The House Between Tides (51 page)

And then with a jolt she realised that for all the other photographs, she was, quite literally, seeing through Theo Blake's eyes, seeing what he had seen, captured by his camera's shutter. These fading images linked him directly to her, and she was as close to him as if she were inside his head.

Suddenly he was very real. Gripped by the thought, she went back to the beginning. And now as she scrolled through the images, she felt an intimate connection to him and began to appreciate his skill with composition, his painter's eye for drama. A slash of sunlight cut across the dark hall from the open front door, a curlew posed on his desk mirrored a half-finished sketch beside it, a rainbow's arc was captured through the dining room window and framed by the window itself. And gradually she realised that there was a sequence to the photographs, as if they had been taken on
the same occasion, and that they followed a route inside the house.

She leant forward towards the screen, gripped now, and followed him down the hall into the drawing room, across to the dining room, the morning room, and then the study, lingering for a moment in each. Then he began to mount the stairs, and she went with him—past the stag which kept its gaze aloof and distant, a clever camera angle followed the curve of the banisters to the tiled floor of the hall, and a shot taken through the round window on the half-landing was over-exposed and fuzzy, exploiting the contrast between the dark of the stairwell and the ethereal brightness of the outside world. A dream world . . . She imagined him framing the image, then pausing a moment to look out across the pasture to the dramatic skies above the western dunes. Then came a series of images which she had not seen before, taken on the decaying upper floor. Doors opened from the intact landing, and she had glimpses of a linen press, a bookcase, a polished table, an oval mirror, a painting on the wall. And suddenly she was in the room that should have been hers, and she could see the rounded niche of the turret in one corner. The edge of a brass bedstead protruded into the image, slippers lay askew on a rug beside it, clothes discarded on the counterpane, a washstand with jug and bowl. And she saw, reflected in the mirror, two figures.

Her hand stayed. The manse's parlour vanished, and she was right there in the room in Muirlan House, an interloper. Beatrice was sitting at her dressing table, her hands raised to her hair, looking back at her through the mirror, laughing. No, looking back at
him
, for he too was reflected in the mirror, bent to the camera with only the top of his head and one arm visible. He was raising his hand, palm uppermost, in encouragement. In the photograph he had contrived a layering of images, the vertical planes of the angled mirror wings reflecting back through the central mirror an infinite number of Beatrices. Tears burned behind Hetty's eyes as
she realised what she had stumbled upon. For this was it! Before her was the inspiration behind the painting she had been unable to leave behind. A moment of intimacy that he had remembered years later and had painted—not with the playfulness of the photographic image but as a hard-edged record of a marriage that had fractured and fallen apart. For that joyful moment before her now had been a fleeting one, soon gone, the sentiments soured and vanished, together with every rug from the floor, every stick of furniture, every stuffed bird, every breath and every heartbeat—gone with the auctioneer's hammer or on a gull's wing to oblivion. She had come too late.

She left the museum in a daze. She had reached through the years and experienced a past emotional charge, a charge that Blake's photograph and, later, his painting had captured in ways that were poles apart, depicting the joyful beginning and the broken end. And Beatrice's sepia phantom had seared herself onto her mind's eye. She walked slowly back to the hotel, past the lochan fringed with yellow iris, thinking how, over these last weeks, through his paintings and letters, the jagged, ill-fitting pieces of Theo Blake's life had begun to come together. And it had been a tragic life, almost operatic in its drama.

She remembered her first reaction to the house, when she had seen it as an abandoned film set. And that's what it was, simply the setting for lives that were now played out. Past help. Past saving—

But the island wasn't.

And suddenly the house itself no longer mattered. It could go. It was more important that there would always be lapwings swooping low across the machair, waves coming ashore on the empty stretch of Torrann Bay, below wide skies which reached to clear horizons. It was that which mattered.

And somewhere there would be a battered Land Rover crossing the strand and guarding the marches.

Rain blew fitfully as she hastened towards the hotel. The wind was strengthening, and as she crossed the car park she overheard a man say that an unseasonably large storm was on its way. “We'll not see the ferry back for a day or two,” he remarked, “and the airfield's closed.” Closed! So Giles would not have made it anyway. Just as well, as explaining to Emma and Andrew how she now saw matters was going to be awkward enough as it was.

But Giles had made it. As she pushed open the door, she saw him, having a drink with Andrew and Emma in the reception lounge. He got to his feet. “There you are! We were wondering where you'd got to.” He gave her a hug and she smelt alcohol on him, more than a glassful. “God, what a flight. Caught it by the skin of my teeth and then—whew! Bounced all over the place. Titchy little plane too. Got in just before the airport shut.”

It had always surprised her that a man of Giles's self-assurance should be afraid of flying, but he was. In airport lounges she had got used to watching him sweat and fidget, drinking more than he should, becoming agitated and short-tempered. It was never easy. To be fair, this probably had been a rough flight, but how much
had
he drunk? “The guy next to me spewed, which didn't help.” With a sinking heart, she recognised that he was now in the next phase, where relief brought out bluster and aggression to cover any suggestion of weakness.

But he had recovered enough to change into well-creased trousers and a sharp sports jacket, and was looking decidedly metropolitan amongst the locals. “Let's go through and get you a drink, shall we?” he said. “We've booked an early table, so lead on, Em.”

“Giles, we need to talk—” Hetty tried to hold him back, but he patted her arm and propelled her forward in Emma's wake.

“Plenty of time.”

The Island Inn catered to everyone from serious fishermen and bird-watchers to tourists passing through, but the locals were the mainstay of business. Being Friday night, the bar was already doing a brisk trade, and they were met by a warm beery smell and the sound of laughter. Emma looked around and gestured to an empty table just beyond the bar, while Dalbeattie went to get drinks. And, as the group at the bar parted to let him through, it seemed inevitable that Hetty would find herself looking across a sea of customers to James Cameron, leaning on the bar, Ruairidh Forbes beside him, deep in conversation.

He looked up, straightening slowly when he saw her.

Then Giles caught sight of him. “Well, well,” he muttered, too loudly. “The man himself.”

Ruairidh Forbes turned at his words and saw Hetty. He stepped forward with a warm smile and a hand outstretched. “Good to see you again.”

She clutched his hand gratefully and felt obliged to introduce him to the others. “Forbes, did you say?” Giles's voice seemed to boom out. “Ah . . . Yes. How d'ye do?” Then to her dismay he turned back to James. “Sorry to have missed you last week, Mr. Cameron,” he drawled. “Just a flying visit, I gather.” James fixed his eyes on Giles, saying nothing. “Took Hetty by surprise. On her own. You quite unsettled her, you know.”

“Did I?” James transferred his gaze to Hetty, raising an eyebrow.

He had, but not in the way Giles meant.

“Last-ditch attempt, was it?” Giles continued. If he hadn't drunk so much he might have noticed that James had become very still. This had to be stopped. She stepped forward, but Giles moved in front of her and continued. “I can see, from your point of view, why you were keeping your cards close to your chest, but under the circumstances, don't you think, some sort of declaration of interest, eh?”

“Giles!” She watched, mortified, as James's face darkened, and she saw Ruairidh mutter something and lift a hand as if to calm things. But Giles was unstoppable.

“At least we now know where we stand,” he continued relentlessly. “And once the dubious ownership claims have been cleared up—”

“Giles!”

Ruairidh clamped his hand on his cousin's arm and turned towards Hetty, blocking James's path to Giles. “Bit of a surprise, that was,” he said, and gave her a reassuring smile. “But your visit's well-timed. Ùna rang just now to say there's an official-looking envelope waiting at home. Inverness postmark. Probably the lab.” He lifted his half-full glass. “I'm away home to see when I've finished this.”

“Oh, golly. The bones!” exclaimed Emma. “I keep forgetting. A
real
challenge for the marketing team.” James transferred his stony gaze from Giles to her, then muttered something inaudible and presented a contemptuous shoulder. Ruairidh addressed Hetty again. “If there's news, shall I find you here in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Best not make any commitments as to time, darling,” said Giles, slipping an arm round her waist. “We've got to get to the island and back, remember, negotiating the tides. Perhaps Mr. Forbes could leave the report or something at reception.” He smiled briefly at Ruairidh and turned back to Emma. “Let's eat, shall we?” Hetty stayed rooted to the spot, wanting to explain, wanting to make things right, but was now daunted by James's uncompromising back. And besides, a public bar was hardly the place for what needed to be said. “I'll be in touch,” she said, but he appeared not to hear, and then Giles steered her away.

2010, Hetty

The restaurant was already busy and their table was right in the centre. They took their seats, and Dalbeattie began at once to explain the findings of the new surveyor.

Hetty tried to stop him. “Wait, there's something—”

But he was as unstoppable as a juggernaut. “Let me just run quickly through the main points, m'dear. It's in a bad state but not hopeless. The principal cost will be— Ah, yes, let's order.” He paused while the waiter hovered and they considered the menu. Hetty looked at the door to the bar, wanting to go back and talk to Ruairidh and James, but she owed it to Giles, and his friends, to explain first how everything had changed. The waiter was doubtless a local man, though, so she must wait until he had gone. It wouldn't be easy, but at least it would be done. There'd be the legal matters to sort, of course, but for the rest, it was over.

She looked across at Giles. His face was glistening and his eyes were bright, and he was talking too loudly. Drinking didn't suit him; it made him into a caricature of himself. But that too was over, and she found herself sad at the thought. Would he mind so very much? He had been good to her at a time when she had most needed help, when she had felt so very alone. He had seen her through the worst times, but he had begun to consume her, absorbing her into a world which she knew now was not for her.