If everything Donnie told her was accurate, then something had upset Mhairi. Naturally, Donnie was, as he confessed, ‘climbing the walls’ that night so he could suffer from false memories, but if his account was accurate, what kind of trouble was Mhairi in? There was always the possibility that Donnie was lying, of course. As Rebecca’s dad always told her, As much as we’d want them to, people don’t always tell the truth. Until you know them—really know them—always bear in mind that the person in front of you is quite capable of lying through their teeth. Never accept anything at face value until you have all the facts.
Right now, though, Donnie’s words were all she had.
I’m in trouble, Mhairi had said.
What kind of trouble? What was she hiding?
She was aware of Ash wheeling towards her, so she flipped the cover over the screen and slid the tablet into the bag between her feet under the table.
‘Morning, Miss Connolly,’ he said, his smile wide and welcoming. ‘You’re an early riser, I see.’
It was only 7.45. Rebecca wanted to make an early start and had asked Chaz to collect her at half past eight.
‘Are you ready for some breakfast?’ Ash asked. ‘We have some very nice kippers. Now there’s some haddock who should’ve listened when told smoking was bad for their health.’
She smiled. She liked Ash. He was cheerful and it wasn’t forced either. She picked the card that carried the menu from where it was wedged between the salt and pepper and studied it. She didn’t normally eat that much in the morning but she loved hotel breakfasts. Apart from that, she didn’t know when she’d have the chance to eat again today. She had a lot of people to try to see. And she wanted to head out to Thunder Bay first. ‘I’ll have the full Scottish, please. They still not letting you in the kitchen?’
‘Nope!’ He slapped the handles of his wheelchair. ‘All I do is the meals on wheels.’
Ash gave her his smile and assured her he’d be back in a jiffy, then pushed himself away. The restaurant was empty, so she flipped the cover back on her tablet and continued reading her notes, once again honing in on Mhairi and her trouble. Donnie said she had spoken to Henry Stuart. Was it something to do with him? Or was she asking for his help? Help that couldn’t be provided by her own family, or Roddie?
Ash came back with her toast and a pot of coffee on a tray perched over the armrests of his wheelchair. It looked very precarious, but he moved with such ease that she knew he’d been doing it this way for years. He said her breakfast would be ready shortly and scooted off to speak to a man and a woman who were standing in the doorway of the small dining room. He told them to sit and then cracked the same joke about the kippers. It was clear he had a routine and he was sticking to it.
The restaurant door opened and she looked up to see Bill Sawyer. Ash was heading back to the kitchen and he wished him good morning. Sawyer didn’t move immediately for a table. Instead, he regarded Rebecca, that look of private amusement she had seen on the ferry and in the bar the previous night glinting in his eyes. Then he moved directly towards her.
‘You don’t mind if I sit here?’ he said, making it sound more like a statement of fact than a question.
Rebecca made a show of looking around at the empty tables. ‘Yeah, it is a bit crowded, isn’t it?’
He held out a big hand. ‘Thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Bill Sawyer.’
Her parents had brought her up to be polite so she shook his hand. He didn’t try to show off his strength by squeezing her fingers, which was something. ‘Rebecca Connolly,’ she said.
‘Pleased to meet you, Rebecca,’ he said. ‘So what’s your game?’
The directness of the question caught her by surprise. ‘My game? I’m very fond of squash, but I can shake a mean dice at backgammon.’ She was lying—she’d never played backgammon in her life but her first thought was farkle and she wasn’t terribly sure how to explain how to play it if he asked.
He smiled. ‘You a journalist of some kind?’
‘Of some kind, yes.’
He nodded, satisfied with his powers of deduction. ‘Well, I think you’re sticking your nose where a nose shouldn’t be.’
‘That’s the job of a journalist of some kind, isn’t it?’
He inclined his head in some sort of agreement, reached for the coffee pot and poured himself a cup.
‘Help yourself,’ she said.
He didn’t respond as he set the pot down and heaped two spoons of sugar into his cup, then some milk. He stared at the liquid as he stirred it for some time.
‘Keep drilling, maybe you’ll strike oil,’ she said. She wasn’t usually this smart-mouthed with people but the former police officer’s sense of entitlement was pissing her off.
He laid the spoon in the saucer and said, ‘So, what’s your angle? You out to prove Drummond innocent?’
‘Roddie Drummond is innocent.’
He sipped his coffee, looked at her over the rim of the cup. ‘No, he’s not.’
‘The courts would disagree. He was acquitted.’
‘Doesn’t make him innocent.’
‘And you saying he’s guilty doesn’t make him guilty.’
‘He was found Not Proven. That’s miles away from a Not Guilty.’
‘It’s just as far from a Guilty verdict, too.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s when a jury thinks someone did it but they’re too scared to make a decision. It’s a Guilty verdict without the jail time.’
Rebecca didn’t want to debate the strengths or failings of Scotland’s unique third verdict, not with Sawyer. She felt it would be a waste of breath. She decided to remain quiet, even though she knew from the look of triumph in his eyes as he sipped his coffee—no, her coffee—that he’d taken it as an acknowledgement that he was right.
‘So, what is it?’ he asked. ‘You anti-police?’
‘My dad was a police officer.’
His eyebrows raised. ‘Where?’
‘Glasgow. He was a DCI.’
‘Retired?’
‘No, he died. Cancer.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’ Strangely, she felt he was sincere.
‘You two get on well?’
She wrinkled her face at him. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘To see if you’re maybe getting back at him somehow.’
His attitude and questions were starting to annoy her. She shook her head and looked away, grateful as Ash appeared with her plate piled high with food. He laid it in front of her and said to Sawyer, ‘You dining with Miss Connolly, Bill?’
Sawyer stood up. ‘No, Ash. I think I’ve worn out my welcome here.’ He nodded towards a table near the door. ‘I’ll be over there.’
‘Full Scottish?’
‘Aye, why not? I’m on my holidays.’
Ash whirled away, but Sawyer didn’t make a move. He loomed over Rebecca like a deadline. ‘You do what you’ve got to do, sweetheart. I don’t know whether you really think that bastard is innocent, or if you’ve got Daddy issues or you just want to cause trouble. I just hope you learn the truth and print that.’
Her head snapped to face him. ‘I’ll glean the facts and take it from there.’
‘The truth is more than a collection of facts. Did your dad never tell you that?’
He walked away, still carrying the coffee cup. She watched him go, knowing that her father had, in fact, said something similar in relation to the courts and police work. She heard his voice now. Justice is a funny old game, Becks. The courts deal only with facts that can be proven. We deal with the truth, which often can’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
* * *
The first ferry of the day to the mainland rumbled at the quay as Henry Stuart shook Jarji’s hand.
‘Have a safe journey back to Edinburgh, Jarji. Always good to see you.’
‘Tamaz is an excellent driver,’ said Jarji. ‘I’m in safe hands.’
Henry glanced at the big man standing well away from them, his function merely
to be seen and not form part of any conversations until invited. He had no doubt that Jarji was in safe hands.
‘Take my advice, my friend,’ said Jarji, still clasping his hand. ‘Do not let matters here get out of control.’
‘They won’t, don’t worry. It’s just one person, really.’
‘One person can be all it takes,’ said Jarji. ‘And I never worry . . .’
19
Chaz was waiting outside the hotel in his dented, well-travelled Land Rover. He leaned through the open window and looked down at Rebecca’s leather boots. ‘You not got any wellies?’ he said, smiling.
She looked down at her feet. ‘Won’t these do?’
‘Yes, if you don’t mind them being ruined by salt water.’
Rebecca did mind that. The boots she was wearing had cost her a fortune.
‘You’ll find an old pair of wellies in the back—should more or less fit you,’ said Chaz. ‘They’re my mum’s.’
She swung the rear door open and saw an almost pristine pair of green wellies, a fresh pair of thick socks wedged in the top of one boot. She picked them up and carried them round to the passenger side and climbed in.
‘I knew a big city girl like you wouldn’t pack wellies,’ he said. ‘Always prepared.’
‘Were you a Boy Scout?’
‘Not in the way you think,’ he said and left her to ponder the mystery of his words as he hauled the wheel to the right in order to U-turn from the Square.
It was another sunny day and as the beams sparkled on the surface of the calm water she found it hard to believe that the island was often the focal point for elemental sound and fury. She saw the ferry midway out on the Sound and had to shield her eyes to see whether it was coming or going. It was heading for the island. BBC Radio Scotland played on the radio, the morning news show discussing the US President’s response to allegations that tweeting was unpresidential. His response was, in fact, unpresidential.
Passing the church on its hillock overlooking the town reminded her of Fiona McRae and the woman she’d spoken to in the graveyard. She must’ve been staring hard at the church because Chaz noticed.
‘It’s Mary Drummond’s funeral tomorrow,’ he shouted over the throaty roar of the engine.
‘Was Mary well thought-of in Portnaseil?’
‘There’s no other way to put it than beloved.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d know what it was like for her after the murder? When people must have believed Roddie was the killer?’
‘It wasn’t easy. I think Mr and Mrs Drummond went through a bad time for a year or two, maybe longer, but she was still an islander. Mary Drummond was a strong woman. She faced up to it and she won people over again. In the end, the islanders rallied round her. They’re like that with their own. Incomers not so much, but if you were born here you’re family.’
‘How do you know all that?’
He gave her that shy smile of his. ‘My dad’s nurse, she’s an islander. I’ve been gradually teasing things out of her.’ His shoulders twitched slightly. ‘She dotes on me, treats me like a son.’
Rebecca would guess the nurse wasn’t the only woman who doted on Chaz. It wasn’t just his looks, it was his whole manner. She was certain people warmed to him. ‘And what about Mr Drummond? How was it for him, did your nurse say?’
Chaz let out a small laugh. ‘Campbell’s a different matter. He began to isolate himself from the community—well, as much as he could, given he’s the only mechanic on the island, and more importantly was married to Mary. Business tailed off for a while but having a monopoly had its benefits, I suppose. Campbell, though . . .’ Chaz exhaled slightly. ‘I don’t think Campbell ever forgave the people for the way they kind of cold-shouldered his wife for a while. He didn’t care for himself. From what I hear, he was always a solitary man, but Mary was a cheery, outgoing soul. She took him out of himself.’
‘And his daughter?’
‘Shona? She’s married now, has a child of her own, but she had a hard time, it’s true. She was at school and was picked on by some of the other kids. But that passed, as it always does. Memories fade.’
‘That man last night—Carl Marsh—his memory hasn’t faded.’
‘Aye, well, Carl’s a bitter, angry man. I don’t know why his wife stays with him, to be honest.’
Rebecca thought about Simon. He wasn’t anything like Marsh, but she’d allowed things with him to drift too long. ‘Sometimes it’s easier.’
Something in her tone made Chaz give her a sideways glance. ‘Sounds like experience talking.’
She smiled. ‘I’m old beyond my years.’
Thankfully he left it at that and they drove on in silence, giving Rebecca the opportunity to take in the scenery. They’d left behind the straggling properties on the outskirts of Portnaseil, heading south past small inlets and larger bays ringed with sand, the calm water emerald and translucent close to shore but transforming into sapphire blue further out and then shattering into glinting diamonds where the sun struck it. Vegetation lurked under the water, dark patches of life in an alien world. The landward side was grassland and heather, dotted with a few stands of trees—Scots pine, aspen, rowan, birch and willow, the occasional interloper like Douglas fir or oak. Many of the trees had been planted by a previous Lord Stuart, she had read. He wanted more trees on the island so transplanted saplings from the mainland. The hills beyond were pock-marked with small conifer plantations and topped with heather burnished autumn brown. The mountain, Beinn nan Sìthichean, rose up into a brooding jagged peak, dominating all around. It looked like a difficult climb, but Rebecca’s research had told her it was a Corbett, so while the path upwards was steep it was accessible to most. It looked magnificent against a blue sky broken by a few dusty clouds. This was more of her world than the undersea environment yet it was still not her world. She had been born in Glasgow and worked in Inverness. For all her blood roots on this island, she was an outsider—Chaz had called her a city girl—and she knew it.
The road rose swiftly and there was a sharp bend as the coastline dropped away and opened up to a rock-strewn plain stretching out to the water. She looked down and saw jagged fingers of stone pointing to the sky and others lying on their side.
‘The Seven Sisters,’ said Chaz. ‘The legend is that they came here to wait for their husbands who had gone across to the mainland to fight. They vowed they would never leave that spot until their men returned.’
‘I take it the men didn’t return?’
‘Well, the sisters are still there. The three witches of the mountain made it easier for them to wait, turned them to stone. They say when the men come back they will spring into life again. Loyalty—the islanders pride themselves on that.’
They zipped past the distillery and Rebecca caught sight of a new sign in the process of being hauled up on the wall facing the road, then the entrance to the big house, with a small castellated gatehouse guarding the way. She craned round to catch a glimpse of the Stuart home, but it was set too far from the road and obscured by mature trees.
‘Is it a proper castle or just a large house?’
‘It’s a bit of both. There’s an old castle there, but over the centuries bits and pieces have been added on. Frankly, it’s a bit of an architectural eyesore, but I suppose Lord Henry’s doing his best to spruce it up.’
They travelled in silence for a time, the radio losing the competition with the rattle of the vehicle’s body and the deafening growl of the engine. Then Chaz slowed and said, ‘That’s where it happened.’
Rebecca studied the little white cottage set slightly above the road behind a wooden fence and gate. Its walls shone in the sunlight, the little garden was immaculate, the flowerbeds beneath the windows bare, but Rebecca knew in summer they would be filled with colour and fragrance. Looking at it now, she had trouble imagining anything dreadful having occurred there.
A little further on Chaz spun the wheel sharply to the right. ‘Hang onto your hat, things wil
l get bumpy from here on.’
She barely had time to wonder how much worse it could get when, as if to prove his point, the Land Rover bounced from the tarmac onto a deeply rutted dirt track, sending a spray of mucky water from the first of many puddles over the bonnet and up the sides. She grabbed hold of a handle above the door as the vehicle lurched to one side while Chaz corrected the wheel. Now she knew why these things were called bone shakers.
‘I take it not many people drive along this road?’ she said over the engine and the thump of the wheels hitting troughs.
‘Not unless they have a four-wheel drive.’ He smiled back at her. ‘Or they have something against their suspension!’
They twisted under overhanging trees and splashed through small streams draining across the rutted track. Rebecca saw no cottages or farms, only the occasional ruined homestead, their windows empty, their roofs gone, their moss-covered stone walls seemingly growing from the land. Once families had lived here, loved here, died here. Once men and women had worked this earth. Now all that remained of them were these silent, dead buildings. And perhaps a few slabs of stone in a graveyard like the one in Portnaseil. She had seen empty buildings many times in Glasgow and Inverness, but something about these caused a deep melancholy to settle upon her.
‘Not been used since the Clearances,’ said Chaz, as if reading her mind. ‘The laird back then, Lord Henry’s great-great-great-grandfather, give or take a great or two, had made a fortune out of kelp but that market crumbled and he saw his fortunes wane. He could’ve sold the island but he didn’t. He’d seen what other landowners on the mainland had done, cleared the land, ran sheep . . .’
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