“Hullo? . . . Oh, yes, good morning, Cyril. . . . Where am I? Oh, well, at the minute, I’m in, er, Dingwall. . . . Yes, Cyril, as soon as I can. . . . Well, I can’t be there that soon because my, er, car is in the garage. . . . No, I can’t take the bus, because the garage is here in Dingwall, and I couldn’t then . . . all right, Cyril, I’ll get there as soon as possible. Thank you, Cyril. . . . Goodbye.”

Maxwell’s face had changed from ruddy red to deep purple. He waddled quickly over to the counter and paid his bill, then left the café at speed. It would be that creep Cyril Bentwood, he thought to himself, as he pressed the key fob to open the doors of the BMW. He had always seen it as the final insult, having an Englishman as a boss.

17

As Betty, the office manager at Seascape, had hoped, the weather settled into the warmth of a prolonged Indian summer that spilled over from September into the first few weeks of October. The garden at the cottage, which had been a colourless wilderness when Dan and Josh had arrived, took on a new lease of life, bursting forth in resurgence with hollyhocks, larkspur, and foxgloves that splashed pink and blue and purple along the narrow border of the property. Even the dormant honeysuckle that had clung so miserably to the front wall of the cottage responded by producing a thin covering of dark green leaves and even the occasional small but heavily scented flower.