The Sister(161)

She accepted both.





Chapter 133



Saturday morning, 7 April 2007.





Miller’s eyes snapped open. His mobile was buzzing and spinning around on the dressing table. It took him a moment to remember where he was.

He rolled onto his back, pulled his arm out from under the pillow and squinted at his watch. 7:30 a.m.

He scooted down to the foot of the bed, leaned over to the dressing table and answered it.

‘Miller, it’s Rosetta. Be ready in half an hour.’

‘Okay,’ he said, and inwardly groaned. Half an hour!

He flopped back onto the bed and collected his thoughts. After looking at his watch a second time, he sprang up off the bed and started getting ready. Whenever he was away, he left his watch on all night, always. He had an irrational fear something might happen and he’d have to dash out and leave it behind. Yet when he was at home, he left it off. What’s the difference? You’re crazy, Miller.

He hadn’t slept well at all; the shadows had plagued him all night from the dark recesses of the hotel room in ways they'd not done since he was a child. Then, they had scared the life out of him. He’d see them scurry just out of his line of sight, and no matter how quickly he turned to look, they would be gone. It was years before he could sleep with the light off. Yet still their occasional whispers would wake him, and he’d sit bolt upright in bed listening hard to the fading sounds that seemed to come from within his own ears. Once he’d realised they were harmless, beneficial even, he began to see them in a different light.

It was another reason for not having a relationship. What sort of woman would understand such things without judging him crazy? It was a question not many other men had to face. It was easier to avoid the issue.

Lately, the shadows had been more active, conspiring with his dreams, and warning him of something. He hadn’t yet figured out what it was.

It took ten minutes to shower and pack. In reception, he discovered breakfast was included, so he checked out first, and wandered through to the restaurant with barely enough time for a fresh juice, coffee and croissant. Once finished, he picked up his holdall and made his way out and down the steps to the pavement.

A Range Rover with blacked out windows drew up, the passenger window rolled down. The driver was a young woman. She leaned towards him.

‘Miller, get in, I don’t think you were followed. I’m Rosetta, by the way.’

Followed? Who would have followed him? Her appearance wasn’t as he’d expected. He’d imagined she’d be matronly looking. It would be easy to forgive someone for thinking the daughter of a former nun might look frumpy, wearing loose old-fashioned clothes that concealed an ample frame. She was quite the opposite, slim, flat chested and fashionably dressed; her hair gathered and tied up in a Japanese style topknot. He peered at her through the window. She reminded him of someone he couldn’t quite place.

‘Well, what are you waiting for? Get in the back.’

He opened the door, stowed the holdall on the back seat and stepped in next to it.

‘Sorry about that, it’s early for me. I haven’t woken up properly.’

Her laugh was a melody. ‘Where I come from, the day starts at first light.’

She looked at the rear view and side mirrors, and indicated to pull out. Her hair was a pale strawberry colour. It fascinated him. The insides of her lips showed pink as she pursed them, deep in concentration as she slipped out into the traffic. The car accelerated smoothly into a suitable gap.

‘Have we got far to go?’

‘It’ll take less than half an hour, probably twenty minutes, that’s all. We’re just outside Edinburgh. Once we clear the city, I’m going to have to ask you to put this on.’

She passed him a black hood over her shoulder.

‘It’s a precaution,’ she explained. ‘Mother has people looking for her all over the place, some of them just want a reading.’

‘And the others?’

‘It’s complicated, but let’s just say, it’s to do with the church. We lived in Brighton for years, at least until I was five years old.’ She laughed. ‘I prefer the clean Scottish air and acid rain here.’

‘I guessed from your accent you must have been here for a long time. What about the neighbours where you live?’

‘Nobody knows. She rarely sees anyone else these days. You’re the first in years.’

‘So, what does she want to see me for that’s so urgent?’

‘In a little while you can ask her yourself.’

They travelled more or less in a straight line heading south. Looking out through the window at the city streets, he’d always imagined Edinburgh was on a scale comparable to London, but already the area was becoming less populated as they neared the outskirts.

‘Miller, lie down and put the hood on for me now, will you?’

He did as she asked.

Ten minutes later, the car bumped down an unmade road. He woke with a jolt into the enveloping darkness of the hood. He put his hands up to his face and felt the cloth as if to check he actually was awake.

‘You can take that off in a minute, we’re nearly there,’ she told him.

‘I must have fallen asleep.’

She chuckled. ‘You do a fair impression of a big motorbike, snoring away, you were.’