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‘Sorry,’ she said, out loud, realising too late that no one had noticed she had drifted off, and certainly weren’t aware where her thoughts had taken her.
‘What is it, Liz?’ Ben looked expectantly at her. ‘Did you need to add something?’
‘Oh. Err, no. It can wait until later,’ she said, feeling herself blush.
Ben nodded, shooting her a curious look, and continued talking.
Liz made herself concentrate on the slides on the main screen, and avoided looking at Ben for the rest of the meeting.
SEVENTEEN
The old church was tiny, and surrounded by an old graveyard. In fact, Liz thought, it was more of a village chapel than a church, which made sense: Loch Cameron was such a small place that a chapel was probably all it needed, in the past or now.
She’d decided to explore the village, since the weather was unexpectedly good and it was a Saturday. She’d woken up in the cottage, listening to the birdsong outside and with a shaft of sunlight slicing through the window, and thought briefly about going into the office to do some research and get ahead with the sales reporting, but then thought better of it.
Come on, Liz. You can choose not to be a workaholic,she told herself sternly.It’s a lovely day. When was the last time you just went for a walk in the countryside?
So, here she was, wandering around the loch. She’d walked along almost one whole side of it, where the small village stretched out, opposite the imposing Loch Cameron Castle.
The view was like something you saw on travel programmes, Liz had to admit. The loch itself was so flat and glass-like, reflecting the trees around it; almost a mirror, now that the sun was out. Firs, oak and ash trees were dotted along the edge of the loch, sometimes in deep clusters, and sometimes just a lone tree here and there, like the king or queen of its own small glade.
The village was full of gentle activity. Liz would have struggled to describe it as busy, but there was a rhythm to it, in its own way. Older ladies carrying baskets and tartan tote bags either walked briskly from shop to shop, or stopped to gossip at the edge of the street. A small van stopped outside the butcher’s shop, and a young man got out, opening up the back and taking out some large boxes.
Parents of young children passed her here and there, with little ones in pushchairs and prams or holding toddlers’ chubby little hands. Liz smiled at them all, though her heart wrenched a little every time. She didn’t begrudge those parents, of course. Today, seeing happy families with small children filled her with a sense of hope. That could still be her.
She’d taken a footpath that led uphill at the end of the little cobbled high street, following her instincts and wondering where it led. First, it had taken her through a dappled forest, where a gurgling stream wound through pine and spruce trees, following the hill down to the loch.
Then, at the top of the hill, as Liz paused to catch her breath, the path widened to a plateau, and she saw the chapel.
It’s probably big enough to hold twenty people at the most, Liz thought, as she walked up to it and held out her hand to touch its aged grey stone wall. Above the arched oak door, old carvings had partly crumbled away, but she thought she could make out grinning gargoyles and the flick of a scaly tail. Liz wasn’t much of one for old churches, not being very religious, but she seemed to remember reading somewhere once that many of the older ones had quite mythical carvings relating back to old beliefs or local legends. The gargoyles were meant to scare bad spirits away, that she knew – and perhaps the scaly tail had once belonged to some kind of Loch Ness-type mythical beast that people believed lived in the loch here.
People believed some pretty strange stuff in the past, after all, she thought. And Loch Cameron was one of those ancient, rural communities where there were probably a lot of old legends.
However, the door to the chapel was closed, so Liz sat with her back against its outer wall, facing the loch, and drank some water from the bottle she’d brought with her. As she sat there, she looked at the closest tombstones: none of them seemed more recent than about a hundred years old, and many of them were older than that.
I guess it’s full,she thought, shading her eyes from the sun. Prime location. The place to be when you’re dead in Loch Cameron. Or, at least, it was.
Finishing her drink, Liz stood up and inspected the stones.
MURIEL PEABODY, the first one read.1776–1834. OLD MAID.
Nice,Liz thought.Poor Muriel. No one had anything to say about her other than her marital status.
She walked on to another stone.
RICHARD MCCULLOCH
1887–1950
FOR GOD AND SCOTLAND
AT REST
Liz noted that Richard’s stone had no mention of his marital status. Plus, he got a rousing epithet: For God and Scotland.Muriel probably would have liked that too,she thought as she walked on between the stones.I wonder if anyone asked her.
Liz doubted it.
ANNIE CONSTANTINE
