Page 10 of The Secret Christmas Library

The tall, diffident chap Mirren had met in London appeared much more at home on this territory, as he pulled up in a filthy old Land Rover with canvas sides. A small black and white sheepdog leapt out like a flash, and Mirren oohed and smiled.

‘Hello, sweetie pie! Hello, gorgeous!!’

The dog didn’t approach her at all, and Mirren crouched down. ‘Hello, lovely!’ she beckoned.

‘Actually, he’s a working dog,’ said Jamie.

Mirren fell silent.

‘Hi,’ said Jamie, clearing his throat. ‘I see you guys made it.’

Mirren was feeling squashed, but she still couldn’t help herself. ‘Your train is awesome,’ she said.

Jamie smiled. ‘I know. We don’t have a lot of perks left, but . . . ’

‘It’s amazing, having a whole carriage to yourself!’

‘Well, they got a big streak of our land, so I guess it works out. And you must be Theo Palliser?’

Theo stuck out his hand. ‘Nice to see you.’

‘I thought you two knew each other?’ said Mirren, and they both turned round to look at her. Jamie was broader, with sandy brown hair, and a little older; Theo a little taller, with the black hair and the pallor. He didn’t even look embarrassed.

‘Oh, we’ve been at some of the same events.’

‘Have we?’ said Jamie.

Mirren felt quite pleased. Obviously this was not going to be as much of a shoo-in for Theo as he’d thought.

‘Well, anyway,’ said Theo, rubbing his long fingers together. ‘It’s pretty chilly – shall we?’

Inside the Land Rover was not noticeably warmer than outside.

The dog took a crouching position by the open flaps at the back, scanning the horizon, it seemed, for any threats it might need to intercept.

Mirren looked at him rather longingly. He was such a beautiful creature; she would love to pet his soft fur and scritch behind his ears, but she assumed that wouldn’t go down well at all.

‘What’s his name?’ she asked.

‘Roger,’ said Jamie briefly.

‘Roger the sheepdog? Are you sure?’

‘All our sheepdogs are called Roger,’ said Jamie. ‘Since about 1840, I think.’

‘What . . . one dies, and you call another one Roger?’

‘Yes,’ said Jamie. ‘They’re working animals; they just need to be identifiable.’

‘Oh, my God,’ said Mirren, quite horrified. ‘Poor Roger.’

Roger turned his head immediately.

‘I mean, I suppose Roger to him just means “dog”,’ mused Mirren.

‘I think that’s how all dogs’ names work,’ said Theo, annoyingly.

Mirren ignored him and vowed to pet the dog if she got half a chance, although, given the dog’s stoic expression as it surveyed the mountains behind it, this would be approximately never.

She looked out of the side window as they drove.

The single-track road weaved from side to side up the hills until they got to a pair of rusted iron gates, held together with what looked like a cheap bicycle lock.

Mirren watched, puzzled, as Jamie leapt out and opened it, and creaked back the great gates.

Atop a pair of weather-beaten, moss-covered stone pillars were two vast, chipped stone pineapples. Mirren glanced at them.

‘What’s with the pineapples??’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Jamie, ‘but they weigh about a billion kilos, so we’re stuck with them unless I magically inherit a crane.’

The road wound upwards, meandering up and through into a forest of bare-limbed oak trees, until they were perched on an outcrop.

It had obviously been deliberately designed that way, as the road could have gone straight across from the gates; but from here, from a clearing through the trees, the road head was framed and there, dead centre, was the house itself.

Jamie pulled up, and Roger jumped up and hared towards it, a manoeuvre he was obviously used to.

Mirren didn’t want to say anything to betray her absolute astonishment at the vision ahead. She wanted to make it look as though this was nothing to her. She snuck a glance at Theo, who was looking nonchalant, although that was his default expression.

But this – this was something. When Jamie had said ‘my house’, she hadn’t for a moment imagined anything like this. No wonder, she thought suddenly. No wonder he couldn’t find a book in his own house. Because it wasn’t a house. It was a castle.

For a second, situated between two deep hills, with the sea unfolding behind them, it looked, to Mirren, like Cair Paravel, the citadel of Narnia. It was brown and white, and covered in small crenellated towers. The scale of it was hard to tell from this angle; it seemed to go on and on.

‘Bloody hell,’ whistled Theo, and Mirren gave him a quick glance. He wasn’t so unimpressed, then.

‘Yeah,’ said Jamie. ‘Welcome to Forres. I promise you, this is very much the best view.’

The icy sunlight glinted off the windows.

How many were there? Dozens and dozens. Mirren wondered who cleaned them.

The main body of the house was square, but there was a long line of buildings behind that, some of which appeared to have been added as an afterthought.

The windows were diamond-paned and ran around the turrets, following the spiral stairs.

There were two square gatehouses at the front, in plain grey stone, linked by a bridge over the road, before the main building itself, and the white section was covered by a variety of low stone buildings: stables, barns and cottages.

It was more than a castle: it was practically a town.

From the tallest of the turrets a Scottish saltire flew proudly, but from another was a long, fluttering pennant in red and yellow, following the breeze out to sea.

Mirren couldn’t take her eyes off it. It was devastatingly romantic.

Her eyes followed it longingly. Imagine.

Imagine having a tower with a pennant streaming, like a princess in a storybook. It was glorious.

‘It’s amazing,’ she said, breathily.

‘From here,’ said Jamie, smiling ruefully. He looked at them, shy suddenly. ‘I just . . . I suppose I just wanted to show it to you from its best angle. It’s all downhill from here.’

‘When did you inherit?’ asked Theo. Mirren was surprised to hear a pitying tone in his voice.

‘This summer,’ said Jamie.

‘And you’re the eldest? Or just the eldest son?’

‘Both. Also, literally nobody else wanted it.’

‘They must do!’ interjected Mirren in astonishment, and both men looked at her.

‘Nope,’ said Jamie. ‘They want me to sell it and get all the cash. Nobody wants it. But nobody wants to be the one responsible for letting it go.’

‘But why would you let it go?’ said Mirren, still caught in the romance and the dream of it.

‘Well,’ said Jamie. ‘Well. You’ll see.’

And, rather sullenly, he turned the key, the Land Rover sparked into life, and they rejoined the road and bumped their way up to the castle lodge.

The closer they got, the more Mirren stared. The palace – how on earth could Jamie call it a house, that was utterly ridiculous – loomed overhead as they drew closer.

It also became increasingly apparent what kind of state the place was in.

The window frames were peeling, the stone was chipped, and the pointing had completely come away on the buildings.

The bridge itself looked scruffy and half falling down.

The castle that looked white and glowing from far away – a glowing citadel between two hills – was dirty old white close up.

There were abandoned vehicles in the gravel, which had weeds growing up all around them.

A dried-up fountain was in the middle of the driveway, and the windows, close up, answered Mirren’s unspoken question as to who cleaned them: clearly nobody did.

Mirren frowned. With her surveyor hat on, this place wouldn’t comply with building regulations.

She didn’t think it looked structurally sound; great cracks ran up the side of the exterior.

She picked a section right off the wall and it crumbled in her fingers.

Mind you, old buildings were built of sterner stuff.

Some of the new-builds she worked with would blow over in a strong wind.

If it had stood for several hundred years, you were probably alright today. Even so, she wished she had a hard hat.

‘You moved in?’ said Theo.

Jamie nodded.

‘Where were you before?’

‘Edinburgh,’ said Jamie. ‘I worked in the Botanic Gardens.’

‘You’re a gardener?’ said Mirren. She thought that was quite cool but it came out as if she was being sarcastic, and Jamie frowned.

Theo tutted at her. ‘He was biding his time,’ he said to Mirren, as if she should have known this, and then gestured towards the huge grounds. ‘Bringing back your expertise?’

Jamie grimaced slightly and didn’t answer.

‘And you live here now?’ went on Mirren, embarrassed that he thought she’d called him the gardener.

Jamie pulled the Land Rover to a halt. ‘Well. Yeah. It was . . . ’ He looked awkward. ‘I’m the heir. I have to.’ He jumped out on to the gravel. ‘We spent all our time here when we were children. And now it’s mine.’

He didn’t sound remotely happy about it.