She summoned a taxi, relieved to see someone she didn’t know in the driving seat and sat in the back, anxious to not have to speak on the journey home. For the moment Margo just wanted to sit alone with her thoughts as the road turned into rough track and the scenery grew as bleak as her mood. The car pulled into the tight turning circle in front of the cottage – at least the laird’s vehicle was nowhere to be seen.

Margo shut and locked the cottage door behind her in an effort to close out a world that had turned colder and more hateful than it had been when she had first awoken. She sat in the small living room, poured out a generous glass of wine without any regard to the foetus developing in her womb and drank the liquid in large gulps. It was just as well Oscar was dead, he’d never have wanted that story to come out about his abuse as a child. He’d have killed her rather than let her tell anyone, much less let a newspaper spread the story far and wide. Christ, what if the nationals did take the story up? Margo sat, undecided as to whether she could face any more news reports, wondering if she could make more money from selling her story to the big newspapers.

“Shit!” The word escaped from her mouth as she considered that the reporter’s notebook could have been worth more to one of the nationals. Too late now. At least there was a thousand pounds in her purse to add to the money hidden in the pillowcase. Another full glass of wine was in her hands without any memory of her pouring it, swiftly following the same route as its predecessor. What to do now? There were still the photographs. Initially she had considered them to be worthless and had been on the point of binning them when caution had stayed her hand. If the Courier was willing to pay a thousand quid for the old notebook, what might she be offered for the photographs, complete with skull and crossbones markings?

Margo put down the wineglass, running upstairs to gather the notes stuffed inside her pillowcase and adding them to the money she’d received from the reporter. One by one the notes were counted until she had £4600 forming miniature paper skyscrapers on the table next to her glass. She stared at the money, scarcely able to believe how much was there. The last of the wine slipped down her throat and she automatically reached for the bottle then paused. Wine wouldn’t be good for the bairn. An internal struggle occurred which Margo experienced more as an onlooker, the need for drink to deaden the pain of her existence versus the raw emotion of a mother protecting her young. The mother won and Margo screwed the cap back on a half-empty bottle wondering what had just happened.