Where did Rab get the money to pay the men’s wages and the outstanding accounts? The records show only a paltry income these last months, much less than is needed to pay the distillery’s expenses.
The financial situation is much worse than I had feared—I should never have trusted Rab to tell me the truth.
I dare not think that my brother would have accepted money from Olivia Urquhart, and yet I can see no other explanation for our sudden solvency. To what lengths would he go to stave off disaster?
And, I must ask myself, now that I have seen the ruin almost upon us, would I not have been tempted to do the same myself?
Benvulin, November
The snow began yesterday at teatime. It came across the river in a white, billowing curtain, and in no time we could see no farther than a few feet from the door. I can only assume that Rab has stayed overnight with his acquaintances in Tomintoul. If the men were caught out on the moors, they will have had a difficult time of it.
Benvulin, November
It snowed without stopping for twenty-four hours.
If we had such weather here, in the valley of the Spey, I shudder to think of the conditions in the hills.
I have entertained the children as best I could, but they are old enough to miss their father’s presence, and to worry.
Yesterday, the thaw had progressed enough that I thought it safe to send one of the grooms out on horseback, but he returned some hours later, sodden and exhausted. Drifts still block the road to Tomintoul. I can only assume that Rab is enjoying the extended hospitality of friends.
Benvulin, November
A spell of clear, bright weather has rendered the roads passable, although the moors are still buried in snow. Still no word has come from Rab. The groom I sent to Tomintoul found no evidence of his arrival. Surely, Rab had reached Tomintoul before the storm broke, unless an accident befell him on the way. I begin to fear the worst.
Benvulin, December
Having been told that a shopkeeper reported seeing Rab pass through Tomintoul, I began to wonder if he had ridden to Carnmore to see Livvy Urquhart. Yesterday, I myself drove to Carnmore in the gig, which I was forced to abandon in Chapeltown. The track leading to the distillery was mired in mud and slush, barely passable on foot. I do think the Braes of Glenlivet are the most godforsaken place I have ever encountered.
Livvy Urquhart professed not to have seen Rab, although she appeared much distressed by the news of his disappearance. When I confronted her with her father’s tale of the monies given to my brother, she told me her father had been mistaken, that she had withdrawn her inheritance in order to make much-needed improvements to Carnmore. Her son, Will, who was present throughout the conversation, said nothing at all.
In the end, I had no choice but to take my leave and return to Benvulin. As I traveled, I could only imagine that my brother, set out upon an ill-advised visit to the Braes, had wandered from the road in the storm, and that the spring thaws will reveal his poor remains, now buried beneath the snow.
Until that time, is it cruel, or kind, to keep hope alive in the children?
Kincaid took the train from Gatwick Airport to Victoria Station. He stopped at one of the gourmet coffee stalls in the Victoria concourse, then walked the few blocks to the Yard. The blue skies he had left behind the previous morning had disappeared, leaving the city air feeling dull and sulfurous.
They had put Tim Cavendish in one of the better interview rooms. Hazel’s husband looked as if he hadn’t slept, or bathed, since Kincaid had seen him on Sunday evening. The growth of dark stubble on his face made Kincaid think of him as he’d known him when Gemma had first moved into the Cavendishes’ garage flat.
“Hullo, Tim,” he said, removing two coffees from the small carrier bag. Tim had always been particular about his coffee. “I thought you could use a decent cup.”
Nodding, Tim accepted the container. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, after the way I spoke to you the other night.
You’ve always been a good friend to me, Duncan; you didn’t deserve that. I thought that if I just carried on denying everything, it would go away. But it didn’t.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened, now?” Kincaid asked, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table.
“I know you drove to Scotland, to Aviemore.”
“I haven’t much future as a criminal, obviously. It was bloody stupid leaving that receipt in the car. But then, I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I hadn’t been thinking very clearly for a long time.” Tim turned the pasteboard coffee cup in his hands but didn’t lift it.
“Maybe you should start at the beginning,” Kincaid suggested.
“The beginning?” Tim’s abrupt laugh held no humor.
“Can you believe that I was bored with my life? Every day, I saw the same self-absorbed patients, every evening I went home to the same comfortable routine, and I saw my dreams of doing big things, memorable things, vanishing year by year.
“I never said anything, but I was a bit less patient, a bit more quick to crush Hazel’s enthusiasms. It all seemed petty to me—a new rose for the garden, a new recipe for dinner, what book Holly liked best that day. I even had the temerity once to accuse Hazel of not living in the real world. She looked at me with such astonishment, such disappointment.
“And then, even when I saw her with him, it didn’t occur to me that I’d brought it upon myself.”
“You saw Hazel with Donald? In London?”
“It was quite by chance—but then most life-changing events happen purely by chance, don’t they? I was walking down the Liverpool road at lunchtime one day when I saw Hazel go into a café. When I glanced in the window, she was sitting down at a table with him, and the expression on her face . . . I realized I hadn’t seen that look in years . . . if ever.” Tim shook his head, as if it still amazed him. “My world turned upside down. From that day forward it was all I could think about. I followed her.
I watched her. I dug her mail from the rubbish bin.”
“Did you find anything?” Kincaid asked when Tim didn’t continue.
“No. It wasn’t until she told me she wanted to go to Scotland that I realized who he must be. Donald Brodie, her first love, the man she almost married. It wasn’t until the day she left that I found the confirmation—she’d been careless enough to leave an old photo, and his business card, under her blotter.”
“That’s when you decided to go after her?”
Tim turned the coffee cup in his hands again, then at last lifted it to his mouth, wincing as if the liquid pained him. “I had to see for myself. That’s all I could think as I drove. It was late on Friday evening by the time I found the B&B. I slept for a few hours in a lay-by, then I found a place to hide the car and walked to the house through the woods. It was daylight by then. I saw them together, in the meadow . . . after that I don’t remember much.”