Christmas is Murder: A chilling short story collection by Val McDermid

Author:Val McDermid [McDermid, Val]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2020-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

Alan asked me to marry him right here, on the edge of the cliff. There was a glorious sunset at his back, smudged bars of scarlet and gold and bruised plum, the colours reflected in the ruffled surface of the gunmetal sea. I couldn’t see his face because of the radiance behind him and I wondered what he was up to, getting down on one knee on the uneven rock. I thought he’d dropped something. But the next thing I knew was, ‘Ellie, will you do me the honour of being my bride?’

I only hesitated because my mouth was too busy grinning. ‘You bet,’ I yelped. Then I yanked him to his feet and squeezed him so tight his breath exploded in a loud, ‘Oof!’

Of course, I never told Colin any of that.

Serendipity. The dictionary defines it as the ‘occurrence of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way’. And serendipity was what brought us to this place.

Our summer holiday that year was a cycling tour of the north-west Highlands. We’d driven up from our home in Manchester with the bikes mounted on the back of the car. We left the car in Ullapool and set off. We’d spent weeks planning our routes, poring over maps on the living room table, googling points of interest on the way, deciding on the youth hostels and B&Bs we’d stay in overnight. We’d given the bikes a thorough service and worked out the absolute minimum of packing. We were good at that; it wouldn’t be the first time I’d cycled up a hill with a pair of pants pegged across the top of a pannier, drying in the sun.

We were blessed with one of those spells of good weather that makes people agree that if only you could guarantee the sunshine, nobody would ever bother with going abroad. It’s a sentiment that resonates even more these days. When I was a kid, Scottish holidays were as memorable for the awfulness of the food as they were for the depressing frequency of the rain. Apart from the glorious fish and chips bought from busy counters in tiny shopfronts filled with the reek of hot fat, mealtimes were an ordeal.

Not these days. That holiday, Alan and I ate like kings. From the pub in the middle of nowhere with dirt-cheap local lobster and chips to the Millionaire Tiffin we picked up from a stall at a village market, we stuffed ourselves with food that brought smiles to our faces. Just as well we were cycling long hours every day or we’d both have come home the size of houses.

That afternoon, we’d fetched up in Lochinver, a village in Sutherland that straggles along the shores of a three-legged inlet of the loch that shares its name. For a small place, it’s got a lot of places where you can spend your money. Pubs, restaurants, a bookshop, a pottery, a couple of galleries. And an award-winning pie shop – which as far as we were concerned, meant no contest.

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