The Unmaking of Ellie Rook

by Sandra Ireland

  I stand there, unable to move, unable to speak, conscious of the converging problems: PC Sampson, unwilling to leave; Shelby, hidden in the caravan; Dad, behind me, closing in. Words form themselves in my head and dissipate just as quickly. It’s pointless. My body sags, too weary to fight. Lorraine will leave, and we will return to being Rooks, the family from the scrappie that the authorities can’t touch.

  As Lorraine gets into her car and starts the engine, Shelby’s face swims into view again. His eyes are pleading, but I can’t decipher the specifics. Help me? Run? Save yourself? My father’s arm snakes around my shoulders as the squad car motors off.

  ‘Look who we found in Aberdeen!’ He raps his knuckles on the window and Shelby draws back. I surge forward to open the door, but the chain and the padlock are in place. Shelby is locked in, and I can guess who has the key.

  ‘But he walked out of the hospital. He was staying with a mate.’

  My father chuckles. The sound makes the hair rise on the back of my neck. ‘Turns out we have the same mates! It’s a small world, eh? Ah, here’s the rest of the family!’

  He opens his other arm expansively. Mum is there, clinging to River’s arm. She wasn’t expecting to see the caravan, and I can see the turmoil behind her expression. We all know that Dad always has an ace up his sleeve. And then she spots Shelby, or he spots her. It’s a mutual thing. I can feel them drawing together. Shelby comes close to the window and Mum sleepwalks right up to him. She puts her fingers to the glass, and so does he. His are bandaged and broken.

  ‘How touching,’ Dad sneers. ‘I knew how devastated you must be, my love, so I brought him home for you. Like a pilchard in a tin can!’ He laughs at his joke. River stares at me, white-faced. What do we do now?

  ‘If only we had a tin opener, eh, River?’

  In the absence of Offshore Dave, River is the obvious stooge. I try to communicate wordlessly. Don’t play along. His face is set, an expression I recognise. He’s at war with himself. I clear my throat, finding my voice at last.

  ‘Shelby’s hurt. Let him out.’

  ‘Shelby’s hurt.’ Dad repeats the words in a mocking singsong. His arm drops from my shoulders as if I’ve contaminated him, and I can feel the sudden chill work its way into my bones. ‘I have a better idea. How about we let your mother in?’

  Mum makes a small noise, hardly an objection, but he moves over to her, takes her by the shoulders. ‘Imelda, my love. All’s fair in love and war, isn’t that what they say? I’d never stand in the way of what you want. Never.’

  I try to grab her attention, but her eyes are fixed on him, as if she can’t look away.

  ‘I think you two should be reunited,’ he continues. ‘A final ride in the old van.’

  He swings around and punches the door of the caravan so hard it leaves a fist-shaped dent. I imagine Shelby wincing on the other side. I shouldn’t be surprised by this zero-to-sixty surge into violence, this combination of slow, cold words and hot, sudden irrationality. I should be used to it, after all this time, but Dad always has the capacity to shock. Unpredictability is power.

  ‘We’ll get you on board, Imelda, and take a nice little jaunt into the country. Maybe back up the mountain. You like it up there, don’t you? You and Shelby, the love of your life, all cosied up in the caravan. Very cosy.’ He holds out his hand. ‘River – the key.’ My brother hesitates. Don’t do it. Don’t give him the key.

  It’s Mum that surprises us next.

  ‘No,’ she says, quite clearly. Her focus swings once more to Shelby. She looks at him through the caravan window. Holding his gaze. Holding the line. ‘Leave him out of this. This is between you and me, Lawler.’ She shakes herself a little, flexes her arms. ‘I’m going to do what I should have done long ago. So many times, I’ve stood on the top of that waterfall and thought about it. Just one slip. Just one step, one foot after the other, and it would all be over . . .’

  Something flickers on Dad’s face. Fear, perhaps.

  ‘If I take myself out of the equation,’ she says, ‘what then?’

  She smiles – a whimsical kind of smile that chills me almost as much as Dad’s physical violence. River and I speak at the same time: No!

  But it’s too late. She has a plan.

  39

  ‘What are you saying? Mum!’ I launch myself at her, grasp her hand. I don’t realise we’re touching until she slips away from me. She strides off, coat flapping round her legs. And then she starts to run. Like Finella, she starts to run. There’s a moment where we stand and watch her go.

  ‘Run, Finella! Get out of there!’

  ‘And Finella slips through a hidden tunnel and runs, and keeps on running, dodging the king’s men-at-arms. She leads them a dance across the Howe of the Mearns, over the hill which now bears her name, Strath Finella, and here to this deep, dark gully. She’s a woman of the woods – she knows when to hide and when to break cover . . .’

  The old story comes back to me now – a fragile thread between us, stretched to breaking point. But it can’t be allowed to snap.

  ‘Mum, come back!’

  I hear River’s voice too, a deeper version of mine, but at first his words don’t register.

  ‘Run, Mum! Keep going! Don’t come back!’

  I swing round to him. ‘What are you saying? She’s going to drown herself!’

  He points at my father, rooted to the spot, shell-shocked. ‘Ask him what he’s got in the fucking car boot. Ask him!’

  When no one speaks, River gives the game away. ‘Three containers of petrol. Dad has a plan too.’

  I’m swallowed up by the yard, the wasteland, the woods. I dodge the roots, the scrap and the buried parts. I pass the birches and the pond and the car cemetery, but she is always ahead of me. I see her coat flapping through the tree trunks, the flash of her hair like a crow’s wing, but she will not stop. At one point, I hear crashing behind me. I’m being followed, but none of that matters now.

  Mum is dancing now, through the bracken and heather, and I’m skipping after her. I can hear hounds whining, men shouting. Mum stops for dramatic effect within sight of the waterfall. The tremendous thunder of it enters our hearts and snatches away our voices.

  ‘They say she took to the trees, walking across the tops of them to escape.’

  ‘Could she have? Was she magic?’

  A wind has got up from somewhere. It takes my breath away. The topmost branches have a language of their own, a sort of keening, and it’s easy to imagine Finella up there, perched on a limb, looking down. What would she think of us? You had no choice, Finella, but my mother does. I don’t know why she would choose to leave us.

  I push myself onwards, to the difficult paths that overlook the gorge. The water is crashing below, and, as always, that heady thrill makes my heart skip a beat. The air is different, moist and cold. One slip and it’s all over.

  I catch sight of her at last, on the crumbling viewing platform. Her coat is a brighter green than the living things, the grass and the leaves and the undergrowth. She’s standing at the top of the falls, where everything collapses into nothingness. One slip. Oblivion. I creep closer.

  ‘Who knows what you can do when you need to escape the inescapable?’

  ‘Mum . . . Mum! Come back.’

  The crash of the water whips away my words before they get to her. Mum takes a step closer to the edge of the falls. Stares straight ahead, hands on hips like a warrior queen. Beyond her, there is only a wet mist. When she glances back at me, her face is in shadow. There are dark mysteries in her eyes which I now understand. She stares out at the emptiness, a still, lonely figure on the edge.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ I shout. ‘Are you crazy? You had a chance to tell the police. It was your chance to get away from him, get him locked up!’

  She shakes her head, and I recognise that little gesture of futility, of powerlessness. I grew up with it. ‘I can never be free of him. You think the authorities can keep me safe?’ She gives a chilly
little laugh. ‘Look at what he did to Shelby, what he’s planning to do to both of us.’

  ‘But you can press charges! Lorraine says, what he’s done to us, it’s criminal. All you have to do is tell her your story and she’ll do the rest. Why are you shielding him?’

  ‘I can’t go through that, testifying against him in a courtroom. Do you really want me to put your father in prison? What would that do to River? And anyway, don’t tell me Offshore Dave wouldn’t be waiting for me outside. There’s no hiding place – your father will always be pulling the strings. I have to do what I should have done all along.’

  Suddenly, River blunders out of the woods, breathing heavily.

  ‘Dad’s right behind me – he’s spoiling for a fight. And that policewoman must have connected the caravan with reports of what happened in the hills. She called for backup. There’s at least two cars just pulled into the yard.’

  I try to shush him, but the water takes up the sound and hurls it into the abyss. Everything is careering down a sixty-foot drop: water, sound, reason. I wail my mother’s name again, and she looks back for a second. Her eyes are dull with resignation.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ says River. ‘Not now. You’re safe now. It’s over.’

  He tries to push past me, but I grab him, thinking he’ll make it worse. And then Dad explodes on the scene. His blue eyes are wild and searching. He looks past us and sees Imelda, standing at the edge of the falls. I expect him to bellow at her, but instead, he tells us to stand aside, and he picks his way towards her over the mud.

  ‘Imelda, darling. It’s all right. You’re safe now.’ His voice is honey. ‘Come back now. Come home with me and we’ll get this sorted out.’

  ‘You’re not listening!’ my mother yells. ‘You’ve never listened to me!’

  She’s competing to be heard above the cacophony of the waterfall. It’s ironic, somehow, that the one time she raises her voice to him, the effect is lost.

  ‘It’s dangerous up here, Imelda. I’ve always said it: these paths are treacherous. You’re too close to the edge.’

  ‘Mum, come back with us and let’s talk,’ I butt in. It’s time she listened to me, not him. The two of us are doing a weird sideways creep towards her, like hounds about to fight over a rabbit.

  He eyes me coldly. ‘I’ve got this. Take your brother away.’

  ‘No. I’m not leaving her with you.’

  He narrows his eyes at me and opens his mouth to speak, but Mum interrupts. ‘I’m too scared to move, Lawler,’ she says. ‘You’ll have to come and get me.’

  Something like fear passes across his face. This is not his place, the den. It’s not part of his kingdom and he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know where to put his feet, or how to get a grip. He’s at home with grease and grime, not earth and water. But he doesn’t want to lose her.

  ‘I’m coming, sweetheart. I’ll take you home and you can tell me what’s bothering you.’

  Sweat breaks out on his brow as he inches closer. I’m close, too. Right behind him. I meant it. I won’t leave my mother with him. Never again.

  He reaches out a hand to her, but she doesn’t take it. She’s facing him now, smiling, although there’s a strange light in her eyes. Maybe he sees himself reflected there, because there’s a moment when he pauses. There’s a space, a gap in time, when even the water goes quiet.

  40

  I’m back in the kitchen with a blanket round my shoulders. A paramedic is checking me over; I think I’m being treated for shock. There’s a lot of police activity in the yard, and Julie, who’s sitting next to me, is stroking my hand. I can’t think why she’s here. Maybe someone called her. She says there’s a helicopter hovering over the Den of Finella. River is being questioned separately, in the sitting room. It’s routine, according to PC Sampson, to separate witnesses, see if their stories stack up. When my brother was led away he was weeping and distraught, but he’s a Rook. We know how to hold the line.

  As well as Lorraine, there are two detectives in the kitchen. They’re having a hushed conversation over by the cooker, after listening to my version of events.

  ‘There’s a gap in my memory,’ I wept. I just can’t remember exactly what happened. All I remember was that there were three of us standing at the top of the waterfall, and then there were two. Just like that. It’s all very hazy, but it’s treacherous up there, especially after that heavy rain. It only takes one slip.

  The detectives were gentle and understanding; I expect Lorraine has discreetly aired our dirty laundry in the appropriate circles.

  ‘You poor thing,’ says Julie for the umpteenth time, rubbing the back of my hand. ‘By some miracle, you get your mum back, and on the same day this happens. Oh my word. What are the chances?’

  Lorraine swoops in on my other side. ‘Things will proceed in the same way, Ellie. We’ve mounted a search, but as you know from last time . . . We’ll be looking for proof of life, and the more time a casualty spends in the water with no sighting of them, the less chance there is of a positive outcome. However, police divers will be conducting a thorough search of the coast. You just never know.’

  I catch a glimpse of something in Lorraine’s eye. What is she thinking? That if I’m capable of misleading the police about my mother, what else am I capable of? Losing a second parent in a matter of weeks – unlucky or deliberate? I’m still trying to decipher her expression when the door opens.

  My mother sidles in. They’ve allowed her a few minutes with Shelby, who is sitting in the ambulance. Julie says they got him out of the caravan with bolt cutters because no one knows who has the keys. I think he’s going to be taken to the hospital, despite Mum’s protests. ‘He’s family,’ she’d said. ‘I need him here.’

  Only I notice the first flush of hope beneath her skin. I have a sudden urge to contact Piotr, to explore an unspoken possibility. Lots of things seem possible now . . .

  At the end, she had no choice.

  ‘Do you think she survived?’

  Mum stoops to brush the hair away from my face. ‘What do you think?’

  Acknowledgements

  As ever, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the many people who helped bring Ellie Rook to life. My wonderful agent, Jenny Brown, and the lovely team at Polygon – Alison Rae, copy-editor Julie Fergusson, Jan Rutherford, Kristian Kerr, Lucy Mertekis, Jamie Harris and anyone I’ve missed – plus the amazing Fiona Brownlee.

  Thanks to my amazing friends, neighbours and family who always give me such encouragement, and the readers, reviewers and book bloggers who have been so generous in their support of my efforts. And I’m deeply grateful for the valuable insight and information I received from professionals working in domestic abuse services.

  The legend of Finella is a fascinating one; thanks to Kerry Fleming and renowned artist and printmaker Sheila Macfarlane, who brought her to my attention. I’ll never forget the day Sheila invited me to her studio and unrolled her magical scrolls of Finella leaping the falls! Check out her powerful woodcuts here: www.sheilamacfarlane.net/the-finella-prints.

  Although I’ve taken a few liberties with geography in this novel, Scotland’s east coast landscape is dotted with evidence of Finella’s existence: place names, ruined towers and tree-studded mounds. Records show that she was a noblewoman, a huntress, a strong and daring woman who killed a Scottish king in revenge for the murder of her son. Pursued by the king’s men, Finella fled through the glens and evaded capture until she was stopped by the waterfall. Her only option was to jump. I wanted to say something about the lives of women who feel they have no choice.

 

 

 
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