She parked the car in Alyth and went into the florist’s to get flowers for Mrs C. She had been emailing Fiona every now and then with news of kitchen calamities since Pete had left, telling her how much she missed Jamie and his drawings. Fiona put the flowers in the car, checked her watch and saw she had some time to kill; there was no use getting up to the hotel before ten when they’d still be in the middle of breakfasts and check-outs. She walked along Commercial Street, pausing to look over the road at a large stone building. Though it was now an antique car restorer, it had formerly been a jute mill. A couple of years ago she had volunteered to help on a school trip from Glenisla and they had taken a tour of the building.

She had found it fascinating, finding out about the hardships of the jute workers in the nineteenth century. Linen, made in part from local flax, had originally been the main textile produced, but after flax imported from the Baltic states became too expensive, the supply of Angus flax was insufficient, and cheaper jute was imported from India. By the 1880s over a million bales of raw jute were unloaded in Dundee for the mills all over the county.

On the school trip, the children had been told how the coarse jute fibres were wetted and mangled, then spun and woven. Then there had been the major discovery that whale oil softened the harsh jute strands. From then, the entire process became easier and Dundee’s whaling industry expanded alongside the jute. Why had she not remembered that before, when she’d had to ask her dad? He was so dippy in daily life but what an amazing memory he had for history – well, apart from specifics about his own family history.

Fiona got back to the car and drove north to Glenisla. As she neared the hills, she stopped her car and got out, looking back down the glen at the rolling hills and the sheep and the scattering of tiny cottages along the river. She breathed in deep; she missed living here. It had been such a good three years, the best time since Iain had died.

* * *

‘Fiona, how are you?’ Mrs C ran to the car and hugged her as if she had been away for years.

‘Good, thanks. Lovely to see you. Nice hair!’

‘Yes, well that new girl at the hairdresser’s asked if I wanted a wee rinse so I said why not. It was a bit too purple at first but it’s calmed down. More lavender now.’ She took Fiona’s arm in hers. ‘Come away in.’

Fiona turned to look across the road at the cottage. ‘Looks just the same, is it being well looked after?’

‘Yes, though she doesn’t keep it as nice as you did, Fiona.’

They walked inside and into the kitchen.