The Ardmore Inheritance by Rob Wyllie (best value ebook reader TXT) 📗

seem to bisect the park, the University buildings set high on a hill to their left. On their right, a group of elderly men and women were playing bowls, their laughter audible above the gentle whistle of a cool wind.

'Sir George Gilbert Scott designed them,' Jimmy explained, pointing up at the buildings. 'The same guy that did St Pancras station in London. Gothic style, that's what they call it I think. Pretty fancy. Although he died before the Uni was actually built I believe. They ran out of money a couple of times and his sons had to finish it off.'

'Looks like Hogwarts to me,' she laughed, 'but it is beautiful.'

'We can take a walk up if you like, you get a nice view over the city from up there.'

'So this is where you did your law degree then?' she asked, as they wound their way up through a rhododendron-lined path, their verdant blooms now faded. But it was just an opener for the question she really wanted to ask.

'Yep, did my four years. I enjoyed it. Well, not so much the course, but I enjoyed Uni life a lot. I joined the OTC and that's what got me into the army.'

'The OTC?'

'Sorry, the Officers' Training Corps. It's a bit like the Boy Scouts but with real guns. It was fun, lots of outdoor stuff, you know, camping and hiking and the like. Right up my street.'

'And is this where you met Flora? At Uni I mean?' She tried to drop the question in as casually as she could.

He smiled. 'Aye, more or less right here in fact. Summer term. She was sitting on the grass having a picnic with some of her medic pals and we got talking. We just sort of hit it off right away.'

In other words, love at first sight. Maggie didn't find it difficult to understand how that would have happened, having seen Flora Stewart nee McLeod in the flesh, and she already knew all too well the effect her handsome colleague had on the opposite sex. They must have been a beautiful couple.

'Sorry, but I'm awful aren't I? So nosey.' She smiled at him, deciding not to push it any further. Unless of course he wanted to tell her more.

'No, that's all right. I've been an idiot and there's no excuse for it. But you make your bed and you have to lie in it.'

She hoped he might now go on to tell him how it had all started, that bizarre relationship he'd had with Astrid Sorenson the beautiful Swedish star of country music. The relationship that had blown his marriage apart. But it seemed he was now anxious to change the subject.

'See over there,' he said, pointing in the distance. 'That's the famous Finnieston Crane. They used it to lift big railway engines onto the ships when they were being exported, back in the old days. And that's the new BBC building just on the other side of the river.'

'Fascinating,' she laughed, her tone accidently ironic. 'No, honestly it is,' she added quickly, seeing the look he gave her. Knowing him, she didn't think he'd be permanently offended.

'How about we take a wee tour through the quadrangles and then wander down to Byers Road?' he said. 'And you can sample the culinary delights of the famous University Cafe. I don't think it's changed for about a hundred years and all the better for it. Although the coffee's fresh of course. And they do a nice sausage roll.'

That clinched it for her.

'Sounds delightful,' she said, and this time she meant it.

◆◆◆

North of Tarbet, the A82 main road alongside Loch Lomond changes in character, a sudden steep vertical rise in the terrain meaning the road builders had just about managed to carve out a winding course between the mountainside and the loch itself. It didn't pay to be in a hurry, your speed of progress being dictated by the giant tourist coaches and the articulated lorries supplying the supermarkets of Fort William and beyond. Maggie and Jimmy drove in comfortable silence, the sat-nav's estimated time of arrival at Lochmorehead still well in the black, allowing them to be content with the leisurely pace of travel. Earlier he had planned to stop off at Luss, a pretty little village on the edge of the loch that was popular with tourists, and a calling point for the cruise boats that plied their trade on the beautiful expanse of water. But it had started to rain, causing a hazy mist to descend from mighty Ben Lomond and hover just above the loch.

'No worries, we might be able to fit it in on the way back down tomorrow,' he had said, pointing to the junction that led down to the village.

Now they were finally clear of the lochside, the road straightening out as they crossed the boundary of the National Park and entered the Highlands proper.

'This scenery is amazing,' Maggie said, her nose almost pressed against the side window. 'I didn't really get the chance to look at it properly the last time because I was driving, and then it was pitch-black on my way back.'

'Aye, it is amazing,' Jimmy said, 'and if you carry on another thirty miles or so you're on Rannoch Moor, and that's really beautiful but really wild too. They chucked us out of a lorry up there in the middle of winter when we were doing our basic training and told us not to come back for five days. With no food, no water, no tents, nothing. And no phones, obviously.'

'But I'm assuming you survived,' she said, laughing, 'otherwise you wouldn't be here now.'

'Just about. Lost a bit of weight though,' he grinned. 'There's not much eating in a rabbit, especially when you're having to share it with five other guys. But anyway, this is our turn-off. B8214. Lochmorehead eleven miles.'

Twenty minutes later they arrived, Jimmy pulling the car into an empty space in the hotel car park, the same hotel which six months