Read Online The Last of the Kintyres by Catherine Airlie - Free Book Online Page A

seemed to hold a menace and a threat that was direct and personal, and Elizabeth shivered as she looked at them.
    “Cold?” Hew asked.
    “No. If anything, it’s warm in the car.”
    She could not convey her fear to him, yet he seemed to sense it, for he said:
    “If they had been really seriously injured they would have been taken back to Oban. I’ve a good idea where they have been. It’s a favourite haunt of Caroline’s.” His mouth was thin with anger. “She ought to have known these roads—how dangerous they can be,” he added tightly.
    The road they were on was no more than a single track, winding and twisting into oblivion among these frowning ramparts of the world. Black mountains were everywhere, drawn closer by the night, and the Daimler’s stabbing headlights only served to accentuate the sable shadows which hovered threateningly on every side.
    Soon they had come to another loch, remote and distant from all human habitation, it would seem, but before they had gone very far along its winding, white - sanded shore Hew turned the car abruptly and they drove smoothly along a dark avenue flanked by towering Douglas firs.
    When the Daimler pulled up before a closed iron gate, it was as if they had come to the edge of the civilized world.
    “I’m sorry about this,” Hew apologized as he got back behind the wheel after pushing the gate open. “It’s much the quicker way round.”
    He had spoken so little all the way from Oban, and now it seemed that his anger had increased.
    “You look tired,” he said, “but we haven’t much further to go.”
    Elizabeth could not believe that there could be a house or an hotel anywhere near, and perhaps he had just been trying to buoy up her courage for the remainder of the journey.
    Almost as if in answer to the thought lights winked and glimmered just ahead of them, but there were two more gates to open before they reached what appeared to be the back entrance to a small estate.
    It was deeply wooded and densely overgrown, and no very successful attempt had been made to clear away fallen timber or to cope with the encroaching heather. A garden which had once been beautiful looked gaunt and neglected in the beam of the Daimler’s headlights, with weeds everywhere and an old swing seat hanging dejectedly on rusted iron supports.
    Hew drove carefully round the end of an old grey stone house looking down from a craggy height on to the loch. The whole place seemed to drip with age and decay, but the front rooms were lit up and through the curtainless windows Elizabeth could see people moving about with some sense of urgency.
    In strong contrast to the dilapidated state of the garden, the interior of the house looked fresh and bright. Cream paintwork gleamed and there were lamps everywhere, shedding a deep yellow glow out into the night. When the car drew up at the front door Elizabeth saw that it was standing ajar.
    “Shona Lorimer has kept this as a sort of fishermen’s sanctuary for years,” Hew explained as they got out on to the damp, moss-grown drive. “She was widowed early in life, and ever since she’s done what she could to keep her home intact. It has been a struggle at times, but she’s managed to bring up her family and give them a reasonable education and a fair prospect for the future. She’d scorn the idea that she’s worked her fingers to the bone in the process, but that’s pretty much how it is. I think you’ll like her,” he added abruptly.
    He did not wait to press the bell, but strode instead straight into the hall. He stood looking about him for a moment, listening to the sound of voices and as he turned towards one of the doors a small, dark-haired woman with the most vivid eyes Elizabeth had ever seen opened it and stood arrested with pleasure on the threshold.
    “Hew!” she exclaimed. “That was quick work! And it’s you that I’m glad to see!” She came forward, clasping both his arms between small, shapely hands, as she looked