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Iris laid her head against the seat rest and closed her eyes, shutting out the bright lights of the town. Normally she would have welcomed them, this sign that she was almost home. But tonight, their garishness, so at odds with the dark velvet nights of the Scottish Isles, jarred.
She shifted restlessly, peeling her bare legs from where they’d stuck to the cream leather seats. She was desperate to get out of the car, feel blood circulating in her ankles again. Sensing her discomfort, Gabriel threw her a guilty glance.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Maybe we should have stopped in York after all.”
Iris gave him a smile, hiding her disappointment. “It’s better this way. We’ll have tomorrow to relax.”
Her disappointment wasn’t because she’d been denied dinner in a Michelin-starred restaurant followed by a night in a luxurious hotel, but because, during the two weeks they’d been away, she hadn’t been able to get Gabriel to open up to her. Despite the idyllic sea-view cottages, the beautiful scenery, the long, lazy walks along deserted white beaches, she hadn’t been able to get him to talk about Charlie Ingram.
Charlie had only just been reported missing by his mother when Gabriel, out for an early morning run, had spotted him lying at the bottom of the old limestone quarry, surrounded by the tangled metal of his bike.
“He must have taken the path around the top, gone too fast, skidded through the trees and down over the edge,” Gabriel had said, his face ashen. “Or hit a stone that sent him off-course. What a tragic waste.”
Charlie had been alive when Gabriel found him, but he’d died before help arrived. And during those few minutes, when he’d been hovering between life and death, Charlie had entrusted Gabriel with a message:Tell Mum I love her.
“It was as if he was waiting to be able to give that last message,” Iris had said, wanting to comfort him.
But her words had distressed him more, and for the last two months, Charlie Ingram—eighteen years old, popular, good-looking, a place guaranteed at university and a year younger than their daughter Beth—had continued to haunt him. Maybe if Gabriel hadn’t known Charlie, it might not have hit him so hard. They hadn’t seen each other since Charlie’s childhood, but they had recognized each other immediately.
Iris’s stomach fluttered with guilt. She should have given Gabriel time to wind down, to acclimatize to being at home before rushinghim to Scotland. It couldn’t be easy to be told, however gently, by your partners, that they were putting you on compassionate leave, especially if you were a doctor in the local, understaffed medical practice. Gabriel had refused at first, unable to accept what Iris and his colleagues had been able see, that he was suffering from burnout. Already depleted by the death of his beloved father four months earlier, plus an increasingly unmanageable workload, Charlie’s death was the straw that broke him. It had devastated Gabriel to the point where he was unable to talk about what had happened. Despite Iris’s efforts, and those of his colleagues, the few minutes that Gabriel had spent in the quarry with Charlie Ingram before he’d died, before help had arrived, remained locked deep inside him.
Night was chasing dusk into its shadows as Gabriel pulled into the drive. Unable to stay in the car a moment longer, Iris snapped off her seat belt and opened the door. A blast of warm air wrapped itself around her as she climbed out of the air-conditioned car. Her legs, stiff from sitting, gave slightly and she put a hand on the roof to steady herself, then pulled it back quickly. Like the air around her, the sun-scorched metal had retained its heat.
“How is it possible for it to be so hot at this time of night?” she asked, transferring the grime from the car to her face as she swiped damp hair from her forehead.
Gabriel eased himself from the driver’s seat and stretched his arms high above his head, loosening the muscles in his lower back. “They had a mini heatwave here while we were in Scotland, remember? And it is the beginning of June.”
He lowered his arms, moved toward the trunk.
“Leave the bags,” Iris said, stifling a yawn. “We’ll unpack tomorrow.”
“Good idea.” Gabriel glanced toward their home, an old stone farmhouse, in the small village of West Markham, its interior tastefully brought into the twenty-first century by its previous architect owner. “Do you know what the best thing is about going on holiday?”
Iris smiled. “Coming home?”
“Exactly.” He came around the car to where Iris was standing and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for a wonderful holiday.”
She reached a hand to his cheek, relishing these few moments when he wasn’t preoccupied by that other, darker thing. “Do you have your keys?”
He took them from his pocket. “Come on, let’s get to bed.”
“A long bath for me first.”
Hand in hand, they walked to the front door. Gabriel unlocked it and, impatient to be inside, Iris was about to step over the threshold when he shot out an arm, barring her way.
“There’s no mail,” he hissed.
Iris frowned, then realized what he meant. Usually, after two weeks away, there’d be a build-up of mail on the doormat. But there was nothing.
“Put the light on,” she whispered.
Gabriel reached inside and found the switch.
“My cardigan.” Iris pointed toward the bottom of the stairs where a blue cardigan lay draped over the newel post. “I didn’t leave it there. Nor those,” she added, pointing to a pair of espadrilles lying haphazardly on the floor.
“Beth isn’t here, is she?” Gabriel asked, his voice low, even though he knew their daughter was volunteering at a dog shelter in Greece.
“No, she’s not back for another three months. And anyway, she wouldn’t be seen dead in my cardigan.”
