The Darkness Within

by Alanna Knight

  ‘Where’s my clean shirt?’ Jack demanded. ‘Does it need ironing?’

  With a sigh of relief that this was just another of Jack’s domestic crises, Rose took it down from the rack and handed it to him solemnly.

  He kissed her and smiled. ‘Have to go, love, as soon as I can get a ship to Aberdeen. Leith would be even better. I wish I could stay.’

  Mary said shortly: ‘Surely even detectives get a summer holiday. It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is. No respect for a family funeral, insisting you go back to work.’

  Jack shrugged. It was pointless arguing with his grandmother-in-law.

  ‘I’ll help you pack,’ said Rose. As they left she saw that look of yearning on her sister’s face and realised how many times Emily must have said those same words to Erland.

  Upstairs in their bedroom, Jack didn’t really need help to pack, but it was one of the housewifely duties Rose enjoyed, making sure shirts were carefully folded and ready to wear as he had a tendency to push things into a case rather haphazardly and then grumble about the creases.

  Removing clothes from the wardrobe, with Jack whistling rather tunelessly as he stared out of the window watching the two children playing tennis on the lawn below, he looked happy.

  ‘She’s getting along fine with Magnus and without Thane.’

  Rose said, ‘I have to admit I was dreading it.’

  Jack laughed. ‘That’s a moment I’ll never forget. Back home, the kitchen door opening and this enormous dog rushing towards her as if he was ready to swallow the wee girl, in one gulp. I expected tears and screams of terror but she sat there smiling, calm as you like, reached up and put her arms around his neck.’

  ‘She was delighted. He was hers from that moment.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Weird it was, almost as if she had been expecting him. And the family was complete. We were all happy.’

  Rose kissed him, glad to be past forty, settled and happy, content with a husband and a little girl after the strangeness of her early life: how at twenty, against all advice, she had left a teaching post in Glasgow to follow Danny McQuinn out to Arizona where he was working for Pinkerton’s Detective Agency, determined against all odds to marry the man she had loved since she was eleven years old.

  Emily, however, had been content to remain with her grandmother in Kirkwall before moving to Hopescarth to be Erland’s housekeeper at Yesnaby House, and when his wife died, he asked her to marry him. Emily could hardly believe her good fortune. Although he was some years older, she had never been in love, never had a man in her life and Erland, childless, wanted children. So did she and they were almost desperate after several miscarriages. Then at last Magnus was born, strong and healthy, fated to be their only child.

  As for Rose, her second marriage to Jack Macmerry seemed doomed to be childless. Now she was thankful and heartily glad to have Meg, a stepdaughter she loved and could not have treasured more had she brought her into the world.

  The bond was shared by Meg, who regarded Rose not only as her mother but as a confidante with whom she could share her joys and her sorrows. And Thane, Thane was hers. From the moment she had set foot in Solomon’s Tower as a three-year-old, the great deerhound seemed to recognise her as a kind of soulmate. A strange affinity sprang up between them, the same he and Rose had shared from their first meeting, and utterly devoted to Thane, Meg refused to do anything, go anywhere unless he came too. This devotion had its drawbacks. He could hardly come over to Orkney with them, although Meg was adept at ignoring obvious difficulties of transporting not a small lapdog but one the size of a pony and much larger than herself.

  It was a difficult and not infrequent argument and one that Rose was used to. Meg was determined. She would not move without Thane, but Meg loved visiting new places and this time desperately wanted to see Orkney. It sounded quite magical to her and as one without any siblings, or indeed any relations apart from much-loved Macmerry grandparents in Peebles, there was a new cousin to meet – Rose hadn’t the heart to tell her that Magnus Yesnaby was not blood kin – and there were fascinating, exciting stories too about a great-great-grandmother who was a selkie.

  A compromise was reached: Thane would stay in Edinburgh at home in Solomon’s Tower, but he would be well-cared-for by Sadie Brook, part-time housekeeper, who moved in and looked after Meg when the master (Mr Jack) was away on police business and the mistress (Mrs Rose) was heavily involved in her work as lady investigator. By an interesting coincidence, Sadie’s Aunty Brook had been Faro’s housekeeper in Sheridan Place. Not that Thane needed looking after: he was quite capable of taking care of himself by hunting for rabbits and small animals as did normal dogs on Arthur’s Seat, his mysterious home long before he ‘adopted’ Rose McQuinn.

  Voices downstairs. Mary and Emily were laughing about something with the two children. How strange life was, Rose thought. Here she was with Jack, a policeman who faced violence and even death each day of his life chasing evil criminals. And there was Emily, whose husband, when he wasn’t travelling, lived a peaceful, tranquil life; an elderly, yet strong, healthy man who, while sitting at home in his own beloved garden and in the warm sunshine of a summer afternoon, closed his eyes and died.

  Jack put his arm around her. ‘Thanks for your help. Don’t know what I would do without you,’ he grinned. ‘Our Meg’s a cheerful little soul and Magnus must be glad of her company just now.’ He sighed. ‘Thank God someone can get some joy out of this sad business.’

  ‘Erland was such a lovely man. Poor Emily, she’ll never get over it. The love of her life. Pity you never met,’ Rose added. ‘You would have liked him.’

  Jack frowned. ‘I did meet him once. In Edinburgh.’

  ‘You never told me. When was that?’

  Jack thought for a moment, frowned. ‘Oh, a few years back. Probably before we were married.’

  ‘Well, I am surprised you never even mentioned it to Emily. Did she know?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  He shrugged. ‘Police business, to do with contracts, just routine stuff,’ he said casually, opening the door. ‘Shall we go? I’m hungry.’

  As they sat round the kitchen table enjoying a meal so well provided by Mary, an excellent venison stew followed by an apple dumpling, Rose sitting opposite Jack thought about their conversation. She had been taken aback by the revelation that Jack had met Erland before. Just routine stuff he said, and she was well aware that she need not expect any more information as Jack was the soul of discretion and never discussed cases with her.

  Police business and contracts could be innocent, of course, nothing criminal in that, but there was something else besides, a feeling that could never be put into words. For some reason, never to be told, Jack Macmerry had not liked her brother-in-law, Erland Yesnaby.

  He had promised Meg a ride in the motor car, to compensate for missing out on the drive to Stromness to collect Grandpa. Yes, of course Magnus could come too. Meg was enjoying Hopescarth, already determined that her cousin should have holidays in Edinburgh, especially to meet Thane and share their walks and explore her places on Arthur’s Seat.

  After they left, Emily had another chance to spend precious time with her father alone by taking him on a tour of the house with its many rooms, once intended for a Yesnaby dynasty that had failed to materialise.

  She had decided that he was to have Erland’s study at the top of the house and Faro had his suspicions about the wealth of Yesnaby confirmed by Erland’s grandfather’s ancient but powerful telescope to observe the stars as well as shipping in the area.

  Such instruments intrigued him and in his Edinburgh days he had been the proud owner of a modest telescope. But nothing on the scale of the one he was now looking through, a lacquered brass refractor with an equatorial mount allowing the scope to follow the movement of stars and planets by swinging in one arc and engraved with a twenty-four-hour scale in roman numerals.

  Emily laughed and explai
ned that Erland spent hours up here, looking over the sea. ‘After his precious garden, it was his most treasured possession, and if the house burnt down, after rescuing Magnus and me, that would be next.’

  Faro had only glimpsed the hidden garden far below but had seen enough in the house to appreciate valued antiques, paintings and ornaments acquired from London over the years. Tokens of Erland’s own travels added to contributions from past generations of Yesnabys who could not resist beautiful things.

  Were they smugglers? Faro wondered. Was that where the fortune had originated?

  Downstairs in the great sitting room with its view of the sea, Meg and Magnus had returned from the drive, cut short to Meg’s disappointment by a heavy shower of rain. Rose was showing her two mementos of her first visit and said to Magnus: ‘Just before you were born.’ On one wall, the watercolour she had painted at Erland’s request of his sunken garden, with its ancient wall and that distant hint of the sea.

  ‘Did you do that, Mam? It’s lovely.’ And as Faro followed them, Meg pointed to a pencilled sketch and studied it frowning. ‘Is this yours too?’

  Rose said yes and again Meg frowned. ‘I think you are better at painting than drawing. You should stick to colours.’

  ‘Why do you say that, dear?’ Rose was taken aback as she always carried a sketchbook with her and, indeed, was more at ease, more confident and decidedly more skilled, she believed, with portraits than landscapes.

  Meg gave a shrug. ‘It’s just, well, not like her at all. I mean,’ she added uncomfortably, ‘you’ve made Aunty Emily look quite old.’

  Rose laughed. ‘That isn’t Aunty Emily, dear. That’s Sibella, Magnus’s great-great-grandma and she was a very old lady, past a hundred. I even flattered her a bit.’

  So this was Sibella. Faro realised why Emily and Rose looked so different and not at all like sisters. One so fair, the other dark, with not a mite of likeness in their bone structure either. He found it slightly alarming that Emily was indeed a throwback.

  Did Rose see it too? There were memories of Sibella in exquisite and delicate embroideries they had inherited, as well as a beautiful tapestry on one wall, but Mary Faro had been careful that he should never meet his selkie grandmother, although she lived at that time only a short distance from Kirkwall on one of the other islands. Ashamed that she should have a seal woman in her family, Mary Faro had denied him knowledge of Sibella, the suggestion being that she had passed on long ago.

  Walking with Faro later, Emily said, ‘I do miss Sibella. We got along so well together. So did Rose, she just wished she hadn’t been so old when they met, knowing she would never see her again. I had known her for a long time.’ She continued, ‘Erland befriended her as he did so many people when she lived alone like a hermit.’ She paused. ‘Gran made things difficult, you know. She had her reasons. When she lived in Kirkwall, she could ignore the stories about Sibella’s existence, but here it was different, and that made us both sad. We had such a close bond.’

  ‘You certainly took after her in many ways,’ Faro said delicately.

  Emily nodded. ‘You remember how Rose and I quarrelled when we were little, I wanted her curls and she wanted my straight dark hair. And I wanted her curves and she wanted to be thin. When I met Sibella, I realised where it all came from.’

  It was a revelation to Faro as well. ‘I’d like to put flowers on her grave,’ he said.

  Emily looked at him wide-eyed and shook her head. ‘There isn’t one,’ she whispered.

  ‘You mean she’s still alive? Well, that is extraordinary, she must be well into her hundreds,’ he said eagerly.

  ‘No, no. It was two years ago, but … but no one knows what happened. Just that there wasn’t a body to bury.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean? If someone dies there has to be a body.’

  Emily linked arms with him, shook her head, unable to find the right words. She looked embarrassed and he said:

  ‘You’re surely not trying to tell me this old legend about her being a selkie is true.’

  She smiled wryly. ‘Yes, she just returned to the sea.’

  Faro gasped. ‘Well, that must have caused some consternation among the local police, not to mention the procurator fiscal. Surely this would appear to be a missing person believed dead? How did you explain that?’

  Emily sighed. ‘We don’t need a local police, only PC Flett, and he was as bewildered as the rest of us, so the procurator fiscal wasn’t informed.’

  ‘Then he neglected his duty,’ Faro said sternly.

  ‘They didn’t want the local community involved. It was quite awful, really, a mystery that no one wants to look into. There was this lad out shooting seals – they are allowed a cull but it’s a nasty business – and he came running home in a terrible state, crying that he’d murdered someone, but didn’t mean to. Finally they calmed him down and he said he thought he’d shot a seal, but when he went closer it was an old woman, she must have been lurking about and got hit. He was in a terrible panic, not knowing what to do, but when he reached her, she just slid away into the sea like a seal and vanished.’

  Faro had listened, polite and interested, but for him there had to be a logical explanation. He didn’t believe in selkies who went back to the sea and already his detective mind was setting to work and he didn’t doubt for one moment that human agencies were involved.

  Again he asked: ‘When did all this happen?’

  Emily repeated: ‘Two years ago.’

  Faro sighed. A pity, as that was more than enough time for every trace of evidence to disappear, especially in an isolated island community with no proper police authority, and doubtless the one man who represented the law would also have accepted Sibella Scarth’s strange history.

  He had already worked that part out. Even if the local copper couldn’t understand it, everyone knew that the old lady, so respected and feared by everyone, had supernatural powers. No one at Skailholm ever went to the only doctor when they could get herbs from Sibella, and any questions regarding her remarkable disappearance after being shot would bring down the whole wrath of the community upon him.

  ‘What about this young lad?’

  ‘Archie Tofts? He seemed to get over it, I suppose,’ Emily replied. ‘But he’s always been a bit odd. He’s Millie’s lad. You haven’t met her yet. They live in Hopescarth and she came to help Gran after her fall. Erland had her stay on as housekeeper.’

  ‘This Archie, is he the one who wanders a bit?’

  Emily nodded ‘He is a very quiet lad, doesn’t say much, but folk who know him at the local inn say it seems likely he will keep the vision of that dreadful day for ever, still believing that he killed Sibella. That he is a murderer.’

  ‘What does he do now?’

  ‘Odd jobs. And a bit of gardening. He’s not very bright and not very reliable, I’m afraid.’ Emily frowned. ‘But you know, Pa, I feel uncomfortable when he’s around, as if he is always listening for something, that there is something there, a shadow that he can never escape.’ She shivered. ‘A curse. Not that Sibella would ever curse anyone, she had a wonderful potential for loving and forgiving.’

  ‘You remember, I told you how I met her once long ago. I was a young policeman investigating the seal king murders. But I knew her as Baubie Finn.’

  Emily smiled sadly. ‘She is greatly missed. We could all do with a lot more folk like her.’

  The light, rather friendly breeze that had lingered over them was changing into a brisk and somewhat gusty wind. A darkening sky and gathering clouds said that rain wasn’t far off.

  ‘There’s a storm coming. Better get back, Pa, before we get a soaking.’

  Walking briskly along the path towards the house, Faro asked: ‘What made you think Sibella wasn’t just the victim of an unsolved mystery that has become a legend? That the young local fisherman, Hakon Scarth, had caught a selkie in his nets when she was the sole surviving passenger from the ship that had gone down off the bay.’

 
; ‘That’s what everyone wanted to believe,’ Emily replied, ‘that this tiny naked wee lass had come from the Norwegian shipwreck. Except that the few sailors who swam ashore insisted that there were no women or children on board.’

  Faro said: ‘There was a reason for that. It was illegal but skippers turned a blind eye and knew that, on a long voyage, sailors needed their women who could actually be very useful, washing and cooking.’

  ‘It was the folk here who decided she was a selkie. Poor great-grandfather Hakon thought he had caught a mermaid with all that seaweed tangled round her. But when that was removed and his mermaid had no tail, they were scared, horrified, and thought he should have thrown her back into the sea. A selkie, that’s what he had caught.’

  ‘And what made them think that she wasn’t just an ordinary wee girl?’

  ‘For one thing she had webbed fingers and toes and she hated that. From when she first went to school, she insisted on wearing mittens and she kept that habit all her life.’

  She frowned. ‘There was something else, the way she walked, she sort of glided along.’

  ‘Did you find this strange?’ Faro asked.

  ‘Odd, perhaps, but not scary odd. I loved her and we had a bond from our first meeting because I had taken after her.’ She shook back her long dark hair. ‘I had eyes like hers too. And when she met Rose, she adored her and said she was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen; she could just sit looking at her for ages. And Rose was past thirty. They had this great bond. I think I was quite jealous because I had always wanted to be Rose, all curves instead of tall and skinny, and I did so want that great mass of yellow curls, like Mama’s,’ she added sadly. ‘Rose was her image.’

  It was Faro’s turn to remember as Emily linked his arm and said, ‘Oh sorry, Pa, to go on like this. It’s all past history now but you know what young girls are like. It all changed when I met Sibella, though. She was lovely, I thought, and I was so glad then and proud to have a selkie for a great-grandmother.’

  ‘If that is true, Em,’ Faro said soberly.

  ‘But we will never know, will we? It could just be another of our island stories, like the one about the Maid of Norway, way back in history, on her way to marry the young King of England, but dying on the way and her body brought ashore and buried somewhere hereabouts at Hopescarth. Then there was the treasure ship that came with her and disappeared never to be seen again. They are still looking, the archaeologists, hoping to find that treasure. Such a tiny place we inhabit, but with so many mysteries, Erland used to say. He was always intrigued by our origins. The story that a poor crofter, Huw Scarth, had followed a rainbow to its end and found a pot of gold, and how wicked Black Pate, the Earl of Orkney’s son had given him in return the land to build Hopescarth.’