They arrived at the station with huge backpacks, half the size of themselves. They explained that they had caught a passage on a fishing trawler from Iceland to Mallaig further up the coast – I saw the beautiful blonde wrinkle her nose at this – where Iain collected them and brought them to the estate in his truck. They came with proper gear – Gore-Tex jackets and heavy boots – making the Barbours and Hunter wellies the other lot wore look slightly ridiculous. They hadn’t changed out of their outdoor gear for dinner, so that even Doug and Iain, in their special Loch Corrin kilts, looked rather tarted up next to them, as did the serving staff, the two girls and the boy in their white shirts and plaid aprons. The beautiful blonde looked at the two new arrivals as though they were creatures that had just emerged from the bottom of the loch. Luckily, they were either side of me; she was seated opposite, next to Doug, and fairly quickly seemed to decide that she would waste no more of her attention on them, and give it wholeheartedly to Doug instead. I looked at her, with all that gloss: the fine silk shirt, the earrings set with sparkling – diamond? – studs. She watched him as though whatever he was saying was the most fascinating thing she had heard all evening, her lips curved in a half smile, her chin in her palm. Doug wouldn’t go for someone like her – would he? She wouldn’t be his type, surely? Then I remembered that I had absolutely no idea what his type would be, because I didn’t really know anything about him.
I focused my attention back on the Icelandic guests either side of me. They spoke almost perfect English, with just a slight musicality that betrayed their foreignness.
‘You’ve worked here long?’ the woman – Kristin – asked me.
‘Just under a year.’
‘And you live here all by yourself?’ This was from the man, Ingvar.
‘Well, not quite. Doug … over there, lives here too. Iain lives in town, Fort William, with his family.’
‘He’s the one who collected us?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘he seems like a nice man.’
‘Yes.’ Though I thought: really? Iain’s so taciturn. He arrives, does his work – upon orders received from the boss – and leaves. He keeps very much to himself. Of course, he could say exactly the same of me.
Ingvar said, almost thoughtfully, ‘What makes someone like you come to live in a place like this?’ The way he asked it – so knowing – almost as though he had guessed at something.
‘I like it here,’ I told him. Even to my own ears it sounded defensive. ‘The natural beauty, the peace …’
‘But it must get lonely for you here, no?’
‘Not particularly,’ I said.
‘Not frightening?’ He smiled when he said this, and I felt a slight chill run through me.
‘No,’ I said, curtly.
‘I suppose you get used to it,’ he said, either not noticing or ignoring my rudeness. ‘Where we come from, one understands what it is to be alone, you see. Though, if you’re not careful, it can send you a little crazy.’ He made a boring motion with a finger at his temple. ‘All that darkness in the winter, all the solitude.’
Not quite true, I thought. Sometimes solitude is the only way to regain your sanity. But it also got me thinking. If you lived in Iceland – with its long winter nights – wouldn’t you go a little further from the cold and dark than Scotland? For the price of the cabins at this place you could get all the way to the relative warmth of Southern Europe. And for that matter, I wondered how two people who got here by hitch-hiking on a fishing trawler could have afforded our rates. But perhaps they did it simply for the adventure. We get all sorts, here.
‘Should we be worried?’ Ingvar asked, next. ‘About the news?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You don’t know? The Highland Ripper.’
Of course I knew. I’d been hoping the guests didn’t. I’d seen the pictures in the paper the day before: the faces of the six victims. All youngish, pretty. You might bump into a hundred girls like that walking down Princes Street in Edinburgh – and yet the images had the ominous look of all victim photos, as though there was something about each innocuous smiling snap that would have foretold their fate, if you had known what to search for. They looked, somehow, as though they had been marked for death.
‘Yes,’ I said, carefully. ‘I’ve seen the papers. But Scotland is a pretty big place, you know, I don’t think you’ve got anything—’
‘I thought it was the Western Highlands, where they found the victims?’
‘Still,’ I said, ‘It’s a pretty large area. You’d be as likely to bump into the Loch Ness monster.’
I sounded a little more blasé than I felt. That morning, Iain had said, ‘You should tell the guests to stay indoors at night, Heather. On account of the news.’ It rather put me on edge that Iain – who hardly ever mentioned the guests – had expressed concern for their welfare.
I didn’t think this man, Ingvar, was really scared of anything. I sensed, instead, that he was having a bit of fun with the whole thing; a smile still seemed to be playing around the corners of his mouth. It was a relief when he asked about hunting, and I could escape the scrutiny of those pale blue eyes. I remember thinking that there was something unnerving about them: they didn’t seem quite human.
‘Oh, you’re better off asking Doug about hunting,’ I said. ‘That’s definitely his side of things. Doug?’
Doug glanced over. The blonde looked up too, clearly annoyed at the interruption.
‘Do you ever shoot the animals at night,’ Ingvar asked, ‘using lamps and dogs?’
‘No,’ Doug said, very quickly and surprisingly loudly.
‘Why not?’ Ingvar asked, with that odd smile again. ‘I know it’s very effective.’
Doug’s reply was bald. ‘Because it’s dangerous and cruel. I’d never use lamping.’
‘Lamping?’ the blonde guest asked.
‘Spotlights,’ he said, barely glancing in her direction, ‘shining them at the deer, so they freeze. It confuses them – and it terrifies them. Often it means you shoot the wrong deer: females with young calves, for example. Sometimes they use dogs, which tear the animal apart. It’s barbaric.’
There was a rather taut silence, afterwards. I reflected that it might have been the most I had ever heard Doug say in one go.
The two Icelandic guests have been very eager to help with the search. They’re probably the only two that I’d trust in these conditions: they must see similar weather all the time. But they are still guests, and I am still responsible for their well-being. Besides, I know nothing about them. They are an unknown quantity. All of the guests are. So my lizard brain is saying, loud and clear: Trust no one.
I wonder what the guests all make of me. Perhaps they see someone organised, slightly dull, absolutely in charge of everything. At least, that is what they will have seen if I have pulled it off, this clever disguise I have built for myself, like a tough outer shell. Inside this shell, the reality is very different. Here is a person held together by tape and glue and prescription-strength sleeping pills – the only thing I can be persuaded to make a foray into civilisation for, these days. Washed down sometimes, often, with a little too much wine. I’m not saying that I have a drinking problem; I don’t. But I don’t ever drink for