‘Red? Like blood?’
He shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that. Paint, maybe. A big red patch on the left shoulder of the cape.’ He thought about it again. ‘Woke up the next morning in my own bed—well, came to, more like. Didn’t know if it was all real. Until the other night when that bloke jumped me. Just before I passed out I saw the coat again, and the hat. Saw the red mark on the shoulder, fainter now but still there. Roddie was wearing it.’
Rebecca let that sink in. ‘So Roddie was wearing it the night Mhairi died?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’d been with him, remember? He wasn’t wearing that, he was wearing a thick sort of parka. I remember telling him that if he fell overboard it would drag him down. He changed into a yellow oilskin before he got into the RIB.’
‘So who do you think it was?’
‘I think the only person it could have been was Campbell Drummond. Roddie’s dad.’
43
The wind had dropped considerably by the time Rebecca left the hospital and turned towards the Drummonds’ cottage. The Sound still had a serrated grey look that matched the sky, but the rain had stopped, at least for the moment, although oily clouds trailed dark tendrils towards a mainland that was lost somewhere in the murk.
She thought about Donnie’s new information. She had asked Sawyer if he was going to report any of this, but he said too much time had passed, none of it could be corroborated, and anyway, it was all off the record. Then he gave her a kind of distant look. ‘Things have a way of sorting themselves out over here.’
She didn’t know what he meant by that, but she did know that she was back on the story. She didn’t want to be, but this was something she had to see out.
A familiar figure emerged stiffly from the Drummonds’ courtyard and headed away from her towards Portnaseil. Hector Sinclair glanced back at her when she called out his name, but he didn’t acknowledge her or even slow. He maintained a steady pace, his body language resolute, anger evident in every step.
That didn’t look good.
She had broken into a run by the time she reached the courtyard. The door to the cottage was open but she hesitated at the threshold and called out Roddie’s name first, then, ‘Mr Drummond?’
The short hallway led to an open doorway through which she could see a tall fridge/freezer and the corner of a kitchen unit. A narrow staircase stood to her left while a door opened to the right; she presumed to the cottage’s sitting room. She was uncertain about entering without an invitation, but the open front door worried her. Did islanders really leave their doors unlocked in the twenty-first century? She turned her attention to the workshop doors. They looked firmly locked. Whenever she had passed before there had been a black transit van with DRUMMOND MOTOR ENGINEERS etched on the side. The courtyard was empty.
She leaned back into the hallway, called out once more. No answer. No sound at all. Rain began to drip on her shoulders again and that was the clincher. Bugger it, she thought, as she stepped over the threshold and cautiously pushed open the door to the sitting room.
Campbell Drummond was sitting at a table of dark polished wood. He was wearing the black suit he’d worn at the funeral. Or maybe it was another one, considering the drenching he’d had. He was sitting in a chair, his body half turned away from the table, as if he’d recently slumped there, his right arm resting on the top, his hand holding a framed photograph of his wife. It was the same image that had been used on the funeral’s order of service. She was young in the shot. Alive. A woman frozen in time. Rebecca wondered if that was the way Campbell Drummond always saw her. Not in the next room but there, beside him. He must have heard Rebecca enter but he didn’t acknowledge her presence. He was lost somewhere in the space between that chair and the portrait in his hand.
‘Mr Drummond?’
His head lifted slowly in her direction. He wasn’t startled, he wasn’t shocked, but he seemed to drift back to reality as he focused on her.
‘My name is Rebecca Connolly, Mr Drummond.’ She paused to see if anything registered but his face remained blank. If he knew who she was, he was hiding it well. ‘I’m a reporter with the Highland Chronicle. I’m doing a story on your son.’
His eyes didn’t move from her face. His expression could’ve been carved from stone.
‘I’d like to talk to you about the night Mhairi Sinclair died,’ said Rebecca. ‘You were seen, Mr Drummond, outside the cottage she shared with your son.’
The stone crumbled then, just slightly, but Rebecca guessed that was quite a show of emotion for this man. He gave her a little nod, as if he’d been expecting her. She thought of Hector Sinclair and the look on his face as he took each angry step towards Portnaseil. He’d been here. He’d thundered out of this little house and was now heading where? Home? Or somewhere else?
‘I knew this would happen,’ he said eventually, his voice sad and weak. ‘As soon as I heard Roddie was coming back, that he was coming home, I knew it would come to this. I knew that somehow it would all come out.’ He looked back at her again. ‘I take it the police will be here soon?’
She shook her head, moved closer. ‘No police.’ Then she surprised herself. ‘This is an island thing.’
He simply nodded. That was something he understood. Then he remembered something. ‘Connolly, Connolly. You’re her, aren’t you? The daughter of the Connolly who left?’
‘John Connolly. His name was John.’
It made sense to him. ‘Then you understand the island and its ways.’
‘No,’ she said truthfully. ‘Frankly, I don’t. To be honest, all I want to do is get off this place and back to where things make sense. Or some semblance of sense. I don’t understand this need for secrets to be kept, even when people have died. When babies have died. My father kept the secret of his family, took it to his grave, and I don’t understand that.’
‘Blood secrets,’ he said softly. ‘They are the most important to keep.’
That’s bollocks, she thought. But she didn’t say it. She didn’t want to risk antagonising him in any way. She’d come here for answers. She knew why her father had left the island. Now she wanted the rest. ‘Mr Drummond, did you kill Mhairi?’
He looked back at her, shock carved on his face. ‘Kill her? No! No, I would never do that. She was a beautiful lass, a beautiful lass. She was family, near as.’
‘But you know who did?’
The shock was gone, replaced with sadness again, as if he didn’t wish to know what he knew. He said nothing for a time. Rebecca balanced on the arm of the chair closest to him and waited. He stared at the photograph and reached out to tenderly touch the glass.
‘I should’ve said something back then, but I couldn’t, it would’ve killed Mary. Maybe it did, somehow, in the end. Not knowing. Wondering if her boy was a murderer.’ His fingers rested on his wife’s face, then slid away and he looked over to Rebecca. ‘That damned coat. I’d forgotten I had it. Forgotten I’d even pulled it on that night. I’ve worn it maybe twice since . . .’
44
Campbell Drummond
Fifteen years earlier
It was my wife Mary who sensed there was something troubling Mhairi. It was nothing the lass said, nothing she did, just a feeling there was a storm raging inside her. Mary knew people. Over the centuries there were those born on the island with the sight, an dàrna sealladh, who could see events that had not yet occurred. There were those who were in tune with nature—Donnie Kerr was one. Then there were those like Mary who could sense thoughts and feelings sometimes before the person even knew they had them. The fey, they call them on Stoirm. Mary knew something was troubling that lass.
Mary loved Mhairi. We both did.
We’d been distraught when she fell pregnant to Donnie, not in a moralistic way but because we knew Donnie was not the one for her. It had always been Roddie in our eyes.
When we saw them together, even as little ones, we knew they were a fit, just as Mary and I were. I was a quiet man—I ca
n be brusque, I suppose you’d call it, but Mary was vocal and open and likeable. But we fitted and we knew similar good fits when we saw them. Roddie lit up whenever Mhairi was near and they were so relaxed in each other’s company. She wasn’t like that with Donnie or Henry. Only with Roddie.
Mhairi had come looking for Roddie that night. She hadn’t seen him most of the day, she said, and she’d been told he was with Henry, but she didn’t know where. I had seen Carl Marsh in the bar earlier. I’d never liked the man, even though he and Hector had often gone out shooting with me, but I told Mhairi that if Roddie was with Henry, Carl was the man to know where. She thanked me and headed back to Portnaseil in her little Metro.
‘It’s a wonder that wee car isn’t lifted off the road in this weather,’ Mary said to me as we watched her back out of the courtyard.
I remember looking to the sky, listening to the wind. It wasn’t that bad. I’d certainly known worse and tried to reassure Mary. But as she closed the door I knew she was worried.
For the next few hours she barely said a word and that wasn’t like her. Finally, I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she felt something was troubling the lass. I tried to dismiss her fears, but if I am honest even I had seen something in her eyes. A dark shadow had been cast over them and lingered.
The present day
Molly Sinclair had tried to stop her husband from leaving the house again, but he wouldn’t listen. He hadn’t said anything when he’d returned from seeing Campbell Drummond, but his silence spoke volumes. She hadn’t seen him so angry. No, she had. When Roddie Drummond was acquitted. He’d sat around the house for days, saying little, the anger burning inside him. There had been a chasm between him and Mhairi, but she was still his daughter and he was grieving. He had calmed down after a time, but the fires still kindled somewhere, deep down. Now they raged again.
‘What did Campbell say, Hector?’
He didn’t answer. She’d heard him come up the stairs and she stood in the hallway, watching him open the door to the small room. She knew what was in there and she took a few faltering steps. When he came back out again she saw what he was holding and she felt something grab at her throat. She could guess what her husband had been told. She wanted to reach out, to turn him to face her, but she feared his anger would make him forget himself.
‘Don’t do this, Hector,’ she pleaded.
Still not a word spoken. He didn’t need to say anything.
‘It won’t bring Mhairi back.’
He paused and slumped against the door frame, as if he was suddenly very tired. She reached out and laid her hand gently on his shoulder. ‘This isn’t the way, Hector. Tell the police. Let them deal with it.’
He jerked his shoulder from under her hand. ‘Like they did last time? Great job they did.’ He straightened and moved down the stairs.
She reached out to grab him but he was already gone. ‘Hector! Please!’
The front door slammed.
Molly leaned against the wall of the stairway and let the tears come.
Campbell Drummond
Fifteen years earlier
Well, once Mary started talking there was no stopping her that night. She badgered me to find Roddie and Mhairi and ensure everything was all right. I tried to make little of it all, but there was no convincing her. I had known, as soon as my wife started, that I would be heading out into the weather sooner or later. Why I tried to convince myself otherwise, I don’t know.
I dug out my Australian Bushman’s coat. I didn’t wear it much even then, not with the red paint all over the shoulder.
I’d lain the coat over a chair, a pot of paint open on a shelf above it, and the inevitable happened. No amount of scrubbing got it all out; white spirit merely left a milky stain which in some ways was worse than the red, so I tended to wear the coat only at night, or when I was working the croft. The wide-brimmed hat I pulled on was waterproof and the leather cord tucked under my chin would keep it in place. I’d always hated a hood; funny how these details seem so clear looking back. I haven’t thought of that for years. Hoods muffle the world around me. I didn’t hear the voices like Mary did but I did like to hear the sounds of the island, even the wind and the rain.
Roddie had taken the van that night so I was facing a walk down the Spine to their cottage. I didn’t mind, really. I was an islander and the elements were part of me.
The present day
Hector Sinclair was an islander and the elements were part of him. The buffeting winds trying to catch the solid shell of his grocer’s van held no fears for him. He’d driven through worse and for less reason. He ignored the mechanical protests of the suspension as he bounced off the Spine and onto the muddy, rutted trail. He glanced at the passenger seat, at what was resting on it.
He was an islander. They had tried things the mainland way before. But now it was time for the island way.
He looked ahead and made a sharp adjustment to the steering as the van slumped into a trench and muddy water splashed across his windshield. The little van wasn’t built for this kind of terrain, but he didn’t care. The engine whined as he pressed his foot down to force the wheel out and back onto the track.
The track that twisted off into the grey air ahead.
The track that ended at Thunder Bay.
Campbell Drummond
Fifteen years earlier
I’d always prided myself on keeping fit. I ate well. Working on the croft gave me plenty of exercise. I didn’t smoke or drink to excess. So the walk to the cottage beyond Portnaseil didn’t take me long, even with the wind whirling and jostling around me as if it was trying to hold me back. I wasn’t fey but even I began to feel something force its way into my subconscious. I tried to ignore it but the feeling grew stronger with each step, as if there was a dark malevolent being gathering strength in the darkness ahead.
As I was getting closer I thought I saw someone scamper off the road near the cottage, just a glimpse of movement, but by the time I reached the spot I could see nothing. I looked towards the cottage and should’ve been relieved to see Mhairi’s little Metro pulled in at the gate, but I wasn’t. As I moved closer I saw its sides were splashed with mud, though of course that meant nothing really, not on a night like that one. The Spine was often covered by a film of muck, often silage, dribbled by the farm containers dragged regularly along it.
Further down the road I saw a fancy four-wheel drive pulled off to the side. I knew most of the vehicles on this part of the island but I wasn’t familiar with this one. I could see muddy splashes on its doors too. While I was puzzling over this, voices reached me from inside. Even as I stood on the road. I eased the gate open and climbed the path that rose towards the front door. The voices were louder. Mhairi’s voice and my son’s. They were angry voices.
I heard her scream, ‘How could you do it?’
Then Roddie, his voice lower, trying to calm her down.
I didn’t know what Roddie had done and I thought about knocking, but then I decided against it. Roddie was my son but Mhairi, to all intents and purposes, was Roddie’s wife. It was not my place to interfere in their business. If there is one law of nature it is that couples fight. Mary and I had butted heads many times over the years and we were still together, still a fit. Roddie and Mhairi were a fit. The main thing was everyone was safe. Mary’s feeling had been wide of the mark this time.
I moved away from the door and carefully swung the gate closed behind me. Let them fight. Let them yell the heat out of whatever had happened. In the morning, they would be calmer and they would talk it over, whatever it was. I would tell Mary that they were both back home, safe and sound, but not mention they were arguing. She would worry. She would interfere. That was her way.
As I walked back towards Portnaseil, I wondered again whose four-wheel drive it was. It was a mystery. But there was nothing I could do about it on a dark and windy night. I told myself I’d find out in the morning.
The present day
; Rebecca stared at Campbell Drummond, her mind reeling. Even though she had half-expected to hear it, she was stunned by what he had been hiding all these years. Roddie had lied. He had been with Mhairi before she died. They had been fighting.
Despite her attempts to remain impartial, a part of her had wanted Roddie to be innocent, had wanted him to be the victim of a ruthless police officer’s lies. That desire had begun to wane when Donnie told her about Thunder Bay; now it seemed to evaporate completely.
Roddie had killed Mhairi. Roddie hadn’t found Mhairi already injured.
‘Why didn’t you tell the police this?’
He was looking at his wife’s photograph again. ‘I couldn’t do that to Mary. Tell her that her son was a murderer?’ His head shook slowly. ‘No, I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t.’
Secrets.
Family.
Blood.
It was an island thing.
As her mind processed the new information, another thought struck her. ‘Mr Drummond, did you tell Hector Sinclair this?’
Campbell nodded. ‘It was time he knew. Time for all this to end. None of it can hurt Mary now.’
Rebecca recalled the man’s face as he’d stomped past her. That was not the face of a man who was going to let this lie.
‘Where’s Roddie, Mr Drummond?’
‘He took the van. He’s gone to say goodbye to Mhairi one last time. He said he was leaving on the first ferry and he wouldn’t be back.’
‘He’s going to her graveside?’ Rebecca asked.
Campbell shook his head solemnly. ‘No, he’ll go to the bay. The grave is where her mortal remains lie. The bay is where her soul still waits.’
Stories. Secrets. Tradition.
Life.
Death.
Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘It’s an island thing, right?’
But it wasn’t, not really. Everything she had learned that day was an island thing. Donnie had kept the secret of what had happened at Thunder Bay that night to protect his father, even after his death. Campbell had kept the secret of what he knew that night to protect his wife from the truth. And, even if he didn’t admit it, to protect his son. But now they had both broken that pact with the island. They were talking about it. They were giving the past life. Her father had been more of an islander than he knew. He had kept the secret of the clachan.
Thunder Bay Page 28
