A Winter Grave

Chapter Eighteen

The woods lay silent under their thick blanket of snow. Large snowflakes drifted down through the trees as they crossed the stream and began the steep ascent towards the old military road somewhere far above.

Addie made no attempt to outpace him this time, and the only sound to disturb the still of the morning was the air they sucked in and breathed out, and the rush of white water somewhere nearby as it fell from Grey Mare’s Waterfall to break over the jumble of rocks below.

They paused after a while to look back towards the village and the loch. The hills were lost in cloud that seemed to come down almost to the water’s edge, where reflections of the sky were drowned in shades of grey. Brodie sat down on a rock to catch his breath. ‘You know, I’ve been here nearly two days now, and I’ve hardly seen a soul.’

‘The village is like a graveyard in winter,’ Addie said. ‘Not many more than five hundred live here year-round now. You’ll see folk at church on a Sunday, or at the Co-op when you go for your messages. And if you head down to the pub at night, there’s usually someone there you know. But when the weather’s like this, people just tend to stay indoors. I guess it was different when the smelter was still on the go, and from all accounts it was like the gold rush when they were building the nuclear plant. Changed days, though.’

It was as if by speaking of things inconsequential, they might avoid addressing the elephant in the woods.

Brodie inclined his head to look up through the tall pines towards the sky. ‘Not a breath of wind,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘The calm before the storm.’

He turned to look at her. ‘Another one?’

‘A biggie. Coming in off the Atlantic. They’re forecasting hurricane-force winds. Rain turning to ice. And eventually to snow. We’ll be buried in it here. And probably lose power again. Storm Idriss, they’re calling it.’

‘We’d better move, then.’ Brodie got stiffly back to his feet, and they started once more over rough ground. Snow lay in patches, and winter-dead ferns bowed their heads under the weight of it.

Without looking at him, she said, ‘So, are you going to tell me?’

He summoned courage and strength from diminishing reserves and after a few more steps, said, ‘You know how your mother and I met, don’t you?’

And he heard the hint of sarcasm in her retort. ‘You rescued her from an abusive relationship.’

Brodie was unaccountably irritated. ‘He was a drunk! And with a drink in him, he was violent.’

She muttered under her breath so that he barely caught it, ‘Another addictive personality.’

‘What?’

She shook her head and breathed exasperation like smoke into the cold. ‘Nothing.’ And quickly refocusing, said, ‘So you got Mum’s drunken partner put away.’

He stopped, taken aback. ‘Is that what she told you?’

She shrugged. Neither confirmation nor denial.

He said, ‘Lee Jardine was sent down for twenty years for drink driving.’

Addie glanced at him sideways. ‘That seems a bit extreme.’

‘He crashed his car into an SUV, killing a mother and her two children.’

Which stopped her in her tracks. ‘Jesus,’ she said, forgetting that she was supposed to be the sceptic here. Then she recovered herself. ‘That must have been very convenient for you. With the competition out of the way, my mother was all yours.’

Brodie said, ‘Think yourself lucky, Addie. Mel would never have left him. And she was already pregnant. So he could have ended up being your dad. And no doubt when he got drunk on the weekend, you’d have been on the receiving end of his fists, too. Or worse. Your life would have been very different.’

She stared at him, horrified by the thought, then was struck by another. Something unthinkable. ‘I’m not...’ She could hardly bring herself to give voice to it. ‘I’m not his, am I?’

‘Your mother swore not. And I’ve never had any reason to disbelieve her.’ Even though the tiny seed of doubt somewhere deep inside him had never quite gone away.

But the thought clearly wouldn’t leave her, and he could see all the uncertainty gathering like a storm behind her eyes. She turned abruptly and started off again through the trees, long legs powering up the incline so that he struggled to keep up with her. Then she stopped again, turning as he finally caught up. ‘Why are you going to die?’ she demanded.

He shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

She thought about it, then shook her head. ‘Probably not.’ She paused. ‘Cancer, I suppose.’

‘Isn’t it always?’

She pursed her lips. ‘So what happened between you and Mum? I want the truth. I deserve that.’

‘You do, Addie. And it’s all I’ve ever wanted to tell you.’ He hesitated. ‘But you won’t like it.’

The storm bubbling up behind her eyes was as ominous as the clouds gathering overhead. ‘Try me.’

He drew a deep breath, and steadied himself on the incline with his climbing stick. ‘You were seventeen, Addie, when Jardine got out on licence. The moment I heard about it, I knew things would end badly. He’d had such a...’ He searched for the right words. ‘Such a Svengali-like hold over your mother...’