The Turning Tide Read Online Free PDF Page A

anyone come in the room. The radio must have covered the sound of the car in the drive, of the key in the lock, of the front door closing, of the footsteps on the stairs.
    ‘Rab,’ she said. Her husband’s features were arranged in a state of permanent exhaustion. Once almost handsome, now her husband most resembled a photocopy of a photocopy of a good-looking man. ‘You’re home early.’
    ‘I am,’ he said. ‘I have news.’ He glanced over the scene in the master bedroom, the open drawers with clothes pulled out, the bag on the bed.
    Not good news, not bad news. Just news. ‘Oh?’ Erykah wasn’t in the mood for news. It wasn’t the way she had pictured this going.
    ‘I found out this morning . . .’ he said. He held a rolled-up newspaper in one hand, a little scrap of card in the other. ‘It’s hard to explain, but I – I mean we – we’ve won twenty million pounds in the lottery.’

 
     
     
    : 2 :
    Cameron Bridge was a grey town wedged in the crook of a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland. For reasons no one was able to explain, the town had been built with the backs of its streets facing the sea, so that the first impression any visitor to the area had was of a town showing the world its arse.
    That was how Morag Munro saw it. She made the short walk from her hotel to her office and tried not to make eye contact with anyone on the way. Under any other circumstances she would have long since left the place and never come back. But as the region’s local MP, she was obliged to pop her head in a few times a year.
    The mountains that hulked above Cameron Bridge ensured that, no matter what the weather or time of year, the town was always in shadow. In winter the streets were covered with a layer of ice as fine as plastic wrap and as slippery underfoot as spilled oil. Even in summer, stubborn patches of snow on the highest mountains would chill the wind that swept through the town. Morag scowled. She hated this place.
    Maybe hate was too strong a word. But she could do with fewer visits. Morag’s first few trips up after Scotland’s independence referendum had been the worst. Because she had been one of the public faces campaigning for No, constituents beat a path to her surgeries to debate the outcome. She had heard it all: accusations of fixing, uncounted ballots found in bins, a conspiracy that went past the BBC and all the way up to the Westminster elite. ‘It’s the settled will of the Scottish people,’ she said over and over, a serene half-smile the most she could offer in the face of their anger and disappointment.
    When the general election came and she managed to hold on to her seat with the slenderest of majorities – fewer than 200 votes between her and the SNP candidate – that hadn’t helped put the conspiracy theorists down one bit.
    Like most political fads this would pass; they couldn’t stay angry for ever, could they? Eventually life would have to return to normal. Though once or twice she had wished the stepped-up security that came when she was campaigning side by side with English MPs had stuck around here once those other politicians retreated south of the border.
    Morag’s assistant Arjun came in wearing a pink wool waistcoat and flecked brown tweeds, armed with two cups of coffee from a high street café and a copy of the West Highland Independent tucked under his arm. Morag arched an eyebrow. She so wished he didn’t feel the need to wear hipster clobber up here. The locals would probably think he was taking the piss. ‘Decided to blend in, did we,’ she said dryly.
    Arjun did a spin. ‘You like?’ Morag rolled her eyes and he laughed. ‘I’m inspired to go native. The sleeper train is fabulous. Next time I take my boyfriend on holiday we’re going first class all the way.’
    Morag couldn’t help but smile. She had long ago grown weary of the rattling old carriages chugging their way on the track, the thin blankets and soggy breakfasts, but his