Thunder Bay

by Douglas Skelton

  Molly shrugged and sipped her tea, watching as Rebecca busied herself, noting the interviewee’s name and the date on a fresh page.

  ‘First,’ Rebecca said, her routine complete, ‘thank you for speaking to me. I assure you my aim here is to get to the truth, if I can, and not to embarrass or upset anyone.’

  A dismissive flick of an eyebrow conveyed exactly what Molly Sinclair thought of that statement. ‘What did Roddie Drummond tell you?’

  ‘That he didn’t kill Mhairi.’

  A slight shake of the head, as if she couldn’t believe he still insisted on his innocence. ‘Well . . .’ She stopped and waited, batting the ball back into Rebecca’s court with a stiff look. This wasn’t going to be an easy interview.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about Mhairi? What was she like?’

  Molly’s face softened slightly. ‘She was a wonderful lass,’ she said. ‘I know you’d expect me to say that, but it was true. Everybody thought so. She was kind and caring, thoughtful. Dependable.’

  Rebecca was fairly certain Mhairi was not quite such a paragon. Nobody was. But it was Molly’s duty as a mother to paint her daughter as Mother Theresa on steroids. And perhaps, to her, she was. ‘You had a son, too . . .’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ray?’

  ‘Raymond.’

  ‘Sorry, Raymond.’

  Rebecca waited for Molly Sinclair to speak but nothing further came. Okay, down to me then, she thought. ‘Forgive me, but he died.’

  Another pause. Molly’s face had stiffened again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It hit Mhairi hard, didn’t it?’

  ‘It hit us all hard.’

  ‘Of course. But Mhairi distanced herself from Donnie Kerr after that. Blamed him for Ray’s—Raymond’s—death?’

  ‘Donnie has atoned for that now. He’s smartened himself up. He’s made something of himself. He’s been a good father to Sonya.’

  ‘She lives with you, though, doesn’t she?’

  ‘It’s better that way. Look, what has this to do with Roddie Drummond?’

  ‘I’m only trying to get a full picture of events, Mrs Sinclair. My point is that after Donnie left to go to Glasgow with Raymond, Mhairi began a relationship with Roddie Drummond, is that right? Even though she’d had Donnie’s child.’

  Molly stood up suddenly. ‘I think you should leave. This is a mistake.’

  ‘Please, Mrs Sinclair . . .’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to infer here.’

  ‘Nothing, I—’

  ‘Are you trying to say that Mhairi was some kind of whore? Is that it?’

  ‘Certainly not, Mrs Sinclair. I’m trying to say that Mhairi and Donnie and Roddie, they were all close. Since childhood, am I right? I’ve been told that Lord Henry was also a close friend back then.’

  ‘I know what you were saying. Mhairi was a Jezebel, she slept with all her men friends, that they passed her around. Oh, I know what they all said about her. I know the talk. But it wasn’t true, it wasn’t true. She was a wonderful person, my Mhairi. She was my joy. She was my child.’

  And then her carefully constructed poise cracked, a rotting brick wall being pushed by flood waters. The tears seeped through and she sat back down with a wail. Her pain stabbed at Rebecca across the table and she reached out to gently caress the woman’s hand, but Molly snatched it away and fished in the pocket of her cardigan for a paper tissue. As she wiped at the tears Rebecca decided to press on. Her time was limited and she had to get some answers.

  ‘Mrs Sinclair, that night, I know Mhairi came here to collect Sonya to take her home. Do you know where she’d been?’

  Molly had cradled the tissue in her hand and pressed it against both eyes. She shook her head.

  ‘Okay. She told Donnie Kerr that she was in some sort of trouble. Did she mention that to you?’

  ‘Please leave,’ she said, her voice slightly muffled. ‘Please don’t ask anything more. I shouldn’t have let you in. If my husband found out, he’d go off his head.’

  ‘Why did you let me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought . . .’ The tissue was removed from her eyes. ‘I don’t know what I thought. Please, just go.’

  Rebecca knew she should leave. She had been asked to. She should simply pack up her gear and say goodbye. But she felt Molly Sinclair really wanted to talk. That was why she’d let her in. She had something to tell.

  ‘Mrs Sinclair, I’m trying to help here, you must believe me. If Roddie Drummond wasn’t responsible for what happened to Mhairi, then someone else was. And that person is still walking about, perhaps here on the island. I know Detective Sergeant Sawyer has been to see you . . .’

  Molly didn’t even attempt to deny it, so Rebecca pressed ahead.

  ‘And I know he told you not to speak to me, that I was for Roddie Drummond and against you, but that’s not true, I give you my word. I am completely impartial, it’s my job to be fair, no matter what you might think about the press. I know you’ve probably had bad experiences but we’re not all like that, believe me.’

  Molly listened to the words and Rebecca felt she was getting through, so she used everything she could think of.

  ‘My dad was a police officer, a high-ranking police officer. He believed in punishing the guilty, he did it all his life, but he also taught me that the best way to find the truth was to keep an open mind. He used to say that closed minds or fixed ideas led to injustice. Follow the evidence, not the man, he used to say. He’d seen too many police officers make the mistake of thinking that just because a suspect was dodgy then he must be guilty.’

  She paused to let her words sink in. She could see the woman’s resistance crumbling. She wanted to talk, most people did. They just needed the correct stimulus. Rebecca had one more weapon in her arsenal.

  ‘My dad was an islander, did you know that? Left here when he was a teenager. So I’ve got Stoirm blood in my veins, Mrs Sinclair. You may not know me, but I’m not a stranger, not really, although I’m still an outsider so I can take a step back. You can’t do that. No one who was here fifteen years ago can do that, not even Bill Sawyer. You need closure, the island needs closure. Maybe I can help bring that about, maybe I can’t. But all I ask is that you help me try.’

  Rebecca had said all she could, so she waited. The woman would either insist she left or she’d begin to talk. Nothing Rebecca could say now would influence her decision.

  Molly Sinclair sat very still, her breathing ragged, her only movement her hands shredding the paper tissue and letting the fragments fall to the table’s surface. The faint sound of the water whispering against the shore and the singing of the wind through the long grass drifted into the room. They were the only sounds. The waves. The wind. Molly Sinclair’s breathing.

  Then . . .

  ‘What’s your surname again?’

  ‘Connolly.’

  The hands stopped picking the tissue apart. There was that look again. The same one she’d seen in the face of the woman in the kirkyard. Recognition. ‘What’s your father’s Christian name?’

  ‘John.’

  The look was still there, along with something else. A decision had been made. ‘Then you’ll understand the nature of secrets.’

  Rebecca didn’t know what she meant, but she didn’t get the chance to ask anything further, for Molly Sinclair began talking.

  Her voice was low, the words sluggish, as if they had been waiting too long to come alive. But after their initial breath the words began to gather in strength.

  ‘I knew she was upset as soon as she turned up that night to collect Sonya . . .’

  24

  Molly Sinclair

  Fifteen years earlier

  At first I’d put the change in Mhairi’s temperament down to lingering grief over the death of her brother, but the night she came to collect Sonya, I thought there was something more. I always knew when my girl was worried, you see, ever since she was a wee one. Her posture was nor
mally perfect but when there was something on her mind her shoulders stiffened, her eyes lost their sparkle and her laugh, the one that brightened the house, stilled.

  This was different. I knew as soon as I saw her that night that something had happened but I didn’t ask what it was right away. She had been a secretive child and she’d never grown out of it. She certainly wouldn’t say anything with her father sitting in his armchair watching some dreadful American TV programme while he waited to go to bed.

  Hector had also changed since Raymond’s death, become more introspective. Brooding, I suppose. Raymond had been his favourite—not that a parent should have favourites, but it happens. What happened in Glasgow broke his heart, Mhairi’s too, for she had always been close to her brother. It had destroyed what feelings she had for Donnie Kerr. It was all sad, tragic, but what was worse was that common grief didn’t lead to father and daughter growing closer. There had been a distance between them since Mhairi was a teenager, yet I never knew why. I had tried to find out over the years, of course I had, but neither of them would break the silence. All Mhairi said was that her father simply didn’t understand girls, which was true, and all Hector said was that she was a disappointment to him. Her getting pregnant to Donnie didn’t help matters. So whatever was troubling Mhairi would not be spoken about in his presence.

  ‘You’re late,’ Hector said, without taking his eyes off the television screen, where some people were shooting guns. Violence, too much violence, I thought. As if there wasn’t enough of it in the world, they had to fill TV screens with it. I didn’t like the fact that Hector had two shotguns tucked away in his gun cabinet down the hall for when he and Campbell Drummond went shooting together. I was island born and raised, guns aren’t uncommon, but the idea of having them in the house made me uncomfortable.

  ‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Mhairi, but the words were directed at me. ‘I was held up.’

  ‘Where have you been?’ I asked.

  Mhairi paused and her eyes flicked away. ‘I was down at Feshie, seeing Morag.’ Morag was her friend from school. She had married a dairy farmer and moved to the south of the island. ‘Not seen her in ages. You know what it’s like when we get talking.’

  I knew it was a lie, even before the words came out of her mouth. The pause and the looking away told me that but I wouldn’t challenge her on it, not with Hector there. I followed her into her old bedroom, where Sonya was sleeping. That child was always a sound sleeper, something she’d inherited from me. Whatever gene it was that dictated sleep patterns had skipped a generation, for Mhairi was too restless a child to sleep through the night. She used to say the baby would sleep through Armageddon.

  I made sure the door was firmly closed before I spoke. ‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there?’

  Even in the dim glow of the nightlight, I saw how pale and drawn Mhairi was. And there was something in her eyes that had never been there before, even after Raymond’s death. I don’t know how to describe it except they were haunted, as if she had seen something that had affected her so deeply she would never forget it.

  ‘Nothing, Mum,’ said Mhairi.

  ‘No, there’s something. You can’t hide it from me. You never could.’

  She fussed a little with Sonya’s blanket. Even then the baby did not waken. ‘I saw Donnie, is all it is. He wanted money.’

  ‘Did you give it to him?’

  ‘No,’ she said, but that was another lie. I let it go again. I was convinced seeing Donnie was not what had upset her. We were all used to what Donnie had become by then, sad and disturbing though it was. What was more disturbing was the knowledge that Raymond had become a similar walking corpse. But I tried not to think about that too much. I still don’t. I couldn’t change it then, I can’t change it now. Perhaps, had I known what our son was doing in Glasgow, I could have done something about it, but Raymond had never told me. His calls home, although they grew infrequent, were breezy. He was working, he said. He was fine, he said. But he wasn’t working and he wasn’t fine. And then he was dead.

  I didn’t blame Donnie. Hector did, but he’d never forgiven him for getting his daughter pregnant and then swanning off. Even Mhairi blamed the boy. But I never did. Not totally. Raymond had always been his own man. It had been his idea to go to the city, not Donnie’s. Donnie was a follower back then, like Roddie, and although it suited my husband and my daughter to blame him, I knew in my heart that Raymond would have led the way in everything.

  I watched as Mhairi bundled Sonya carefully in a warm blanket and laid her into the carry cot. The baby murmured a little but remained asleep.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Mhairi as they left the room. She didn’t say goodbye to her father, who was still in the sitting room. The gulf between them was too wide for anything but necessary communication. He wouldn’t have heard her anyway, for there was too much gunfire and screeching tyres on the TV.

  I followed her down the stairs, still wishing she would tell me what was wrong, but nothing more was said. At her car, I felt the need to make one more attempt at getting her to talk. Perhaps, in the night air, her father out of the way, she would open up, even just a little.

  ‘Mhairi, pet,’ I said, very gently, ‘you know you can tell me anything. After all that’s happened, you know that, don’t you?’

  Mhairi straightened up after moving Sonya from the carry cot into her car seat. ‘Honest, Mum, it’s nothing. I’m tired. It’s been a long day, you know? And that drive up from Feshie in the dark takes it out of me.’ The smile she gave me was forced and weak. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  I still wasn’t convinced. The Feshie visit was a fiction, I knew it. ‘Is there trouble between you and Roddie? Is that it?’

  Something then. Something in her eyes. Something that appeared and vanished like the fairies out there in the dark. Then Mhairi looked away. Another lie coming. ‘No, we’re fine. He’s fine.’

  She walked round to the driver’s door, opened it. Then she stopped and seemed to freeze as she stared at the child sleeping in the back seat. I saw her face fold as tears began to well, so I moved round the car. Mhairi instantly whirled and wrapped her arms around me and held me like her life depended on it.

  ‘Mhairi, pet, tell me what it is.’ But she shook her head, sobs wracking her body. ‘You’ve got to tell me. Whatever it is, we can sort it.’

  ‘I’m in trouble, Mum,’ said Mhairi, her voice muffled against my shoulder. ‘I think I’m pregnant.’

  I felt shock first, then relief, then the sensation of being here before. I thought of Hector, sitting up there watching that TV programme. He’d been disgusted with Mhairi for sleeping with Donnie out of wedlock; now it had happened again. With another man.

  ‘But that’s a wonderful thing, darling. Roddie must be very happy.’

  Mhairi pulled herself away to avoid my eyes.

  Suspicion filled my mind. ‘You have told Roddie, haven’t you?’

  Mhairi said nothing.

  I eased her back round to face me, forced her to look at me. ‘Mhairi, you have to talk to me—have you told Roddie yet?’

  She shook her head, her tearful eyes filled with something else. Fear? Desperation? Panic? I couldn’t tell.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Is Roddie the father?’

  Mhairi seemed to freeze, the air around us grew heavy. I knew the answer. I could see it in her face; I heard it in the silence.

  ‘Who is the father?’ I asked.

  Mhairi shook her head again, not so much a refusal to answer as a means of clearing her thoughts. ‘I’m not even certain I am pregnant, Mum. It’s just that all the signs are there . . .’

  ‘But if you were, Roddie might not be the father? So who might it be?’

  A smile then. The one that Mhairi threw when she was finished talking about something. ‘Of course it’d be Roddie. Who else would it be?’

  Who else indeed, I thought, as Mhairi busied herself with little Sonya. I said nothing further as I took in this news. If
she was expecting, then Hector would have to know about it sooner or later and I already dreaded having to tell him. When that day came there would be another storm and it would have nothing to do with the island’s climate.

  I knew I’d weather it like I’d weathered everything else. When it came down to it, Hector did love his daughter and he would stand by her. That was the island way. Family stood with family.

  I had been through a lot with my children and I knew when to push and when to hold back. I also knew Mhairi was still hiding something. When she was younger she would try to throw us off some misdemeanour by admitting to something else. I couldn’t help but feel that Mhairi had tried to do the same by revealing the possible pregnancy.

  25

  The present day

  Molly stared towards the window as she remembered that night. ‘I never saw my daughter again, alive or dead. I couldn’t bring myself to identify the body. Hector did that. And when he came home that morning he took a bottle of malt from the shop and drank half of it before lunchtime. He doesn’t drink, not like that, but that day he did. He loved her, he always had. He just had trouble showing it.’

  ‘You didn’t say any of this at the trial?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘There were people here who already thought Mhairi was a slut. To tell the world that she thought she was pregnant and not to the man she was living with, on top of already having Sonya to another man . . .’ She lowered her eyes from the window. ‘I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t do that to Hector.’

  ‘You didn’t tell him what she’d said?’

  ‘I’ve not told anyone. Until now.’

  ‘She wasn’t pregnant, though.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mrs Sinclair, forgive me, but do you think she made that up? You said you thought she was still hiding something . . .’

  ‘She genuinely believed she might’ve been pregnant, I’m convinced of that. And if she was, Roddie wasn’t the father. I knew my daughter. To me she was everything, but I know she wasn’t perfect. She was beautiful and she was headstrong. And she liked boys, she always had. And they liked her. No, Mhairi had slept with someone else, I know it.’