Blood Tide (Paula Maguire 5)

by Claire McGowan

  Meaning Fiona was dead too. Meaning there was no hope. Was she sure of that, or was she speculating? ‘Ellen seemed upset,’ Paula tried.

  ‘I’m afraid Ellen will be leaving our employment shortly. Not everyone can take the pace over here. It’s understandable.’

  ‘And Dara? Where’s he?’

  ‘Performing some tasks for me.’ Her face was smooth, unreadable. ‘Dr Maguire, I’ve told you everything I know. I understand this must be difficult for you, being marooned over here, but the best thing to do now is batten down the hatches for the night and wait it out. By morning things may be clearer.’

  ‘The pub we were staying in burned down,’ Guy said.

  Her brow contracted. Was that genuine surprise? It looked like it. ‘A fire? My God, poor Seamas. The storm, I imagine?’

  Convenient storm, destroying Matt Andrews’s body. ‘We don’t know.’ Guy was adopting the same neutral tone as Paula, and she realised how much she missed this, interviewing with him, no need to even speak or compare notes. They’d always worked so well together. Professionally, if not personally. ‘Either way, it’s left us somewhat stranded.’

  ‘You’re very welcome to stay with me. I have plenty of room, though no power right now, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Guy, again giving nothing away. ‘There’s a shelter being set up in the community centre – though we didn’t feel particularly welcome there.’

  Paula leaned forward. ‘Have you ever noticed hostility from the islanders? To you or your workers?’

  Rainbow squared off a piece of paper on her desk. ‘I’ve always felt the islanders were very grateful for the work we provide. There’s precious little else to do out here. Most of the young people leave and never return. The island is dying – or it would be, if we hadn’t come here. I fought hard for it, you know. We looked at several other locations. But it had to be here. Bone Island is . . . a special place.’

  ‘A thin place,’ said Paula, remembering their earlier conversation.

  ‘If you believe in that. Are you telling me the islanders don’t want us here?’

  Guy hesitated. ‘There were some comments. Outsiders, coming over and interfering. That kind of thing. We were wondering if Matt and Fiona had encountered the same.’ Meaning, did the islanders have them killed. For revenge, for fear. Who knew?

  ‘Not that I know of. They were very happy here.’ She seemed to be thinking it over. ‘Will you excuse me just a minute? I think we could all do with some hot drinks.’

  As soon as the woman left the room, Paula widened her eyes at Guy. ‘What do you make to that?’

  ‘She’s lying. They know something’s up all right. Seems to me they’re desperately trying to cover their backs, discredit Matt as much as possible.’

  ‘Reckon they took the samples, then?’

  ‘It seems likely.’

  She shifted forward, whispering. ‘When she comes back, let’s make our excuses and go.’

  ‘Go where?’ He looked doubtfully at the window, rattling in the rain. ‘Everyone on the island seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid.’ Same phrase Mary O’Neill had used. That gave Paula an idea.

  ‘We have to find someone we can trust. Someone from outside, properly outside, who sees what’s been going on.’

  ‘Anyone in mind?’

  She nodded. ‘We need to get out of here first. Come on.’ But when she pushed on the door, it didn’t move. She tried the handle – nothing. ‘Fuck! She’s locked us in.’

  ‘Really?’ Guy shoved at it with his strong shoulder. ‘Bugger.’

  Paula turned to the window, which took up most of the wall. ‘We’ll have to get out through that.’

  ‘Can you climb?’

  ‘If we knock the pane out.’

  Guy moved quickly to the window, pulling over the heavy chair to reach it. ‘I need something to smash it.’ He pushed at the glass. ‘It’s only putty, it’ll come out.’

  Paula cast her eyes about, her gaze falling on a trophy. It was heavy, cast in bronze in the shape of curved hands. The plaque read: For excellence in business. She passed it to him, staggering under the weight, and he drew back his arm, and with one sure thrust of his arm, shattered the glass. Half of it fell away, leaving jagged shards still stuck in the putty. She raised her eyebrows at him. He shrugged. ‘That’s done it. Come on.’

  Someone else had heard the glass breaking. They heard running feet outside. Paula let Guy haul her up, wadding his coat around the shards of broken glass, then she plunged through the gap. The cold night air had never felt so good. ‘Come on!’

  Guy, larger than her, was having trouble squeezing through. His jumper was rucked up about his waist. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take it off.’ She helped him pull it off, all the while throwing uneasy looks behind him at the door, and over her own shoulder. The beach was only metres away, the sea still rough and glinting. Outside, she could hear the running feet get closer. A door slammed. ‘Guy! Come on!’

  Now out of his jumper, he managed to slip through, his feet in their ill-fitting boots landing awkwardly on the gravel. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Ankle. S’fine. Come on.’

  As Guy cleared the window, the door in the room jerked open. Rainbow. ‘Dr Maguire? Inspector Brooking? You should stay in here! It’s for your own safety!’

  Paula looked back at her once – her face an oval in the gloom – and then she turned and ran. Headed for the beach, just metres away, skirting around the low walls of the plant. Rainbow was older, slower. She wouldn’t be able to follow them. They’d be able to get away and go . . . where? Was anywhere safe?

  They reached the end of the wall, and the beach was right in front of them, beyond a wire fence. Electrified? Not if the power was off, she reasoned. The sea glinted, white with foam. Guy had stopped behind her, looking back. ‘What?’

  ‘Do you see that?’

  The concrete walls of the plant were set with small high windows, and at them Paula could just about see something pale. Faces. One, then two and three at every window. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘There’s people in there.’

  The foreign workers. Of course, they couldn’t send them to the mainland. They’d nowhere else to go. So they too were stuck on this island. ‘It’s their workers,’ Paula shouted, over the noise of the sea. ‘They live on-site. They’re locked in, look!’ At the end of the building was a large metal door, like you’d find on a garage, and it was closed with a large padlock. From the outside. It seemed Enviracorp had a habit of shutting people away.

  The people inside had spotted them now, and fists began to go up, banging on the windows. Paula looked at Guy, as pale and wide-eyed as she imagined she was. ‘Should we help them?’

  ‘How? It’s no safer out here, especially with the islanders closing ranks.’

  ‘But they’re trapped!’

  ‘We will be too if we go back in there.’ He looked around him, the wind whipping his hair over his forehead. Thinking hard. ‘OK. Grab a rock from the beach. A pointy one.’

  Stooping in the wind and rain, sea foam stinging her cheeks, she found a large grey stone and hefted it. Guy had one too. They staggered up to the gate, looking round all the time for any sign of Rainbow. ‘Bash it!’ Guy shouted.

  Paula was doubtful, but in the absence of any other plan she did as he said. Bashed it, thudding the rock against the metal clasp of the padlock, both of them over and over until their hands ached with small cuts. Nothing.

  ‘It’s no good!’ Guy shouted. ‘It won’t work!’

  ‘But we have to do something! We can’t just leave them!’

  He set his rock down, and she saw a thin smear of his blood ran along the side. His face was exhausted, pinched with cold. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

  It
hit her. There really was nothing. No one to call, no help coming. No weapons, nowhere to hide. All they could do was run, and leave these people, who were at least safely inside, to their fates. Guy reached for her arm, and she dropped her own stone, which clanged against the concrete ground, and followed him.

  As they ran towards the white level sands, a wail went up behind, one voice joined by another, and then another, until it sounded as if everyone in the building was screaming, howling with their last breath. Paula turned her back on it, and ran. The faces at the windows watched them go.

  Bob

  ‘Well, son.’

  Aidan O’Hara looked askance at the son, as well he might. Bob had no particular fondness for the lad. Reckless, like his da, believing the story was more important than your woman and child at home. The truth. Some idea of justice. Bob didn’t think the lad would remember that he’d been the one who found him that night in 1986, hiding under the desk in that newspaper office that was so horribly quiet, and then not quiet enough, when they heard the sound of a child trying to cry without making a noise. Aidan hadn’t come out from under the desk, where his da had told him to hide, but he was sitting there watching the blood leak out across the floor from John O’Hara’s head. He was seven. Bob would have said he was haunted by that night, but in truth it was just one in so many horrors he’d seen over the years, dead children, dead babies in their mothers’ arms, men torn to bloody chunks. So no, he felt no particular affection for Aidan O’Hara. Thought he didn’t take enough care of Paula or the wean. Spent too much time in scabby pubs. Sure, who wouldn’t want to take a drink when you had all that blood in your head, all that pain, if the booze could make it fade for a time? But when you’d a woman and child at home to protect, you didn’t. That was Bob’s code.

  But all the same he was here at the prison, queuing up for visiting day with the worst dregs of the town. He held himself stiff on the plastic chair, wondering what kind of dirt was smeared into this place. O’Hara looked surprised to see him, then rallied into his usual cocksure expression, despite the yellow bruise on one side of his face.

  ‘Sergeant Hamilton! What brings you here? The excellent coffee? Or the top-notch company?’

  He’d know Bob was retired; he was using the title as a mockery. Bob nodded to the bruise. ‘The Provos?’

  ‘They don’t take it too kindly when you knock off one of their own.’

  ‘Son, you should let her help you.’ Bob lowered his voice right down. ‘There’s evidence . . . they were after him. People have long memories in this town. There was a hit on him before he even stepped out of here.’

  Aidan looked away. ‘She put you up to this?’

  Bob almost laughed. ‘Are you joking me? She’d lose the head with me altogether if she knew I was here.’ He took a deep breath. Had to manage this thing right. ‘Listen to me. What’s the one thing that she needs more than anything?’

  ‘Better boyfriend,’ he said shortly, rubbing his face.

  ‘Son. Come on.’

  He sighed. ‘She wants to find her ma. Or find out what happened to her at least. You know that.’

  ‘Aye.’ He paused. ‘I knew her, you know. Margaret.’ And how wrong it felt to say her name in here. ‘PJ and I were partners back then, for a time.’ Before Bob got the promotion that should have been PJ’s by right. But PJ was the wrong religion, in a time when being a Catholic RUC man was as good as signing your own death warrant. Another man who’d put an ideal ahead of his family.

  ‘Aye, so?’

  ‘So . . . she . . .’ Now that the time had come to say it, the thing he hadn’t told anyone in nearly twenty years, Bob found he couldn’t do it. The words seemed to crawl back into his throat, treacherous. Do you really want to do this? You promised, Bob. Her face, red hair against white skin. ‘I might be able to . . . find something out about it.’ Bob let the phrase hang in the air. Waiting for the lad to get it.

  He got it. A stillness came over his face. ‘If?’

  ‘If you help yourself. At least try to get out. Because, son, she needs that too. She needs you back.’

  ‘I killed a man.’

  ‘You don’t know that. You can’t. I can . . . find things out there too. There’s still people. Lads who owe me favours. I can get names – find out who was after him.’

  Aidan was looking sceptical. ‘Why didn’t you find these “things” out before, Sergeant Hamilton? Paula’s ma’s been gone twenty years.’

  He didn’t answer. Plenty of reasons, but most of all that he’d made a promise. But Paula needed his help now. Needed this lad, useless and broken as he was, out of prison and by her side. And since Bob couldn’t tell her why he had the list of names Sean Conlon had given him – couldn’t explain the twisted bloody path that had led him and Conlon together – this was all he could do.

  ‘So what do you want from me? Why are you here?’

  Bob could hear beneath the bald questions that the lad was tired out, trying to keep his head above water in this place. ‘I just want you to try, son,’ he said, hoping to sound gentle. ‘Accept that maybe it wasn’t you killed Conlon. Just maybe. Can you do that? If I get names?’

  Around them, the other prisoners were starting to get up. Visiting time was over. One of them, a burly man with no hair and tattoos on each hand, bumped into Aidan’s chair, sending it rocking. It seemed like an accident, but for the snide look back over his shoulder. Aidan cleared his throat, his face darkening.

  ‘Are you all right in here, lad?’ Bob asked, though he knew the answer.

  ‘Am I all right? Well, no, Sergeant, I’m not. It’s killing me.’

  ‘So will you try? Will you at least try to get out, if I help you?’

  Aidan stood up, and gave a short nod, and then he was gone with the rest, head bowed and not looking back.

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘The lighthouse,’ Paula shouted. ‘It’s cordoned off – we can get in there and shelter.’

  ‘Which way?’ he shouted back.

  She gestured ahead. ‘North . . . I think. Which way is that?’

  Guy moved forward into the wind, and she followed. It was crazy. The island was only so big, and if you followed the beach surely you’d get back to where you started, but she was finding it so confusing. Was it forward or backwards they needed to go to get there? She tried to remember the island from twenty years back. A changeable sunny day, the breeze calm and clean, coming straight from America, her father had said. Her mother laughing, smiling. No hint that she would be gone in just weeks. But every time Paula tried to recall it, the memories slipped away, tangled and confused.

  Eventually, thankfully, the ground rose under their feet, and there was the lighthouse, white and straight at the top of the cliff path. The door hadn’t been fixed, and it opened easily, unlocked. Paula flicked the light switch, hopeful, but the power was still off. She shone her phone into the kitchen. Immediately, she frowned. ‘This isn’t how we left it.’ The place was a mess – cupboards open, packets and jars left out on the side. The blue mug from earlier was smashed on the kitchen floor. ‘It’s been turned over,’ she called to Guy. ‘I’ll look upstairs.’

  She ran up them quickly and it was the same – cushions off the sofa, drawers open. Above her, the dome of the lighthouse, the spiral stairs vanishing into darkness. She went down again. ‘Nobody there.’

  Guy was looking in cupboards, opening doors. ‘Just stay with me, OK? There must be candles, or a lantern or something. Have a look.’

  She opened a long cupboard in the utility room, holding her phone to investigate the contents, items stacked on the floor and hanging from hooks, fleeces and coats and all the kinds of outdoor gear you needed on an island. Her phone’s battery was dying, its only use as a weak torch. ‘Here’s a camping lantern.’

  ‘Great. Does it work?’

 
‘Think so.’ She flicked the switch and a ghostly light came on. She heard Guy come up behind her, then pause, shining his own torch on something. ‘See something?’

  ‘Maybe. There’s a wetsuit here. Just one. Did they dive?’

  Paula mentally scanned the pictures on Fiona’s Instagram – smiling on mountains. Smiling in boats. ‘I think so, yeah.’

  ‘So where’s her suit, then?’

  They looked around the small space, but there was no sign. ‘Are you having an idea?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He shone his torch on something else. A pile of rope, coiled in the corner like a patterned snake. ‘Do you think . . . if someone could dive, say, and if they could climb . . . Did they climb?’

  ‘Yep.’ She remembered a picture of Fiona dangling from a harness, smiling again. Always smiling.

  ‘So, if you could do both those things . . . do you think you could manage to get down off the top floor here? And off the island?’

  She thought about it. ‘I don’t know. Seems a bit mad, doesn’t it? With the storm and everything.’

  ‘Everything about this is mad. So maybe . . .’ He stopped, frowning. ‘Do you hear that?’

  Outside, the noise of a car on gravel. Lights swept over the kitchen. Without hesitation, Guy stepped backwards into the cupboard that held Matt and Fiona’s outdoor things, pulling Paula in behind him. ‘The lantern. Turn it off,’ he hissed. Her hand fumbled, found the switch. In there, there was just about enough room for them to stand, pressed together. She clamped her mouth shut, smelling damp and rubber and him, the warmth of his breath on her neck. Dimly, she thought to herself that once this was all over – once they’d got off this island – she and Guy really needed to have a long talk.