The towel won’t fold. It has to be forced, squeezed until the worn, fraying terry cloth wedges reluctantly into the gap between the window frame and the weathered sill. I press with the heel of my palm, feel the rough wood beneath my skin, until the towel finally holds and seals out the worst of the draught. The wind finds a way through anyway. It always does, through every bloody crack in this old pile. Lochside Manor is like a sieve, and no matter how many makeshift repairs I manage, the cold still creeps in, settles on my shoulders like a damp blanket.
My fingers are numb. Not just from the cold seeping through the single-paned windows, but from the eight hours I’ve already spent behind the desk, checking guests in, answering calls, stuffing towels into window cracks. I step back, assess my work with a critical eye. The draught is weaker now. Not gone, but weaker. Good enough. It has to be good enough, because I can’t do more. Not without proper tools. Not without a budget that hasn’t existed in years.
Behind me, the old-fashioned telephone on the reception desk rattles, and I turn, reach for the handset, my gaze automatically drifting through the half-open door to the break room. Oliver sits on the worn linoleum floor, his sketchpad balanced on his knees, tongue tip caught between his teeth in that concentrated way he has when he’s trying to get the lines just right. He’s drawing a bird. An eagle, perhaps, or a raven. Hard to tell with a five-year-old whose artistic ambitions still outstrip his motor skills.
“Lochside Manor, Evelyn Ross speaking,” I say, and my voice sounds more professional than I feel.
“Evelyn, is Moira there?” Mrs MacBride’s bright, curious voice from the village shop, and I suppress a sigh because when Mrs MacBride calls, it’s never about anything harmless.
“She’s off today.”
“Oh.” A loaded pause, then she lowers her voice conspiratorially. “Is it true the new owner arrives today?”
My fingers tighten round the handset, and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, though I can’t say exactly why. “So I’ve heard.”
“And? What do you know about him?”
What I know. I know the hotel was sold three weeks ago, almost overnight, without any of us staff being told beforehand. I know the new owner is from Glasgow, a businessman with money who’s supposedly building a chain of renovated hotels. I know his name is MacTavish—a name that carries weight here in Glencoe. History. Respect. But I also know that the MacTavish brothers, Hamish and Callum, whom everyone in the village knows, have never mentioned a third brother. Never. And that feels wrong, like a crack in the foundation you can’t see but still feel.
“He’s arriving today. That’s all I know,” I say, and my voice comes out cooler than I intend.
“Hmm.” Mrs MacBride sounds disappointed, as though she’d been hoping for village gossip she could pass along. “Well, ring me when you know more, aye?”
She hangs up before I can answer, and I set the handset back in its cradle with more force than necessary. My palms are damp, sticky, and I wipe them on my black trousers, but the feeling lingers—that tightness in my chest that always comes when I think about the future, about rent, about Oliver’s threadbare jacket, about the fact that I can’t afford to lose this job. Not now. Not ever.
Rain lashes the tall windows of the foyer in an endless, monotonous drumming that vibrates through the old stone walls, as though the hotel itself is a living organism, groaning and creaking under the weight of its hundred and thirty years. It’s been raining for days, and the carpet smells of it—damp fabric, mildew, old dirt, no matter how often I go over it with the hoover. I hate that smell. It reminds me that everything here is slowly rotting, that the cracks are getting bigger, that the foundation is crumbling, stone by stone.
I return to the desk, lay my hands flat on the wooden surface, scratched and worn, the grain darkened by decades of use. The wood is cold beneath my palms, and I breathe deliberately. In. Hold. Out. One. The exercise my therapist taught me back when Oliver’s father left and the panic attacks started. It helps. Mostly.
Behind me, a floorboard cracks, loud and sudden, and I flinch before I remember it’s just the house. Lochside Manor is old, and old houses creak, groan, show cracks where there were none before. Just like me. I’m thirty-six but look older, feel older, have lines round my eyes from too little sleep and too much worry.
“Mum?” Oliver’s voice pulls me from my thoughts, quiet but clear, and I turn towards him.
“What is it, love?”
“Is the eagle good?”
I go to him, kneel on the cold floor, ignore the pull in my knees that tells me I’m not as young as I used to be. The eagle on Oliver’s paper has far too many wings, and the proportions are all wrong, but the colours are bold and wild—red and black and a bit of orange for the fire he’s imagined. “It’s perfect,” I say firmly, and Oliver smiles, that small, shy smile, as though he doesn’t quite believe me but wants to take it anyway. He’s good at taking things I give him without asking too many questions, and sometimes that breaks my heart.
I stroke his head, and his soft, too-long hair slips through my fingers. I need to cut it, but the scissors in the drawer are blunt, and new things—even small, mundane things like scissors—cost money I don’t have. Money. The word alone makes my stomach clench, and I do the sums in my head, as I do every night when I can’t sleep: rent for our tiny flat on the edge of Glencoe. Food that never quite stretches far enough. The heating that doesn’t work properly and nearly froze us last winter. Oliver’s jacket, worn through at the elbows, which I’ve patched up as best I can. The numbers dance before my mind’s eye, and I force them into a row, add, subtract, try to conjure a budget from nothing. In the end, I’m left with a figure that’s too small. Always too small.
“Keep drawing, love,” I say and stand, ignore the grinding in my knees. “I’ll be just over there.”
Oliver nods without looking up, already lost again in his world of colours and fantasy, and I envy him for being able to escape into something beautiful while I’m stuck in the hard reality. I go back to the desk, lay my hands on the cold wooden surface again, breathe in, out, in, and try to push down the panic that flows through my veins like cold water.
The front door opens, and the wind rushes in like an uninvited guest, tears at the faded welcome sign, slams the glass door against the frame. Cold, wet air floods the foyer, and raindrops splatter onto the already damp carpet. I look up, ready to greet a drenched guest, but the words stick in my throat.
A man stands in the doorway. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a presence that fills the entire room even though he’s not moving. He wears a dark wool coat, clearly expensive, the fabric gleaming with rain and sitting perfectly across his wide shoulders. Beneath it, a tailored shirt that still looks impeccably pressed despite the weather, and dark suit trousers that seem wrong on a man like him, as though he’d rather be wearing heavy work boots and jeans. His face is angular and severe, the jawline set as though he’s constantly clenching his teeth, and his eyes—storm grey, like the clouds over the mountains—register everything. The foyer, the cracks in the walls, the worn carpet. Me. He closes the door behind him with a controlled movement, and the roar of the rain is muffled to a distant rush.
I straighten, pull my shoulders back instinctively, and my hands stay flat on the desk because I need something to hold onto. “Good afternoon,” I say, and my voice is calm and professional, though my pulse has quickened. “Welcome to Lochside Manor.”
He looks at me. Directly. Unwaveringly. Without blinking. Says nothing. The silence stretches between us, becomes heavy, uncomfortable, and I feel my fingers wanting to curl into fists. “Do you have a reservation?” I ask finally, to break the silence.
“No.” His voice is deep and rough, and though I hear a Scottish undertone, it’s smoothed away, hidden, as though he’s spent years trying to lose it.
“I’m the new owner.”
Something slides down inside my chest, heavy and cold as a stone. So it’s true. He’s here. The new owner. The man who’ll decide our future—mine and Oliver’s and everyone else’s who works here. “Mr MacTavish,” I say, and it’s not a question but a statement, which he confirms with a brief nod.
“Liam MacTavish.”
I extend my hand, an automatic reflex from years in hospitality, and he looks first at my hand, then back at my face, before his own hand closes round mine. The grip is firm, almost too firm, and his palm is surprisingly rough, covered in calluses that don’t match the tailored suit. Not the hand of a man who only shuffles papers and adds up numbers.
“Evelyn Ross,” I say. “I work on reception.”
“How long?”
“Four years.”
He releases my hand, and I pull it back quickly, wipe it unconsciously on my trousers, though I’m not sure if it’s the dampness from his hand or my own nervous sweat. “Show me the hotel,” he says, and it’s not a suggestion or a polite request but a command, clear and unmistakable.
I breathe in, but my lungs don’t quite fill, as though the air is too thick, too heavy to breathe. “Of course. One moment.” I go to the break room, where Oliver is still hunched over his sketchpad, and kneel briefly beside him. “I’ll be right back, love. Stay here, yes?”
“Okay, Mum,” he says without looking up, and I close the door behind me, but only to, never all the way, because I always need to see him, always need to know he’s safe.
Liam MacTavish is still standing by the desk, hasn’t taken off his wet coat, and raindrops glitter on the dark fabric like small, cold diamonds. “Follow me,” I say and lead the way through the foyer, my footsteps muffled on the old, worn carpet. Behind me I hear his footsteps—heavier, firmer, the gait of a man accustomed to people getting out of his way.
“Lochside Manor was built in 1892,” I begin with the usual speech I’ve given a hundred times to guests, “originally as a hunting lodge for a wealthy family from Edinburgh. Later, after the war, it was converted into a hotel.”
“And now?” His voice comes from directly behind me, closer than expected.
“Now…” I hesitate, search for the right words, for something that’s honest but doesn’t sound hopeless. “It needs work.”
“I can see that.” His voice is neutral, almost emotionless, but when I glance over my shoulder, I see his gaze travelling over the walls, taking in the cracks in the plaster, registering the dark, damp patches on the ceiling, fixing on the window at the end of the corridor, its frame so badly warped you can see daylight through from outside. He sees everything. Every weak point. Every flaw. Every crack.
We continue, and I lead him through the bar, where the old wooden tables stand with their wobbly chairs and the smell of floor polish mingles with something sickly sweet—rot perhaps, or simply the inevitable age of a building that’s been neglected too long. “How many guests do you have at present?” he asks, and his voice is matter-of-fact, businesslike, without any warmth.
“Three rooms occupied.”
“And how many total?”
“Twenty.”
“Three out of twenty.” He repeats it, not as a question but as a statement, as a mathematical problem to be solved, and I feel my jaw tighten. I say nothing, because there’s nothing to say, because the numbers speak for themselves and any justification would only sound like an excuse.
We go into the kitchen, where it’s warmer from the old gas cooker that’s already running, though it’s only early afternoon. The smell of fried onions and old grease hangs in the air, mixed with the sharp scent of washing-up liquid. Dougal, our cook, looks up from his work, and I see the worry in his weathered face, the deep lines round his eyes deepening further as he takes in the well-dressed stranger. “This is Dougal,” I say. “Our cook.”
Liam MacTavish nods curtly, and Dougal nods back, both men silent, in that wordless Scottish way of communicating that says more than any greeting. “How many staff?” Liam asks, and his eyes have already moved on, taking in the outdated equipment, the worn work surfaces, the leak above the sink.
“Seven. Full and part time combined.”
“Too many.” The words are spoken quietly, almost casually, but they cut through the air like a knife, and I feel my fingers wanting to curl into fists. I force them to open, press my palms against my thighs.
“We need everyone,” I say, and my voice is firmer than expected.
“We’ll see.”
We climb the creaking wooden staircase, and I feel the banister wobble beneath my hand, unstable, dangerous. The rooms on the first floor are even worse than downstairs—I know this, but I show them to him anyway, lead him through the dim corridor with its bare bulbs that cast more shadows than light. “The rooms are… functional,” I say carefully, searching for a word that doesn’t sound hopeless.
“Run-down,” he corrects me without hesitation.
“They have character.”
“They have mould.” He points to a corner in the corridor where dark, ugly patches spread across the wallpaper like a disease, and I see them, have seen them a thousand times, but there’s no money for renovation, no budget for anything beyond the absolute essentials.
We return to reception, and I feel my throat tightening, the constriction in my chest growing stronger with every step. Oliver is still in the break room, I see through the half-open door, peacefully continuing his drawing, oblivious that this man might destroy everything we have. Liam MacTavish stops in front of me, looks down at me, and his grey eyes are cold, closed off, impossible to read.
“I’ll be making changes,” he says, and it sounds like a verdict.
“What kind of changes?”
“Necessary ones.”
“That’s not an answer,” I say, and my voice has hardened, become more defiant, because I feel the panic threatening to pull the ground out from under my feet.
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
My jaw clenches, and I press my teeth together so hard it hurts. “Do you understand anything about hotels, Mr MacTavish?”
“I understand numbers.”
“People aren’t numbers.”
“People cost money,” he says, and his voice remains calm, matter-of-fact, as though he’s talking about inventory and not the seven people who work here, who have families, who have bills to pay.
“People also make money,” I counter, and he looks at me for a long moment, his gaze travelling over my face as though searching for something, for a weak point perhaps, for a crack in my armour. But I don’t back down. Instead I lift my chin and hold his gaze.
“We’ll see,” he says finally, and then he turns and walks to the stairs, his footsteps firm and determined, the gait of a man who knows what he wants and doesn’t care who he hurts getting it.
I stay at the desk, my hands still on the cold wooden surface, and breathe out, long and shaky. The door to the break room opens, and Oliver stands there, his sketchpad clutched in his small hand, his face serious and watchful. “Mum, who was that?”
I look at him, at his too-serious face, and something inside me breaks a little bit more. “No one important, love,” I say, but it’s a lie, and we both know it.
Outside, the rain lashes the windows in an endless, merciless rhythm. The wind howls round the corners of the old building, and somewhere deep in the house a floorboard creaks, loud and lonely.
Cracks in the foundation.
I feel them all—in the walls, in the floor, in myself.
And I know with a certainty that constricts my throat that Liam MacTavish isn’t here to save anything.
He’s here to destroy it all.
