Stranger in the Woods: A tense psychological thriller Read online

  As I turned a corner on the path, a long fence came into view. I realised I’d wandered off Braithnoch onto the neighbouring property. The land on the other side of the fence must belong to the Keenans.

  A girl perched on the fence while an elderly man hammered away at the wooden posts. Puffing on a cigarette, the girl eyed me suspiciously. She had a young face, with dark blonde hair and long gangly arms and legs. Although she’d easily be taller than me, I guessed she was thirteen or fourteen.

  “Hello,” I called, waving.

  The girl threw her cigarette down and stalked away.

  Hello to you, too, I thought.

  The old man either didn’t hear me or was ignoring me.

  The path continued along the Keenan’s fence line. I decided to follow it. The forest belonging to the McGregors ran alongside it. I might find something pretty to photograph—a bird or a squirrel or something. I’d read in the guide book back in the cottage that there was a red squirrel population here.

  A voice called out—that of an older lady. I scanned the fields, unable to see anyone.

  The voice rang out again. “Hello there, love.”

  I spotted her now, not far from the man. She was tiny, with silvery-white hair in curls and wearing a house dress that didn’t seem anywhere near warm enough for the weather.

  “Oh, hi. Sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  She stepped up to the fence. “Are you lost?”

  “No. Just taking a walk.”

  “You’ll be taking a long road if you keep going, love. Goes forever, it does.”

  “I wasn’t planning on going much further. Hi, I’m Isla. I’m staying at the McGregor’s. Well, not at the house, exactly—”

  “I know who you are. Greer told me. She’s a chatterbox, that one.”

  I smiled, relaxing a little when she mentioned Greer’s name. “That she is.”

  “I’m Nora Keenan. Come over and meet my husband. Then you can come in and have a cup ‘o’tea with us.”

  “Happy to meet you, Nora. But I don’t want to impose.”

  “Och, he’d be glad of a bit of company, especially a pretty young girl. You’ll brighten his day, you will. He hurt his hip in a fall. Isn’t getting out much. But I can’t stop him from doing things about the place. He’ll do himself another injury soon enough.”

  I climbed the fence and she took me over to her husband, Charlie. He seemed happy enough to stop fixing the fence and come inside for a cup of tea. He ambled along silently beside Nora and me while she chatted on.

  Their cottage was everything I was starting to love about old Scottish houses. The simple, white-painted walls holding up a slate, gable roof. And always a chimney. A green garden surrounded the house, with holly trees and some sort of red-leaf hedge with red berries.

  “Your gardens are lovely,” I commented.

  “We spend a lot of time on them,” she said. “And we like growing things that feed the birds. Like our cotoneaster over there.” She pointed at the hedge. “Shame the lot will be buried soon.”

  “Buried?”

  “Under the snow, love. It’s coming on quick. I can feel it in my knuckle bones—I always can.”

  “Snow, goodness. I thought I was going to miss out on seeing it. I looked up the weather before I left home and there was no snow forecast.”

  “Oh, you can’t go by what they tell you. Different parts will call the winter in early. I shouldn’t complain. We could pick up and leave if we wanted to. Move to Spain or whatnot. But we choose to stay, year after year.”

  She ushered me inside the house. The interior furnishings were old but comfortable, the air warm from a crackling fire.

  “Sit down, Charlie,” she told her husband, “and I’ll get the tea and some butterscotch pie.”

  “She makes the best butterscotch pie,” Charlie said, his blue eyes crinkled and wistful. “What’s your name, lassie?”

  “My name is—” I started.

  “She already told you her name,” scolded Nora. “It’s Isla.” She turned her head back to me as she assembled tea cups on the kitchen bench. “He’s got a touch of dementia, poor Charlie. He might ask you who you are a few times over.”

  “I don’t mind at all.” I sat next to Charlie at the table. “I’m Isla. A photographer. I’m here to take photos of Alban and his work for an architectural magazine.”

  “Well now,” Charlie said. “You’ll have your work cut out for you, with Alban.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Oh? Do you think he’ll be a difficult subject?”

  “Let’s just say that Alban wouldn’t win a Miss Congeniality contest.” He winked.

  His statement pulled a laugh from me. Charlie might have dementia, but his wit was still sharp.

  “I’ve noticed that about Alban,” I said.

  Nora began cutting up a pie. The sweet smell of butterscotch joined the scents of smoky woodfire. “I’m not sure how Greer talked him into having photos taken.”

  I smiled. “She must have been pretty persuasive.”

  “Can’t persuade Alban of nothing,” Charlie remarked. “Known him since he was a boy. Stubborn as they come. I’ve been telling him for years about the larch, but he’ll not listen.”

  “What have you been telling Alban about the larch?” I asked curiously.

  “Been telling him the disease is coming.” Charlie shook his head. “Damned larch is infected with a fungus. It’s just over the mountain, and it will come here, too. Alban doesn’t want to know. I told him, we need to chop it all down and start again. Plant a different tree. The larch never belonged here.”

  Nora muttered under her breath as she brought the tea and cups over. “Don’t go banging on about the larch again. And your hairy bum’s out the window if you think you can get out there chopping down trees. Those days are long gone. Silly old bugger.”

  I grinned at Nora’s colourful turns of phrase, her accent so thick that I only just caught the words. “Must be hard on Alban. He seems to love the forest. He told me a story about his ancestors and how they planted the trees.”

  She sighed. “Aye, he loves the trees. But they’ll all be gone soon enough and Braithnoch Square is goin’ to look like a wasteland.”

  I had a sudden moment of clarity. “That’s why he agreed to the photos, isn’t it? Because he wants a record of his land, as it looks now. Because he knows the forest will be gone one day.”

  Her eyes widened, and she nodded. “I think you’re right, love.”

  A man lumbered into the kitchen, wearing pyjama bottoms and an ACDC T-shirt, his hair crumpled. He glanced at me in surprise, rubbing the stubble on his face.

  “This is our Hamish.” Nora served out four portions of pie and poured everyone out some tea. “We only have the one son.”

  There’d been a tinge of regret in her voice. I wasn’t sure if it was regret because she wished she had more than one son or if it was regret that Hamish was the one that she had.

  “Hi, I’m Isla.”

  “I see my mother roped you in for a tea and chat. There’s no escape. You’ll be here until the cows come home.” Pulling out a chair with his foot, Hamish sat heavily. He looked like his father—same blue eyes and ruddy complexion. I guessed he was about thirty years old.

  “Bah,” said Nora, playfully swiping her son’s head with a tea towel. She turned to me. “He gives me hell, he does. But then so do my daughters. Headstrong as they come. Kelly and Camille. Kelly lives over at Aviemore and Camille lives here in town. Kelly’s my baby. Just twenty-three. She was a surprise pregnancy when I was forty-seven. I nearly died of shock, I did. I’ll show you pictures of them all later.”

  “I’d like that,” I said, cringing internally.

  “Don’t lie,” joked Hamish, winking at me. “There’s easier ways of getting Mum’s butterscotch pie than sitting through her family albums.”

  I laughed. “The pie is really delicious.”

  Nora beamed. “Oh, I’m so happy you like it. It’s one of our f
avourites.”

  “How’re you liking staying in the cottage there at Braithnoch?” Hamish asked me.

  It seemed that every member of the Keenan family already knew all about me.

  “It’s not bad,” I replied. “Nice to be able to stay right where I’m working.”

  “Aye,” he said. “Just don’t let the tattie bogles bother you. They tend to walk around by themselves at night ‘round these parts. They mostly don’t cause trouble. But if you should hear ‘em knocking on your door late at night, whatever you do, don’t let them in.”

  “Hamish!” his mother scolded. “Don’t rabbit on with those old myths. You’ll scare poor Isla out of her wits.”

  “A myth, eh?” Hamish leaned back in his chair, folding his hands across his stomach. “Try taking a look at how the expressions on their crafty faces change each day. You have to sneak up on ‘em to catch ‘em out, and then you’ll see what I mean. When they look mean, that’s when you need to start worrying.”

  “Och, you!” exclaimed Nora. “Shut your piehole, Hamish. You and your silly stories.” Her forehead creased in a sudden frown. “Speaking of pie, where did Stella get to? She’s a big fan of my butterscotch pie.”

  Hamish yawned. “Don’t know. Don’t care. I’ve been asleep.”

  “Is Stella the girl I saw sitting on the fence earlier?” I asked. “She walked off along the path.”

  Sighing, Nora sat at the table. “She’s a handful, that one.”

  “Send her back to Kelly,” said Hamish.

  “I’ll not do that,” Nora said scornfully. “If she wants to come and stay at her grandparents’ house, she’s always welcome.”

  “Stella’s your granddaughter?” I asked.

  “Aye,” Nora told me. “She’s fourteen. Camille’s daughter. Stella’s got a lot of problems, poor wee lass. She ran away from home when she was just twelve. Plain refused to come back to Camille. We offered to take her in, but she didn’t want that. Ended up moving in with my other daughter, Kelly, in Aviemore.”

  “Maybe Stella just didn’t like Rory?” Hamish said, stirring his tea noisily. “You have to admit he looks and acts like a bit of a weirdo. Always tinkering in his garage with his wee science experiments.”

  “It’s his thing.” Nora cut a chunk of pie with her fork. “Better that he be passionate about what he teaches than just going through the motions.”

  Hamish shrugged. “Maybe. But he still looks like Einstein crossed with a hipster.”

  She clucked her tongue at Hamish but then tried and failed to suppress a hooting laugh. “Och, I’ll give ye that. He’s got that mad professor look about him.”

  “Wait,” I said, “I think I might have met Rory. Is his full name Rory Kavanagh?”

  “That’s him.” Nora nodded. “He’s my daughter Camille’s partner. Moved in with her and Stella about three years ago. Camille’s ex-boyfriend—the father of Stella—was a no-good petty criminal. Rory is head and shoulders above him.”

  Hamish ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it and making it even messier. “Rory’s just perfect in your eyes, isn’t he?”

  Nora pursed her lips. “What’s happened between you and Rory, anyway? You two used to be such good friends. You, Rory, Kirk, Alban and the Chandlish kids—Peyton, Aubrey and Diarmid—you were all thick as thieves.”

  “Rory got damned boring.” Hamish shovelled the rest of his pie into his mouth in one gulp. “He was odd back when we were teenagers. He’s gotten even odder since. Kirk became a cop—do I need to say any more? The Chandlishes are bearable, except they act exactly like the rich toffs they are. As for Alban—he just distanced himself from everyone.”

  “Well, it’s a damned shame,” Nora said. “To be such good friends and now you all barely speak to each other.”

  “It’s not a shame, Mum. It’s life.”

  Nora exhaled loudly, shaking her head. “Well, at least they all have a life. Unlike you, Hamish Keenan. You still behave like you’re eighteen. Getting drunk all the time and not bothering about getting a job. That’s probably why you’ve grown apart from them.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this again.” Standing, Hamish shoved his chair away and strode out of the house, banging the door behind him.

  The room fell silent. Hamish’s father sat slurping his tea, barely seeming to notice the altercation between Hamish and Nora.

  “Sorry about that.” Nora twisted her thin lips into a grimace. “I try to stop myself from saying anything, but it’s like I’m a kettle just on the edge of boiling.”

  The exchange had been uncomfortable. I wanted to get up and leave, but before I could say anything, Nora jumped up and told me she was going to get the family photos. I’d wished I’d been quicker to exit the house.

  Gritting my teeth, I looked through the pictures of various groups of people that Nora showed me. I noticed pictures of Elodie a few times and younger photos of Alban and Jessica.

  Nora was patient with me as I kept mixing people up.

  “I’ll draw you up a family tree, you poor love,” she told me. “So that you can keep everyone in Braithnoch Square straight.” She’d hurried away to fetch a notepad before I could lodge a protest.

  Her pen moved across the page in black strokes and then she handed me the piece of paper:

  “This is too kind of you, Nora.” Folding the paper, I slipped it inside the pocket of my jeans, hoping she wasn’t about to go crazy and write out a family tree that included everyone back to the time of Griogair, or whoever that ancestor was who Alban had told me about.

  “Oh, don’t mention it,” she said, pulling out another teetering stack from her box of photos. “You’ll note I didn’t put the name of Stella’s father in there. That’s because he’s an eejit and doesn’t deserve to be there. Camille’s with Rory now, anyway.”

  “Rory came to the house the other day,” I told her. “He wanted to give the McGregors some of their daughter’s artwork, from school.”

  “Ah, poor wee Elodie,” she said. “Breaks my heart thinking about her. She’s fair two years gone now.” She scowled. “That damned playhouse is still standing there in the wood. I told Alban he should pull it down, but he won’t hear of it.”

  I sipped the last of my tea. “I saw it in the news—the playhouse. I didn’t know it was still there.”

  Nora pulled her mouth so far down it made her chin dimple. “It distresses me, it does. I hate the fact that it’s still standing. Like an omen. I feel like if we leave it there, something else bad is going to happen.”

  Charlie was studying his wife’s face. “Now, Nora. We can’t go worrying about things that might or might not happen in the future. All that does is make your pie go sour in your guts.”

  “I sense things that you don’t, you old coot,” she scolded.

  I sat looking at a few more pictures with Nora, before excusing myself and telling her that I really did need to get back to work.

  Bracing myself for the cold again, I stepped out of the warm cottage.

  Hamish was sitting on a high pile of logs, still in his pyjama pants. I kept a brisk pace, across the field and over the fence.

  Crossing my arms close to my chest, I wished there was a bit more heat coming from the sun.

  As I walked back along the path, I stared up at the trees and was reminded of the playhouse. Why didn’t Alban want to dismantle it?

  I rounded a corner and almost bumped into a dark-haired woman who was rushing along, her head down and chatting into her phone. “You could meet me out in the wood. Why not? I’m walking up that way anyway—”

  She broke off suddenly, plunging the phone into her pocket without even saying goodbye to whoever she was talking to.

  “Who are you?” she asked brusquely.

  When I told her, her sharp expression didn’t change. “Have you seen my daughter—Stella? I was coming here to see her, but Mum said she ran off.”

  Although she didn’t tell me her own name, I guessed that she had to be C
amille, Nora and Charlie’s daughter. Nora had told me she was the mother of Stella and I’d seen her in the photographs Nora had shown me. Her face seemed thinner and somehow pinched in real life, a slash of red lipstick vivid against pale skin.

  “I saw her sitting on the fence earlier,” I said, swinging around to point in the general direction.

  In the arc of my gaze, I spotted Stella perched high on the branch of a tree. Stella stared at me coldly, probably expecting me to tell Camille where she was. I remembered Nora telling me that Stella wanted nothing to do with her mother these days. I made a swift decision that it wasn’t my business. Not my circus and not my monkeys, as the saying went.

  I turned back to Camille. “Sorry, I don’t know where she went.”

  “Okay then.” Camille kept walking, without even so much as a goodbye.

  Not wanting to give Stella’s location away, I didn’t look up at her again, but resumed walking towards Braithnoch. I wondered who Camille had been talking to on the phone. Who had she wanted to meet up with so desperately? It hadn’t been Stella—Stella had been holding onto the branch with both hands.

  Nora had invited me to pop in again on another day, but there was no way I was going to do that. They were nice people, but there was enough tension at the McGregors‘ house without listening to the Keenans bicker as well.

  14

  ISLA

  I had dinner alone in the cottage—melted cheese and tomato on sourdough bread. I watched an episode of the Scottish TV comedy, Still Game, munching on my dinner and giggling. A night here alone was actually quite nice.

  With dinner done, I stretched and took my plate to the kitchen. My limbs were sore from all the walking and activity of the past few days. Even my toes felt sore. I’d have a shower and then head off to bed. It was already ten at night.

  I trudged to the shower and stood under the warm water, letting my back and shoulders relax.

  A sharp knocking at the door had every one of my muscles jumping.

  No one was supposed to be here. The McGregors were in Edinburgh and Greer was away.