Contents ( 57)
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Sharon Gosling
‘I understand,’ Rachel said. ‘And really – you didn’t need to come all this way personally to tell me.’
The solicitor glanced around in a comically clandestine fashion and then leaned closer. ‘Well – there’s something else that Trudy and I have discussed that we’d like to run by you.’
At that moment Gilly appeared through the door, her cheeks flushed as if she’d run up the hill from home. ‘Rachel!’ she said, and then, seeing the solicitor, ‘Oh – sorry.’
‘It’s fine, Gilly – I’m glad you’re here. Could you hold the fort for a while? Mr Crosswick and I need to have a chat.’
Rachel took him down to the gatehouse, because he needed to see it anyway.
‘It’s about the camera obscura,’ Crosswick said, once they stood in Cullen’s empty living room. ‘She and I have been talking through alternatives.’
‘Alternatives?’
Crosswick nodded, considering his words. ‘This is why I wanted to keep its existence on the down-low. So that we had options. Here’s the thing, Rachel. My priority is to do the best for my clients, and to perhaps see things from an angle they hadn’t considered. In this case, now that we’ve reached this juncture, and with the lighthouse about to pass out of the hands of the MacDonald family, I feel it incumbent upon me to offer a suggestion that will allow Trudy Goodwin her full inheritance while also allowing Eveline MacDonald’s final wish to be observed even after the sale of the lighthouse.’
Rachel blinked. ‘Really? How?’
‘We dismantle it.’
‘What?’ Rachel asked, shocked. ‘The lighthouse?’
‘The camera obscura,’ Crosswick clarified. ‘The papers can be transferred to a secure storage facility where they can be preserved, also in secrecy, or they can be added to the archives held in Great Dunbar. No one – save us of course – need ever know it was there. Mrs MacDonald’s secret will be safe and Trudy Goodwin can realize the full value of her inheritance in a sale that won’t be hampered by complications if we reveal its existence.’
‘But—’ Rachel said, about to protest that they couldn’t possibly do that, that Eveline MacDonald wouldn’t want that at all. Then she stopped.
She thought about the note that had started them all on this quest in the first place. It must stay standing, for both of them.
‘It was the tower that needed to remain,’ Rachel realized. ‘That way the names of both her husband and her son would be remembered. But that doesn’t mean that the camera obscura has to stay there.’
Crosswick nodded, pleased. ‘Quite. My argument exactly, in fact.’
‘She couldn’t physically remove it herself,’ Rachel said, thinking aloud, ‘but she didn’t want anyone to know about it. Maybe she would have destroyed it herself if she’d been able to.’
‘We can have it written into the deeds that the name of The James MacDonald Tower cannot be changed in perpetuity,’ Crosswick said. ‘The camera obscura will not be mentioned. To all intents and purposes, the building will be the same as it was when it was first built. Eveline MacDonald’s secret will be preserved and Trudy Goodwin gets her inheritance.’