The Hollow Mountain

CHAPTER 1

31st of January

She’s gone — not in the farmhouse or the outhouses, nor the den she made by the ice-rimmed burn. The wind snatches my voice, hoarse from calling her name over and over. Iona has vanished. I can hardly breathe. I look up at the looming silhouette of the mountain and get the strangest feeling it knows where she is.

***

Three Weeks Before

I saw him to the door as usual, the knowledge of what I’d planned threatening to spill out. If his eyes met mine, he’d see it — the terror and exhilaration thrumming through me. I pressed my hands together, willing them to be still, relieved Fraser’s focus was on adjusting his cufflinks and ensuring his sleeves had the crispest line.

‘What time will you be home?’ I’d learned this was a good thing to ask, like I needed him to be there.

‘Late.’

‘Okay, darling.’ I’d known it, had already checked with his secretary there were major cases in theatre today.

‘I’ll call you.’

Yes, he would, as he did every day, all day. Only I wouldn’t be using that phone or number anymore. I’d got myself another — refurbished and bought for cash.

Fraser tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I smiled, the effort stretching the taut skin around my lips.

His gaze drifted to the top of my head. He dropped his hand away. ‘Get those roots sorted, Georgie.’

He used to love my auburn-red. Now he preferred blonde.

‘Where’s Iona?’ he said, glancing over my shoulder. ‘She’ll be late for school.’

‘She’s not feeling so good. I said she could—’

‘You said she could what?’ Fraser’s jaw tilted.

‘I said I’d give her some paracetamol and take her straight in.’

He gave a single nod, but the pinch in his forehead remained.

I balanced on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, feeling an uncharacteristic brush of day-old stubble, a stroke he’d missed. An imperfection. I ran my finger along it, stirring an unbidden memory of the beautiful man I’d met when I was still in university.

He bent to kiss me. I softened my mouth, relishing the promise I’d made to myself.

The last kiss…

The clean-cut look of Fraser, the smooth surgeon’s hands he always safeguarded, did nothing for me now. That body I’d once trusted only provoked a tightness, a wary anticipation of what might come.

I hugged myself as he got into the car, fingers digging into my arms as he drove away. Fraser Forbes. My handsome, accomplished husband. How would he react when he found my note?

‘Has Dad gone?’

I whirled. Iona was at the top of the stairs, eyes wide, my partner in crime.

Were we actually doing this? Those months of daring to contemplate it, the weeks of quiet planning with Iona, and the day had arrived. Do or die.

Staying would be worse — my heart knew it; my head tapped a different beat.

‘He’s gone.’ I closed the front door. ‘Let’s get moving.’

We bundled our bags into the boot — a few essentials I’d managed to pack without Fraser noticing. While Iona fetched her duvet and pillow for the journey, I took a last look around our house. London had seemed so exciting, and I’d poured my energy into this place, selecting colours and fabrics that were an echo of the landscape I’d run in as a child — the heathers, tartans and originals of lochs and mountains that Fraser tolerated.

Iona stared at the front door, clutching her bedding. ‘Ready Mum?’

‘One more thing to fetch.’

I bounded up the stairs and froze halfway, legs straddled across two steps, as the headlights of Fraser’s car lit me through the long, arched window.

Diving back down, I grabbed Iona, wrested the coat from her rigid body and pulled her onto my lap as Fraser burst through the door.

‘Forgotten something?’ I asked.

He kicked at Iona’s discarded duvet. ‘What’s this doing here?’

‘We were just…’

He rubbed at his chin, had evidently found the rogue patch of stubble.

‘You must have noticed it. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

He shoved past us, knocking my shoulder. Iona’s head bounced off the banister.

‘Shhhh now,’ I murmured into her ear, feeling Iona’s trembling as my lip touched her skin. ‘It’s okay.’ The words were as much for me as for her as we waited, hearing the tap, the slammed bathroom cabinet.

Fraser thundered down. I braced as he bent, put his hand on Iona’s forehead.

‘You mollycoddle that child,’ he said, wiping his palm down my back. ‘She’s ten years old and you treat her like a baby. Get her off to school. There’s nothing wrong with her.’

He took a moment to compose himself at the front door and then was gone.

I held Iona, my own chest moving in time with her shallow breaths as we waited a full minute after his car had pulled away.

Iona pushed against my arms. ‘Let’s go, Mum.’

I released her. I’d asked so much of her to keep secrets and lie.

With a tremulous smile, I said, ‘Get your uniform on, just in case…’

We ran up the stairs, Iona turning right to her room while I turned left. On the middle shelf of my walk-in wardrobe was a row of boxes which once held exquisite, barely worn shoes. I’d managed to sell most of them over the last few weeks. The pre-Christmas timing had been perfect.

I pulled down a white and gold box that had once held Versace trainers. Now it contained my precious keepsakes — a pinecone, an osprey tail-feather and the green and white marbled stone Granny Jeannie had entrusted me with on my thirteenth birthday. I turned to see Iona dressed in her uniform. The blazer was small on her, the arms not quite reaching her wrists.

I combed my fingers through her dark hair, weaving a plait while her gaze remained fixed on the window overlooking the driveway. Fraser wouldn’t be back. After the shaving incident, he was already running late, and punctuality was one of his fixations. Besides, he believed he had my unquestioning obedience, a mind that no longer thought for itself and doubted everything but his word. It was only when he started on Iona I woke from his insidious spell.

Ice-specked rain tapped at the car windows, like it knew we were headed north. I reckoned we could be at Granny Jeannie’s in ten hours. It had been a long time since I’d driven that sort of distance, and two hours into the journey I was flagging.

‘We’ll take a break soon. Stretch our legs and you can get out of that uniform,’ I said, trying to control my constant urge to check the mirror for Fraser’s car.

Iona had removed her tie, shoes and socks and was buried in a book — the last in a fantasy series I’d smuggled past Fraser. She huffed. I didn’t blame her. She was trying to escape into a world where none of this was happening and I’d yanked her back into it.

Iona shuffled up the seat and pulled the duvet over herself. ‘I’m sure I remember Granny Jeanie’s house and the mountain.’

Iona was only four when we last went to Jeannie’s, but if anywhere could make a lasting impression on such a young mind, that place might — a remote farmhouse nestled on the flanks of a mountain sitting at the heart of Scotland.

I smiled. ‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we?’

It wouldn’t be every child’s dream, but Schiehallion was in our blood. Our family had lived on the mountain since the 1600s and probably longer. It would be the first place Fraser would come looking for us — if I hadn’t lied about my granny’s death and the farm being sold off years ago…

He’d never liked me seeing her and I’d always pay, one way or another. In the end, I’d cut her off as if she really was gone. My past was dead — I was his, so there was no point tormenting myself. Now I felt sick with the shame of it. That woman had been more parent to me than either of my own — her and Eileen, Dad’s kind-hearted housekeeper who dropped dead of a brain haemorrhage when I was fourteen.

Was that why I’d clung to Fraser, because at least he hadn’t abandoned me? And yet I’d forsaken Jeannie — the only person who’d always been there.

How would she take us turning up now? I hadn’t been able to warn her we were coming. I’d deleted her number when I told Fraser she’d died, that there was only a small funeral with her three sons, and we didn’t need to go.

Iona reached into the footwell and lifted my shoe box onto her lap.

‘What’s in here, anyway?’

‘Some special things I kept from Jeannie’s.’

She rummaged through the tissue paper, finding my childish treasures — the hidden reminders which had kept me tethered to the root of myself despite Fraser’s best efforts to re-make me.

Iona pulled out the pinecone and feather.

‘They’re from a special tree on our land,’ I said. ‘A pair of ospreys used to nest in it every year.’

Iona retrieved her school tie from the back seat, looped it over the mirror and hung the pinecone from one side and the feather from the other. They swung with the motion of the car and made me smile.

‘What’s this?’ she asked, fingers back in the box.

I tingled at the sight of the uncovered greenstone.

‘Granny Jeannie told you the story of that a long time ago, but you were too wee to remember.’

She examined the peculiar-shaped stone in her palm as if trying to conjure the memory.

‘Remind me,’ she said.

‘Been passed down our family for over two hundred years.’

‘Really?’ She turned the stone over.

‘It’s one of a pair owned by twin boys born on Schiehallion in the 1700s. We’re descendants of the eldest twin — Robbie the Red Robertson.’

‘That where you got your hair from?’

‘Maybe, aye. But anyway, his brother Willie vanished from the mountain taking his stone with him.’

‘What do you mean? Where did he go?’

Iona’s eyes were alight — not a hint of the dull resignation that had been creeping into them.

‘No one knows. He was helping some scientists who were using the mountain to do an experiment to work out the weight of the earth. The King sent the Astronomer Royal himself to Schiehallion.’

‘Oh wow. And did they do it?’

‘Yes, eventually.’

‘And nobody knows what happened to Willie?’

‘Nope, but there’s all sorts of tales. Some say he got lost in the mountain caves and is still wandering in there.’

‘Oh don’t — you’re creeping me out.’ Iona closed her fingers around the stone and clutched it to her belly. ‘Does Dad know about it?’

‘No, not the kind of thing he’d be interested in.’

Iona grinned. ‘Don’t suppose.’

‘Sorry I didn’t tell you about it before.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s okay. Shall we go and see your pine tree tomorrow?’

‘Absolutely.’

I pulled into a service station and parked the car between two enormous lorries so it couldn’t be seen by anyone driving through the main car park. I drank two coffees. Iona changed into jeans and a jumper, ate a burger and chips Fraser would never have allowed, and fell fast asleep on the next leg of the journey.

The weather brightened, and when we passed Preston, the traffic started to thin. The knot inside me uncoiled in a thrill as the sunset-washed hills swelled ahead. It was full dark as we passed Stirling and took the road we’d always taken to Jeannie’s for the holidays.

‘What if Granny isn’t pleased to see us?’ Iona said, making me start.

How long had she been awake reading my mind?

‘She’ll probably be cross with me, but not you. She’ll be delighted to see you.’

I couldn’t make out the expression on Iona’s face in the half light of the dashboard. She fell back into silence.

As the endless journey tapered into familiar single-track roads, Iona had to stop for a wee. We weren’t that far away, but I couldn’t turn up and ask to use the toilet as my opening line.

I pulled into a passing place. Iona got out and squatted in the shelter of the open car door.

‘Oh, wow,’ she said as she fastened her trousers.

The moon had slipped out from behind the bank of cloud to illuminate the mountain. Schiehallion — a vast dark triangle against the star-pricked sky. The air seared my nostrils as I breathed in the sight of it, so achingly beautiful. My fingertips prickled as I put my arm around Iona’s shoulder and pulled her into me. Whatever happened now, I was here with my girl and grateful for this moment.

We drove through the village, lights cosy in the roof-frosted houses. Iona made me pull up at the foot of the loch. Shining lines of moonlight split and reformed on the shifting black water. She gazed at the scene, nose pressed against the window. When the moon disappeared again, we took the mountain road and started to climb.

I’d rehearsed what I was going to say to Jeannie, but the words evaporated as we turned down the rutted track, Iona bouncing and gripping the sides of her seat.

It was nearly half past nine. The house was in darkness. I cursed under my breath and Iona gave me a wary glance. At the entrance to the yard, my headlights lit a flash of metal in the undergrowth. My old bike, wrapped in brambles, like it hadn’t been touched since the day I’d left it there.

A light came on in the house, then another.

I got out and stood by the car. The farmhouse door opened, a soft glow pooling into the yard, cut through by the sharp arrow of a torch beam fixing me.

I shielded my eyes. ‘It’s me,’ I said, raising my other hand in a placatory gesture.

The beam dropped from my face. Jeannie just stood, her long-dead husband’s striped dressing gown tied lopsidedly under her chest. She’d always been my rock, my solace. Now, she seemed diminished, much of her hair worked free of the bun and fizzing in a white glow.

‘I’ve got Iona with me.’ I waved towards the passenger seat, hoping her presence might soften Jeannie.

‘I see that.’ Jeannie turned off the torch. ‘Took you long enough to come back. I knew you would.’

Did she? I hadn’t known it. Maybe she had more faith in me than I did.

Burt the cat appeared and twisted around her ankles. I couldn’t believe he was still going — he had to be getting on for twenty.

‘Could we come in? It’s been a long drive and—’

‘Let’s get the wee one inside.’

I beckoned Iona out of the car. She ran into her Granny’s outstretched arms, and my shoulders fell a notch. Whatever I’d done, Jeannie wasn’t going to hold it against Iona.

‘Now go and re-acquaint yourself with Burt,’ Jeanie said to Iona. ‘But mind yourself, lass. He’s a scratcher.’

Iona ran inside and got down on her knees to coax the wary tomcat closer.

Jeannie turned to me. ‘You’re too scrawny Georgie. And what on earth have you done to your hair?’

I gave a watery smile. Jeannie had aged in those years I’d been absent. Her right eye was milky with a cataract. I wondered how well she could see me in this light.

Her face crumpled in a contortion of wrinkles. ‘I’m so glad to see you.’

I embraced her, inhaling that wonderful peat smoke and rosemary scent.

She patted my arm. ‘In you come.’

Iona had charmed Burt, who was purring belly up on the rug next to her.

‘Well, well,’ Jeannie said, hands on hips. ‘He only ever does that for me.’

The room I knew, with all its familiar things, had a ragged, worn air.

I took Jeannie’s hand, rolled my thumb over her creased skin. ‘I’m not sure where to start. Could we stay with you for a little while?’

‘There’s no need to ask. This is your home whenever you want it to be.’

‘I’m so sorry I—’

‘Hush now. We can talk about that later. First tell me where you got it and why you sent it.’

‘Sent what?’

‘You did bring the stone I gave you — Robbie’s greenstone?’

I frowned. After what I’d done, maybe Jeannie didn’t think I should be the one to keep it anymore.

‘Aye, I have it.’

Iona had clambered into Jeannie’s saggy armchair with the cat.

‘I’m glad you’ve kept it safe,’ Jeannie said. ‘Now tell me about the photograph from that newspaper.’

‘The photograph? Sorry, what are you talking about?’

‘You don’t?’ Jeannie brushed frazzled hair from her face and leaned on the dresser like she might fall.

I took a step towards her.

‘Dinnae fuss.’ She flapped her hand and passed me an envelope. ‘I assumed it was from you. You always said you were going to find out what happened to Willie Robertson. I thought you were coming to tell me.’

Inside the envelope was a newspaper clipping with a photograph of the 1967 Centennial Street Parade in Hokitika, South Island New Zealand. Someone had circled the man walking in front of a float with a mock-up of Fox Glacier, a Scottish piping band following behind. The man was close enough to the camera to make out the stone hanging at his neck — its unusual shape exactly like our own family heirloom.

I put the picture on the table and leaned in to make sure. ‘Is…is that the other greenstone?’