Page 35 of The Midnight Secret

He was quiet for a moment, for they both knew there were no platitudes he could offer. ‘It must have been so hard, having to hide everything.’

‘Aye, it was. And I wish I could say it’s better here and that we’ve got our happy ending, but...even though we’retogether, we’re caught in limbo. We can’t marry because Mary has fled without granting Donald a divorce. And of course, to the outside world, I’m the scarlet woman who forced out a mother and her newborn baby.’

‘Ah,’ he nodded. ‘That certainly explains your neighbour’s choice words earlier when I knocked on the wrong door. She has a vicious tongue.’

‘They all do,’ she groaned, reaching for his arm and looping hers through it as they walked. ‘Thanks for not saying anything about that. I don’t want Donald to worry.’

‘He doesn’t know?’ he asked, surprised.

She shook her head. ‘But I can manage.Iknow what they’re saying isn’t true, and that’s all that really matters. Although sometimes I want so badly to tell them the truth about their sainted Mary! They think they’re defending a good woman.’

David scoffed at the thought too. ‘So why don’t you just leave here? Leave them behind you and go somewhere new?’

‘Because we can’t. Donald may be out on bail, but he remains a person of interest. As long as there isn’t another suspect with a strong motive for killing Mathieson, the suspicion is still on him. My alibi is the only thing keeping him a free man, and I think the police sergeant is convinced he can still build a case showing I’m a woman of disreputable character.’

‘You? Mhairi MacKinnon? Does he have the first idea who he’s dealing with?’ David teased, but with sad eyes.

‘Clearly not,’ she shrugged. ‘Either way, Donald’s bail conditions mean he can’t leave here, so we’re stuck. Our fate is entirely bound up in Mary’s actions.’

David stared at her. ‘You’ve been through so much. You and my sister.’

‘We’ve no one to blame but ourselves for our mistakes. Flora and I gave in to temptation, and we’ve both paid the price.’

‘But it was a far higher price than anyone should have to pay,’ he said, shaking his head. They rounded the corner, passing under a street lamp, and she saw that he was wearing a haunted look that hadn’t been there when he’d arrived earlier. ‘...Who else knew?’

‘You mean besides Donald, Lorna and Mary?’ Mhairi sighed. ‘Well, we had to tell Effie...and unfortunately Frank Mathieson found out.’

David stopped in his tracks. ‘Oh, no.’

‘Aye. Of all the people...He thought he could threaten us with it – till Donald put him in his place. But of course it was still a risk, him knowing.’

David looked alarmed. ‘Enough of a risk that...?’

‘No!’ She shook her head quickly, knowing exactly what he was thinking. ‘Donald didn’t kill him, David. The police said he had motive, but it was Frank who attacked Donald on Boreray for daring to challenge him on the prices he was paying us. Frank was the one raging when Donald bypassed him with the sale of the ambergris. It was Frank who wantedhisblood.’

But David looked unconvinced. ‘So then, was it self-defence? It would be understandable, if Mathieson was harassing him one last time or threatening to go public about you—’

‘Donald has alibis for the whole night now. I was with him after midnight. And Mary said in her statements that Donald was in the cottage with her all evening, during the birth. Which he was. If the story was going to work, the two of them had to be holed up in there together until Lorna could get back over with the baby.’

They crossed the wide town square. A Christmas tree had been erected in the centre and the lights twinkled, reflecting in the puddles. A sparrow was perched on the back of a bench; twists of red tinsel glinted in the windows of the hat shop.

‘So then that means Lorna must have lied about her whereabouts to the police? She said she was in the cottage, when really she was over in Glen Bay with you.’ He glanced at her. ‘She’s a nurse, an official figure, and yet she misled the police like that?’

‘As we know now, she had plenty of her own secrets. This was her and Mary’s chance to have a family and they took it. She wasn’t going to let little white lies stand in the way of that.’

‘And you really think they’re...lovers?’ he faltered.

‘Well, obviously Flora had told me her suspicions on the telephone the night James came back, but when I told Donald, he was certain of it. He had put two and two together when the neighbours told him Lorna had been living here while he was in prison. She had told all of us she was returning to her family in Shetland. Of course, they all thought Lorna was just a friend helping her out with the baby, but...for him it all made sense. Little things he had seen before that he hadn’t given much thought to at the time. Like seeing them holding hands, which might have been innocent enough. But when Lorna stayed over while he had his head injury, he heard sounds coming from the other room.’

‘What sort of sounds?’

Mhairi arched an eyebrow and David immediately blushed. ‘Oh.’

‘Aye. He asked Lorna what they’d been doing but she told him he was delirious. Imagining things.’

‘I see.’ He looked ahead with a disconsolate expression, falling into his thoughts.

‘What is it?’

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