Little Pink Taxi Read online

  ‘There’s no harm done,’ he replied, suddenly reluctant to add to her distress by siding with Elaine McBride and pointing out that she should indeed watch the road instead of turning round to talk to customers. ‘Where are we going now?’

  ‘To the old church hall, at the other end of town.’

  From what he had seen so far, Irlwick was a nice little place, built around a steep hill on top of which stood a ruined castle. As they had driven in from Raventhorn earlier, Rosalie had explained that it was the original McBride castle, fallen into disrepair after years of vicious wars between the McBride and the Armitage clans. ‘There are a few items of furniture from those days at Raventhorn – the wardrobe and the bed in the Crimson Room, for example.’

  Rosalie’s cheeks had turned as pink as her anorak and he had almost groaned aloud. He’d hardly slept a wink the night before, and it hadn’t been because of nightmarish images of his father’s helicopter crash for once, but because of hot, vivid and erotic dreams. Every time he had managed to fall asleep he had dreamt he was making love to a woman. Who she was, he had no idea since he never saw her face, but the sensations awakened by the feel of her mouth and hands caressing him, and of her body moving under his as he took her, had been so real he’d woken up time and time again, tense with longing and frustration. In the end he’d given up trying to sleep and pulled a copy of the Financial Times out of his bag, hoping that it would cool him down. It hadn’t. Perhaps there was some truth in her stories about the magic McBride bed after all.

  When Rosalie stopped in front of the church’s timber porch, he got out and opened the back door for Elaine once again.

  The woman frowned. ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Marc is from London,’ Rosalie shouted from inside the cab before he could reply. ‘He’s training to be a cab driver so I’ve taken him on as my apprentice. I’ll see you at twelve, Elaine. Get in, Petersen. Hurry, we don’t have all day.’

  He gritted his teeth but did as he was told.

  ‘So now I’m your apprentice?’ he asked as she drove on.

  ‘It was the only explanation I could think of off the top of my head.’

  ‘What about the truth?’

  She drove around narrow, cobblestone streets for a few minutes and parked in front of a small terraced house, then turned to him. ‘We can’t tell anyone just yet, not until I’ve spoken to Geoff and he has explained what’s happened.’

  ‘There’s nothing to explain. He needed money, he sold Raventhorn, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s more to it. Please. It’s only until I have a chance to talk to him.’

  He was about to tell her he wasn’t here to play games when a ray of sunlight touched her face. He noticed for the first time the ring of warm hazel green around her chestnut coloured pupils. She parted her lips and he caught a glimpse of pearly white teeth. His pulse beat faster, his chest felt suddenly tight and he swallowed hard. Once again, the woman was having a strange effect on him.

  ‘All right,’ he conceded before taking the time to think things through. ‘I’m your apprentice. For now. By the way, what’s the story between you and Elaine McBride? You don’t seem to like each other very much.’

  Rosalie sneered. ‘You’re right there. Elaine always thought she was better than everybody else – my mother, in particular – and her darling son Rupert has made my life a misery since primary school. All she ever talks about is how he will one day become Raventhorn’s rightful laird.’

  He took a deep breath. So there were yet more complications to come. McBride’s relatives were bound to feel aggrieved when they found out they wouldn’t inherit Raventhorn.

  Rosalie beeped the cab’s horn. White muslin curtains twitched at a ground floor window in the terraced house. A few moments later an elderly woman with tightly curled mauve hair came out. Once again, Marc jumped out to open the back passenger door.

  ‘Good morning, Flora,’ Rosalie called.

  ‘Good mornin’, Rosalie love. And who’s this nice young man ye’ve here with ye today?’ She beamed a smile at him as he helped her sit down.

  Rosalie explained that Marc was a trainee cab driver, and the old woman looked at him appraisingly.

  ‘Ye’re big and strong, for sure,’ she said. ‘Ye’ll push my trolley and carry my bags, and give Rosalie a rest, won’t ye, love?’

  He smiled politely, thinking that she was joking. She wasn’t.

  Rosalie drove to the local supermarket, and gestured for him to get a trolley and push it around the aisles while she fetched food items the old lady called out from her shopping list. They packed the bags at the till, drove back to her house where they unloaded the shopping and put everything away in her tiny kitchen, while she brewed a cup of tea so strong it was almost black and cut out slices of Battenberg cake. Flora must have been impressed by his services because she winked at him as she gave him an extra thick slice of cake.

  ‘Don’t tell me you do that every week,’ he said, once they were back in the taxi.

  ‘I do the same for most of my elderly clients,’ she replied.

  ‘But that’s a complete waste of your time.’

  ‘It’s part of my job. Flora has nobody to help her and—’

  ‘You’re not a social worker, you run a taxi firm. A business. We spent almost an hour with her and the fare she paid hardly covered the petrol for the journey to the supermarket and back. Talking about fares, apart from Flora just now, I haven’t seen any money change hands so far. Your meter doesn’t even work.’ He pointed to the meter she hardly bothered to switch on these days.

  She shot him an angry glance. ‘I should have known you were keeping tabs. If you must know, most of my clients have accounts.’

  ‘Ah. And how often do they settle?’

  ‘Every month … or so. When times are hard, I give them a wee bit more time to pay.’

  He shook his head. ‘This is no way to run a business.’

  She looked straight into his eyes. ‘I told you, Love Taxis isn’t just a business. It’s—’

  ‘A service for the community, yes, you already said.’

  They were back at the community centre where they picked up the mothers and their cranky, smelly and paint-covered offspring, who left behind a dirty and mutilated teddy bear and a bubble tube topped with a one-eared plastic rabbit.

  ‘I’ll drop the toys off at their house later, if I have time,’ Rosalie said as she slipped them into the glovebox.

  Then it was time to collect Elaine from the knitting group and drive her home.

  ‘You never said Duncan had some trouble last night,’ Elaine complained as soon as she had made herself comfortable in the back seat.

  Rosalie sighed. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Julia Murray. It was her day off from the library and she wanted my advice on a new jumper she’s knitting for Niall. She said he was very upset about the whole thing.’

  Marc remembered that Niall Murray was the mechanic who had paid Rosalie a visit earlier that morning. Elaine carried on talking but he didn’t pay much attention to what she was saying until she mentioned Rosalie and Niall getting married.

  ‘Julia says it’s cruel of you to keep the lad waiting. You’ve made his life a misery for years.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Rosalie snapped. ‘Anyway, what business is it of hers, or yours?’

  ‘We only want to see you settled,’ Elaine replied. ‘Niall may not be the brightest tool in the box, but he’s a nice lad, he runs his own business, and let’s face it, you’re not likely to get a better offer, are you?’

  Rosalie gripped the steering wheel so hard her fingers became white, her whole body seemed to tense up and her chin jutted forward, but she didn’t answer.

  ‘By the way,’ Elaine added, ‘Rupert is back from London. He wants to talk to Geoff about a new business idea.’

  ‘I hope he isn’t going to pester him for more money.’

  They were back in front of El
aine’s house.

  ‘So what if he is?’ Elaine said as she got out. ‘Geoff helped you set up your taxi business. It’s only fair he should do the same for my Rupert. He is his heir, after all.’ She shut the door and walked away without waiting for Rosalie’s reply.

  By late morning Marc was hungry, gasping for black coffee and getting more cross by the second. He checked his watch. Only half twelve. Why on earth had he agreed to waste a day driving around in this pink taxi?

  He knew exactly why. Guilt, coupled with the pleading look in Rosalie’s brown eyes, the flutter of her long eyelashes and the soft touch of her fingers on his arm. That was why.

  Rosalie cast him a sidelong glance and turned off the irritating pop radio she’d been humming along to most of the morning and parked in front of a small café in the main street.

  ‘You must be hungry. We have about an hour before the pensioners’ clinic, so I’ll take you for lunch. I hope you have nothing against vegetarian food.’

  ‘The pensioners’ clinic?’ He repeated, gritting his teeth. How bad could the day get?

  Rosalie nodded. ‘I pick up elderly people from out of town and drive them to the surgery for their weekly check-up.’ They sat down at a table covered with a red and white tablecloth. She took her anorak off. Underneath she wore another pink jumper, and that one clung to her curves like the one she had on the night before.

  ‘I can recommend the veggie lasagne,’ she said.

  He said he would have some and she went to the counter to order the soup of the day and a tea for her, the lasagne and an Americano for him.

  Once back with their hot drinks, she poured a generous splash of milk and emptied two sachets of sugar in her steaming mug of tea.

  ‘Hi, Roz!’ A young woman placed a bowl of soup and a lasagne dish in front of them and winked at him. ‘This is my very own recipe, I hope you like it.’

  Rosalie licked her spoon and put it down. ‘Alice, meet Marc Petersen who is staying at Raventhorn for a few days. Marc, this is Alice, a very old friend of mine.’

  ‘Hey, less of the old, if you don’t mind.’

  Alice was a pretty brunette wearing a clingy purple top and tight black jeans tucked into high boots. She flashed him a smile. ‘I am delighted to meet you.’

  ‘Marc is from London,’ Rosalie explained. ‘He is taking a crash course in taxi driving.’

  ‘Not literally, I hope! We all know what a bad driver you are.’ Alice laughed before turning to Rosalie. ‘Seriously, Roz, how are you? Niall told me what happened to Duncan last night.’

  Rosalie shrugged. ‘Bad news travels fast, I see. I’m fine, but I’ll be even better when the police catch the thugs who vandalised his cab. I can’t stop thinking about it. He could have been badly hurt.’

  ‘What you need is a laugh and a dance to cheer you up. I’ll see you tonight, as usual. And bring your apprentice too!’

  She blew Rosalie a kiss, winked at Marc, and walked back to the kitchen.

  ‘What’s happening tonight?’ he asked, before tucking into his lasagne.

  ‘It’s the ceilidh at the Four Winds Hotel, which takes place every Thursday. You wouldn’t like it. It’s not for people like you.’ She dunked a piece of bread into her soup and bit into it.

  ‘People like me?’ he asked, aware that his voice had taken on a steely edge.

  ‘Well, you don’t strike me like the kind of man who enjoys a beer or two and a dance to a fiddle. You’re probably used to a more refined kind of entertainment.’

  He had nothing to reply to that since she was right, and they ate in silence for a while. When it was time to pay, she got up and took her purse out of her bag – it was pink, of course.

  He rose to his feet, shaking his head. ‘No, I’ll get it.’ There was no way he would let a woman pay for him when he was about to put her both out of business and out of her home.

  She opened her mouth to protest, and shrugged. ‘As you wish.’

  After lunch they collected four elderly people from farms and cottages out of town and drove them to the doctor’s surgery. Rosalie took a bag out of the boot of the cab.

  ‘Entertainment,’ she whispered as they walked into the surgery.

  Whilst she patted one lady’s hand and talked about a variety of health complaints, the long-awaited refurbishment of the village hall or the blizzard that was forecast for the weekend, Marc was urged to pull a card deck out of the bag and was roped into a game of twenty-one by two elderly gentlemen who thoroughly enjoyed beating him. After the card game, they played dominoes, and before long the surgery looked more like a social club than a doctor’s waiting room.

  It was late afternoon and a chilly wind gathered black clouds in the sky by the time they’d dropped everybody home. Rosalie switched on the radio again and was singing along to a cheerful pop tune. Marc gritted his teeth, overwhelmed by the need for silence after a day spent listening to mindless chatter and upbeat music. He reached out and turned the radio off.

  ‘Hey!’ Rosalie hissed. ‘I was listening to that.’

  ‘How do you do it?’ he asked.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Talk to people all the time.’

  She cast a surprised glance at him. ‘I like talking, and I like people. Don’t you?’

  ‘Not really.’ Actually, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t really minded the afternoon that much – surprising really. He hadn’t played cards since boarding school, and it had taken his mind off the stress of the past few weeks.

  ‘People like to talk,’ Rosalie said, ‘especially old folks who live alone. You must be good with people in your line of work too, otherwise how would you charm them into doing business with you?’

  He arched his eyebrows. ‘It has nothing to do with charm or conversation, and everything to do with hard cash. That’s all the people I know are interested in.’

  ‘I find that very sad.’ She paused. ‘Now can I put my music back on?’

  ‘You call that music? I’d rather listen to an electric drill than to that screeching and panting, and I haven’t even mentioned your singing yet.’

  She threw him a black stare. ‘Ah, yes, I forgot. You only like civilised music.’

  The radio crackled and Fergus’s voice came on.

  ‘Roz, lovie, I have a pick up from Loch Armathiel car park. A woman. Her car broke down and she needs to go to Aviemore. Can you do it?’

  ‘No problem. I’m on my way.’

  She looked at Marc and said to him, ‘I’ll drop you off at Raventhorn first.’

  ‘What if it’s another hoax?’ Marc asked, remembering what she had told the policeman about being called to isolated car parks by non-existent customers.

  ‘It can’t be. You heard Fergus, it’s a woman.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I’d better come with you.’

  She shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’

  The moon shone brightly in the darkening sky when she turned off the main road and started down a bumpy track. In the distance the shadow of a ruined castle stood on an island on the loch.

  Marc scanned the empty car park. ‘There’s no one here.’

  Rosalie switched off the engine but left the headlights on. As she opened her door to get out, a strange sense of foreboding crept over him and he put his hand on her forearm.

  ‘Stay in the car. Lock the doors. Let me take a look.’

  As soon as he stepped out, the cold wind slapped his face and sneaked through his jumper, making him shiver. He wrapped his scarf more closely around his neck and walked briskly across the empty car park to the edge of the water. Shoving his hands inside his jeans pockets he breathed in the damp, earthy scent of pine trees mixed with the loch’s silty smell.

  A bird of prey circled the darkening sky and let out a series of high-pitched calls. Waves crashed onto the pebbly beach with soothing, rhythmical sounds. He was about to turn back when a movement on the island nearby caught his eye. The bird of prey circled above him once again and landed on one of the r
uined towers.

  Then he saw her. The woman of Corby Woods. It had to be her. She stood at the top of a tower, wrapped in her long hooded cloak, her pale face glowing like a moonstone. He felt a sharp stabbing pain in his heart. He closed his eyes for a second, and when he reopened them, the pain was gone and the tower was empty.

  Chapter Five

  ‘It’s another no show,’ Rosalie told Fergus on the cab radio.

  ‘I can’t believe you were stood up again. Folks have no consideration these days.’

  ‘Can you do a call back and speak to her?’

  ‘I can’t. Marion just phoned to ask me what I want for tea. Sorry.’

  ‘Ah, well. It was worth a try. Petersen went out to investigate. We’ll head off home as soon as he comes back.’

  ‘Och, yes. I’ve heard about your new apprentice on the grapevine. Word has it he’s a handsome fella, but a bit standoffish.’

  Rosalie replied with a grunt and switched the radio off.

  She peered into the darkness. Marc seemed to have been gone forever. What if he’d slipped and fallen into the water, or if he’d gone too far and couldn’t find his way back to the car park? A cold fist closed around her heart. What if there was someone lying in wait, and Petersen confronted them?

  She had to go out and look for him, but first she needed something she could use as some kind of weapon, to reassure herself more than to try and inflict harm on whoever might be out there. Searching the glovebox, her fingers came into contact with the plastic tube the toddler had left behind that morning. It wasn’t much of a deterrent, but she felt better for holding something.

  The sounds of footsteps made her look up, and her fingers closed around the bubble tube. Petersen’s tall figure stood out against the moonlight as he jogged back towards the cab. Rosalie leaned to one side and unlocked the passenger door to let him in.

  ‘Did you see her?’ she asked.

  He raked his fingers through his hair and stared ahead. ‘No. There’s no sign of anyone.’

  ‘How infuriating. She must have managed to start her car and didn’t bother to ring Fergus.’