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home, furnished with priceless antiques and pictures. The wing that the family lived in, however, had deep comfortable armchairs, colour television and stereo equipment. To Rachel it was like stepping from one world into another. Kilfinan House and its occupants was clearly all Rose lived for, and she told Rachel how she had been nanny to Richard as a small boy, living-in at the house. It was not until Richard had married that she had been given her own cottage at the end of the drive.
    ‘Alistair would like me to come back here, now that Celia’s dead,’ she said, ‘but I must say I like having my own front door; I should have done it years ago, but we just didn’t think. Anyway, it makes no difference to the way I run the house.’
    ‘Whose idea was it that you should move to the cottage, then?’ Rachel asked.
    ‘Celia’s, of course.’
    Rachel was rapidly gaining the impression that however highly esteemed Celia had been by everyone else, Aunt Rose had definitely not fallen under her spell.
    Pondering this, she left her aunt immersed in account books and slipped away to the garage to have a look at the Mini that Richard had suggested putting at her disposal—if he had remembered his offer.
    Obviously he had. Ben was there, his head under the bonnet, tinkering with the engine. He straightened up when she greeted him and wiped his hands on an oily rag.
    ‘She seems to be in good order,’ he said, his teeth showing even and white in his tanned face as he smiled at her. ‘I was just going to take her for a test run and then she’s all yours.’ He slammed down the bonnet and got in behind the wheel. ‘Coming?'
    She didn’t need asking twice.
    ‘Nobody’s driven this car much,’ said Ben, running through the gears. ‘It was bought to replace Celia’s car, which was a complete write-off.’ He jammed on the brakes viciously. ‘I don’t know why they bothered. Celia’s no longer here to drive it; Richard’s got his own car and when Alistair wants a car he usually takes the truck.’
    ‘What exactly happened to Celia?’ Rachel couldn’t resist the question. ‘I know she had an accident, but .....'
    ‘Her car ran off the road—why, heaven knows. She was a good driver and she knew the road to Dunglevin like the back of her hand. True, it was fairly late at night, but all the same, it should never have happened.’ He spoke savagely and Rachel could see the speedometer creeping up and up. It was quite plain that Ben had held Celia Duncan in high esteem.
    ‘What was she like? Celia, I mean?’
    He relaxed and the needle began to drop to a reasonable speed. ‘I think she was the most beautiful woman I ever saw,’ he said softly.
    ‘Is Melanie like her mother?’
    ‘A little. Of course, she’s dark, like her father. Celia was fair; flaxen, almost.’ He fell silent and didn’t speak again until they were driving down the narrow main street at Ardenbeg. Then he said, ‘Have you seen the magnificent view from the Dunglevin road?’
    She shook her head. ‘The last time I was on that road was in a blinding rainstorm.’
    ‘I’ll take you up and show you, then. It’s worth seeing.’ He drove through Ardenbeg and began climbing the narrow road cut along the side of the mountain. There was just room for two cars to pass, but it was a perilously close thing. And below, far below, the loch sparkled in the morning, sunlight. For about two miles the road climbed, sometimes steeply, sometimes more gently, until, high above the loch and the little town of Ardenbeg, the road widened out on to a natural plateau big enough for about half a dozen cars to park.
    Ben parked the Mini and they both got out and went to lean on the railings that fenced in three sides of the area. Away into the distance towards the mouth of the Clyde stretched the loch, dotted with islands, some green and wooded, some quite barren. Here and there tiny boats bobbed on the waves.
    ‘Look down there,’ said Ben, pointing to a spot