Page 23 of Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop

She’d hit snooze on her alarm three times already, except now her phone was making a different sort of sound.

With a horrible jolt of realisation it dawned on her there was a persistent video caller waiting for her to answer.

Upon peering closer at the screen through crusted eyes, she recognised the name Andreas Favre.

The guy from Future Proof Planet was calling her out of the blue!

Like the capable, confident, can-do grown-up she’d pretended to be at the interview, and even though she was only in a hoodie over her Scottie-dog pyjamas, she clicked ‘accept call’ before the cortisol hit any harder and she chickened out.

Andreas appeared, beautiful and sleekly blond, looking like some tanned tennis pro or someone in a toothpaste advert. He was in front of a vast window with a magnificent Alpine vista behind him. How did he get any work done with a distraction like that?

‘Andreas? Hi!’ Possibly a bit informal? She wasn’t sure what tone to go for.

‘I apologise for calling you without emailing first,’ he said in his lovely French accent. He wasn’t quite as composed as he’d been at the interview, she noticed. ‘I am happy to tell you, you are proceeding to the second round of interviews for the role of Blue Sky Thinking Tech.’

‘I… I am?’ She couldn’t help showing her amazement.

‘Yes, of course. You impressed us with your passion. The way you spoke about community and hope aligned closely with our values here at Future Proof.’

‘Really? I’m…’ she was going to say she was astonished but bit it down. ‘That’s great news. Thank you.’

He was all business now. ‘You need to drill down to practical matters in this round. You are required to present a real-world community project scenario.’ Ally scrabbled for a pen and paper, making a show of efficiently taking notes, nodding, agreeing; all the while, barely registering what was required of her.

‘It can be any project you wish, but one you have been practically involved with, or one you’d like to roll out in the future.

Outline the real-world steps you would use to bring the project together, showing how you use technology as a means to your project’s end.

I’ll have V email the full instructions over in a minute. ’

‘It can be anything at all?’ said Ally, her brain racing.

‘Anything. One word of advice? No tractor talk.’

She smiled in response to the sweet quirk of his lips at this. Stuffy, chic Andreas was capable of having fun after all.

‘HR will email a choice of interview dates.’

‘Got it.’

So Future Proof Planet actually wanted to see her again? Her. Ally McIntyre, the one-time recluse, working from home, pyjama-dweller with the chip on her shoulder.

‘And, uh, Ally, I wondered…’ Andreas was faltering. She wasn’t sure what to make of the change in him. He cleared his throat. A finger loosened his white collar as though it was suddenly tight. ‘We were wondering how your brother was doing?’

‘Murray? Uh, he’s fine, I guess.’

‘Only, he left so suddenly.’

Ally blinked.

‘Did he get home safely?’ Andreas pressed, his smile thinning.

‘Home? I haven’t heard from him since he went on the Mali trip.’

‘Mali?’ He looked a little sickly.

‘You’re frightening me, Andreas. Are you saying he’s not in Mali, and he’s not in Switzerland? When do you think he left to come back to Scotland?’

‘Murray left home… I mean, he left a charity event late on Friday after… a heated discussion. He, uh, took an unauthorised leave of absence, I believe. I assumed he’d taken a car to the airport that evening, going back to Scotland?’

‘You’re saying nobody’s seen him for days? Sorry, Andreas, I should get off this call and ring him. I have literally no idea what you’re on about. He definitely didn’t come back here. He’d only just been in Scotland!’

‘Please…’ Andreas leaned closer to the screen. ‘It will be for the best if you don’t mention to anyone that you and I discussed your brother’s absence…’ he scrambled for words, ‘…for privacy law reasons?’

‘ Hmm .’ Ally knew when something was off. Was Andreas calling back all second-round interviewees, or had he wanted an excuse to ring her and ask about Murray? ‘I’d better go,’ she told him. ‘Thanks for letting me know about the presentation.’

‘No problem. If you hear from Murray,’ he added urgently, ‘perhaps you’ll be good enough to let me know? No need to mention it to anyone else in the office, or at the interview.’

Ally nodded her agreement, newly cautious about this guy’s motivations and wondering whether he had more to do with Murray’s absence than perhaps a mere collegial relationship gone awry?

She left the call and immediately rang her brother, getting directed straight to his voicemail.

She wasn’t going to panic, yet. He’d be fine.

He always was. He’d said he had some annual leave to use up, didn’t he?

Knowing her brother, he’d be taking some time out on a bougie beach.

Maybe he hadn’t been selected for the Mali trip and was sulking?

But disappearing without permission? From the job, the travel opportunities, the apartment, the gym, and all those other company benefits and glamorous perks?

He’d have to be mad. That, or something really bad had happened.

‘Call me back as soon as you get this,’ she told his voicemail.

No, she wouldn’t panic yet.

It’s not like he hadn’t gone to ground before.

There was that time in college when he pretended his heart wasn’t broken over a dreamy pop-idol-looking guy who worked behind the campus sandwich bar.

The guy who’d been the reason he came out at a particularly memorable Sunday lunch at home, during which he’d barely said a word, building up to it, while everyone except him devoured their mum’s celebrated mushroom wellington.

As the chocolate gateau was being dished up, he’d at last blurted it out, surprising precisely no one.

He’d been greeted with hugs and gentle words by his mum and dad, and a proud smile from Ally who’d known all about what he’d planned that day.

He’d done it, not because he felt he had to, but because he wanted to tell the people who mattered most about Wulf. That was his name. Sweet, blond Wulf, who made a mean prawn Marie Rose with iceberg on buttered granary.

There’d been a brief period of elation, in which Wulf had come over to meet the parents, but then it sort of fizzled out, inexplicably as far as Ally could see, for no other reason than they were both twenty-one. Ally never got the full details, other than, for her brother, it had been love.

That had been the beginning of Murray hiding out at random mates’ flats, doing nobody knew what, not coming home to Cairn Dhu for weeks at a time. He’d never forgotten to message Ally every now and then, though, to let her know he was OK and to catch up with her news.

After they graduated, he’d hopped straight up the career ladder, his long absences becoming a way of life for the twins, both of them remaining connected to one another like a planet to its moon, always knowing where the other was, reassured by the cellular-level gravitational pull that meant a part of them remained at all times aware of the other’s location, two satellites transmitting data, sending out tiny blips into the cosmos for each other.

Thinking again, her concern deepening, Ally messaged him.

If you don’t send me some sign you’re OK soon, I’m telling Mum and Dad you’ve gone AWOL and you KNOW they’ll go full mountain rescue search dogs and spotlights on you.

Speak to me. Or else I’ll seriously start to worry.

She watched the message go. The word ‘delivered’ floating beneath it, and then just as she predicted, the little tick that showed he’d read it.

He was alive. A blue thumbs up appeared as further proof of life.

That’s something. She watched the screen, waiting for the text bubbles that said he was replying. None came.

She’d have to be smarter to draw him out. Then, thinking even more, she typed again.

She baited the trap with something irresistible, something he surely couldn’t help biting.

Andreas is worried too.