficult to find. Teresa was at the top of Simon’s message list. Feeling sicker by the second, Sorrel scrolled through the messages.

I can’t wait to see you. I missed you.

Tank ooo for my present. I missed you too.

You’re welcome, sweetheart.

When can I see you?

She’s away for the day on Tuesday. Same place as before, 10 a.m.?

The ‘she’ was her, Sorrel, she realised. And it looked very much like Simon had been transferring money from their company accounts to this Teresa regularly for a few months without Sorrel noticing.

When Simon had walked in from his shower, a towel around his middle, she’d been unable to meet his eyes. Instead, Sorrel had picked up his phone, turned the screen to him so that he could see the messages from Teresa, and thrown the phone at the wall.

‘I know about the money.’ She’d pointed at her laptop screen. ‘Twenty thousand pounds. I expect that to be repaid within the week. I’m going to stay with my family. This – whatever it even is between us now – is over.’

She hadn’t given Simon time to reply. Sorrel had picked up her laptop, thrown some random clothes into a bag, called a taxi and caught a plane to Scotland. Four hours later, she was renting a car at Edinburgh Airport.

She was filled with trepidation about seeing her parents again; the betrayal of years ago still hung between them. How would it feel to see them again?

She was about to find out.

THREE

It took a good five hours to drive to Skye from Edinburgh. She’d landed in Scotland in the early afternoon on a sunny May day. She’d forgotten what a beautiful drive it was. For the last few hours of the trip, she followed the edge of Loch Lomond and then Loch Ness before following the road through the majestic mountains of Glencoe. Loch Lomond went on for so long that it felt like driving next to the sea, banked with deep forests of pine and oak.

For three solid hours, everything she drove through was picture-postcard perfect: long stretches of glittering, glassy lochs that mirrored the bright blue sky and the green woodlands above them, so much so that it looked like there was a reversed, fairy world contained in the water. The weather was warm yet crisp; it was a perfect day for the drive.

Yet, trepidation grew in Sorrel the closer that she got to the island she had grown up on. She’d stopped for a sandwich and a coffee on the way at a quirky roadside café that she remembered stopping at as a child on numerous family trips. They were good memories: Sorrel had stood in line at the old-fashioned café, looking at the plates in the glass counter in front of her, remembering the way that she and her sisters used to gaze at the slices of cake displayed there when they were young, and discussing which one they would have if they were allowed.

She remembered fantasising about having a slice of cake all to herself, and not having to share it; she remembered being put in charge of her younger sisters because she was the oldest, having to watch them in the gift shop and making sure no one accidentally put a pencil in their pocket and didn’t pay for it, or a fridge magnet or a keyring. When her younger sisters messed up, it was always her fault.

She had been the good big sister, which made her parents’ betrayal all the more hurtful.

She had hurried her sandwich, and driven off from the roadside café with a knot in her stomach.

As she drove over Loch Alsh and over the scenic Skye Bridge that joined the island with the mainland, the sun had begun to set. The knot in her stomach tightened as she made the transition from one to the other. And as if it had been waiting for her, a rain cloud emptied itself on her car, suddenly and forcefully, as she reached the island.

Perfect, she thought. Ten years away. What a welcome home.

Sudden rain showers or changes in the weather weren’t unusual on Skye. The island had its own unpredictable weather system, though rain was more or less a constant; the fact that Skye was frequently windy meant that the wind would blow weather around quickly, and if you were enjoying a sunny day one moment, there might be a sudden black cloud the next. Still, it was never as cold as some of the more northerly reaches of Scotland, which Sorrel had always been grateful for.

In London, she’d missed the wide-open horizons of the island. She’d missed the clean air, the sudden storms and the many, many gurgling waterfalls, craggy mountains and roaming sheep. She’d missed the way that Skye didn’t house any big corporate shops or restaurant chains: everything was local and independent. She’d missed knowing who everyone was, and them knowing her.

Driving onto the island, she watched as the road unfurled in front of her. Some things were familiar; on the right as she drove along the main road, there had always been a weird statue of a horse wearing sunglasses standing in a field, at the edge of someone’s land. Just behind it, there was a converted Gulfstream RV trailer, which was advertised to tourists as a place to stay. Despite her trepidation at getting closer to home, Sorrel couldn’t help smiling to see it. The horse possessed the slightly anarchic spirit of Skye; a place so far north – and still so fiercely independent – that the people who settled here were people who valued individuality, and could often be a little quirky.

Sorrel had missed the quirkiness. And there were other things that she’d missed. Other people.

A little further along the road, Sorrel passed a few new restaurants and shops she didn’t remember being there before. One boasted speciality meats; one was a bakery. She drove on, watching as the landscape opened up around her. Cottages sat alongside the road here and there – sometimes alone, sometimes in little groups. Sometimes, bigger farmhouses sat off the road, but as often as not, there were large stretches of moor with nothing on them apart from the wide sky.