The Girl on Shattered Rock: A gripping suspense thriller

by Matt Hilton

  Leah read the initials out loud.

  ‘Who are you?’ she pondered. ‘What’s your story?’

  The scream came again, louder and more pained than before.

  Leah snapped around, checking for the source of the agonized cry. Shadows swallowed the distant trees trunks, and the canopy blocked any view of the darkening sky. Yet in the lesser dimness of about thirty yards away she was positive a shadow moved, darting behind a tree bole. Her heart rate jumped, and she could hear thrumming in her head. Everything else was silent. She stared, waiting, but the gloom didn’t stir again. Leah’s muscles cramped, begging for movement. Why did her bloody imagination have to go wild on her now? Whoever M.J.K. was, their story would have to wait. Leah pushed the bracelet inside her pocket and struck out for the cabin, positive that hungry eyes followed her all the way.

  6

  Her debut novel Sorting Jennifer had proved an unprecedented success for Leah, who’d fully expected that her book would only be one of dozens to appear briefly on the bookshelves that summer, to fade into obscurity while other books by established authors and celebrities reclaimed the top spots and therefore the shelf space in the chain stores and supermarkets. But it seemed her tale of unrequited love, and finally the finding of true love in the most unexpected place, struck a chord with thousands of readers, and it had sat near the top of the national bestseller lists for eight weeks during June and July. On the back of the book’s triumph, Leah – under the guise of Diana Leigh – had regularly featured on TV and radio shows, at book signing events and library talks. Though she was a natural during interviews, funny, intelligent and attractive, and an inspiration to many, she was secretly horrified by the attention, and not only because it added to the thickening wedge between her and Pete. She, as were many authors she’d met, was generally shy and introverted, and was happiest when alone with her own thoughts, caught up in the fictional worlds of her imagination. Performing an all-singing all-dancing routine for a crowd of adoring fans was the last thing she was mentally equipped for. But, it was all part of the job of a modern author, so she had set her face in a smile, nodded and laughed at all the right times and places, shook hands, made small talk, chinked glasses of bubbly at parties and soirées organised by her publishing house. ‘It’s all about networking,’ she’d been advised by her agent, Ally Bronstein, ‘and totally necessary’. Without exposure, Ally cautioned, and with it the accompanying publicity, next year Diana Leigh would be just another one hit wonder, forgotten, supplanted by the next author to come along who had more charisma and skill at engaging the masses. An author was only as successful as her previous success, get this wrong, she was warned, and it won’t matter what you come up with next time, you’ll be dropped like a bad smell by both publishers and readers alike.

  Hell, that was just the kind of inspirational talk Leah didn’t need!

  She was on a ninety-day clock. At the end of it she had to deliver a manuscript of between eighty and ninety thousand words to her editor. Ordinarily it was an achievable task, because it amounted to writing approximately five pages a day, which wasn’t exactly an insurmountable barrier. But those words must be “engaging” and “page turning”: any old words wouldn’t do. Often at book events the floor was given over to questions from her adoring public, and one that always cropped up was “where do you get your ideas from?” She usually answered glibly, making a joke of subscribing to ideasforunimaginativeauthors dot com, before admitting that she really had no idea where the seeds of her plots germinated, other than perhaps in her subconscious. When asked for advice on writing she offered sage words such as read a lot, write a lot, get your bum on the seat and just get it done. It was such a pity she was finding it difficult following her own mantra.

  The open document on her laptop was still blank, but for the tiny blinking cursor. It ticked in time with the clock counting down to her deadline, second by second. Leah looked away from the cursor, and at the bracelet she’d found where she’d looped it over the right corner of her computer screen. As a visual prompt she thought it might again stir the same questions as when she’d found it, but as a muse its powers had momentarily waned. Primarily because any interest in the bracelet had been suppressed by the illogical fear of being stalked by a dangerous creature while she’d stumbled her way back to the cabin.

  She recalled her rushed progress through the woods, where she’d crashed a path at times through the lower branches that blocked her route, her head swivelling wildly as she sought movement. Seeing shapes where there were none, spotting figures where it was simply a boulder or stump rearing from the earth. When she’d thumped up onto the stoop, she’d almost fell against the cabin door, while scrabbling for the key. It took a few attempts before she got the door unlocked, and by then she was certain something was about to launch itself with sharp teeth or talons on her back.

  She’d slammed and locked the door behind her, and then stood at the centre of the living space peering out of the French windows, fully expecting to spot a slinking thing retreating across the glade into the dark woods. She had of course seen nothing, and her failure had left her feeling foolish. But as yet she hadn’t been prepared to test the outside world again and had sat for the best part of two hours at her laptop as night descended, and frankly got nowhere.

  ‘Enough,’ she sighed, but was unsure if she meant trying to coax words on to the screen, or if she aimed the command at her illogical fear.

  She got up, thought about preparing dinner, but decided she wasn’t ready to eat yet. She made do with fetching a bottle of beer from the fridge. Since the fridge had come on hours ago when she’d first fired up the generator, the beer was nicely chilled. She forwent a glass, taking the bottle with her while she opened the French doors and stepped out onto the narrow balcony. She stood a moment peering out at the darkened landscape, then, confronting her fear of the unknown, she allowed herself to relax and to raise her gaze to the heavens. The thicker clouds had moved in from the southwest, but they were ragged and broken overhead and the stars were brilliant pinpricks against a deep purple void. She couldn’t believe how bright the stars were. Living down in London she rarely saw a star because of the light pollution, or possibly because while in the big city she rarely bothered looking up, except for when a police helicopter chattered overhead.

  She sat on the chair, feeling the chill of the metal through her trousers, and took a swig of beer. She put down the bottle on the table, then just sat. She stayed that way a few minutes, allowing the silence to invade her, and to do its work in calming her. She actually found she was enjoying the moment, and took another celebratory drink. ‘To Shattered Rock,’ she toasted, tipping the bottle towards the darkness. ‘And maybe the rebuilding of shattered nerves.’

  She chuckled at her own joke.

  Then she sat taking in the quietude some more.

  A flash in her peripheral vision caused her to bolt upright, head snapping on its source. Yet there wasn’t even an afterglow, and she had no clue what had startled her. If she didn’t know otherwise she would have sworn someone had taken a snap of her, the camera flash splitting the darkness for a fraction of a second, but she knew that couldn’t be so. Or someone had turned on a torch very briefly, before immediately turning it off again. But there was nobody else on the island; at least that was what she believed. McBride’s website had promised exclusivity. On the way here he’d also reiterated that she would have the entire island to herself. She watched though, waiting again to catch sight of an incriminating light, but it didn’t return. She convinced herself that either her eyes were playing tricks, or somehow she’d caught a bright flare of light from the mainland, that had pierced the forest from afar and caused the momentary illusion. It would have to be a very bright light on the mainland, she thought, but then the landing lights of an aircraft at Campbeltown might just have been enough. The airport was only a few miles away as the crow flew, so aircraft lights were a likely contender.

  She wasn’t fully sati
sfied with her theory, but what else could the flash have been? Her back and shoulders were rigid. ‘Bloody hell,’ she cajoled herself. ‘You’ve already jumped at shadows, Leah. Now lights? You’d better get a grip or you’re going to completely lose it, girl.’

  She took another longer pull at the beer bottle.

  A scream brought her bolting to her feet, the table legs screeching on the decking as it was pushed away from her. If she hadn’t been holding the bottle it would have fallen over. She stood, bent at the waist, craning for the source but it wasn’t repeated.

  A breeze stirred the nearest treetops, making a sound like surf on a sandy beach.

  The scream had to have come from an animal — it just had to — she told herself. An owl, fox, or something else: maybe one of the seals that inhabited the reef for all she knew. Even in London she’d heard cats and urban foxes screeching in the night, and sometimes their screams sounded so human-like it had been disturbing. But the scream she’d just heard sounded exactly human, like they were howling in pain.

  ‘Is somebody there?’ she said into the darkness, though by the timid way she spoke her words wouldn’t carry far. ‘Hello?’ she called louder. ‘Is there somebody out there?’

  There was no answer, even the rush of wind through the treetops stopped. The sudden silence was more perturbing than if someone had answered her. It felt as if the air had grown heavy, it was bearing down on her like a hood.

  ‘Hello?’ she called again, just to hear something, anything.

  Nothing.

  ‘Bugger this,’ she decided. She might have an irrational fear of the sea, but never before had she been so afraid of the dark. She went inside and pulled the French doors shut. But she wasn’t retreating behind locked doors. She put her beer on the kitchen counter and grabbed a torch she’d earlier spotted in a drawer. She checked it worked, and the beam was bright and solid.

  Outside, she walked away from the light spilling from the cabin windows, into the centre of the small glade. The grass looked frosty under the stark beam of her torch, decorated by a filigree of cobwebs and the small insects caught in their sticky latticework. She swept the beam towards the trees from where the scream originated.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she demanded, attempting to sound officious. ‘I know you’re there. Come out so I can see you.’

  The last thing she wanted was for some stranger to come stumbling out of the woods, especially one who was injured, because she was wholly unprepared to contend with anybody else’s problems.

  She moved the cone of light slowly from side to side.

  The light barely pierced the woodland. She could see the nearest trunks, but more than a few feet into the undergrowth and everything was simply unfathomable even with the aid of the torch. There was nothing that hinted that an injured person lurked just beyond the light, but then again a thousand people could have been crouching in the underbrush and she’d be none the wiser.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she tried again. ‘I heard you: I know there’s somebody there. If you need help…’

  A crackle of snapping twigs came from the other side of the glade. Leah spun around, her torch beam darting. As she stabbed the beam about an indistinguishable shape was caught briefly in the flare, and Leah snapped the beam directly on it. In that split-second, the shape turned rapidly and dissolved against the darker backdrop. There was more faint crackling of brush as whatever she’d startled moved away into the deeper woods.

  ‘You out there!’ she yelled. But she had no idea what to say next. What could she say? That she’d call the police? Anybody would know she was bluffing, so she’d only be wasting her time, and stating exactly how frightened she was. Instead she forced anger into her tone, ‘Yeah, you’d better keep running!’

  Instantly she felt foolish.

  She was hollering at animals. The femur bone she’d found earlier indicated that there were larger animals on the island, deer probably, and that was most likely what her torchlight had startled into flight. What was she going to do if it didn’t keep running, go out there and kick Bambi’s arse?

  Shaking her head, muttering under her breath at her stupidity, she backed for the cabin.

  All was silent once more.

  She locked the door this time. Turned off the lights so she wasn’t mirrored by the windows, then sat in the gloom of the living room peering out through the French doors, dreading that she’d see something emerge from the woods now that it thought she had retired.

  She sat like that for a long time but nothing appeared. As she relaxed, she sank deeper into the settee, eyelids drooping closed.

  7

  Bubbles, a scream subdued by the water washing into her throat…

  Leah jerked out of sleep and sat up on the settee, momentarily bewildered by her unfamiliar surroundings. She sucked in several deep breaths, before she folded over and placed her face in her hands.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she moaned, the lingering effect of her recurring nightmare causing her to shudder.

  Standing, she felt woozy, her head thick with disturbed sleep. Her pulse thundered. She blinked around at the darkness, momentarily confused by her unfamiliar surroundings, before the dream was pushed aside and she remembered where she was. She also recalled the scream and the crackling of brush, the fleeing thing in the woods. Jesus, with thoughts like those it was unlikely she’d get back to sleep now. But she must, and this time she was determined that the bloody nightmare wouldn’t torment her again. She headed through to the bedroom she’d claimed, and after turning on a lamp, she found her case and unzipped it. From the inside pocket she teased a smaller toiletry bag and opened it. Inside were the prescribed sleeping pills she’d fetched for just such a time as this, and shook out two of them. She swallowed them with a mouthful of water from the bathroom tap, then staggered back into her room and undressed to her underwear. She slid under the duvet, pulling it around her like a cocoon, then reached for the lamp switch.

  She didn’t remember turning it off.

  Yet she must have, because when next she started up in bed it was to total blackness.

  Sleep had been absolute.

  She had a sense that some time had passed since returning from the bathroom, and the sleeping pills had certainly done their work. But having slept so soundly what had awoken her so abruptly? It wasn’t the dream, because when she suffered it she always woke up gasping, dragging in laboured breaths, and here she was fine. Except for a deep sense of foreboding that something unnatural had prompted her from her drug-induced slumber.

  Somewhere in the cabin the floor creaked.

  Leah scrambled from under the duvet, slapping at the lamp switch. The glow filled the room, and cast her reflection on the window. Her mirror face was as pale and hollowed out with fear as she felt. She was barefoot, wearing only her knickers and vest top: not exactly armoured for a confrontation. She scrambled to find her trousers, pulling them on with too much haste and sitting back down on the bed. She pushed up again, and leaned towards the door even as she zipped up. Who was out there? She pressed an ear to the wood. Heard a soft click. But it sounded distant, as if from the far end of the cabin. She looked for a weapon, but didn’t have anything except for her car keys she’d dropped in her coat pocket when leaving her vehicle at the dock in Tayinloan. She grabbed her coat from where she’d slung it over the foot of the bed and dug out the keys. She bunched the fob in her palm, with the key extending between her index and middle finger. It was paltry defence but better than nothing.

  Finally, having taken a stabilizing breath, she pulled open the door an inch. The cabin was still in darkness, but the faintest of glows touched the nearest wall, cast through one of the windows in the living area. Nobody lurked in wait for her in the short hall. The bunkroom door was shut, but earlier she’d crossed the hall and left open the bathroom door. There was nobody in the bathroom that she could tell, but she still checked, leaning around the open door for a quick squint into the shower cubicle. It was empty. She immediately tur
ned for the living room-cum-kitchen, treading as softly as she could. She halted at the end of the hall, but could see most of the living area, though the corners were dark enough to hide crouching figures. She switched on the lights. There was nobody there, and after a swift check of the kitchen she knew she was alone. Quickly she padded across to the French doors and found them secure. She then checked the main door. It was shut but not locked. That wasn’t right! She recalled coming inside after startling whatever was in the woods and she’d definitely locked the door behind her. Hadn’t she? She was certain she had, and again turned the key in the lock to remind herself of her earlier actions.

  But doubt set in.

  She was nervous at the time, not thinking clearly as she should. Perhaps she’d twisted the key but it had failed to engage the lock, and as she released it the key had twisted back to the open position again.

  ‘No. I locked it.’ She was positive. And that surety sent a chill through her. Someone had entered the cabin while she slept. If they had sneaked inside what had they been up to? She couldn’t see anything out of place: then her gaze rested on her laptop where she’d left it on the kitchen table. If anyone had intended stealing something valuable they’d have taken her computer. The laptop was untouched, and yet something was wrong. The bracelet she’d hung over one corner of the screen still swung gently from side to side as if recently brushed by inquisitive fingers.