‘What are you doing?’ I ask. ‘What is all this?’ Then I realise. ‘It’s his stuff! You took it. Why did you do that? It will only provoke him even more.’
Liam looks at me, his expression so furious I take a step back. ‘Are you blaming me?’
I shake my head. ‘No, of course not. I’m just saying … we don’t want to make him angry. He has a gun. And he warned us to stay out.’
The muscle in Liam’s jaw pulses.
‘I’m scared, that’s all,’ I tell him.
He softens, seeing the fear on my face. ‘I know.’ He indicates a map. ‘But look, this map is different to the one we have. And there’s a boathouse that wasn’t on ours,’ Liam says, stabbing his finger down on the map. ‘We must have missed it when we walked inland along the stream the other day.’
‘You think maybe he’s got a boat?’ I ask.
‘How else did he get here?’ Liam says. ‘I keep wondering about it. It makes sense that he has his own boat.’
‘He might have had someone drop him here.’
Liam shakes his head. ‘Unlikely, if he’s trying to stay off the radar. He’s trespassing, remember.’
I nod. He’s right. Though the man seems to think we’re trespassing, given the warning written in blood on the door.
‘If there is a boat,’ Liam goes on, sounding energised, ‘we could steal it and use it to get off the island.’
He looks at me and my eyes widen in terror; we’d have to travel to the other side of the island, past the castle, to get to the boathouse, and the man with the gun is probably out there waiting for us. He may even have followed us back to the cottage. He could be outside right now.
‘We’re sitting ducks here,’ Liam says. ‘We can’t stay until Friday. Whoever he is, he has a gun. And he’s obviously crazy. We’re not safe. We need to get off the island, and we need to go now.’
He walks out into the hallway. ‘We’ll take just one bag; essentials only.’
I follow him. ‘What about all this mess?’ I ask, gesturing at the destroyed living room.
Liam shrugs. Not ten minutes ago he was yelling about it but now he doesn’t seem to care. ‘Fuck it,’ he says. ‘I’m not giving them a penny. They should be paying us compensation. What kind of a bloody holiday is this? They set us up in the middle of nowhere without a phone or any way to get in touch.’
He jogs up the stairs and I follow him, watching as he snatches his backpack from under the bed and starts to toss in a few things. After a second he looks up at me. ‘What are you doing?’ he asks, staring at me as I stand there, dazed and unmoving. ‘Come on, hurry up!’
I snap to and rush into the bathroom, hurrying to gather up my medication, hairbrush and toothbrush and digging through a box of tampons to find my anti-depressants and the pill, which I stuff into the pocket of my jeans. To me, they are essentials. Liam knocks impatiently on the door, reminding me to be quick, and I leave the bathroom and hand my items to him, to throw into his bag. We head back down the stairs at a run, not even pausing to look around the cottage before we rush for the back door. Liam takes the map he stole from the man’s bag, folding it and shoving it into his inside jacket pocket.
Just as Liam opens the door, I remember the bird. Oh god, I can’t just leave it. But we can hardly take it with us either. I hesitate, not knowing what to do, but then Liam steps out, pulling me with him, and it’s too late.
Chapter Nineteen
We move in silence, tramping through the forest. The trees are heavy with rain and creak in the wind, making us jump at every step. Liam’s taking us on a circuitous route so we can avoid going near the castle or its grounds, but it’s rough terrain and slowgoing, especially as we’re trying not to make much noise.
We reach a point in the forest where the trees are thinning and, through gaps, I can spot the flash of water. We pick our way down to a rocky shore, clambering over boulders, and then I see the boathouse up ahead. It’s falling apart, the stone walls clad in moss, which camouflages it so well that from a distance it appears as part of the landscape. The clouds have sunk low, engulfing us in soft drizzle, muffling noise and blurring vision.
As we get closer, we see that the boathouse is built directly over the loch and there’s a stone slipway, pitted with age, that juts into the water like an old, greying tongue. We approach the place cautiously, primed for a surprise – for the man to leap out at us with his gun.
I jolt around, turning left to right and scanning the woods, but I can’t see anyone.
‘Stay behind me,’ Liam whispers as we reach the entrance to the boathouse.
I do, sheltering behind his back. He throws the door open; there’s no one inside. I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Thank god. There is a boat though. It’s a wooden rowing boat that’s been pulled out of the water and is resting on the slip.
Liam rushes towards it and tosses the bag into the bottom of it. ‘Get in,’ he says to me, urgently. ‘I’ll push us out.’
I hesitate.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he reassures me.
But I don’t know. I cast a wary look at the boat and, beyond, to the grey, unending sky melting into the loch. The water is choppy, and I remember the boatman’s warning about the currents and the cold.
‘Come on!’ Liam urges.
I glance in the other direction, through the door of the boathouse, to the island. What choice do I have? ‘OK,’ I say and move towards the vessel.
I climb in and Liam shoves us off into the water. I grip the flimsy sides as Liam jumps in. We rock dangerously and water splashes over the edge, soaking my lap and feet. Liam almost overbalances as he takes his seat, but the boat rights itself and he grabs the oars and pushes us further out into the water.
The wind is high, something we hadn’t factored because the boathouse sits on an inlet and is sheltered, but as soon as we’re out in the open we’re caught in it and the waves get even bigger, slapping hard against the sides. I glance back at the island, now ten metres away, then very quickly twenty metres away. Liam splashes around with the oars, trying to hook them through the oarlocks, but when he finally manages and tries to paddle with them, he can’t seem to steer us in the direction he wants to. Instead, we’re being dragged along by the tide that the boatman warned us about, slamming into forceful swells that slosh water over the prow of the boat and leave our feet submerged. We’re floating through the underworld, it feels, heading away from the mainland and towards the sea.
I shiver as the drizzle turns to heavier rain, coating my face and eyelashes. I can barely see through the cloud and the freezing cold of the water has numbed my hands, which are still clutching the boat tightly. Looking down at the water I think about the unfathomable depths below us and try to overcome my burgeoning panic.
‘We should go back!’ I shout to Liam, but he shakes his head, fighting to steer a course. He looks over his shoulder to check our progress and just then the boat hits a large wave. It’s as if we’ve been slammed headfirst into a rock. I tumble into the icy loch with a cry of alarm.
Chapter Twenty
The water is so shockingly cold it feels as if I’m being flayed alive. It strips the flesh, rakes at the bone, grips my heart and squeezes it tight. I sink beneath the surface and for seconds I’m too paralysed by shock to fight the terrible downward pull, but finally my survival instinct kicks in and my legs start to move. I kick, breaking the surface and gasping for breath, yet unable to squeeze air into my frozen lungs. The water is cement, encasing my legs and body and tugging me down. I disappear once more, swallowing water, unable to kick my legs or move my arms in order to keep myself afloat. Oh god. I register that I’m drowning.
My mum pops into my head. Since she passed away, I’ve only ever been able to picture her dead. That one image overrides all the other memories I have of her. But now, as I find myself sinking into the deep, I see her as she was when she was alive. She’s calling my name, urging me to swim, telling me that I need to fight. And I don’t want to dis
appoint her, so I do. I grit my teeth against the cold and ignore the terrible drag of those hungry hands pulling me down. Resisting the lure of just giving up and letting myself sink, I kick with every ounce of strength I have, struggling my way towards the sky.
I break through the water again and this time I’m yanked upwards. Liam has me by the collar of my shirt. He’s leaning over the edge of the boat, which is in danger of tipping and throwing him out as well, and he’s trying to pull me back in. I cough and splutter, still kicking intensely.
Liam’s grip on me tightens. I can hear him yelling my name and the desperation in his voice. Then there’s a splash and his grip on me is gone. The boat has flipped, tossing Liam out. He surfaces, gasping, beside me. I dip beneath the waves again, but the fight has been ignited in me now, and I emerge a moment later, thrashing my arms to stay afloat.
Liam is screaming my name as he treads water a few feet away. He grabs for me when I come up beside him.
‘Swim,’ he splutters.
I can see the boat, floating upside down, drifting away from us, and I realise that we too are drifting further from the island. The choice is either to swim or drown.
I smash my arms into the waves, clumsily. I feel so heavy but force myself to keep going, though I don’t seem to be making any progress and I’m growing drowsier with each passing second.
I keep my eyes on the island and even though I’m so exhausted that sinking under the waves starts to feel like a good choice, I force myself to keep going. I don’t focus on how far away land is, just on keeping my legs kicking.
Just when I think I can’t possibly go any further, and I’m ready to start accepting my fate, my feet scrape the bottom. I can stand. Triumphant, I paddle a little further, before stumbling forward, wading on shaking legs towards the shore, and then all at once Liam is there, catching my arm, dragging me up out of the water and up onto a beach.
We collapse face down beside each other, coughing and shivering violently. My face is pressed into the sand. We must be on the beach on the north-east side of the island, having been dragged along by the tide. I try to lift my head to see but I can’t – I’m too weak to move. My lips have started chattering again, so hard my teeth feel like they might shatter. My muscles, too, are juddering as if a current of electricity is being shocked through me.
Liam staggers to his knees and then to his feet, hunched over, trembling. He grips my arm. ‘Get up,’ he orders, stammering through frozen lips.
I can’t.
‘Get up!’ he grunts again.
I try to open my eyes. His face swims in and out of focus. I can see though that his lips are blue, his skin white. He keeps pulling and I protest at first, but I manage to get to my hands and knees and then force myself to stand, my clothes waterlogged and clinging to my body. Liam takes my arm and we stagger up the beach.
My feet squelch in my shoes and all I want to do is collapse to the ground, curl into a ball, and sleep. I don’t know how I’m going to make it back to the cottage – it’s so far – but we do, heaving ourselves through the forest, Liam leading the way, hauling me along when I trip.
Finally, the cottage appears in the distance and we stagger across the clearing towards it, neither of us bothering to look out for the man with the gun. All I can think about is getting inside and standing under a hot shower, but as Liam digs for the key in his pocket, his frozen fingers making him fumble and drop it, I remember that there’s no electricity, no heating and no hot water. I want to cry.
Liam finally gets the door open and we fall inside. He makes straight for the front room and starts throwing the damp wood he brought in last night into the belly of the wood-burning stove. I collapse down on the floor beside him, tugging the blanket off the back of the chair and trying to wrap it around myself, though my hands are clumsy frozen claws.
Liam’s own hands are shaking so hard that the matches keep snapping when he strikes them. He curses under his breath, but keeps going and finally, on the fifth try, he manages to light one. He holds it to a white firelighter block, and it catches with a startling whoosh. I stare at the flame like it’s a magical element and I have to resist the urge to reach for it and bring it near to me, to cradle it in my frozen hands. Liam shoves it into the stove. The damp wood he’s piled inside though merely fizzles and hisses, letting off steam but not igniting. I stare helplessly at the firelighter’s flickering flame as it starts to burn itself out.
‘Damn,’ Liam says, rubbing his hands together to spark feeling back into them. The tips of his fingers are blue. I look down at my own hands: they’re wrinkled and white, my fingertips and nails tinged the same blue as Liam’s.
Once again Liam drags himself to his feet and disappears into the kitchen. I don’t have the energy to follow. I can only lie staring at the wood stove as the weak flame extinguishes. My eyes start to flutter closed. I hear the muffled sound of the back door banging shut and wonder briefly where Liam has gone, but my thoughts are disjointed and fuzzy. I’m starting to drift off.
A loud bang startles me and my eyes fly open. It sounds like an axe smashing into wood. What’s happening? There’s another crack, then another, and then a moment later Liam comes through into the living room carrying splintered pieces of varnished wood. It takes me a moment to figure out that he must have smashed up one of the kitchen chairs for fuel.
He kneels in front of the stove and shoves the pieces in, lights another firelighter and shuts the door on it as the wood catches and roars to life.
I crawl an inch closer to the flames, so that my hand is almost touching the cast iron, letting my face bathe in the light and the extraordinary heat. Drowsiness drops over me like a blackout curtain, but there’s a frantic tugging at my jeans keeping me from succumbing to the blissful lure of sleep. I grumble something unintelligible, not understanding what’s happening, but the tugging doesn’t let up.
‘Get them off,’ I make out Liam saying. ‘You need to get out of your clothes. They’re wet.’
Feebly, I try to bat him away and pull my legs in tight against my body, trying to curl into a ball, but he’s persistent and I’m too weak to protest, so I let him wrench off my shoes and remove my socks. He hauls me into a sitting position and pulls my sweaters off. They come away as if he’s peeling off a layer of skin. The cold air stings my bare body and I shake violently, but Liam drapes the blanket around my shoulders.
I curl up on the rug once more and feel Liam wrap his naked body around mine. He pulls the blanket over both of us and though something is nagging at me, I can’t chase the thought, because within seconds I’m falling into the deepest, darkest sleep I’ve ever known.
Chapter Twenty-One
A bang wakes me. My eyes fly open. It takes me a moment to realise where I am – on the floor in the living room. The fire has died out. It’s chilly and the light is muted and purplish. What time is it? How long have we been asleep?
Liam is still out cold. His arm is heavy around my waist and he’s breathing deeply. There’s another bang, followed by a creak. My heart leaps as though I’ve been shocked with an electric paddle. I stop breathing, my eyes flying to the kitchen door. Is someone inside the cottage?
But then there’s another thud and a blast of cold air and I realise the noise is just the back door, banging in the wind. I force my legs, which are stiff as planks and aching, to move and I roll like an elderly patient out from under Liam’s arm and onto my knees. I’m naked and when I stand up, throwing off the blanket, goose bumps cover my skin. I scamper, clutching my arms around myself, to the wooden chest beneath the window and pull out a woollen blanket that I saw in there the other day. Wrapping it around myself I shuffle towards the kitchen.
I find the back door open and flapping in a gusty wind. Did we leave it like that? In our exhaustion, did we forget to close it? I remember now: that’s the thought that I was trying to chase before I fell asleep. We should have barricaded the doors before we did anything. Liam must have forgotten after he went out t
o get the axe. We’re lucky the man didn’t come looking for us.
I shut the door now, pushing a chair beneath the handle, but not before briefly gazing on the forest. The rain has lifted and though there are still clouds, the sun, which is low, is breaking through and painting them purple. It must be seven or eight in the evening, I’m guessing, by the light and the position of the sun, which would mean we’ve been asleep for hours. I want to check the time but then I remember that my phone was in the pocket of my jeans when I fell in the loch, and, if it’s even still in my pocket, then it won’t be working. And the electricity is out so the clock on the stove isn’t working either.
I stagger to the sink and gulp down two glasses of water. I’m dehydrated, my head throbbing, and I stare out the window, lost in thought for several minutes. The boatman isn’t picking us up until Friday. Two more days until help arrives. I think about the man in the castle, my mind conjuring the image of him standing on the landing, gun to his shoulder. Who is he? What could he want? Worse, how will he react once he discovers his boat is missing?
I turn to head back into the front room and notice that the pile of paper and the map that Liam stole from the man’s belongings are still on the kitchen table. I glance at the article again and then I realise that there’s another folded square of newspaper lying beneath it. I pick it up and unfold it.
ANDREW MCKAY FOUND
Quickly, I scan the article, hands shaking. It’s dated December 9th, two weeks after Nancy and Elliot died.
The body of Andrew McKay was found washed ashore yesterday, two weeks after he disappeared following the murders of his wife and son. The coroner’s initial report indicates that McKay drowned. Speculation persists around the murders and Andrew McKay is the only suspect. Police believe he killed his wife, Nancy, and son, Elliot before taking his own life. The brutal murders shocked the close-knit community around Shura.
The Stalker Page 12
